ASSAM: CONG TO GIVE 200 UNITS OF FREE ELECTRICITY PG5

‘BANGLA NIJER MEYE KEI CHAYE’ GARNERS SUPPORT OF OVER 2 LAKH PEOPLE PG3

‘PREMATURE,’ ‘UNREALISTIC’ TO THINK COVID-19 WILL END SOON PG8

AS BEIRUT BURNS

A boy jumps over burning tyres that were set on fire to block a road, during a protest in Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday. Scattered protests broke out in different parts of Lebanon after the Lebanese pound hit a record low against the dollar on the black market, a sign of the country’s multiple crises deepening with no prospects for a new Cabinet in the near future AP/PTI

millenniumpost.in RNI NO.: WBENG/2015/65962

VOL. 7, ISSUE 61 | Wednesday, 3 March 2021 | Kolkata | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA NO HALF TRUTHS

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday directed states to uti-lise the full capacity of private hospitals to operate as vacci-nation sites, as India entered Day II of the third phase of the inoculation drive on Tues-day. All private hospitals that are not empanelled under the Central government schemes are now permitted to operate as vaccination sites.

The cumulative number of Covid vaccine doses adminis-tered in the country crossed 1.54 crore on Tuesday. As per the provisional report of the Union Health ministry, a total of 1,54,61,864 vaccine doses have been given till 7 pm.

“Of the total, 67,32,944 healthcare workers have been administered the first dose and 26,85,665 HCWs have taken the second dose, while 55,47,426 FLWs have been administered the first dose and 828 FLWs have been given the second dose,” it said, add-ing that 4,34,981 beneficia-

ries belonging to more than 60 years and 60,020 beneficia-ries are aged 45 and above with specific co-morbidities.

In a single day, a total of 6,09,845 vaccine doses were given till 7 pm on the 46th day of the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive.

India’s COVID-19 cases rose to 1,11,24,527 with 12,286 new infections being reported

in a day, while the recoveries have surged to 1,07,98,921, according to data updated by the ministry on Tuesday.

The death toll increased to 1,57,248 with 91 new fatali-ties, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,07,98,921 which translates into a national

COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.07 per cent, while the case fatality rate has dropped 1.41 per cent. The active casel-oad was recorded at 1,68,358 which accounts for 1.51 per cent of the total infections, the data stated.

Five states accounted for 84.16 per cent of the active infections, while six states and UTs have a weekly positivity

rate higher than the national average of 2 per cent, the min-istry added. Maharashtra and Kerala alone account for 67.84 per cent of total active cases, it said.

Six states and UTs, includ-ing Maharashtra, Kerala, Goa, Chandigarh, Punjab and Guja-rat have a weekly positivity rate higher than the national aver-age of 2 per cent. Maharash-

tra leads all the states with a weekly positivity rate of 10.02 per cent, the ministry said.

The ministry said 80.33 per cent of the new cases are from five states.

Maharashtra continues to report the highest daily new cases at 6,397. It is followed by Kerala with 1,938 while Punjab reported 633 new cases.

Continued on P6

US sets sanctions over Russia Oppn leader’s poisoning WASHINGTON: The Biden administration announced sanc-tions of Russian officials and busi-nesses on Tuesday for a nearly fatal nerve-agent attack upon Opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his sub-sequent jailing.

Senior administration officials did not immediately identify the Russian officials targeted. The Biden administration also announced sanctions under the US Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act for 14 businesses and another enterprise,

most of which it said were involved in the production of biological and chemical agents.

The US intelligence community concluded with high confidence that Russia’s Federal Security Ser-vice used the Russian nerve agent Novichok on the dissident last August, a senior administration official said.

Tuesday’s sanctions would be the first of several steps by the Biden administration to respond to a num-ber of destabilising actions, said one of the administration officials, who

briefed reporters on the condition they not be identified further.

The sanctions are the first against Russia by the Biden admin-istration, which has pledged to con-

front President Vladimir Putin for alleged attacks on Russian Oppo-sition figures and hacking abroad, including of US government agen-cies and US businesses. President Donald Trump had spoken admir-ingly of Putin and resisted criticism and many proposed penalties of Putin’s government.

The Biden administration coor-dinated the sanctions with the European Union, which already had imposed sanctions against a small number of Russian officials in Navalny’s case. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI/ THIRUVANA-NTHAPURAM: Attacking the Centre, former Prime Minis-ter Manmohan Singh on Tues-day said unemployment is high in the country and its informal sector is in shambles following the “ill-considered demonetisa-tion decision” taken by the BJP-led government in 2016.

He also criticised the Central government for not holding regu-lar consultations with the states.

Inaugurating a development summit virtually organised by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Develop-ment Studies, an economic think tank aligned to the Congress ide-

ology in poll-bound Kerala, Singh said temporary measures by the Central government and the RBI to paper over the credit problem cannot blind us to the looming credit crisis ahead that could affect the small and medium sector.

“Unemployment is high and the informal sector is in sham-bles, a crisis precipitated by the ill-considered demonetisation decision taken in 2016,” he said at ‘Pratheeksha 2030’.

The summit was organised to launch a ‘Vision Document’, a framework of ideas for the devel-opment of Kerala, well in advance of the state elections.

He observed that in Ker-ala and many other states, pub-

lic finances were in disarray with states having to resort to excessive borrowing, which creates an intol-erable burden on future budgets.

“Federalism and regular con-sultation with states, which was

the cornerstone of India’s eco-nomic and political philosophy as enshrined in the Constitution, no longer finds favour with the pres-ent Central government,” he said.

Singh said while Kerala’s social

standards are high, there are other sectors that need strong attention in the future.

“There are many roadblocks ahead that the state has to over-come. The global downturn of the last two or three years, aggravated by the pandemic, has made the global interface of Kerala more fragile.

“While the increased use of digital modes of work may keep the IT sector afloat, tourism has been hit badly and the rate at which the pandemic is galloping in Kerala poses challenges for this industry,” Singh said.

Noting that the focus on health and education has enabled Kerala to take advantage of job

opportunities elsewhere in the country and in all parts of the world, Singh said this has led to a growing stream of remittances from abroad which created a booming real estate sector and sharp growth of the services sec-tor, led by tourism and informa-tion technology.

The former Prime Minister also hailed the decision of the leadership of Kerala’s Congress-led UDF to incorporate “radical ideas” like ‘NYAY’ in its Assem-bly election manifesto, saying the scheme outlined in the Con-gress manifesto of 2019 Lok Sabha polls, will provide direct benefit transfer to the poorest among us.

WITH AGENCY INPUTS

Manmohan Singh blames ‘ill-considered demonetisation’ for high unemployment, crisis in informal sector

Former PM slams Centre for undermining federalism by not holding regular consultations with states

Cite one instance of Durga Puja being stopped in

Bengal: TMC challenges Yogi

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Denouncing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s comments that people in Bengal were pre-vented from doing Durga Puja — the state’s one of the biggest festivals — senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sub-rata Mukherjee challenged Adityanath to cite one instance where it has been stopped.

As many as 34,748 and 2,509 Durga Pujas get organ-ised in the areas under the jurisdiction of West Ben-gal Police and Kolkata Police respectively. At the same time 1,706 Pujas get organised by women-run committees.

The TMC veteran, who patronises the Durga Puja of Ekdalia Evergreen Club in Gariahat considered being one of the big-ticket Pujas held in the city, said: “Let him give a single instance when Durga Puja had been stopped in Bengal.”

Earlier in the day, Adity-anath said at a rally held in Malda: “Durga Puja gets pro-hibited in Bengal today, cow slaughter is forcefully started during Eid. People’s sentiments are being hurt through cow smuggling but the state gov-ernment remains silent. Now, it has attempted to ban the slo-gan ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and attacks are being executed.”

A number of Trinamool leaders hit out at the UP Chief Minister and raised questions over the law and order situation prevailing in his state.

“Look at @myogiadityanath campaigning for polls in Ben-gal while the safety of women is severely compromised in his own state! BJP has time & again failed the women of India

& this Hathras incident is yet another example of it,” Shashi Panja, the Bengal Minister of State for Women and Child Development, tweeted.

Party MP of Basirhat, Nus-rat Jahan tweeted: “SHOCK-ING! Cannot find the words to describe the horror that @BJP4India ruled Uttar Pradesh has turned into! WHY couldn’t @myogiadityanath prioritize the safety & security of this family? Is Bengal elections more important to BJP?”

Referring to the incident at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh where a man whose daughter was sex-ually harassed was allegedly shot dead by the accused out on bail since 2018, TMC secre-tary-general Partha Chatterjee tweeted stating that Aditya-nath should watch out for the law and order situation in his own state before coming for the Bengal election campaign.

“Frightening state of affairs in @BJP4India-ruled UP! Please listen to the griev-ing daughter to find how @myogiadityanath has effec-tively failed to keep law and order in check under his rule. #BJPHataoBetiBachao,” tweeted TMC leader Soham Chakraborty referring to the same Hathras incident that Chatterjee being referred to.

Adityanath on Tuesday targeted the Bengal govern-ment over cow smuggling and “love jihad” and said the state government failed to resolve these issues due to “appease-ment politics”.

He promised that cow smuggling will be stopped within a day if the saffron party is voted to power. “If the BJP is voted to power in West Ben-gal, we will stop cow smuggling within 24 hours,” he said.

CITY

PETROL, DIESEL SALE DIP BY 20% 2

NATION

MISSING MINOR GIRLS FOUND IN RISHIKESH 6

EDIT

FAILURE TO LAUNCH? 7

INTERNATIONAL

GERMANY PLANS TO EXTEND LOCKDOWN 8

BUSINESS

EXPORTS DIP 0.25% 9

SPORT

LIVERPOOL GREAT IAN ST. JOHN DIES 11

Platform ticket price raised to Rs 50 at key

stations in MMR MUMBAI: The Central Railway has increased the price of platform tickets at some key stations in the Mumbai Met-ropolitan Region (MMR) to avoid over-crowding during the upcoming summer season in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, an official said on Tuesday.

A platform ticket now costs Rs 50 instead of the previ-ous rate of Rs 10 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Termi-nus, Dadar and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Mumbai, and neighbouring Thane, Kalyan, Panvel and Bhiwandi Road stations, CR’s Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said. The new rate came into force from March 1 and will remain effective till June 15 this year, the official said. AGENCIES

IMPHAL: Days after Centre’s new rules and regulations for digital platforms, an online news portal in Manipur became its first ‘victim’. However, the notice has since been withdrawn.

On Monday, the Manipur government issued a legal notice to Khanasi Neinasi, a weekly show of The Frontier Manipur (TFM), an online news portal based in Imphal, accord-ing to reports. The government directed the media outlet to furnish all relevant documents to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), Rules, 2021.

Hosted by Kishorechandra Wangkhemcha, an associate editor of TFM, the online show ‘Khanasi Neinasi’ (Let’s discuss and analyse) produced four episodes. In the first episode, a panel discussion on the theme ‘Frontier and The Freedom of Expression’. It was uploaded on the site’s Facebook page on January 31.

Ironically, the last episode of the show uploaded on the Facebook page of TFM on February 28 under the topic “Media under siege: Are journalists walking a tightrope” dis-cussed new digital ethics.

The panelists were Paojel Chaoba, the exec-utive editor of TFM, Grace Jajo, an independent journalist, and Ninglun Hanghal, a columnist and freelance journalist.

During the discussion, Grace Jajo shared her ordeal during the recently-concluded Bud-get session. Jajo was denied entry on the last day of the 12th session of the 11th Manipur Legis-lative Assembly.

Paojel Chaoba said that around six to seven police personnel came to the office on Tuesday morning and handed over the notice.

“This is a direct attack on freedom of expres-sion and the law…the power has been misused by the District Magistrate,” said Chaoba.

“How can they notify me and then retract it as per their whim?” he asked.

“This is a selective target, nothing else, espe-cially when they mentioned Khanasi Neinasi… I am not happy with the last sentence where it says ‘failing which steps as deemed fit shall be initiated without further notice’. This is intimi-dation, a threat, and we are going to take legal action against the DC,” said Kishorechandra Wangkhemcha, the host of the show. AGENCIES

Manipur portal becomes first ‘victim’ of new digital media rules

In today’s paper...

TAYLOR TAKES A JIBE AT ‘NETFLIX’ FOR USING ‘DEEPLY SEXIST JOKE’ PG12

Shocked to see manner of arrest of IRP for Jaypee Infra:

Supreme CourtOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday was “appalled” over the arrest of court-appointed Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) for managing the affairs of debt-ridden Jaypee Infratech Limited (JIL) in a criminal case by Uttar Pradesh police and ordered his forthwith release while issuing a show-cause notice to an erring cop.

The Apex Court observed that the police official dealing with the case is not familiar with the provi-sion of privilege of interim resolution appointed by the court under the IBC.

Anuj Jain was appointed by the top court under the Insolvency and Bank-ruptcy Code (IBC) and was entrusted with the task to ensure functioning of Jaypee Infratech till the resolution process to resurrect the ailing com-pany is decided.

KARNAL: Fifty-four stu-dents of a school near here have tested COVID-19 positive leading to the suspension of classes and other academic activities, an official said on Tuesday.

Karnal Chief Medi-cal Officer (CMO) Yogesh Sharma said three stu-dents of Sainik School Kunjpura had tested posi-tive for the virus on Mon-day following which the

health department took samples of 390 students and staff members of the school for testing.

“The reports revealed that 54 students are COVID-19 positive,” Sharma said.

Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav said the school building and its hostels have been declared as a containment zone. MPOST

54 students test +ve in Karnal

Senior citizens stand in a queue as they wait to receive the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, at Nair Hospital in Mumbai, on Tuesday PTI

INDIA RECORDS 12,286 COVID INFECTIONS, 91 FATALITIES

Centre directs states to operate all pvt hospitals as vaccination sites

Highlights » The cumulative number of Covid vaccine doses admin-istered in the country crossed 1.54 crore on Tuesday. As per the provisional report of the Union Health ministry, a total of 1,54,61,864 vaccine doses have been given till 7 pm

» India’s COVID-19 cases rose to 1,11,24,527 with 12,286 new infections being reported in a day, while the recoveries have surged to 1,07,98,921, according to data updated by the ministry on Tuesday

File photo

KOLKATA |WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp city 2

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Co-Win 2 app developed by the Centre con-tinues to show glitches even on the second day of commu-nity vaccination across the state with many elderly people fac-ing inconveniences.

Chaos had ensued in vari-ous hospitals, both government and private, due to the non-functioning of the app.

Many of the senior citizens had to wait in the queue for a long time. People started pour-ing into various hospitals in the city in the morning. The State Health department officials are hopeful that the issue would be resolved soon. The matter was already taken up with the Union Health Ministry.

Those elderly patients, who were left out after waiting for

long in various hospitals, will be vaccinated in phases over the next few days. They have been requested to contact the hospital’s CVC help desk on Wednesday.

“Both our units faced some glitches on the Co-WIN plat-form even on the second day of community vaccination but we are trying to overcome these and vaccinate as many benefi-ciaries as possible. Although many beneficiaries could not

be vaccinated on Tuesday, even though they had pre-registered, since the numbers had gone much above our daily limit, we will ensure they get vaccinated in subsequent days. Our teams are working on how to better support the beneficiaries, since most of them are senior citi-zens,” a top official of a private hospital said.

There has been a surge in the number of elderly patients visiting the vaccination cen-

ters ever since the third phase launched.

Those aged between 45-59 and have comorbid issues are also visiting various centers with the certificates issued by the doctors. The private hos-pitals also faced difficulties on Tuesday. AMRI Hospitals was one of the hospitals that vacci-nated many people on Tuesday.

Around 800 beneficiaries, including senior citizens, those with comorbidities between the age of 45-59 and second dose recipients from among health-care & other frontline workers at two of its COVID Vaccina-tion Centres (CVC).

At AMRI Dhakuria CVC, 370 beneficiaries were vacci-nated till 8.30 pm, including 298 senior citizens, 6 with co-morbidities, and 66 second dose recipients.

“MILLENNIUM POST”, Printed & Published by Jaiyendra Kumar Sharma on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at Saraswati Printfactory Pvt. Ltd., 789, West Choubhaga Kolkata - 7000105 and published from Tivoli Court 1A, Ballygunge Circular Road, Block–A, Flat–94, 1st Floor, Kolkata–700 019. Editor: Durbar Ganguly. Email: durbarganguly@gmail.com, mpostcal@gmail.com. For marketing, contact: 9836292306, 9830532306. For editorial, call: 9836072100

Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that information given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any damage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only.

State’s positivity rate drops to 6.69%

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Bengal has reported 171 fresh Covid cases in the past 24 hours which was a little dip in the infection compared to Monday’s figure of 198.

However, the State has seen two deaths in the past 24 hours.

On Monday, no death was reported across Bengal. The total tally of infected patients in the state has gone up to 5,75,487 so far. The recovery rate has gone up to 97.65 per cent on Tuesday.

The percentage of positive cases out of the sample tested dropped at 6.69 per cent.

As many as 5,61,964 patients have recovered and therefore been released from different hospitals out of which 209 were discharged in the past 24 hours. Bengal has so far car-ried out 85,98,257 Covid sam-ples till Tuesday out of which 18,965 samples were tested in the past 24 hours.

One died in Kolkata in the

past 24 hours. Around 3,102 people died of Covid in Kolkata so far whereas North 24-Par-ganas has lost 2,508 people so far. North 24-Parganas has also seen one death on Tuesday.

Kolkata has seen 70 fresh cases in the past 24 hours tak-ing the total tally to 1,29,551 while North 24-Parganas has so far seen a total 1,23,254 out of which 42 were found posi-tive in the past 24 hours.

South 24-Parganas has reg-istered 7 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours.

The total number of Covid

infected patients in South 24-Parganas has gone up 37,230.

Hooghly has witnessed 1 Covid case in the past 24 hours while the total tally from the district reached 29,651.

Howrah has so far regis-tered a total 35,860 Covid cases so far out of which 6 have been affected in the past 24 hours.

Darjeeling has reported 18,454 cases so far out of which 5 reported in the past 24 hours. East Burdwan and West Burd-wan have registered 1 and 6 fresh cases in the past 24 hours.

Around 60 dedicated Covid hospitals are still functional in the state with 6,736 earmarked beds.

The percentage of occu-pancy of Covid beds stood at 3.16 on Tuesday. There are around 1,619 ICU/HDU beds in Covid hospitals. Around 595 ventilators are still functioning in Covid hospitals.

The Health department has so far addressed 15,70,438 general queries till date out of which around 743 queries were addressed in the last 24 hours.

Around 5,81,570 peo-ple have received telemedi-cine consultations in the state till March 1 out of which 207 people have been given con-sultation in the past 24 hours. Around 2,90,744 people have received tele-psychological counselling in the state so far out of which 270 have availed the facilities in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, vaccina-tions are underway in the state for people above 60 and people with comorbidities.

SENIOR CITIZENS HAD TO WAIT IN LONG QUEUES

Recovery rate of COVID patients climbs to 97.65% in state

Quick News44Drugs worth Rs 25 cr seizedKOLKATA: Acting on a tip off, the Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police nabbed a drug peddler on Tues-day morning and seized heroin worth around Rs 25 crore.

Last month, the STF sleuths had arrested five drug peddlers including an elderly woman with more than 2kg heroin worth Rs 10crore and more than 17 kg Yaba tablets worth Rs 7.50 crore. While interrogating the accused per-sons, cops learnt that soon another consignment of con-traband would be delivered in the city.

The sleuths activated their sources. Two days back, they were informed that the suspect would come to Rasulpur in East Burdwan to deliver the consignment on Monday evening.

A team from the STF went to the area and around 11:25 pm intercepted a car near Rasulpur bazaar and detained the suspect identified as Sunil Howlader of Ausgram. Cops found 5kg heroin wrapped in a polythene packet in his car. Later, Howladar was arrested. Meanwhile, Bid-hannagar Police arrested 2 notorious drug peddlers with around 40 kg ganja.

Bike taxi operators protest KOLKATA: Bike taxi operators on Tuesday staged a dem-onstration in the city, demanding permission to carry pas-sengers on their vehicles bearing white number plates.

“Today, a sit-in demonstration was held at Bengal Chamber of Commerce (BBD Bag). Then, we submitted deputation to the Commissioner of Police (Traffic),” said Malay Paul, Assistant Secretary of Kolkata Suburban Bike Taxi Operators Union (KSBTOU).

He reiterated that the bike taxi aggregators give per-mission to private number plate motor cycles to ferry pas-sengers. Police say the application-based bike taxi service providers in the city are allegedly flouting vehicle regis-tration norms by using motorcycles with private num-ber plates.

KOLKATA: Flag sellers are making brisk business ahead of the Bengal Assembly elections.

“It is difficult to say at this point of time about the sta-tistics of sales. As far as sales of flags are concerned, we are limping back to normalcy. We receive orders in bulk (at least 100 pieces of flags),” said Rohit Gupta, who sells flags along Old China Bazar Street.

Post lockdown, their businesses revived after Election Commission announced the poll dates in the state. Flags made of polyester are in huge demand.

“Depending upon the size and material, the cost of a flag varies between Rs 4.50 and Rs 80,” said Shashi Singh of Shashi Textile, Flag and Uniform Store in Barabazar.

Polls: Boom for flag business

Glitches in Co-Win app lead to chaos in city hospitals

Swasthya Sathi: No new enrolments, process to continue for old applicants

COVID-19 STATS » Number of deaths in past 24 hours 2 » Total death toll so far 10,270 » Tested COVID positive in the past 24 hours 171 » Total COVID positive cases so far 5,75,487 » Discharged from hospitals in past 24 hours 209 » Patients recovered so far 5,61,964 » Total sample tested so far 85,98,257

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will continue with the ongoing process of Swasthya Sathi, but will not seek any new application for enrolment or registration of names for the scheme with the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) coming into effect after announcement of Assembly elections in the state.

The process of handing over cards to people, who have already applied for Swasthya Sathi, will continue in all 16 borough offices in Kolkata. “We have directed the borough offices not to accept any new applications related to Swasthya Sathi. However, the process of handing over cards to those who have already applied can continue. Directions have been issued not to hold any camps in any of the 144 wards related to Swasthya Sathi,” said a senior

KMC official. A camp at ward 104 in Santoshpur area was stopped by the Commission officials on Monday. Sources said the camp was being held for clicking photographs and handing over cards to the beneficiaries, who had already applied and no new names were being registered.

“The BJP leadership is doing false propaganda that new names are being registered and are threatening the government officials associated with the poll duty,” Tarakeshwar Chakraborty, coordi-nator of 104 ward said. More than 85 per cent of people in Kolk-ata, who have applied for the scheme, have already received their cards. The arrangement for handing over cards to the rest (who have already applied for the scheme) is being made at the borough offices. “We have not yet sent any communication to the DEOs regarding Swasthya Sathi,” a state CEO official said.

Subrata Mukherjee releases song dedicated to Mamata Banerjee

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BALURGHAT/KOLKATA: The day CPI(M) and Congress were sharing dais with Indian Secular Front (ISF) at Bri-gade Parade Ground and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan was holding Parivartan Ratha Yatra, leaders of all three political parties – Congress, CPI (M) and BJP – joined Trinamool Congress (TMC) at Uluberia in Howrah.

Joining of crucial leaders of the parties in the area took place within a few hours after the senior BJP leader Chauhan’s rally passed through Jagatballavpur in Howrah. The joining also took place in the adja-cent Hirapur village in Uluberia on Sun-day evening.

Hirapur village often used to hit the headlines for political violence during the Left Front regime. In 2001, TMC leader Hafez Rashid Khan was murdered.

The former CPI (M) member of Hira-pur Gram Panchayat Sumitra Manna,

Local BJP leader Kalipada Mondal and Samad Molla of Congress joined TMC.

