nearby t.n. to probe jayalalithaa’s death chew on · pdf fileher and no one else,...

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Tamil Nadu Chief MinisterEdappadi K. Palaniswami onThursday announced that aninquiry commission headedby a retired High Court judgewould be constituted toprobe the death of formerChief Minister Jayalalithaa inDecember last year.

A decision on the judgewho will head the commis-sion will be taken in duecourse, Mr. Palaniswamisaid, flanked by severalsenior Cabinet Ministers atthe Secretariat.

Not consulted: DeepaMr. Palaniswami also saidthat ‘Veda Nilayam’, theerstwhile residence of Jayala-lithaa in Poes Garden here,would be converted into a

public memorial, an an-nouncement that wasslammed by Jayalalithaa’sniece Deepa Jayakumar, whoquestioned the unilateral de-cision sans consultations

with heirs. Till date, it is notclear if Jayalalithaa left be-hind a will bequeathing hervast estate to anyone.

The sudden announce-ments are essentially seen as

a move to put pressure onthe AIADMK (PuratchiThalaivi Amma) to come for-ward for negotiating a quickmerger with the ruling AI-ADMK (Amma) and to check-

mate “ousted” deputy gen-eral secretary T.T.V.Dhinakaran, who is in a com-bative mood.

The Panneerselvam fac-tion had publicly laid downtwo conditions for a merger— an enquiry into Jayala-lithaa’s death (varying from aCBI probe to a judicial probe)and expelling Sasikala andher family from the AIADMK.During Jayalalithaa’s 75-dayhospitalisation, only Sasikalaand the doctors and para-medical staff had access toher and no one else, includ-ing top leaders of the party,could see her.

A campaign to convert theVeda Nilayam into a publicmemorial was also launchedby Mr. Panneerselvam.

T.N. to probe Jayalalithaa’s deathFormer CM’s residence in Chennai to be made a public memorial, says CM Edappadi K. Palaniswami

T.K. Rohit

Chennai

CONTINUED ON A PAGE 10

FRIDAY REVIEW A 12 PAGES

(TABLOID)

DELHI METRO A 6 PAGES

NEARBY

The Supreme Court onThursday directed statusquo in medical admissionsin Tamil Nadu till August 22.This stalls any prospects ofthe State kickstarting themin the next couple of days incase an ordinance meant tofreeze the National Eligibil-ity-cum-Entrance Test(NEET) this year in the Stateis promulgated. The ordin-ance has already beencleared by the Union Law

Ministry, following a favour-able legal opinion from At-torney-General K.K. Venugo-pal. It was supposed to bepromulgated by August 22,the next date of hearing.

The SC ordered the Med-ical Council of India and theState government to chalkout a plan so that studentswho have got through NEETand rural students ill-equipped for it can be “ad-justed” in the admission list.

Krishnadas Rajagopal

NEW DELHI

SC puts T.N. medicaladmissions on hold


Private firm Pushpa SalesPrivate Limited on Thursdayrefuted a magisterial report,which held it “responsible”for interrupting the supplyof liquid oxygen to BabaRaghav Das Medical CollegeHospital in Gorakhpur.

It claimed that it did notstop supply though it putpressure on the hospital toreceive its overdue pay-ment.

Manish Bhandari, theowner of the firm, said hewas willing to submit “evid-ence” before the govern-ment to prove his stand.

“If they have submitted it[DM report] we will give ourevidence when the govern-ment asks. We have said that

we have not stopped [thesupply of oxygen]. We willprove it,” Mr. Bhandari toldThe Hindu.

In his report submitted tothe Uttar Pradesh govern-ment, District Magistrate ofGorakhpur Rajeev Rautelasaid Pushpa Sales shouldnot have cut the supply ofoxygen as the firm was inthe business of “life-saving.”

Mr. Bhandari shiftedblame on to the hospital au-thorities, saying it was theirresponsibility to maintainthe stock of oxygen cylin-ders and also said that thecontract to supply cylinderswas with another firm.

“Maintaining stock of cyl-inders is not my responsibil-ity,” Mr. Bhandari said.

Hospital oxygen supplynot cut, says U.P. �rm

Dismisses report that indicted it

Omar Rashid

Damini Nath

LUCKNOW/GORAKHPUR


Quick bite: A langur helps itself to some food in a corridornear the ICU at the government-run B.R.D. Medical CollegeHospital in Gorakhpur. * V.V. KRISHNAN (REPORTS ON PAGE 11)

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Chew on this

A van ploughed into crowdsin the heart of Barcelona onThursday and Spanish me-dia reported at least 13people were killed, in whatpolice said they were treat-ing as a terrorist attack.

A man was later arrested,police in the Spanish regionof Catalonia said in a state-ment on Twitter. Regionalauthorities said one deathhad been confirmed so far,

with 32 injured, 10 seriously.But radio station Cadena Sercited police sources as say-ing the toll was much higher.

Police said they weresearching for the driver ofthe van who, according tolocal media, fled the sceneon foot.

Spanish newspaper ElPeriodico said two armedmen were holed up in a barin Barcelona’s city centre,and reported gunfire in thearea, though it did not cite

the source of the informa-tion. It was not immediatelyclear whether the incidentswere connected.

Reports said the van zig-zagged at speed down thefamous Las Ramblas avenue,a magnet for tourists. Mobilephone footage posted onTwitter showed several bod-ies strewn along theRamblas, some motionless.

Reuters

Barcelona

13 feared dead, 32 injuredin Barcelona ‘terror attack’

U.S., U.K. AND GERMANY

CONDEMN ATTACK A PAGE 12

Seven students, including awoman, were allegedly at-tacked by a group of meninside the Asola WildlifeSanctuary in Faridabad onAugust 14 when they werereturning from a picnic inthe area.

While three of the vic-

tims are current students ofJNU, three others areformer students of the uni-versity. The seventh belongsto St. Stephen’s College.

Around 8.30 p.m., whenthe group was returningfrom an area in the sanctu-ary popularly referred to asthe Death Valley, three menallegedly stopped them.

The students said the ac-cused asked the male stu-dents what their relation-ship was with the lonewoman. One of the stu-dents, who had a beard,was allegedly abused for be-ing a Muslim and called a“cattle thief”.

“More people turned upat the spot and started hit-

ting us with sticks,” saidSurya Prakash, one of thevictims. The attackers eventried to grope the womanstudent and tear away herclothes, the victims said.The students escaped whentheir cab driver along withtwo locals came to their res-cue and took them to theSurajkund police station.

The officer in charge,however, allegedly refusedto file a complaint and in-stead made the studentswrite an apology. He also al-legedly asked the woman ifher dress was “that short”or if it had been torn. TheDelhi Police have registereda zero FIR in the matter.

JNU, Stephen’s students have harrowing picnic Attackers even tried to grope the woman student inside the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI

SEE ALSO A DELHI METRO PAGE 1

At least 14 political parties,farmers’ movements andDalit groups answered rebelJanata Dal (United) leaderSharad Yadav’s call to “saveour composite culture”(Sanjhi Virasat Bachao) andunite to fight the BJP-RSScombine at an impressivegathering here.

In the recent past, theCongress has taken on theleadership role at Opposi-tion unity meetings with itspresident Sonia Gandhichairing them. OnThursday, the party waswell-represented, withformer Prime Minister Man-mohan Singh, RahulGandhi, Ghulam Nabi Azadand Ahmed Patel present,but the focus was on Mr.Sharad Yadav, who hasemerged as a rallying point.

Speaker after speakerpaid encomiums to him,even referring to the “sacri-fice” he had made in break-ing with the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) after the BiharChief Minister broke the ma-hagatbandhan (the grand al-liance) in Bihar.

If Mr. Azad went so far asto say that Mr. Sharad Yadav

was the leader of the real JD(U) and that he had declineda Cabinet berth and chosenthe path of secularism, Mr.Ahmed Patel went a stepfurther: he asked the rebelJD(U) leader to set up a sub-committee that could drawup a blueprint for the Op-position.

This was significant asthis comes six days afterroughly the same set ofparties empowered Ms.Gandhi to set up a sub-com-mittee to draw up a plan forthe Opposition. CPI(M) gen-eral secretary SitaramYechury said Mr. Yadav heldthe key to saving India’s syn-cretic culture.

Mr. Gandhi, who arrivedwith Dr. Manmohan Singh,attacked the government forits communal agenda.

Sharad hogs limelightat show of Oppn unityLeaders refer to ‘sacri�ce’ in breaking ties

Smita Gupta

New Delhi

Rahul Gandhi with SharadYadav during the SanjhiVirasat Bachao Sammelan inNew Delhi . * R.V. MOORTHY

Trinamool sweeps sevenmunicipalitiesKOLKATA

Continuing with its political

dominance, the Trinamool

Congress on Thursday swept

all the seven municipalities

that went to the polls last

week. The results not only

indicate a clean sweep by the

TMC, but a complete

decimation of the opposition.

EAST A PAGE 2DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

10-year-old rape victimdelivers girl childCHANDIGARH

A 10-year-old girl who was

allegedly raped repeatedly

by her uncle delivered a girl

child at a local government

hospital here on Thursday

morning, a senior doctor said.

Both the victim and the

newborn are stable.

However, the baby is under

observation in the neonatal

intensive care unit as it is

slightly underweight.

NATION A PAGE 6DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Senior Gujarat police of-ficers N.K. Amin and T.A.

Barot, accused in cases ofencounter killings, onThursday undertook beforethe Supreme Court that they

would demit office duringthe day.

Legal correspondent

new delhi

Gujarat police o�cers asked to step down

DETAILS ON A PAGE 10

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NOIDA/DELHI THE HINDU

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EAST

Continuing with its politicaldominance, the TrinamoolCongress on Thursday sweptall the seven municipalitiesthat went to the polls lastweek.

Elections were held to theDurgapur Municipal Corpor-ation, Dhupguri Municipal-ity, Buniyadpur Municipal-ity, Coopers’ Camp NotifiedArea, Nalhati Municipality,Panskura Municipality andHaldia Municipality on Au-gust 13 amid sporadic incid-ents of violence.

The results not only indic-ate a clean sweep by theTMC, but a complete decim-ation of the opposition. Ofthe 148 wards that went tothe polls in the seven muni-cipalities, the ruling partywon 140 wards, which ismore than 94% of the seats.

The Bharatiya JanataParty won six, the Left Frontgot one and one went to an

independent candidate.In three of the seven civic

bodies, the opposition couldnot even win a single ward.

At Haldia Municipality inPurba Medinipur, the TMCwon all the 29 wards. TheDurgapur Municipal Corpor-ation presented a similar pic-ture with the ruling party

nominees getting electedfrom all 43 wards. AtCooper's Camp Notified Areain Nadia, the TMC won allthe 12 seats.

At Nalhati Municipality inBirbhum, the TMC won 14 ofthe 16 wards. At Buniyadpur,it won 13 of the 14 wards, andat Dhupguri, the ruling party

bagged 12 of the 16 wards.Results at the Panskura Mu-nicipality were no differentwith the TMC winning 17 ofthe 18 wards.

The BJP won four wards atDhupguri Municipality andone each at Panskura andBuniyadpur civic bodies.The Left Front’s saving gracewas one ward at Nalhati.

Victory of people: CMChief Minister MamataBanerjee described the res-ults as a victory of the peopleand thanked the people forsupporting the TrinamoolCongress.

Accusing the TMC of usingmoney and muscle power towin the polls, BJP State pres-ident Dilip Gosh expressedsatisfaction that the BJP hascome up to the second posi-tion.

Both the Congress and theLeft Front leadership saidthe polls were far from beingfree and fair.

Trinamool sweeps sevenmunicipalities in BengalRuling party wins 140 wards, Bharatiya Janata Party comes a distant second

Celebration time: Trinamool Congress supporters jubilate atNalhati in Birbhum district on Thursday. * PTI

Special Correspondent

Kolkata

In the story headlined‘Nagaland CM calls forbroad-based talks,’ a photoof former chief ministerShurhozelie Liezietsu waspublished instead of thecurrent CM, T. R. Zeliang.The error is regretted.

Correction

The West Bengal CID onThursday summonedsenior CPI(M) leaderGautam Deb in connectionwith some objectionableremarks he had allegedlymade against Chief Minis-ter Mamata Banerjee inApril.

CPI(M) leadersummoned

Press trust of india

Kolkata

A Class IX student’s eardrum was damaged after hewas severely beaten up byhis seniors on the campus ofNavodaya Vidyalaya atTudipaju in Kandhamal dis-trict of Odisha.

The parents of the victimhave alleged that it could bean incident of ragging.

The student was firsttaken to the districtheadquarter hospital inPhulbani and later shifted tothe MKCG medical collegeand hospital in Berhampur

on Wednesday night.On Thursday, a team of

Kandhamal district adminis-tration that included Addi-tional District MagistratePradipta Kumar Sahani,Sub-Collector Nimai CharanSutar and District Child Pro-tection Officer RashmitaKaran reached the school toenquire about the matter.They held discussions withthe students and teachers.

After an enquiry, the ad-ministrative officials havedirected the principal totake strict action against theerring Class XII students.

“The students involved inthe attack will be initially ex-pelled from school for 15days,” said Ms. Karan.

Happened in hostelAs per the enquiry team, theincident had occurred in thehostel on August 11 duringlunch hour. A student ofClass XII had alleged that thevictim had stolen his money.A group of Class XII studentshad then decided to physic-ally torture the victim tomake him confess to thecrime. They had beaten upthe boy.

It may be an incident of ragging, say parents

Staff Reporter

BERHAMPUR

Student beaten by seniors,su�ers eardrum damage


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THE HINDU NOIDA/DELHI

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NORTH

DELHI Timings

Friday, August 18

RISE 05:52 SET 18:58

RISE 02:03 SET 16:03

Saturday, August 19

RISE 05:53 SET 18:57

RISE 03:03 SET 17:01

Sunday, August 20

RISE 05:53 SET 18:56

RISE 04:06 SET 17:54

‘Few �are up law & orderissues for political gains’ DHARAMSALA

Himachal Pradesh CM

Virbhadra Singh on Thursday

said a few from the

opposition “unnecessarily”

flare up law and order issues

for “political benefits”,

referring to the Kotkhai

schoolgirl rape and murder

case. He said “a lot of

hullabaloo was created by

the few in opposition”, and

maintained the State has a

“very low” crime rate. PTI

IN BRIEF

BSF constable killed overold rivalry in Rajasthan SIKAR (RAJASTHAN)

A BSF constable was killed

allegedly by unidentified

persons over old rivalry in

Lakshmangarh area of Sikar

district, the police said. The

assailants stopped Sumer

Singh’s vehicle and attacked

him with sharp-edged

weapons late on Wednesday,

leading to his death. The

body has been kept at the

government hospital in Sikar

and further probe is on. PTI

Barely six months ago, few inthe dusty and nondescriptBhojpura village of Phagi teh-sil could believe that they willwitness a change in the croppattern for the better as wellas an unexpected increase inthe crop yield.

The constant decline in theground water level was also aconcern for the farmers en-tirely dependent on rains.

A campaign to build rain-water harvesting structuresin the region now promises tobring benefits to the agricul-turists in the shape of controlof soil erosion, increase inmoisture, vegetation andground water table and pre-vention of wastelandexpansion.

Following this year’s mon-soon, the lush green land-scape has brought a smile tofarmers.

In the 50-bigha agricul-tural field of farmer brothersHarinarain and Jainarain Guj-jar of Bhojpura – where afarm pond was built recentlywith 90% contribution of theState government – the jowarand moong crops will be

ready for harvesting nextmonth. The pond has beengeo-tagged for monitoring ofits water level.

“Immediately after theharvest, we will grow mus-tard and gram as the rabicrops with the help of waterstored in the pond for irriga-tion. Such a crop pattern, oneafter another, was just out ofquestion earlier,” said Harin-arain, 50. The rain waterstored in the artificial pond

touches the level of 3 feet.Structures such as farm

ponds, anicuts, bunds, per-colation tanks and waterwaysare being built all over Ra-jasthan in the second phaseof the flagship Jal Swavalam-ban Abhiyan, which has com-bined various schemes andbrought them under a singleplatform.

It is targeted at conservingrainwater, run-off water,ground water and soil mois-

ture to the maximum.The Watershed Depart-

ment’s Project Manager,Dinesh Kumar, said the farm-ers in the region were motiv-ated during the campaign toget the ponds constructed intheir agricultural fields.

Harinarain plans to bringdiesel pumps to supply waterfrom the farm pond, built at acost of Rs.2 lakh, to irrigatethe next round of crops.

An anicut constructed in

the Jharana Khurd village,situated at a distance of 10km from Bhojpura, hasbrought a rivulet back to life.

Rajendra Bairwa, a localresident who owns 20 bighaland, said the anicut had in-creased soil moisture andwas being used for bathing ofthe cattle and giving them thedrinking water.

The total estimated cost ofthe Jal Swavalamban Abhiyanis pegged at Rs.2,000 crore,while over 94,300 projectshave been completed underits first phase.

Mr. Kumar said the Stategovernment was expecting abigger contribution from thepeople during the secondphase, as the issue of waterscarcity affected all sectionsof society.

As many as 11 governmentdepartments have joinedhands to execute the worksunder the Abhiyan.

If the greenery witnessedin the Phagi tehsil is any in-dication, the desert State’sclimate is likely to change inthe near future and the rain-water harvesting techniquesare set to scale up the cropyields.

Water harvesting to hike crop yieldA campaign to build rainwater harvesting structures in Bhojpura village promises to bene�t farmers

A step forward: A farm pond was built recently at the village and it has been geo-tagged formonitoring of its water level. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Mohammed Iqbal

Phagi (Jaipur)

A special court of the Cent-ral Bureau of Investigation(CBI) in Panchkula has re-served for August 25 itsjudgment in the rape caseagainst Dera Sacha Saudachief Gurmeet Ram RahimSingh.

With arguments com-pleted on Thursday, thecourt directed the Derachief to be present before itwhen the judgment is pro-nounced next week.

FIR in 2002

“The court will pronounceits verdict on August 25 andthe Dera chief has been dir-ected to appear in person at2:30 p.m.,” said CBI coun-sel, H.P.S. Verma.

A former follower had ac-cused Mr. Singh of re-peatedly raping her insidethe Dera campus near Sir-sain Haryana. The allegedincident took place in 1999.An FIR was registered in2002.

The Dera chief and themanagement of the secthave denied the allegations

all throughout.

Police on alert

Mr. Singh, who has a size-able following across Hary-ana and Punjab enjoys ‘Z’category security from theHaryana Police. OnThursday, the police in bothStates were put on alert todeal with any situation thatmay have arisen had the CBIcourt announced a verdictagainst the sect chief.

Ahead of the verdict, se-curity personnel have beendeputed around the Dera atSirsa, said officials.

(With PTI inputs)

Rape case: verdict onDera chief on Aug 25

Accused to be present before court

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

CHANDIGARH

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh

The Supreme Court onThursday directed the Bihargovernment to pay ₹10 lakhcompensation to a destitutewoman who was allegedlyraped and not allowed to

abort her 26-week preg-nancy after a medicalboard’s opinion.

A Bench headed by JusticeDipak Misra said it haspassed a slew of directionsand set aside the Patna HighCourt order by which it had

not allowed the woman toterminate her pregnancy asshe had crossed the legalembargo of 20 weeks underthe Medical Termination ofPregnancy Act, 1971.

The victim’s counsel hadearlier told the apex court

that the woman deservedcompensation from the Bi-har Government as she hadgone to the Patna MedicalCollege and Hospital (PMCH)to get her pregnancy termin-ated when she was in the17th week of pregnancy.

Pay ₹10 lakh to rape victim: SC to BiharPress Trust of India

New Delhi


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Kamesh.Mechrocks

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CMYK

A ND-NDE




SOUTH

The Hyderabad police aresearching for the culpritswho connived with an agedOmani national and helpedhim marry a minor Muslimgirl without the consent ofher parents. They even flewher out to Oman.

The mother of the 16-year-old had turned down theproposal for her daughterfrom the aged Omani na-tional, Ahmed. The proposalwas initiated by her sister-in-law and her husband.

But keeping the parents inthe dark, the relatives con-vinced the young girl to ac-company them to a hotel inBarkhas of the Old City tomeet the aged groom. Enti-cing her with videos andphotographs of a lavish lifethat she could lead in theGulf, they performed the

‘nikah’ in the hotel with ahelp of a ‘kazi’.

‘Daughter in distress’The girl was taken back toher house in Teekalkuntafour days after the Omani na-tional left for his country.The aged man sent a visa forthe minor girl after Ramzan.Her aunt accompanied thegirl to Muscat, the girl’smother said in a complaint

to the Falaknuma police.The woman said her

daughter was in distress andwept every time she spokeover phone. She hadpleaded that she be broughtback. As the woman’s pleathat her sister-in-law’s hus-band talk to Ahmed and se-cure the return of her daugh-ter failed to move him, shespoke to the Omani nationaland demanded that her

daughter be sent back. Butthe man demanded that shefirst return the ₹5 lakh thathe allegedly paid to her sis-ter-in-law and her husband.

When the woman con-fronted her sister-in-law’shusband, he threatened herand her husband with direconsequences. The haplesswoman then approached thepolice. Assistant Commis-sioner of Police, Falaknuma,Md. Tajuddin Ahmed toldThe Hindu that a First In-formation Report had beenregistered. The victim’sfather, an illiterate labourer,did not even have the detailsof his daughter’s passport orher contact number inOman. His wife’s brother-in-law was absconding.

A case would be re-gistered under the Protec-tion of Children from SexualOffences Act, the police said.

Teen married o� to Omani,mother approaches policeWoman’s relatives, who allegedly took ₹5 lakh, promised the minor a lavish life

M.L. Melly Maitreyi

HYDERABAD

school in Palakkad on Tues-day. “An investigation by theDistrict Educational Officerrevealed that the flag-hoist-ing ceremony was followedby the singing of VandeMataram instead of the na-tional anthem. Later, thePrincipal hoisted the na-

The Kerala government hassought legal advice on takingaction against RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh chiefMohan Bhagwat for violatingthe guidelines on hoistingthe tricolour during Inde-pendence Day celebrations,Chief Minister Pinarayi Vi-jayan told the Assembly onThursday.

Replying to a submissionmoved by Leader of the Op-position Ramesh Chen-nithala, he said Mr. Bhagwatwas the chief guest at the In-dependence Day celebrationheld at the Kannaki Amman

tional flag at a separatevenue in the school, againwithout the singing of the na-tional anthem,” he said.

Mr. Vijayan assured theHouse that the governmentwould take action based onlegal advice.

BJP demands probe The Palakkad district com-mittee of the BJP has deman-ded a probe by the NIA intothe alleged conspiracy in-volving the district adminis-tration and the State leader-ship of the CPI (M) to disruptthe Independence Day celeb-rations attended by Mr.Bhagwat.

Flag hoisting row: Keralagovt. seeks legal adviceSpecial Correspondent

Thiruvananthapuram

Mohan Bhagwat

In a simple ceremony onThursday, human rights act-ivist Irom Sharmila Chanumarried her British partnerDesmond Anthony Bel-larnine Coutinho in the hillstation.

The marriage was solem-nised by their signing on aregister before sub-registrarM. Radhakrishnan and ex-changing garlands.

No companyMs. Irom, along with Mr.Coutinho, walked throughthe streets of Kodaikanalfrom her house near the Ob-servatory to reach the sub-registrar’s office atMoonjikkal. No one accom-panied them. Divya

Bharathi, director of theshort film Kakkoos, wel-comed the couple at the of-fice. They signed the register

at 11.40 a.m.“I really feel happy as it is

an important moment in mylife. Again, I am thanking my

with her is a great momentfor me. It is a matter of greatpride for the State to haveher marriage solemnisedhere.”

Representatives of a fewsympathetic NGOs and Ms.Irom’s lawyers were presentat the wedding.

Police personnel were de-ployed in and around thesub-registrar’s office.

Reacting to the petitionsfiled against her, Ms. Iromsaid that marriage waspurely a personal affair andno one had the right to inter-fere in it.

Five petitions were filedagainst her proposed wed-ding, while three NGOs sup-ported it. On August 13, thesub-registrar rejected the ob-jections.

fiancé who wholeheartedlyand unconditionally stoodby me. We are binding to-gether today,” Ms. Irom said.

“I have been waiting forher for the past seven years.She has given me a new life,”said an emotional Mr.Coutinho.

‘Grateful to supporters’“People in Tamil Nadu arevery kind and good. But I didnot have freedom for sometime recently. All theprotests against us were forpublicity. But I am grateful tothe people who supportedme.”

Ms. Bharathi said: “Seeingher in person was my life-time ambition. Participatingin her marriage and holdingher hand and walking along

Staff Reporter

KODAIKANAL

Irom marries in Kodaikanal, sans family and fanfare

Wedding bells: Irom Sharmila Chanu and Desmond Coutinho attheir marriage ceremony on Thursday. * G. KARTHIKEYAN

Former Karnataka MinisterH. Halappa was acquittedof rape charges by thesecond additional districtand sessions court here onThursday, seven years afterthe complaint was lodged.

The wife of one of hisfriends had lodged a com-plaint with the VinobhaNagar police here on May2, 2010 accusing the Minis-ter of rape.

Following this, Mr.Halappa, who was the Min-ister for Food and CivilSupplies in the BJP govern-ment, had resigned fromthe Cabinet.

He was later arrestedand the State governmenthad ordered a CID probe.

The complainant hadfurnished clothes that theaccused was wearing whenthe alleged incident tookplace and a CD containingfootage of the incident.

The court had also al-lowed the prosecution toextract blood samples ofthe accused for DNA tests.

The court has directedMr. Halappa to execute apersonal bond for ₹25,000.

Halappaacquitted inrape case Staff Reporter

Shivamogga

Bollywood actor Sunny Le-one on Thursday broughtKochi to a standstill, as thou-sands of her fans poured intoan arterial city road and itsneighbourhood to catch aglimpse of the star.

The actor was in Kochi inconnection with the openingof a new mobile phone storeon M.G. Road in the heart ofthe city. People began gath-ering at the venue right from8 a.m., leading to trafficsnarls during the peakhours.

A few more hours into theday and the entire area waspacked with her fans, forcingmotorists to take diversions.Fans found places atopbuses, hoardings and evenon metro rail pillars to greet

the actor.As Sunny made her way

onto the podium, loud

cheers rent the air and chaosprevailed, as people tried toget photos on their camera

phones. Playing up to thecrowd, the actor flashed herbest smiles at the fans and

thanked them for their over-whelming support.

Police had a tough time asthey tried to manage thecrowd and traffic. At onepoint, police made repeatedannouncements to thecrowd to clear the arterialroad and make way for anambulance that was on itsway to a hospital. On otheroccasions, they cane-charged the crowd. Normaltraffic flow along the roadwas restored by 2.30 p.m.Sunny later posted picturesand videos of the crowd onTwitter and her Facebookpages. “No words… Can’tthank the people of Kochi[enough]. Was so over-whelmed by the love&sup-port. Never will forget Godsown country Kerala!,” shetweeted.

