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In a major step to reduce ten-sion at the Line of Control

(LoC), India and Pakistan onThursday decided to strictlyadhere to a ceasefire for “mutu-ally beneficial and sustainablepeace.” The agreement arrivedat between the DirectorGenerals of MilitaryOperations (DGMOs) onThursday was aimed at avoid-ing civilian casualties on eitherside during firing.

However, the ceasefire,which came into force frommidnight of February 24-25,will not restrict the Indiansecurity forces from carryingout anti-terrorist and anti-infiltration operations inJammu & Kashmir, it was clar-ified here.

Agreeing to adhere to theceasefire announced by thenPrime Minister Atal BihariVajpayee in 2003, a joint state-ment issued by both the coun-tries said the two armies willobserve all agreements onceasefire along the 750-kmlong LoC and other sectors,according to a joint statementissued on Thursday.

The decision was takenduring talks between IndiaDGMO Lt General PS Sanghaand his Pakistani counterpartMajor General NaumanZakaria on the hotline.

The two DGMOs held dis-

cussions and reviewed the sit-uation along the LoC in a“free, frank and cordial atmos-phere”, the statement said.

It added that in the inter-est of achieving mutually ben-eficial and sustainable peacealong the borders, the twoDGMOs agreed to addresseach other’s core issues andconcerns which have propen-sity to disturb peace and leadto violence.

Both sides agreed for strictobservance of all agreements,understandings and ceasefirealong the LoC and all other sec-tors with effect from midnight24/25 February 2021.

Both sides reiterated thatexisting mechanisms of hotlinecontact and border flag meet-ings will be utilised to resolveany unforeseen situation or

misunderstanding. Incidentally,the two armies in 2018 had alsoagreed to follow the 2003guidelines. However, situationremained volatile at the LoC.

Sources said the latest pactcame about after rounds ofback channel talks betweenthe two countries over the lastfew months, adding NationalSecurity Adviser (NSA) AjitDoval held talks in this regardwith Prime Minister ImranKhan’s special assistant MoedW Yusuf.

Pakistan Army ChiefGeneral Qamar Javed Bajwa,the most powerful figure thereto shape the national policies,earlier this month also favouredtalks and said it is time toextend a hand of peace in alldirections.”

In Pakistan, Army

spokesperson Major GeneralBabar Iftikhar said regardingthe joint statement that “therehave been contacts betweenIndia and Pakistan on a hotlinelevel since 1987. Frequently, theDGMOs of both countries stayin contact through this estab-lished mechanism.”

According to media reportfrom there, he also said from2014 there was a spike in cease-fire violations along the LoC.“Both the DGMOs have agreedthat the existing 2003 under-standing should be imple-mented in letter and spirit,” headded.

Dawn newspaper said thelatest development is seen as athaw after years of tensionbetween the two nuclear-armedneighbours. Both PrimeMinister Imran Khan andArmy Chief General QamarJaved Bajwa recently offeredIndia to resolve all issuesthrough dialogue.

Ties between India andPakistan nosedived after a ter-ror attack on the Pathankot AirForce base in 2016 by terrorgroups based in the neigh-bouring country. Subsequentattacks, including one on theIndian Army camp in Uri,deteriorated the relationship.

The relationship dippedfurther after IAF carried out airstrikes against a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terroristtraining camp in Balakot on

February 26, 2019 in responseto the Pulwama terror attack inwhich 40 Central ReservePolice Force (CRPF) jawanswere killed on February 15 thesame year.

The ties between the twocountries worsened after Indiain 2019 announced abrogationof Article 370 giving special sta-tus to Jammu & Kashmir anddivided the State into twoUnion Territories.

There were 5,133 ceasefireviolations last year in which 22civilians were killed and 71injured on the Indian side.Moreover, 24 security person-nel were also killed in the fir-ing while 126 were wounded.Moreover, nearly 300 incidentsof ceasefire violation wererecorded till January end thisyear.

In a written response to aquestion in the Lok Sabha ear-lier this month, Union Ministerof State for Home G KishanReddy said a total of 10,752cases of ceasefire violationshave taken place along India’sborder with Pakistan in the lastthree years, in which 72 secu-rity personnel and 70 civilianswere killed.

He said 364 security per-sonnel and 341 civilians wereinjured in cross-border firingsalong the International Borderand the LoC in Jammu &Kashmir in 2018, 2019 and2020.

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Tightening its grip on unreg-ulated media, the

Government on Thursdayannounced a set of stringentregulations for social mediafirm like Facebook and Twitteras well as OTT players such asNetflix, requiring them toremove any content flagged byauthorities within 36 hoursand setting up a complaintredressal mechanism with anofficer being based in the coun-try.

The guidelines will alsoapply to popular mobile appslike WhatsApp and Telegram.The Government alsoannounced guidelines for newsportals operating from India,asking them to keep the rulesand norms applicable to printand TV channel codes.

This is the first time suchrules have been framed for dig-ital and online media operatingwithin the country’s jurisdic-tion. IT Minister Ravi ShankarPrasad addressing media withI&B Minister PrakashJavadekar said concerns havebeen raised over rampant abuseof social media platforms andspread of fake news. To fix thefake ID users, the guidelinesalso insisted that social mediaplatforms must verify the usersthrough mobile phone firms.

“Social media companiesare welcome to do business inIndia, and empowerIndians...We welcome criti-

cism and dissent... But it isimportant that users of socialmedia are given a proper forumfor the resolution of their griev-ances in a time-bound man-ner,” Prasad said.

Prasad said intermediarieswill fall into two categories —social media intermediary andsignificant social media inter-mediary. This distinction isbased on the number of userson the social media platform,and the Government will soonnotify the threshold of theuser base that will distinguishthe two. The rules require the“significant” social mediaintermediaries to follow addi-tional due diligence includingthe appointment of chief com-pliance officer, a nodal contactperson and a resident grievanceofficer. All the three officialswill have to be resident-citizensof India.

The guidelines also make itmandatory for platforms such

as Twitter and WhatsApp toidentify the originator of amessage that authorities con-sider to be anti-national andagainst the security and sover-eignty of the country. Therules about digital media andOTT focus more on in-houseand self-regulation mechanismwhereby a robust grievanceredressal mechanism has beenprovided while upholding jour-nalistic and creative freedom.

As per the guidelines, allsocial media, OTT platformsand news portals must have aresident Indian citizen griev-ance officer to handle the com-plaints. He must make a deci-sion in 15 days and must main-tain monthly data of such com-plaints. Social media and OTTfirms also must have residentIndian citizen compliance offi-cer and nodal officer, who willbe responsible in responding tothe Government agencies.