They joined the party by taking the flag from TMC MLA from Uluberia Dakshin Assembly constituency, Pulak Roy. All three of them stated that they had never witnessed such a massive overall develop-ment in their area before 2011.

Roy said: “More leaders and workers from BJP will join TMC soon.”

Meanwhile, a veteran lawyer joined TMC in a programme in Balurghat on Monday evening in presence of party chairman and president of South Dinaj-pur unit Biplab Mitra and Goutam Das. Later Shekhar Das Gupta, the senior law-yer of Balurghat court was handed over the party flag by Mitra and Das.

Opposition leaders join Trinamool

AMITAVA BANERJEE

DARJEELING: Regionalism may force hill political coali-tions to sail into rough seas in the forthcoming Assembly elections. Both the BJP and TMC-led coalitions might suf-fer, political analysts opined.

The TMC is backed by both Binoy and Bimal factions of the Gorkha Janmukti Morch. Though official announce-ments regarding seat-shar-ing or the election strategy are yet to be made, both the factions have unilaterally announced their decision to field candidates.

Rumors are doing the rounds that Gurung is rally-ing for his son Avinash as the candidate for the Darjeeling Assembly constituency.

Meanwhile the Binoy fac-tion has also announced that they would be fielding candi-dates in all three Hill seats.

They have stated that TMC Supremo during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections had made an announcement that in the parliamentary elections

TMC candidate backed by the GJM would be fielded, but for Assembly elections GJM can-didates backed by the TMC would be given the chance.

“We have to keep afloat regionalism. We will be fielding candidates from all the three hill seats,” stated Keshav Raj Pokhrel, Spokesperson (Binoy.)

However, both Bimal and Binoy will have to field inde-pendent candidates if they decide to take part in the fray.

“During the 2019 Parlia-mentary elections, there was a ruling by the High Court that both the factions can take part in the polls but as inde-pendent candidates,” Pokhrel said.“They can use the party flags and the GJM name for campaigning but will have to mention the faction clearly. No fresh order on this issue has been passed. Hence, we will have to field independent candidates,” he added. Mean-while the Hill units of the TMC have decided to urge the TMC Supremo to field TMC candi-dates in the Hill seats. “Since

2017, the TMC has consoli-dated its base in the Hills. We have a strong support base of around 2 lakh supporters. We are confident that we will do well in the Assembly elections. The supporters also look for-ward to having their own party candidates,”said LB Rai, presi-dent, TMC, Darjeeling (Hills.)

“Hence, we will urge our high command for TMC can-didates in the three hill seats,” stated Rai.Meanwhile Com-munist Party of Revolutionary Marxist a constituent of the BJP led coalition has also echoed the regional politics sentiment.

“We will urge the BJP to allow regional parties to con-test from the Hills and will seek support for the regional party candidates. In the Lok Sabha elections, we had supported BJP candidates. There should be seat sharing with Hill seats being shared among constitu-ent parties. CPRM candidates should be fielded either in the Darjeeling or Kurseong seat,” stated Govind Chettri, Spokes-person, CPRM.

Regionalism hurdle for coalitions

650 more units of Central Forces to be

deployed in stateOUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Election Com-mission of India has decided to send another 650 compa-nies of central forces before the first phase of election, tak-ing the total number of forces in the state to 945 companies. It is the highest deployment in any election in the state so far. These additional forces are likely to reach the state on March 25.

Presently, there are 125 companies of central forces deployed in the state. They are being used for area domina-tion and patrolling. By March 8, another 170 companies are expected to reach the state. These 295 companies of forces will be used mainly for main-taining law and order situation in the non-polling districts.

The first phase of elections involves over 10200 booths. Each booth will be having 6 paramilitary personnel on an average. “The entire force will

not be used for booth manage-ment only, but they will also be used for area domination and as flying squad,” an EC offi-cial said.

In 2019 parliamentary elec-tions, the Commission had deployed 842 companies of central forces on poll duty.

Sources in the Commis-sion said more forces are likely to come before the second or third phase of polling.

Meanwhile, a senior official in the state CEO office said the Commission for the first time would arrange postal ballot voting facilities for those who would not be able to turn up in booths due to their engage-ment in election related works.

The category includes Rail-ways, Metro Railways, Tele-graph office staff, Doordarshan, All India Radio and media per-sonnel authorised by EC for poll day duty. The CEO office held a meeting with represen-tatives of these categories on Tuesday.

In alliance, 37 seats for ISFOUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Congress and Left Front has agreed to give 37 seats to Indian Secular Front (ISF) for the Bengal Assembly elections.

“The list of candidates will be released soon. We will try to release the list of candidates along with the allied parties,” said Nawsad Siddiqui, Chairman of ISF, after conducting a meeting with senior Congress leaders Abdul Mannan, and Pradeep Bhattacharya, Left Front Chair-man Biman Bose and CPI (M) leader Md Salim at Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan, Bengal headquar-ters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

He reiterated that ISF had demanded several seats in North Bengal (Murshidabad). The Con-gress was not willing to give a seat in Murshid-abad. So far, Congress has agreed to give 6 seats in North Bengal and one seat in South Bengal.

According to sources, earlier the Left had agreed to leave 30 seats to ISF in the upcoming elections. The Forward Bloc is expected to leave 4 seats, RSP and CPI will leave two seats each

and the CPI (M) will leave the rest so that ISF can field candidates on those seats.

Meanwhile, 4 ISF workers were arrested for keeping bombs and fire arms at Bhangar in South 24-Parganas.

On Sunday morning around 10:45 am, some ISF workers allegedly assaulted some TMC workers on their way to Brigade.

After a complaint was lodged police started a probe. Meanwhile, cops came to know that a man identified as Jalil Mollah is connected with the incident. On Monday night when cops raided Mollah’s house, they found him manu-facturing crude bombs with others. Police also found a few fire arms and bullets.

Transplantation of heart done on 13-year-old

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: In a rare achieve-ment, heart transplant was conducted on a 13-year-old boy. This is the second pedi-atric heart transplant ever conducted in the city. Green corridor was set up for ensur-ing a safe passage of the organ.

A 21-year-old male was declared brain dead in a city hospital on March 2. The heart was allocated to the boy who was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Howrah. According to the doctors, the patient had been suffering from Ebsteins anomaly.

FOR BENGAL’S DAUGHTERPOLL DYNAMICS IN HILLS

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: BJP workers assaulted Trinamool Congress (TMC)workers after a clash broke out between workers of both the par-ties at Uttarpara in Hooghly. The saffron party workers had passed derogatory remarks about the Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday morning, leading to the clash.

According to sources, a ‘Paribartan Yatra’ programme was scheduled to be held in Uttarpara. Several saffron party leaders were present at the event. For the programme, the BJP workers had put up public address systems in the area. It has been alleged that during the preparation of the rally, a group of BJP workers started shouting slogans against the TMC. But, soon the slogans allegedly turned into abusive remarks against TMC and Banerjee. When the Trinamool workers protested, a group of saffron party workers started assaulting them. Immediately police intervened and brought the situation under control.

BJP men assault TMC workers in Uttarpara

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress Spokesperson and former Rajya Sabha member Kunal Ghosh appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials on Tuesday morning at the CGO Complex in Salt Lake.

Ghosh a few days ago was summoned by the ED in connection with the ongoing Saradha financial scam case. Sources informed that despite Ghosh had submitted several docu-

ments earlier, he was summoned again as the investigating officer of the case was changed a few months ago. Ghosh said, “I have submit-ted documents to the ED and will do it again if needed. I will definitely cooperate with the investigation.” However Ghosh has been asked again to appear before the investigating officials on March 8. Ghosh had been cooperating with the investigating officials. MPOST

Kunal Ghosh appears before ED officials

The joinings took place on the day when opposition leaders were holding rally at Brigade and Shivraj Singh Chauhan was holding Parivartan Yatra in Howrah

4 ISF workers were arrested for keeping bombs and fire arms at Bhangar in South 24-Parganas

SSC candidates clash with copsKOLKATA: Tension spread in Kalighat area on Tuesday afternoon after a group of School Service Commission (SSC) aspirants got involved in a clash with police over a demonstration. The SSC applicants on Tuesday morning put up a blockade near the Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee’s house. When police requested them to withdraw the blockade and start vehicular traffic, the students denied.

millenniumpost|KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021mp city 3

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: “Bangla Nijer Meye Kei Chaye” (Bengal only wants its own daughter) slo-gan of Trinamool Congress (TMC) has received an over-whelming response with lakhs of people extending their sup-port to the party’s supremo Mamata Banerjee to form government for the third con-secutive term.

With the count increasing by a few thousands in every minute, more than 2.41 lakh people have extended support in a record time to the “Bangla Nijer Meye Kei Chaye” cam-paign of TMC through the special web portal launched for the same.

Meanwhile, Tejashwi Yadav who had meet Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday tweeted that people of Ben-gal has faith only on Mamata Banerjee. He had also urged people of Behar living in Ben-gal to support the Trinamool Congress.

On February 20, the slogan for the 2021 Assembly polls was launched at Trinamool Bhavan. Later, the online cam-paign was also launched. One can visit the website www.banglanijermeyekeichay.in and click a button to support the campaign.

In the website, eminent personalities have shared their video messages as “Didir

Doot” and pledged to sup-port “Didi” for sustaining the development that Ben-gal has witnessed in the past 10 years.

Be it TMC MP Nusrat Jahan or sports personality Manoj Tiwari, all have given a call to form TMC govern-ment for the third time men-tioning different state-run schemes including Kanyas-

hree, Rupashree, Swasthya Sathi and Khadyasathi, among others.

At the same time, the slo-gan is now on everyone’s lips. The slogan has turned out to be a challenge for the BJP.

TMC has been launching attacks on the saffron party every day for bringing in “outsiders” or “tourist gangs” to campaign for the party in

the state. Memes featuring Mamata Banerjee as a lone fighter facing 22 central min-isters, 6 Chief Ministers, three central agencies, thousands of central forces, infinite money and media have gone viral in social media.

As a mark of gratitude towards the Chief Minister, folk artistes in Bengal have also composed songs based on the slogan ‘Bangla Nijer Meye Kei Chaye.’ These songs have also gained popularity on social media. A baul was found singing a song praising the Chief Minister for the over-all development ensured by her government in the state. He was spotted singing: “Ai Bangla Nijer Meye Kei Chaye, Ai Bangla Mamata Didi Kei Chaye.”

Earlier, Banerjee had brought at least 2 lakh folk artistes under Lok Prasar Prakalpa and extended support to preserve several art forms by providing them financial assis-tance every month.

Infra works for education, water give Trinamool an edge in Dantan

PRITESH BASU

KOLKATA: The massive devel-opment works undertaken by the Mamata Banerjee-led govern-ment in Dantan Assembly con-stituency gives a clear edge to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) over its rivals in the upcoming polls. The setting up of two degree col-leges in the region and access to safe drinking water would add to the ruling party’s advantage, political analysts opined.

No longer are the students in the constituency compelled to travel miles for pursuing higher studies. The Assembly constituency, comprising all Gram Panchayats of Dantan II block and Mohanpur block and Chak Islampur Gram Panchayat of Dantan I block, did not have a single college in the past. After completion of class XII, students had to travel either to Keshiary or Contai for pursuing higher education.

Coming to the rescue of students, Mamata Banerjee government set up two colleges—Mohanpur Government General Degree College and Kashmuli Government General Degree College—at the constituency.

At the same time, 11 new primary schools and two girls’

schools have also been set up in the constituency. In these schools, around 2.28 lakh elec-torates will exercise their voting rights on March 27.

The state Public Health Engineering department of the Mamata Banerjee-led gov-ernment has also sanctioned 5 drinking water schemes for areas including Turka, Gyankapur and Chhabra IV anchal. Setting up of a new police station for 7 Gram Panchayats in the constituency is also on the anvil.

Bikram Chandra Pradhan of TMC had won by 29,266 votes in 2016 after receiving 58.46 per cent votes. He defeated CPI’s Sisit Kumar Patra, who had bagged 37.10 per cent votes leaving only 7.47 per cent votes for BJP. But,

the saffron brigade managed to get 6,689 more votes than TMC in the Assembly constituency during 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“People here have witnessed the development taken place in the past 10 years since our gov-ernment came to power. They have also witnessed the torture of the saffron brigade after they had managed to get a lead from the Assembly constituency in the Parliamentary polls. We are confident of our victory. People are going to vote in favour of development this time instead of divisive politics,” Pradhan said, adding that they were stressing on a door-to-door campaign to create awareness about the development taking place in the constituency.

SOUMITRA NANDI

KOLKATA: In a first, the Elec-tion Commission (EC) will have webcasting facilities in all the RO’s (Returning Officers) room this year.

In these rooms, candidates will be submitting their nom-inations. The submission of nomination for the first phase of elections in the state will starts from Tuesday. In the first phase, 30 Assembly constituen-cies (ACs) in Purulia, Jhargram and parts of Bankura, East Mid-napore and West Midnapore are going to polls on March 27.

“This time webcasting of the nomination room is mandatory and the link will be shared with the Election Commission of India (ECI) as well as the state CEO (Chief Electoral Officer) office so that real time footage is made available. In the earlier occasions, there were CCTVs or videography facilities available in the nomination room,” an offi-cial in the state CEO office said.

District Magistrate Bankura K. Radhika Aiyar, who is the Dis-trict Electoral Officer (DEO), on Tuesday morning checked the readiness of the RO rooms and

the webcasting feed rooms asso-ciated with 4 ACs- Saltora (SC), Chhatna, Ranibandh (ST) and Raipur (ST) in the district, where nomination could be filed for the first phase from Tuesday (March 2 ) itself. However, no political party except the SUCI (C) has announced its candidate list yet. SUCI had announced candidates in 193 out of 294 assembly seats on Monday. The Commission, in adherence to health protocols related to COVID-19, will allow only 2 persons to accompany the candidate to the ROs chamber while submitting his/ her nomi-nation. Only 2 vehicles will be allowed in 100m periphery of the ROs chamber. The nomi-nation fees can be submitted either online or through cash.

Apart from the 4 ACs in Bankura, the others that are going for polls are Patashpur, Kanthi Uttar, Bhagabanpur, Khe-juri (SC) , Kanthi Dakshin, Ram-nagar, Egra, Dantan, Nayagram (ST), Gopiballavpur, Jhargram, Keshiary (ST), Kharagpur, Gar-beta, Salboni, Medinipur, Binpur (ST), Bandwan (ST) Balarampur, Baghmundi, Joypur, Purulia, Manbazar (ST), Kashipur, Para (SC), and Raghunathpur (SC).

PEOPLE OF BENGAL HAS FAITH ONLY ON MAMATA BANERJEE: TEJASHWI YADAV

‘Bangla Nijer Meye Kei Chaye’ garners support of over 2L people

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress (TMC) continues its protest against the abnor-mal hike in prices of cooking gas cylin-der, petrol and diesel prices.

On Tuesday morning, MP from Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency Mimi Chakraborty made a sarcastic tweet tak-ing a dig at the BJP-led government at the Centre. Narrating her experience of feeling the pinch when the LPG cylinder was delivered at her doorstep on Tuesday morning, she tweeted: “Today morning LPG came to my door and I collapsed.”

“Kya hua tera vada??? Aatmanirbhar kya aaisa benaga india khoon bechke apna,” she further maintained in the tweet to attack, without naming, the Centre.

The new price of a LPG cylinder in

Kolkata is Rs 845 with four times increase in the price in the past one month. Even before lockdown people had also bought a cylinder at Rs 550 to Rs 600.

The petrol and diesel price on Tues-day was Rs 91.35 per litre and Rs 84.35 per litre respectively. In a unique pro-test against the abnormal hike in fuel

price, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had rode pillion on an electric scooter to Nabanna. She had also demanded immediate roll back of LPG price below Rs 400 that was before the BJP govern-ment came to power at the Centre.

The petroleum dealers have claimed that the sale of petrol and diesel has gone down by at least 20 per cent with the increase in fuel price. Prasenjit Sen, Joint Secretary of West Bengal Petroleum Deal-ers Association, said: “There are around 2,200 petrol pumps in the state including 700 smaller ones those sell less than 1 lakh litre fuel every month. Though the bigger petrol pumps are managing to survive, the situation is becoming very difficult for the smaller ones”. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Trinamool Con-gress (TMC) is lodging a com-plaint of model code of conduct (MCC) violation with the Election Commission in con-nection with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photo being used on digital COVID-19 vac-cination certificates given to beneficiaries. The Prime Minis-ter’s picture appears at the bot-tom of the certificates issued to vaccine recipients.

“Elections declared. PM photo still brazenly appearing

on #COVID19 documents. Trinamool @AITCofficial taking this up strongly with Election Commission @ECISVEEP,” tweeted TMC party MP Derek O’Brien on Friday.

A senior TMC leader also alleged that the PM’s photo-graph highlighting some proj-ects is still existing in a number of petrol pumps across the state and reiterated that it will be brought before the notice of the Commission as well.

The Election Commis-sion on Friday announced the

dates of election in four states including Bengal and a Union Territory.

The digital vaccination cer-tificate is available to recipi-ents through the Co-Win app, a portal set up to aid India’s Covid immunisation drive. Modi’s photograph is accompanied by a quote from him in English which says, “Together, India will defeat COVID-19”, and a line in Hindi which says, “Dawai bhi, aur kadai bhi”, which trans-lates to “vaccination, as well as caution”.

Fuel price hike: Sale of petrol, diesel dips by 20%Breach of MCC: PM’s photo on Covid vaccine certs, TMC to lodge complaint

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has taken up the Nimtita case to probe into the incident of bomb attack on Jakir Hossain, the minister of state for Labour.

Taking up the case from the state Criminal Investiga-tion Department (CID) has led to a fresh controversy as Trin-amool Congress (TMC) alleges of a political motive behind the move.

TMC MP Saugata Roy said: “CID and other state agen-cies were proceeding well in the case and they have already arrested two persons in this connection. Though NIA is an expert to probe explosion related cases, I feel there are some sort of politics behind taking over the probe from the state CID.”

The Union Home minis-try has taken suo motu cog-nizance of the incident and ordered a NIA investigation on Tuesday. After receiving information in this regard, the NIA authority in Kolkata has registered a case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including attempt to murder (307 IPC), voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means (326 IPC) and criminal conspiracy (120B IPC) along with sections of the Explosive Substances Act.

Sources informed that the NIA has already requested the CID to hand over the “case

documents”. It may be recalled that Chief

Minister Mamata Banerjee had ordered a probe by the CID into the incident after accus-ing BJP without naming the party of attempting to mur-der Hossian in a “planned manner’ by hurling bombs as he turned down the pro-posal of joining the saffron brigade. A Special Investiga-tion Team (SIT) led by Addi-tional Director General (ADG) of CID Anuj Sharma was also formed.

TMC leadership has raised the question that why the case has been taken up by the NIA when the state’s investigating agency was probing into the incident so seriously.

Two persons—Abu Samad and Sahidul Islam alias Chemi-cal Sahidul—were arrested till date in this connection.

Confessing his guilt Sahidul told officers during interroga-tion that he had chalked out the plan to kill Hossain for protest-ing against his anti-social activ-ities and he himself prepared the bombs used in the attack. Sahidul was earlier arrested for an explosion in his house in 2011. The investigating officers are yet to establish any terror link with Sahidul.

Nimtita blast: NIA takes over probe from CID; TMC allege

political motive behind move

KOLKATA: The Election Commission (EC) has extended poll-ing time by 30 minutes for the first phase of Assembly elections, enabling voters to exercise their franchise from 7 am to 6.30 pm, a notification issued by the poll panel on Tuesday said.

The decision was taken in view of the COVID-19 restric-tions, an election official here said. “Keeping in mind the ongo-ing COVID-19 situation, the commission has decided to extend polling time by 30 minutes. It will now be held from 7 am to 6.30 pm. The notification for the first phase of polls in West Bengal was issued this noon,” he said.

The first phase of polls is scheduled to be held on March 27 in 30 Assembly constituencies. AGENCIES

Returning Officers’ rooms to have webcasting facilities

Poll time extended by 30 minutes

State government has set up two colleges Mohanpur Government General Degree College and Kashmuli Government General Degree at the constituency

TMC has being hold protests against thehike in fuel, LPG costs

KOLKATA: The saga of former Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Jitendra Tiwari ended on Tuesday after he joined the BJP.

The vacillating MLA had returned to TMC immediately after quitting the party in December 2020 and promised that he would never again leave TMC. He also sought apology from the party’s chairperson Mamata Banerjee stating that he felt very sad know-ing that “Didi (Mamata Banerjee) was in pain” with his moves. Surprisingly, the MLA from Pandaveswar joined BJP by taking the flag from the saffron party’s state president Dilip Ghosh at Baidyabati in Hooghly.

Without giving any importance to the Tiwari tale, Trinamool Congress stated that it does not matter to the party if one or two persons leave. Partha Chatterjee, secretary-general of the party, said: “It hardly matters who is leaving as people have faith on Mamata Banerjee and we have the faith of people.” MPOST

After dramatic return to TMC, Jitendra Tiwari exits party, joins BJP

State had also formed a SIT led by ADG of CID Anuj Sharma

KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp nation4

Rajnath, Harsh Vardhan and other ministers take first dose of vaccine

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Minority Affairs Minister Naqvi also got inoculated

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: With 154 Tibetan monks being tested positive at famous Gyuto Tantric monas-tery near Dharamshala, Him-achal Pradesh is fearing a fresh spurt in the Covid-19, mainly due to non-adherence of restrictions and facemasks use.

Deputy Commissioner Kangra, Rakesh Prajapati, confirmed about monks hav-ing been tested positive despite monasteries being remained close during the entire pan-demic time.

Reports said more than 330 monks living in the monastery were tested for Covid-19 fol-lowing reports about some of the them developing symptoms of the infection

Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Kangra, Dr Gurdar-shan Gupta said “we have taken all precautions and all the monks, barring those who con-dition was critical, have been kept under home quarantine and their health parameters are checked regularly.” He claimed the condition of one reported critical has been shifted to Tanda Medical College.

The monastery is located at Sidhbari on the outskirts of Dharamshala.

The Tibetan monks tested positive and have no travel his-

tory but now those arriving at Dharamshala and McLeod-ganj have been told to observe a mandatory quarantine period as precaution.

Though Himachal Pradesh has seen a drop in the cases upto 300 till last week but fresh spurt has raised the numbers to 418.

Already 15 nursing students at Government Nursing Col-lege (IGMC) Shimla have been tested positive.

Shimla‘s SDM Manjit Sharma has declared the entire college campus as a contain-ment zone.

Meanwhile, worried over the rise in the cases, Chief Min-ister Jai Ram Thakur has con-vened a meeting of the cabinet

here on March 4 to take stock of the situation and announce fresh measures to prevent fur-ther spread of the infection.

Though the state govern-ment has already lifted most of the restrictions including social and political gatherings, also allowing opening of the schools and colleges, the change in the conditions may force imposi-tion of the restrictions.

Two biggest upcoming fairs –Maha Shivratri at Mandi and Nalwar mela in Bilaspur have also come under shadow fol-lowing rise in the fresh cases.

The tourist arrival in Him-achal Pradesh has seen an upward trend and transport services are running in full capacity.

154 monks test Covid positive at monastery in Dharamshala

PUNE: Pune Police probing the Army paper leak case has arrested four more persons, including two Army personnel, a senior officer said on Tuesday, adding that the scope of the case looked like the "tip of the iceberg". With this, the number of persons arrested in connec-tion with the paper leak case so far has reached seven, includ-ing an ex-serviceman.