Police had a tough time controlling the crowds as arterial M.G. Road was overrun by fans

Staff Reporter

Kochi

Kochi goes gaga over Bollywood star Sunny Leone

Uproarious welcome: Sunny Leone shares her delight with fans at the inauguration of atelecommunication outlet in Kochi on Thursday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Grey-haired alumni, wellinto their 70s, joined the stu-dents of the University Vis-vesvaraya College of Engin-eering (UVCE) to protestagainst the shifting of thecentury-old college fromK.R. Circle to the JnanaBharathi campus onThursday. Autonomy wasalso on the list of theirdemands.

Several eminent alumni,including aerospace scient-ist Roddam Narasimha andformer Vice-Chancellor ofKuvempu University K.Chidananda Gowda, tookpart in the protest and themeeting that was convened

later in the day to chalk outan action plan.

While students are op-posed to the move to shiftthe campus, they also saidthere was an urgent need to

improve the “crumbling” in-frastructure. From dirty toi-lets to lack of classrooms,there was nothing left to thecollege apart from the “her-itage” tag, they said.

College of engineering to move from K.R. Circle

Staff Reporter

Bengaluru

Up in arms: Protesters at the University Visvesvaraya Collegeof Engineering in Bengaluru on Thursday. * V SREENIVASA MURTHY

Alumni join students’ protest againstshifting of century-old college

Sunil Kumar shifted to Viyyur prisonKOCHI

The Kerala police shifted

Sunil Kumar, aka ‘Pulsar’ Suni,

key accused in the abduction

case of a woman actor in

Kochi, to the Viyyur Central

Prison in Thrissur on

Thursday following the

direction of a judicial first

class magistrate court. The

direction followed a request

by Kumar, raising concerns

about his safety in the prison

at Kakkanad near Kochi.

IN BRIEF

Mild tremors cause panicin Srikakulam district SRIKAKULAM

Mild tremors caused panic

among residents of several

villages in Etcherla mandal of

Srikakulam district, A.P., on

Thursday. The tremors lasted

12 seconds and forced many

people out of their houses.

Officials said the tremors

could have occurred owing to

work in the nearby mines.

Jumbo march: The �rst batch of Dasara elephants on the Mysuru Palace premises, where they were accorded a traditional reception on Thursday. * M.A. SRIRAM

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Regal splendour

Three weather-monitoringradars, imported from theU.S., have been sitting forover a week in the customsshed of the Kempegowda In-ternational Airport. Cus-toms officials could not clearthe equipment until clarific-ations were received overthe GST applicable. Pan-chayati Raj Minister H.K.Patil had announced thatthe project would start byFriday; that deadline willnow be missed.

Officials of the Rural De-velopment and PanchayatRaj (RDPR) department,which is coordinating the₹35 crore project, said thatunder the previous tax re-gime, imported equipmentbeing leased for governmentprojects would have beenexempt. According to offi-cials, “practical difficulties”arose as the exemptionstatus of equipment underGST remained unclear.Three days ago, Bengaluru

customs officials wrote totheir Delhi counterparts ask-ing for assessment of importduties under the new tax re-gime. It was only onThursday that the in-prin-ciple approval for the radarswere given. “After discus-sions with the state govern-ment, we have decided toaccord it high-priority ex-emption,” a customs officialsaid.

“We hope to have [theradars] in possession by Sat-urday as there are more pro-cedures to follow,” said H.P.Prakash Kumar, Chief Engin-eer, RDPR. “After this, it willtake us time to transportand commission the equip-ment in three places in thestate. We are trying to dothis within the next week.”

The radars, critical forsensing ‘seedable’ clouds,are being leased for twomonths. One of the threeradar will be stationed inBengaluru, and the othertwo at Gadag and Shorapurin Yadgir district.

Cloud-seeding project may be delayed

Mohit M. Rao

Bengaluru

GST leaves weathermonitoring radarstuck in customs

In what could spell freshtrouble for Bharatiya JanataParty Karnataka presidentand chief ministerial candid-ate B.S. Yeddyurappa, theAnti Corruption Bureau(ACB) registered two FIRsagainst him in connectionwith land de-notificationcases on Thursday.

Mr. Yeddyurappa recentlygot relief from most corrup-tion cases. BJP leaders claimthat the FIRs are part of a“political vendetta.”

257 acresThe cases pertain to the al-leged illegal de-notificationof 257 acres of land, notifiedfor the formation of Dr. Shiv-arama Karanth Layout bythe Bangalore DevelopmentAuthority (BDA).

The authority had issuedpreliminary notification for3,546 acres in villages

between Doddaballapur andHesaraghatta on December30, 2008. However, duringthis stage, Mr. Yeddyurappa,then Chief Minister, al-legedly issued directions todrop 257 acres of land,based on applications fromseveral landlords.

Private layoutThe landowners later tookan endorsement of theirlands being dropped from

the BDA. Sources said aprivate layout was de-veloped on a part of the 257acres, allegedly causing pe-cuniary benefits to many.

The preliminary notifica-tion of the 3,546 acres forthe Dr. Shivarama KaranthLayout was quashed by theHigh Court in September2015 as the BDA had not im-plemented the plan forwhich the land was notifiedfor acquisition.

The ACB booked Mr.Yeddyurappa and four oth-ers under the Prevention ofCorruption Act, 1988.

Sources said dropping 257acres from the preliminarynotification of the layout in-cluded 20 such separate in-stances, all part of the com-plaint filed by Dr. AyyappaDorey, a social activist. ACBsources said of the 20 in-stances, preliminary inquir-ies had been completed intwo and hence two FIRs.

Cases pertain to de-noti�cation of land when he was CM


Bengaluru

B.S. Yeddyurappa

ACB �les two FIRs againstYeddyurappa, BJP cries foul

Union Minister ManekaGandhi on Thursday said shewould request External Af-fairs Minister Sushma Swarajto rescue the 16-year-old,who has been married to anOmani in his sixties, re-

portedly for ₹5 lakh. Ms.Gandhi took to Twitter to re-spond to media reports onthe incident, which shetermed “deeply disturbing.”

“I would request @Sush-maSwaraj to intervene andbring the girl back to India”the Minister tweeted.

Maneka seeks Sushma’s help Press Trust of India

New Delhi


Kamesh.Mechrocks

Image

Kamesh.Mechrocks

Image




NATION

New Jammu airportterminal inauguratedJAMMU

Jammu and Kashmir Chief

Minister Mehbooba Mufti and

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok

Gajapathi Raju inaugurated

the ₹80 crore state-of-the-

art terminal building at

Jammu airport on Thursday.

Union Ministers of State

Jitendra Singh and Jayant

Sinha, J&K Deputy Chief

Minister Nirmal Singh and

Assembly Speaker Kavinder

Gupta were also present. PTI

IN BRIEF

Raths to focus on Ganga conservation DEHRADUN

Uttarakhand Chief Minister

Trivendra Singh Rawat on

Thursday flagged off four

‘raths’ to create awareness

among people about Ganga

conservation on the

Chardham route. Fitted with

LCD screens, the raths will

have publicity literature to

help people realise the

importance of Ganga

conservation. PTI

Swine flu claims 15 lives in PunjabCHANDIGARH

Fifteen persons died due to

swine flu in Punjab this

summer season, State’s

Health and Family Welfare

Minister Brahm Mohindra said

here on Thursday. As many

278 suspected swine flu cases

were reported, of which 75

cases were found positive and

15 cases resulted in the death

of the patient. PTI

Inmate’s body found inpond inside Bihar jail SIWAN

Only two days after being

arrested, an undertrial

prisoner’s body was found

floating in a pond in Siwan

district jail premises here.

The body of Pappu Kumar

(25) was found floating in the

water by other inmates who

informed the authorities, the

jail’s Deputy Superintendent

Santosh Pathak said. PTI

A 10-year-old girl who was al-legedly raped repeatedly byher uncle delivered a girlchild at a local governmenthospital here on Thursdaymorning, a senior doctorsaid.

Both the victim and thenewborn are stable. How-ever, the baby is under ob-servation in the neonatal in-tensive care unit as she isslightly underweight.

Following requests by herparents, the victim has notbeen told about the delivery.Her father had urged thehospital management to putthe newborn up for

adoption.Dasari Harish, the chair-

person of the committeeconstituted for the victim’streatment, told The Hindu,“The baby was deliveredthrough c-section, whichtook close to two hours. Thesurgery started at 9 a.m. andended 10.45 a.m. It was un-eventful despite the high-riskpregnancy.”

Newborn stable “The newborn is stable butunder observation in theneonatal ICU as she isslightly underweight at 2.2kg,” Dr. Harish said, addingthat the team involved in theprocedure included three

gynaecologists, an anaes-thetist, a neonatologist and apaediatrician. The expensefor the minor’s medicaltreatment is being borne bythe Chandigarhadministration.

Medical examinationThe pregnancy was dis-covered after she com-plained of stomachache lastmonth and was taken to ahospital. She was foundaround 30 weeks pregnant.A Chandigarh district courthad refused to let her un-dergo abortion on July 18.Subsequently, a PIL petitionwas urgently mentioned inthe Supreme Court on July

21. On July 24, a Bench led byChief Justice J.S. Khehar haddirected doctors from PGI,Chandigarh, to medically ex-amine the girl and file a re-port in court on whether the“health of the girl child con-cerned, who is stated to be ofthe age of 10 years, and alsothat of the foetus, would beadversely affected, if thepregnancy is continued forthe full term”.

Plea turned downThe Supreme Court had onJuly 28 turned down theabortion plea of the minor,who was 32 weeks pregnantat the time. But the Benchwent on to urge the govern-

ment, represented by Soli-citor-General Ranjit Kumar,to consider setting up per-manent medical boardsacross the States so that wo-men, especially child rapevictims, can receive expedi-ent access to medical care.

Exception to the law The Medical Termination ofPregnancy Act, 1971, barsabortion if the foetus hascrossed the 20-week mark.An exception to the law ismade if a registered medicalpractitioner certifies to acourt that the continuedpregnancy is life-threateningfor either the mother or thebaby.

10-year-old rape victim delivers girl childFollowing request by parents, she has not been told about the delivery


CHANDIGARH

“Do you want to destroy”the world famous Taj Mahal,the Supreme Court askedthe government onThursday.

The scathing remarks bythe apex court came duringthe hearing of an applica-tion seeking its nod to cutover 400 trees to lay an ad-ditional railway trackbetween Mathura in UttarPradesh and Delhi.

Recent pictures “This (Taj Mahal) is a worldfamous monument and you(government) want to des-troy it? Have you seen therecent pictures of (the) Taj?Go to the internet and havea look at it,” a bench com-prising Justices Madan BLokur and Deepak Guptasaid.

“If you want, then file anaffidavit or application andsay that the Union of Indiawants to destroy the Taj,”

the bench said.The apex court, which is

dealing with a petition filedby environmentalist M C Me-hta, has been monitoringdevelopment in the area toprotect the Taj Mahal, builtby Mughal emperor Shah Ja-han in memory of his wifeMumtaz in 1631 and which isa UNESCO World HeritageSite.

The court was hearing anapplication which hassought its nod to cut around450 trees there in an around80 km stretch on which the

additional railway trackwould be laid between Ma-thura and Delhi.

Train movementThe plea has said that in or-der to clear the bottleneckof train movement, it wasnecessary to lay down theadditional track in thestretch. The court wouldhear the matter next month.

Mr Mehta, in his PIL, hassought protection of the Tajfrom the ill effects of pollut-ing gases and deforestationin and around the area.

Do you want to destroy Taj,Supreme Court asks govtNod sought to cut 400 trees to lay an additional rail track

Press Trust of India

New Delhi

Symbol of love: The apex court has been monitoringdevelopment in the area to protect the Taj Mahal. * FILE PHOTO

Samajwadi Party presidentAkhilesh Yadav was onThursday detained and laterreleased by the Uttar Pra-desh police in Unnao dis-trict while he was on hisway to attend a protestcalled by his party inAuraiya against alleged po-lice harassment.

Mr. Yadav accused theBJP government of misusingstate machinery and hurtingthe dignity of democracy.

Mr. Yadav’s convoy wasstopped by the UP policenear an under-constructiontoll plaza in Hasanganj onthe Lucknow-Agra Express-way from where he was es-corted to an agriculture re-search centre before beingasked to return to the Statecapital.

“Police and the govern-ment do not want that I goand meet the SP workers.They don’t want us to meetbecause the people and theparty workers will reveal

the truth of their acts,” Mr.Yadav said.

He accused the BJP gov-ernment of lodging falsecases against his party col-leagues, especially formerMP Pradeep Yadav.

Mr. Yadav was travellingto Auraiya to raise voiceagainst the police action andalleged state harassment ofhis colleagues.

While filing nominationsfor the post of zila pan-chayat president, the SP al-leged that its candidates andsupporters were ill-treatedby the police on Wednesday.

Akhilesh detained onway to Auraiya

To attend a protest called by his party

Omar Rashid

Lucknow

Samajwadi Party presidentAkhilesh Yadav beingdetained by the police inUnnao on Thursday. * PTI

Weather WatchRainfall, temperature & air quality in select metros yesterday

Temperature Data: IMD, Pollution Data: CPCB, Map: Skymet (Taken at 18.00 Hrs)

Forecast for Friday: Heavy to very heavy rain is likely at isolated/few places over Telangana, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, coastalAndhra Pradesh, east Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Andaman &Nicobar Islands, central Maharashtra, Konkan & Goa, coastalKarnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep. Thunderstorm with gustywinds at isolated places likely over Punjab, Haryana and Delhi

city rain max min city rain max min

Agartala................. —.... 33.4.... 25.8 Kozhikode ............... —.... 32.8.... 25.4

Ahmedabad............ —.... 34.6.... 24.8 Kurnool ................... —.... 33.1.... 25.2

Aizawl ................... —.... 28.2.... 11.0 Lucknow.................. —.... 35.3.... 27.0

Allahabad .............. —.... 35.3.... 28.2 Madurai................... —.... 35.2.... 25.4

Bengaluru .............. —.... 27.2.... 20.5 Mangaluru............... —.... 30.2.... 23.6

Bhopal................... —.... 31.9.... 22.9 Mumbai.................0.3.... 31.4.... 26.0

Bhubaneswar .......0.5.... 33.5.... 26.6 Mysuru.................... —.... 28.0.... 19.4

Chandigarh ............ —.... 35.5.... 26.8 New Delhi ............... —.... 37.2.... 29.2

Chennai .............26.8.... 33.8.... 25.0 Patna ....................1.6.... 33.4.... 26.4

Coimbatore............ —.... 32.1.... 22.9 Port Blair ............25.3.... 28.3.... 23.6

Dehradun............... —.... 32.8.... 24.9 Puducherry............0.8.... 33.3.... 24.8

Gangtok...............6.2.... 21.0.... 18.6 Pune ....................... —.... 28.9.... 21.7

Goa .....................2.2.... 31.3.... 25.0 Raipur .................21.5.... 31.1.... 26.2

Guwahati .............2.4.... 35.3.... 26.8 Ranchi...................3.4.... 30.7.... 23.0

Hubballi................. —.... 28.0.... 21.0 Shillong...............21.6.... 25.2.... 15.7

Hyderabad ............. —.... 30.0.... 23.3 Shimla..................... —.... 25.9.... 16.5

Imphal.................0.2.... 30.2.... 22.1 Srinagar .................. —.... 31.5.... 15.1

Jaipur .................... —.... 36.0.... 26.0 Trivandrum ............. —.... 31.5.... 24.7

Kochi..................... —.... 31.0.... 25.0 Tiruchi .................... —.... 34.8.... 25.6

Kohima.................. —.... 25.0.... 17.0 Vijayawada .............. —.... 31.4.... 26.4

Kolkata..............23.6.... 33.6.... 25.7 Visakhapatnam .......1.4.... 31.1.... 24.4

Particulate matter in the air you are breathing Yesterday

CITIES SO2 NO2 CO PM2.5 PM10 CODE

In observation made at4.00 p.m., Ghaziabad,Uttar Pradesh recordedan overall air qualityindex (AQI) score of 163indicating a moderatelevel of pollution. In contrast,Thiruvananthapuramrecorded a healthy AQIscore of 50

Ahmedabad.............— .....— .....—....... —.......— ......—

Bengaluru........... ....8 .....—..103....... — .....72 ......*

Chennai .............. ....4....14....93......50.......— ......*

Delhi .................. ..16....69....70......97 ...201 ......*

Hyderabad .......... ..62....18....11......66 ...110 ......*

Kolkata............... ..19....57....35....... — .....76 ......*

Lucknow............. ..12..331....84....144.......— ......*

Mumbai .............. ....8....14 .....9......30 .....65 ......*

Pune................... ..41 .....3....72......90 ...110 ......*

Vishakhapatnam.. ..27....17....47....106 ...117 ......*

Air Quality Code: * Poor * Moderate * Good

SO2: Sulphur Dioxide. Short-term exposure can harm the respiratory system,

making breathing difficult. It can affect visibility by reacting with other air

particles to form haze and stain culturally important objects such as statues

and monuments.

NO2: Nitrogen Dioxide. Aggravates respiratory illness, causes haze to form by

reacting with other air particles, causes acid rain, pollutes coastal waters.

CO: Carbon monoxide. High concentration in air reduces oxygen supply to

critical organs like the heart and brain. At very high levels, it can cause

dizziness, confusion, unconsciousness and even death.

PM2.5 & PM10: Particulate matter pollution can cause irritation of the eyes,

nose and throat, coughing, chest tightness and shortness of breath, reduced

lung function, irregular heartbeat, asthma attacks, heart attacks and

premature death in people with heart or lung disease

(Individual pollutant data for various cities are averages for the previous day)


Kamesh.Mechrocks

Image

Kamesh.Mechrocks

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CMYK

NATION

Bank strike on August 22against reformsKOLKATA

United Forum of Banking

Unions (UFBU), the umbrella

body of trade unions in the

banking sector, has called a

nation-wide strike on August

22 to protest against the

reforms proposed by the

Centre. PTI

The five remaining competit-ors for the Google LunarXprize, including Bengaluru-based TeamIndus, have got athree-month extension inwhich to win the prize. Thedeadline to launch a space-craft to the moon has beenextended to March 31, 2018(instead of December 31 thisyear), according to Googleand Xprize, the sponsor andthe promoter of the prizerespectively.

The $30-million-plusprize is a contest forprivately financed teams toland a spacecraft on themoon, deploy a rover, andperform a set of predeter-mined tasks.

TeamIndus had alreadytied up with the IndianSpace Research Organisa-tion’s PSLV rocket to send itsspacecraft, ECA (short for Ek

Chotisi Asha, ‘one smallwish’ in Hindi), to the moonon or around December 28.The qualification model ofthe ECA is ready to go to thetesting facility this month, asplanned.

A press release quotedRahul Narayan, board mem-ber and Fleet Commander,as saying, “While we havebeen working hard on an ag-gressive time line, the

change of date allows us tocontinue with that fervour tomake sure that the missionmakes history.”

Sheelika Ravishankar,TeamIndus Jedi Master, Mar-keting, told The Hindu thatevery month, there are twolaunch windows of threedays, and the first viablewindow is December 28–30,2017. “We are workingclosely with Antrix [thecommercial wing of ISRO]on the launch window andare keeping them updated ofour progress; if the needarises, to move the windowbeyond December 28, wewill work with Antrix to fig-ure out available alternat-ives.” Ms. Ravishankar saidthat the March deadline“only means a couple of ex-tra weeks for us to run mis-sion-critical tests a few moretimes.”

TeamIndus estimates itsmission cost to be around₹500 crore, which is beingraised from private sectorequity partners, corporatesponsors and public contri-butions. So far, only govern-ment-owned and public-fun-ded space agencies havesent landing missions toMoon. India’s ISRO hasplanned its first lunar land-ing mission, Chandrayaan-2,in early 2018.

TeamIndus puts the estimate of its mission at ₹500 crore.

Race to the moon getsextended �nishing line

Madhumathi D.S.

Bengaluru

Malegaon blast accusedLieutenant Colonel ShrikantPrasad Purohit told the Su-preme Court on Thursdaythat he was an Army in-former who had infiltratedAbhinav Bharat, an organ-isation whose memberswere accused of conspiracyin the 2008 case, and gotcaught in the “politicalcrossfire.”

In his bail petition, Puro-hit said he had been in jailfor almost nine yearswithout charges beingframed against him.

‘Incarcerated hero’“He is still serving in theArmy. Since 2001, he hasgot numerous recommend-ations for infiltration. Froman unsung hero, he is nowcalled an incarceratedhero,” said senior advocateHarish Salve who appearedfor Purohit.

“The allegation againstme is that I supplied RDXexplosive material as part ofthe conspiracy hatched bySadhvi Pragya Thakur. Now,if she is enlarged on bailand given a clean chit by theNational Investigation

Agency (NIA), the linkbetween me and her issnapped. I am entitled to atleast interim bail afterspending nine years of jail,”Mr. Salve submitted.

He said charges underthe stringent MaharashtraControl of Organised CrimeAct were dropped againstPurohit by the SupremeCourt in 2015.

“After nine years, a manis entitled to see the sunoutside jail,” Mr. Salve said.

He argued that Purohitwas falsely implicated bythe ATS and no report wasfiled after eight years of aCourt of Inquiry.

A Bench of Justices R.K.Agrawal and A.M. Sapre re-served the petition for finalorders.

I was caught inpolitical cross�re,Purohit tells SC‘I am entitled to at least interim bail’

Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI

Shrikant Prasad Purohit

All toll plazas on nationalhighways will have elec-tronic toll collection facil-ity with at least one lanededicated to vehicles withelectronic tag device,known as FASTags, begin-ning September 1.

FASTags is a device thatcan be installed on thewindshield of any vehicle,and toll payments can bemade directly from thepre-paid account linked toit. Hence such vehicles donot have to stop at tollplazas for payment of fees.

“The dedicated FASTaglanes will become opera-tional at all 371 nationalhighway toll plazas fromSeptember 1,” NationalHighways Authority of In-dia (NHAI) ChairmanDeepak Kumar said hereon Thursday, “One lane inevery toll plaza will be adedicated FASTag lanewhere no other form ofpayment will be accepted.”

Tag sale from todayFrom Friday, FASTags canbe purchased online fromthe websites of banks, theNational Highways Author-ity of India and IndianHighways ManagementCompany Limited and itwill be delivered at the cus-tomer’s doorsteps, theMinistry of Road Transportand Highways said in astatement.

FASTags are valid forfive years and can be re-charged online throughdebit or credit card and in-ternet banking.

E-toll lane onall nationalhighwaysfrom Sept. 1Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI

GJM chief freed in MadanTamang murder case KOLKATA

In a relief to Gorkha Janmukti

Morha (GJM) president Bimal

Gurung, a city court on

Thursday discharged him

from the Madan Tamang

murder case. Madan Tamang,

leader of the Akhil Bharatiya

Gorkha League, was killed on

May 21, 2010 in broad

daylight in Darjeeling.

Between financial year 2012-13 and 2015-16, the five na-tional parties received a totalof ₹1,070.68 crore via volun-tary contributions above₹20,000. Of this, 89%, or₹956.77 crore, was from cor-porate and business houses,according to the Associationfor Democratic Reforms(ADR). The BJP received thelion’s share of the corporatedonations, lapping up ₹705.81crore from 2,987 corporatedonors.

This is nearly three timesthe combined corporatedonations received by the re-maining four parties. TheCongress was the next big be-neficiary, getting ₹198.16crore from 167 such donors.

As per the records, the BSPdid not receive any donationof above ₹20,000 during thisperiod. The CPI got the leastamount of donations from thecorporate sector, receivingonly ₹18 lakh from 17 donors,which accounted for just 4%of its total donations.

The BJP, the Congress, andthe Nationalist CongressParty (NCP) received the max-imum contributions from the

“trusts and group of com-panies” category, which in-cluded entities with interestsin mining, real estate, power,newspapers and other busi-nesses. This category of cor-porate/business housesdonated ₹432.65 crore topolitical parties between2012-13 and 2015-16, says thereport. While the BJP re-ceived ₹287.69 crore, the

Congress got ₹129.16 crore,and the NCP ₹15.78 crore.The BJP received the highestdonations from all the 14 sec-tors, as defined by the ADR,including real estate (₹105.20crore); mining, construction,exports/imports (₹83.56crore); and chemicals/phar-maceuticals (₹31.94 crore).

Every year, politicalparties are required to sub-

mit details of donationsabove ₹20,000 to the Elec-tion Commission. They haveto provide the donor’s name,address, PAN, mode of pay-ment and the amount con-tributed.

Satya Electoral TrustThe report states that SatyaElectoral Trust was the topdonor to three of the parties.

It donated to them 35times in three years, a totalof ₹260.87 crore. The BJP de-clared receiving ₹193.62crore in 23 donations, whilethe Congress was the recipi-ent of ₹57.25 crore in ninedonations.

The NCP received ₹10crore in three donationsfrom the Trust during thesame period.

Electoral SchemeThe Trust was formed beforethe Electoral Scheme waslaunched by the governmentin 2013.

Top donors for the CPI(M)and the CPI were associ-ations or unions.

The CPI received ₹14.64lakh from 15 associations andunions, while the CPI(M) got₹1.09 crore from seven asso-ciations.

In 1,933 donations in-volving ₹384.04 crore, PANdetails were not mentioned.

Address details were miss-ing for ₹355.08 crore re-ceived through 1,546 dona-tions. “99% of suchdonations without PAN andaddress details worth ₹159.59crore belong to the BJP,” saysthe ADR report.

At ₹706 crore, BJP gets lion’s shareof corporate donations, says reportIt received nearly three times the combined funding for other four national parties, according to ADR

Devesh K. Pandey

New Delhi

At least 53 more deaths wereon Thursday reported fromthe deluge-battered areas ofAssam, Bihar and WestBengal, where swirlingfloodwaters have paralysednormal life and maroonedover 1.2 crore people.

Flood casualties mountedto 98 in Bihar, with 26 morepeople losing their lives. Thedeluge has affected nearly 93lakh people in 15 districts, of-ficials said.

Assam’s third waveThe floods claimed 10 morelives in Assam. The toll in thethird wave of floods in theState has risen to 49. So far,133 people have died inflood-related incidents thisyear.

As many as 141 animals,including seven rhinos, have

been found dead in theflooded Kaziranga NationalPark, a senior forest depart-ment official said. The As-sam State Disaster Manage-ment Authority(ASDMA)said 31.55 lakh people havebeen affected in districtsofDhemaji, Lakhimpur,

Biswanath, Sonitpur, Udal-guri, Darrang, Nalbari, Bar-peta, Bongaigaon, Chirang,Kokrajhar, Dhubri, SouthSalmara, Goalpara, Kamrup,Kamrup Metropolitan, Mori-gaon, Nagaon, KarbiAnglong, Golaghat, Jorhat,Majuli, Sivasagar and

Dibrugarh districts. Dhubriis the worst affected with8.13 lakh people hit.

The Brahmaputra river isflowing above the dangermark at Guwahati, Nim-atighat in Jorhat, Tezpur inSonitpur, Goalpara andDhubri.

In West Bengal, 17 morepeople died in the floods, al-though the overall situationimproved on Thursday, offi-cials said.

Bitten by snakeOut of the 17 people, 15drowned while two othersdied after they were bittenby snake, a senior disastermanagement department of-ficial said here.