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The UK’s WestminsterMagistrates’ Court on

Thursday ruled that diamondmerchant and prime accused inthe PNB credit fraud caseNirav Modi has a case toanswer before Indian courts.With the UK court now clear-ing the legal pathway for Modi’sextradition, the judgment willnow need ratification of BritishHome Secretary Priti Patel forsending the fugitive back toIndia.

Reacting to theWestminster Magistrates’Court ruling, the CBI said theBritish court has accepted thecontention of the Centre toextradite him.

“The UK Court deliveredthe verdict wherein it heldthat the evidence against NiravModi is prima facie sufficientto order his extradition toIndia to face the charges. The(UK) court also upheld theassurances of the Governmentof India and rejected the sub-missions of defence regardinghuman rights violations, fairtrial and prison conditions.

Rejecting the arguments ofdefence, the UK court decided

to send his case to the Secretaryof the State, the UK for finaldecision,” the CBI said in astatement.

India is a designated Part 2country under the ExtraditionAct 2003 and the UK’s CabinetMinister has the authority toorder the requested person’sextradition after considering anumber of further issues.

Under the Act, theSecretary of State must con-sider the possibility of imposi-tion of the death penalty, inwhich case extradition cannotbe ordered; the rule of special-ty, which prohibits a personbeing dealt with in the request-ing state for matters other than

those referenced in the extra-dition request; and whether ornot the person was in the UKfollowing extradition fromanother state, in which casethat state’s permission must beobtained before extraditing toa third state.

If these factors do notapply, the Minister must orderextradition within two monthsof the day on which the DistrictJudge referred his decision tothe office of Secretary of State,in this case by the end ofApril.

The Home Secretary’sorder rarely goes against thecourt’s conclusions, as she hasto consider only these provi-sions under the Act whichcannot apply as the court hasalready junked those claims ofthe defendant.

However, theWestminster’s court has grant-ed Modi a window of appeal inthe High Court and has up to14 days to make that applica-tion after the Home Secretarymakes her decision known.Any appeal, if granted, will beheard at the AdministrativeDivision of the High Court inLondon.

Continued on Page 11

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Sputnik V, the Russian vac-cine against the Covid-19,

will have to wait longer to getapproval for emergency useauthorisation (EUA) in India.

The country’s top drugregulator’s subject expert com-mittee (SEC) has askedHyderabad-based Dr Reddy’sLaboratories to submit moredata before a final decisioncould be taken about its fate.

Dr Reddy’s Lab is locallyconducting clinical trials onSputnik V.

The DCGI decision seek-ing more data from Dr Reddy’shas been slammed by a sectionof health experts. They con-tended when the Covishield bySerum Institute of India andCovaxin by Bharat Biotech canget EUA without completedata, then why the nod for theRussian vaccine was being heldup despite it showing good pre-liminary results.

Dr Reddy’s Lab had appliedto the Central Drugs StandardControl Organisation onFebruary 19 for EUA as thehuman adenoviral vector-basedvaccine candidate.


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Indian Newspaper Society(INS), which represents print

media houses, on Thursdayasked Google to increase thepublisher share of advertisingrevenue to 85 per cent.

It also asked the technolo-gy giant to ensure more trans-parency in the revenue reportsprovided to publishers.

In a letter to Google India,INS President L Adimoolamsaid publishers are facing a“very opaque advertising sys-tem”, as they are unable to getdetails of Google’s advertisingvalue chain.

INS has asked Google tocompensate the Indian news-papers “comprehensively” forusing contents published bythem and to share its advertis-ing revenues properly.

“The Society insisted thatGoogle should increase thepublisher share of advertisingrevenue to 85 per cent, and alsoensure more transparency inthe revenue reports provided topublishers by Google,” saidINS in a statement.

Content generated andpublished by newspapers atthe considerable expense isproprietary, said INS whilepointing out that it is thiscredible content that has givenGoogle the authenticity inIndia ever since its inception.

“It has demanded Googleshould pay for news generatedby the newspapers whichemploy thousands of journal-ists on the ground, at consid-erable expense, for gatheringand verifying information,” it said.


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Ravichandran Ashwin onThursday became only the

fourth Indian and sixth spinnerin the world to take 400 Testwickets, a feat which was noth-ing short of a “fairytale” for theseasoned pro who was called a“modern day legend” by skip-per Virat Kohli.

Ashwin reached the land-mark in the day-night thirdTest against England here whenhe dismissed Jofra Archer inEngland’s second innings asIndia won the 3rd Test andinched closer to WTC final.Left-arm spinner Axar Patelcreated an illusion of turn with11 straighter deliveries thatput India on the brink of theWorld Test Championship finalwith a 10-wicket demolition of

England inside two days in theday-night third Test here onThursday. The result was theirlowest total against India — 81all out in 30.4 overs leaving thehosts with a target of 49 whichthey achieved with minimumfuss taking a 2-1 lead in thefour-match series. The visitorswere also knocked out of con-tention from the WTC final.

Ashwin ended the matchwith seven scalps, which tookhis overall tally to 401. The 34-year-old off-spinner, playing inhis 77th Test, is the 16th bowlerin the world to have taken 400Test wickets.

“It feels amazing actually(to reach 400 Test wickets). Theentire stadium stood up andclapped for me. Pleased it hap-

pened in the winning cause. Ican’t really get a grip of whathas happened in the last 2-3months. It has been a dreamyrun and a fairytale,” Ashwin,who took seven wickets in thematch to tally 431 victims from77 Tests, said.

Skipper Kohli was effusivein his praise, saying, “I think weneed to stand up and takenotice of what Ashwin hasdone. In Tests, he is a modernday legend.”

Ashwin credited his self-belief for reaching where hehas. “It has been all about selfbelief. At the start of theAustralian tour, I didn’t thinkI would be starting, but then(Ravindra) Jadeja broke downand it might have had to hap-pen,” said Ashwin, who playeda big role in India’s historic Testseries win last month.

Former captain AnilKumble (619), Kapil Dev, (434),and Harbhajan Singh (417)are the other Indians who have400 Test wickets to their cred-

it. Ashwin also became the sec-ond fastest to reach the mile-stone after Sri Lankan greatMuttiah Muralitharan, whomade it in his 72nd Test.

The veteran came into thematch six short of the land-mark and took three Englandwickets in the first innings.

Talking about the match,he said, “We were worriedafter getting bowled out for145, didn’t think we didn’thave many runs on the board.But we then bowled beautiful-ly on a wicket assisting us.

“I don’t know if I’m ageing,but it’s incredibly hard to watchthe game. To come back (afterlosing first Test) and win it iseven more special.”

Asked this was his best asa bowler, Ashwin said, “In2015-16 everyone asked me (if I’m bowling at my best), thesame in 2016-17. One thing issure I’ve always wanted toimprove. I won’t be surprised if I improve further in thefuture.”