On February 18, the Army cancelled Army Relation Recruitment exam, which was scheduled to be held on Febru-ary 28 at BEG centre in Pune, after the paper was found to be leaked.

Police are now investigating the source of the leaked paper and the exact number of candi-dates who had received its cop-ies before the date of the exam.

"The said exam was sched-uled on February 28. We had received intelligence that some people were approaching can-didates and promising them to hand over the question paper in return of money," Joint Com-missioner of Police (JCP) Ravin-dra Shisave told reporters on Tuesday. He said the police had formed two teams and appre-hended some people who were found to be in the possession of a question paper and were planning to sell it to aspirants.

"We then approached Army officials and cross-checked the question paper. We came to know that the question paper found in the mobile phones of those detained by us was the same that was set for the Feb-ruary 28 exam," he said, adding that the exam was subsequently cancelled by the Army. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A day after the start of the second phase of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, senior Union ministers, includ-ing Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Defence Minis-ter Rajnath Singh, got them-selves inoculated on Tuesday and appealed to all eligible peo-ple to take the jab.

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also got inoculated on Tuesday, taking their first dose of anti-coronavirus vaccine at Patna and Rampur respectively.

Vardhan and his wife took the first dose of indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin at the Delhi Heart and Lung Institute. They paid Rs 250 each for the vaccine jab.

Completing the observa-tion period of half an hour after taking the first dose of the vac-cine, Vardhan addressed the media and appealed to eligi-ble people to get themselves vaccinated.

"Today, I and my wife took the first dose of Covid-19 vac-cine at Delhi Heart and Lung Hospital. The observation time of half an hour is completed. Hospital authorities have informed me that I and my wife have been given Covaxin. In the last half an hour, I and my wife did not face any kind of difficulty," he told reporters.

"On this occasion, I would like to urge all the citizens of this country whose age is above 60 or if they are in the age bracket of 45-59 having speci-fied co-morbidities to take the

vaccine," he said.Defence Minister Singh

took the first dose of the coro-navirus vaccine at the Army's Research and Referral Hospi-tal here. Dispelling apprehen-sions, he said the vaccine is completely safe.

"The first dosage of COVID-19 vaccine was administered to me at RR Hospital today. India's resolve for making the country COVID-free has been strengthened by this inocula-tion drive. The vaccine is com-pletely safe and hassle free. #LargestVaccineDrive," the minister said in a tweet.

"I salute the efforts of India's scientists and doctors who developed the vaccine in a short span of time. I also thank the doctors and paramedic staff at the RR Hospital for the vac-cination. I urge everyone who is eligible to take the vaccine and make India COVID-free," he added.

Union minister and senior BJP leader Prasad was admin-istered the first dose of anti-coronavirus vaccine in Patna for which he paid Rs 250.

He said all the Union minis-ters have decided to voluntarily pay the price fixed for the vac-cine. "I also got myself adminis-tered the made in India vaccine –Covaxin –at AIIMS Patna," Prasad tweeted.

"Though the coronavirus vaccine is free in Bihar, I paid Rs 250 to the hospital as price for the shot," he said.

Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took the first dose of the coro-navirus vaccine at Rampur's K D Dalmia Eye Hospital and was

administered Oxford-Astra-Zeneca's Covishield vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

After getting inoculated, the minister thanked the med-ical staff at the hospital and urged all those eligible to get themselves vaccinated against

COVID-19.Meanwhile, National Con-

ference president Farooq Abdullah, who is the Lok Sabha member from Srinagar, also got his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Sri-nagar. Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal

Haasan was also administered with the COVID-19 vaccine at a Chennai hospital.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu were among the host of top leaders who took the first dose of the coro-

navirus vaccine on Monday.Odisha Chief Minister

Naveen Patnaik and his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar, External Affairs Minister S Jais-hankar, Assam Health Minis-ter Himanta Biswa Sarma and NCP president Sharad Pawar also took the jab on Monday.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday demanded that the Centre should immedi-ately reduce the domestic LPG and fuel prices to the level at which they stood at under the UPA government, assert-ing that international prices of these commodities are pres-ently much lower than at the time of its rule.

Congress’ chief spokes-person Randeep Surjewala said that despite opposition by the common people, there has been a steep rise of Rs 125 within a month in the prices of subsidised, non-subsidised and Ujjwala Yojana gas cylinder.

After ending of subsidy on cooking gas, the CNG-PNG gas prices have now been increased, bringing the anti-poor and anti-middle class face of the Narendra Modi gov-ernment to the fore and it is a living example of the Prime Minister’s arrogance, Surjewala said in a statement.

“Today the international prices of LPG gas and crude oil are much lower than the time of Congress, so our clear demand is that the prices of subsidised LPG gas, petrol, die-

sel, CNG, PNG gas be imme-diately reduced and brought back to the level at which they existed during the Congress government," he said.

“The international price of LPG in the UPA government was USD 885.2 and 880.5 in 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 respectively, but the UPA gov-ernment would buy LPG at an expensive price and give a huge subsidy to the general public making it available for them at a price of Rs 399-414 per cyl-inder,” the Congress spokes-person said.

The UPA government used to buy LPG at an international price which is more than 50 per cent of the present price but gave it to the people at half the price at which they are getting by giving a huge subsidy, he said.

Cooking gas LPG price was on Monday hiked by Rs 25 per cylinder across all cat-egories, including subsidised fuel and those availed by Ujj-wala scheme beneficiaries - the fourth increase in rates in a month’s time. LPG prices have gone up by Rs 125 per 14.2-kg cylinder since the beginning of February, price data from state-owned oil marketing compa-nies showed.

‘Bring down LPG, fuel prices to level that existed under UPA’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Infrastructure projects in the pipeline will help boost tourism as well as cre-ate opportunities for MSMEs, according to Union Minister for MSME and Roads, Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari. The Union Minister has also urged car manufacturers to give priority to the indigenous pro-duction of flex engines, which can be used in vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol.

According to a statement released by FICCI, Gadkari said, “The infrastructural proj-ects in the pipeline as part of the central government’s plans have laid the foundation of ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ and will also boost domestic tourism in the country. Innovation is key to the revival of the travel and hospitality sector.”

At an another event on Tuesday, the Union Minister

said that, with ethanol begin-ning to be easily available in the country, and more than 70 per cent of gasoline consump-tion being done by two-wheel-ers, there is a need to develop indigenous technology for flex fuel vehicles.

Discussions were also held regarding the request by SIAM to postpone implementation of BS6 CAFÉ Phase II regu-lations to April 1, 024, on the grounds that the industry is still recovering from the impact of COVID due to which there is a slow consumer demand.

While agreeing to examine the request, Gadkari made it clear to them that Indian auto-mobile industry has to have world-class quality, and that if the industry is meeting strin-gent anti-pollution standards in countries to which they are exporting vehicles, the same standards must be adhered to in India as well.

Infra projects to boost tourism: Gadkari

AT WORK

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal addressing a Press conference at Chandigarh on Tuesday MPOST

FROM TOP LEFT: A medic administers the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine to Nutan Goel, wife of Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan (L), at Delhi Heart and Lung Institute in New Delhi; Defence Minister Rajnath Singh being administered the first dose of vaccine, at RR Hospital in New Delhi; Union Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad receives the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), in Patna; A medic administers the first dose of vaccine to Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan, at Ramachandra Hospital in Chennai, on Tuesday

BENGALURU: Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala, state Ministers B C Patil, K S Esh-warappa and Wipro founder chairman Azim Premji were among those who received the coronavirus vaccine in the state on day two of the inocu-lation drive for senior citizens and others on Tuesday.

A controversy broke out after Agriculture Minister Patil and his wife took the vaccine at their home with Health Minister K Sudhakar and others criticising him for doing so instead of visiting the designated hospital.

The health department said 10,046 people, includ-ing 6,313 senior citizens and people with comorbidi-ties, were inoculated in the state on Tuesday, taking the total number of those vacci-nated to 8.35 lakh since Jan-uary 16 when the first phase started for health and front-line workers.

There were no instances of adverse event following immunisation (AEFI), it said in a release.

Governor Vala received the vaccine shot at the K C General Hospital at Malleswaram.

A press communique issued by the Raj Bhavan said Vala appealed to all eligible people to take the vaccine and make the country COVID-19 free.

He also lauded the doctors and scientists who worked in a short time to fight against the virus.

Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Esh-warappa took the vaccine at Shivamogga Ayurveda Col-lege and later posted a photo-

graph on his Twitter handle.Wipro founder Azim

Premji took the shot at Nara-yana Health City, according the hospital sources.

Minister Patil tweeted, “Took the #COVID19Vac-cine with my wife, at my Hirekerur house from the Govt. doctors today.

While ‘Made In India’ vaccines are being immensely appreciated by many coun-tries, some vested inter-est groups are spreading false information about the vaccines.

As several social media users questioned his decision to take the vaccine at home, Sudhakar said the protocol is to get it in the hospital.

Patil defended himself, saying he has not commit-ted any crime and wanted to avoid trouble for the public.

“Have I done any theft or robbery? I have only taken the vaccine at home, which is not a crime,” the Minister told reporters.

The Health Minister said he would issue a circular to the doctors not to administer the vaccine at home.

The vaccination drive for people aged above 60 and those over 45 with comor-bidities started on Monday with Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi taking the vac-cine at the AIIMS in Delhi and thousands of others get-ting it in various parts of the country.

Tech giant Infosys co-founders N R Narayanamur-thy and Kris Gopalakrishnan and a 97-year old man were among those who got the vac-cine shots here on first day of expanded coverage. AGENCIES

Guv Vala, K’taka ministers, Wipro founder chairman Azim Premji take vaccine

Paper leak case: 2 Army personnel

among 4 more held in Pune

NEW DELHI: January and February were the third and second warmest winter months in 121 years in terms of mean and minimum temperatures respectively, an India Meteo-rological Department (IMD) report said on Tuesday.

Both the minimum and mean temperatures in Febru-ary for northwest India were warmest since 1901, the report added.

In terms of mean tempera-ture in January-February, 2016 recorded 21.80 degree Celsius, followed by 21.58 degree Cel-sius in 2009 and 21.43 degree Celsius in 2021. The other two years with an all-India mean temperatures for the two months are 2006 (21.39 degree C) and 2017 (21.37 degree C).

In terms of minimum tem-perature, the two months in 2021 recorded 15.39 degrees Celsius. The other four years with warmest January-Febru-

ary since 1901 are: 2016 (15.53 degrees C), 2009 (15.30 degrees C), 1926 (15.29 degrees C), 1912 (15.28 degrees C).

In its report for January released last month, the IMD had said the minimum tem-perature recorded in the coun-try during the month was the warmest for the month in 62 years.

Spatial temperature pat-tern over India shows average monthly maximum temper-atures in January were below normal by 2-4 degree Celsius across the Indo-Gangetic plain and pockets over south Pun-jab and north Haryana at its west, and over Bihar at east had significantly below normal temperature with 3-4 degree Celsius lower than normal.

South India was particu-larly warm. The region was the warmest in January in 121 years, with 22.33 degrees Cel-sius in south India, followed by

22.14 degrees Celsius in 1919 and 21.93 degrees Celsius in 2020 as the second and third warmest months.

Central India was the warmest (14.82 degrees Cel-sius) in the last 38 years after 1982 (14.92 degrees Celsius), while 1958 with 15.06 degrees Celsius was the warmest in the 1901-2021 period.

However, the maximum temperatures in January were below normal, the IMD said.

An analysis for 1901-2021 shows that the all-India aver-age minimum temperature in January 2021 was 14.78 degrees Celsius. The January of 1958 recorded a similar monthly minimum temperature.

The January of 1919 recorded 15 degrees Celsius and it remains the warmest Jan-uary so far. "So January 2021 has also become the warm-est in 62 years after 1958," the IMD said. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Terming the Emergency that was imposed by former prime minister Indira Gandhi a "mistake", Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tues-day said what happened during that period was "wrong", but it was fundamentally different from the current scenario as the Congress at no point attempted to capture the country's institu-tional framework.

In a conversation with Kaushik Basu, professor in the Cornell University in the US and India's former chief eco-nomic advisor, Gandhi said he is all for internal democracy in the Congress, which fought for India's independence, gave the country its Constitution and stood for equality. Asked about his views on the Emergency, he said, "I think that was a mistake. Absolutely, that was a mistake. And my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) said as much."

Asked about Indira Gandhi announcing elections at the end of the Emergency and Pranab Mukherjee telling Basu later that she did so as she thought she might lose and wanted to put that to test, the former Congress chief said there is a fundamental difference between what hap-pened during the Emergency, which "was wrong", and what is happening in the country now.

"The Congress party at no point attempted to capture India's institutional framework and frankly, the Congress party does not even have that capabil-ity. Our design does not allow us that and even if we want, we cannot do it," he said.

Gandhi alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is doing something "fun-damentally different" and filling up the institutions of the coun-

try with its people."So, even if we defeat the BJP

in the election, we are not going to get rid of their people in the institutional structure," he said. Gandhi recalled a conversa-tion with former Congress chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath before his govern-ment was overthrown. Nath told him that senior bureaucrats in his government would not listen to him as they were RSS people and would not do something that they were asked to do. "So, it is fundamentally different what is going on," he said.

The Emergency was imposed by Indira Gandhi for a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977, when curbs were imposed on the fundamental rights of citizens.

On internal democracy within the Congress, Gandhi said he is the one who pushed for elections in the party at the Youth Congress and NSUI levels, but was criticised and attacked by his own party lead-ers. He wondered why nobody raises questions on why there is no internal democracy in the BJP, the BSP and the SP and said such questions are asked about the Congress as it is an "ideolog-ical party" and has the ideology of the Constitution. "Therefore, it is more important for us to be democratic," he said. AGENCIES

Emergency was a mistake: Rahul

Jan-Feb second warmest winter months in terms of minimum temps since 1901

millenniumpost|KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021mp nation 5

In Assam, Cong pledges 200 units of free electricity, new law to ‘nullify’ CAAPriyanka Gandhi said her party will dole out Rs 2,000 every month to

homemakers across state, if given a chance to form the govt

Kerala’s social harmony under stress; new devp strategy needed: Sonia

HARYANA DGP MANOJ YADAVA GETS ONE-YEAR EXTENSION CHANDIGARH: Haryana Director General of Police Manoj Yadava was on Tuesday granted one-year extension by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Ya-dava, a 1988-batch Haryana cadre IPS officer, was appointed as the state DGP on February 21, 2019 for a term of two years. Reacting to it, CM Manohar Lal Khattar told reporters here that the “DGP has been given one-year extension till further orders”.

IN A FIRST, IAF TO PARTICIPATE IN EXERCISE DESERT FLAG VI IN UAE NEW DELHI: The Indian Air Force (IAF) will participate in the Exercise Desert Flag-VI along with the air forces of the UAE, the US, France, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Bahrain for the first time, it said on Tuesday. The exercise is scheduled from March 3 to 21 at the Al-Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Exercise Desert Flag is an annual multi-national large force employment warfare exercise hosted by the UAE Air Force. “The IAF is participating for the first time in Exercise Desert Flag-VI along with air forces of United Arab Emirates, United States of America, France, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Bahrain,” a statement issued by it said.

AIR CARGO SERVICE LAUNCHED IN NAGALAND DIMAPUR: Air cargo service was launched in Naga-land on Tuesday with CM Neiphiu Rio flagging off 111 cartoons of perishable and non-perishable fruits and vegetables including some finished products at Dimapur Airport, only airport in state. The CM termed introduction of Air Cargo Services as a historic occa-sion for state. The service would help farming commu-nity and will ensure timely and efficient transport of their produce to other parts of the country, he said.

BRIEFSNATIONKARACHI/NEW DELHI: An Indigo flight from Sharjah to Lucknow made an emer-gency landing at the Karachi airport in Pakistan on Tuesday morning after a passenger on board fell sick and later died.

An official of the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority said the landing permission was granted to the Captain of the

Lucknow-bound IndiGo flight 6E1412 after an elderly passen-ger identified as 67-year-old Habib ur Rehman - fell seri-ously ill.

"The passenger unfortu-nately expired on the plane even though the Indian air-craft was given permission to land at the Karachi airport," the official said.

In a statement, IndiGo said the passenger who had the medical emergency could not be revived and was declared dead on arrival by the airport medical team. "We are deeply saddened with the news and our prayers and wishes are with his family," it added.

The airline said the flight coming from Sharjah to Luc-

know was diverted to Karachi.The Pakistani official said

that the request for an emer-gency landing was received as soon as the aircraft entered Pakistani airspace via Iran at 4 in the morning.

"The Captain contacted the air control tower and requested the aircraft be allowed to make an emer-

gency landing on humanitar-ian grounds," he said.

The permission was granted and the aircraft landed around 5 am, he said.

The official said that by the time the medical team boarded the flight to treat the passenger, he had died.

"The flight was allowed to take off around 8.36 am for

Ahmedabad after completion of all formalities," the official added.

Pakistan reopened its airspace to international civil aviation in July, 2019 after months of restrictions imposed because of tensions with India, which forced long detours that cost airlines mil-lions of dollars. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday conducted search operations at several places in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in connection with an alleged illegal coal mining and transportation case in the Asansol-Raniganj belt of West Bengal, sources said.

The anti-corruption branch of the CBI raided premises of people in the two states, who it suspected have links with Anup Majee alias Lala, the prime accused in the case, sources in the investigating agency said here.

Majee, the director of a company engaged in pur-chase and sale of the dry fuel, has been evading arrest. The CBI has also issued a look-out notice against him.

CBI sources said that the agency is keeping a close watch on businessmen who have a

close connection with Majee.The investigating agency on

November 28 last year carried out a massive search operation in a number of locations in four states -- West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh - after registering a case against Majee.

The CBI had acted on infor-mation from "reliable sources" indicating illegal excavation and theft of coal in the lease-hold area of Eastern Coalfields Limited in "connivance" with the officials of ECL, CISF and Railways.

The CBI team on February 23 visited the residence of Trin-amool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee and examined his wife Rujira in connection with the case. The agency also examined Rujira's sister Menaka Gamb-hir on the previous day on the same matter.

The MP is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee's nephew.

Coal pilferage case: CBI raids places in UP, MP

JAIPUR: BJP chief J P Nadda on Tuesday asked party leaders in Rajasthan to do self-analysis about their contribution to the organisation and work to take everyone along, remarks which come in the backdrop of rising factionalism in the state unit.

Addressing a state execu-tive committee meeting here, Nadda said that leaders who have been in the party for long tend to stop doing self-analysis.

"Knowingly or unknowingly, we assume that we know every-thing. This is the beginning of stagnation... the truth is our pro-ductivity decreases...," he said. "I request everyone here to do self-analysis. What is your com-mitment, your relevance? Poli-tics is a place where you have to relevant. Relevance means how much are you contributing to the party... how much are you acceptable. As a leader, you will have to develop the quality of

taking along everyone which will increase your acceptance, he said in a candid address.

The meeting was attended by the party's central office-bearers from Rajasthan and functionaries of the state unit.

BJP national general secre-tary and state in charge Arun Singh, union ministers Gajen-dra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun

Ram Meghwal and Kailash Chaudhary, former chief min-ister Vasundhara Raje, leader of opposition in state assembly Gulabchand Kataria, deputy leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore and other leaders were present on the stage.

Nadda's visit assumes sig-nificance as it came ahead of Raje's planned 'dharmik yatra'

next week, seen as an attempt to re-assert her influence in the state unit after maintain-ing a low profile since the BJP's defeat in 2018 assembly polls.

The party, which will soon be facing bypolls in four assem-bly seats, has distanced itself from Raje's 'yatra', saying it was a "personal matter".

In signs of growing fac-tionalism in the party, Raje's supporters have raised the demand to declare her as the CM candidate for the next elec-tions. A 20-odd MLAs recently expressed resentment against the state leadership for allegedly not being allowed to raise public interest issues in the assembly.

Are we working with matu-rity? There should be self-anal-ysis, Nadda said at the meeting while stressing that the lead-ers should keep on striving to enhance their relevance, accep-tance and maturity.

Self-analyse your contribution & acceptability: BJP chief to party leaders in faction-ridden Rajasthan

THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM: Kerala's social har-mony and amity have come under stress and strain, Con-gress President Sonia Gandhi said on Tuesday as she advo-cated for a new development strategy for strengthening the bonds of brotherhood among people and overall develop-ment of the southern state.

"Kerala has been a lesson to other parts of the country and indeed the world on how to preserve and promote social harmony and amity.

"This has come under stress and strain and future devel-opment strategy must have, as one of its basic objectives, the strengthening of the bonds of brotherhood (and sister-hood) that have been the hall-marks of Kerala's wonderfully diverse society," Gandhi said in a message to a virtual sum-mit organised by Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Development Stud-ies (RGIDS) here.

RGIDS is an economic think tank aligned to the Con-gress ideology, in the poll-bound state.

The summit, Pratheeksha 2030, is the culmination of the RGIDSs elaborate and exten-sive consultations in India and abroad to prepare an action plan for Keralas development over the next decade.

Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh inaugurated the summit.

Referring to the much

talked about Kerala Model of Development, Gandhi said today the state faces new, unprecedented challenges and it has been accentuated by COVID-19 pandemic and called for fresh thinking on economic growth and social security in the southern state.

"It's clearly time for fresh thinking on economic growth that will revive investments, create productive jobs, protect the environment, build resil-ience to climate change, miti-gate natural disasters, enhance social security for organized and unorganized labor and improve, the well-being of farmers and their families", she said in the message read out in the summit.

The Congress president said over the past six decades and more, the Kerala Model of Development has resulted in many impressive achievements for the state in areas like pub-lic health, education and liter-acy, gender empowerment and social justice. But Kerala faces new, and I may so, unprece-dented challenges. AGENCIES

Passenger dies on board, Indigo flight makes emergency landing in Karachi

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With senior Congress leader Anand Sharma ‘questioning’ the “decisions” of the party over forging political alliances in poll-bound state West Bengal, it seems the differences among leaders are widening in the Grand Old party as the inter-nal fight of ideology among party veterans has now come out in open and leaders are preferring social media plat-forms such as Twitter to raise their dissents over the party’s internal forums.

Hitting out at Anand Sharma for questioning the party’s decision to forge an alliance with the Indian Secu-lar Front (ISF) led by Muslim cleric Abbas Siddiqui in West Bengal, the state Congress unit president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has accused him of “undermining” the party’s interest by making remarks “in tune with the BJP’s agenda”.

Notably, Sharma had on Monday had slammed Con-

gress for its alliance with ISF by contending that it was against the “Gandhian and Nehru-vian secularism” and the party cannot be selective in fighting “communalists”.

In reply, the West Bengal Congress chief said, “Those who are committed to fighting against BJP party’s venomous communalism should support the Congress and campaign for the party in five states rather than attempting to undermine the party by remarks in tune with BJP’s agenda.”

“Would urge a select group of distinguished Congressmen to rise above always seek-ing personal comfort spots and stop wasting time sing-ing praises of PM. They owe a duty to strengthen the Party & not undermine the tree that nurtured them,” Chowdhury added.

Hitting out at Sharma, senior Congress leader Jitin Prasada, who is also party’s in-charge of West Bengal, said, “Alliance decisions are taken keeping in mind the best

interests of the party and the workers. Now is the time for everyone to join hands and work towards strengthening the prospects of the Congress in the poll-bound states.”

Notably, Prasada was also part of the ‘G-23’group of lead-ers who had written to interim party president Sonia Gandhi last year demanding a com-plete overhaul of Congress.

Another senior leader and party’s general secretary Tariq Anwar has also criticised Sharma for flaying the party’s decision. “Sharma is a senior leader of the party and he has been associated with the party for a long. Raising any issue related to party on open plat-forms is not a welcome step. He can raise any of his issues on the party’s forums,” said Anwar, who is the party’s in-charge of Kerala.