“We are monitoring thesituation round-the-clock,and doing everything to helpthe affected people,” an offi-cial said, adding there is no

dearth of relief material inthe districts.

In Uttar Pradesh, at least15 people have died due toflooding in the Balrampurand Bahraich districts overthe past three days. Bara-banki, Gonda, SiddharthNagar, Mahrajganj, Balram-pur and Bahraich districtsare reeling under floods fol-lowing heavy rain.

“Seven persons —— MalikRam (50), Badka (60), Gird-hari (68), Ram Charan (50),Aman (8), Mehfooz (12), RamSwarup (32) —— havedrowned in the floods in thelast 48 hours,” BalrampurDistrict Magistrate RakeshKumar Mishra said.

In Meghalaya’s West GaroHills district, 1.2 lakh peoplehave been affected by floods.

Twenty-four relief campshave been set up to providehelp to the affected.

Floods continue to wreak havoc in many partsNormal life paralysed and over 1.2 crore people marooned


New delhi

In danger: Indian one-horned rhinoceroses wade through �oodwaters in the Pobitora sanctuary in Assam. * AFP

ED seeks Sunanda casepapers for probe NEW DELHI

The Enforcement Directorate

has sought from the Delhi

police documents pertaining

to the Sunanda Pushkar case

to probe the money trail. In

response to a request for

investigating the financial

angle, the agency wrote to

the police in the first week of

August asking for the

relevant papers.

IN BRIEF

The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Ter-ror Squad (ATS) has arrestedtwo persons allegedly be-longing to Babbar Khalsa, abanned Khalistani outfit.

They were identified asBalwant Singh and JaswantSingh, a senior police officersaid on Thursday.

Balwant was arrestedfrom Aishbagh in Lucknowand Jaswant from a farm-house in Unnao district onWednesday.

Farmhouse raidedBalwant, absconding fromShaheed Bhagat SinghNagar in Punjab, was arres-ted on a tip-off from thePunjab police, ATS In-spector-General AseemArun said. Based on the in-

formation given by Balwant,an ATS team raided theBhalla farmhouse atSohramau in Unnao and ar-rested Jaswant. JaswantSingh alias Kala, a native ofMukhtsar district in Punjab,was wanted in many crim-inal cases in Punjab andother States, the police said.

He was wanted in twocases of murder dating backto 2016: one in Hanu-mangarh district in Ra-jasthan; and the other inFaridkot district of Punjab.

Mr. Arun said Jaswanttold the police that he hadspent time in jail in 2005 un-der the Arms Act and forother cases filed in his homedistrict. In 2008, he was ar-rested from Modi Colony inNew Delhi in a case of sedi-tion and under the ArmsAct.

Babbar Khalsaoperatives heldOmar Rashid

LucknowThe government hospitalin Saharanpur allegedlyturned away a pregnantwoman in the middle ofthe night after which shedelivered the baby in an e-rickshaw on her way to an-other hospital.

According to Mo-hammad Raees, a residentof the Mandi police stationof Saharanpur, he took hiswife to the hospital on Au-gust 14 midnight.

“We requested the dis-trict hospital staff to get asenior doctor see her. Thismade them angry and theyasked us to leave immedi-ately,” Raees said. “Wewere taking her to anotherhospital on a e-rickshawwhen she delivered a babyboy,” he added.

Womandelivers babyon rickshawStaff Reporter

Meerut


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EDITORIAL

The case of Akhila/Hadiya is becoming curiouser

by the day. Entrusted with adjudicating whether

her conversion to Islam and marriage to a Muslim

man were voluntary acts, the Supreme Court has em-

barked on a roving inquiry into whether Hindu women

in parts of Kerala are being radicalised. Inexplicably,

the court has sought inputs from the National Investiga-

tion Agency (NIA), tasked with tackling terrorism, to

probe the circumstances of the 24-year-old’s conver-

sion and marriage even before it heard her out. The

question before the court was the correctness of the

Kerala High Court’s decision to annul her marriage. The

Supreme Court’s reasoning for its position that it needs

the inputs of all stakeholders before it speaks to the wo-

man concerned is hard to comprehend. Of what use

would these inputs be if she maintains that she chose to

convert and marry voluntarily? The High Court did not

question her conversion to Islam, only suspecting the

veracity of her sudden claim that she was married to a

Muslim. This happened in the course of hearings on a

plea by her father complaining that she was under the

in�uence of radical groups. The High Court held that

the purported marriage was only a ruse to scuttle the

proceedings and annulled the marriage as a “sham”. In

the process, it made the odd observations that a wo-

man’s marriage requires the involvement of her parents

and that even if she had attained the age of majority, she

was still at a “vulnerable age”.

The Supreme Court has nominated a retired judge to

supervise the NIA probe, the object of which is presum-

ably to safeguard its independence and credibility. But

the inquiry itself has come about because of a submis-

sion made by the NIA that there is a pattern to such in-

cidents in Kerala. It is possible to make out a case for a

police investigation into the suspicious activities of rad-

ical groups in the State. But the mere suspicion that they

are working in an organised way to convert people is

not su�cient to conclude that they are involved in re-

cruiting them for overseas terror operations for groups

such as the Islamic State. The woman’s father maintains

that she is under the spell and in�uence of radical activ-

ists who, he says, would transport her abroad to destin-

ations such as Syria. These and related apprehensions

are subjects that should be addressed by the police and

intelligence agencies rather than by a process that in-

volves subjecting the woman to live in a manner not

chosen by her. It is unfortunate that the plea that she

was living under custody in her parental home despite

being a major failed to cut any ice before the two-judge

bench. In refusing to entertain the plea, the Supreme

Court has lent the unfortunate impression that it has

placed a judicial curtailment on her volition. Rather

than do this, it should have striven to �nd a way to pro-

tect her freedom of religion and movement.

Choice & conversionThe two seem to have become muddled in

the SC’s order in the Kerala conversion case

Flipkart’s announcement that SoftBank Vision

Fund, a private equity fund backed by Japanese

billionaire Masayoshi Son, would take a stake in

the company has energised India’s e-commerce space.

The investment is widely reported to be about $2.5 bil-

lion, and the deal would leave Flipkart with a war chest

of $4 billion in cash to sustain its operations. The move

is seen as the Japanese billionaire’s response to the in-

creasing domination of India’s e-commerce space by

the American giant Amazon. Amazon chief Je� Bezos

claimed in April this year that his company had become

India’s fastest-growing e-commerce company. He also

said that Amazon plans to increase its investment in In-

dia. A number of private data sources have con�rmed

since then that Amazon, since its launch in India in

2013, has either matched or surpassed Flipkart’s per-

formance on various counts. On the other hand, it is

well-known that Mr. Son’s initial investment in Snap-

deal, an Indian e-commerce venture, was far from suc-

cessful. In fact, in May this year, SoftBank recognised

losses of over $1.4 billion on its investments in Snapdeal

and Ola. Mr. Son’s attempts to merge Snapdeal with

Flipkart to create a larger rival to take on Amazon also

failed to materialise last month. Yet the allure of the In-

dian e-commerce market is hard to resist. E-commerce

is projected to grow at a rapid pace given the large po-

tential in a country where people predominantly shop

at traditional bricks-and-mortar retail stores.

The strength of Mr. Son’s investment pursuits has

been doubted for long. But he has also picked super-

winners such as Alibaba that have more than com-

pensated for his losses. For now his investments in the

Indian startup space have failed to take o�, but he may

still be counting on India to deliver his next big super-

winner. With Mr. Son’s �nancial backing Flipkart will be

looking to regain the ground it has lost to Amazon. Mr.

Bezos, on the other hand, will be keen not to lose out to

a rejuvenated Flipkart the way he lost the Chinese mar-

ket to Alibaba. Meanwhile, other Amazon rivals too

have entered the e-commerce fray in India. Microsoft,

Tencent and eBay have also invested in Flipkart this

year. Alibaba has invested in Paytm, the Indian pay-

ments company that also o�ers shopping services. Go-

ing forward, more e-commerce companies in India

might evolve into similar payments-cum-shopping plat-

forms. Such a strategy would be similar to the buy-and-

pay model at the foundation of Alibaba’s rise in China.

Notably, Tencent, Alibaba’s rival in China, has even

come up with a chat App (WeChat) that lets users shop

and pay. Amazon seems prepared for the challenge

with the launch of its own wallet service in India. But re-

gardless of who wins this battle, the Indian consumer

looks set to be wooed by more competitive prices.

Son vs BezosSoftbank and Amazon are upping the stakes

in India’s e-commerce market

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’sschedule of foreign visits has beenextremely impressive, and he hasmanaged to inject a degree of dy-namism into a system accustomedto a more leisurely pace. Estimat-ing outcomes from these visits is,however, more di�cult.

Taking the two most recent vis-its, for example, one can easily seethe contrast in outcomes. The U.S.visit was a carefully calibrated oneproducing few surprises, despitethe U.S. President having a reputa-tion of being highly unpredictable.For his part, the Prime Ministercharted a time-tested course, con-centrating mainly on counter-ter-rorism and the defence securitypartnership, avoiding contentioustrade-related issues. The naming ofthe Hizbul Mujahedeen chief as a“specially designated global terror-ist” and a “new consultation mech-anism on domestic and interna-tional terrorist designations listingproposals” were the high points ofthe counter-terrorism agenda. Re-iteration of India’s position as a ma-jor defence partner and con�rma-tion of the sale of the GuardianUnmanned Aerial System to India,re�ected the deepening securityand defence cooperation.

In concrete terms, not muchelse took place during the visit,despite an oblique reference in thejoint statement to China’s Belt andRoad Initiative (BRI) and reitera-tion of support for “freedom ofnavigation” in the Indo-Paci�c.What was most obvious was theU.S. tilt towards transactionalrather than strategic aspects.

A clear de-hyphenationIn the case of Israel, this being the�rst ever visit by an Indian PrimeMinister to that country, the eu-phoria of the standalone visit, de-hyphenating Israel from Palestine,

was understandable. It also pro-duced better dividends, includingelevation of the India-Israel rela-tionship to the level of a ‘strategicpartnership’. Israel achieved a ma-jor propaganda scoop by gettingthe Indian Prime Minister to visitthe memorial of Theodor Herzl,founding father of the Zionistmovement.

The main focus of the visit wason defence cooperation, joint de-velopment of defence productsand transfer of technology. Most ofthe agreements signed related totransfer of technology and innovat-ive technology-related items andIndia expects to bene�t substan-tially, considering that Israeli ex-port rules are far more �exiblethan those of the U.S.

Both countries also expressed astrong commitment to combat ter-ror. The reality, however, is thatwhen the two countries speak ofterrorism, they speak of very dif-ferent things. Iran and Hezbollahare the main targets for Israel,which has little interest in theAfghan Taliban or Pakistan’sLashkar-e-Taiba. For India, it is thelatter that matters.

The euphoria of the visit cannot,however, conceal China’s import-ance for Israel. China is a far biggerinvestor and trading partner of Is-rael than India. On this occasion,India and Israel decided to set up a$40 million Innovation Fund to al-low Indian and Israeli enterprisesto develop innovative technologiesand products for commercial ap-plications, but it is clearly dwarfedby the Israel-China comprehensiveinnovation partnership which hasan outlay of $300 million. Indiaand Israel also have di�erencesover China’s BRI: Israel is eager toparticipate in it, unlike India, andpossibly views this as an opportun-ity to develop a project parallel tothe Suez Canal.

It’s the neighboursTwo countries where India’s dip-lomacy, despite the impetus givento it, is currently facing heavy oddsare China and Pakistan. China inAsia is already exercising some ofthe political and economic lever-

ages that the U.S. previously pos-sessed. China has a signi�cantpresence in East and SoutheastAsia, is steadily enlarging its pres-ence in South Asia, and is also be-ginning to expand into West Asia.For instance, China’s in�uence inIran today appears to be at an all-time high, whereas India’s in�u-ence seems to be diminishing.

India has, however, refused tobe inveigled by China’s blandish-ments, including the BRI. Nor has it�inched from standing up toChinese ‘bullying’, as in the recentinstance of the Doklam plateau inBhutan. Few other countries inAsia are, however, willing or in aposition to tangle with China. A di-vided ASEAN again has providedChina with an opportunity todemonstrate its economic and mil-itary muscle. Most countries in theregion also demonstrate a desire tojoin China-based initiatives. Evenin South Asia, despite India’s com-manding presence, China has beensuccessful in winning quite a fewfriends among India’s neighbourssuch as Bangladesh, Nepal, SriLanka and the Maldives.

In the case of Pakistan, the im-plosion of the state arising from itsinternal stresses and problems, to-gether with the virtual stando�between India and Pakistan (in-volving a total cessation of talks orany kind of worthwhile contacts),has enabled the Pakistani DeepState to further entrench itself. In-dia has been left with few optionsand this is leading to a diplomaticgridlock which does not augur wellfor India.

As Pakistan becomes still moredeeply mired in problems, its de-pendence on China is growing.This is contributing to a strategicimbalance in the South Asian re-gion. It is a moot point whether In-dia and Indian diplomacy can dosomething to rectify matters in thiscontext, but for the present it con-fronts Indian diplomacy with onemore serious dilemma.

Notwithstanding India’s e�orts,the diplomatic scene vis-à-vis Rus-sia also could be better. Russia isundergoing a strategic resurgenceof sorts, sustained in good measureby the close relations recently es-tablished with China. Buoyed bydevelopments in the Ukraine andCrimea, and the uncertainties sur-rounding U.S. commitment toNATO, the new Russia-China ‘stra-tegic congruence’ is certain to im-pact Asia. The problem for Indiaand Indian diplomacy is that at thistime India-Russia relations appearless robust than at any time in thepast half century.

India’s ‘Act East and Look West’policies have given a new dimen-sion to Indian diplomacy in bothEast and West Asia. In both re-gions, however, but especially inWest Asia, Indian diplomacy stilllacks the nimbleness required todeal with fast-changing situations.In West Asia, despite its long timepresence in the region, a 9-millionstrong diaspora, and the region be-ing its principal source of oil, Indiais not a major player today. BothRussia and China have overtakenIndia in the a�airs of the region.This is particularly true of Iranwhere the Russia-China-Iran rela-tionship has greatly blossomed, al-most marginalising India’sin�uence.

Fadeout in West AsiaIndia’s absence from, and its inabil-ity to play a role in, West Asia, evenas the region confronts a splitdown the line between the Araband the non-Arab world is unfortu-nate. More so, there is the possibil-ity of a series of confrontationsbetween an increasingly powerfulShiite Iran and a weakening SaudiArabia. The most recent challenge

is the one posed by Qatar to the ex-isting order in the West Asian re-gion. The fallout of all this will im-pact India adversely and Indiandiplomacy’s inability to make itspresence felt will matter. An addi-tional concern for India would bethat growing uncertainties in theregion could further fuel radical Is-lamist terror in the region.

The ‘Act East’ policy has pro-duced better results. Closer rela-tions with countries in East andSouth East Asia, especially Japanand Vietnam, are a positive devel-opment. However, in the Asia-Pa-ci�c, India has to contend with anincreasingly assertive China. Thereis little evidence to show that In-dia’s diplomatic manoeuvres indi-vidually, or with allies like Japan,have succeeded in keeping theChinese juggernaut at bay — or forthat matter provide an alternativeto China in the Asia-Paci�c.

India’s diplomatic establish-ment is all too aware of the politicalhistory and economics of the Asianregion. Under Prime MinisterModi, diplomatic styles havechanged but it would seem that thesubstance has altered little. His re-cent visit to Israel was, no doubt, aresounding success, but Israel wasalready one of the very few coun-tries which had shown a completeunderstanding of India’s defenceand security needs, even ignoringthe sanctions imposed on India bysome countries. Israel’s supply ofcritical defence items during theKargil con�ict (of 1999) is an excel-lent example.

What Indian diplomacy cur-rently needs to do is to �nd a way tosteer amid an assertive China, ahostile Pakistan, an uncertainSouth Asian and West Asian neigh-bourhood, and an unstable world.The strategic and security implica-tions of these, individually and sev-erally, need to be carefully valid-ated and pursued. Indiandiplomacy may possibly need todisplay still higher levels of sophist-ication to overcome the odds.

M.K. Narayanan is a former NationalSecurity Adviser and a former Governor ofWest Bengal

Redrawing the arc of in�uence Indian diplomacy needs to display higher levels of sophistication for New Delhi to play a global role

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inhis Independence Day address,spoke triumphantly about how de-monetisation drove ₹3 lakh croreof unaccounted money into thebanking system. The Reserve Bankof India (RBI) is still counting oldnotes, and unaccounted moneycases are ongoing. Thus, this num-ber is at best a guesstimate, andcannot be taken seriously.

Dipping indicesFor the facts, turn to the mid-yearEconomic Survey II, tabled in Par-liament deliberately on the last dayof the monsoon session, ensuringno discussion. The Survey statesthat GDP growth will miss the tar-geted 6.75% to 7.5%. This is amassive understatement. Examinethis quote from the Survey: “Anumber of indicators — GDP, coreGVA (GVA excluding agricultureand government), the Index of In-dustrial Production (IIP), credit, in-vestment and capacity utilisation —point to a deceleration in real activ-ity since the �rst quarter of 2016-17,and a further deceleration since

the third quarter.” The Survey thuscon�rms that demonetisation am-bushed a slowing economy. Con-sequently, core GVA, i.e. privatebusiness activity, dropped steeplyfrom 11% in March 2016 to 4% inMarch 2017.

The Survey shows how demon-etisation devastated the informalsector, using two-wheeler sales as aproxy indicator. These droppedsteeply for two quarters after de-monetisation. Construction,which absorbs migrant labour, wasalso badly hit. The Survey thus sup-ports the Opposition’s argumentthat Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s“record” allocation for MGNREGSmerely re�ects displaced migrantworkers returning to villages andexercising their right to socialinsurance.

Demonetisation badly a�ectedfarmers’ incomes resulting in a lossof demand, lowering food prices.Consequently, in�ation has hitlows below the RBI’s targetedband. Low in�ation levels come ata human cost — farmers and thosein the informal economy are losingtheir limited purchasing power.

Additionally, hasty implementa-tion of the Goods and Services Tax(GST) has paralysed the informalmanufacturing sector which liveson the edge, often saddled withdebt. Protests in the textile hub ofSurat re�ect how GST is a�ectingmedium, small and micro-scale en-

terprises. Formalisation of the eco-nomy should not shut down busi-nesses and extinguish livelihoods.Similarly, leather, another labour-intensive sector, is in trouble due torestrictions on cattle slaughter.

Overall, there is concern thatthe economy is in a deep hole, theopposite of what the governmentwould have us believe. It hasentered the “Modi Slump”. Banksare not lending. In the year endingMarch 2017, credit growth plungedto 5.1%, lowest in 60 years. Theprivate sector is not borrowing andthe manufacturing sector is operat-ing at a historically low capacityutilisation of 70%. The latest IIPshows a contraction of 0.1% in June2017.

Neither credit nor investmentwill increase until the governmentaddresses the “twin balancesheets” problem. Fixing theseshould have been top priority.Sadly, the Modi government’s earlyfocus was on undoing the 2013 landacquisition law instead of address-ing non-performing assets (NPAs).Bank lending is the lifeblood of theeconomy but government inactionhas brought investments to a halt.In March 2014, NPAs were₹1,73,800 crore. Today they areabout ₹7,79,163 crore. Instead thegovernment talks up foreign in-vestment (only 2-3% of GDP) or ag-gressively lobbies the RBI to cut in-terest rates, which is unlikely to

achieve much.As State governments �nd their

�scal space narrowing, private in-vestment falters, and demandslows, we are entering a de�ation-ary environment. Still there are�scal policy measures that theUnion government can deploy. Itcan belatedly share the bene�ts oflow oil prices by cutting excise du-ties on petroleum to give peopleand businesses more spendingpower, boosting demand.

Destroying, not creatingOn the most important indicator —jobs — we are seeing job destruc-tion! The Centre for Monitoring In-dian Economy reports that 1.5 mil-lion jobs were lost duringJanuary-April 2017. Ignoring hisown promise of creating two crorejobs a year, Mr. Modi exhorted job-seekers to become job creators.But international experience, forexample in developed OECD (Or-ganisation for Economic Co-opera-

tion and Development) countries,shows self-employment is onlyabout 15% of total employment.Most Indians are self-employed outof necessity.

Mr. Modi extolled the job-creat-ing impact of the MUDRA loanscheme. In contrast, MUDRA’s CEOis on record saying that it cannot beveri�ed that the agency has cre-ated large numbers of jobs. An-other misguided Union ministerrecently gloated about “job cre-ation” under MGNREGS — not real-ising that it is a social protectionscheme that people turn to whenthey have no alternative employ-ment and not exactly a reason forcheer.

Overall, the real state of India’seconomy is deeply worrying. Thelatest RBI surveys of consumercon�dence, industrial outlook,and professional forecasters pointto pessimism on all fronts exceptin�ation management. Mr. Modispoke of how a train slows down asit changes tracks. Unfortunately,Economic Survey II’s numbers sug-gest that the economy has actuallybeen derailed. The sooner the gov-ernment understands this, thebetter.

M.V. Rajeev Gowda is a Member ofParliament and Chairman, AICCResearch Department. Salman Soz isRegional Coordinator (North Zone), AllIndia Professionals’ Congress

That sinking feelingIn contrast to its pronouncements, the government’s own data suggest the economy is in a deep hole

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Cause of tragedy Whatever be the causeattributed to this tragedy bythe Central governmentcommittee, it cannot bedenied that gross humannegligence on a major scalehas played its part(“Gorakhpur deaths not dueto lack of oxygen, sayspanel”, August 17).Moreover, the claim of theCentral committee thatfewer deaths have occurredthis year compared to lastyear is no excuse and cannever console those whohave lost their little ones. N. Visveswaran,

Chennai

Not only are the �guresshocking, but the fact thatthey are not seen asalarming and that thesedeaths have been occurringregularly in the region is

extremely worrying (“15%-29% AES fatality rate at BRDHospital”, August 17). That20 deaths daily arerecorded on average sevendecades after we achievedindependence re�ects theterrible functioning of thehospital and the state ofhealth care in India. We stillhave many governmenthospitals in the countrywhere maintenance andservice are both poor.Governments are alwaysready to spend on capitalexpenditure, which willfetch commissions andkickbacks, but don’t giveenough importance tohealth-care services.Kshirasagara Balaji Rao,

Hyderabad

It seems as though there isenough evidence to provethat the hospital and the

State administrationignored reminders by theprivate �rm that suppliedoxygen for payment ofoutstanding dues. Yet theCentral committee reportsays that the deaths werenot due to oxygen. Thisargument does not cut ice.Who were the members ofthis committee? We need toknow their names anda�liations. Matters of thismagnitude cannot beallowed to go unveri�ed. V. Lakshmanan,

Tirupur

Right to free speechFree and fearless exchangeof ideas is essential for theevolution of a democracy(“The architecture ofcensorship”, Aug. 17).However, as a society wehave failed to realise thatthe right to free expression

does not mean onlyexpressing those ideas thatare in line with what amajority of the peoplethink. It’s no coincidencethat we are yet to come outwith a serious political �lmin India in recent times, forinstance. Compare this withHollywood where �lms likeAll The President’s Men andFrost/Nixon have released.They had the names ofactual political �gures. Thisis unlike in India where wegive them �ctional namesand allude to them onlythrough clothes ormannerisms. This isbecause there is fear that alegal case might have to befought later. It is a pity thatcourts do not uphold thisbasic right to expression.Bipin Thaivalappil,

Payyannur

Defending racists With Donald Trump as U.S.President, the far rightclearly feels emboldened tounleash violence withimpunity against those whoseek to protect liberalism(“Both sides at fault, saysTrump on racial violence”,Aug. 17). Rather thancondemning the

Charlottesville incident instrong words, PresidentTrump has sided with thewhite supremacists, whichis a great pity. He should notpander to obscurantistelements on the ground.M. Jeyaram,

Sholavandan

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corrections & clarifications: >>In the report headlined“They wanted to create terror: witnesses” (August 15, 2017), therewas a reference to the “decoration” of American independence. Itshould have been declaration.

>>Correction: The report headlined “46 killed as massive land-slip buries vehicles” (August 14, 2017) erroneously said a Volvo buswas involved in the accident. It was not a Volvo bus.

The correction above — published in the Corrections and Clari-�cations column on August 17, 2017 — had inadvertently given thedate of publication of the report as August 14, 2016.

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DATA POINT

Censorship is always abhorrent in ademocracy. There are unlikely to betwo views about this. However, Indiansneed to re�ect upon the way our al-legedly autonomous publicly ownedbroadcasting corporations treat com-ments by Opposition leaders which

could o�end the government of the day. This month alonewe’ve had two distressing instances. In one case, a Chief Minis-ter’s speech was recorded but not broadcast. In the other, anoutgoing Vice President’s interview was not repeated eventhough the repeat telecast times had been broadcast.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar’s Independence Dayspeech no doubt made points that would make the Modi gov-ernment uncomfortable. He said “the spirit of secularism isunder attack.” He added: “Conspiracies and attempts are un-der way to create an undesirable complexity and divisions inour society; to invade our national consciousness in the nameof religion, caste and community, by inciting passions to con-vert India into a particular religion country and in the name ofprotecting the cow.” It’s clear who Mr. Sarkar was targeting al-though he did not name anyone. But his concerns are widelyshared. More importantly, Independence Day is an appropri-ate moment to voice apprehensions about the nation’s future.To have censored the speech on the grounds that it wasn’t“very positive” is bizarre. Honest and re�ective criticismshould always be considered positive content.

Possibly more inexplicable was Prasar Bharati’s request thatMr. Sarkar “reshape” his speech. If anything, this compoun-ded the censorship by trying to tell an elected head of govern-ment what to say or how to express himself.

What happened to former Vice President Hamid Ansari’s in-terview was not as extreme but it was still unfortunate. The in-terview was shown in full on August 10, his last day in o�ce.But the repeats scheduled and announced for August 11 wereeither altered at the last moment or altogether dropped. It was‘understood’ that once Mr. Ansari was no longer Vice Presid-ent, Rajya Sabha TV felt no compulsion to repeat his interview.

I’m not sure if Prasar Bharati or Rajya Sabha TV were actingunder instructions. Indeed, it’s quite possible that pusillanim-ous o�cers chose to drop a speech or not repeat an interviewthat would upset their masters. And I have no doubt that if aCongress government had been in power, a BJP Chief Minis-ter’s speech or a BJP-appointed Vice President’s interviewwould have been similarly treated.

There’s no doubt Ministers often demand that oppositionviewpoints are dropped. But, almost as often, o�cials act ac-cording to what they believe their political masters desire. Inmany instances, it’s this anticipation that undermines ourpublic broadcasters. It happens because inappropriate peopleare appointed but also because the system does not give themsecurity. Just 11 months ago, the Prime Minister told Network18: “... There should be the strictest possible analysis of thegovernment and the work done by it. Otherwise, democracycannot run … That’s why I want the media to be very critical.”Now he must insist public broadcasters act accordingly.

Karan Thapar is a broadcast journalist and interviewed Hamid Ansari forRajya Sabha TV .