�#��Weather remaineddry with day temperature ris-ing in many parts of the statein the last 24 hours, the Metoffice said on Thursday.

The maximum tempera-tures rose appreciably inAllahabad, Kanpur, Ayodhya,Kanpur, Lucknow divisionsbut there was no major changein other divisions over thestate. Jhansi was the hottestplace in the state as the max-imum temperature there set-tled at 35.5 degree Celsiuswhile the lowest temperaturein the state was recorded at12.4 degree Celsius inFursatganj.

According to the Metoffice forecast, weather is like-ly to remain dry across thestate on Friday.

Meanwhile, it was a warmThursday with a clear sky inNew Delhi as the maximumtemperature settled at 33.2degrees Celsius and the min-imum at 13.4 degrees Celsius,a notch above the season’saverage, the meteorologicaloffice here said.

“The maximum and min-imum temperatures would bearound 34 degrees Celsiusand 13 degrees Celsius respec-tively,” the Met departmentsaid.

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Union Home MinisterAmit Shah on Thursday

said Prime Minister NarendraModi has identif ied theNortheast region as India's"Growth Hub".

Addressing a gathering inNagaon district's BatadravaThan, Shah said the Modi gov-ernment has already startedwork to make the region as thegrowth engine of India.

"To take the Northeastdevelopment in a missionmode, the Prime Minister hadvisited the region 35 times inthe past five years. TheCongress leaders and ministersvisited Assam only during theelection time," the senior BJPleader said.

"Under Prime MinisterNarendra Modi's stewardship,a new era of development hasstarted in Assam and theNortheast region. EntireNortheast region is transform-ing. Northeast India willemerge as the highest contrib-utor in the GDP of India," saidShah.

Urging the people to rein-stall the BJP government for

the second time, Shahpromised that his party's visionis to make Assam an infiltrationfree, flood free, corruptionfree, violence free, agitation freeand number one state in India.

"A satellite based surveyhas been conducted and plansare afoot to permanentlyresolve the flood problem andto undertake many projects todevelop tourism and otherinfrastructures," he said.

The Batadrava Than incentral Assam's Nagaon districtis the birthplace of socialreformer MahapurushSrimanta Sankardeva, who wasa 15th-16th century Assamesesaint, scholar, poet, playwright,social-religious reformer and afigure of importance in Assam'scultural and religious history.

Shah on Thursdaylaunched the work of a state-funded Rs 188-crore project forthe beautification of BatadravaThan.

Saying that the Centre andstate double engine govern-ments of the BJP have under-taken a large number of stepsfor the all round developmentof Assam and protection ofAssamese culture and tradi-

tions. He said the NDA gov-ernment has awarded latefamous singer and composerBhupen Hazarika with BharatRatna; and the Padma Bhushanaward posthumously to formerAssam Chief Minister andCongress leader Tarun Gogoi.

"Former Prime MinisterManmohan Singh representedAssam, the Congress ruledAssam for 15 years (2001-2016) but did nothing for thebetterment of Assam and itspeople.

"The BJP-led NDA gov-ernment has constructed over20,000 km road, bridges, air-ports, railway projects,approved a lot of gas and oilbased projects, mega healthinstitutions including AIIMSand many educational institu-tions," he pointed out.

The Home Minister saidthat the BJP government inAssam, to protect and promotethe traditions and culture ofAssam had provided Rs 2.5lakh each to 8,000 "Namghars"(traditional Vaishnavite monas-teries of Assam) under theAssam 'Darshan' programme.

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Lucknow(PNS): Bharatiya JanataParty national vice-president and UPin-charge Radha Mohan Singh saidthat the budget presented by theUttar Pradesh government was aimedat development of the poor as per theideology of Pandit DeendayalUpadhyaya.

Singh, who arrived in Lucknowon a two-day stay on Thursday, saidthat this budget would prove to be amilestone in making the state's econ-omy one trillion dollars. He said theUP government under YogiAdityanath was paying attention to theinterests of all sections of society,including villagers, poor, farmers,youth and women. "In order to giveimpetus to the economy of the state,

the government has taken manyimportant steps. Despite the COVID-19, provisions have been made in thebudget for education, health, women'swelfare, agriculture, irrigation,tourism and all other areas. Specialattention has also been given to theexpressways and road networks," hesaid. Singh said the credit went to thepresent government for improving lawand order because the previousSamajwadi Party and Bahujan SamajParty governments had patronisedcriminals. "During the SP, BSPregimes, the perception of UttarPradesh was that of a criminal andcorrupt state. That image has changednow and the state is marching towardsthe path of progress," he said.

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Taking pride in successful manage-ment of COVID-19 in Uttar

Pradesh, Chief Minister YogiAdityanath announced that soon Indiawould roll out two new vaccines againstthe novel coronavirus in addition to theexisting one.

The chief minister showedimmense appreciation to all the scien-tists and researchers in his speech fortheir untiring efforts and quick inno-vation of the Covid vaccine whichemerged as a "fitting tribute" to the coro-na warriors.

The chief minister, while address-ing the UP Legislative Council, onThursday, also remembered the peoplewho lost their lives because of the pan-demic and paid tributes to them.

Miffed over opposition for perpe-trating negative politics, Yogi, during hisspeech on motion of thanks to theGovernor's address, said, "The samecountry was there before but every cit-izen is himself a witness to the country'sprogress now that visionary leadershipcan transform the image of the coun-try."

Thanking Prime Minister NarendraModi, he said that the Centre had givenits full cooperation to the state govern-ment. He said under Modi's leadership,India managed to make two indigenousvaccines that were giving the bestresults.

Yogi further threw light on the factthat there were about 2,000 activecoronavirus cases in the state and thatthe state had been able to keep the pos-itivity rate below 5 per cent throughoutthe pandemic with the highest recov-ery rate.

The chief minister also acknowl-edged the cooperation and support ofall the fearless bus drivers and transportagencies which helped the govern-ment in bringing back thousands ofstranded students from Kota amidst thepandemic and the lockdown when theRajasthan government refused to extend

any support.Yogi further said that India's vaccine

production and delivery capacity wouldbe used to fight the coronavirus infec-tion globally. He said under the guid-ance of PM Modi, India was supplyingCOVID-19 vaccines to neighbouringcountries including Bhutan, Maldives,

Nepal, Bangladesh, etc.The chief minister said that initial-

ly during the lockdown, PPE kits usedto come for Rs 5,000-15,000 but whenhis government set up around 200 unitsto manufacture PPE kits, the statestarted getting them for Rs 200-500because of more demand.

Claiming the influx of migrants andtheir rehabilitation as one of the biggestchallenges for any government, the chiefminister quoted the lines from the poemof Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 'Aadmi na uchahota hai, na neecha hota hai, na chho-ta hota hai, na bada hota hai, aadmi toaadmi hota hai'.