Meanwhile, sources close to Ghulam Nabi Azad have said that the comments of Azad regarding praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been “misunderstood”.

Cong leaders slam Anand Sharma for questioning party’s decision

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In an attempt to woo a major chunk of middle-class voters in the poll-bound Assam, senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday asserted that her party, if voted to power in Assam, will bring a new law to “nullify” the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the state and provide free electricity up to 200 units to all households.

Gandhi, during a public meeting in Assam’s Tezpur, launched the ‘Five Guarantees’ campaign, and said her party, if given a chance to form gov-ernment in the northeastern state, will dole out Rs 2,000 every month to homemakers across the state. The All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary, who is in poll-bound Assam on a two-day visit, also claimed that her party will hike daily wages of tea garden workers to Rs 365 from the existing Rs 167, and provide at least 25,000 govern-ment jobs to youth.

“People of Assam were cheated by a party (BJP) five years ago that promised them 25 lakh jobs but gave them CAA instead. Our party is not making empty promises but

undertaking five guarantees,” said Gandhi, who sported a tra-ditional ‘gamocha’ around her neck which had the letters CAA crossed out on it.

The Congress leader also promised to provide 5 lakh jobs for the youth of the state if the party forms government in Assam.

Slamming BJP-led govern-ment at the Centre for not pay-

ing heed to farmers’ concerns over the new agricultural laws, the Congress leader said that its policies are designed to benefit only the rich.

Interacting with women tea workers, she said that farm-ers have been protesting in and around the national capital for months, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to meet them and end the impasse.

“More than three lakh farm-ers are sitting on a dharna for the last two months, just a few kilometres away from where the PM stays, but he has not gone to meet them,” she said.

Elections to 126 assem-bly constituencies in the state will be held in three phases on March 27, April 1 and April 6. The counting of votes will be on May 2.

NEW DELHI: Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), which is spear-heading anti- farm law protests in Delhi, will send its leaders to poll-bound states to appeal to farmers there to defeat the BJP in assembly elections, leaders of the outfit said on Tuesday.

The protesting farmers will also block the KMP (Western Peripheral) Expressway on March 6 as the anti-farm law protest at Delhi borders com-pletes 100 days. The express-way will be blocked at various points for five hours from 11 am on March 6, SKM leader Yogendra Yadav said.

He said SKM leaders will hold a public meeting in Kol-kata on March 12 to appeal to the farmers of poll-bound states to punish the BJP.

SKM leader Balbir Singh Rajewal said that SKM teams will visit poll-bound states, including West Bengal and Kerala, to appeal to farmers to defeat the BJP.

"We will not seek votes for any party. We will appeal to them to vote for those candi-

dates who can defeat the BJP which has failed to address farmers' issues," Rajewal said at a joint press conference of the SKM at Singhu border.

Those who are sitting in power do not understand the language of justice, Constitu-tion or good and bad, Yadav said, adding that they only understand the language of power, elections and votes.

"So, the farmers have decided to hurt them through votes. We are appealing to vot-ers in five poll-bound states to punish this party (BJP) and its allies who enacted anti-farm-ers laws, repressed farmers and

tried to humiliate them," Yadav said.

The morcha leaders will also visit Karnataka where farmers are getting at least Rs 1000 less than MSP on various crops, Yadav said.

Farmers will also visit man-dis, beginning from Gulbarga on March 5, to seek minimum support price for their produce.

On Womens' Day on March 8, women protesters will lead the protest at Delhi borders and other places across the coun-try, Yadav said. The SKM held a general body meeting of its constituents at the Singhu bor-der on Monday, preparing its action plan for taking forward the movement.

The SKM has given a call to the people to install black flags at their houses and wear black armbands as a mark of support to the movement as it com-pletes 100 days on March 6.

The Samyukt Kisan Mor-cha has decided to support the central trade unions which are observing March 15 as 'anti-privatisation' day. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: The Congress constituted screening com-mittees for the Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and West Bengal polls on Tuesday, appointing senior leader Digvi-jaya Singh as the panel head for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Another senior party leader, H K Patil, will chair the panel for Kerala.

The screening committee of the Congress for the eight-phased West Bengal Assem-bly polls starting March 27 will have Delhi leader J P Aggarwal as its chairman. The Assem-bly elections in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala will be held in a single phase on April 6 and the counting of votes will be taken up on May 2.

"Congress president has constituted the screening committee for the forthcom-ing Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry with immediate effect, with Digvi-jaya Singh as its chairman," a statement issued by the party said.

Other members of the panel are former Goa chief minister and Lok Sabha MP Francisco Sardinha and Lok Sabha MP Kodikunnil Suresh.

The other ex-officio mem-bers of the committee are AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu Dinesh Gundu Rao, PCC presi-dent of Tamil Nadu K S Ala-giri, Puducherry PCC chief AV Subramanian, Tamil Nadu CLP leader KR Ramasamy, former Puducherry chief minister and CLP leader V Narayansamy, besides the AICC secretaries in-charge for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

"Congress president has constituted the screening committee for the forthcom-ing Assembly election in Ker-ala with immediate effect, with H K Patil as its chairman," another statement from the party said. The other members of the panel for Kerala include Duddilla Sridhar Babu and Praniti Shinde.

Besides Aggarwal, the other members of the screen-ing committee for West Bengal are Mahesh Joshi and Naseem Khan. The ex-officio mem-bers include AICC in-charge for West Bengal Jitin Prasad, state PCC chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and CLP leader Abdul Mannan, besides the AICC secretaries in-charge for West Bengal. MPOST

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) on Tues-day announced a reduction in the notice period for the reg-istration of new political par-ties in the four poll-bound states and the Union Territory of Puducherry from 30 days to seven days, keeping in view the difficulties caused by the restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the existing guidelines, a political party seeking registration has to sub-mit an application to the com-mission within 30 days of the date of its formation.

The applicant is asked to publish the party's proposed name in two national dailies and two local dailies on two days. Objections, if any, with regard to the proposed regis-tration of the party have to be submitted within 30 days of the publication of the notice.

"It has been brought to the notice of the Commission that in view of prevailing restric-tions on account of COVID-19, there was dislocation and delay in moving applications

for registration, which in turn led to delay in registration as a political party," the EC said in a statement.

After considering all aspects, the poll panel has given a relaxation and reduced the notice period from 30 days to seven days for the political par-ties that have published their public notice on or before Feb-ruary 26.

"For all parties, includ-ing those parties which have already published the public notice in less than seven days prior to February 26, objection, if any, can be submitted latest by 5.30 pm on March 2 or by the end of the originally pro-vided 30-day period, which-ever is earlier," the statement said

The relaxation will remain in force till March 19, the last date for filing of nominations for the elections to the legisla-tive assemblies of Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, and April 7 for West Bengal, the last date for filing of nomi-nations for the Assembly polls in the state. MPOST

Cong forms screening panels for TN, WB and Kerala polls

SKM will ask farmers in poll-bound states to defeat BJP: Outfit leaders

EC eases timeline for objections to registration of parties

All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra interacts with tea workers at Sadhuru tea garden in Biswanath, Assam

BJP National President Jagat Prakash Nadda being welcomed by party workers on his arrival in Jaipur, on Tuesday

mp nation6

OUTCRY

Police personnel keep vigil as Congress party workers raise slogans during a protest against hike in fuel and LPG prices in Bengaluru on Tuesday PIC/PTI

KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost

WOMAN FOUND HANGING FROM FAN MUZAFFARNAGAR: A 22-year-old woman was found hanging from the ceiling fan of her house here, police said on Tuesday. The victim, a resident of Rampuri locality under Kotwali Police Station, was found dead on Monday night, they said. According to Circle Officer Kuldeep Kumar, prima facie it appears to be suicide, however, a probe has been launched. No suicide note was recovered from the spot and the body has been sent for a post-mortem examination, police said.

MAHA: MAN HELD, TWO MINORS DETAINED FOR MURDER, ROBBERIES PALGHAR: A 30-year-old man was arrested and two minors detained on Tuesday in connection with a mur-der and two robberies in Nalla Sopara of Maharash-tra’s Palghar district, police said. The MBVV police have nabbed Hitesh Bhosale for allegedly stabbing Sailesh Phatak (44), a security guard, to death at Sankeshwar Nagar in the early hours of Monday, senior inspector of the Tulinj police station said.

BRIEFSNATIONTRP SCAM

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AURANGABAD: Aye-sha Shaikh, who became the eight croreth beneficiary of the national scheme to pro-vide LPG connections to BPL women and received Ujjwala certificate by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2019, is finding it difficult now to pay for a cooking gas cylin-der in view of the frequent hike in rates.

Like Shaikh, another ben-eficiary Mandabai Pable, who hails from Lohgaon in Aurang-abad district of Maharashtra, is also struggling to buy the cylin-der for cooking gas.

Videos of Shaikh and Pable using firewood for earthen

stoves in their respective kitch-ens are being aired by a Marathi news channel they spoke to.

On September 7, 2019, PM Modi handed then 30-year-old Shaikh an Ujjwala certificate, making her the 'Beneficiary No.

8 crore' of the country-wide scheme to provide LPG con-nections to women from Below Poverty Line (BPL).

"The cost of an LPG cyl-inder has exceeded my room rent now. I pay Rs 600 in rent whereas the price of the cook-ing gas cylinder has crossed Rs 700. What should we do? Should we pay for the gas cyl-inder or take care of the house-hold expenses?" Shaikh asked in anguish while speaking to ABP Maza.

Shaikh, a daily wager and the mother of five, is a resident of Indiranagar in Ajanta village of Aurangabad district.

For Shaikh, the new gas connection had proved to be a boon as it spared her the labour of gathering firewood for her earthen stove. She had also started spending some more time with her children.

However, the frequent hike in the rates of cooking gas seems too much for Shaikh.

On Monday, cooking LPG price was hiked by Rs 25 per cylinder across all catego-ries, including subsidised fuel and those availed by Ujjwala scheme beneficiaries - the fourth increase in rates in a

month's time.LPG prices have gone up

by Rs 125 per 14.2-kg cylin-der since the beginning of Feb-ruary, as per price data from state-owned oil marketing companies.

A 14.2-kg cooking gas cylinder now costs Rs 828 in Aurangabad while the rate of a 19-kg commercial gas cyl-inder is Rs 1,642, a gas agency official said.

"We had received the new gas connection for free. After using the cylinder for a month, we failed to refill it.

After one month, we com-promised on our room rent and somehow managed to buy the gas cylinder," Shaikh said.

She said her room owner

asked her family members to vacate as they failed to pay the monthly rent.

"We then stayed at our sis-ter's place," she added. Unlike Shaikh, Pable was caustic when asked about the rise in the price of cooking gas cylinders.

"Cooking gas cylinder has become dearer. I and my hus-band cannot afford it now. The gas was free only for the namesake. We live in agricul-ture fields and have to ask oth-ers to get the cylinder for us by paying extra money. There is no home delivery here," she said.

The BJP-led Central gov-ernment is facing flak from Opposition over the hike in rates of cooking gas cylinders and fuel.

MUMBAI: After spending over two months in jail in the alleged TRP rigging scam, ex-Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta was given bail on Tuesday by the Bombay High Court which said his detention was not necessary and there was no propriety in keeping him behind bars.

Justice P D Naik granted bail to Dasgupta (55) on a per-sonal bond of Rs 2 lakh and two solvent sureties of the same amount. “The bail plea is allowed. The applicant (Das-gupta) shall be released on bail after furnishing a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh and two sure-ties of the same amount,” the HC said.

The court allowed him to furnish a temporary cash surety of the same amount for a period of six weeks, until which he would have to submit the solvent sureties.

The permission was given after Dasgupta’s counsel AabadPonda told the court that the process of preparing and submitting the solvent sureties will take time.

The court directed Das-gupta to surrender his pass-port to the police station concerned and not leave India without permission of the trial court.

“The applicant shall attend the police station concerned on the first Saturday of each month for a period of six months. After that, he shall appear once in three months,” it said.

The court directed Das-gupta to attend the case trial as and when required and not tamper with evi-dence or witnesses in the case. AGENCIES

'Ujjwala': Eight croreth beneficiary from Maharashtra struggles to buy gas cylinder

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Tuesday expressed dis-pleasure over the Centre for dragging its feet by seeking more time on the issue per-taining to installation of CCTV cameras in the offices of inves-tigating agencies including CBI, ED and NIA.

A bench headed by Justice R F Nariman, which observed that this issue concerns the rights of citizens, said it is not accepting the excuses given in the letter filed by the Centre seeking adjournment in the matter.

We are getting a distinct impression that you are drag-ging your feet, the bench, also comprising Justices B R Gavai and Hrishikesh Roy, told Solici-tor General Tushar Mehta who was representing the Centre.

The apex court had on

December 2 last year directed the Centre to install CCTV cameras and recording equip-ment at the offices of inves-tigating agencies -- the Central Bureau of Investiga-tion, National Investigation Agency, Enforcement Director-ate, Narcotics Control Bureau, Department of Revenue Intel-ligence, Serious Fraud Inves-tigation Office and any other agency which carries out inter-rogations and has the power of arrest.

During the hearing con-ducted through video-confer-encing on Tuesday, Mehta told the bench that adjournment has been sought as the matter may have ramifications.

This concerns the rights of citizens, the bench said, add-ing, We are not accepting the excuses .

We are not concerned about the ramifications, the bench

said.The top court asked Mehta

about the allocation of funds for installation of CCTVs in the offices of these investigat-ing agencies.

Mehta sought some time from the bench to file an affi-davit in the matter.

The apex court granted

three week time to the Centre to file an affidavit on the issue, including on the aspect of allo-cation of funds and the time-line for installation of CCTV cameras.

The bench also examined the report placed before it by senior advocate Siddharth Dave, who is assisting it as

an amicus curiae in the mat-ter, on the timeline of differ-ent states to comply with the court's direction.

In its last year order, the apex court had said that states and Union Territo-ries (UTs) should ensure that CCTV cameras are installed at each and every police sta-tion, at all entry and exit points, main gate, lock-ups, corri-dors, lobby and reception as also areas outside the lock-up rooms so that no part is left uncovered.

The top court had earlier ordered installation of CCTV cameras in police stations to check human rights abuses.

It had said that it had impleaded all the states and UTs in the matter to find out the exact position of CCTV cameras in each police sta-tion as well as constitution of Oversight Committees in

accordance with the April 3, 2018 order.

The apex court, while deal-ing with a matter related to cus-todial torture, had in July last year taken note of a 2017 case in which it had ordered instal-lation of CCTV cameras in all the police stations to check human rights abuses, videog-raphy of crime scene and set-ting up of a Central Oversight Committee and such a panel in every states and UT.

It had said that authori-ties would implement its order both in letter and in spirit as soon as possible.

The bench had said in its December last year order that affidavits be filed within six weeks by principal secretary or cabinet secretary or home secretary of each states and UTs giving a firm action plan with exact timeline for compliance with the order.

MUMBAI: The Mumbai Met-ropolitan Region Develop-ment Authority (MMRDA) has approached the Bombay High Court seeking permission to carry out work pertaining to construction of an integrated car shed for Metro lines 3, 4 and 6 at the disputed site in suburban Kanjurmarg.

On Tuesday, when the Cen-tre's petition in connection with the case came up for hearing before a division bench of Chief Justice DipankarDatta and Jus-tice G S Kulkarni, MMRDA's lawyer SaketMone informed the court about the application filed last month by the project imple-menting authority. The court said it would hear the entire case finally on March 12.

The MMRDA in its applica-tion said without the construc-tion of the car shed, Metro lines

3 (Colaba-Bandra- SEEPZ), 4 (Kasarwadavali-Wadala) and 6 (Lokhandwala-Vikhroli) can-not be commissioned and made available for the use of public. "Apart from problems caused to the public, the delay would also result in financial loss to the MMRDA," it said.

The MMRDA, which is the Metro project implementing authority, sought modification of the December 16, 2020 order passed by the HC restraining authorities from carrying out any construction work per-taining to the car shed at the said land. The high court had granted an interim stay on the October 1, 2020 order passed by the Mumbai suburban dis-trict collector allotting 102 acres of land in Kanjurmarg to the MMRDA for construction of an integrated car shed. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

LUCKNOW: A 50-year-old man was allegedly shot dead in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district by an accused out on bail in a case of molestation lodged in 2018 against the victim’s daugh-ter, police said on Tuesday.

“The incident took place in Nozarpur village of Sasani area in Hathras on Monday after-noon when the daughters of Ambrish Sharma (50) had gone to a temple, where the wife and aunt of accused Gaurav Sharma were present. The women had heated arguments with each other after which both Gaurav and Ambrish also reached there,” Hathras Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal said.

Both Gaurav and Ambrish also had an argument after which the accused called some members of his family and shot Ambrish in a fit of rage, the SP said.

Ambrish was rushed to the hospital where he was declared brought dead, the SP added.

According to an FIR lodged by the victim’s daughter, how-ever, the incident took place in their family potato field.

The Hathras SP said the FIR had been registered against Gaurav Sharma, Lalit Sharma,

Rahitash Sharma, Nikhil Sharma and two others. Out of them, Lalit has been arrested while the main accused Gaurav is absconding.

In the FIR, it was alleged that the girl was there in her family potato field with her

father Ambrish when Gaurav came in a white car with his accomplice and asked Ambrish to take back the case lodged against him.

“Before my father could say anything, he opened fire on him. We rushed him to the

hospital, where he died,” the girl said in the FIR.

The victim had lodged a case of molestation of his daughter two and a half years ago against Gaurav, who was jailed. Gaurav, then, came out on bail after a month and he had animosity with Ambrish since then, the SP added.

Taking note of the incident, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered strict action to be taken against the accused and directed officials to invoke pro-visions of the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against them.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party reacted to the incident with its president Akhilesh Yadav alleging that women in UP have lost hope of justice from the state government.

“After ‘Hathras ki beti’, mur-der of a father who had com-plained of molestation of his daughter has taken place. UP’s women has not lost hope from the government has stopped seeking justice from it,” Akh-ilesh said in a tweet in Hindi.

“Enough of the atrocities on women, this time BJP is out,” he added. Akhilesh also tagged a video of a girl, said to be the victim’s daughter along with his tweet.

ALIGARH (UP): The post-mortem report of the teenage Dalit girl, whose body was found here on Sunday, has not indicated any clear evi-dence of rape and found that she was strangulated to death, a senior official said here.

Five persons have been picked up by the police for questioning in the case, Senior Superinten-dent of Police (SSP) Muni-raj G told mediapersons on Monday night.

The body of the 16-year-old girl was found in a field in Akrabad area here following which villagers clashed with police and indulged in stone pelting.InspectorPranendra

Kumar was injured in the attack.

The postmortem report has not indicated any clear evidence of rape, the SSP said.

He said that in view of the inconclusive evidence the police has decided to conduct further microbiological tests using vaginal swabs.

"The proceedings of the postmortem were video-graphed. There were multi-ple injury marks on the body of the victim who died due to strangulation," the SSP said.

An FIR has been regis-tered under IPC 302 (mur-der), 376 (rape) and POCSO Act. MPOST

AMITAVA BANERJEE

DARJEELING: After Ben-gal, Sikkim issued travel restric-tions from Tuesday owing to the rise in Covid-19 cases in the country with mutant Covid strains.

“Anyone travelling from Maha-rashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Telen-gana and Tamil Nadu will have to furnish a negative RTPCR test report (dated within 72 hour) to enter Sikkim. This will be in force for tourists and local residents alike. The mutant strains are of a very serious concern now. It has a high prevalence and its containment is very difficult,” stated K Sreeniva-sulu, Principal Secretary, Health, Sikkim. A mechanism will be in place at Siliguri, Bagdogra, and Pakyong Airport to strictly check this. Every year 8 lakh domestic and 40,000 foreign tourists visit this region.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BHOPAL/ NEW DELHI: Nand Kumar Singh Chau-han, BJP Lok Sabha member from Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh, died at a Gurugram hospital, family sources said on Tuesday.

The 69-year-old six-term MP had tested coronavirus positive and was airlifted to the hospital in Gurugram last month in a critical condition.

Chauhan, who died late Monday night, is survived by wife, a son and two daughters. The last rites will take place at his ancestral place Shahpur in Burhanpur district.

Starting his political career in 1978 from the Shahpur Municipal Council, Chauhan was elected as member of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly and was an MLA during 1985-96.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 and won again in 1998, 1999, 2004, 2014 and 2019 polls.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his anguish at

Chauhan's demise, and said the former Madhya Pradesh party president will be remembered for his contributions to par-liamentary proceedings and organisational skills.

Other top BJP leaders, including Home Minister Amit Shah and its national president J P Nadda, also expressed their condolences.

"Saddened by the demise of Lok Sabha MP from Khandwa Shri Nandkumar Singh Chau-han Ji. He will be remembered for his contributions to parlia-mentary proceedings, organ-isational skills and efforts to strengthen the BJP across Mad-hya Pradesh. Condolences to his family. Om Shanti," Modi tweeted.

Shah said Chauhan's entire life was dedicated to serving people and Nadda also echoed similar views.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu condoled the death of Chauhan, saying the latter always championed the cause of the farmers, poor and the downtrodden.

NEW DELHI: The presiding officers of both houses of Par-liament have set the ball rolling for the merger of Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV into a sin-gle entity, SANSAD TV, which will soon move to seek requisite government license. According to a circular issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, retired IAS officer Ravi Capoor has been appointed the CEO of the new integrated channel for a period of one year, beginning March 1.

Consequent upon the joint declaration of the Rajya Sabha Chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker to merge RSTV and LSTV into Sansad Television (SANSAD TV), Ravi Capoor has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer, SANSAD TV, on contract basis, for a period of one year with imme-diate effect, the circular reads.

Sources said though the channels are being integrated into single entity, it will func-tion on two platforms during the parliament sessions -- one

to telecast live proceedings of Lok Sabha and the other of Rajya Sabha.

During the inter-session period, the channel will be on one single platform having enriched bilingual contents (Hindi and English), senior officials of the two secretari-ats said. The integration of two channels will lead to sub-stantial savings and improved efficiency with pooling of resources and synchronisation of assets, they said. Sources said it has yet not been decided whether the new channel will come under the ambit of Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha secretariats or will be administered by both.

In November 2019, after deliberations between Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Ven-kaiah Naidu, a commit-tee headed by former Prasar Bharati Chairman Surya Prakash was formed to work out integration of the two chan-nels. AGENCIES

CCTVs in offices of probe agencies: Top court expresses displeasure

LSTV, RSTV merger begins to create SANSAD

TV, CEO appointed

Father of molestation victim shot dead by accused‘Dalit girl strangulated,

no clear evidence of rape’

Sikkim to impose travel restrictions

MP: Khandwa BJP MP Nand Kumar

Singh Chauhan dead

MMRDA seeks HC's nod for Metro car shed work at disputed site HC grants bail to

BARC's ex-CEO Partho Dasgupta

We are getting a distinct impression that you are dragging your feet, says Supreme Court tells Centre

SHAHJAHANPUR (UP): Three minor girls who had gone missing after leav-ing home for their school were traced to a hotel in Uttarakhand’s Rishikesh on Tuesday evening, police said here. Two of the girls aged 15 and one 10, from separate localities in the Sadar area but studying in the same school, had left home on Monday, Assistant Superintendent of Police (City) Praveen Kumar had said.

He said one of them was carrying Rs 2,500 and another had taken Rs 2,700 and clothes with her. A police team sent to Uttarakhand traced them to a hotel room in Rishikesh.