O� the air Blacking out comments on TV that don’tappeal to the government is distressing

KARAN THAPAR


SINGLE FILE

GE

TT

Y I

MA

GE

S

The reaction of theRashtriya SwayamsevakSangh-Bharatiya JanataParty to the views andconcerns expressed by

former Vice President Hamid An-sari is horrifying. RSS-BJP leadershave stooped low in launching theirattack on him, making subtle refer-ence to his religion and asking himto quit India and migrate to anyother country where he can feel se-cure. The question is, did he sayanything wrong or should he havespoken? Every citizen would agreewith Mr. Ansari when he pointed to-wards “enhanced apprehensions ofinsecurity amongst segments of our

citizen body, particularly Dalits,Muslims and Christians” and the “il-liberal form of nationalism that pro-motes intolerance”.

The situation in the country isreally scary. Citizens do not feel se-cure. Assaults on the rights ofpeople are on the rise. The RSS-Sangh Parivar have become ag-gressive in redefining “nation andnationhood” and rewriting history.

Swami Vivekananda took pridein India’s extraordinary history ofinclusion and acceptance. Whenthe sense of oneness and unitybreaks down, people who are nu-merically less in terms of their faithor are at a disadvantaged position

because of caste or otheridentities feel threatened,excluded and persecuted.It is in such a situation thatit becomes the duty andresponsibility of societyand the state to makethem feel secure. Mr. An-sari was only remindingthose in power to be inclusive intheir approach.

Addressing anxietiesIn the modern era, we made at-tempts to remove anxieties ofminorities when Sardar VallabhbhaiPatel, as Chairman of the Constitu-ent Assembly committee on therights of minorities, recommendedspecial safeguards for them whichwere eventually incorporated in theConstitution.

Pandit JawaharlalNehru wrote a letter toChief Ministers in 1948and said that if Muslimswere subjected to dis-crimination and ill treat-ment, they would be-come a festering sorepoisoning the whole

body politic. So it is quite clear thatthe anxieties and fears of Muslimsand other minorities were being ex-pressed by our leadership since theformative stage of nation building.

Swami Vivekananda in his ‘FromColombo to Almora’ lectures con-veyed the worries and apprehen-sions of Dalits and sought measuresfor their access to education, liveli-hood opportunities and other enti-tlements. Mahatma Gandhi ex-plained communal violence by

referring to the practice of untouch-ability in Hindu society. He said thatall those who were victims of un-touchability were attracted to Islambecause of its ideals of equality andbrotherhood and there would havebeen no communal violence andHindu-Muslim disunity had therebeen no untouchability.

Root of communal violence Why is nobody paying attention tothe anxieties caused by the practiceof untouchability, which is at theroot of all communal violence andfor which Dalits are being treatedwith contempt? The Hindutvaforces are conveniently forgettingall such issues and anybody who ar-ticulates the concerns of minoritiesand Dalits — even a student — facessedition charges and is criticised in

disparaging terms. When Dr. B.R. Ambedkar ex-

pressed the anxieties of Dalits anddemanded legal safeguards, he wasopposed by those who wanted aHindu Rashtra. Those articulatingthe anxieties of minorities and Dal-its in a constitutional frameworkare articulating a grammar of unitywhich is a crying necessity for anIndia facing a counterculture of dis-cord and disunity.

The Constitution and constitu-tional morality are not being kept inmind and people are being targetedviolently for their stand in supportof the exploited people. The formerVice President was only remindingpeople to uphold the values en-shrined in the Constitution — a posi-tion the Left has articulated fromtime to time.

Should Hamid Ansari have spoken his mind?Every Indian would agree with his comments about

increasing insecurity in segments of our citizenry

D. Raja

is national secretary of

the Communist Party

of India and a Member

of the Rajya Sabha

LEFT, RIGHT, CENTRE

LEFT

No former Vice Presid-ent would have gotinto controversies aseasily as Hamid Ansaridid and no one would

have got out of it too as easily as hehas, at least so far.

Man of controversiesHe was once accused of “influen-cing” Rajya Sabha TV, of which hewas the chief as Chairman of theUpper House, of total blackout ofthe live telecast of the Yoga Dayevent. Mr. Ansari was accused ofnot saluting the national flag duringthe Republic Day parade in 2015.

His office clarified that as per pro-tocol, only those in uniform (andprobably the head of state) salutethe national flag while the nationalanthem is being played. Again inAugust 2013, the Chairmanwondered if “members (of the Ra-jya Sabha) wish the House to be-come a federation of anarchists”;both Congress and BJP membersprotested. In 2010, it was allegedthat a poor farmer’s hut wasbrought down to make way for hishelicopter to land.

For the record, Mr. Ansari alsocastigated Pakistan in very strongwords for using terrorism as a state

policy and rearing terror-ists to be deployed in In-dia. I don’t remember ifanyone commended himthen.

Naturally, therefore, Iwas surprised at someparts of the last speech hemade [as Vice President,at the 25th annual convocation ofthe National Law School of IndiaUniversity in Bengaluru] and somepoints he flagged in an interview toRajya Sabha TV while answeringquestions on Muslims in India andhow they feel, about “a feeling ofunease, a sense of insecurity creep-ing in”.

Not a Muslim spokesmanNow, Hamid Ansari is no ordinary

Muslim from a poorbackground. He is aneducated former IndianForeign Service officerwho has effectively rep-resented India abroad,especially in Islamiccountries. Does he re-flect the views and senti-

ments of the ordinary Muslim? Idon’t think so.

By creating a halo of victimhoodaround Muslims, the Congress ef-fectively insulated the communityfrom mainstream politics, em-powerment and benefits of devel-opment. In the bargain, a ready-made vote bank was created. TheLeft parties, Samajwadi Party, Trin-amool Congress and others tookover from where the Congress had

left and benefited politically. Whatthey actually did was to create afalse sense of insecurity among sec-tions of the Muslims and use the in-fluence of the clergy to corner theirvotes. The 2014 elections and oth-ers held after have shown that sec-tions of Muslims are turning to-wards the BJP, or at least turningaway from the Congress and otherparties that trumpeted that they arethe true representatives of Muslims.

Indian secularism India is secular not because theConstitution says so (since 1976) butremains secular because of its cent-rist Hindu ethos. The real danger tosecularism is from Islam-khatrey-mein-hai (Islam is in danger) bri-gades as much as it is from the so-

called Hindu fringe. I don’t knowwhy Mr. Ansari said what he said. Ihad even tweeted expressing mysurprise at his views and felt that hehas actually done a disservice to theMuslim community. Instead of be-coming a bridge between the gov-ernment and the Muslim com-munity, he has probably burnt hisbridges.

In many of the controversies, re-ported and unreported, I was onMr. Ansari’s side as he is sober, lo-gical, and not the kind who can becompelled or convinced to wear hisreligion on his sleeve.

For once, I am surprised that hechose to speak like a politicianrather than a centrist thinker whoseviews may be unpalatable but notwrong on facts.

Instead of becoming a bridge between the government

and the Muslim community, he has burnt his bridges

Seshadri Chari

is a former editor of

‘Organiser’,

commentator on

strategic, security and

foreign a�airs, and

member of the BJP

National Executive

RIGHT

Article 60 of the Con-stitution lays down theoath to be sworn bythe President beforeentering office. What

is vital in this oath are the words“preserve, protect and defend theConstitution and the law”. The oathof the Vice President contained inArticle 69 is virtually analogous.Article 65 further states that in theevent of the occurrence of any va-cancy in the office of the President,the Vice President shall act as Pres-ident until the date on which a newPresident is elected.

Though the Vice President is alsoChairperson of the Council of Statesand theoretically is but a heartbeataway from the presidency, in realterms it means nothing. Both thePresident and the Vice Presidentare but mere symbols of the staterather than its pillars. Nonetheless,both the President and the VicePresident have a constitutional andmoral obligation to preserve, pro-tect and defend the Constitution.That provides the constitutionalleeway to step beyond the strait-jacketed confines of their ceremo-nial existence. However, the timing

of their actions or inter-ventions is of the essence.

Profound differencesThe first President of In-dia, Rajendra Prasad,differed with Prime Minis-ter Jawaharlal Nehru onthe Hindu Code Bill.Prasad wrote to Nehru on Septem-ber 15, 1951: “My right to examine it(the Bill) on its merits, when it ispassed by the Parliament, beforegiving assent to it is there. But if anyaction of mine at a later stage islikely to cause embarrassment tothe Government, I may take suchappropriate actions as I may becalled upon to avoid such embar-rassment consistently with the dic-

tates of my own con-science.” This was beforethe Bill was even form-ally presented to Parlia-ment by the government.

Giani Zail Singh hadprofound differenceswith Prime Minister RajivGandhi. He refused to

sign the contentious Indian Post Of-fice (Amendment) Bill, 1986, thatwould have empowered the govern-ment to censor personal mail;sought the government’s reason fornot embracing a clear policy on theappointment of Supreme Court andHigh Court judges; queried the gov-ernment’s media coverage policy…the list goes on and on. Was he righton doing so? Perhaps not. However,

he did not wait for the end of histerm to articulate his opinion.

President K.R. Narayanan re-peatedly wrote rather toughmissives to Prime Minister A.B. Va-jpayee between February 28 andMarch 15, 2002, calling for an ex-planation on why the NDA/BJP gov-ernments failed to pre-empt, pre-vent and then stop the Gujaratpogrom. It is sad the Delhi HighCourt blocked the release of thosecritical letters even 10 years later in2012.

Timing is of essenceIn that context, the track record ofthe previous presidency and vicepresidency is perhaps blotted. ThePresident could have stayed his

hand on the promulgation of Pres-ident’s Rule in Uttarakhand,stepped in when sequential consti-tutional coups were being carriedout in Arunachal Pradesh. Similarly,the Vice President should havespoken out when Mohammad Akh-laq was lynched [in 2015] for al-legedly possessing beef. He shouldhave gone for his burial. It wouldhave sent a salutary message toboth the government and the com-munity, for that is the inflectionpoint that made Muslims insecure.

Delivering homilies at the end ofthe term can end up being critiquedas a case of sour grapes or a partingkick. Does it bestow glory on highconstitutional offices? The jury isout on that.

He should have spoken out when Mohammad Akhlaq

was lynched. He should have gone for Akhlaq’s burial

Manish Tewari

is a lawyer and was

the Information and

Broadcasting Minister

in the UPA 2

government

CENTRE

The Union Cabinet to-day [August 17, New Delhi] postponed afinal decision both on the question of switch-over to the re-gional language as medium of instruction at the universitystage, and the proposed legislation to continue English as anassociate official language indefinitely. Though the Cabinethas deferred a firm decision on the first issue for a technicalreason – that the Lok Sabha has not discussed the EducationCommission’s report – it is obvious that the Governmentwants to review its earlier decision because of the widespreadcriticism against dispensing with English at the universitystage.

FIFTY YEARS AGO AUGUST 18, 1967

Govt. puts o� decision on language issue


FROM ARCHIVES

Continuous and chiefly bitter fighting has been in progressthroughout the day along the front of the renewed offensive.The joint Anglo-French attack appears to have been a successbut the situation on the right flank is a little obscure. Ourtroops hereabouts are moving towards Polygon de Zonnebekebut the Germans have been delivering some very heavycounter-attacks there. Further north we have unquestionablydone very well.

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO AUGUST 18, 1917

Flanders battle.

Monroe

Doctrine

History

This is a policy adopted bythe U.S. in 1823 whereby itdecided to oppose colonialintervention into theAmericas by Europeanempires. It is named afterAmerican President JamesMonroe, who spelled outthe doctrine in his State ofthe Union address to theU.S. Congress. The MonroeDoctrine was aimed at pre-serving the political inde-pendence that Latin Amer-ican nations won fromtheir European colonisers.It stated that any futureEuropean intervention inthe Americas would beconsidered an act of ag-gression that would causethe U.S. to intervene in thematter.

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Prohibited areas aroundmonuments and archae-ological sites may have togive space for more infra-structure. The AncientMonuments and Archae-ological Sites and Remains(Amendment) Bill, 2017,which is pending in theLok Sabha, attempts to ad-dress the issues confront-ing construction for publicworks due to proposedplans running through‘prohibited’ area (100maround a protected monu-ment or area). The An-cient Monuments and Ar-chaeological Sites andRemains Act of 1958 barsany sort of constructionwithin the prohibited areaof these structures.

The 1958 Act definesancient monuments to in-clude a structure, erec-tion, monument, any tu-mulus, place of interment,cave, rock sculpture, in-scription or monolithwhich is of historical, ar-chaeological or artistic in-terest and which has been

in existence for not lessthan 100 years. Delhi itselfis home to several UN-ESCO world heritage sites.

The Bill introduces anamendment to Section 2of the 1958 Act, expandingthe definition of publicworks to construction byany department of theCentral government forpublic purposes. It saysthe “emergent necessity”of building such infra-structure would be basedon a “specific instance ofdanger to the safety or se-curity of the public atlarge”. Such public infra-structure would be al-lowed within the prohib-ited area of a historicmonument or archaeolo-gical site only if there is“no reasonable possibilityof any other viable altern-ative to have such a con-struction beyond the lim-its of the prohibited area”of the monument.

The Bill amends Section20A of the 1958 Act to al-low public works in pro-hibited areas within themonument or archaeolo-

gical site. Any question asto whether a particularwork is of a public natureor not shall be forwardedto a competent authorityunder the Act, which willmake its recommendationand place it before theCentre, whose decisionwill be final.

In case any departmentof the Central governmentproposes to carry out anypublic work within a pro-hibited area, it will makean application to the com-petent authority. The au-thority will make its re-commendation and handit over to the Centre,which will take a final de-cision and communicate itto the applicant office ordepartment within 10days of the decision.

The Bill also amendsSection 20I of the 1958Act. This is a note to thecompetent authority tomake its recommenda-tions to the Centre onlyafter conducting an ar-chaeological, visual andheritage impactassessment.

Monumental legislation

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ACT ONE

Public works may be allowed within 100m of monuments

Krishnadas Rajagopal


Kamesh.Mechrocks

Image

Kamesh.Mechrocks

Image

CMYK

A ND-NDE




NEWS

FROM PAGE ONE

A Bench of Justices DipakMisra, Amitava Roy andA.M. Khanwilkar underlinedthat the Supreme Court willnot allow NEET to be “de-molished” at any cost.

“This is a human prob-lem... Our motto is‘whatever we do, a studentwho has laboured for NEETand got a rank should notsuffer, whatever be thecost’,” Justice Misra ob-served.

The court further direc-ted the State government tofile the list of students fromthe Tamil Nadu State Boardwho appeared for NEET thisyear.

The Bench was hearing apetition filed by senior ad-vocate Nalini Chidambaramand advocate AnushreeMenon, appearing for abatch of CBSE students whocleared NEET in TamilNadu.

They argued that the or-dinance was unconstitu-tional and played with thelives of thousands who hadcleared NEET.

Senior advocate VikasSingh, for MCI, opposed anyfurther delay in admissions.He submitted that TamilNadu had violated the man-

date of the Supreme Court’sorders that NEET would bethe sole basis for medicaladmissions. Mr. Singh saidthe State was acting in con-tempt of the court’s orders.

He said other States havealready finished theirsecond round of coun-selling, while Tamil Naduhad neither published itsrank list nor startedcounselling.

“The State cannot createa fait accompli and say ‘Iwill only do it this way’.They have to declare therank list. It seems the Statedoes not want its studentspoised on the equal plat-form NEET offers and is try-ing to create various cat-egories of students – PlusTwo and NEET,” Mr. Singhsubmitted.

He said any change in theadmission mechanism nowwould render the NEETmerit list redundant.

To this the Tamil Nadugovernment, represented bysenior advocate ShekharNaphade, justified its ordin-ance, saying “every changein law is bound to bringsome inconvenience tosomebody. Does it mean theState cannot bring a law?”

SC puts T.N. medicaladmissions on hold

He also raised questions iffinancial irregularities in thehospital were behind the“missing” cylinders.

A note circulated byMeenu Walia, the HR man-ager of the firm, said thecompany maintained sup-ply of liquid oxygen to theBRD hospital “irrespectiveof overdue payment.”

“First supply for themonth of August was madeon August 4. The next intim-ation of refilling requestfrom BRD medical collegewas given on August 11,which was also made avail-able on August 12 by PushpaSales,” said Ms. Walia.

While the DM’s reporttalks about the interruptionof oxygen supply in the hos-pital, blaming the firm aswell as senior hospital man-agement, it remains silenton the cause of death of thechildren.

Audit recommendedRaising suspicions of irregu-larities, DM Rautela alsofound “over-writing” in thestock book of the hospital.

The report said anom-

alies in the hospital log bookof oxygen cylinders, in-stances of “over-writing” inthe stock book and the fail-ure of the management tomaintain a “serial-wise anddate-wise” payment of billsto the private firm “primafacie” indicated “financialirregularities.”

It recommended that anaudit be conducted and thata high-level probe be heldby the medical educationdepartment.

Doctor faultedThe DM indicted Satish Ku-mar, HoD of anaesthesiaward, and Gajanan Jaiswal,chief pharmacist of themedical college, for laxity inexecuting their duty ofmaintaining the oxygen cyl-inder log book and stockbook. “They did not main-tain their records well andover-writing was found inthe stock book,” the two-page report said. Mr. Kumarwas also held “guilty of notdischarging his duties” as hewas in-charge of the logbook as well maintainingthe supply of liquid oxygen.

U.P. hospital’s oxygensupply not cut: �rm

The Supreme Court onThursday decided to hearthe government on the con-spiracy and making of thebelt bomb that killed formerPrime Minister Rajiv Gandhiin May 1991 at Sriperumbu-dur in Tamil Nadu.

The court is consideringthe plea by one of the con-victs in the case, A.G. Per-arivalan, who was foundguilty of supplying a nine-volt battery for the bomb.

Perarivalan has suggesteda larger conspiracy behindthe assassination. His coun-sel, advocate Gopal Sank-aranarayanan, has pokedholes in the prosecution ver-sion that the makers of thebomb, who were resourcefulenough to get hold of high-grade explosives and othercomplex parts of the IED,would have actually de-pended on Perarivalan tobuy a battery for the bomb.

A Bench of Justices RanjanGogoi and Naveen Sinha ob-

served that the court wouldhear only on the point of analleged larger conspiracy be-hind the making of the IED.It has scheduled a hearingnext Wednesday.

“Only that point concernsyou [Perarivalan],” JusticeGogoi observed.

The court refused to lookinto other points pressed byPerarivalan, including thepossibility of an ‘interna-tional conspiracy’, saying allthat is a ‘closed chapter foryou.’

The hearing was based ona sealed cover report submit-ted in court.

Perarivalan has allegedthat there has not been an ef-fective probe into the ‘largerconspiracy’ behind the 1991killing of the national leader.He has claimed that an “ef-fective and straight-forwardinvestigation may bring ma-terial contrary to the prosec-ution case.”

Perarivalan, who is lodgedin the Vellore Prison in TamilNadu, claimed that he has

spent 25 years in prison, andhas every right as a citizen toseek a proper investigationin the assassination of a na-tional leader.

Multiple hurdlesAppearing for the CBI, Addi-tional Solicitor GeneralManinder Singh had in theprevious hearing submittedthat the probe is prolongedbecause there are several dif-

ficulties, including the factthat many of the suspects areabsconders and outside thecountry, and so they requireto be extradited first.

To this, the Bench said theprobe has to be completedand if there is any benefit ac-cruing to the petitioner (Per-arivalan) from the result ofthe enquiry, he should surelyget it.

The story of the ‘larger

conspiracy’ angle started in1998 when the Justice M.C.Jain Commission of Inquiry( JCI) recommended furtherprobe into “various conspir-acies behind the assassina-tion of Rajiv Gandhi.”

After placing the recom-mendation before Parlia-ment, the government set upa Multi Disciplinary Monitor-ing Agency (MDMA) in theCBI to follow up on the JainCommission’s work.

In July 1999, the desig-nated TADA Court allowedthe MDMA to probe the lar-ger conspiracy angle. How-ever, in 2013, Perarivalancomplained to the TADACourt that the probe wasboth “feeble and pandering.”But the TADA court dis-missed the plea.

A subsequent appeal inthe Madras High Court to dir-ect the TADA Court to effect-ively monitor the investiga-tion was not entertained in2015. He claimed that theTADA court had not evendeemed it necessary to open

the several probe reportsfiled before it in sealedcovers.

‘Feeble investigation’In his petition before the Su-preme Court, Perarivalancondemned the almost two-decade-long CBI investiga-tion, which he said wascloaked in secrecy.

“...the persons who be-nefited from the assassina-tion would be powerful andthe suspects/accused may beone among them. All theseaspects cannot be based onsurmises and assumptionsbut have to be the outcomeof a thorough investigation.However the CBI has onlyundertaken a namesake andfeeble investigation so far inthe left out aspects of the as-sassination case for the past16 years,” Perarivalan said ina petition.

He claimed that the CBIhas more to conceal than toreveal and “is scared of theskeletons which may tumbleout of their own cupboard.”

SC to hear bomb ‘conspiracy’ in Rajiv caseCourt to look into the plot behind the making of the explosive device, following a plea by convict PerarivalanKrishnadas Rajagopal

NEW DELHI

No closure: Rajiv Gandhi, moments before he was killed by asuicide bomber at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. * AFP

A local flag meeting betweenmilitary commanders of In-dia and China in EasternLadakh on Wednesday hasagreed to maintain peace inthe area. The meeting camein the wake of incidents ofscuffle and stone-throwingbetween the two sides atPangong lake on Tuesday.

“At these meetings, eachside tells the other their sideof the story. Both sidesagreed to ensure that suchincidents do not occur andresolve them as per the exist-ing agreements and mechan-isms,” a defence source saidon Thursday.

The Border PersonnelMeeting (BPM) was held atChushul in Eastern Ladakh.It was chaired by Brigadier-level officers and lastedabout two hours and half.

Flag meetingsThe source said these incid-ents happened at regular in-tervals and were resolvedthrough flag meetings. “Thistime it drew attention onlybecause of the Doklam stan-doff and Independence Day,”he said.

The developments comeas the standoff at Doklamentered the third month.Military observers believethe Pangong lake incidentwould not have a bearing on

the standoff. A sectionwithin the military believedthat a better communicationstrategy was needed to avoidunwanted speculation.

Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda,former Commander of theNorthern Army which over-sees the Ladakh region, saidthe faceoff at Pangong lakewas “something fairlyroutine.” “We patrol till ourclaims and then we do thebanner drills in case of afaceoff. In summer it hap-pens even more,” he told The

Hindu.

A one-off incidentThese incidents were re-solved at local flag meetings,Lt. Gen. Hooda said. “Thepeace along the Line of Ac-tual Control (LAC) has held

because both sides have ac-tually respected the statusquo. Every time there is anattempt to disrupt the statusquo there is a problem.”

However, he cautionedthat the longer the problemcontinued, the greater thechance of something goingwrong.

“If they want to do some-thing they won’t do it in Dok-lam. They will do it wherethey have a physical advant-age. The bigger risk is theycould do something in otherareas,” he said.

China expert Lt. Gen. S.L.Narasimhan (retd) tooshared a similar view. “Idon’t link it to Doklam. It is aone off incident, whichseems to have gone out ofcontrol,” he said.

‘Pangong scu�e a routine a�air’It drew attention only because of Doklam and Independence Day, says expert

Dinakar Peri

NEW DELHI

Tranquillity at stake: The Pangong Lake in Ladakh. * AP

President Ram Nath Kovindwill make a day-long trip toLeh next Monday to honourthe 14 Corps of the Armyheadquartered in Ladakh,amid the stand-off betweenIndian and Chinese troopsin Doklam and just daysafter they clashed in theLadakh region.

Mr. Kovind will presentthe Presidential Colours, arare military honour, to theinfantry unit of the 14 Corpsin recognition of its excep-tional service. But the im-portance of the SupremeCommander addressing thetroops in the border regionwill not be lost. However,sources in the RashtrapatiBhavan said the visit was apre-scheduled one.

Tense borderLadakh shares an open bor-der with both Pakistan andChina. In recent times, therelations between Indianand Chinese troops have hita rough patch here too, be-cause of the stand-off atDoklam in the Sikkim sec-tor. Senior officers of the In-dian Army and China’sPeople’s Liberation Armymet at Chushul (Leh) met onWednesday to ease the ten-

sions after the troops wereengaged in a scuffle andstone-throwing.

On August 15, Indiantroops claimed that theChinese troops along thePangong Lake tried to crossover twice. They werestopped by the Indo-TibetanBorder Police before a skir-mish started. One-third ofthe 135-km-long PangongLake is on the Indian sideand the rest on the Chineseside.

Against this backdrop, apresidential visit assumessignificance.

The last time a Presidentvisited Ladakh was inSeptember 2010, when Prat-ibha Patil travelled to thestrategic region after acloudburst caused large-scale devastation.

President to honour Army’s 14 Corps

Sandeep Phukan

New Delhi

Ram Nath Kovind

Kovind to visit Leh on Monday

China’s media campaignon the Doklam crisis hasbecome sharper, shriller,and a shade bizarre, with adaily newspaper onThursday threatening thatChinese authorities maysoon issue an “ultimatum”to India to end the Him-alayan standoff.

Simultaneously, state-run Xinhua news agencyhas released a video mock-ing India of deliberatelydisregarding the enormityof the mounting crisis.

Both items allude to theurgency of defusing thecrisis through India’s uni-lateral withdrawal from theDoklam plateau.

A write-up in the state-run Global Times, whichanalysts say does not ne-cessarily reflect the govern-mental view, asserts thatChina was likely to issue an“ultimatum” beforeSeptember, calling for thetotal withdrawal of Indiantroops.

The daily also highlightsChina’s combat superiorityas well as air power.

‘Beijing mayset deadlinefor India’

Atul Aneja

Beijing

The RSS-affiliated Bhar-atiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS)has found common groundwith other trade unionsthis year. It will go on aone-day protest outsideParliament during thewinter session in Novem-ber against unequal pay forworkers and disinvestmentof the public sector units.

However, the BMS willnot join a similar protestcalled by 10 other tradeunions during the wintersession.

“We have decided to gofor a ‘March to Delhi’ onNovember 17 to demandequal pay for similar work-ers and social security forall workers and protestagainst disinvestment ofthe public sector units,”BMS general secretaryVirjesh Upadhyay said.

Last week, 10 trade uni-ons announced a three-daydharna from November 9outside Parliament againstrising unemployment andthe Centre’s “inaction” ontheir demands. The de-cision was taken at a con-vention on August 8, towhich the BMS was not in-vited. It was attended byrepresentatives of the IN-TUC, the AITUC, the HMS,the CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC,SEWA, AICCTU, UTUC andthe LPF and a federation ofemployees representingbanking, pharmaceuticals,petroleum and construc-tion sectors.

RSS labourwing plansstir in Delhi Somesh Jha

NEW DELHI

Senior Gujarat police of-ficers N.K. Amin and T.A.Barot, accused in cases ofencounter killings, onThursday undertook be-fore the Supreme Courtthat they would demit of-fice during the day.

Mr. Amin, who retired inAugust last year as Superin-tendent of Police (SP), wasre-appointed as SP ofMahisagar district, on acontract basis for a year.He had faced trial in theSohrabuddin and Ishrat Ja-han fake encounter killingcases.