Repeating the lines, he said that hisgovernment was working on the ideol-ogy of the former prime minister andhelped the vulnerable migrants by hir-ing 1,660 trains to bring them back fromvarious places.

He said the state government notonly ensured basics like food and waterto migrants but also procured the lat-est machines to jack up Covid testingcapacity up to two lakh per day, whichwas a record.

He said the state HealthDepartment had installed ventilators ingovernment-run hospitals in all 75districts of the state.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathalso recognised the outstanding contri-bution of the police force during thetime of the pandemic in ensuring thesafety and well-being of the public. Hesaid the government made sure therewas no shortage of sanitiser in the stateand it also extended support to 27 otherstates by distributing sanitiser to them.He said the government also made pro-visions for two lakh isolation beds in thestate.

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The Uttar Pradesh government categoricallyrejected the demand of the opposition in the

state assembly to lower the VAT (value-added tax)on petroleum products in view of the rising pricesof diesel and petrol in the country.

The opposition, including Samajwadi Partyand Congress, walked out from the House inprotest against the government's reply during thequestion hour.

UP Industry Minister Satish Mahana, whilereplying to the question of SP members, said onThursday that due to the huge requirement offunds for strengthening the health infrastructurein the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic andfinancial resources required for the developmentworks, there was no proposal before the state gov-ernment to reduce the VAT on petroleum prod-ucts.

However, the minister said that the prices ofdiesel in UP were less than 14 other states andthe price of petrol in UP was less than 13 otherstates.

Mahana said that the VAT rate had not beenchanged since what the previous SamajwadiParty government had imposed, which was 17.48per cent on diesel and 28.8 per cent on petrol.

Presently the price of diesel in the state is Rs80.63 per litre and of petrol around Rs 89 per litre.

Mahana also said the state had no control onthe prices of LPG cylinders as it was fully con-trolled by the Central PSU (public sector under-taking) oil companies.

The opposition members wanted to know whythe government was not including petroleumproducts under GST but the minister did not com-ment.

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After targeting the opposi-tion, mainly the Congress,

in the UP Assembly, ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath onThursday concentrated hisattack on Samajwadi Party,claiming that it had been givena chance and a lot could havebeen done but these partiesfailed to deliver.

The chief minister men-tioned the achievements of hisgovernment and also explainedwhy the previous regime drewflak despite having all theresources at its disposal.

Speaking on the motion ofthanks to the Governor'saddress in the UP LegislativeCouncil, the chief ministersaid that his governmentchanged the picture of UttarPradesh. Showing a mirror tothe Samajwadi Party, the chiefminister was at his eloquentbest when he said that his"socialist friends" did not wantto accept the reality, the reali-ty of their non-governanceduring the last regime.

"If Akhilesh Yadav haddone everything, then why didthe public reject him? Why didSP lose in the Lok Sabha elec-tions?" he asked, while makinga sweeping remark that the SPhad taken the people for a rideand was taking the state itselfto the brink of selling.

The chief minister cited anexample of Azamgarh in viewof a slew of developmentalschemes having been launchedthere. "Today Azamgarh isbeing seen as a name of devel-opment," he said and added,"The same Azamgarh sentAkhilesh Yadav and MulayamSingh Yadav to Parliament, butwhat did they give Azamgarhin return?"

He said there was a severeidentity crisis in front ofAzamgarh but the scenariowas changed by the efforts of'our' government.

"Gone are the days whenpeople of Azamgarh werelooked at with suspicion. Now,the town of Azamgarh isknown for expressways anduniversity which is coming upthere," he pointed out, againputting a poser before SP as towhy they could not do it earli-

er. He asked the leaders of the

opposition what they weredoing for five years.

The chief minister went onto reiterate his government'sagenda of development saying,"We have a development agen-da with us as our guide is PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andall works are going on with hisvision." The address of thechief minister was constantlypunctuated by disruptive tac-tics of the opposition, especial-ly SP. So much so that the Chairhad to intervene on severaloccasions to ask the membersto behave and maintain digni-ty in the House.

The chief minister, miffedwith the attitude of the mem-bers, reminded them of highnorms of legislative proprietyand traditions. At one point oftime, the chief minister made

a snide remark on the conductof the members and said peo-ple were remembered for theirbehaviour.

He also recalled the infa-mous state guest house incidentof June 2, 1995, which, accord-ing to him , put the SamajwadiParty in the bad light for alltimes to come.

"The biggest crisis in poli-tics is the crisis of credibilitywhich all the politicians have toaddress by presenting them inan ideal mould,'' he asserted.

Listing his government'sachievement, the chief minis-ter said that the oppositionshould not be in a denial modeand praise the good worksdone by his government.

"Our financial manage-ment saw tiding over the toughcoronavirus pandemic periodwith every single penny beingused," he said, adding "Therecord purchase of paddy,wheat and maize during hisregime is the testimony of thefact that how miserable was theperformance of the previousgovernment."

It showed who is anti-farmer and who is pro-farmer,he added.

Rapping the Congress, hesaid the people of this land usedto send their leaders toParliament but they abusedthe same people. In an obliqueremark on Rahul Gandhi, Yogi

Adityanath said he had beenindulging in maligning theimage of this state but he couldnot open a medical college evenin Amethi.

"We are opening a medicalcollege there too," he added.

The chief minister askedthe opposition to accept thecommendable work done inthe field of infrastructure. "Wehave stopped the loot," headded.

He said that Chief MinisterSamuhik Vivah Scheme waslaughed at by the oppositionwhen it was launched but todaythis scheme was one of thepopular schemes.

Comparing severalschemes of his government,including women, old age pen-sion and scholarships, withthe schemes of the previousgovernment, he said that theBJP did not discriminate oncaste, religion or region whileproviding benefits of govern-ment schemes. "That is why thepicture of UP has changed forthe good," he added.

With regards to bettertransport facilities, he saidwhile the roads and express-ways were being built, somelandmark works had been doneto improve air connectivity inthe state with many new air-ports coming up after 2017.

'The same goes with thepower sector," he pointed out.

Be inform that my client IDBI Bank Ltd.intends to provide a finance to one of itsclient Sri Uttam Kumar Srivastava and Smt.Arti Srivastava against their property beingHouse No. B-3/47, admeasuring 112.50 sqmts, only situated at Virat Khand, GomtiNagar, Ward. Rajiv Gandhi, Lucknow andin chain of title of said property being orig-inal allotment letter dated 25.01.1997issued by Lucknow Development Authorityin favor of Arvind Kumar Jain, is alleged-ly lost and misplaced. If any person has anyright, title or interest over the said proper-ty, he may approach to the undersignedwithin seven days in writing along with theevidence of his such right, title or interestand if no such objection will be receivedwithin the said period it will be presumedthat the property in question is free fromall encumbrances and any claim in respectthereof against owners shall be void andineffective.