The girls told police that they left home as they wanted to achieve something and make a name for themselves, SP S Anand said, adding that their family members have identi-fied them. The SP said the girls told police that they had first gone to the railway station in Shahjahanpur but as there was no train available at that time, they boarded a bus for Harid-war from where they reached Rishikesh. AGENCIES

UP: Missing minor girls found

in Rishikesh

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chan-del have moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of cases pending against them in Mum-bai to a court in Shimla, alleg-ing there would be threat to their lives if the trial proceeds there because of personal ven-detta of Shiv Sena leaders against them.

The actress and her sis-ter said they apprehend that if trial in these cases are con-ducted in Mumbai, there would be a material threat to their life and property as the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra gov-ernment has been harassing them.

The petitioners face a threat unto life if the trials pro-ceed in Mumbai, because of personal vendetta of Shiv Sena leaders against the petitioner herein, said the plea, filed recently through advocate Neeraj Shekhar.

Kangana moves SC seeking transfer of cases from

Mumbai to Shimla

From Page 1Meanwhile, about 50 lakh

people have registered them-selves on the Co-WIN portal, without any system glitch, since the window opened on Mon-day morning, the Centre said on Tuesday. R S Sharma, the Chairman of the Empowered Group (EG) on COVID-19 Vaccine Administration, said there were no glitches in the system.

What happened was that people were looking for an App on Playstore which appeared similar to Co-WIN and started using that when no mobile app meant for registration is actu-ally present right now, he said.

Citizens can register and book an appointment for vacci-nation, anytime and anywhere, using the Co-WIN 2.0 portal or through other IT applications such as Aarogya Setu, he said.

He said the government is watching the system closely as it has to be “highly scalable”.

“It should be able to take care of a huge amount of load. After all, it is a program with which we will be vaccinating 1/6th of humanity and this pro-gram has to cater to millions of people at the same time,” he said. The number of transac-tions and data transmission will be very large, he said.

“We want data to be secure and free from cyber-attacks. We are taking best security prac-tices. We are only collecting data in the form of name, age and gender as we need to moni-tor the second dose,” he said. He added that state governments are coordinating with hospitals and supplying vaccines to them and “we are encouraging them to involve more and more pri-vate hospitals”.

Centre directs states to...

According to the data for the third quarter of the current finan-cial year released by

the National Statistical Office (NSO) on February 26, 2021, the gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at a rate of 0.4 per cent against the minus 23.9 per cent in the first quar-ter. There was a decline of 7.5 per cent in the second quarter. GDP can be seen to decline at 8 per cent in FY 2021 and GVA by 6.5 per cent, while GDP may grow at 11 per cent and nomi-nal GDP by 15 per cent during FY 2022.

The unusual high dif-ference of 148 bps between annual GDP and GVA in FY 2021 is mainly due to the steep decline in net indirect taxes. The nominal loss in the first half of the current financial year was Rs 13.2 lakh crore, which increased to Rs 2.7 lakh crore in the third quarter and is expected to be around Rs 2.8 lakh crore in the fourth quarter. Significantly, the nominal loss for the entire financial year can be around Rs 7.6 lakh crore.

As expected, the agricul-ture and allied sector grew at a rate of 3.4 per cent in the third quarter of the current finan-cial year against the 3.9 per cent growth in FY 2019-20. The sector is expected to grow at a rate of 3.0 per cent in FY 2021 against the 4.3 per cent FY 2020.

The industry sector also grew positively in the third quarter of FY 2021, while it grew at minus 35.9 per cent in the first quarter. The 2.7 per cent growth in the third quar-ter is due to a growth of 7.3 per cent in electricity, gas, water supply and other utility ser-vices. The construction sec-tor also grew at a rate of 6.2 per cent during this period. However, the growth rate in the mining and quarrying sector is still negative. Due to the mixed performance of the industry subdivisions, the industry sector may grow at the rate of minus 8.2 per cent in FY 2021. It is noteworthy that in FY 2020, the growth in the industry sector was minus 1.2 per cent.

The services sector grew at a rate of 1.0 per cent in the third quarter of FY 2021, com-pared to minus 21.4 per cent in

the first quarter and minus 11.3 per cent in the second quarter. Financial, real estate and busi-ness services grew at 6.6 per cent, mainly due to growth in the services sector in the third quarter.

There has been a growth in GDP in the third quarter of FY 2021 but a negative growth in final consumption which is expected to increase posi-tively in the fourth quarter of FY2021 due to the increased government spending. Private final consumption expenditure is also projected to grow at 3.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of FY2021.

The gross fixed capital for-mation rate turned positive in both real and nominal terms in the third quarter. This is a positive sign for the econ-omy. However, the export and imports have declined in the third quarter and are expected to decrease further in the fourth quarter as well.

The YOY credit incre-mental figure of all scheduled commercial banks (ASCBs) reached 6.6 per cent by Feb-ruary 12, 2021 in the current financial year, as against 6.4 per cent in the same period of last year. The credit growth of ASCB based on YTD was

3.2 per cent till February 12, 2021, which was Rs 3.3 lakh crore in amount. At the same time, incremental credit grew at a rate of 2.8 per cent till Feb-ruary 12 in FY 2020, amount-ing to Rs 2.7 lakh crore, 23 per cent higher than the previous fiscal year.

According to the Reserve Bank of India’s recent quarterly figures for deposits and credit of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs), credit growth on a YOY basis increased to 6.2 per cent in December 2020 from 5.8 per cent in the previ-ous quarter. Nevertheless, it is less than 7.4 per cent of the same period of last year.

In the case of rural, semi-urban, urban, and metropoli-tan cities, there has been less credit growth than last year. The credit of private sector banks stood at 6.7 per cent in December 2020 as against 13.1 per cent in the same period of the previous fiscal year, while the credit growth rate of public sector banks increased to 6.5 per cent from 3.7 in Decem-ber 2019.

According to the sector-wise data released in January 2021, 33 SCB’s incremental credit improved significantly in almost all major sectors

including agriculture, ser-vices, industry and personal loans. Industry and NBFCs are exceptions. Credit flow in mining and quarrying, food processing, textiles, gems and jewellery, petroleum, coal products, nuclear fuel, paper and paper products, leather and leather products, vehicles, vehicle parts and transport equipment etc has increased in January 2021 in comparison to January 2020. However, credit growth has not been much in sectors like rubber, plastics and plastic products, bever-ages, tobacco, chemicals and chemical products, metal and metal products, construction, infrastructure etc.

Corporates’ financial results in the third quarter have also improved from the last year. An analysis of the finan-cial results of over 3,000 listed companies, excluding BFSI and refineries, shows that the top line grew by about 5 per cent, while EBIDTA grew by about 40 per cent. There has been a 60 per cent increase in profit after tax (PAT) in the third quarter of FY 2021 com-pared to the third quarter of FY 2020. The sectors like automo-bile, FMCG, pharma, cement, steel, consumer durables, etc.

have also performed well dur-ing this period.

Interest liability of compa-nies has come down due to a decrease in their debt portfo-lio. Debt and interest liability of companies decreased by 20 per cent in September 2020, com-pared to a decrease of 26 per cent in September 2019 and 37 per cent in March 2020. This has enabled the companies to repay the loans of the banks and manage their finances efficiently.

The third quarter saw 23 per cent more tenders being invited than in the second quarter, while the amount increased by 16 per cent. A total of 12,240 tenders were invited in the third quarter amounting to a total of Rs 2.40 lakh crore. There has been an increase of 58 per cent in the number of tenders invited, while a 17 per cent decline has been recorded in terms of the amount.

An analysis of ratings of various corporates shows that their debt ratio has been improving since August 2020. The ratings of 26 key sectors have improved from Septem-ber 2020 to January 2021 as compared to April 2020 to August 2020. Overall ratings of 899 corporates have been upgraded from September 2020 to January 2021, while ratings of 4,998 corporates have come down. At the same time, the ratings of 462 corporates were upgraded from April 2020 to August 2020, while the ratings of 5,732 corporates declined.

India is one of the major economies in the world which has a positive GDP growth rate in the last quarter of the calen-dar year 2020. It is noteworthy that the GDP growth rate in the last quarter of the calendar year 2020 of most European countries has been negative and their GDP is expected to contract further in the fourth quarter of the current finan-cial year. It can be said that all the figures of the economy are shining, and the Indian economy is coming out of the Corona pandemic.

The writer is the Chief Man-ager in the Department of

Economic Research at the Cor-porate Centre of State Bank

of India, Mumbai. Views expressed are personal

mp editorial 7

DEBORAH FULLER

SATISH SINGH

Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to letter2editor.mp@gmail.com. You can also send your comments to The Editor,

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

millenniumpost.in

WAKE UPDear

Editor

It was heart-wrenching to watch the video that is being circulated on social media which showed the girl named Ayesha committing suicide due to her husband’s cruelty and violence. She didn’t express any reason for her suicide and had not accused anyone. She just said that she wanted to meet God. But the reason for the suicide as per Ayesha’s father Liaqat Ali is the demand for dowry. Ayesha’s story is similar to the stories of many women who are persecuted by their husbands and mothers-in-law. Ayesha’s husband has been arrested in Rajasthan. He allegedly used to complain about dowry and when he did not get anything, he would leave Ayesha with her parents in Ahmedabad. Ayesha often threatened to commit suicide and she ultimately jumped into the river Sabarmati. The viral video shows that she was in love. She loved her husband but he had been cruel to him. This is the story of an Ayesha who has come to light. There are so many Ayeshas in this country who don’t make headlines. They have no choice but to remain silent, they can neither fill the pockets of corrupt officials nor pay the lawyers. Such incidents have become increasingly common in society. Do they have statistics on how many Ayeshas have committed suicide? How many girls are left unmarried because their parents cannot pay the dowry? I don’t think anyone has answers to these questions. On the contrary, I am convinced that our organizations, parties and boards will not even consider these questions in detail. The Muslim Personal Law Board can take women to the streets in support of triple talaq but will take no stringent action to punish dowry-greedy people. In the name of reforming society, our parties spend lakhs of rupees on programmes but these programmes are useless. Practically, nothing happens. The groups of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, the Muslim Personal Law Board, the Emirate of Sharia and other Muslim parties must now wake up. If they don’t wake up now, these suicides will keep continuing. So, I request the Indian Government to take strict action against people who demand dowry.

So you’ve gotten your Coronavirus vaccine, waited two weeks for your immune system

to respond to the shot and are now fully vaccinated. Does this mean you can make your way through the world like the old days without fear of spreading the virus? The science explains the transmission post-vacci-nation – and whether new variants could change this equation.Absolute prevention?

The short answer is no. You can still get infected after you’ve been vaccinated. But your chances of getting seri-ously ill are almost zero.

Many people think vac-cines work as a shield, block-ing a virus from infecting cells altogether. But in most cases, a person who gets vaccinated is protected from disease, not necessarily infection.

Every person’s immune system is a little different, so when a vaccine is 95 per cent effective, that just means 95 per cent of people who receive the vaccine won’t get sick. These people could be completely protected from infection, or they could be getting infected but remain asymptomatic because their immune sys-tem eliminates the virus very quickly. The remaining five per cent of vaccinated people can become infected and get sick but are extremely unlikely to be hospitalized.

Vaccination doesn’t pre-vent you 100 per cent from get-ting infected, but in all cases, it gives your immune system a huge leg up on the Coronavi-rus. Whatever your outcome – whether complete protection from infection or some level of disease – you will be bet-ter off after encountering the

virus than if you hadn’t been vaccinated.Infection = transmission?

Transmission happens when enough viral particles from an infected person get into the body of an uninfected person. In theory, anyone infected with the Coronavirus could potentially transmit it. But a vaccine will reduce the chance of this transmission.

In general, if vaccination doesn’t completely prevent infection, it will significantly reduce the amount of virus coming out of your nose and mouth – a process called shed-ding – and shorten the time that you shed the virus. This is a big deal. A person who sheds less virus is less likely to trans-mit it to someone else.

This seems to be the case with Coronavirus vaccines. In a recent preprint study which

is yet to be peer-reviewed, Israeli researchers tested 2,897 vaccinated people for signs of Coronavirus infection. Most had no detectable virus, but people who were infected had one-quarter the amount of virus in their bodies against unvaccinated people tested at similar times post-infection.

Less Coronavirus virus means less chance of spreading it, and if the amount of virus in your body is low enough, the probability of transmit-ting it may reach almost zero. However, researchers don’t yet know where that cutoff is for the Coronavirus, and since the vaccines don’t provide 100 per cent protection from infection, the Centers for Disease Con-trol and Prevention recom-mends that people continue to wear masks and practice social distancing even after they’ve

been vaccinated.Against new variants

New variants of Corona-virus have emerged in recent months, and studies show that vaccines are less effective against certain ones like the B1351 variant, first identified in South Africa.

Every time SARS-CoV-2 replicates, it gets new muta-tions. In recent months, researchers have found new variants that are more infective – meaning a person needs to breathe in less virus to become infected – and other variants that are more transmissi-ble – meaning they increase the amount of virus a person sheds. According to early data, researchers have also found at least one new variant that seems to be better at evading the immune system.

So how does this relate to

vaccines and transmission?For the South Africa vari-

ant, vaccines still provide greater than 85 per cent pro-tection from getting severely ill with COVID–19. But when you count mild and moder-ate cases, they provide, at best, only about 50-60 per cent pro-tection. That means at least 40 per cent of vaccinated people will still have a strong enough infection – and enough virus in their body – to cause at least moderate disease.

If vaccinated people have more virus in their bodies and it takes less of that virus to infect another person, there will be a higher probability a vaccinated person could trans-mit these new strains of the Coronavirus.

If all goes well, vaccines will very soon reduce the rate of severe disease and death worldwide. To be sure, any vaccine that reduces disease severity is also, at the popula-tion level, reducing the amount of virus being shed overall.

But because of the emer-gence of new variants, vac-cinated people still have the potential to shed and spread the Coronavirus to other peo-ple, vaccinated or otherwise. This means it will likely take much longer for vaccines to reduce transmission and for populations to reach herd immunity than if these new variants had never emerged. Exactly how long that will take is a balance between how effective vaccines are against emerging strains and how transmissible and infectious these new strains are. DTE

The writer is a Professor of Microbiology, School of Medicine, University

of Washington. Views expressed are personal

If vaccinated people have more virus in their bodies and it takes less of that virus to infect another person, there will be a higher probability a vaccinated person could transmit these new strains of the Coronavirus

Vaccines aren’t a shield against the virus but protect us from the disease if not the infection

Necessary precaution

Shining figuresIndia’s synergetic growth sets it apart from other major economies

which continue to reel under the pandemic

India is one of the major economies in the world which has a positive GDP growth rate in the last quarter of the calendar year 2020

EDITORIAL

Failure to launch?

Did Joe Biden overpromise when he vowed to bring journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killers to the light? Making tall claims during the campaign trail is common enough. The reality of being in the office

often clashes with the idealism and wishful thinking that char-acterises many campaign promises. After the release of an explosive report that implicates Saudi Crown Prince Moham-med bin Salman in the 2018 murder of one of his biggest critics, the US announced new sanctions on many of MBS’s support-ers and his retinue. But, once again the Prince has walked away with no punishment or reprimand.

Now, the White House is facing increasing pressure from Democrats to hold MBS responsible as Biden had promised. The White House has defended itself saying that the US does not normally sanction foreign leaders, particularly in the case where the US has diplomatic ties with the country in ques-tion. White House Press Secretary Psaki has said that there is a better way to make sure such an incident doesn’t happen again while also leaving room to cooperate with the Saudis in other areas. “This is what diplomacy looks like”, was her assertion. Yes, this may well be what diplomacy does look like. Most times the unpopular but realistic option wins. But Biden should have known that. Biden is a Washington work-horse so to speak. He has a level of experience around politics and diplomacy that few US presidents in recent history could come even close to matching. Biden should have known bet-ter than to overpromise on something that he would have to walk back if he is pushed to commit.

In the current situation, it is unknown what direction the US actually plans to take Saudi relations. What was the point in releasing the report at this point? Many legal experts say that the case presented by the report release is no stronger or weaker in terms of convicting MBS than it was before dur-ing Trump’s time.

True, if one were to realistically consider the idea of sanc-tioning or punishing the next ruler of Saudi Arabia, it is hard to see how the US would have meaningfully done so. As men-tioned in this column and many others, the US just doesn’t have the clout to punish MBS in any big way and sideline him in the process of succeeding his father the king. If the US were to be serious about any kind of punishment that would stick and actually make a difference for MBS, then it would have to risk much more than a simple reset of the relationship with Saudi Arabia. If the US plans to retain control of the region and keep an eye on Iran, then Saudi Arabia is vital to current US plans. Pushing the nation too hard on sanctioning or censuring their crown prince is only likely to damage relations, making room for interested third parties to come in and occupy the void. China, for instance, would find it a lot less problematic to supply MBS the weapons he needs to continue the war in Yemen, with or without US aid. If the US plans truly bring an end to the war in Yemen, playing nice with Saudi Arabia may just be a necessity at this point.

Where does this leave Biden? Some have suggested that two perceived failures in the region — bringing justice for Khashoggi and restraining the Iran nuclear deal — have dampened the hopes and expectations placed on the Biden administration. This is a bit of a jump. It is too early to call definitive defeat for Biden when it comes to such complex tasks. Was anyone expecting such matters to be resolved in a single month? It is still unknown as to what Biden actually planned as an outcome of the release of the report? Shame the prince and build pressure on him to keep his act straight? Maybe. That said, the release of the report places equal or even greater pressure on the Biden administration to act than it does on MBS and Saudi Arabia.

The GDP has grown at a rate of 0.4 per cent in the third quarter of FY 2021

....ASIM SOHAIL NADWI, ARARIA via email

KAVITA KRISHNAN @Kavita_krishnan

How can I have anything but contempt for a CJI who asks a man who violently, repeatedly raped a minor girl, pushed her to attempt suicide, if he will marry his victim. How can any girl or woman in India be safe with CJIs like Gogoi & Bobde?

tweet OF THE DAY

millenniumpost|KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021

Vaccines don’t provide complete prevention against Coronavirus but are extremely important to boost immunity

KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp world8

WHO: ‘Premature,’ ‘unrealistic’ to think COVID-19 will end soonGENEVA: A senior World Health Organisation official has said it was "premature" and "unrealistic" to think the pandemic might be stopped by the end of the year, but that the recent arrival of effective vaccines could at least help dramatically reduce hospitali-sations and death.

The world's singular focus right now should be to keep transmission of COVID-19 as low as possible, said Dr. Michael Ryan, director of WHO's emergencies pro-gramme, on Monday.

"If we're smart, we can fin-ish with the hospitalizations and the deaths and the tragedy associated with this pandemic" by the end of the year, he said at media briefing.

Ryan said WHO was reas-sured by emerging data that many of the licensed vaccines appear to be helping curb the virus' explosive spread.

"If the vaccines begin to impact not only on death and not only on hospitalization, but have a significant impact on transmission dynamics and transmission risk, then I believe

we will accelerate toward con-trolling this pandemic."

But Ryan warned against complacency, saying that noth-ing was guaranteed in an evolv-ing epidemic.

"Right now the virus is very

much in control," he said.WHO's director-gen-

eral, meanwhile, said it was "regrettable" that younger and healthier adults in some rich countries are being vaccinated against the Coronavirus before

at-risk health workers in devel-oping countries.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebr-eyesus said immunizations provided by the U.N.-backed effort COVAX began this week in Ghana and the Ivory Coast,

but lamented that this was hap-pening only three months after countries such as Britain, the U.S. and Canada began vacci-nating their own populations.

"Countries are not in a race with each other," he said. "This is a common race against the virus. We are not asking coun-tries to put their own people at risk. We are asking all countries to be part of a global effort to suppress the virus everywhere."

But WHO stopped short of criticizing countries who are moving to vaccinate younger and healthier populations instead of donating their doses to countries that haven't yet been able to protect their most vulnerable people.

"We can't tell individual countries what to do," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO adviser.

Tedros also noted that for the first time in seven weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases increased last week, after six consecutive weeks of declining numbers. He described the increase as "dis-appointing," but said it wasn't surprising. AGENCIES

Myanmar police fire tear gas, rubber bullets at protesters

YANGON: Police in Myanmar repeatedly used tear gas and rubber bullets Tuesday against crowds protesting last month's coup, but the demonstrators regrouped after each volley and tried to defend themselves with barricades as standoffs between protesters and security forces intensified.

Myanmar authorities have escalated their crackdown on the protests in recent days, making mass arrests and firing into the crowds. The United Nations said it believed at least 18 people were killed on Sun-day by security forces. Foreign ministers from Southeast Asian countries were meeting Tues-day to discuss the increasingly volatile crisis.

Despite the crackdown, demonstrators have contin-ued to flood the streets and are beginning to more rigor-ously resist attempts to dis-perse them. Hundreds, many wearing construction hel-mets and carrying makeshift shields, gathered in Myanmar's largest city of Yangon, where a day earlier police had fired repeated rounds of tear gas. They dragged bamboo poles and debris to form barricades, chanted slogans and sang songs at the police lines. They even threw banana skins onto the road in front of them in a bid to slow any police rush.

The mainly young demon-strators fled in panic each time tear gas canisters were fired but soon returned to their barri-cades. Videos posted on social media showed similar chaotic scenes in the Insein neighbor-

hood of northern Yangon.Protesters also took up their

flags and banners to march through the streets of Dawei, a small city in southeastern Myanmar that has seen almost daily large demonstrations against the coup.

One group of demon-strators was targeted by the security forces as it entered a narrow street on its way to pay respects at the house of a man killed in Sunday's crack-down. Another was attacked on the main street in the city's center.

Yangon and Dawei were among the cities where secu-rity forces reportedly fired live ammunition into crowds Sunday, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. There were reports that they also fired live rounds Tuesday, but they could not immediately be confirmed.

Some fear the junta's esca-lating use of force is meant to provoke a violent backlash by the demonstrators who have largely remained nonviolent in order to discredit them and justify an even harsher crackdown.

Videos from recent days show a greater number of pro-testers trying to stand their ground and throw objects at the police.

I beg the people in Myan-mar not to fall in this trap, so to stay peaceful, U.N. Special Envoy on Myanmar Chris-tine Schraner Burgener said in interview with CNN, acknowl-edging that it was easier for her, safely away from the violence, to urge peaceful protesting.

She also accused the author-ities of spreading rumors about the conditions of people in detention to stir up even more anger on the streets. AGENCIES

The world's singular focus right now should be to keep transmission of COVID-19 as low as possible, said Dr. Michael Ryan, director of WHO's emergencies programme

COVID-19 pandemic fuels attacks on health workers globally

WASHINGTON DC: Two Nigerian nurses were attacked by the family of a deceased COVID-19 patient. One nurse had her hair ripped out and suffered a fracture. The second was beaten into a coma.

Following the assaults, nurses at Federal Medical Centre in the Southwestern city of Owo stopped treating patients, demanding the hos-pital improve security. Almost two weeks passed before they returned to work with armed guards posted around the clock.

We don't give life. It is God that gives life. We only care or we manage, said Francis Aji-bola, a local leader with the National Association of Nige-

ria Nurses and Midwives.The attack in Nigeria early

last month was just one of many on health workers glob-ally during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new report by the Geneva-based Insecurity Insight and the University of California, Berkeley's Human Rights Center identified more than 1,100 threats or acts of violence against health care workers and facilities last year.

Researchers found that about 400 of those attacks were related to COVID-19, many motivated by fear or frustra-tion, underscoring the dan-gers surrounding health care workers at a time when they are needed most.

Insecurity Insight defines a

health care attack as any phys-ical violence against or intimi-dation of health care workers or settings, and uses online news agencies, humanitarian groups and social media posts to track incidents around the world.