Mr. Barot was re-induc-ted in October last year asDeputy Superintendent ofPolice in Western Railwaysat Vadodara for a year afterhis retirement. He was ac-cused in the Ishrat Jahanand the Sadiq Jamal en-counter killing cases.

A Bench of Chief Justiceof India J.S. Khehar andJustice D.Y. Chandrachudconsidered the statementof the lawyer appearing forthe two police officers andasked them to “step down”from their posts during theday. The Bench then dis-posed of a plea by formerIPS officer Rahul Sharmaagainst the re-induction ofthe two officers.

The petition had conten-ded that the appointmentswere made though theyhad “questionable re-cords,” and in violation ofthe public trust doctrine.

Gujarat policeo�cers askedto step down

Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI

morial and people will begiven access to it.”

Following the announce-ment, reporters and photo-graphers who went to PoesGarden were not allowed ac-cess to the lane leading toVeda Nilayam and wereturned away by police per-sonnel. Deepa Jayakumarclaimed that she and herbrother were the legal heirsto the property and ques-tioned how anyone couldtake it away from them.

OPS camp dividedLeaders in the Pan-neerselvam camp whospoke to The Hindu howeverseem divided on the an-nouncement of the inquirycommission. While Mr. Pan-diarajan welcomed both theannouncements, partypresidium chairman E.Madhusudhanan said a CBIinquiry was important andit was necessary to go intothe medical records of Jay-alalithaa since the timeSasikala was readmitted intothe Poes Garden householdin 2012.

Mr. Pandiarajan, how-ever, said the time was ripefor transparent talks.

“We welcome these an-nouncements. We need tomove to the next stage.While I can’t disclose whatwill be the scope of discus-sions, it is for both OPS andEPS to sit down and workout the finer details,” hesaid.

Issues such as partystructure and who gets whatresponsibility need to bethrashed out, he added.

The Palaniswami faction re-cently “nullified” Mr. Dh-inakaran’s appointment asdeputy general secretarybut had not expelled him ordistanced itself fromSasikala.

For the record, Mr. Palan-iswami said that based onvarious representationsfrom many different organ-isations, “an inquiry com-mission headed by a retiredHigh Court judge will beconstituted to investigateAmma’s ( Jayalalithaa)death.”

While Mr. Panneerselvamdid not react to the an-nouncements, his followerformer Minister Ma Foi K.Pandiarajan, tweeted “Vic-tory for #OPS dharmayuddham! All 3 key de-mands by OPS met decis-ively! Time to transparentlynegotiate for a merger!#UnitedAdmk”. Mr. Pan-neerselvam is expected torespond on Friday afterholding consultations withother leaders.

Welcoming the decisionto set up an inquiry commis-sion, Apollo Hospitals in astatement said “the team atApollo Hospitals, which re-lentlessly fought to save her,is confident that the Com-mittee will bring to light theoutstanding treatment andcare she received.” The find-ings of the Committee “willput to rest all the unfoundedspeculation in this regard.”

The Chief Minister said,“to enable people to knowher achievements and sacri-fices, Veda Nilayam will beconverted into a public me-

T.N. to probeJayalalithaa’s death

The Home Ministry said onThursday that there was noplan to “single out Chinese in-vestments” in India in thewake of the ongoing standoff atDoklam and the August 15scuffle at Pangong lake.

Home Minister RajnathSingh is all set to attend a keyShanghai Cooperation Organ-isation (SCO) summit on dis-aster management atKyrgyztan on September 24-25.

SCO is a China and Russia dom-inated security group. An offi-cial said Mr. Singh was going toattend the first ever meet, asIndia attaches great import-ance to the SCO.

The Home Ministry is thenodal authority to provideclearance to foreign invest-ments under the National Se-curity Clearance Policy. A Min-istry spokesperson said puttingsecurity clearances to Chinesecompanies on hold or cancel-ling them was not being con-

sidered. “We take ad-equate steps while givingsecurity clearances. Thereis no plan to single out anyChinese company,” said asenior official.

Security concernsThe Home Ministry’s as-surance comes amid red-flags raised by Intelligenceagencies regarding vulner-ability of equipment andproducts imported fromChina in the telecom sec-

tor. As many as 15 para-meters are fixed in eight tonine sensitive areas suchas telecom and ports.

On August 3, ExternalAffairs Minister SushmaSwaraj said in the RajyaSabha that there was a 37%increase in Chinese invest-ments in India since 2014,the year the NDA govern-ment came to power.“China has a major stakein our economic growth,”she had said.

No move against Chinese �rms: CentreVijaita Singh

New Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) on Thursday filed acomplaint with the ElectionCommission, and a criminalcomplaint with the CyberCrime Cell of the Goa Policeagainst unknown persons forpropagating fake newsagainst Chief Minister Mano-har Parrikar.

The alleged fake video,which went viral on Wednes-day on the websitewww.primenews-goa.com,quoted Mr. Parrikar as say-ing, “These elections (thePanaji bypoll) are importantfor me, but if I lose, I can al-ways shift to Delhi as De-fence Minister.”

The complaint filed byPanaji BJP general secretaryPundalik Rautdessai said,“An attempt has been madeby circulating a distorted

and false news item on socialmedia like Facebook, Whats-App amongst others, to cre-ate falsehood, malign the im-age of our candidateManohar Parrikar and tomisguide the electorate ofPanaji constituency.” Thecomplaint said the falsenews is being circulated un-der the name of Prime News,Goa, with an unnamed press

cutting. Mr. Parrikar on Thursday

described the video as “fakenews”, and said this onlyshowed the level of the frus-tration and desperation ofhis opponents.

Election manifestoHe was speaking at a pressconference held at the BJPheadquarters to release hiselection manifesto. “There isno such meeting, no suchstatement. What are theyquoting and trying to makesome sort of news out of?The best part is that thenews channel they are quot-ing has also lodged a crim-inal complaint in this regardfor damaging its name,” theChief Minister said.

Bypolls are scheduled inPanaji and Valpoi constituen-cies on August 23. In Panaji,Mr. Parrikar will take on

AICC Secretary GirishChodankar, and in Valpoi,Health Minister VishwajitRane of the BJP will face RoyNaik of the Congress.

“When I am meetingpeople directly, where is thequestion of such a meetinghappening? People knowthat these are some frus-trated minds doing this.People also know my victoryis sure. The only question iswhat the margin will be,” Mr.Parrikar said.

Mr. Parrikar declined tocomment on an article in theRenewal Novssorni Reneva-

cao, a pastoral publication ofthe Goa and Daman Arch-diocese, equating the NDArule with the rise of Nazismin Germany.

When asked if the electioncampaign had taken a com-munal colour, Mr. Parrikarsaid, “Not at all.”

BJP moves poll panel over ‘fake news’

Goa unit also �les case with the Cyber Crime Cell over Parrikar video clip

Prakash Kamat

PANAJI

Manohar Parrikar


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NEWS

Monkey business: Patients no longer occupy the corridor asmonkeys have a free run now. * SUBIR ROY & V.V. KRISHNAN

In villages racked by enceph-alitis in Uttar Pradesh’sGorakhpur, children playbarefoot in mud, with dirtywater collecting all aroundand garbage piled up, ignor-ant of the fact that their sur-roundings could lead themto contract the disease.

After three decades ofhigh incidence of encephal-itis cases and deaths, theGorakhpur division of U.P. isstill struggling to contain thedisease that is linked to in-sanitary conditions and isparticularly spread by mos-quitoes via pigs and drinkingdirty water.

Padmavati Devi, who losther grandson Alok to en-cephalitis last week, says shedoes not know whathappened to him or how hegot the disease.

Speaking outside herhome in Gorakhpur’s Beliparon what would have beenAlok’s 14th birthday, she says:“We are poor and un-educated, what do we knowabout the disease? All weknow is that he had a fever.”

Alok was among the chil-dren admitted to Gorakh-pur’s Baba Raghav Das Med-ical College, where 60children died in a span of fivedays starting August 7.

Just outside his home,children play in the rainwa-ter that has collected. Whenasked if they know how en-cephalitis spreads, neigh-bours say they did not. “Chil-dren are children, they willplay,” says one neighbour.

In Bichhiya in Gorakhpur,the home of a family that losta five-year-old child to en-cephalitis on August 11 is sur-rounded by filth — dirtydrains, faeces of goats, andchicken and trash. The

grandfather of the child, Il-ahi, says the family tries tokeep the house clean, butthe condition of the neigh-bourhood has always beenbad. “The administrationshould have made roads anddrains. We have no optionbut to dump the garbage out-side,” he says, adding that hedoes not know how enceph-alitis spreads.

Lack of awarenessThe lack of awarenessspreads to other parts of theregion as well. Shamsul An-sari from Gamharia in Biharsays he does not know whathad happened to his three-year-old son, except that itwas “serious”. After threedays of high fever that medi-cines prescribed by localdoctors could not control, hesays he brought his son toGorakhpur’s BRD MedicalCollege, where the child is inthe ICU. He says has notheard of encephalitis, ormastikshk jwar, or of thenews on the medical college.

Dr. K.K. Aggarwal, thepresident of the Indian Med-ical Association, said thatmost cases of encephalitiscan be controlled with bettersanitation and medicine.

“About 10% of Acute En-cephalitis Syndrome (AES)cases are Japanese encephal-itis, which is spread by mos-quitoes. This is preventableas culex mosquitoes breed indirty water,” he said.

He added that scrubtyphus, another cause ofAES that is linked to lice,mites and fleas on theground, can be “100 % man-aged” with antibiotics ifcaught in time. Another typeof AES, caused by enter-ovirus, is linked to lack ofsanitation, which can also beaddressed.

Myriad factors plague communitiesUnsanitary conditions aggravate analready encephalitis-prone region

Left vulnerable: Sanitary conditions leave much to be desired in this village on the outskirts of Gorakhpur. * V.V. KRISHNAN

Damini Nath

GORAKHPUR

Samajwadi Party leaderMulayam Singh Yadav onThursday said the BRDMedical College authorit-ies should have takenprior precautions to avoidsuch tragic death ofchildren.

“These children wouldhave made the nationproud had they lived, butthey lost their life in theGorakhpur tragedy. Thisincident was very shame-ful and horrifying. Theprecautions should havebeen arranged before-hand,” he said.

Mulayam slams hospital ANi

New Delhi

Gorakhpur in eastern UttarPradesh might have hit theheadlines for the death ofover 62 children in less thana week’s time. But in theneighbouring State of Bihar,too, more than 100 childrenhave been falling prey to en-cephalitis every year. Thisyear, until July, Bihar hasseen the deaths of altogether30 children fromencephalitis.

According to a govern-ment report, in 2016, 773cases of Acute EncephalitisSyndrome (AES), resulting in196 deaths of children, werereported from Gaya, Patna,West Champaran and Muzaf-farpur districts. The same

year also witnessed 145 casesof Japanese Encephalitis( JE), with 17 deaths attrib-uted to the disease.

The worst year for theState seems to have been2012, when 1,095 cases ofAES, with 395 deaths, werereported. In 2014, the Statesaw 1,005 cases of AES, with372 deaths reported fromthe referral hospitals of Muz-affarpur, Patna, East Cham-paran, Vaishali and Gaya.

This year till July, thenumber of AES cases anddeaths have been comparat-ively less, with 126 cases re-ported and 30 fatalities.

The State has, however,seen less cases of JE, with2011 being the worst year,when 181 cases and 21 deaths

were recorded. In 2016, 17children died from a total of145 cases of JE. This year tillJuly, 20 cases of JE have beenreported, with 4 deaths.

Most vulnerableChildren aged 0-14 yearshave proven to be most vul-nerable to AES and JE. Dur-ing 2011-2017, both male(53%) and female (47%) chil-dren were affected in almostequal numbers. The peakperiod for the outbreak ofthese ailments has beenApril to October.

“The number of AES andJE cases in the State havecome down as we conductregular meetings and train-ing sessions with doctorsand para-medical staff. We

also advise people not towaste the precious hours ofthe patients in consultingquacks and local doctors,”State programme Officer forAES and JE, Dr M.P. Sharmatold The Hindu.

Asked if referral hospitalswere better equipped to dealwith these cases comparedto the hospital in Gorakhpur,Mr. Sharma said, “Yes, we doregular inspections and aretherefore well equipped toprevent a Gorakhpur-liketragedy.” However, referralhospitals sources said thatthe figures for AES and JEdeaths have often beenfudged, with fatalities recor-ded under the category of‘suspected/unknown andconfirmed’ cases.

Situation grim in Bihar as wellMore than 100 children have been dying of encephalitis every year

Amarnath Tewary

Patna

17/8/2017

1/8/2012

17/8/2017

3/9/2005

Cosmetic change: The sewage line next to the emergency wardhas got a concrete cover, albeit broken. * SUBIR ROY & V.V. KRISHNAN

17/8/2017

Days after the United Na-tions expressed concernover the government’s plansto deport about 40,000 Ro-hingya immigrants from My-anmar, international humanrights agencies Amnesty In-ternational and HumanRights Watch called upon In-dia to “abide by interna-tional legal obligations” andnot force them to return,which they termed an “out-rageous” move.

“While India is not a partyto the 1951 Refugee Conven-tion or its 1967 Protocol, it isstill bound by customary in-ternational law not to for-cibly return any refugee to aplace where they face a seri-ous risk of persecution orthreats to their life or free-dom,” Human Rights Watchsaid in a statement issued inNew York on Wednesday, re-ferring to the internationalprinciple of “non-refoule-ment” adopted by the UN.

“Indian authorities arewell aware of the humanrights violations RohingyaMuslims have had to face inMyanmar and it would beoutrageous to abandon themto their fates,” said an Am-nesty International spokes-person, a day after the UNSecretary General’s officehad expressed concernsover the Indian Home Min-istry statement on identify-ing and deporting Ro-hingyas, including about16,500 who have been re-gistered by the UN HighCommission for Refugees inIndia.

The Rohingyas who fledto India after violence in the

Western Rakhine State weremainly settled in Jammu, Hy-derabad, Haryana, Uttar Pra-desh, Delhi-NCR and Ra-jasthan.

Both the Ministry of Ex-ternal Affairs and Minister ofState for Home Kiren Rijijudid not respond to TheHindu’s request for a com-ment on the UN SecretaryGeneral’s statement ofconcern.

Ahead with plansDespite the appeals, a HomeMinistry official said Indiawas going ahead with plansto deport Rohingyas, and isin discussions with the My-anmar and Bangladesh gov-ernments on the issue. Theofficial also said that the gov-ernment was planning to setup “detention centres” forthe refugees, and if required“push them back” over theIndia-Myanmar border, ifMyanmar refuses to acceptthe refugees back.

Speaking in Parliamentlast week, Mr. Rijiju had saidthat the government has dir-ected States to conduct sur-veys and prepare to deport

them in a “continuous man-ner.” According to the MHA’sadvisory (No. 24013/29/Misc./2017-CSR.III(i)) of Au-gust 8, all State governmentswere also told that the“powers to identify and de-port the foreign nationalsstaying illegally in the coun-try” had been delegated tothem, and that they should“sensitise all law enforce-ment and intelligence agen-cies” to the risk from Ro-hingyas.

“Infiltration from RakhineState of Myanmar into In-dian territory…besides beingburden on the limited re-sources of the country alsoaggravates the security chal-lenges posed to the coun-try,” the advisory warned.

India’s decision is in stepwith the government’s de-cision to “disassociate itself”from a United Nations Hu-man Rights Council resolu-tion in March this year pro-posed by the EuropeanUnion and the United Statesto enquire into human rightsabuses in Myanmar againstthe Muslim minority Ro-hingya community.

Rights groups urge India tohonour duty to RohingyasThis comes after Centre �rmed up plans for deportation

Suhasini Haidar

Vijaita Singh

New Delhi

In solidarity: Rohingya refugees during a protest in New Delhiagainst atrocities in Myanmar last December. * R.V. MOORTHY

The Army on Thursday gota step closer to having itsown dedicated fleet of at-tack helicopters, with theDefence Ministry approv-ing the purchase of sixAH-64 Apache attack heli-copters from the U.S.

“The Defence Acquisi-tion Council (DAC), chairedby Defence Minister ArunJaitley, cleared total capitalacquisitions worth about₹4,700 crore. It also tookstock of various proposalsin the pipeline and insistedon expeditious clearanceof proposals in finalstages,” a Ministry sourcesaid.

Another dealIn another deal, the DACgave approval for procur-ing two gas turbine enginesfrom Ukraine, to be fittedon the two stealth frigatesunder construction in Rus-sia. They will cost over₹490 crore.

The cost of Apaches, in-cluding associated equip-ment, spares, training,weapons and armaments,is about ₹4,168 crore.

Optional clauseFor this, India will exercisethe optional clause in theoriginal deal signed withthe U.S. in November 2015.Under a $3 bn deal, Indiahas contracted 22 Apacheattack helicopters and 15Chinook heavy-lift heli-copters through the For-eign Military Sales pro-gramme. The optionalclause has a provision for 11helicopters and the Armywas hoping to get all ofthem, but the Governmenthas limited it to six, at leastfor now.

Army to getsix ApachehelicoptersDinakar Peri

NEW DELHI

spot the difference

The HIndu revisits the B.R.D. hospital premises with framesfrom its archives. a look at the past and the present


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A ND-NDE




WORLD

Brigitte Macron to be‘�rst lady’, informallyPARIS

Brigitte Macron, the wife of

French President Emmanuel

Macron, said she will adopt

the role of �rst lady, but only

in an informal capacity after

opposition to plans to give

her an o�cial status. She

spoke to Elle magazine in her

�rst interview since Mr.

Macron’s election in May. AFP

ELSEWHERE

Pro-democracy leadersjailed in Hong KongHONG KONG

A Hong Kong appeals court

jailed three leaders of the

democracy movement for six

to eight months on Thursday,

dealing a blow to the youth-

led push for universal

su�rage. Joshua Wong was

jailed for six months, Alex

Chow for seven months and

Nathan Law for eight months.

Law had been the city’s

youngest ever democratically

elected legislator. Reuters

Venezuela prison riotleaves 37 deadCARACAS

A prison riot in Venezuela

that took place between

Tuesday and early

Wednesday has left at least

37 people dead in what local

Governor Liborio Guarulla

called a “massacre”. The

prosecutors’ o�ce said an

investigation had been

launched into “the deaths of

37 people” in the facility in

the remote town of Puerto

Ayacucho in the southern

State of Amazonas. AFP

Iran’s Opposition leaderhospitalisedANKARA

Mehdi Karroubi, an Iranian

opposition leader under

house arrest since 2011, was

hospitalised on Thursday

after starting a hunger strike

asking for a public trial.

Opposition leaders Karroubi,

Mirhossein Mousavi and his

wife Zahra Rahnavard have

been con�ned to their homes

for six-and-a-half years after

calling for rallies in solidarity

with pro-democracy

uprisings. Reuters

President Donald Trump bit-ingly decried the risingmovement to pull downmonuments to Confederateicons on Thursday. “Sad tosee the history and culture ofour great country beingripped apart with the re-moval of our beautifulstatues and monuments,” hetweeted.

Mr. Trump’s new remarkscame even as the Whitehouse tried to manage his in-creasing isolation and thecontinued fallout from hiscombative comments on lastweekend’s racially chargedviolence in Charlottesville,Virginia.

Pressured by advisers, thePresident had taken a stepback from the dispute on

Monday, two days after hehad enraged many by declin-ing to single out the white su-premacists and neo-Naziswhose demonstrationagainst the removal of aRobert E. Lee statute had ledto violence and the death ofa counter-protester in Char-lottesville.

“You can’t change history,but you can learn from it,”he tweeted. “Robert E. Lee.Stonewall Jackson who’snext, Washington, Jefferson?So foolish... Also the beautythat is being taken out of ourcities, towns and parks willbe greatly missed and neverable to be comparably re-placed!”

Republican Senator Lind-sey Graham said on Wednes-day that Mr. Trump “took astep backward by again sug-

gesting there is moral equi-valency” between themarching white suprem-acists and the people whohad been demonstratingagainst them.

Nuanced remarks Other Republicans, includ-ing the most powerful inCongress, have been makingstrong statements on Char-lottesville and racism, butfew have been mentioningMr. Trump himself.

The Senate’s top Repub-lican, Majority Leader MitchMcConnell, condemned“hate and bigotry”. HouseSpeaker Paul Ryan chargedthat, “White supremacy isrepulsive”. But neither criti-cised the President’s insist-ence that there were “veryfine people on both sides” of

the violent weekend clash inVirginia.

The nuanced statementsreflect the party establish-ment’s delicate dance. Fewtop Republican officeholderswant to defend the Presidentin the midst of an escalatingpolitical crisis, yet they areunwilling to declare all-outopposition to him and riskalienating his loyalists.

In another major sign ofdiscontent within the Repub-lican Party, Mr. Trump ab-ruptly abolished two of hisWhite House business coun-cils on Wednesday as corpor-ate chiefs began resigning inprotest of his statements.

The White House is tryingto deal with the repercus-sions from Mr. Trump’s defi-ant remarks on the Virginiatragedy. Advisers hunkered

down, offering no public de-fence while privately ex-pressing frustration with hiscomments.

But Mr. Trump himselfwas increasing rather thanslowing his tweet-a-thon.

On Wednesday, he hadtold associates he waspleased with how his com-bative press conference hadgone a day earlier, saying hebelieved he had effectivelystood up to the media, ac-cording to three people fa-miliar with the conversationswho demanded anonymitybecause they were not au-thorised to speak publiclyabout them. CEOs had beguntendering their resignationsfrom White House panelsafter Mr. Trump’s initial com-ments following the Saturdayviolence.

Trump defends civil war statues‘The history and culture of our great country are being ripped apart with the removal of monuments’ Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Ousted Pakistan Prime Min-ister Nawaz Sharif and histwo sons have beensummoned by the top anti-graft body to appear beforeit on Friday for interroga-tion in connection with themoney laundering and cor-ruption cases against them.

The National Accountab-ility Bureau (NAB) on thedirective of the SupremeCourt issued summons toMr. Sharif and his sons —Hussain and Hasan — to in-terrogate them in its Lahoreoffice in connection withtheir offshore property re-vealed by the Panama Pa-pers case.

The NAB said that it willtake up the referenceagainst Mr. Sharif ’s closeaide Ishaq Dar on August 23and that summons has beenissued to him.

Mr. Sharif, who hasdenied any wrongdoing, hasnot yet decided to appearbefore the NAB.

“Nawaz Sharif is consid-ering boycotting the NAB

proceedings because hethinks it is very much likelythat like the Panama Paperscase he may not get justicein its case as well,” said aPML-N senior leader. Hesaid Mr. Sharif has alreadyexpressed his concern overa Supreme Court judge whois supervising the NAB’s in-vestigation against him,fearing that he ( judge) willensure an adverse verdictagainst him.

Case against ZardariAlso, an accountabilitycourt in Rawalpindi is set tostart proceedings againstformer Pakistan PresidentAsif Ali Zardari in an oldgraft case, Dawn Newsreported.

It said that the court willinitiate day-to-day proceed-ings against his over his al-legedly illegal assets, both inPakistan and abroad. NABprosecutor Tahir Ayubhoped that proceedingswould be completed in thenext few days after whichthe court would pass averdict.

To be questioned over o�shore assetsPress Trust of India

Lahore

Sharif, sons summonedby anti-corruption body

President Donald Trump willbrainstorm on Friday withhis national security team ona fresh strategy to break thelogjam in Afghanistan,where 8,400 U.S. soldiersare currently deployed. Themeeting at the Camp DavidPresidential retreat in Mary-land, 100 km northwest ofthe U.S capital, will discuss“the South Asia strategy,” theWhite House said in a state-ment. “We are not winningin Afghanistan,” DefenceSecretary James Mattis hadtold a Congressional hearingin June.

A South Asia strategy todeal with the Afghanistancrisis will involve India andPakistan, but questions re-main on the role and contextof both countries. India hasbeen involved in the recon-struction and stabilisation ef-forts in Afghanistan and aPentagon report recently de-scribed India as Kabul’s“most reliable regional part-

ner”. However, India isstrongly opposed to any dis-cussion on Jammu and Kash-mir in the context of Afgh-anistan, as being demandedby Pakistan. Pakistan hasbeen trying to impress uponAmerica that Kashmir andAfghanistan are part of thesame problem and solutionto one is impossible withoutthe other.

A new strategy was to bein place by mid-July, but Mr.Trump shot down the planformulated by Mr. Mattis andNational Security AdviserH.R. McMaster, which pro-posed to raise troop levels inAfghanistan by 4,000-5,000.The President reportedly de-manded to know why Amer-ica has not won after 16years of fighting, how andwhen did they plan to win.

Private soldiers The President was unsatis-fied with the explanationand the plan has been onhold since then. Meanwhile,White House Chief Strategist

Steve Bannon has floated aproposal to hire a private se-curity firm that will employmercenaries to fight the warin Afghanistan, overseen byan “American viceroy”.

Subsequently, reportshave also emerged that thePresident could consider acomplete withdrawal ofAmerican forces from Afgh-anistan, which is contradict-ory to the position that Mr.Mattis has taken publicly, tostay engaged for an open-ended timeline.

The new strategy won’twork “unless we have ahigher degree of cooperationfrom Pakistan,” U.S JointChiefs Chairman Gen. JosephDunfordtold a Congressionalhearing last month. The keyplayer in the regional ap-proach is neighbouringPakistan, Gen. Dunford said.

The U.S. approach toresolving the Afghanistansituation must be narrowlyfocussed on the conflict andleave out other regionalquestions, argued Ashley J.

Tellis, the Tata Chair for Stra-tegic Affairs at Carnegie En-dowment for InternationalPeace, and Jeff Eggers, an-other expert in a report,“U.S. Policy in Afghanistan:Changing Strategies, Pre-serving Gains”.

Regional approachStephen J. Hadley, formerNational Security Adviser toGeorge W. Bush, travelled toPakistan and Afghanistanearlier this year, and hasbeen arguing for a “regionalapproach” that takes onboard Pakistan’s strategicconcerns. In his latest Wash-ington Post op-ed timed tocoincide with the meetingon Friday, he said onThursday: “This means help-ing to restart a discreet dia-logue between India andPakistan on issues of mutualconcern... At the same timePakistan must show progressin cutting off terrorist activ-ity against India and Afgh-anistan, (including by theHaqqani network).”

Trump’s new ‘South Asia strategy’ for Afghanistan likely todayThe plan will involve India and Pakistan, but what role they will play is unclear

Varghese K. George

Washington

Pakistan’s ruling PML-Nhas appointed SenatorSardar Muhammad YaqoobKhan Nasar as its interimchief, days after the Elec-tion Commission asked theparty to replace NawazSharif after he was disqual-ified from premiership, amedia report said onThursday.

Mr. Nasar’s name hadbeen approved a dayearlier by Mr. Sharif afterthe proposal did not meetmuch resistance fromparty leaders, Dawn Newsreported, citing partysources.

Sharif named ‘quaid’A source was quoted assaying that the name forPML-N’s permanent partychief will be decided uponon September 7.

The central committeealso unanimously ap-proved a resolution toname Mr. Sharif the party’squaid (leader) while payingtributes to his services tothe PML-N, the report said.