(Tarun Prakash Srivastava)Advocate

Mob: 9335914262Office : Room No. 111, CITI Hotel,24, B.N. Road, Lalbagh, Lucknow

PUBLIC NOTICE

NOTICE

I Syed Ajaz Haider NaqviS/o Syed Iliyas Haider NaqviR/o 337/207, Sultan BhadurRoad Mansoor Nagar,Lucknow, U.P. wants to changemy daughter's name fromMumza Naqvi (Date of Birth-16.12.2006) to Mumzah Naqviand from today consider hertrue name as Mumzah Naqviin her school records and allother documents.

NOTICE

I, Shashwat Sudip Mukherji,S/o Smt. Nupur Mukherji, R/o,A 905/04, Indiranagar,Lucknow here by notify that Ihave changed my name toShashwat Mukherjee. I may beknown by my new name for allpurposes in future.

NOTICE

I have change my nameSamsher to Shamshir AhmadS/o Saijuddin for Future pur-pose MohammadabadFatehpur.

NOTICE

I Virendra Kumar Pandeyage about 50 S/o LtShambhunath PandeyResident at 569K/545Snehnagar VIP RoadAlambagh Lucknow. I havechanged my daughter's namefrom Peehu Pandey to VaanyaPandey vide affidavit at23.2.2021 sworn before notaryLucknow

NOTICE

In my service record my sonAvesh Ahmad Khan,date ofbirth mention as 05/07/1999that is wrong in other recordsincluding high school certificatedate of birth is mentioned07/01/2001 that is true.SarurAhmad Khan,Ex.NayabSubedar,Army No.1551624N,Vill/Post Inayatpur, District-Sultanpur (U.P. )

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NOTICE

I, RAM DHIRAJ holdingIndian Passport No: J6885870issued at LUCKNOW on14/03/2021 and PermanentResident of ANDHIYARIMANKAPUR BULAR GONDAand presently working at LEREAV APT 32-01 DUBAIMARINA AL SUFU ROAD,UAE do hereby change myname from RAM DHIRAJ toRAM KARAN with immediateeffect

NOTICE

Original Sale Deed belong-ing to Smt. Kamla Devi andSmt. Shyama Kumari Bansal.For House Property located at286/063KHA/02-03/04/05/06,Niwaz Khera, Moti Nagar,Lucknow has been lost. Findermay inform on M.No.9889201010, Police LAR No.111902/2021.

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Lucknow (PNS): Uttar PradeshChief Minister Yogi Adityanath hasdirected officials to maintain an effec-tive system of treatment of COVID-19patients, saying that even a little care-lessness in this regard can be danger-ous hence full vigilance should betaken at every level.

The chief minister was onThursday reviewing the Covid situa-tion in a meeting at his official resi-dence here.

He said that though COVID-19was completely under control in thestate, yet extra care should be taken inview of the increase in coronaviruspositive cases in some states. He askedthe officials to carry on the contacttracing and surveillance works with fullactiveness.

The chief minister said that test-ing had an important role in breakingthe chain of COVID-19 infection andin view of this, the testing workshould be conducted with full capac-ity in the state.

It was informed in the meeting thatat present the testing work was being

conducted effectively, giving priorityto focus testing.

The chief minister said that peo-ple should be constantly made awareabout prevention from COVID-19and compliance with Covid protocolshould be ensured. He added that itshould also be ensured that people usemasks outside the house. He said fullattention should also be paid to socialdistancing.

The chief minister instructed theofficials to run the integrated com-mand and control centres establishedin the districts with full activeness.

"The situation should be reviewedby all district magistrates and chiefmedical officers in the morning inCovid hospitals and in the evening atthe integrated command and controlcentres," he said.

Reviewing the Covid vaccinationcampaign, the chief minister said thatthis work should be conducted as perthe guidelines and order of theGovernment of India. He also instruct-ed officials to conduct regular moni-toring of vaccination work.

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Congress leaders and workers onThursday staged demonstra-

tions at all district headquarters inthe state to protest the increase indiesel, petrol and LPG prices besidesthe three "black" farm laws, a partyleader said.

The protests were held onthe directive of party national gen-eral secretary Priyanka GandhiVadra.

In Deoria, the protesters werestopped by the administration,which later also used force andarrested Congress district presi-dent Virendra Patel. Several work-ers, including women, were injured

in the lathicharge. In Kanpur Nagar, former MP

Rajaram Pal led the protest and laterstaged a demonstration at the dis-trict headquarters.

In Lucknow, hundreds of lead-ers belonging to the Congress Cityand District units took out a marchand staged a protest outside the col-lectorate.

Congress city chief MukeshSingh Chauhan and district chiefVed Prakash Tripathi accused theCentral government of workingagainst the common man by raisingthe prices of petroleum productswhich had resulted in a steep hikein the prices of all other essentialcommodities.

Similar protests were held inother districts of the state,including Sitapur, Faizabad,Balrampur, Basti and several otherdistricts.

It may be mentioned that theopposition parties, includingCongress, Samajwadi Party andBahujan Samaj Party (BSP) onTuesday attacked the BharatiyaJanata Party government over therise in fuel prices, saying itwas unfair to trouble peoplereeling from the impact of COVID-19.

The parties demanded that thegovernment immediately stop bur-dening the public with the increasein fuel prices

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Lucknow (PNS): The CompetitionCommission of India (CCI) imposed apenalty of Rs 4 lakh on the Federation ofPublishers and Booksellers Association inIndia (FPBAI) and its present and past pres-idents for anti-competitive practices.

The CCI also directed the FPBAI, SCSethi and Sunil Sachdev to cease and desistfrom indulging in activities found to be incontraventions of Section 3 of theCompetition Act, relating to anti-competi-tive agreements, in an order delivered lastTuesday.

The case relates to the Good OfficesCommittee (GOC) set up under the FPBAI,which issued directions to all its memberswho deal in print journals and e-resourcesto not give discounts on the publishers' pricesto the Indian subscribers, the order said.

As per the informant, the GOC threat-ened to take coercive actions against thosemembers who refused to comply with itsdirections by expelling them from theFPBAI. Such practices prevented price com-petition between vendors, the informant said.

Membership of the FPBAI is an eligibil-ity condition in the advertisements for thesupply of books, journals and periodicals

issued by many governmental subscriberswhile many private suppliers also make it aconsideration, according to the informant.

An investigation by the director gener-al, ordered by the commission, found that byrestricting discounts, the FPBAI indirectlydetermined sale prices of books and journalssold by its members in contravention of thelaw.