Our jobs in the emergency department and in hospitals have gotten exponentially more stressful and harder, and that's at baseline even when peo-ple are super supportive, said Rohini Haar, an emergency physician in Oakland, Califor-nia, and Human Rights Center research fellow.

To do that work and to do it with commitment while being attacked or with the fear of being attacked is heartbreak-ing to me.

Medical professionals from surgeons to paramedics have long confronted injury or intimidation on the job, especially in conflict zones. Experts say many attacks are rooted in fear or mistrust, as family members react to a rel-ative's death or a community responds to uncertainty around a disease.

The Coronavirus has ampli-fied those tensions.

Ligia Kantun has worked as a nurse for 40 years in Mexico and never felt threatened until last spring. As she was leaving a hospital in Merida in April, she heard someone shout the word Infected! She was drenched in hot coffee before she could turn around. AGENCIES

Energy-related emissions up in Dec despite pandemicPARIS: Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose slightly in December compared with the same month of 2019, indicating the sharp drop seen due to the pandemic was short-lived. Figures released Tues-day by the International Energy Agency show emissions from the production and use of oil, gas and coal were 2 per cent higher in December 2020 than a year earlier. The Paris-based intergovernmental agency said a resurgence in economic activ-ity coupled with a lack of clean energy policies mean many countries are now seeing higher emissions than before the Coro-navirus outbreak.

The rebound in global car-bon emissions toward the end of last year is a stark warning that not enough is being done to accelerate clean energy transi-tions worldwide," said the agen-cy's executive director, Fatih Birol. "If governments don't move quickly with the right

energy policies, this could put at risk the world's historic oppor-tunity to make 2019 the defini-tive peak in global emissions.

Scientists have previously calculated that CO2 emissions fell by 7 per cent during the full year 2020 as people stayed at home because of the pandemic.

Our numbers show we are returning to carbon-intensive business-as-usual, said Birol. "These latest numbers are a sharp reminder of the immense challenge we face in rapidly transforming the global energy system. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas respon-sible for global warming. Sci-entists say that in order to meet the Paris climate accord's goal of keeping average temperatures from rising by 2 degrees Celsius ideally no more than 1.5C com-pared to pre-industrial times, man-made emissions of CO2 and other planet-heating gases need to reduced to near zero by mid-century. AGENCIES

Pfizer, Oxford vaccines reduce severe COVID-19 in elderly, finds study

LONDON: The Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines for COVID-19 are highly effective in reducing severe Coronavirus infection among people aged 70 years and above, according to a study.

The research, posted as a pre-print and yet to be peer-reviewed, estimated the effect of both the COVID-19 vac-cines on laboratory confirmed symptomatic disease in indi-viduals aged 70 years or older in England.

The researchers, including those from Public Health Eng-land (PHE), compared the rate of hospitalisation and deaths in confirmed COVID-19 patients

aged over 80 who were vacci-nated more than 14 days before testing positive, with unvacci-nated cases.

Data suggests that in the over 80s, a single dose of either vaccine is more than 80 per cent effective at preventing hospitali-sation, around 3 to 4 weeks after the jab, PHE said in a statement.

Evidence for the Pfizer vac-cine suggests that it leads to 83 per cent reduction in deaths from COVID-19, it said.

The data also shows symp-tomatic infections in over 70s decreased from around three weeks after one dose of both vaccines.

"Vaccination with either a

single dose of Pfizer or Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vac-cination was associated with a significant reduction in symp-tomatic SARS-CoV2 positive cases in older adults with even greater protection against severe disease," said the authors of the study, adding both the vaccines show similar effects.

They said the protection was maintained for the duration of over six weeks of follow-up, and there is a clear effect of both the vaccines against the UK variant of concern.

Experts say the new analysis adds to growing evidence that the vaccines are working, and are highly effective in protect-

ing people against severe illness, hospitalisation and death.

"This adds to growing evi-dence showing that the vaccines are working to reduce infections and save lives," Mary Ramsay, PHE Head of Immunisation, said in the statement.

"While there remains much more data to follow, this is encouraging and we are increas-ingly confident that vaccines are making a real difference," Ramsay said.

However, she cautioned that the protection is not complete and it is not known yet how much these vaccines will reduce the risk of someone passing the Coronavirus onto others. AGENCIES

Biden administration ‘undecided’ on ending Trump-era H-1B visa ban

WASHINGTON DC: The Biden administration has indi-cated that it is still undecided on ending the Trump-era ban on issuing new H-1B visas, with the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayor-kas asserting that the US gov-ernment's top priority is the acute needs of individuals flee-ing persecution.

The H-1B visa, the most sought after among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immi-grant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupa-tions that require theoretical or technical expertise.

Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

In January, then-President Donald Trump had extended the ban on issuing new H-1B visas till March 31, arguing that

the country is having a very high unemployment rate and the US cannot afford to have more foreign workers.

"His successor President Joe Biden has revoked dozens of the executive orders of Trump including several of those related to immigration like the lifting the Muslim visa ban or those related to Green Card, the one that imposed ban on issuing H-1B has still not been lifted. It will expire on March 31, if Biden does not issue a

fresh proclamation."What is the status of the

review of the Trump era visa bans for H1B visas and has the White House decided to lift those bans before they expire at the end of the month?" Mayor-kas was asked at a White House news conference on Monday.

"I don't really (know)- I hate to end the questioning on a question. The answer to which I am not certain. But this goes to what preceded us. We have so much work to do to repair and to restore and to rebuild that we have a prioritisation matrix and of course, the acute needs of individuals fleeing persecution is a high priority. Which brings me to this meeting this morn-ing," Mayorkas said in response.

At the same time, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has gone ahead with its H-1B application allocation process for the fiscal year begin-ning October 1, 2021. AGENCIES

Brazil health officials urge lockdowns

SAO PAULO: Brazilian health officials are urging nationwide lockdowns and curfews because hospitals are running short of intensive-care unit beds as COVID-19 claims more than 1,000 lives each day in the coun-try. The return of the pandemic in several states is making their private and their public assis-tance networks collapse and has brought imminent risk of spreading it to all regions of Bra-zil, Brazil's National Council of Health Secretaries said Monday in an open letter, adding that the nation is experiencing its worst moment since the pan-demic began.

Last week was Brazil's dead-liest of the pandemic, with 8,244 deaths from the virus. AGENCIES

279 kidnapped schoolgirls

are freed, says Nigerian governorGUSAU (Nigeria): Hun-dreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted last week from a boarding school in the north-western Zamfara state have been released, the state's gov-ernor said Tuesday.

Zamfara state governor Bello Matawalle announced that 279 girls have been freed.

Gunmen abducted the girls from the Government Girls Junior Secondary School in Jangebe town on Friday, in the latest in a series of mass kid-nappings of students in the West African nation.

An Associated Press reporter saw hundreds of girls dressed in light blue hijabs and barefoot sitting at the state Government House office in Gusau.

After the meeting, the girls were escorted outside by offi-cials and taken away in vans. They appeared calm and ranged in ages from 10 and up.

Alhamdulillah! (God be praised!) It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students of GGSS Jangebe from captivity. This follows the scaling of sev-eral hurdles laid against our efforts. I enjoin all well-mean-ing Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe, Matawalle said in a post on Twitter early Tuesday.

At the time of the attack, one resident told AP that the gunmen also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from responding to the mass abduc-tion at the school.

Police and the military had since been carrying out joint operations to rescue the girls, whose abduction caused inter-national outrage.

Nigeria has seen several such attacks and kidnappings in recent years. AGENCIES

Chinese vaccines sweep much of the world, despite concernsTAIPEI (Taiwan): The plane laden with vaccines had just rolled to a stop at Santiago's air-port in late January, and Chile's president, Sebasti n Pi era, was beaming. Today, he said, is a day of joy, emotion and hope.

The source of that hope: China a country that Chile and dozens of other nations are depending on to help res-cue them from the COVID-19 pandemic.

China's vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vac-cines to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press. With just four of China's many vaccine makers claim-ing they are able to produce at least 2.6 billion doses this year, a large part of the world's pop-ulation will end up inoculated not with the fancy Western vac-cines boasting headline-grab-bing efficacy rates, but with China's humble, traditionally

made shots.Amid a dearth of public

data on China's vaccines, hesi-tations over their efficacy and safety are still pervasive in the countries depending on them, along with concerns about what China might want in return for deliveries.

Nonetheless, inoculations with Chinese vaccines already have begun in more than 25 countries, and the Chinese shots have been delivered to another 11, according to the AP tally, based on independent report-ing in those countries along with government and company announcements. It's a poten-tial face-saving coup for China, which has been determined to transform itself from an object of mistrust over its initial mis-handling of the COVID-19 out-break to a saviour. Like India and Russia, China is trying to build goodwill, and has pledged roughly 10 times more vaccines abroad than it has distributed at home. AGENCIES

Seniors wait for their COVID-19 vaccinations as Quebec begins mass vaccinations based on age across the province, in Montreal PTI

An anti-coup protester uses a sling-shot and against advancing riot policemen in Mandalay, Myanmar, Tuesday PTI

VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS

Mount Sinabung spews volcanic material during an eruption in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday. The 2,600-metre (8,530-feet) volcano is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin PTI

Germany plans to extend Coronavirus lockdown to March 28: Reports

BERLIN: Germany's national government and states are set to extend the COVID-19 lock-down by three weeks, to March 28, according to media reports on Tuesday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of Germany's states will hold discussions on Wednesday. However, it's been fairly common in recent months for parts of their plans to be floated in the press ahead of time, DW reported.

Merkel and the state pre-

miers are working on a draft agreement to allow shops to reopen in areas where the num-ber of Coronavirus infections is considered reasonably low.

Coronavirus cases would have to fall to a seven-day aver-age of 35 per 100,000 people.

Some outlets, such as flo-rists, book and gardening shops would be able to re-open even if rates are higher. A relaxation on the number of people allowed to gather from different house-holds may also be on the cards

from March 8. The German government is also expected to appeal to citizens to avoid domestic and foreign travel over the Easter period. Hair-dressers in Germany reopened for business on Monday, along with hardware stores and flower shops in certain states. Elemen-tary school pupils returned to their classrooms across much of Germany last week, after a deci-sion last month to extend most, but not all, lockdown measures until March 7. AGENCIES

mp business � 9

GST OFFICERS ARREST ONE FOR RS 39 CR INPUT TAX CREDIT FRAUDNEW DELHI: GST officers have arrested a person for creating a fake firm and fraudulently passing on input tax credit (ITC) worth Rs 38.91 crore, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday. Investigation revealed that the multilayered network was being operated by one Nihaluddin who has confessed to having created a fake firm in his own name and also arranging ITC from 38 other fictitious firms on commission basis to pass on fake ITC to multiple beneficiaries.

FLIPKART PLANS TO EXPAND GROCERY SERVICES TO 70 CITIES IN 6 MONTHSNEW DELHI: Flipkart on Tuesday said it plans to expand its grocery services to more than 70 cities in the next six months as the Walmart-owned company looks to cash in on the burgeoning e-grocery segment in the country. Flipkart, which competes with US e-commerce major Amazon and billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance in the country's digital commerce space, has expanded its grocery services to more than 50 cities, including Kolkata, and Ahmedabad.

JAIPRAKASH POWER VENTURES PLANS TO SELL 74PC STAKE IN JPL TO PGCILNEW DELHI: Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd (JPVL) on Tuesday said its board has approved disinvestment of 74 per cent stake in Jaypee Powergrid to PGCIL. Jaypee Powergrid Ltd (JPL) is a joint venture of Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) and JPVL. "Board of Directors of the company, in its 131st Meeting held on 2nd March, 2021 has approved disinvestment of 74 per cent shareholding in Jaypee Powergrid," a BSE filing said. The company said the stake sale is expect-ed to be complete by March 31, 2021. The amount of consideration shall be informed on execution of Share Purchase Agreement, it stated.

BRIEFSBUSINESS

millenniumpost|KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: After recording positive growth for two months in a row, India's exports dipped marginally by 0.25 per cent to $27.67 billion in February and trade deficit widened to $12.88 billion, according to prelimi-nary data released by the gov-ernment on Tuesday.

Imports grew 6.98 per cent to $40.55 billion during the month, the data showed.

The trade deficit stood at $10.16 billion in February 2020.

Exports during April-Feb-ruary 2020-21 were $255.92 billion, compared with $291.87 billion during the same period of last year, exhibiting a nega-tive growth of 12.32 per cent.

Imports during April-Feb-ruary this fiscal also dipped 23 per cent to $340.88 billion.

In February, oil imports declined 16.63 per cent to $$8.99 billion. It was down by 40.18 per cent to $72.08 billion during 11 months period of the current fiscal.

Major commodities of export that have recorded pos-itive growth during February include oil meals, iron ore, rice, meat, dairy and poultry prod-ucts, carpet, spices, pharma-ceuticals, and chemicals.

The sectors that recorded negative export growth in Feb-ruary include petroleum prod-ucts (-27.13 per cent), leather (-21.62 per cent), cashew (-18.6 per cent), gems and jewellery

(-11.18 per cent), engineer-ing goods (-2.56 per cent), tea (-2.49 per cent), and coffee (-0.73 per cent), it added.

Key import goods that reg-istered healthy growth include gold, dyeing/tanning/colouring materials, chemicals, electronic goods, iron and steel, and tex-tile yarn fabric, made-up arti-cles. Sectors that recorded negative import growth include silver, newsprint, fertiliser, coal, leather, transport equipment, petroleum, pulses, machine tools, cotton raw and waste, pearls, and precious and semi-precious stones.

Gold imports in February jumped to about $3 billion.

Growing for the second consecutive month, the coun-try's exports rose 6.16 per cent

year-on-year to $27.45 billion in January 2021.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Presi-dent S K Saraf said they con-tinue to see signs of further revival not only in the order booking positions but also in the demand from across the globe, paving way for much better days and months for the sector.

However, he said rising exports from China have led to the shortage of containers in the region, as most of the empty containers are available only for exports from China. The shipping lines and con-tainer companies are being paid hefty premiums for bring-ing empty containers back to China.

Exports dip 0.25% to $27.67 bn in FebImports grow 6.98% to $40.55 billion; trade deficit widens to $12.88 billion

MUMBAI: Benchmark BSE Sensex spurted by 447 points to close above the psychologi-cal 50,000-mark on Tuesday following hectic buying in auto and IT counters amid positive domestic and global cues.

The 30-share index swung nearly 633 points during the session before ending at 50,296.89, showing a rise of 447.05 points or 0.90 per cent.

Likewise, the NSE Nifty climbed 157.55 points or 1.07 per cent to settle at 14,919.10, extending gains to a second day.

Among Sensex stocks, Mahindra & Mahindra was lead gainer rising by 4.98 per cent. NTPC rose by 3.83 per cent, Bajaj Auto by 3.53 per cent, and Tech Mahindra by 3.44 per cent. TCS, Maruti, Infosys, HCL Tech, Nestle and Bharti Airtel were among the gainers.

On the other hand, ONGC, HDFC, Dr Reddy's, PowerGrid

and SBI suffered losses.Of the Sensex constituents,

25 shares ended with gains.Sectorally, BSE auto surged

the most with 3.18 per cent gains, followed by IT (2.85 per cent), teck (2.84 per cent) and industrials (2.20 per cent). All the 19 sectoral indices closed in the green.

Broader smallcap, midcap

and largecap indices too ral-lied 1.60 per cent, 1.55 per cent and 1.11 per cent, respectively - outperforming the benchmark.

Analysts said investor sen-timent remained upbeat due to encouraging GDP numbers for the third quarter as well as returning of calmness in global bond markets after the last week's turmoil. MPOST

Sensex rises for second day, reclaims 50,000-levelIntra-day on March 2, 2021

KBK graphicsInfo

Intra-day on March 2, 2021

9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4 9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4

Previous close:

14,761.55

High:

14,959.10

Previous close:

49,849.84

Close:

14,919.10157.55

(1.07%)

Close:

50,296.89

Low:

14,760.80

Open:

14,865.30

Open:

50,258.09

NSE NIFTY BSE SENSEX

447.05

(0.90%)

High:

50,439.82

Low:

49,807.12

Rupee rises 18 paise to 73.37; ends three-day losing streakMUMBAI: The rupee rose by 18 paise to close at 73.37 against the US dol-lar on Tuesday, ending its three-day losing streak on the back of gains in domestic equities amid improving risk appetite.Dollar demand eased after a pullback in crude oil and bond yields which sup-ported the rupee senti-ment, analysts said. At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened at 73.32 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 73.31 and a low of 73.48. It finally ended at 73.37 against the American currency, registering a rise of 18 paise over its previous closing. MPOST

KBK graphicsInfo(Inverted scale)

Rupee Dollarvs

23 24 25 26 1 2

February 2021 March

` per

US $

`$`$

73.47

-104p

73.55

-8p

73.37

+18p

72.46

+3p

72.35

+11p 72.43

-8p

MUMBAI: Only private invest-ment is “missing in action” at a time when all engines of aggre-gate demand are starting to fire to boost economic growth, according to a Reserve Bank article.

Observing that there is lit-tle doubt today that a recovery based on a revival of consump-tion is underway, the RBI in the recent article said, “the jury leans towards such recoveries being shallow and short-lived”.

The key to whet the appe-tite for investment, it said, is to rekindle the animal spirits, a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative bene-fits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

“All engines of aggregate demand are starting to fire; only private investment is missing in action. The time is appo-site for private investment to come alive,” said the article pre-pared by RBI Deputy Gover-nor Michael Debabrata Patra and other officials. The arti-cle published in the RBI Bulle-tin- February 2021 further said “the time is apposite” for private investment to come alive.

Fiscal policy, with the largest capital expenditure (capex) bud-get ever and emphasis on doing business better, has offered to crowd it in. “Will Indian indus-try and entrepreneurship pick up the gauntlet?,” it said.

The Indian economy is esti-mated to contract by 8 per cent during the current financial

year on account of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economy is expected to stage a V-shape recovery in the next fiscal and record double-digit growth.

An another article ‘’Sectoral Deployment of Bank Credit in India: Recent Developments’’ published in the Bulletin said that the muted credit offtake in the recent past needs to be seen in the context of economic slow-down coupled with the COVID-19-induced lockdown.

The RBI said the views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Reserve Bank of India.

Bank credit growth, which had already started decelerating in 2019-20, experienced a fur-

ther setback in 2020-21 in the wake of the pandemic.

However, with the grad-ual resumption of economic activity, credit to agriculture and services sectors has reg-istered accelerated growth in the recent period, it said. Even in the industrial sector, credit growth to medium industries has accelerated, indicative of positive impact of several mea-sures taken by the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

“However, contraction in credit to large industries and infrastructure remains a cause of concern,” it said.

The Reserve Bank has taken several measures to facilitate credit flow to various sectors of the economy, especially to

the MSME and NBFC sectors.Credit offtake is expected

to pick up as the economy is poised to stage a smart recov-ery in 2021-22 on the back of decline in coronavirus infec-tions and swift roll-out of the vaccination programme. This is in addition to a number of mea-sures announced by the gov-ernment in the Union Budget 2021-22 to accelerate the growth momentum, the article said.

As per the article, the recent decline in credit growth was mainly due to large industries.

“Owing to the stressed assets in large industries, there was a general reluctance on the part of bankers to lend to these indus-tries, with the problem getting compounded by the pandemic,” it said. PTI

Private investment missing in action: RBI article

MUMBAI: The share of cesses and surcharges in the gross tax revenue of the Centre has nearly doubled to 19.9 per cent in 2020-21 from 10.4 per cent in 2011-12, leading to the 15th Finance Commission to rec-ommend a higher grant-in-aid and lower tax devolution to the states, according to a report.

Under the existing Finance Commission (FC) framework, the cesses and surcharges col-lected by the Centre are not part of the tax devolution. And, the massive spike in the same has forced the FC to sug-gest higher grant-in-aid to the states to compensate for the low growth in tax devolution which is pegged at 41 per cent during the operation of the 15th FC award, India Ratings said on

Tuesday in the report.The key reason for higher

growth in grants-in-aid and lower growth in tax devolu-tion to the states is the increase in the proportion of the cen-tral cess and surcharges as they are not part of the tax devolu-tion to the states, said the agen-cy's Principal Economist Sunil Kumar Sinha.

As a result, the transfer from the Centre to the states includ-ing non-finance commission transfers declined to 48.6 per cent in 2019-20 from 53.4 per cent in 2011-12, he said.

The the Centre is yet to accept the proposals on grants to the states totalling Rs 1.8 lakh crore, said the report.

According to the latest FC award, the share in central taxes

has declined for eight states. Andhra Pradesh saw a decrease of 35 basis points (bps) to 4.05 per cent, Assam by 24 bps to 3.13, Karnataka by 118 bps to 3.64 per cent, and Kerala by 60 bps to 1.93 per cent, it added.

Odisha saw a decline of 22 bps to 4.53 per cent, Tamil Nadu by just 2 bps to 4.08 per cent, Telangana by a sharp 40 bps to 2.10 per cent, and Uttar Pradesh by 27 bps to 17.94 per cent.

This makes Karnataka the biggest loser with of a loss of 118 bps, followed by Kerala losing 60 bps of the share and Telangana by losing 40 bps, the report said.

The biggest gainer was Maharashtra with an increase of 64 bps to 6.32 per cent share in central taxes, followed by Rajasthan 38 bps to 6.03 per

cent, Arunachal Pradesh 33 bps to 1.76 per cent, and Gujarat gaining 31 bps to 3.48 per cent share, it added.

The report has recom-mended a whopping 92.3 per cent rise in grants-in-aid to the states during award period of FY22-FY26 over gthe 14th FC report. But, the increase in tax devolution is only 7 per cent, or an overall 17.2 per cent growth in transfers to the states.

Accordingly, the top-five states in central tax share and grants-in-aid are Uttar Pradesh at 16.3 per cent, Bihar (9.1 per cent), Bengal (7.7 per cent), MP (7.3 per cent) and Maharashtra (6.4 per cent).

On the revenue deficit grants to the states, the report has recommended allocating 1.92

per cent of the gross revenue receipts of the Union worth Rs 2,94,514 crore as revenue defi-cit grants to 17 states till 2025-26. These states are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Pun-jab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Bengal.

The latest FC report comes against the background of the coronavirus pandemic, which has ravaged the finances of the Union and the states. Thus, it lays down a realistic fiscal con-solidation path offering three scenarios for fiscal deficit at the Union level and a range for aggregate state fiscal def-icits over its award period of

FY22-FY26, instead of the ear-lier practice of putting a num-ber to fiscal consolidation, the agency added.

Despite this, the fiscal arith-metic of the states will alter sig-nificantly in 2022-23 with the ending of the GST compensa-tion and the FC report is not clear whether this particular aspect has been considered while projecting the range for aggregate state fiscal deficits for FY22-26, Sinha said.

The report suggests the share of the states in the divisible pool of central taxes at 41 per cent during the award period, down from 42 per cent in the 14th FC award period of FY16-20. The reduction is due to the conver-sion of Jammu and Kashmir into a Union territory. MPOST

Cess, surcharge share doubles to 19.9% of central taxes in FY21: Report

NEW DELHI: The Maritime India Vision-2030, a 10-year blueprint with the aim of overhauling the Indian mar-itime sector, envisages Rs 3 lakh crore investment in port projects that in turn promises to generate employment for 20 lakh persons.

"Maritime India Vision 2030 would involve an invest-ment of over Rs 3 lakh crore, which would generate more than 20 lakh jobs and unlock annual revenue potential for major ports worth over Rs 20,000 crore," accord-ing to the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways' document.

As per the document, Rs 1-1.25 lakh crore invest-

ments are planned in aug-menting the infrastructure of major ports, which would help in creating 7-10 lakh jobs.