SenatorNasar is newPML-N chiefPress Trust of India

Islamabad

An Australian Senator pro-voked an angry backlashfrom lawmakers by wearinga burqa in Parliament onThursday as part of her cam-paign for a national ban onIslamic face covers.

Pauline Hanson, leader ofthe anti-Muslim, anti-immig-ration One Nation minorparty, sat wearing the gar-ment for more than 10minutes before taking it offas she rose to explain thatshe wanted such outfitsbanned on national securitygrounds. “There has been alarge majority of Australians(who) wish to see the ban-ning of the burqa,” said Ms.Hanson, an outspoken fan ofU.S. President DonaldTrump, as Senators objected.

Attorney-General GeorgeBrandis drew applause when

he said his governmentwould not ban the burqa,and chastised Ms. Hanson forwhat he described as a“stunt” that offended Aus-tralia’s Muslim minority.

“To ridicule that com-munity, to drive it into acorner, to mock its religiousgarments is an appalling

thing to do and I would askyou to reflect on what youhave done,” Mr. Brandis said.

Opposition Senate leaderPenny Wong told Ms. Han-son: “It is one thing to wearreligious dress as a sincereact of faith; it is another towear it as a stunt here in theSenate.” Sam Dastyari, an

Opposition Senator and anIranian-born Muslim, said:“We have seen the stunt of allstunts in this chamber bySen. Hanson.”

“The close to 5,00,000Muslim Australians do notdeserve to be targeted, donot deserve to be marginal-ised, do not deserve to be ri-diculed, do not deserve tohave their faith made somepolitical point by the desper-ate leader of a desperatepolitical party,” Mr. Dastyarisaid.

Ban in 2014Senate President StephenParry said Ms. Hanson’s iden-tity had been confirmed be-fore she entered the cham-ber. He also said he wouldnot dictate the standards ofdress for the chamber.

Parliament House brieflysegregated women wearing

burqas and niqabs in 2014.The department that runsParliament House had saidthat “persons with facial cov-erings” would no longer beallowed in the building’sopen public galleries. In-stead, they were to be direc-ted to galleries usually re-served for noisyschoolchildren, where theycould sit behind soundproofglass.

The policy was branded a“burqa ban” and was widelycondemned as a segregationof Muslim women, as well asa potential breach of anti-dis-crimination laws.

Officials relented, allowingpeople wearing face cover-ings in all public areas of Par-liament House after the cov-erings were removedtemporarily at the building’sfront door so that staff cancheck the visitor’s identity.

Far-Right Oz leader wears burqa in ParliamentAnti-Muslim party leader Pauline Hanson’s gesture, aimed at having burqas banned, triggers outrageAssociated Press

Canberra

Political point: Senator Pauline Hanson pulls o� her burqa atParliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Thursday. * REUTERS

Saudi Arabia announced onThursday that it is reopen-ing its border with Qatar toallow Qataris to attend thehaj, despite a months-longrift between Doha and fourArab countries led by SaudiArabia.

The decision came afterSaudi Crown Prince Mo-hammed bin Salman held asurprise meeting withSheikh Abdullah Al Thani, aQatari royal family memberwhose branch of the familywas ousted in a palace coupin 1972.

Saudi state media brokethe news overnight onThursday. Qatar did not offi-cially comment on the dealuntil its Foreign Minister

was pressed by reportersduring a briefing in Swedensome 12 hours later.

Call to lift blockadeForeign Minister Sheikh Mo-hammed bin AbdulrahmanAl Thani said he welcomedthe Saudi decision, but thatthe measures must also in-clude a full lifting of theblockade.

The official Saudi PressAgency reported that Qataripilgrims will be allowed toenter the kingdom by landand would then be flownonward from two Saudi air-ports in Dammam and al-Ahsa at the king’s expense.Saudi state TV also said that100 Qataris had arrived atthe border crossing onThursday.

Saudi reopens Qatarborder for haj pilgrims

Crown Prince meets Qatari royal

Associated Press

Riyadh

U.S. President DonaldTrump, U.K. Prime MinisterTheresa May, French Presid-ent Emmanuel Macron andGerman Chancellor AngelaMerkel all voiced voiced con-demnation over Thursday’sattack in Barcelona, Spain’ssecond-largest city.

Regional Interior MinisterJoaquin Forn initially saidthat at least one person hadbeen killed and 32 otherswere wounded, warninghowever that the toll couldrise. He later updated thetoll to 13 and said at least 50had been injured.

Vehicles have been usedin several terror attacks inEurope in recent years, in-cluding a jihadist massacrethat claimed 86 lives in theFrench Riviera city of Nice.

Police said there had beena “huge collision” between avan and pedestrians on thethoroughfare and a policesource said officers wereseeking a total of twosuspects.

‘Bodies on the floor’Xavi Perez, who works in asports shop near the site ofthe attack, described a sceneof carnage.

“When it happened I ranout and saw the damage,” hetold AFP. “There were bod-ies on the floor with peoplecrowding round them.People were crying. Therewere lots of foreigners.”

Witness Aamer Anwartold Britain’s Sky News tele-vision that he was walkingdown Las Ramblas, whichhe described as “jam-packed” with tourists.

“All of a sudden, I just sortof heard a crashing noiseand the whole street juststarted to run, screaming. Isaw a woman right next tome screaming for her kids.

Spain had been hit by

what is still Europe’s deadli-est jihadist attack in March2004, when bombs ex-ploded on commuter trainsin Madrid, killing 191 peoplein an attack claimed by AlQaeda-inspired extremists.

Leaders from the U.S.,U.K., and Germany con-demned the attack.

“The United States con-demns the terror attack inBarcelona, Spain, and willdo whatever is necessary tohelp,” U.S. President DonaldTrump tweeted. “Be tough &strong, we love you!”

Britain “stands with Spainagainst terror”, Prime Minis-ter Theresa May said. “Mythoughts are with the vic-tims of today’s terrible at-tack in Barcelona and theemergency services re-sponding to this ongoing in-cident. The U.K. stands withSpain against terror,” Ms.May wrote on Twitter.

German Chancellor An-gela Merkel called it a “re-volting attack”, said herspokesperson.

The Nice onslaught in Julylast year and other similarattacks including thecarnage in Paris 2015 wereclaimed by the Islamic State(IS).

Spain has emerged as apotential target for jihadists,with extremist websitesmentioning it for historicalreasons, since much of itsterritory was once underMuslim rule. Generally, au-thorities in Spain — theworld’s third largest tourismdestination — remain dis-creet on the terror threat.But they publicise every ar-rest of alleged jihadists, mostof them detained for propa-ganda, recruitment for ex-tremist groups or “glorifyingterrorism”.

According to the InteriorMinistry, more than 180 “ji-hadist terrorists” have beenarrested since June 2015when Spain raised the terroralert level to four out of amaximum of five, in do-mestic and foreignoperations.

Huge collision between the van and pedestrians, say police

Agence France-Presse

Barcelona

Shell-shocked: People attending to the injured after the attackin Barcelona on Thursday. * AFP

U.S., U.K., Germanycondemn Barcelona attack


Kamesh.Mechrocks

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Kamesh.Mechrocks

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CMYK

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NIFTY 50

PRICE CHANGE

ACC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1780.10. . . . . . -31.10

Adani Ports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389.30. . . . . . . . -8.25

Ambuja Cements. . . .. . . . . . 270.90. . . . . . . . . 0.85

Asian Paints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1134.95. . . . . . . . -6.35

Aurobindo Pharma . . . . . . 703.50. . . . . . -10.40

Axis Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497.15. . . . . . . . -2.35

Bajaj Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2825.85. . . . . . -23.35

Bank of Baroda . . . . . .. . . . . . 148.25. . . . . . . . . 1.10

Bharti Airtel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416.35. . . . . . . . . 8.60

Bosch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22037.95. . . -271.95

BPCL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493.70. . . . . . . . . 9.75

Cipla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573.20. . . . . . -17.25

Coal India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246.95. . . . . . . . . 9.00

Dr Reddys Lab . . . . . . . .. . . . 2011.25. . . . . . . . . 6.00

Eicher Motors. . . . . . . . .. 30928.00. . . . . 311.00

GAIL (India). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376.20. . . . . . . . . 5.00

HCL Tech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871.40. . . . . . . . . 6.90

HDFC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1759.25. . . . . . . 17.50

HDFC Bank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1765.40. . . . . . -15.85

Hero MotoCorp . . . . . .. . . . 3997.85. . . . . . -24.25

Hindalco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230.30. . . . . . . . -3.30

Hind Unilever . . . . . . . . .. . . . 1177.30. . . . . . . . -9.05

Indiabulls HFL . . . . . . . .. . . . 1200.45. . . . . . . . -8.65

ICICI Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293.15. . . . . . . . -1.80

IndusInd Bank . . . . . . . .. . . . 1628.50. . . . . . -18.70

Bharti Infratel . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 379.35. . . . . . . . -3.55

Infosys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1020.85. . . . . . . 45.65

Indian OilCorp . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 426.30. . . . . . . . . 4.00

ITC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280.00. . . . . . . . . 0.80

Kotak Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 989.00. . . . . . -11.55

L&T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1134.00. . . . . . . . -8.25

Lupin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953.95. . . . . . . . -7.05

M&M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1367.00. . . . . . . . -4.20

Maurti Suzuki . . . . . . . . .. . . . 7582.45. . . -118.70

NTPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176.80. . . . . . . . . 6.70

ONGC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160.60. . . . . . . . -0.35

PowerGrid Corp . . . . .. . . . . . 219.45. . . . . . . . -1.25

Reliance Ind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1567.10. . . . . . . . . 1.00

State Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280.85. . . . . . . . -2.25

Sun Pharma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488.25. . . . . . . . . 2.55

Tata Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385.30. . . . . . . . -3.95

Tata Motors DVR. . . .. . . . . . 228.60. . . . . . . . -3.00

Tata Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81.65. . . . . . . . -0.40

Tata Steel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625.40. . . . . . . . -5.80

TCS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2485.65. . . . . . . . -6.70

Tech Mahindra . . . . . . .. . . . . . 424.40. . . . . . . . . 4.45

UltraTech Cement. .. . . . 3932.90. . . . . . . . -8.40

Vedanta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304.80. . . . . . . . . 7.60

Wipro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288.35. . . . . . . . -1.60

YES Bank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1738.10. . . . . . -23.75

Zee Entertainment . . . . . . 526.75. . . . . . . . . 8.05

BULLION RATES CHENNAI

August 17 rates in rupees with previ-ous rates in parentheses

Retail Silver (1g) . . . . . . . . . . . 41.10. . . . . (41.30)

22 ct gold (1 g) . .. . . . . . . . . . . 2,776. . . . . (2,748)

market watch

17-08-2017 % CHANGE

Sensex dddddddddddddddddddddd 31,795 ddddddddddddddd0.08

Gold ddddddddddddddddddddddddddd 30,050 ddddddddddddddd1.00

Brent oil ddddddddddddddddddddd 50.80 ddddddddddddddd0.25

IN BRIEF

HDFC Bank cuts savingsaccount interest rateMUMBAI

HDFC Bank has reduced its

savings account interest

rate by 50 basis points to

3.5% for balances up to

₹50 lakh. The new rate will

come into e�ect from

Saturday. For balances

more than ₹50 lakh, the

rate is kept unchanged.

Real estate developers areeyeing $10 billion in privateequity funding to kick-startthe investment cycle to aug-ment funding for affordablehousing projects, a thrustarea of the government, atop industry official said.

“Under the current envir-onment, we do need privateinvestment to provide hous-ing for all by 2022,” said Nir-anjan Hiranandani, presid-ent of the Maharashtrachapter of realty bodyNAREDCO . “As banks arenot lending, the sectorneeds private equity fund-ing to the tune of $10 billiona year to kick-start the mo-mentum and to respond tothe new opportunitiesarising out of affordable

housing,” he said.A large part of the funds

would be sourced fromabroad, he added.

Pension funds“We are eyeing investmentfrom pension funds fromCanada and Europe.” Thenational realty body is or-ganising Real Estate & Infra-structure Investors’ Summit2017 in Mumbai next week.

Realty sector eyes$10 bn private equity

‘Banks not funding a�ordable housing’

Lalatendu Mishra

MUMBAI

Niranjan Hiranandani

Raymond Group has ac-quired Ansell’s 50% stake inJ.K.Ansell Pvt. Ltd., a jointventure that owns theKamaSutra brand of con-doms, for ₹19.3 crore.

With this transaction, thesexual wellness and per-sonal care business will con-tinue to remain in J.K. Ansellwhich will become a whollyowned subsidiary of J.K. In-vesto Trade (India) Ltd.( JKIT), a Raymond GroupCompany, according to astatement. As per the pro-posed deal, JKIT will sell itsstake in the gloves businessto Pacific Dunlop Holdings(Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (AnsellGroup Company) for ₹11.3crore. This acquisition willpave the way for Raymond

to further scale up theFMCG business and unlockthe potential of KamaSutrabrand globally.

Raymond announced theformation of its FMCG grouplast year with a vision to bea player of choice amongstthe new India, offeringpremium products for per-sonal and home carecategories.

Gautam Hari Singhania,CMD, Raymond Limitedsaid: “As a part of our Ray-mond Re-Imagined journey,scaling up and creating astrong FMCG business is animportant driver of valuecreation for the group. Thisacquisition gives us the fullownership of Brand KamaS-utra that strengthens ourFMCG portfolio and is a steptowards value creation.”

Raymond buysAnsell’s stake in JV

To improve focus on KamaSutra brand


MUMBAI

India should leverage its coalassets while it is still econom-ical to do so before rampingup its renewable energy ca-pacity, Chief Economic Ad-viser Arvind Subramaniansaid on Thursday. He addedthat the low tariffs seen inthe renewable sector do notinclude several implicit coststhat are, so far, being subsid-ised.

Mr. Subramanian also saidthat India should not be in-fluenced by ‘coal imperial-ism’, with developed coun-tries trying to influencedeveloping countries to cuttheir fossil fuel consumptionat a rate not in keeping withhistorical factors and equity.

‘Properly costed’“Renewable energy must beproperly costed,” Mr. Sub-ramanian said, delivering theDarbari Seth Memorial Lec-ture organised by TERI.

“There are several socialcosts of moving away fromcoal. We must be abundantlycautious about claims on be-half of renewables. Properlycosted, renewables willachieve true parity in socialterms with coal only in thefuture.”

“We should maximise theuse of natural assets while

economics permits it, andthen ramp up the free assetssuch as renewable sourceswhen needed,” he added.“There is a window, perhapsnarrow, until renewables be-come truly viable, for accel-erating expansion of coal,and driving up capacity util-isation sharply in thermalpower generation.”

Among the costs of adopt-ing renewable energy thatare not factored into the tar-iff currently, Mr. Sub-ramanian included the costof intermittent supply ofpower from solar and windsources, the land acquisitioncosts, the upgradation of thegrid to support energy fromrenewable sources, and thecost of stranded coal assets.

‘Implicit subsidies’“The proper estimates of thefull costs of renewable en-ergy are elusive,” Mr. Sub-ramanian said. “Recent bidsare not indicative because ofthe implicit subsidies andthe factor of strategic bid-ding that has entered the re-newable energy space as itdid with coal and spectrumauctions.”

He also added that thecosts of moving away fromcoal are also significant,since it will impact employ-ment, and the regional eco-

nomies where coal mines arelocated. He also said that in-creasingly using renewablesources would further re-duce the plant load factors ofcoal power plants, which, inturn, could further worsentheir finances and the non-performing assets problem.

“If India achieves its targetin renewable energy (of 175GW by 2022), the plant loadfactor will decline by 13 per-centage points, which is sig-nificant since the PLF isalready so low,” Mr. Sub-ramanian said.

“The burden of combatingclimate change should beconsistent historically andequitably,” he added.

Subsidising renewables ata time when the social costswere higher than those ofcoal “seems a doublewhammy for the govern-ment which then also has topick up the tab for the result-ing stranded assets,” Mr.Subramanian observed.

Use coal while economical, says CEA‘Low tari�s seen in renewables don’t include several implicit costs that are so far being subsidised’

Social risks: Costs of moving away from coal are signi�cant asit will impact employment, says CEA Subramanian. * AFP


NEW DELHI

Global reinsurance majorGen Re, which has receiveda branch licence for Indiaoperations, said there stillexist a few regulatoryhurdles that can be re-moved for the market tobenefit.

The Insurance Regulatoryand Development Authorityof India (IRDAI) has man-dated that state-run generalinsurer GIC Re will have theright of first refusal underwhich the reinsurer has thefirst right to accept or refuseany reinsurance contract inthe country.

“We are glad that there issomething now like a legalform of a branch that didnot exist a couple of yearsago,” Winfried Heinen,chairman of the executiveboard of directors, GeneralReinsurance AG, told TheHindu.

“But to be frank, thereare still quite some hurdlesthat could be removed,” hesaid.

Gen Re, a member of theBerkshire Hathaway familyof companies, has been inthe Indian market for thepast 15 years through vari-ous channels with focusprimarily on life and healthsector.

Open competition“I think I am not speakingon behalf of Gen Re alonebut for all international rein-surers. Reinsurers do likeopen competition. Themore we diversify, the bet-ter we can use our capital,”he said.

“Clearly there is a con-sensus in the internationalreinsurance market thatminimum protectionismand low legal hurdles willbenefit the market,” he said.Gen Re commenced its op-erations through its branchin India earlier this month.

Major reinsurance firms

like Swiss Re, Munich Re,Hannover Re, SCOR andRGA (Reinsurance Group ofAmerica) started theirbranch operations this year.

“Indian reinsurance regu-lations are evolving. IRDAIhas formed a committee toreview the existing regula-tions. This is most wel-come,” said Venkatesh N.Chakravarty, Gen Re’s IndiaCEO.

Capital normsRegarding regulatory man-date of having ₹100 croreinitial capital to start branchoperations, Mr. Heinen is ofthe view that branch shouldnot have its own capitalsince it is part of a largerentity.

“In my opinion, since weare a branch, the branchshould not have capital of itsown. A branch is part of amuch bigger entity,” he said.

“To grow more in India,we have to bring in morecapital — which we cannotuse anywhere else, and thatmakes it more expensive todo business in India. Thiswill be reflected in theprices we can offer to ourclients, and probably thiswill again be reflected in theprices they offer to their cli-ents. This inefficiency has aknock-on effect on the cus-tomers,” he added.

Observing that reinsur-ance in life offered more op-portunities in India, Mr.Heinen said focus will be onprofitability from day one.

Gen Re wants‘hurdles’ removedReinsurer aims to focus on bottomlineMANOJIT SAHA

Mumbai

Winfried Heinen

The Centre will go aheadwith its proposal to amendthe Factories Act of 1948 bygiving flexibility to State gov-ernments to enhance thethreshold limit over which aunit will be considered afactory despite concernsflagged by a ParliamentaryStanding Committee.

The proposal was dis-cussed at a tripartite meet-ing chaired by Labour Minis-ter Bandaru Dattatreya withrepresentatives of trade uni-ons, industries and Stategovernments.

The Standing Committee,examining the proposedchanges, however, observed

in 2014 that “if the amend-ment is carried out morethan 70% of the factory es-tablishments in the countrywill be out of the coverage ofthe Factories Act and work-ers will be at the mercy ofemployers.”

The Ministry of Labourand Employment did notagree with the committee’sobservations and said that ithad only given flexibility toState governments to fix thethreshold limit and “all thefactories, including the onewhich employs a singleworker may also be broughtunder the purview of the actthus, in fact, increasing thetotal number of workerscovered under the Act.”

Panel opposed move to ‘lift’ threshold


NEW DELHI

Factories Act: Centre�rm on amendment

U.S. President DonaldTrump’s dissolution of twobusiness advisory bodieswon’t adversely impact theparticipation of leadingAmerican companies or topexecutives at the Global En-trepreneurship Summit(GES) in Hyderabad, accord-ing to a U.S. official.

Mr. Trump, on Wednes-day, announced the break-up of the councils after sev-eral chief executives whowere on the American Man-ufacturing Council quit asmembers and the Presid-ent’s Strategic and PolicyForum broke up on its own.The CEOs resigned inprotest against Mr. Trump’sresponse to the violence inVirginia.

“Many U.S. technologycompanies have deep ties inIndia,” the official, who didnot wish to be identified,said. “They see India as agrowth market,” the officialsaid, adding that U.S. firms,particularly in the onlinepayments sector anticipatehuge opportunities due tothe Indian government’s de-

monetisation move and theconsequent push fordigitisation.

The GES, which aims tohelp “connect American en-trepreneurs and investorswith international counter-parts”, is a U.S. governmentinitiative. The event will beheld in South Asia for thefirst time when it takes placein Hyderabad, from Novem-ber 28-30. Ivanka Trump,Mr. Trump’s daughter andAdvisor to the President,will be heading the U.S.delegation.

Several U.S. companiesplan to increase investmentsin India, the official said,adding the U.S. governmentwas in the process of ap-proaching top firms to en-sure their participation inthe GES 2017.

Firms’ participation based on keenness to invest: U.S. o�cial

ARUN S

New Delhi

Ivanka Trump

‘Trump decision won’t hit GES’

Growing the premium carmarket will remain a top pri-ority for German auto majorBMW in India, according to atop official.

With the premium carsegment accounting for just1.2% to 1.4% of the total carmarket, India, according toVikram Pawah, presidentBMW India Pvt. Ltd., offersenough headroom forgrowth.

In a free-wheeling inter-view here on Thursday, Mr.Pawah said BMW grew 11.7%in the first six months of2017 despite uncertaintiescaused by demonetisationand the rollout of Goods andServices Tax (GST).

Asserting that “it is im-possible to control uncer-tainties,’’ Mr. Pawah saidBMW would remain fo-cussed on its basic proposi-tion of being the leader andbenchmarking whatever itdid. Celebrating 10 years ofits production in India, BMWhad lined up for introduc-

tion “some class-definingproducts’’ to lure more Indi-ans to own and experienceworld class cars. It set thestage for segment expansionwith the new 5 Seriesvehicles.

‘Good response’Mr. Pawah claimed the new 5Series offered ‘never heardof things’ such as gesturecontrol and remote parkingin the premium segment.Declining to divulge thenumbers, he said response

for new cars ‘is fantastic’.For BMW, 5 Series has been acritical component of its In-dia game plan.

Of the 66,000 vehiclessold by BMW thus far since itset up production base 10summers ago, 5 Series ac-counted for about 19,000units. The new 5 Seriescomes at a time when com-petition is hotting up in thisspace from peers.

Mr. Pawah indicated thatthe new 6 GT would be apart of the 2018 launch list in

India and would be slotted inbetween the 5 and 7 Series.BMW would be creating an-other value proposition withthe introduction of new X3Series in India next year, headded. The new X 3 Series isdeveloped on new CLARmodular platform, which isclaimed to be very light.

To a question, he said ex-panding the dealer networkfrom 41 to 50 and drivingBMW mobile studios around50 ‘emerging cities’ werepart its larger exercise to de-velop the premium car seg-ment in the country. “Thenext wave of customers willcome from these emergingcities,’’ he added.

To a query on BMW Mo-torrad, he said it had beenselling 11 products, importedin completely-built units.“We are setting up thefoundation for the businessin India,’’ he added. On itscollaboration with TVS Mo-tors, he said the jointly de-veloped products were cur-rently exported. Thedomestic sale of the wouldhappen next year, he added.

BMW to focus on premium cars in India Segment forms about 1.4% of total market o�ering room for growth: India chief

K.T. Jagannathan

K. Bharat Kumar

CHENNAI

Eyeing leadership: For BMW, the 5 Series has been a criticalcomponent of its India game plan.


Kamesh.Mechrocks

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Kamesh.Mechrocks

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IN BRIEF

Infosys to consider₹13,000-crore buyback The board of Infosys will

meet on August 19 to

consider a ₹13,000-crore

share buyback proposal.

”...The board of directors of

Infosys Ltd. will consider a

proposal for buyback of

equity shares of the company

at its meeting to be held on

August 19, 2017,” Infosys said

in a regulatory �ling. It said

the outcome of the board

meeting will be disseminated

to the stock exchanges after

the conclusion of the

meeting. PTI

Tata Co�ee begins workon Vietnam plant BENGALURU

Tata Co�ee said it had

become the �rst Indian

co�ee manufacturer to begin

work on setting up a plant in

Vietnam. The plant will start

manufacturing 5,000 MT a

year of freeze-dried co�ee in

the next 18-21 months,

according to a �ling. The

product will serve the

company’s global customers

and the foray “is a signi�cant

milestone in our journey to

become a global co�ee

major,” said Sanjiv Sarin, CEO,

Tata Co�ee.

Cognizant’s chief strategyofficer Malcolm Frank isconvinced that machineswon’t kill jobs and that one isnot going to witness a warbetween machines andhumans. Instead, they willwork together, he said duringa talk on ‘What to do whenmachines do everything!’organised by The IndusEntrepreneurs (TiE) Chennaiin association with Nasscomin Chennai. The Hinducaught up with him for aquick 10-minute interactionafter the session. Editedexcerpts:

You spoke about howrobotics, artificialintelligence (AI) andmachines are changingthe world. So, when itcomes to acquisitions,especially in the digitalspace, do you keep thesethings in mind? ■ Our strategy aroundacquisitions, as you know,has been acquiring forcapability and not forcapacity and that’s going tocontinue. We are a hugeorganisation and we don’thave to acquire for capacity.In the digital world you aregoing to see us becomemore and more aggressive.So, we have been acquiring[a] number of firms aroundspecific geographies. Wehad some design andstrategy houses like IdeaCouture (a privately heldfirm that offers a broadrange of digital innovation,strategy, design andtechnology services) inCanada, Mirabeau BV inNetherlands. So, you aregoing to see us acquire firmslike that and also [in]machine learning, AIorganisations that arefocussed on very specificvertical industry problems.

How easy or challengingis it for employees toadapt to the changes thatare happening in thedigital space? Theemployees in the midlevel in specific, can theybe trained?■ Trainable, yes. [It is] thewillingness that reallyvaries. But it’s notnecessarily a function ofage. There are lot of thingsthat go into that. Some timespeople appear as aged — butwhen somebody iscomfortable with thattechnology they areemotionally invested theyfeel that they have masteredit and their reputation andself-esteem is tied up withthat.

But I think anybody,particularly when they comeinto services business, youcome in knowing thattechnologies continuouslyevolve and you have tocontinuously evolve withthem. The big trigger quiteoften is when you see itthrough your customer’seyes. Sometimes people canget into denial and think I

won’t invest in those skillsets because I can just dothis for the next five or tenyears. But when you sitdown with the client and theclient tells you what you’recurrently doing with thosetechnologies was importantto me ten years ago but nowI view it as a commodity.That’s when we see peoplemore motivated to make theshift. It’s easy to talk aboutchange but change is hard,particularly when change issomebody else’s idea it’sdoubly hard. One of thingswe have done at CognizantAcademy is we have got thisinstitutional capability tohelp with this transition andscale.

Where does Cognizantstand when it comes todigital shift?■ We re-organised the wholecompany 12-13 months agoall around digital. We quietlyreorganised the whole firmbecause the client, when wemake this transition, theyhave to change theiroperations, technology andwe need to align with theneeds of our clients.