Further, the FPBAI indirectly limited andcontrolled the supply of books and journalsby issuing advisories directing members torefrain from participating in procurementadvertisements which had conditions not inaccord with the conditions expected by theFPBAI.

In its 25-page order, the CCI noted thatthe advisories from the FPBAI were notmerely recommendatory in nature, butrather it coerced its members to abide by issu-ing notices and seeking explanations for vio-lations.

The regulator slapped the FPBAI with apenalty of Rs 2 lakh while the federation'scurrent president SC Sethi and former pres-ident Sunil Sachdev were asked to pay Rs 1lakh each, to be deposited within 60 days ofreceipt of the order.

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Uttar Pradesh and Vietnamcan collaborate and take

advantage of each other'sstrengths as Vietnam is good inelectronics and UP is good intextile and agro-based industry.

This was stated byAdditional Chief Secretary(MSME) Navneet Sehgal at avirtual discussion organisedbetween IIA and the Embassyof Vietnam on Thursday.

To promote and to enablethe Indian and VietnamMSMEs to know each other,understand the businessopportunities and promotebilateral trade and investmentand to encourage trade linksand helping SMEs on bothsides of the countries IndianIndustries Association (IIA)and the Embassy of Vietnam inIndia organised 'VirtualDiscussion on India-VietnamTrade and Investment Connect'with all concerned stakehold-ers.

This virtual meet madeentrepreneurs aware of theopportunities and scope ofinvestment for expanding theirbusiness in Vietnam whichcould help them to make theirpresence in the global market.

Navneet Sehgal said thatUP had liberalised its policiesand brought many changes inthe ecosystem and there wasvarious potential growth areasfor tie-ups.

"We have 60 products

under ODOP which we areexporting in large numbers toother countries. This type ofmeetings can be a good plat-form provided by the embassywhere industry to industrykind of interaction can bedone. The UP government isvery positive towards any kindof tie-ups with the embassy andcreates a common group whichcan jointly work on potentialareas and technology transferwhich can be explored.Whatever we can do for sup-port and collaboration we willdefinitely do so," he said.

He said that if Vietnam wasinterested then they couldestablish an ecosystem, subsidyon capital and GST reforms,labour, technology, hand-hold-ing process, land availability,airports, proper connectivityand power availability.

"We also welcome invest-ment from Vietnam in agricul-ture, textile. If you establishMSME units in UP, you will geteasy access to all requirements,including various incentives.We are glad to announce thatwe are at number two positionin ease of doing business" headded.

Ambassador of Vietnam toIndia .PhamSanh Chau,expressed his views and saidthat Vietnam recently raised itseconomic growth rate by threeper cent which was a good signto attract more investment.

"Indian companies can eas-ily invest in Vietnam due to its

political stability. Areas wherein Vietnam is looking forinvestment from India areautomobile, granite, marblesand marbles, textiles, homeappliances, agricultural, andpharmaceuticals. Vietnam isalso influenced by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi's aimof making India self-reliantand invites Indian businesses toset up their operations inVietnam as they will get accessto a domestic market of 90 mil-lion," he said.

In his address, IIAPresident Pankaj Kumar saidthat the rising importance ofVietnam in global supplychains had the potential tostrengthen India-Vietnam tiesfurther.

He said Indian industriesmay also seek the potential toset up businesses in Vietnam inenergy, mineral exploration,agrochemicals, sugar, tea, cof-fee manufacturing, IT, andauto components.

"Vietnam provides severallucrative reasons to invest suchas increased access to markets,favourable investment policies,free trade agreements, eco-nomic growth, political stabil-ity, low labour costs and ayoung workforce. DefenceProduction Corridor is set upin UP after Tamil Nadu. Thisfield is full of opportunities forIndian MSMEs and our coun-terpart Vietnam. We both canshare support in this field alsobilaterally" he said.

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The Uttar Pradesh Chapter ofPHD Chamber of Commerce

and Industry (PHDCCI) organ-ised a retail leadership summit onThursday.

The rationale of the summitwas to create a platform whereleading retailers of the state sharedtheir insights to revive and pushup the retail sector in the state.

The summit also aimed tobring together all the stakehold-ers of the retail under one roofwho exchanged their ideas, way-forwards for the growth of thissector.

Mukesh Bahadur Singh,senior advisor, UP State Chapter,PHDCCI, discussed about thebest practices being followed bythe retailers and state governmentto revive the retail sector and toencourage the retailers. He alsodiscussed some challenges whichwere being faced by the sector due

to the pandemic. He suggested theChamber for drafting a WhitePaper on the basis of deliberationled by the experts during the sum-mit and submit the same to thegovernment officials as well asleading retailers of the state inorder to further enhance andimprove the retail industry.

Saraswati Singh, executivevice-president at a Trans-GomtiMall in her address gave theindustrial perspective of the sec-tor. She said that the retail sector

was an economic heavyweight andon average across OECDeconomies, about 1 in 12 workerswere employed in retail and thesector accounted for almost 10 percent of the GDP.

"Moreover, it mainly servesfinal demand, and thus occupiesan important position in valuechains both as a provider tohouseholds and as an outlet forupstream sectors. The impact ofthe COVID-19 crisis on the retailsector is heterogeneous and

depends on the combined effectof several characteristics," shesaid.

She said that the effect ofsocial distancing measures onindividual retail businessesdepended on whether they weredeemed essential, while on onehand, most non-essential retailactivities had been shut down; onthe other, essential retail business-es often operated in difficult con-ditions, including labour supplyshortages, major disruptions insupply chains and working con-ditions, and sometimes largespikes in demand for specificitems.

She also highlighted some ofthe way forwards for the sector toconsider which were retailersmust have a plan that ensures thesafety of the employees whilealso trying to maintain business asusual activities.

Sandeep Kohli, partner, KohliBrothers, said that coronavirus

had dominated headlines formonths now, and the impact it hashad on businesses across differentsectors had been devastating. Hesaid that the wider impact on theretail sector had been widely dis-cussed across the country andmoreover, the ongoing debatearound mass unemployment,workforce crunch, rents, anduncertain future for many busi-nesses had worsened the situation.He also shared some of the prac-tices which retailers had to followin order to get back the businesson track and also to serve best totheir customers at the same time.Some of them were following allsafety measures; ensuring socialdistancing; promoting contactlessretail to promote the footfall; bemore purpose-oriented as thecustomer would not spend muchof his/her time due to the fear ofcatching the virus; easy access anddistribution of mask at the shop-ping centers etc.

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Awoman was killed fordowry, allegedly by her

husband and in-laws, inSarojininagar police stationarea on Thursday.

After killing the woman,the alleged killers fled thehouse to evade police action.