It envisages developing mega capacity ports in high potential areas of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Odisha-West Bengal Cluster at an investment of over Rs 80,000 crore.

The government plans to increase the transshipment volumes of Indian cargo at Indian ports from 25 per cent in 2020 to more than 75 per cent by 2030 by operationali-sation of Vizhinjam port and development of Transship-ment zone in Kanyakumari and Champbell Bay. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India will invest $82 billion in port projects by 2035, raise share of clean renew-able energy source in maritime sector, develop waterways, aug-ment seaplane services and boost tourism around light-houses, Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi said on Tuesday urging global players to make India a "preferred investment destination".

As many as 400 projects with investment potential to the tune of $31 billion are ready for inves-tors, who can be a part of India's growth trajectory, Modi said inaugurating the Maritime India Summit. "More than 574 proj-ects at a cost of $82 billion or Rs 6 lakh crore have been identified under the Sagarmala project for implementation during 2030 and 2035... We will encourage private investment in the port

sector... India's long coastline awaits you. India's hardwork-ing people await you.

"Invest in our ports. Invest in our people. Let India be your preferred trade destination. Let Indian ports be your port of call for trade and commerce," the Prime Minister said as he invited players to invest in Indian ports, shipyards and waterways.

The Ministry of Ports, Ship-ping and Waterways is ready with a list of 400 investable proj-ects with investment potential of $31 billion or Rs 2.25 lakh crore, Modi said adding, this

will further strengthen India's commitment of overall devel-opment of its maritime sector.

"Through this Maritime India summit, I want to invite the world to come to India and be a part of our growth trajec-tory. India is emerging as a lead-ing blue economy of the world. Our leading focus area includes upgrading current infrastruc-ture, creating next generation infra, boosting the reform jour-ney. Through these steps we aim to give vision to our Aatmanirb-har Bharat," he said.

Modi further noted that "ours is a government that is investing in waterways in a way that was never seen before. Domestic waterways are found to be cost effective and environ-ment friendly ways of transport-ing freight. We aim to operate 23 waterways by 2030."

He said this will be done through infrastructure enhance-

ment, fairway development, navigation aid and river infor-mation system provisions and focus will also be given on augmenting regional connec-tivity to Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar. New Maritime Infra will usher in ease of liv-ing through launch of roll-on, roll-off and other projects for harnessing rivers.

"Waterdromes at 16 loca-tions are being developed to enable seaplane operations... River cruise terminal infra and jetty are being developed on five national waterways. We aim to develop domestic and inter-national cruise terminals by 2023," the Prime Minister said. Asserting that the government is working towards holistic mari-time development that is not in silos, he said plans have been drawn for developing tourism on land adjacent to 78 out of 189 lighthouses on Indian coastline.

$82 billion being invested in Indian ports: PM ModiInvites international companies to be part of India’s growth Maritime Vision 2030 envisages

Rs 3 lakh crore investment in port projests and 20 lakh jobs

NEW DELHI: The offer for sale (OFS) for up to 16 per cent government stake at a floor price of Rs 88 per share in rail-way PSU IRCON will open on Wednesday.

The base issue size of the OFS is 10 per cent or over 4.70 crore equity shares, with a green-shoe option to retain over-subscription of 6 per cent or over 2.82 crore shares.

The total issue size, includ-ing green-shoe option, comes to 16 per cent or over 7.52 crore shares.

The government holds 89.18 per cent stake in IRCON, which is under the Railways Ministry and into construction of trans-portation infrastructure.

Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey on Tuesday tweeted: "Offer for Sale in IRCON opens tomorrow for Non Retail Inves-tors. Day 2 for Retail Investors. Govt. would divest 10% equity with an additional 6% as Green Shoe option".

In a regulatory filing to

stock exchanges, IRCON said the floor price for the offer shall be Rs 88 per equity share.

At the floor price, a 16 per cent stake would fetch over Rs 600 crore to the exchequer.

Shares of IRCON closed at Rs 97.85, up 1.87 per cent over the previous close on the BSE. The floor price of Rs 88 is at a 10 per cent discount over Monday's closing market price of IRCON. The government has set a dis-investment target of Rs 32,000 crore in the Revised Estimates for the current fiscal. PTI

Centre to sell up to 16% stake in IRCON, issue opens Wednesday

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment will hold a workshop on Wednesday seeking to ease the compliance process for obtain-ing quality certificates from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

The workshop on 'Easing Compliance for Certifications' is being organised on March 3 jointly by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, along with the Department of Consumer Affairs and Bureau of Indian Standards, an official statement said.

Piyush Goyal, Union Min-ister for Consumer Affairs & Food and Public Distribu-tion, Railways and Commerce and Industry will address the workshop.

"With an aim to promote Ease of Doing Business, the government is going to facili-tate simplification of the pro-cess of compliances that are required to be completed for obtaining certification at BIS," it added.

This workshop will facilitate closer interaction between var-ious sectors of industry and the apex national standards body.

The workshop, which is being held at BIS headquarters, will focus on various aspects of standards formulations, con-formity assessment processes and requirements of testing.

"Workshop will also focus on making Indian Stan-dards attain global standards in all spheres so as to ensure that 'Make in India' mission achieves its objectives," the statement said. MPOST

Centre looks to ease compliance process for BIS certifications

BEIRUT: The Lebanese pound hit a record low against the dol-lar on the black market on Tues-day as the country's political crisis deepens with no pros-pects of new Cabinet in the near future and foreign cur-rency reserves dwindle further.

The dollar was trading at 9,975 Lebanese pounds around noon Tuesday. The previous record was registered in July, when the dollar briefly sold for 9,900 pounds on the black mar-ket. The official price remains 1,520 pounds to the dollar. Leb-

anon has been hammered by one crisis after another, start-ing with the outbreak of anti-government protests against the country's corrupt political class in October 2019. That has been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and a massive, deadly blast in Beirut's port last August.

In neighbouring Syria where the economy has been hit by the 10-year conflict, corruption and Western sanctions the dol-lar also hit a record on Monday, reaching nearly 3,900 Syrian pounds. PTI

Lebanon currency hits record low as country's crises worsen

NEW DELHI: New and Renew-able Energy Minister R K Singh on Tuesday advised industry stakeholders to enhance the use of clean energy and reduce their energy cost to become more competitive. Singh chaired a session with top management of energy intensive industrial units through video conference, a statement issued by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) said.

BEE, under the Ministry of Power, assists in developing pol-icies and strategies with the pri-mary objective of reducing the energy intensity of the Indian economy.

India stands at the forefront of addressing global challenge of climate change and has com-mitted to an ambitious Nation-ally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of reducing emission intensity by 33-35 per cent in 2030 against the levels of year 2005, Singh said. PTI

Enhance green energy usage, says RK Singh

PFC EXTENDS FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Power Finance Corporation Ltd (PFC), the leading NBFC in the power sector, has extended its financial support for the construction of stilt plus two-storied School building at Dr K B Hegdewar School premises, in Bambolim, Goa as part of its CSR activities. Goa Chief Minister Pramod P. Sawant with PFC CMD Ravinder Singh Dhillon and other dignitaries during inauguration of extension building

mp business10SPECTRUM AUCTION

KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost

NEW DELHI: India's fuel con-sumption is likely to rise nearly 10 per cent in the fiscal year beginning April 1, as a reflating economy drives petrol and die-sel demand, according to Oil Ministry's projections.

Petroleum product con-sumption in 2021-22 could hit 215.24 million tonnes, com-pared to the revised estimate of 195.94 million tonnes con-sumption of the current fiscal year ending March 31, the min-istry's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) said.

This will be the fastest pace of fuel product consumption in six years.

As the economy rebounds from its worst contraction on record and industrial activ-ity picks up, fuel consumption is projected to rise. An over two-month-long lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic had shrunk demand to less than half as most vehicles went off roads, trains stopped plying and airlines halted operations.

The reopening of the econ-omy has brought demand back but diesel - the most consumed fuel in the country - is yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.

This, industry officials say, is mostly because of not all

public transport coming back on roads and trains operating at a lower capacity.

Two successive quarters of shrinking GDP saw fuel con-sumption drop by 13.5 per cent during April-January period of the current fiscal year.

PPAC projected a 13.3 per cent rise in petrol and diesel sales while jet fuel (ATF) con-sumption is seen rising 74 per cent. Cooking gas LPG demand is seen expanding 4.8 per cent to 29 million tonnes.

Petrol sales are expected to climb to 31.3 million tonnes in 2021-22 while diesel sales would grow to 83.67 million tonnes.

Naphtha sales at 15.25 mil-lion tonnes will be an improve-ment over 14.9 million tonnes consumption in the current fiscal year. Consumption of bitumen, used in road con-struction, is seen rising to 7.1 million tonnes in the next fiscal year from 6.4 million tonnes. PTI

MUMBAI: Forty Indians entered the billionaires' club in the pandemic-stricken 2020 to take the number of those in the coveted list to 177 people, a report said on Tuesday.

Mukesh Ambani continued to be the wealthiest Indian with a networth of $83 billion. The head of Reliance Industries wit-nessed a 24 per cent jump in for-tunes and climbed up one spot to be the eighth richest glob-ally, as per the Hurun Global Rich List.

Gautam Adani from Guja-rat, who has had a spectacular rise in fortunes in the last few years, saw his wealth almost doubling to $32 billion in 2020 and climbed 20 places to be the 48th richest person globally and the second wealthiest Indian. His brother Vinod's wealth grew 128 per cent to $9.8 billion.

The report compiles indi-vidual or family wealth in the year to January 15. It can be noted that the Indian econ-omy is set to contract by over 7 per cent because of the impact of the pandemic, which had forced governments to go for

lockdowns that had a debili-tating impact on the poor. The report comes at a time when concerns are being raised about a 'K-shaped' recovery being underway, where a select few prosper.

Hurun India's Managing Director and Chief Researcher Anas Rahman Junaid said Indian wealth creation is domi-nated by cyclical or traditional industries compared to tech-driven wealth creation in the US and China.

"When the tech-driven wealth creation reaches full potential, India could poten-tially beat USA in terms of the

number of billionaires," he added. IT company HCL's Shiv Nadar was the third wealthiest Indian with a fortune of $27 bil-lion while some peers in the tech industry dominated the list of fastest growing wealth.

Jay Chaudhry of software company Zcaler saw a 274 per cent rise in networth to $13 billion during the year while Byju Raveendran and family saw a 100 per cent increase in its wealth to $2.8 billion, the report said. Diversified corpo-rate house Mahindra Group's head Anand Mahindra and family also saw a 100 per cent increase in wealth to $2.4 bil-

lion, it said.Among those who saw a

decline in their networth during the year was Acharya Balkrishna of Patanjali Ayurved at USD3.6 billion, down 32 per cent.

The financial capital contin-ues to lead in the country from a concentration perspective, being home to 60 of the 177 Indian billionaires, followed by New Delhi at 40 and Bengaluru at 22 billionaires, it said.

From a gender perspective, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Bio-con leads with a networth of $4.8 billion (up 41 per cent), Smita V Crishna of Godrej at $4.7 billion and Lupin's Manju Gupta at $3.3 billion.

A majority of 118 billion-aires were classified as self-made ones in the ranking, as against 932 of the 1,058 billionaires in neighbouring China, which is home to the highest number of billionaires. Globally, the list is led by Elon Musk of Tesla with a fortune of $197 billion followed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos at $189 billion and Frenchman Bernard Arnault of fashion house LVMH at $114 billion. PTI

India adds 40 billionaires in pandemic year; Adani, Ambani see rise in wealth

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday held that amounts paid by resident Indian end-users or distributors to non-resident foreign manufacturers as consideration for the use of the computer software is not taxable as 'Royalty'.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman, Hemant Gupta and B R Gavai said the amount paid is not the payment of royalty for the use of copyright in the computer software and does not give rise to any income tax-able in India.

"The amounts paid by resi-dent Indian end-users/distrib-utors to non-resident computer software manufacturers/sup-pliers, as consideration for the resale/use of the computer soft-ware through End-user license agreements/distribution agree-ments, is not the payment of royalty for the use of copyright in the computer software, and that the same does not give rise to any income taxable in India ," the bench said adding that the persons were not liable to

deduct any TDS.The apex court, while hear-

ing a bunch of appeals, dis-missed the appeal filed by the Income Tax Department and allowed the appeals filed by assesses.

In one of the cases, Engi-neering Analysis Centre of Excellence Pvt. Ltd, a resident Indian end-user of shrink-wrapped computer software, directly imported from the United States of America.

The Assessing Officer found that what was in fact transferred in the transaction between the parties was copy-right which attracted the pay-ment of royalty and thus, it was required that tax be deducted at source by the Indian importer and end-user, EAC and it was held liable to pay the amount of Rs 1,03,54,784.

The High Court of Kar-nataka had held that resident Indian importers were liable for deduction of tax at source which was set aside by the apex court. MPOST

Payments by resident Indian end-users to foreign software cos not taxable as royalty: SC

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka announced on Tuesday that it has approved a proposal to develop the strategic Colombo Port's Western Container Ter-minal (WCT) under a joint ven-ture with India and Japan, weeks after it scrapped a trilateral deal with both countries to develop another terminal at the same port. "Cabinet approval has been granted on 01-02-21 to develop the West Container Terminal of Colombo South Port as a pri-vate public limited company in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority and par-ties nominated by Indian and Japanese government," said a Cabinet memorandum.

It said the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) proposal approved by a negotiating com-mittee had been forwarded to both the Indian High Commis-sion and the Japanese embassy here. The Cabinet memoran-dum said that the proposal presented by Adani Ports and APSEZ Consortium has been approved by the Indian High Commission. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India’s first auc-tion of telecom spectrum in five years ended on Tuesday with Rs 77,814.80 crore of air-waves being acquired, mostly by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio which picked up spectrum for Rs 57,122.65 crore.

About 2,308.80 MHz of spectrum, that carry telecom signals in seven bands worth nearly Rs 4 lakh crore at the reserve price, was up for bid-ding in the auction.

Although the spectrum finally acquired by telcos fell woefully short of this overall kitty and was acquired only at the reserve price, the Telecom Department said it is satisfied with the outcome as the num-bers had exceeded internal esti-mates despite the pandemic and stress in the telecom industry.

Of the total proceeds, the government would get Rs 19,000-20,000 crore in the current financial year and Rs 6,000-7,000 crore would accrue in the next fiscal as the auc-tion offers bidders the option of upfront and deferred pay-ment (in annual installments).

Jio cornered more than half of the telecom spectrum that was finally auctioned by the government over the past two days, offering about Rs 57,123 crore to consolidate its holding of the scarce resource that are used to carry mobile call and data signals.

Jio bagged 488.35 MHz spectrum in bands such as 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2300 MHz.

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel bid about Rs 18,699 crore to pick up 355.45 megahertz (MHz) out of the total 855.60 MHz of radio frequency acquired by telcos, giving it “most formi-dable” spectrum holding in the country.

Vodafone Idea Ltd, which is facing a huge liability of unpaid statutory dues of past, bought 11.80 Mhz of spectrum worth Rs 1,993.40 crore.

However, airwaves in the premium 700 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands went unsold.

Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash said 855.60 MHz of spectrum was bought for Rs 77,814.80 crore in the two-day auction.

Airwaves come in different bands which support different propagation characteristics for transmission of voice and data. For instance, lower bands like 800 MHz and 900 MHz support a good indoor coverage while higher bands like 2300 MHz have a good carrying capacity.

The airwaves are also sold in quantities measured as MHz. The auctions allows companies to use Government owned air-waves for carrying signals for data and voice, for a particular period of time.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd said it acquired the right to use spectrum in all the 22 circles or zones across India. In all it won 488.35 MHz of spectrum, taking up its spectrum footprint by 55 per cent to 1,717 MHz.

Jio raced to become the leading telecom operator in the country within four years of launching services in 2016 offering free voice calls and data at dirt cheap prices, and its sub-scriber base stood at 408.7 mil-lion subscribers as on December 2020.

Bharti Airtel said it won spectrum across Sub GHz, mid-band and 2300 MHz bands, giving it a secured pan-India footprint will help improve its deep indoor and in building coverage in every urban town.

Moreover, the spectrum will also help improve its coverage in villages, an Airtel statement noted.

Airtel pointed out that despite a large amount of spec-trum made available, the 700 MHz band did not get any bid from the operators as it made “no economic case” for them due to the high reserve prices.

Breifing reporters, the tele-com secretary said that quality of service and customer expe-rience is expected to improve with deployment of additional spectrum acquired in networks of telecom service providers.

While the first day of auction fetched bids of Rs 77,146 crore, over Rs 668 crore of incremental bids came in on Tuesday.

Excluding spectrum in 700 MHz and 2500 MHz bands, this is about 60 per cent of the spec-trum that was put to auction. In the 2016 spectrum auction, where there were seven bidders, the spectrum sold was 41 per cent by quantity and 12 per cent

by value of the total spectrum put to auction. The correspond-ing figures in the 2021 spectrum auction were 37 per cent and 19 per cent respectively, with just three players.

The bands of 2300 MHz and 800 MHz saw maximum interest from bidders. In the 800 MHz band, the quantity acquired by telcos is 65 per cent of the total 230 MHz that was on the block; in the 2300 MHz band, over 89 per cent of radiowaves offered were eventually acquired.

Players will also have to pay Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) at the rate of 3 per cent of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR), excluding revenue from wire-line services.

The outcome of the auction will be scrutinised by an Inter Ministerial panel and will there-after be approved by Commu-nications Minister and Finance Minister; the entire exercise is expected to be completed in the next 10 days or so.

For spectrum that was auc-tioned and is available imme-diately, payments from players will come in before the end of the current fiscal. A portion of spectrum will also be made available during the year.

On the future course for 700 MHz band, Prakash said considering the fact that no bid has come “it is something we will see”.

“There is a possibility that with 5G technology coming, and the fact that in 700 MHz 5G ecosystem is also developing...there is every possibility that in next auction, the 700 MHz band will also be used,” Prakash said.

NEW DELHI: Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Cor-poration Ltd (BPCL) may use Rs 9,876 crore proceed from stake sale in Numaligarh Refin-ery to pay a special dividend to shareholders, the biggest being Government of India, BPCL director (finance) N Vijayago-pal said on Tuesday.

The Board of BPCL on Monday approved the sale of the company's 61.65 per cent stake in Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) to a consortium of state-owned Oil India, con-sultancy firm Engineers India Ltd (EIL) and Government of Assam for Rs 9,875.96 crore.

The offer by the OIL-led consortium was "above the reserve price we had set for the stake sale," he told reporters.

BPCL will seek approval of the shareholders at a meeting on March 25 and plans to sign the sale pact within two days of that and conclude the transac-tion before month-end, he said.

The proceeds from the stake sale will be used to buy out Oman Oil's stake in Bina refin-ery, pay capital gains tax and pay a dividend to sharehold-ers, he said. "Definitely a por-tion (of the proceeds) will go to the shareholders as dividend as we have a healthy tradition of rewarding shareholders." PTI

Centre nets ̀ 77,815 crore; Jio top buyer with ̀ 57,122 crore

Airtel buys radiowaves worth Rs 18,699 cr; VIL says spectrum acquired in 5 circles

India’s fuel demand to rebound with 10%

growth in 2021-22

Highlights » In all, some 60 per cent of the spectrum of-fered was sold

» The government offered 2,308.80 MHz of spectrum in seven bands, at a reserve price of nearly Rs 4 lakh crore

» Airwaves in the premium 700 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands went unsold

» Telecom giant Bharti Airtel bid Rs 18,699 crore to pick up 355.45 megahertz (MHz) out of the 855.60 MHz of radiofrequency

» Vodafone Idea Ltd, which is facing a huge liability of unpaid statutory dues of past, bought spectrum worth Rs 1,993.40 crore

MUMBAI: After jumping to an 11-month high at 7.19 per cent at the last auctions, states' cost of market borrowing moderated on Tuesday at the latest round of state development loan auc-tions wherein 13 states raised Rs 23,378 crore at an average price of 6.92 per cent.

With 13 states collectively raising Rs 23,378 crore at the latest auction, 28 states and two Union territories have cumula-tively raised Rs 7.14 lakh crore from the market so far this fiscal. The latter amount is 31 per cent more than the year-ago period when it stood Rs 5.45 lakh crore. The states have so far raised 87 per cent of the scheduled mar-ket borrowings, according to Care Ratings.

Significantly, the yields on the bonds moderated from a near record high last week to 6.92 per cent, down 27 basis points. The weighted average cost of borrowings across states

and tenures stood at 6.92 per cent, which is cheaper by 27 bps compared to 7.19 per cent on February 23, the agency said.

However, the yields for lon-ger tenure securities (10-year bonds) continues to be elevated, having risen in tandem with the GSec yields in recent weeks. Low demand for government securi-ties (issued by both the Centre and states) amid the surge in supply of these securities have been pushing up the yields.

Despite the prevalence of surplus liquidity in the bank-ing system and OMOs (Open Market Operations), bond yields have been high, indicative of the low investor appetite for these

securities, as per Care Ratings.The weighted average yields

of the 10-year state bonds across states stood at 7.18 per cent, nearly stable at week ago levels (7.19 per cent) and continued to be at levels seen last in mid-April 2020.

The spread between the 10-year state bonds and GSecs declined marginally by 1 bp from week ago levels of 113 bps.

Meanwhile, there has been a notable year-on-year increase in the market borrowings of large states like MP (112 per cent), Rajasthan (57 per cent), Maha-rashtra (54 per cent), Karnataka (43 per cent), Tamil Nadu (37 per cent), Telangana (36 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (28 per cent).

Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, UP, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra have been the top six borrowers accounting for 53 per cent of the total borrowings so far. MPOST

After soaring last week, states' debt cost falls below 7%

Numaligarh stake sale: BPCL may use ̀ 9,876 cr to pay shareholders

M Venkata Rao joined as MD & CEO of Central Bank of IndiaMUMBAI: Matam Venkata Rao has taken over charge as Managing Director & CEO of Central Bank of India with effect from 1st March, 2021. Prior to joining the current assign-ment, Rao was Executive Director, Canara Bank for more than three years where he played a pivotal role in the Bank’s progress and in amal-gamation of Syndicate Bank with Canara BankMr. Matam Venkata Rao is a Post Graduate in Agriculture from Sri Venkateshwara Agriculture College, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. He is a Cer-tified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers. A seasoned banker with varied experience, Rao joined Allahabad Bank as Agricultural Field Of-ficer in 1988 and worked in various capacities in different geographical areas of the country. MPOST

HYDERABAD: NMDC, the country's largest Iron Ore pro-ducer, has witnessed a spectac-ular growth during the month of February 2021 both in pro-duction and sales performance over the CPLY.

Iron ore production for the month of February 2021 stands at 3.86 MT as against the 3.24 MT of ore mined in the corre-sponding month in February 2020, and registered a growth of 19 per cent over the same.

Sales during the period of February 2021 increased by 12 per cent at 3.25 MT as against the 2.91 MT done in the month of February 2020. The Bailadila Projects at Chhattisgarh has produced 3.15 MT in February 2021 as compared to last year’s production of 2.93 MT in the month of February, and regis-tered a growth of 8 per cent in production.

The total sales of iron ore from Bailadila projects in the month of February 2021 is 2.62 MT against 2.42 MT in Febru-ary 2020, which is 8 per cent higher than the previous year.

Speaking about the produc-tion and sales numbers of Feb-ruary 2021, Sumit Deb, CMD, NMDC, commented, “These production and sales figures definitely display NMDC’s strong character to bounce back in spite of operational challenges. This achievement

is possible only due to the hard-work and commitment dem-onstrated by the employees. We foresee a gradual rise in num-bers and will continue to set new records.”