Are you consideringhiring non-graduates?■ I believe deeply in thecollege experience.Certainly you learn verytangible skills. But thoseskills are going to evolvequickly. I believe in gettinggraduates. We arereasonably young firm. Arewe going to separateheadcount from revenue? Ihave been in this industryfor three decades andeveryone has been talkingabout it. We have startedseeing automation in certainpockets of the business butyou’re still going to see goodhead count growth. We willbe a fairly strong hirer.

‘We reorganised thecompany around digital’‘You have to continuously evolve with technologies’

Sangeetha Kandavel

<> In the digital world,

you are going to see

us become more

and more

aggressive

INTERVIEW | MALCOLM FRANK

Tata Global Beverages (TGB)is exploring new markets inAsia beginning with China,where it made a pilot entryto woo the country’s youthwith black tea, according toa top official.

“We are also testing wa-ters in Malaysia,” Ajoy Misra,managing director, TGB, toldthe media. In China, TGBhad made a B-to-C (business-to-consumer) entry throughAlibaba. “We are appealingto the new generation withblack tea”, Mr. Misra said.

The firm’s move to ex-pand to newer marketscomes even as it re-examinesits business portfoliosworldwide.

Singapore, Malaysia andChina have been identified

as large tea consuming mar-kets, TGB said at a recent in-vestor call. The Tata groupcompany is engaged in threebeverage segments — tea,coffee and enhanced water.

On TGB taking a relook atits business portfolios, Mr.Misra said, “We continue tolook at ways to rationalise

our business.” Indicationsare restructuring may be onthe cards in Poland.

Poland’s marketTo a question on Poland,

he said this was the second-largest tea market after Rus-sia and TGB’s play involvedofferings of fruit and herbalteas through a local brand,Vitax. “We have restructuredoperations and also changedthe distribution system.. weare in no hurry to exit.” How-ever, the company may takea call if necessary, he said.

He said U.K. had givenstrong growth across all cat-egories amidst decliningblack tea consumption. TGBhad closed 2016-17 with₹6,780 crore in operationalrevenue and a post-tax profitof ₹455 crore.

Within India, he said TGBwas the largest player in thepackaged tea market (as perNielsen) and a third of itsbusiness was from India.

TGB had identified Stateslike Maharashtra where itwould increase focus. Thewestern State and Gujaratwere two of the largest teamarkets in India. “We areconsolidating our position inMaharashtra with improvedproduct mix.”

TGB was maintaining itsmass-market products whilefocussing on ‘premiumisa-tion.’ Fruski, a tea-basedready-to-drink beverage hadbeen recently piloted inNorth India, and would gonational depending on theresponse. The firm had alsointroduced ayurvedic in-gredient-suffused teas.

TGB o�ers black tea to China’s youthTata Global Beverages has identi�ed 3 nations as large tea consuming markets


KOLKATA

Ajoy Misra

Srei Equipment FinanceLtd. (SEFL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SreiInfrastructure Finance Ltd.(SIFL), is planning to getlisted through an initialpublic offering (IPO) of itsequity shares which willresult in dilution of up to25% of the post paid-upequity share capital.

“This is an opportunetime [for an IPO],” saidHemant Kanoria, CMD,SIFL. The company hopedto raise about ₹2,000crore, depending on thevaluation, he said.

Mr. Kanoria said the IPOwould enable the firm in-fuse fresh capital into thebusiness.

He said the initial publicoffering was scheduled tohappen within six monthsat the most.

SreiEquipmentFinanceplans IPOSpecial Correspondent

KOLKATA

Private sector banks in theSouth are in a race to set upAadhaar enrolment and up-dation facilities, following arecent directive from theCentre, according to anofficial.

More touchpoints“The new initiative will en-able us to speed up the pro-cess of Aadhaar enrolment,”said D.M. Gajare, AssistantDirector General, UIDAI(Unique Identification Au-thority of India). “The ideais to have more number oftouch points,” said he said.

On July 13, the Centre hadadvised all commercialbanks to provide Aadhaarenrolment and updation fa-cilities at their branches.“Karur Vysya Bank has be-come the first bank in the

country to set up the facilitywithin a short time. Here,Aadhaar enrolment or upda-tion can be done in 15minutes,” said Mr. Gajareafter inaugurating the newfacility at the bank’s Nun-gambakkam branch.

Lakshmi Vilas Bank, CityUnion Bank, Tamilnad Mer-cantile Bank in Tamil Nadu

and Catholic Syrian Bank inKerala will follow suit.

“These touch points willbe in addition to the ones atnationalised banks, post of-fices, State governmentagencies and common ser-vice centres. In Tamil Nadu,we have achieved 94% inAadhaar generation. But,when you take those above18 years of age, it is 99%,” hesaid.

“Unlike the touch pointsof nationalised banks (loc-ated outside the premises),we have installed our enrol-ment facility within thepremises,” said C. Sara-vanun, general manager,Karur Vysya Bank. “We haveinvested close to ₹1.5 lakh to₹2 lakh per installation andplan to add the facility in 75more branches throughoutTamil Nadu by September,”he said.

Initiative to hasten enrolment process, says UIDAI o�cial


CHENNAI

D.M. Gajare

Private banks in the South set up facilities for Aadhaar

Deadline extension fortransitional input creditNEW DELHI

The Centre extended the

GST return �ling deadline for

those seeking to avail of

transitional input tax credits

to August 28, citing concerns

among taxpayers regarding

the non-availability of the

relevant form on the GST

Network website. The form

will be available from August

21. “Concerns were raised

about the form for claiming

transitional input tax credit

not being available on the

GSTN website,” the Finance

Ministry said.


Kamesh.Mechrocks

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Kamesh.Mechrocks

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CMYK




SPORT

Suarez ruled out for a month BARCELONA

Troubled Barcelona was dealt

a new blow ahead of the start

of the Spanish league season

when Luis Suarez was ruled

out for a month with a knee

injury on Thursday. “Luis

Suarez will be out of action

for around four weeks. Tests

carried out on Thursday

morning confirm that the

Uruguayan has a distension in

the posterior articular

capsule in his right knee

picked up in the second half

of the Clasico on Wednesday

in the Santiago Bernabeu,”

said Barcelona on its

website.AFP

IN BRIEF

MacGill declinesBangladesh offer DHAKA

Former Australian leg-spinner

Stuart MacGill has cited

personal reasons and turned

down a Bangladesh offer to

join the side ahead of two-

Test series against his home

country, a senior cricket

official said on Thursday.

Bangladesh has been without

a spin bowling coach since

the BCB sacked Sri Lankan

Ruwan Kalpage, who failed to

report for duty following a

deadly Islamist extremist

attack at a posh Dhaka cafe in

July last year. AFP

Sigurdsson completesrecord move to Everton LONDON

Everton signed Iceland

midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson

from Premier League rival

Swansea for a club record

£45 million on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old penned a

five-year contract worth a

reported £100,000 a week

to become Everton’s record

signing, topping the £31.8

million it paid Chelsea for

Romelu Lukaku in 2014. AFP

Former captain MahendraSingh Dhoni was the centreof attention as India’s ODIspecialists enjoyed their firsttraining session, here onThursday.

It was an optional sessionwhere Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav,Manish Pandey, ShardulThakur, Yuzvendra Chahaland Jasprit Bumrah lookedlike hitting the right notesahead of what will be thestart of a long limited-overengagement for the Men inBlue.

The spotlight, though, wason the 36-year-old Dhoni,who now has to fend offquestions about his futurewith alarming regularity.

He warmed up by facingdifferent bowlers in the nets,both Indian and localbowlers.

Initially, he looked a bitrusty, given that he has notplayed competitive cricketfor almost a month now. Buthe shrugged it off easily andplayed some handsomeshots against both the pacersand spinners.

MSK’s analogyIn the past week, chief se-lector M.S.K. Prasad came tohis aid, likening him to An-dre Agassi in his latter years.

“He played till 36 and won somany Grand Slams,” he hadsaid of the former USA tennisplayer.

Dhoni had led India to the2014 World T20 finals inBangladesh, and then to thesemifinals of both the 2015ODI World Cup (in Australia-New Zealand) and the 2016

World T20 at home.Then, there are the indi-

vidual statistics to ponderover.

However, it is never easyto judge a batsman likeDhoni on form, as he batslower down the orderwherein the impact made ishigher than even averages

swelled by unbeaten innings.It can be seen in his part-

nership with Yuvraj Singh atCuttack against England asboth batsmen turned backthe clock to hit hundreds orthe one against Sri Lanka inthe Champions Trophy en-counter at the Oval, wherehe helped push the score

past 300 after the Indian top-order faltered.

Yet, there is no denyingthat the former skipper haslooked a pale shadow of hispast glorious self on manyoccasions, the last of whichwas in the West Indies re-cently, when he scored apainful 54 off 114 in thefourth ODI at Antigua, againas India lost the game by 11runs.

Impactful presence

However, it cannot be deniedthat Dhoni continues tomaintain an impactful pres-ence in the Indian dressingroom.

Much of it is to do with hishigh standards of fitness,comparable to the young-sters in the Indian squad,certainly miles ahead of thelikes of Yuvraj and SureshRaina.

Then there is the elementof experience that he bringsto the table.

He was brilliant with theusage of DRS and even gaveinputs about bringing onJadhav to bowl at vital matchsituations, an advice whichproved valuable against bothLanka and Bangladesh in thesemifinal as outlined byKohli himself.

And so, Dhoni returns tothe Indian side, looking toanswer a few questionsabout his impending future.

Dhoni corners attention ahead of ODIsQuestions on the former India skipper’s future now likely to be more pronounced than ever

Pressure point: M.S. Dhoni’s performance in the series will come under a close scrutiny as the team management attempts to arrive at the core group for the next World Cup.

* PICTURE COURTESY: BCCI TWITTER PAGE


Dambulla

INDIA IN LANKA

The Supreme Court, on Fri-day, will consider the fifthStatus Report filed by theCommittee of Administrat-ors (CoA) with regard to im-plementation of the LodhaCommittee reforms.

The Board of Control forCricket in India (BCCI), inCoA’s scathing observationson Wednesday, had beenstalling all efforts to intro-duce the new administrativestructure which insists onaccountability and transpar-ency.

The Apex Court had dir-ected the BCCI to come backwith its areas of difficultiesin implementing the re-forms. At its Special GeneralMeeting held in Delhi onJuly 26, the BCCI had con-cluded that it was opposedto the following reforms:

a) Matters pertaining tomembership (One State onevote, membership of All In-dia Universities, ServicesSports Control Board andRailways Sports PromotionBoard); b) Number of per-sons in selection commit-tees; c) Functions, powers,duties, and obligations setout for the employees, of-fice-bearers; functionaries,committees, etc., to be de-cided by the General Body

from time to time;d) Restrictions/disquali-

fications of office-bearers(age, tenure, cooling-offperiod, government ser-vants, minister); and e) Con-stitution of Apex Council.

The BCCI has steadfastlystalled all efforts to imple-ment the reforms to the ex-tent that the CoA has re-quested the Supreme Courtto dismiss the top three of-fice-bearers of the BCCI (act-ing- president C.K. Khanna,acting-secretary AmitabhChoudhary and acting-treas-urer Amitabh Chaudhry).

In its fifth Status report,the CoA had also quotedJustice R.M. Lodha, whohad said, “the heart, kidneyand lungs are being takenout of these reforms” in ref-erence to the BCCI describ-ing the core of the reformsmandated by the SupremeCourt as “impracticable.”

Some of the BCCI’s Stateunits have been functioningon an ad-hoc basis even assome have begun a hurriedbut discreet exercise to formthe players’ associations.

“It is time for the playersto come together and realisethe need to fight some ofthese officials who havebeen in power for decades,”said former India captainBishan Singh Bedi.

Apex Court to focus onCoA’s �fth status report

Vijay Lokapally

NEW DELHI

The heart, kidney and lungs are beingtaken out of these reforms: Lodha

Ramandeep Singh andChinglensana Singh Kangu-jam struck twice to guide theIndian men’s hockey team toa 4-3 win over Austria in itsfinal encounter of theEurope Tour here.

Austria took the lead thor-ough Oliver Binder’s goal inthe first quarter. India, how-ever, made amends in thesecond quarter when it wona PC in the 25th minute. Aclever variation sawcomeback-man Amit Rohi-das pass the ball to Raman-

deep, who deflected the ballinto the circle to equalise.

The 10-minute half-timebreak saw India come backinto the game as the teamwith a better attack.

It made better circle pen-etrations and the lead camewhen Ramandeep scored arollicking field goal, a re-verse hit from the top of thecircle, in the 32nd minute.

Another opportunity cre-ated by Mandeep Singh wasconverted by vice-captainChinglensana in the 37thminute through a superb

variation by drag-flickerVarun Kumar.

Austria won a penaltycorner in the 53rd minuteand Michael Korper obliged.Austria then scored in the55th minute via PatrickSchmidt to draw level.

With just 10 seconds left,Chinglensana scored a sen-sational goal when Raman-deep made a brilliant circlepenetration to find GurjantSingh. A cross hit by Gurjantsaw Chinglensana deflectthe ball into the goal andseal the match.

India ends European tour on a high

Intense action: Mandeep Singh tries to slot one past the Austrian goalkeeper. * PTI


AMSTELVEEN

Meraj Sheykh’s single-handed effort helped Da-bang Delhi KC win a cliff-hanger against TamilThalaivas 30-29 in aProKabaddi League match atthe Arena by Transstadia onThursday.

Delhi captain Sheykh wasthe clear-cut winner of theGFG ‘moment-of-the-match’when, against all odds, henot onky wriggled out of achain tackle and won threemassive points for his side toconvert a deficit of 27-28 to alead of 30-28, but also leftthe Thalaivas’ captain AjayThakur as the lone manstanding in defence.

After a lacklustre showingin the previous matches,Thakur made amends win-ning 14 points.

With 62 seconds remain-ing, the Chennai side wouldhave hoped for a secondwin, but Sheykh’s magnifi-cent raid stunned the rivalcamp; Sheykh tallied 9points (8 touch and 1 bonus).

Delhi made a crucial sub-stitution bringing in thesecond Iranian AbolfazlMaghsodlou before the first

half. The tall and strong all-rounder turned out to be thegame-changer, tallying 11points (4 touch points, 5 bo-nus and 2 tackle points).

Sheykh — with his sideleading by a point opted fortime to lapse during his lastraid — would have been de-lighted with the result be-cause, at the stroke of halftime, he conceded supertackle points to theThaliavas’ D. Pradab and Vi-jay Kumar. Usually he wouldhave won a 1-2 situationhands down , but after a des-perate attempt he became avictim himself for the teamsto be tied at 12. While

Thakur held centre-stage,his colleague K. Prapanjan (1raid point) was not givenleeway by the rival cornersand Thalaivas paid a heavyprice for his absence fromplay at regular intervals. The results: Dabang Delhi KC30 bt Tamil Thalaivas 29; Gu-jarat Fortunegiants 26 tiedwith Bengal Warriors 26.

Fellow-Iranian Maghsodlou excels in a cli�hanger

G. Viswanath

AHMEDABAD

Iranian impact: Dabang Delhi skipper Meraj Sheykh throwing akick for a touch point against Tamil Thalaivas. * SPECIAL

ARRANGEMENT

Sheykh does the star turn for Delhi

PKL

PLAYING TODAYDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

U.P. Yoddha vs U Mumba, 8p.m.Bengaluru Bulls vs JaipurPink Panthers, 9 p.m. , STARSports 2, 2 HDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Joe Root and Alastair Cookplayed sublimely to leadEngland to a commanding215 for two at tea on theopening day of their firstday-night Test against theWest Indies at Edgbaston onThursday.

Captain Root was batting103 and Cook on 85 as Eng-land recovered stronglyfrom another poor start withthe bat when it slumped to39 for two after winning thetoss.

Root would have beenhoping for a steady openingstand but Mark Stoneman,making his debut as Cook’slatest partner, was bowledoff-stump by a fine deliveryfrom Kemar Roach.

Miguel Cummins trappedTom Westley lbw, the WestIndies successfully reviewingthe umpire’s not out de-cision to leave England introuble at the start of thethree-match series.

Cook and Root dug in,however, taking advantageof good batting conditionsand wayward bowling with aflurry of crisp boundaries togive their side a solid plat-form. Cook brought up his50 shortly before lunch andRoot soon followed him tothe milestone, posting a half-

century for the 11th Test-in-a-row to equal the record infive-day cricket.

Immaculate strokesThe prolific right-handercontinued to play immacu-late strokes all round theground and he reached his13th Test hundred by sweep-ing off spinner Roston Chasefor his 19th four.

England, fresh from beat-ing South Africa 3-1, is strongfavourite to overcome a cal-

low West Indies side withoutmany of its leading playersdue to contractual disputeswith their cricket board.

The fifth ever day-nightTest and first in England,played with an unfamiliarpink ball, was expected tooffer the touring side its bestchance of an upset and itwill be hoping the ball be-haves more unpredictablywhen the floodlights areturned on in the final ses-sion.

Root and Cook dig inThe skipper’s century helps the host shake o� early wobble

Reuters

BIRMINGHAM

Leading from the front: Captain Joe Root’s century and his 176-run partnership with AlastairCook took England to 215 for two at tea on the �rst day of the pink ball Test. * REUTERS

Ramkumar Ramanathancrashed out in the secondround of the Western &Southern Open, going downto American wild card JaredDonaldson 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 inone hour, 56 minutes, hereon Wednesday.

It was second straight de-feat for Ramkumar againstthe World No. 60, havinglost to him in the secondround of the Roland GarrosQualifier in 2015.

Rafael Nadal cruised tovictory in his first matchsince taking over the WorldNo. 1 ranking, while Alexan-der Zverev’s 10-match winstreak was halted by US teenwildcard Frances Tiafoe.Important results: Men:Second round: Jared Donald-son bt Ramkumar Ramanathan

6-4, 2-6, 6-4; Rafael Nadal btRichard Gasquet 6-3, 6-4;Frances Tiafoe bt AlexanderZverev 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; GrigorDimitrov bt Feliciano Lopez 7-6(5), 6-4.

Juan Martin del Potro btMitchell Krueger 6-4, 6-4; NickKyrgios bt Alexandr Dolgopo-lov 6-3, 7-6(6); Albert Ramos-Vinolas bt Gilles Muller 5-7,6-4, 6-4.

Women: Second round: Karo-lina Pliskova bt Nadia Vikhly-antseva 6-2, 6-3; Elina Svito-lina bt Lesia Tsurenko 6-1, 6-4;Carolina Wozniacki bt ElenaVesnina 6-2, 6-4; EkaterinaMakarova bt Angelique Kerber6-4, 1-6, 7-6(11); AshleighBarty bt Venus Williams 6-3,2-6, 6-2; Madison Keys bt DariaKasatkina 6-2, 6-1.

Doubles: Pre-quarterfinals:Sania Mirza & Peng Shuai bt Ju-lia Gorges & Olga Savchuk 7-5,6-4.

Donaldson has themeasure of Ramkumar Wild card Tiafoe snaps Zverev’s run

Agencies

Cincinnati

England vs West Indies: 1stTest: SS Select 2, 2 HD, 6.30p.m.La Liga: Sony TEN 2, TEN 2HD, 11.30 p.m.

TV PICKS

Three-time champion In-dia and Australia are set toclash in their tournament-opener of the ICC Under 19Cricket World Cup sched-uled to be held from Janu-ary 13 to February 3 nextyear.

India and Australia areclubbed together in GroupB along with Zimbabweand East Asia Pacific quali-fier Papua New Guinea, ac-cording to the schedule ofthe tournament an-nounced by ICC onThursday.

16-team tournamentDefending champion WestIndies will play host NewZealand on opening day of16-team tournament whichwill be played across sevenvenues.

The West Indies will playhost New Zealand in the in-augural Group A day-nightfixture at Bay Oval on theopening day of the event,featuring 16 teams acrossseven venues in four cities:Christchurch, Queen-stown, Tauranga andWhangarei.

The other teams inGroup A are 2012 cham-pion South Africa andAfrica qualifier Kenya.

U-19 WC:India meetsAustralia Press Trust of India

Dubai

Best of luck: Virat Kohli being welcomed on the Indian team’sarrival at Dambulla for the �rst one-dayer to be played onSunday. * PICTURE COURTESY: BCCI TWITTER PAGE

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Saying it with �owers

England — 1st innings: A. Cook(batting) 85, M. Stoneman bRoach 8, T. Westley lbw bCummins 8, J. Root (batting)103; Extras (lb-8, nb-1, w-2):11; Total (for two wkts. in 55overs, at tea): 215.

Fall of wickets: 1-14, 2-39.

West Indies bowling: Roach14-4-49-1, Joseph 10-1-53-0,Cummins 14-3-40-1, Holder 11-2-43-0, Chase 6-0-22-0.

Toss: England

SCOREBOARD


Kamesh.Mechrocks

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Kamesh.Mechrocks

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CMYK

A ND-NDE




SPORT

SUDOKU

Solution to puzzle 12088 Solution to yesterday’s Sudoku

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

A real leader is one who leads from the front. He does nothesitate to take on the opposition; in war, he is at the headof the army, inspiring his soldiers and urging them to putthe enemy to flight. Lord Rama was one such leader, saidM.A. Venkatakrishnan in a discourse. The Lord is seen asthe One who protects us. A protector has to be at the fore-front, guarding those who have put their trust in him. Andwhether it is in the Rama avatar or Krishna avatara, we ob-serve this trait of the Lord.

Lord Rama heads His troops, whereas Ravana sends allthe others out to fight, and only when none is left does heventure to face Rama. Ravana comes to the battlefield in hischariot, but Rama is on the ground. Sage Narada urges Indrato lend his chariot to Rama. Rama tells Indra’s charioteer todrive forward to meet Ravana. Indra himself usually soughtthe Lord’s help when he found himself in trouble. So per-haps being asked to drive forward was a new experience forIndra’s charioteer.

In the Kurukshetra war, Lord Krishna is Arjuna’s chari-oteer and Arjuna tells Him to drive the chariot and place itbetween the two armies so that he (Arjuna) can see his op-ponents.

Tirumangai Azhvar, in one of his verses about LordParthasarathy of Triplicane, extols Krishna who was in frontof Arjuna steering the chariot. But why does TirumangaiAzhvar say that Lord Krishna stood on the chariot? Whichcharioteer stands on the chariot?

There was a reason for Tirumangai Azhvar’s choice ofwords. Lord Krishna stood up in the chariot to save Arjunafrom the arrows that came towards him. The processionalidol in the Triplicane temple has marks that indicate thescars from the arrow wounds of Lord Krishna.

The Lord, by standing up, saved Arjuna’s life.

FAITH

Rama, a true leader2 Coup — essentially, a covert

operation for removing leader

(7)

3 Leg spin? (9)

5 What you do while playing in

the beach to get experience

(3,4,4,3)

6 Stranger from revolutionary

Communist party (5)

7 Following a treatment for

amnesia, son dies — it could

be a life-threatening

condition (7)

8 Maid from bar near small US

city (6)

9 Reprinted items could be

understood wrongly (14)

16 Auditor's notices to cashier

for an amicable settlement

(5-4)

17 Gave evidence — "Had to win

cricket match by fraud

eventually" (8)

19 Daughter perhaps runs away

to get happiness (7)

21 Back in Calais, sailor gets a

shower and time to rest (7)

22 Struggling actor wins Oscar

ultimately — it's an incentive

for performance (6)

24 Swelling a bit, excitedly made

out (5)

12 Incentives limit us,

unfortunately (7)

13 They are involved in rows

every day (7)

14 Understand it could be

anything from 0 to 9 (5)

15 How to make taco for a traitor?

(8)

18 Practice on vehicle, for the

ultimate ride (8)

20 Like to arrange one's home,

say (5)

23 Unprofessional friend in a city

of ancient Mesopotamia (7)

25 Shake three times, adding a

drop of milk inside (7)

26 Intensify beginning of rapid

change in India, after leader is

removed (5)

27 Pant, tired, worn and scared

(9)

28 Drinking cups in brown, dark,

blue, and a shade of silver (8)

29 Setter and the lady had

become engaged (6)

■ DOWN

1 Evergreen tree �nally

dies…perhaps it could provide

warmth (8)

(set by KrisKross)

■ ACROSS

1 Pop off to participate

in race — it's not hard (6)

4 Inexperienced girl ran into

criminal (8)

10 Control the others outside

school (9)

11 Bird, �rst from England to go

around the world (5)

THE HINDU CROSSWORD 12089

Real Madrid lifts Super CupReal Madrid won the Spanish

Super Cup for the 10th time

with a 2-0 win over

Barcelona at a joyous

Santiago Bernabeu on

Wednesday to complete a 5-1

aggregate victory. Marco

Asensio’s stunning effort

from 30 metres in the fourth

minute proved a punishing

blow for the Catalans.The result: Real Madrid 2(Asensio 4, Benzema 39) btBarcelona 0 (Real Madrid won5-1 on aggregate).

IN BRIEF

Barca close to Coutinho,Dembele deals: Segura MADRID

Barcelona sporting manager

Pep Segura said the club is

“close” to signing Liverpool’s

Philippe Coutinho and

Ousmane Dembele from

Borussia Dortmund. “We are

close to Coutinho and

Dembele, we are discussing

their conditions but we do

not know when they will be

sealed,” Segura told TV3. REUTERS

Grandmasters Swapnil Dho-pade and Himanshu Sharmaproduced clinical displays tostay in joint lead at 6.5 pointsafter the seventh round ofthe National Challengerschess championship here.

As the competitioncrossed the halfway mark,race for the nine qualifyingspots for this year’s Nationalchampionship showed signsof warming up with 13 play-ers, with 5.5 points, follow-ing the leaders.

Sustained pressure fromDhopade saw top seed Ara-vindh Chithambaram crackin 79 moves. The Tamil Naduteenager first traded his rookfor a bishop and later sacri-ficed a bishop for two king-side pawns. Dhopade, armedwith an extra rook, contin-ued accurately and scored animportant victory.

Earlier, Dhopade’s Rail-way colleague Himanshuneeded 41 moves to end theunbeaten run of fellowovernight joint-leaderSammed Shete on the topboard. Second seed S. L.Narayanan, third seed M. R.Lalith Babu, eighth seed De-

bashis Das and holder Ravi S.Teja stayed on course of re-covery with fine victories.

The day also saw twoteenagers – Pune’s NikhilDixit (1847) and Rajkot’s UditKamdar (1947) – pull off sur-prise results. In 27 moves,Dixit (5) annihilated local GMTejas Bakre (2464) and Kam-

dar (5.5) drew with IMSwayams Mishra after miss-ing a winning continuation.

The results: Seventh round:

Himanshu Sharma (6.5) btSammed Shete (5.5); AravindhChithambaram (5) lost toSwapnil Dhopade (6.5); AkashIyer (5.5) drew with AbhijitKunte (5.5); Deepan Chakkrav-

arthy (5.5) drew with ArghyadipDas (5.5); Swayams Mishra (5.5)drew with Udit Kamdar (5.5); S.L. Narayanan (5.5) bt Ram S.Krishnan (4.5).

Shashikant Kutwal (4.5) lostto M. R. Lalith Babu (5.5);Sankalp Gupta (5) drew with P.Shyam Nikhil (5); S. Nitin (5)drew with N. Lokesh (5); S.