The deceased was identi-fied as Heena Bano (28) ofKatra Bijanaur locality. Shewas married to one Irfan in2018. The deceased's brother,Shahnawaz, in his complaintalleged that Irfan and his fam-ily members used to tortureHeena for dowry since hermarriage. He said he and hisparents tried their best to patchup the differences and also gavegifts as dowry to meet Irfan'sdemand.

"But they are very greedyand they kept torturing Heenafor dowry. We were helplessand the police were not help-ful. Irfan and his parents killedHeena and fled the house," hesaid. Shahnawaz said he gotinformation about the death ofHeena by some of his acquain-tances in the locality and whenhe reached the house the bodyof Heena was lying there andno one of the family present.

The woman was foundhanging at her house onThursday morning. When thepolice reached the scene, itfound the body lying at thehouse. Police said the womancommitted suicide.

The body was sent forautopsy.

�#��A class VII girl student was

found hanging at her house inKakori on Thursday. The girl,identified as Swati (12) ofPalehda village, was foundhanging from the ceiling witha saree tied around her neck.

The family saw her hang-ing in the morning andinformed the police.Investigation is underway.

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With the arrest of two fraudsters, thecyber cell of Lucknow police

claimed to have busted a gangwhich duped several innocent people bycloning their fingerprints and using it inAadhaar enabled payment system(AEPS).

Those arrested were identified asDevendra Kumar Maurya of Azamgarhand Ramesh Kumar of Jaunpur. Thepolice recovered four mobile phones, astamp machine, fingerprint samples,four biometric devices, image boosterand other items from them.

The arrest came during a follow-upexercise on a case of fraud, which wasregistered at Krishna Nagar police stationin February this year.

In his confession, Devendra said hehoned the skill to commit fraud whileworking in a company PayINR. He saidthe company provided AEPS facilities tothe customers.

He said he had ID password of thedistributor/master distributor and heused to provide the password.

The accused said they used a Centralgovernment scheme under which thecustomers of villages had been provid-ed the facility to withdraw cash up to Rs10,000 by using their Aadhaar numberand fingerprint.

Devendra, who is class 8 pass, usedto provide the facility of a retailer andused to give the password.

To dupe the innocent people, theaccused retrieved the information fromwebsite Bhulekh in which data ofproperties, Aadhaar card and fingerprintof owners are stored.

The accused used to download theinformation and also the fingerprintswhich they later turned into real one byusing chemical, thermal scanner, butterpaper and image booster.

They then used these clone finger-prints on biometric machines andretrieve the information related tobank details using the Aadhaar cardnumber.

Devendra had used his skill andexperience in use of AEPS and theaccused used to withdraw the cash frombank accounts of different customers.

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The annual fest of the IndianInstitute of Management-

Lucknow, Manfest Varchasva,to be held online this year, willwitness IIM-L collaboratingwith the state governmentdepartments like UP IT andUPSDM and also NHM(National Health Mission).

A member from the corecommittee of IIM-L ManfestVarchasva said these collabora-tions would include case com-petitions where students needto provide solutions to prob-lems based on the working ofthese departments

Manfest Varchasva's IIMLucknow Campus run is anew avatar of the city runwhich has a rich legacy of

over 10 years. In the pre-Covidtimes, the run witnessed theparticipation of people fromthe city and was held in the cityhowever it will be different thisyear.

"This year's run wouldemphasise standing togetheragainst COVID-19 for a betterfuture. The run will be organ-ised in the institute itself andwill witness the participation ofselected students. No otherperson will be allowed to par-ticipate keeping the Covid pro-tocols in mind," he said.

He informed that over 35events would be held duringthe event. "All the competitionswill be held in online mode.The participants will send theironline entries. The final roundswill be held live online. The

Pro-Shows will be held at theend of each day to take theoverall experience of the eventsfrom the day to the next level,"he added. He said the artists forthis year would be Bollywoodplayback singer KK and VipulGoyal, renowned stand-upcomedian, actor. "They willalso perform online."

"The Policy Conclave,which is a panel discussion

with people who have an in-depth knowledge of policy-making in the country, will fea-ture Armstrong Pame (IASofficer), Amitabh Thakur (IPSofficer) and Karuna Nundy(Supreme Court advocate),"he added

The Leaders Express willinclude NR Narayana Murthy,founder of Infosys, Dr KVSubramanian, Chief Economic

Advisor to Government ofIndia, and Saugata Gupta, MDand CEO, Marico Ltd, TaniaSachdev, Indian chess grand-master, Redbull Athlete , JunaidKamal Ahmad, the World BankCountry Director of India andVineet Nayar, former CEO,HCL Technologies

He said the SocialConclave, in which a panel dis-cussion is held with some of themost remarkable leaders ofthe century, will feature HariMenon, Director, The Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation,India Country Officer, PoorvaJoshipura, Vice-President ofInternational Affairs, PETAand Sudarshan Suchi, CEO,Save the Children Foundation

The fest kicks off onFebruary 27.

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The Covid immunisationexercise for frontline and

health workers on Thursdayrecorded 117 per cent vaccina-tion in Lucknow district withthe number of beneficiariesgetting vaccinated being morethan the target.

Giving this information,District Immunisation OfficerMK Singh said the target wasto vaccinate 9,488 frontlineand health workers but over11,086 took the vaccine jab.

This was a mop up roundfor health and frontline work-ers as well as the second dosesession for the health workers.

Singh said that amongstthose to be given the seconddose, 6,414 got vaccinated outof 6,970 which was a 92 percent achievement. He said thatfor the first dose, over 4,672beneficiaries were vaccinatedagainst the target of 1082

He said that bothCovishield and Covaxin wereadministered to the beneficia-ries.

"As many as 10,540 wereadministered Covishield vac-cine against a target of 9,196and 546 were vaccinated withCovaxin against 292," he said.

Meanwhile, Nodal CovidRML Hospital said that therewas an increase in the numberof people coming for getting

vaccinated at the hospital. RMLDirector AK Singh said thatover 825 were vaccinated by 6pm.

Many frontline workerssaid that they came for vacci-nation after they learnt frommedia reports that it was thelast chance for them to get vac-cinated.

Policeman Alok KumarRai posted at the office of theDCP (Women Crime) atMahanagar said that he

received his first dose of thevaccine on Thursday.

"Earlier I had not receivedany message but today throughthe newspaper I came to knowthat this was the last chance forgetting vaccinated and hence Idecided to get myself vaccinat-ed," he said, adding that he wasfeeling perfectly fine.

Meanwhile, a member ofCovid Task Force at KGMU, DrSurya Kant Tripathi, said thatwith school students testing

positive in Maharashtra, Delhi, his was of the view thatClasses 1 to V should not beopened in the state.