NMDC has recently restarted the operations at Donimalai mines. The mines have a capacity to produce a minimum of 0.5 MT of iron ore per month and the overall performance of the company will be further enhanced with the resumption of operations in Donimalai. MPOST

NMDC achieves best-ever output, sales in FebruaryProduction and sales rise by 19% and 12% over CPLY, respectively

NMDC has recently restarted the operations at Donimalai mines. The mines have a capacity to produce a minimum of 0.5 MT of iron ore per month

MUMBAI: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das expressed optimism about the overall COVID-19 situation following the rollout of the vaccines and complimented all the SAARC central banks for their efforts in combating the pandemic, the central bank said in a state-ment on Tuesday.

Das made these remarks in his opening speech at the 41st Meeting of the SAARCFI-NANCE Governors' Group in virtual format on Monday. Das chaired the meeting.

Das led the discussions on progress made under the SAARCFINANCE initia-tives, achieved with the all-round cooperation of the SAARC central banks and launched the maiden issue of the annual SAARCFINANCE e-Newsletter.

While the Governors agreed that the pandemic had an adverse impact on their economies, they recognized the importance of leveraging technology to spur growth, the RBI said.

The meeting was attended by the Governors from other SAARC central banks Ajmal Ahmadi, Da Afghanistan Bank; Fazle Kabir, Bangladesh Bank; Dasho Penjore, Royal Monetary Authority of Bhu-tan; Ali Hashim, Maldives Monetary Authority; Maha Prasad Adhikari, Nepal Ras-tra Bank; Reza Baqir, State Bank of Pakistan; and W D Lakshman, Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

With the RBI's tenure com-ing to a close, Governor Das handed over the SAARCFI-NANCE Chair (effective from April 01, 2021) to the Gov-ernor, Maldives Monetary Authority and assured him of the Reserve Bank's continued commitment to the SAARC-FINANCE initiative.

SAARCFINANCE is a net-work of central bank governors and finance secretaries of the SAARC region. The Reserve Bank of India is the present chair of the SAARCFINANCE from October 2019 to March 2021. MPOST

RBI Guv expresses optimism about Coronavirus situation

following roll-out of vaccines

Sri Lanka okays proposal to develop Colombo WCT with

India and Japan

mp sports 11millenniumpost|KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021

Federer out of Miami Open; will train to ‘work his way back’

MIAMI: Roger Federer is with-drawing from this month's Miami Open so he can spend extra time preparing to work his way back out on tour, his agent told The Associated Press.

The 20-time Grand Slam champion has not competed in more than a year after hav-ing two operations on his right knee during last season.

Federer, who turns 40 in August, is scheduled to make his return to the tour next week in a hard-court tournament at Doha, Qatar. He posted a photo of himself on Twitter last Friday with the caption: The count-down to Doha begins.

That will be his first event since he reached the semifinals at the Australian Open in Feb-ruary 2020.

As of now, he also is slated to participate in the hard-court tournament at Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that begins March 14.

Federer also had been on the entry list for the Masters 1000 stop in Miami, where play

starts on March 24.But his agent, Tony God-

sick, wrote Monday in an email to the AP that Federer will not play there.

After Doha and maybe Dubai, (Federer) will go back

and do a training block to con-tinue to slowly work his way back out on tour, Godsick wrote.

Miami Open tournament director James Blake said he hopes Federer will return in

2021 to an event he has won four times, including two years ago.

We certainly would have loved Roger to return to Miami to defend his title.

However, as a former

player, I understand that you need to tailor your travel and playing schedule to properly work your way back to 100 per-cent fitness when coming off an injury, Blake said. Roger is an incredible ambassador for the sport, so the longer he is able to play on tour, the better it is for all of tennis.

Federer beat John Isner 6-1, 6-4 in the 2019 final to win the Miami Open the last time it was held. The tournament was one of dozens that were called off last year when the profes-sional tennis tours went on hia-tus for several months because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Federer also won trophies at the hard-court event in 2005, 2006 and 2017.

He is currently No. 5 in the ATP rankings. He has spent 310 weeks total at No. 1, an ATP record tied by Novak Djokovic on Monday.

Federer's 103 tour-level titles are the second-most in the professional era of men's tennis, trailing only Jimmy Connors, who won 109. AGENCIES

ICC ‘Player of the Month’: Ashwin, Root, Mayers in contention among men

DUBAI: Seasoned India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin along with England captain Joe Root and West Indies' new batting sensation Kyle Mayers were on Tuesday nominated for the ICC 'Player of the Month' for their exceptional perfor-mances in February.

Ashwin played three Tests against England and scored 106 in the second innings of India's second Test victory at Chennai and took his 400th Test wicket in the third Test vic-tory at Ahmedabad.

"Scoring a total of 176 runs across these games with taking a total of 24 wickets, Ashwin is the deserving candidate to be nominated in the men's cat-egory for February," the ICC release stated.

"England Test captain Joe

Root makes it to the list of nominations again this month for his outstanding perfor-mance with the bat and the ball. He scored a total of 333 runs and took 6 wickets over-all in the 3 Tests that he played against India," it further stated.

Root started the series with a superb 218 in the opening Test.

From the West Indies, Test debutant Mayers played two matches against Bangladesh and had a match-winning knock of 210 to help his team successfully chase a target of 395 at Chittagong.

In the women's sec-tion, Tammy Beaumont and Nat Sciver of England along with Brooke Halliday of New Zealand have been nominated. AGENCIES

Liverpool great Ian St. John dies at 82LIVERPOOL: Ian St. John, the former Liverpool forward who scored the winning goal to seal the club's first FA Cup title and was a key player in its rebuild under Bill Shankly in the 1960s, has died. He was 82.

St. John died on Monday following illness, Liverpool said on Tuesday.

A Scotland international who later fronted the popu-lar British TV show Saint and Greavsie alongside another former player, Jimmy Greaves, St. John played 425 games for Liverpool from 1961-71 and scored 118 goals.

No goal was bigger than the one he scored in extra time to clinch a 2-1 win for Liverpool over Leeds in the 1965 FA Cup final.

St. John joined for a club-record fee from Scottish team

Motherwell while Liverpool was in the second division and, alongside Ron Yeats, was part of the spine of a team which earned promotion then won the English league title in 1964

and '66. Liverpool described St. John as a legend and described his FA Cup final winner against Leeds as one of the most iconic goals in Liverpool's history." AGENCIES

Mandhana slips 2 places to 6th among batters; Goswami at 5th among bowlers

ODI RANKINGS

DUBAI: Indian opener Smriti Mandhana slipped two places to sixth among batters but Jhu-lan Goswami retained her fifth spot among bowlers in the lat-est ICC women's ODI Players' rankings issued on Tuesday.

Another veteran Mith-ali Raji -- with 687 points -- remained at 9th to be the second Indian batswoman in the top 10. Mandhana has 732 points.

England opener Tammy Beaumont has rocketed five places to grab the top position after an excellent display in the three-match series against New Zealand which her team won 2-1.

Beaumont has overtaken the likes of West Indian Sta-fanie Taylor and New Zea-land's Amy Satterthwaite to top the list and now leads Aus-tralia captain Meg Lanning by 16 points. Besides Gos-wami (691), Poonam Yadav (679), Shikha Pandey (675) and Deepti Sharma (639) are the other Indian bowlers in the top-10. AGENCIES

Hat-trick of defeats: Indian

women lose 0-2 to GermanyDUSSELDORF: The Indian women's hockey team's defence resisted well but formidable Germany walked away with a 2-0 win in the third game, tak-ing an unassailable 3-0 lead in the four-match series, here.

Sonja Zimmermann (26') and Franzisca Hauke (42') scored the goals for Germany, who won their third consecu-tive match on Monday.

The hosts were unable to create any early momentum and had a penalty corner saved in the first quarter. While Ger-many pushed forward to break the deadlock, the Indian back-line stood firm yet again.

Germany were awarded a penalty corner early into the second quarter but still couldn't find a way past India's defence. AGENCIES

Manika, Sreeja advance into final round of singles

qualifiers at WTT ContenderDOHA: Star paddler Manika Batra and young Sreeja Akula moved to the final round of the women's singles qualifiers at the WTT Contender after win-ing their respective matches, here on Tuesday.

The world number 150 from Hyderabad, Sreeja pre-vailed over world number 74 Vega Paulina of Chile before she sent packing Thailand's 87th-ranked Orawan Paranang packing 11-5 11-5 11-6 in the third round.

She will now take on Rus-sia's Mariia Tailakova in the final round. Tailakova entered the last round with a 14-12, 11-8, 11-8 win over India's Archana Kamath.

Living up to her reputation, Commonwealth Games gold medallist Manika got the bet-

ter of Romania's Irina Ciobanu 11-7, 15-13, 11-8 comfortably in the third round of women's singles qualifiers and will face Ganna Gaponova of Ukraine in the last round.

Earlier in the final round matches of mixed doubles qualifiers, Indian pair of Sathi-yan Gnanasekaran and Sutirtha Mukherjee grabbed a spot in the main draw after a 11-5, 11-7, 11-5 straight-set victory against Puerto Rico's Daniel Gonzalez and Melanie Diaz.

However, the country's other mixed doubles pair of Achanta Sharath Kamal and Batra failed to take advan-tage of an early game lead and lost out to Russia's Alexander Shibaev and Polina Mikhailova by a 11-9, 11-13, 11-13, 3-11 scoreline. AGENCIES

World Cup qualifying revised

in Asia again amid pandemic

KUALA LUMPUR: Australia's World Cup qualifying match against Nepal on March 30 has been postponed, leaving only three games to be played in Asia this month as organizers con-sider central locations to finish the second round by mid-June.

The Asian Football Confed-eration announced last month that all but four of the region's remaining second-round quali-fiers for the 2022 World Cup had been postponed to May and June.

With AFC's latest revision on Tuesday, it's now down to three. Mongolia is set to play Tajikistan on March 25 in Group F before traveling to Tokyo to play Japan on March 30. Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host Palestine in Group D, also on March 30. The race is now on to finish the round before the June 15 deadline. Most coun-tries have played five of their scheduled eight group games.

The AFC said it has opened the invitation to member asso-ciations to host their respective groups in a centralized format.

No second-round qualify-ing matches have been played since November 2019, with mul-tiple postponements caused by travel restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Football Australia chief executive James Johnson said his organization wanted to play a constructive role in the resumption of inter-national football in Asia" and would negotiate with Group B rivals Nepal, Jordan, Kuwait and Taiwan on nominating a central venue. Australia leads the group after four wins from four matches, two points ahead of Kuwait and Jordan.

The South Korean soccer association last month said it was interested in hosting the remaining matches in Group H and was planning to submit an application to the AFC by March 5. AGENCIES

Mary Kom, Amit Panghal among 12 in quarters of Spanish boxing tourney as draws unveiled

NEW DELHI: Six-time world champion M C Mary Kom and Asian Games gold-med-allist Amit Panghal are among 12 Indian boxers who stand just a win away from securing medals at the Boxam Interna-tional Tournament in Castellon, Spain after finding themselves in quarterfinals when draws for the event were unveiled.

The tournament features all of India's nine Tokyo Olym-pics-bound boxers along with five others.

Mary Kom (51kg), compet-ing for the first time since quali-fying for the Olympics last year, will take on Italian Giordana Sorrentino in her opening bout on Wednesday.

Panghal (52kg), who won a gold medal at the Cologne World Cup in Germany in

December last year, will be facing local favourite Gabriel Escobar in his quarterfinal clash after getting an opening-round bye.

Vikas Krishan (69kg), another strong medal con-

tender for Tokyo, is also in the quarters after getting a bye and will take on Vincenzo Mangia-capre of Italy.

Also through to quarters due to the relatively small size of the draw were Asian silver-medallist Ashish Kumar (75kg), and Sumit Sangwan (81kg), who is returning to competi-tion after enduring a period of turmoil due to a doping suspen-sion that was later lifted after he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Of the two, Ashish is bound for Tokyo along with Satish Kumar (+91kg), the first super heavyweight from the coun-try to qualify for the quadren-nial showpiece. Satish is also in quarters at this tournament.

Joining them in the last-eight stage is Sanjeet (91kg), a promising name coming up

who found spotlight with his India Open gold in 2019.

Among the women, Jasmine and Manisha, in the 57kg cat-egory, are also through to the quarters after getting byes.

The Olympic-bound trio of Simranjit Kaur (60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and Pooja Rani (75kg) will also be com-peting in the quarterfinal stage on Wednesday.

Manish Kaushik (63kg), assured of a Tokyo spot and making a comeback after an injury layoff, did not get a bye and will fight Spaniard Abdel-laoui Raddouane for a place in the quarters on Tuesday.

Also in action would be Mohammed Hussamuddin (57kg), who will be up against another local hope in Joan Manuel Torres. AGENCIES

Pitch will be similar to last two Tests, we never complain of

damp wickets abroad: RahaneAHMEDABAD: India's Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rah-ane on Tuesday said there is no need to take criticism of the spin-friendly pitches in the country "seriously" as not a word is spoken about the "damp" tracks elsewhere and England can expect another turner in the fourth Test.

There has been a lot of talk about the spinning tracks in the second Test at Chepauk and the pink ball game at Motera which ended inside two days. The fourth and final Test starts on March 4.

"I think the wicket will be similar to the second Test match in Chennai, spinning track. Yes, pink ball made the difference and it came much quicker off the wicket com-pared to red ball and we had to make adjustments," Rahane said during a virtual media conference here.

"Wicket will be a lot simi-lar to last two test matches," he added.

Rahane, for the first time in many years, shed his reticence when asked to respond to the criticism from former England players that the pitches have not been ideal. Some have even urged the ICC to act against

India for preparing a turner."See, let people speak what

they want to. The wickets, when we tour abroad, no one speaks about how seaming they are. They always speak about the technique of the Indian bats-men, I don't feel we need to take seriously what people say," Rahane was sharp in his response.

"...You see, when we tour abroad, the first day wicket is damp. When wicket becomes grassy and behaves up and down, then the pitch becomes dangerous but we haven't com-plained about it or we have never spoken about it."

On spinning tracks, it's imperative to play the line, Rahane said. AGENCIES

Roger Federer, who turns 40 in August, is scheduled to make his return to the tour next week in a hard-court tournament at Doha, Qatar

Sania Mirza returns to WTA circuit with winDOHA: Sania Mirza made a winning return to the WTA circuit as she and her Slove-nian partner Andreja Klepac beat Ukrainians Nadiia Kiche-nok and Lyudmyla Kichenok to reach the doubles quarterfinals of the Qatar Total Open here.

The Indo-Slovenian pair won 6-4 6-7(5) 10-5 against the duo of Kichenok and Kichenok in the opening round of the WTA 500 tournament Monday night. It was Sania's first match in 12 months and incidentally it was at the Doha Open where she played last in February 2020 before pandemic halted the tennis competitions across the world. Sania herself had recov-ered from COVID-19 in Janu-ary this year. It was Nadiia with whom Sania had paired when she returned to competitive ten-nis after maternity leave and won the Hobart Open in January last year. AGENCIES

Notice Inviting Quotation No. 04 of 2020-21 of EE/TD/PWD, Purba Medinipure invites Quotation for the “Temporary shed for Kitchen, Dining room and Bathing place for providing infrastructure and logistic support by CAPF & SPF for 2021 Assembly Election under Purba Medinipur District.” Quotation Submission End Date is 09.03.2021 at 12:00 Noon. For details visit the website- http://wbtenders.gov.in

Sd/- Executive Engineer, PWD, Tamluk Division

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWB HIDCO

NOTICE INVITING TENDERN.I.T No.55 of G.M. (Elect) of 2020-21

Sealed Single Part tenders on Percentage basis are invited for the work of “Comprehensive and Non-comprehensive AMC for A.C. system, Fire-fighting at Hidco Bhaban, Utility Building, Finance Centre, PA system, CCTV, 500 KVA Deutz DG, 320 KVA DG set of Nazrul Tirtha, Hidco Bhaban, etc.” from the agencies having ability in execution for similar nature of work. Last date of receiving application 08-03-2021 upto 3.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com www.wbhidcoltd.com

Government of West Bengal Office of the District Magistrate & District Election

Officer Darjeeling Abridged E-Tender Notice

1) E-NIT.01/PB/NIeQ/ELECTION/WBLA-20-21 DATE 02.03.2021 2) For all the above mentioned e-NIQ the last date of submission of bid online is 09.03.2021 upto 12.00 HRS.. For details log in at www.darjling.gov.in & www.wbtenders.gov.in

For District Election Officer & District Magistrate, Darjeeling

millenniumpost NO H ALF TR U THS

millenniumpost.in

CHANGE OF NAMEI, Sri Sudip Ghosh (Ex Serviceman No. 1483684F EX NK DTMN FD) S/o Late Nirmal Ghosh R/o Vill - Sainpala, P.O. & P.S. - Basirhat, Dist.- North 24 Parganas, Pin - 743411, W.B. do hereby declare that my (Service Documents) PPO NO. - S/039658/2011 (Army) My son name has recorded Sayan Ghosh Shall henceforth be known as Suman Ghosh, S/o Sudip Ghosh and Sayan Ghosh, S/o- Sudip Ghosh is the one and the same Identical Person vide affidavit sworn before the 1st class Judicial Magistrate Basirhat Court No. 22-2-21.

3447(2)/DICO/S 24 pgs Dt. 2.3.2021

3451(2)/DICO/S 24 pgs Dt. 2.3.2021

3448(2)/DICO/S 24 pgs Dt. 2.3.2021

3450(2)/DICO/S 24 pgs Dt. 2.3.2021

3449(2)/DICO/S 24 pgs Dt. 2.3.2021

3452(2)/DICO/S 24 pgs Dt. 2.3.20213453(2)/DICO/S 24 pgs Dt. 2.3.2021

mp entertainment12

Rubina

KOLKATA|WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost

LOS ANGELES: ‘Grammy’ winner Taylor Swift lashed out at the streaming giant ‘Netflix’ after the series ‘Ginny and Georgia’ took a tasteless jibe at the pop singer’s dating history.

The singer shared a screenshot of the dia-logue that read, “What do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift” on ‘Twitter’.

“Hey ‘Ginny and Georgia’, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back. How about we stop degrading hardworking women by defining this useless work as funny,” Swift wrote in the caption.

The 31-year-old singer-songwriter, whose documentary ‘Miss Americana’ premiered on the streamer in 2020, directly addressed ‘Netf-lix’ for its apparent hypocrisy.

“Also ‘Netflix’, after ‘Miss Americana’, this outfit does not look cute on you. Happy Wom-

en’s History month I guess,” she added.Swift is known for sharing her dat-

ing life moments with her songs that often present an insight into her

relationships.She had been dating British

actor Joe Alwyn for over four years. PTI

Bollywood actor Bobby Deol, who was earlier approached to play Kulb-

hushan Kharbanda’s role in the remake of Mahesh Bhatt’s directed film ‘Arth’, confirmed the news that he is ‘in talks but have not signed it as yet’.

To be directed by actor-direc-tor Revathi, the film is likely to go on the floor this year. The film is being produced by Ajay Kapoor and Sharat Chandra.

However, the makers have yet to finalise the leading ladies for the film. According to some sources, there were reports that Swara Bhasker and Jacqueline Fernandez will play as the two leading ladies, but it is yet to be confirmed. Taapsee Pannu was also approached by the produc-ers to play Shabana Azmi’s role,

which she refused due to her work commitments.

Revathi had played Sha-bana Azmi’s role in the Tamil remake of the film ‘Marupadi-yum’. She said that when she was approached to direct the remake she was not sure if she could do it. However, she agreed to direct it after speaking to director Mahesh Bhatt. AGENCIES

The teaser of Kartik Aaryan-starrer ‘Dhamaka’ came out, in which the Bollywood actor

will be seen playing the role of a ‘frus-trated ex-anchor’. ‘Dhamaka’ will release on ‘Netflix’.

The short teaser shows the actor in a newsroom, who seems to be nervous beyond help about a story he has to present. Soon he screams, tells the cameras to shut down and violently vomits on the table, but finally regains his composure enough to go back to work with confi-

dence. Amruta Subhash of ‘Gully Boy’ fame plays his boss, who encourages him to continue his job.

As a news anchor, Kartik is report-ing an incident of a bomb-blast in

real-time.The film also stars Mrunal Thakur,

Vikas Kumar and Vishwajeet Pradhan in pivotal roles. It is directed by Ram Madhvani and produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s production house ‘RSVP Movies’ and ‘Ram Madhvani Films’ in association with ‘Lotte Culture-works’, ‘Globalgate Entertainment’ and ‘Lionsgate’.

“Dhamaka has been a very excit-ing and enriching experience for me as an actor. Working with a maverick like Ram Madhvani has allowed me to explore and showcase a new facet of my personality. I am thrilled that the film will reach audiences and my fans all around the world on ‘Netflix’,” said Kartik. AGENCIES

Akshay Kumar took to his ‘Twitter’ handle and shared the first poster of the debut

film of fellow actor Suniel Shetty’s son Ahan.

“It is a big day for you Ahan. I still remember seeing your father, Suniel Shetty’s first film Balwaan’s poster and today I’m presenting yours. I’m so happy and proud to

share the poster of Sajid Nadi-adwala’s ‘Tadap’ starring Ahan Shetty and Tara Sutaria. It is releasing in cinemas on Sep-tember 24,” wrote the actor.

The poster shows Ahan Shetty holding Tara Sutaria’s face and planting a kiss. His face is hidden while she has her eyes closed as they are caught in a whirlwind of emotions.

The film will be produced by Sajid Nadiadwala.

Later, Ahan shared another poster and wrote: “He is fierce, he is rebellious and he is a lover!” I’m beyond grateful for this Sajid Nadiadwala sir. Thank you Milan Luthria for helping me bring this character to life. ‘Tadap’ releases on September 24, 2021.” AGENCIES

Taylor takes a jibe at ‘Netflix’ for using ‘deeply sexist joke’

Bobby ‘is in talks’ for the remake of ‘Arth’

‘DHAMAKA’ TEASER

Dilaik raises the temperature in this stylish, sexy beachwear

Bollywood director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has started

working on his next directorial with writer Kamlesh Pandey, who has worked with him on ‘Rang De Basanti’ and ‘Delhi-6’ and is penning the script.

“I am working on some-thing for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. He will be directing and producing this film. The story revolves around the plight of farmers, the issues they face and the agricul-tural crisis as a whole,” said Kamlesh.

He added, “In between, Rakeysh had got busy with ‘Mirzya’, ‘Fanney Khan’ and ‘Mere Pyare Prime Minis-ter’, but a few months ago we decided to revive it. The only film that I remember which

is made on farmers’ issues is Bimal Roy’s ‘Do Bigha Zamin’ and hopefully, we will be able to make a difference with our story too. I come from a

farmer family, farming is in my blood, in my DNA and I have always felt that we as a nation have been unfair to our farm-ers due to our misplaced prior-

ities. I am currently in the final stage of scripting. However, I would like to clarify that our story has nothing to do with the ongoing farmer protests.”

“Rakeysh will look into that once we lock the final script. I do not get into that aspect of filmmaking,” stated Pandey. AGENCIES

According to sources, there were reports that Swara Bhasker and Jacqueline Fernandez will play as the two

Kamlesh Pandey, who has worked with him on ‘Rang De Basanti’ and ‘Delhi-6’ is penning the script

The poster shows Ahan Shetty holding Tara Sutaria’s face and planting a kiss. The film will be produced by Sajid Nadiadwala

She shared a dialogue that read, ‘You go through men faster than Taylor Swift’

Kartik Aryan plays a ‘frustrated ex-anchor’

Akshay shares poster of Ahan Shetty’s debut film

Rakeysh’s next directorial to be about farmers’ plight