Satyapragyan (5) drew withKoustav Chatterjee (5); RajeshNayak (4.5) lost to S. Ravi Teja(5.5); S. Jayakumaar (5) drewwith Sriram Jha (5).

Jennitha Anto (5) drew withHemant Sharma (5); Joy Shah(4.5) lost to Mary Ann Gomes(5.5); Fenil Shah (5.5) bt RajaRithwik (4.5).

Dhopade stuns Aravindh, takes leadNikhil Dixit stuns Tejas Bakre; Udit Kamdar holds Swayams Mishra Rakesh Rao

AHMEDABAD

Upset victory: Swapnil Dhopade (right) awaits top seed Aravindh Chithambaram’s response during their seventh-round battle inthe National Challengers chess championship in Ahmedabad on Thursday. Dhopade won in 79 moves to stay in joint lead.

BENGALURU: Ace Badraan(Nazerul Alam up) won the Stew-ards Trophy, the feature event ofthe concluding day’s races heldon Thursday (Aug. 17). The win-ner is owned by Mr. Sunil K. Vas-ant and trained by Irfan Ghatala.LEADING INDIVIDUAL OWNER:

Ms. Ameeta Mehra (earned stakemoney of ₹1,92,45,707)LEADING JOINT OWNERS: M/s.Five Star Shipping Co. Pvt Ltd repby. Mr & Mrs. K.N. Dhunjibhoyand Mr & Mrs. Z.K. Dhunjibhoyand Mr. Vispi R. Patel (earnedstake money of ₹48,17,872)CHAMPION TRAINER: Mr. S. At-taollahi (16 winners)CHAMPION JOCKEY: P. Trevor (24winners)CHAMPION JOCKEY CLAIMING AL-

LOWANCE: Rayan Ahmed (9winners)LEADING STUD FARM: M/s.Kunigal Stud Farm (25 winners)HORSE OF THE SEASON: SerjeantAt Arms (won all four starts)CHAMPION HORSE: Manifold(earned stake money of₹2,14,51,920).

1 MOONLIGHT ROMANCE CUP

(Div. II), (1,200m), maiden 3-y-o only, (Terms): MANSUETUDE

(Dhanu Singh) 1, Amazonite(Neeraj) 2, Tevoda (Mudassar) 3and Set To Win (Srinath) 4. Notrun: Optimisticapproach. 10-3/4,5-3/4 and 2. 1m, 16.47s. ₹30 (w),12, 13 and 17 (p), SHP: 31, THP: 39,FP: 73, Q: 45, Trinella: 232 and156, Exacta: 291 and 106. Favour-ite: Set To Win. Owner: Mr. HiroG. Matai. Trainer: PrasannaKumar.

2 AMAZING GRACE STAKES

(1,600m), rated 00 to 20: EL

MATADOR (A. Vishwanat) 1, Mys-tical Shadow (Rajesh Kumar) 2,Appy’s Glamour ( Jagadeesh) 3and Perfect Prince (A. Ramu) 4.Not run: Reverberating. 2-1/4, 1-1/4 and 1-1/2. 1m, 45.74s. ₹50 (w),18, 21 and 14 (p), SHP: 69, THP:60, FP: 612, Q: 370, Trinella:2,865 and 921, Exacta: 6,675 and6,293. Favourite: Appy’s Glam-our. Owners: Mr. Syed Sha. P &Mr. Mahmood Khan. Trainer:Mahmood Khan.

3 GLORIOUS COLOURS STAKES

(1,100m), rated 15 to 35: LADY

MAJESTIC (Arshad Alam) 1, TopBrass (S. John) 2, Master Of War(Rayan Ahmed) 3 and Purity(Vinod Shinde) 4. Not run: Per-fect Stride. 1-3/4, 6 and 1. 1m,10.50s. ₹44 (w), 14, 11 and 25 (p),SHP: 41, THP: 53, FP: 108, Q: 34,Trinella: 404 and 299, Exacta:4,602 and 3,586. Favourite: TopBrass. Owners: Mr. S. Narredu &Mr. P.S. Somakanthan. Trainer: S.

Narredu.

4 CLASSIC ACT STAKES

(1,400m), rated 30 to 50:CHERIE AMOUR (S. Shareef ) 1,Goodwill Warrior (Arshad Alam)2, Royal Serenity (P. Trevor) 3and Reference (Irvan Singh) 4. 2,2-1/2 and 1-3/4. 1m, 28.97s. ₹107(w), 30, 136 and 17 (p), SHP: 515,THP: 56, FP: 14,083, Q: 5,464,Trinella: 90,571 and 38,816, Ex-acta: 1,21,681 (carried over). Fa-vourite: War Envoy. Owners: Mr.A. Muniraja & Mr. A. Ravi.Trainer: G. Nityanand.

5 STEWARDS TROPHY (1,200m),rated 60 & above: ACE BAD-

RAAN (Nazerul Alam) 1, LifeAwaits (P. Trevor) 2, Taqdeeer KaBadshah (Rajesh Kumar) 3 andAntananarivo (S. John) 4. 2, 4 and2-1/2. 1m, 15.04s. ₹201 (w), 26, 16and 43 (p), SHP: 42, THP: 91, FP:1,050, Q: 353, Trinella: 4,247 and7,645, Exacta: 1,31,442 and 18,777.Favourite: La Dona. Owner: Mr.Sunil K. Vasant. Trainer: IrfanGhatala.

6 PRINCE KHARTOUM CUP

(1,600m), rated 45 to 65: TOR-

SORO (Neeraj) 1, Michaela (P. Tre-vor) 2, Mystic Music (S. John) 3and Frenemee (Rayan Ahmed) 4.4-1/4, 1 and Nose. 1m, 43.18s. ₹19(w), 11, 13 and 21 (p), SHP: 38,THP: 51, FP: 57, Q: 30, Trinella:224 and 145, Exacta: 1,951 and1,185. Favourite: Torsoro. Own-ers: Mr. Sunil Damani & Mr. IrfanGhatala. Trainer: Irfan Ghatala.

7 MOONLIGHT ROMANCE CUP

(Div. I), (1,200m), maiden 3-y-o only, (Terms): ANIMAL KING

(Srinath) 1, So Mi Dar (A. Ramu)2, San Bernardino (Dhanu Singh)3 and Panama (S. John) 4. 8-1/2,Lnk and Hd. 1m, 15.37s. ₹19 (w),11, 22 and 16 (p), SHP: 68, THP:43, FP: 400, Q: 199, Trinella: 606and 251, Exacta: 1,503 and 560.Favourite: Animal King. Owner:Mr. Ravi Pathak. Trainer: RajeshNarredu.

8 ROMANTIC DANCER STAKES

(1,200m), rated 15 to 35, 4-y-o& over: RECZAI (M. Naveen) 1,Dont Trust Anyone (Srinath) 2,Indian Brahmos (Irvan Singh) 3and Extremelydangerous (ArshadAlam) 4. Hd, 4-1/4 and 2-1/2. 1m,16.29s. ₹42 (w), 17, 16 and 23 (p),SHP: 50, THP: 60, FP: 342, Q: 145,Trinella: 1,422 and 657, Exacta:5,071 and 2,301. Favourite: DontTrust Anyone. Owners: Mr. R.M.Ramaswamy & Mr. R.N. VijayaKumar. Trainer: Sharat Kumar.Jackpot: ₹74,648 (eight tkts); Run-ner-up: ₹4,570 (56 tkts); Treble(i): ₹6,512 (three tkts); (ii): ₹276(161 tkts).

Ace Badraan wins

The MRF FF1600, which of-fers the eventual championa ticket to the prestigiousMazda Road to Indyshootout in the USA, will yetagain headline the fourthand penultimate round ofthe MRF MMSC FMSCI INRCat the MMRT track thisweekend.

In all, 14 races in variouscategories have been sched-uled over two days after Fri-day’s practice and qualify-

ing sessions. The secondround of MMSC FMSCI Na-tional Drag Racing Champi-onship is also part of themain card and will be heldon Saturday (practice) andSunday (final) evening.

The MRF FF1600 class isdeveloping into an exciting,four-driver contest involvingBengaluru’s Sandeep Kumar(72 points), local challengerChetan Korada (66.5), Kolk-ata schoolboy Arya Singh(52.5) and Ishaan Dodhiwala(44) from Hyderabad.

As many as 14 races to be held Sports Reporter

Chennai

MRF FF 1600 headlinespenultimate round

Seven athletes have beenhanded four-year suspen-sions by the NADA Discip-linary Panel for variousdoping violations.

The ineligible athletesare Kulwinder Singh andShamsher Singh (bothkabaddi), Murali Mohanti(powerlifting), TahaminaKhatun and Mahesh Kale(both athletics), A. KrishnaMoorthy and V. Santosh(both weightlifting), ac-cording to a NADA state-ment on Thursday.

Five others have beenplaced under provisionalsuspension for anti-dopingrule violations. They areAsian champion womanshot-putter Manpreet Kaur,Jagtar Singh, D. Sreekanth,Rohit and Ashish Lathwal.

7 athletes getfour-yearsuspension Special Correspondent

KOLKATA

NEW DELHI: The Indianmen’s wrestling team forthe 2017 Cadet WorldChampionship, to be heldin Greece from September4 to 10, was announcedhere on Thursday.The squad: Freestyle: Saur-abh (46kg), Ajay Puri (50kg),Himanshu (54kg), Rahul(58kg), Rohit (63kg), VishalKaliraman (69kg), Parveen(76kg), Sandeep (85kg),Akash (100kg).Greco-Roman: Arshad (42kg),Natha Pawar (46kg), Yogesh(50kg), Bapu (54kg), Sonu(58kg), Honeypal (63kg),Ashu (69kg), Deepak (76kg),Neeraj (85kg), Aawesh(100kg).

Wrestlingteam named

A state of the art GymnasticsAcademy will soon belaunched at the IndiraGandhi Stadium Complex(IGSC).

Sharing details of the am-bitious project, the IGSC Ad-ministrator Manjushree Day-anand said here onThursday, “It will be a mod-ern gymnastic centre withsome of the best facilities. Itwill prepare gymnasts forworld class events and willbe one of its kind in this partof the world.”

The stunning show byDipa Karmakar, who fin-ished fourth at the 2016 RioOlympics, has galvanised thegymnastics fraternity intotop gear with hundreds ofyoung girls taking to thesport with a carer in mind.“Dipa is the ambassador forgymnastics in India and hercoach, Bisweshwar Nandi, isgoing to be the driving forceof this academy,” saidManjushree.

To be called the National

Gymnastics Academy, it willhave Nandi as the High Per-formance Expert. He will beassisted by Swapna Verma,Sushma Joshi, E.Chandrakanth Rao, VishalDeep Saini, Gurdial SinghBawa and Raj Duria.

“The Academy will haveeverything that goes intomaking of a good gymnast.We will provide the best fit-ness centre and upgrade theexisting facilities.

“The Academy shallprovide strength and condi-

tioning equipment, rehaband recovery programme, amodern kitchen, a library,and a gymnasium. We aregong to have internationaltie-ups,” added Manjushree.

Dwelling on the modernmethods of training, Man-jushree said, “The camperswill receive a diet chart thatcaters to different phases ofpreparation from training tocompetition. There will be adifferent diet for non-com-petitive phase too. We haveroped in sports medicine ex-pert (Dr. Anant Joshi) whowill provide services free ofcost. He had treated Dipa forfree when she was injured.He will also train the coacheson certain aspects of special-ised coaching based on sci-entific methods.”

The Academy has alreadyreceived a sanction of 3.5crore from Coal India.

“We are using that fund toupgrade the old boxing andgymnastics hall at the IGSC.We will soon have a 300-metres running track. It is amatter of pride for the IGSC

that we now have an in-house Ayurveda expert toimpart lessons in yoga andmeditation. The camperscan also avail of Ayurvedicmassage. We intend to havea systematic selection andsustainable programme,”she stated.

In a first, Manjushree saidthe Academy will also focuson the education of thecampers.

“We would help themwith securing admissions ingood schools for them topursue their education. I be-lieve in strict discipline and Iwant the young athletes tounderstand that educationhelps you take the right de-cisions. I want to see mygymnasts as officers who canhelp other athletes.”

“A holistic personality de-velopment is what I am look-ing at,” said Manjushree.

“I want them to be thebest ambassadors. Toachieve that I have to createthe ideal sporting environ-ment. The Academy is a stepin that direction.”

State-of-art gymnastic stadium coming up soonDipa Karmakar’s coach Bisweshwar Nandi will be the High Performance Expert

Vijay Lokapally

NEW DELHI

Manjushree Dayanand.

Rocky scores a brace

NEW DELHI: Delhi United FCrode on Rocky’s brace toearn full points with a 2-0win over Uttarakhand FC ina Group-A match of the DSAsenior league championshipat the Ambedkar Stadium onThursday.

In another league match,last year’s runner-upGarhwal Heroes FC foughtback to draw 1-1 againstHindustan FC with bothgoals coming in the first-half.

Garhwal Heroes now has 10

points from five games whileHindustan has the samenumber of points but has anextra game in hand.

Delhi United has six pointsfrom four games andUttarakhand is yet to openits account.

The results: Group ‘A’: DelhiUnited 2 (Rocky 2) btUttarakhand 0; Hindustan 1(Khushwant Chauhan) drewwith Garhwal Heroes 1 (Balaal-Hassan).

Vaibhav, Nischay shine

Man-of-the-match Vaibhav

Khanna (94) missed a well-deserved century but helpedTelefunken Club thrashDelhi Cricket Academy by107 runs in the Rising Starunder-12 crickettournament. Nischay Junejapicked up four for 10 for thewinner.

The scores: Telefunken Club204 for nine in 25 overs(Vaibhav Khanna 94, PiyushMittal 38, Sonu Singh three for30) bt DCA 97 in 20.2 overs(Sonu Singh 35, NishchayJuneja four for 10).

Akash and Vivek do well

Akash Antil top-scored with82 and Vivek Yadav pickedup four wickets as YousufAcademy beat RavindraAcademy by 21 runs in theSwastik Cup crickettournament. SiddhantSharma’s all-roundperformance went in vain.

The scores:

Yousuf Academy 196 in 34.4overs (Akash Antil 82, SachinSingh 44, Aditya Tyagi four for34, Siddhant Sharma four for39) bt Ravindra Academy 175 in33.2 overs (Siddhant Sharma71, Vivek Yadav four for 43).

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\ DELHI ROUND-UP \

Akhlaq and Bharti reignNEW DEHLI:

Mohammmed Akhlaq and

Bharti Narayan won the men’s

and women’s titles in the

Delhi State carrom

championship on Thursday.The results (all finals): Men: Mohammed Akhlaq btDanish Mohammed 5-20,25-0, 25-0. Boys: MohammedAnas bt Akhtar Ali 25-11,25-17.Women: Bharti Narayan btNeha Rani 25-6, 25-4. Girls:Ishita Bajaj bt Kirti 25-4, 25-6.

Sandeep posts winNEW DELHI:

V.M. Sandeep stepped up his

game to beat top seed Joel

Pierleoni 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(2) in

the boys’ quarterfinals of the

HSBC Road to Wimbledon UK

under-14 tennis championship

on the grass courts of

Wimbledon on Thursday.

In the girls’ pre-quarterfinals,

Sandeepti Singh Rao fought

her way past Rachel Cranley.The results: Boys(quarterfinals): V.M. Sandeepbt Joel Pierleoni 6-3, 4-6,7-6(2).Girls (pre-quarters): HuangZiyi (Chn) bt Sarah Dev 6-1,6-1; Sandeepti Singh Rao btRachel Cranley 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.

Murmu shines forSportingKOLKATA:

Jiten Murmu struck a brace as

Mohammedan Sporting

outsmarted Tollygunge

Agragami 5-1 to record its

first win in the Premier

Division-A Calcutta Football

League here on Thursday.

The result: MohammedanSporting 5 (Shiekh Faiaz 7,Jiten Murmu 48 and 83,Dipendu Duary 56, DebasishPradhan 90+2) bt TollygungeAgragami 1 (Bijay Mandi 87).

Sportspersons fetedEminent sports personalities,

including cricketer Sambaran

Banerjee, chess GM Dibyendu

Barua and mountaineer Ujjal

Roy, were felicitated by Indus

Valley World School here on

Thursday. Several students

who excelled in different

sports were also feted.

Udit Gogoi beat RishiKrishna 6-4, 7-5 in the boys’quarterfinals of the AITA Na-tional Series under-16 tennistournament on Thursday.

The results: Boys (quarterfi-nals): Krish Patel bt VanshBhagtani 6-2, 6-3; Udit Gogoibt Rishi Krishna 6-4, 7-5; Sush-ant Dabas bt Aditya Balsekar7-5, 6-3; Kushan Shah btAaryan Zaveri 6-2, 7-5.

Doubles (final): Tejasvi Mehra& Aaryan Zaveri bt Krish Patel& Kushan Shah 6-4, 6-1.

Girls (quarterfinals): SanyaSingh bt Sakshi Mishra 6-4,6-2; Renne Singla bt ReneeSingh 6-2, 6-2; PriyanshiBhandari bt Priyanshi Sharma6-4, 6-2; Srishti Dhir btHrudaya Shah 6-2, 6-0.

Doubles (final): Renee Singh &Renne Singla bt Saniya ManojMasand & Hrudaya Shah 6-4,6-1.

Udit enters semi�nals Sports Bureau

AHMEDABAD


Kamesh.Mechrocks

Image

Kamesh.Mechrocks

Image

CMYK




SPORT

Lakshya Sen clinched theEurasia Bulgarian Openmen’s singles title after rally-ing to a hard-fought win overCroatia’s Zvonimir Durkinjakin the final here onThursday.

The junior World No.1,who celebrated his 16thbirthday on Wednesday,overcame the second seed18-21, 21-12, 21-17 in a 57-minute match. Lakshya hadbeaten Sri Lanka’s DinukaKarunaratna 21-19, 21-14 inthe semifinals.

“It is a creditable achieve-ment for Lakshya. He had agood tournament. He beatthe top seed Sam Parsons inthe first round.

“He is still a junior but hehas been able to win tourna-ments and that is a goodsign.

“We had sent five playerson a 10-day training trip withthe French national team.He trained under the greatPeter Gade and it has bene-fitted him,” said coach VimalKumar.

“So if groomed properly,he does have a great future.

“In two months time, he willbe playing Vietnam Grand Prixand then it would be the juniorWorld championship,” addedVimal.

Last year, the Indian had

won the India InternationalSeries and clinched abronze at the CPB Badmin-ton and Sports ScienceTraining Center in Thail-and.

Lakshya reigns Junior World No. 1 overcomes Croatian Durkinjak in �nal

Super show: Lakshya Sen with his rewards after vanquishingZvonimir Durkinjak, left, in the summit clash on Thursday.

* PICTURE COURTESY: OLYMPIC GOLD QUEST


SOFIA

BULGARIAN OPENFive Indians — S.P. Sethura-man, M. Karthikeyan, D.Harika, Shardul Gagareand P. Iniyan — were partof 23-player leaders’ groupat 2.5 points after threerounds of Abu Dhabi Mas-ters chess tournamenthere.

GM Harika eked out adraw against GM GMStupak Kirill from Belarus.Important results (involvingIndians): Third round: IdaniPouya (Iri, 2.5) drew with S.P.Sethuraman (2.5); Stupak Kir-ill (Blr, 2.5) drew with D.Harika (2.5).

Aryan Chopra (1.5) lost toAmin Baseem (Egy, 2.5); Ab-himanyu Puranik (2) drewwith Anton Korobov (Ukr,2.5). Abhijeet Gupta (1.5) lostto Valery Sviridov (Rus, 2.5);Raja Harshit (2) drew withSalem Saleh (UAE).

Adly Ahmed (Egy, 2) drewwith Nihal Sain (2); Mircea-Emilian Parligras (Rom, 1.5)lost to Shardul Gagare (2.5).

P. Iniyan (2.5) bt RobertHovhannisyan (Rom, 1.5); Par-ham Maghsoodloo (Iri, 2)drew with N.R. Vignesh (2);Sreeja Seshadri (2) drew withAlexander Fier (Bra, 2). M.Karthikeyan (2.5) bt Neelot-pal Das (1.5).

Five Indiansamong 23 leaders Sports Bureau

ABU DHABI

Viswanathan Anand signedoff with a loss, that resultedin Sergey Karjakin’s lone vic-tory, and finished tied eighthwith Garry Kasparov andDavid Navara after LevonAronian topped the table inthe rapid leg of the St. Louisrapid and blitz chess tourna-ment here on Wednesday.

Having brought up therear in the 10-player event,Anand and Kasparov will bekeen to gain ground whenthe action shifts to 18-roundblitz. During the third day ofthe rapid leg, Anand easilydrew with Vietnam’s LeQuang Liem and FabianoCaruana but was severelypunished for his only mis-take by Karjakin. Kasparovwas involved in three decis-ive games during the day. Hegained from a blunder fromLiem in the eighth roundand won to make amendsfor falling to a tactical shot ina winning position againstDavid Navara. However, inthe final round, like Anand,Kasparov too lost, after fa-cing Caruana.

Aronian topped the tablewith an inspired perform-ance on the final day. Hestarted the day by beating

Karjakin, then drew with Hi-karu Nakamura and re-turned to stay atop thepoints table with a much-needed victory over LeinierDominguez Perez.

The results: Ninth round:Sergey Karjakin (Rus) btViswanathan Anand; LeinierDominguez Perez (Cub) lost toLevon Aronian (Arm); FabianoCaruana (USA) bt Garry Kas-parov (Rus); Hikaru Nakamura(USA) bt Ian Nepomniachtchi(Rus); Le Quang Liem (Vie) lostto David Navara (Cze).

Eighth round: Anand drew withCaruana; Kasparov bt Liem;Aronian drew with Nakamura;Nepomniachtchi drew with

Karjakin; Navara lost to Perez.

Seventh round: Liem drew withAnand; Kasparov lost to Nav-ara; Caruana drew withNepomniachtchi; Nakamuradrew with Perez; Karjakin lostto Aronian.

Final rapid standings (fromnine rounds): 1. Aronian (6points), 2-3. Caruana, Na-kamura (5.5), 4. Nepomniacht-chi (5), 5, Perez (4.5), 6-7. Liem,Karjakin (4), 8-10. Navara, Kas-parov and Anand (3.5).

Note: For the purpose of com-bined rankings of rapid andblitz games, the points scoredin rapid games will be taken as2 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0for a loss).

The two lose their last rapid games; Aronian tops chartSports Bureau

ST. LOUIS

Best of the lot: Armenia’s Levon Aronian took the braggingrights at the end of the rapid leg. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Anand and Kasparovbring up the rear

When the National Anthemplayed, Rashmmi Rathoreput up a brave front. She’djust received the mixeddoubles skeet gold medalwith Mairaj Ahmed Khan inthe Asian shotgun shootingchampionship at Astana,Kazakhstan.

Ceremony over, shedeserted the podium, head-ing for the closest corner.Pent up grief gave way to atorrent of tears. For the oneshe most longed to sharethat euphoria with wasgone. Barely a month be-fore, her father Capt. Y.S.Rathore had succumbed to asecond heart attack.

If Rashmmi’s mother An-nie Mathew was the moreprudent parent, chaperon-ing her to a career, her dadhad veered towards valour.Chase your dreams, he’dseemed to suggest, spottingthe spark if not her soft spotfor the shotgun.

Incidentally, he intro-duced her to the weapon,cautioning his only childagainst robbers lurking inthe shadows of their Sain-ikpuri house. The Secun-derabad suburb, that’s hometo mostly retired army of-

ficers, was almost junglewhen her grandfather Lt.Col. R.S. Rathore built thebungalow.

“I went into the champi-onship with a heavy heart.As if at my departed dad’sprompting, I felt strongereach time I shot down a claybird and my confidencesoared,” recountedRashmmi of her triumph intragedy. The Hyderabadcrack shot had defied theodds of very cold and windyweather, Mairaj’s encourage-ment adding motivation tocome up trumps.

She’d missed the national

camp at Delhi shortly afterdeath stole her dad. “Know-ing how much my successmattered to him, I’d beginpractice as early as 6 a.m.,thanks to Sports Authorityof Telangana State (SATS)range Administrator Alexan-der Francis,” she said of herpreparations for Kazakh-stan’s capital.

Fate’s hardly been kind toRashmmi as has the firingfraternity been indifferent.She was forced to quit a luc-rative accounting job in theNetherlands, when herfather had the first cardiacarrest. With no financialsupport forthcoming fromany quarter, her father soldhis farm, his last source ofincome apart from an armypension.

“My parents’ last fixed de-posit will fund this year’spractice, equipment andammunition,” says the four-time National champion, un-certainty looming large overa future-imperfect career.“All along, prospective spon-sors set the condition that Imust win an internationalmedal. Now that I’ve two — ateam silver and the mixeddoubles gold — I wish they’llback me so that I can focuson my shooting,” she hopes.

Rashmmi transcendstragedy to triumphShooter recovers from father’s death to strike Asian gold

A. Joseph Antony

Hyderabad

Rashmmi Rathore.* SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Real Madrid coach Zined-ine Zidane heads the list of12 nominees for the FIFAmen’s coach of the yearaward announced onThursday.

Other candidates in-clude Antonio Conte, wholed Chelsea to the Englishtitle, Manchester United’sEuropa League-winningcoach Jose Mourinho andMassimiliano Allegri ofJuventus.

Zidane has enjoyed aglorious year in charge ofMadrid as it successfullydefended the EuropeanCup — the first team to doso in the ChampionsLeague era.

Real also won La Liga,the first time it had beenchampion of Spain andEurope in the same yearsince 1958.

He has won seventrophies since succeedingRafael Benitez as coach ofMadrid in January last year,including the UEFA SuperCup and Spanish SuperCup this month.

The prize — one of a newset of awards organised byFIFA following their splitwith Ballon d’Or organisersFrance Football magazine— will be handed over inLondon on October 23.

The shortlist: MassimilianoAllegri (Juventus/ITA), CarloAncelotti (Bayern Munich/GER), Antonio Conte(Chelsea/ENG), Luis Enrique(Barcelone/ESP), Pep Guar-diola (Manchester City/ENG),Leonardo Jardim (Monaco/FRA), Joachim Loew (Ger-many), Jose Mourinho(Manchester United/ENG),Mauricio Pochettino (Totten-ham Hotspur/ENG), DiegoSimeone (Atletico Madrid/ESP), Tite (Brazil), ZinedineZidane (Real Madrid/ESP).

Zidane leadsnomineesfor FIFAcoach prize Agence France-Presse

Paris

Akash Saharan led with 49,following rounds of 24 and25, in junior men’s trap onthe opening day of the Ju-nior Shotgun World Cup inPorpetto, Italy, onThursday.

He was followed byVivaan Kapoor and Janma-jai Singh Rathore with 46and Lakshay on 45.

Manavaditya SinghRathore was strugglingwith 39 in a field of 71shooters. There will bethree more rounds on Fri-day, followed by the finalfor the top six.

In the junior women’strap, Nivetha Nenthir-asigamani and SoumyaGupta shot 56 and missedthe final by six points.

Manisha Keer (53) andKirti Gupta (51) placed 23rdand 32nd respectively.

Akash in lead Sports Bureau

Porpetto, Italy


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