"Children of Class 6onwards can follow the proto-col and they can understandwhen explained about Covidguidelines but we cannotexpect children from Class 1 to5 to follow what is told to themand this is why I am against theopening of schools as of now,"he said.

When asked if a studentfrom Class 1-5 tested positivehow threatening a situation itwould be, he said that fortu-nately mortality rate in the gen-eral population was very low inIndia.

He said that selectively theschools should be closed whereCovid cases have been comingout

He said that people shouldfollow the Covid protocols inLucknow or face the conse-quences. He said the Covidprotocols had to be followedstrictly.

Regarding the movementof people across the country inthe times of increasing num-bers of cases, he said that it wasadvisable that unless it wasvery important those whowere chronically ill or thosewho were elderly shouldavoid movement across thecountry.

Meanwhile, MK Singh saidafter six staffers who had test-ed positive for coronavirus onWednesday at La MartiniereBoys' School, the remainingRT-PCR tests turned out to benegative on Thursday.

It may be noted that sixantigen tests had turned out tobe positive in the schoolbecause of which rapidresponse teams were sent thereand over 442 samples collect-ed on Wednesday.

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Continuing the government's thrust on pro-women initiatives, Additional Chief

Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi onThursday met the members of Uttar PradeshCommission for Women and asked them to takeall necessary measures on women's welfare andempowerment.

He asked the state Commission for Womento organise various programmes on March 10 tomake women more empowered and self-reliant.

It may be mentioned here that the govern-ment has already announced a new schemeMahila Samarthya Yojana to push the state'swomen on the path of development.

The scheme has been allocated Rs 100 crorein the budget presented on Monday. The objec-tive of this scheme is to motivate womentowards employment and to raise their standardof living through home and cottage industriesbased on local resources. Under this scheme, themarket will also be provided by the governmentto the women to sell their produce.

According to an official communiquéreleased here on Thursday, Awasthi held a meet-ing with a delegation of the State Commissionfor Women led by its Chairperson VimlaBotham and directed them to make dedicatedefforts under the Mission Shakti to ensure moresafe and peaceful atmosphere to women, to con-trol crime against women, to extend hundred percent benefit of government sponsored schemesfor women's welfare launched by the governmentetc.

Awasthi said that the officials of the Healthand other government departments must reviewthe working to check whether different schemesrun by the government were reaching to thewomen or not. He said that the Mission Shaktiwould succeed only when each and everywoman felt secure and self-reliant.

He asked the Commission for Women tohold a seminar at its office on March 10 and callsuccessful women entrepreneurs to share theways and means of their achievement before theinvitees so that more and more participants wereinspired to take their own business and becomeself-reliant besides giving jobs to many others.

Awasthi further said that to promote womenentrepreneurs of the state, general awareness,counseling programmes, exposure visits, semi-nars, workshops, and training programmeswould be organised.

Lucknow (PNS): The CSIR AromaMission was launched at Majuli islandof Assam on Thursday to prevent landerosion and degradation due to floods.

Spokesperson of the CentralInstitute of Medicinal and AromaticPlants in Lucknow, Manoj Semwal, saidthe river island of Majuli, located in themiddle reach of the mighty riverBrahmaputra in Assam, was under seri-ous threat as recurring floods and ero-sion of the banks had reduced the landarea drastically by shifting its bank-line,degrading its fertile soil with unproduc-tive sand deposits and degrading thewater bodies in the island.

He said in an effort toward the con-servation and restoration of the degrad-ed land by promoting cultivation offlood-resilient aromatic crops likevetiver, the CIMAP-Lucknow organiseda training-cum-awareness programmeat Majuli for selection of progressivefarmers for the cultivation and process-ing of aromatic crops under AromaMission Phase-II.

CIMAP Director Dr PrabodhKumar Trivedi said that Majuli may beconverted into an organic cluster of aro-

matic crops."These crops may improve the

economic condition of the farmers.Initially, vetiver crops may be plantedin flood-affected areas and lemongrassin unirrigated areas of Majuli. Vetivercan prevent soil erosion and it is alsohelpful in the rehabilitation of metal-polluted soils. Mentha crops will beplanted in January-February when theland is vacant after the harvesting ofpaddy," he said.

Dr Trivedi also distributed theplanting material of vetiver and lemon-grass to the interested participants.

About 100 progressive farmers ofthe area, especially the Mising tribe,participated in this launch.

��$��#� ��A grand virtual 'Family Unity Conference' was organised

by City Montessori School's Rajajipuram Campus II. In his inau-gural address, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya,who was the chief guest, said that family played a pivotal rolein social development and family unity was the axis of socialunity. He said everybody needed unity, peace, happiness andprosperity which actually originate from the smallest yet themost important unit of social development, the family, and thedream of unity and peace could be actualised only on the basisof family unity. He said all-round development of a child auto-matically took place when the family lived happily in an atmos-phere of peace and unity. Then the children become the prideof society, he added. Many eminent personalities alsoexpressed their views to make the young generation realise theimportance of unity in the family. The prize winners of var-ious competitions held to mark the Family Unity Conferencewere also felicitated on the occasion. Students from Thailand,Dubai, Sri Lanka, Russia and various states of India took activeparticipation in a series of interesting competitions viz. LeCostume Deguise (fancy dress competition), Waste-O-Mania(model making competition), Lineage (photography compe-tition), Collais (collage making competition) and Musique(singing competition). Students of Vidyabharti ChinmayaVidyalaya, Jharkhand grabbed the championship trophywhile Adarsh Public School, Balinagar, New Delhi won the firstrunners-up trophy and CMS Rajendra Nagar Campus I wonthe second runners-up trophy. Earlier, the students of CMSRajajipuram Campus II virtually presented songs and dancesbased upon the theme of unity, peace and love. Speaking onthis occasion, CMS founder Jagdish Gandhi said that since theinception of CMS, was preparing the young generation to facethe challenges of the future besides imparting social, moral andspiritual education to them. CMS president and managingdirector, Prof Geeta Gandhi Kingdon said that the foundationof the world family could only be laid by connecting childrenwith family, parents and teachers.

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The sleuths of the Special Task Force(STF) arrested Badri Narayan Tiwari from

Manoj Pandey crossing in Gomtinagar onThursday. The cops said that Tiwari owned anews channel and also manufactured batteriesthat were used in running bikes ownedby Garvit Innovators Promoters Limited(GIPL).

The GIPL was a company owned bySanjay Bhati, who had cheated 2.6 lakh peo-ple by launching a ponzi scheme named BikeBot. They lured people to invest by promisingto double their money within a year.

During interrogation, Badri NarayanTiwari disclosed that he had met Vijendra SinghHooda who was one of the owners of GIPL, inNoida.

The police said Tiwari had shown interestin the bike bot scheme as a company ownedby him also used to manufacture bikes runningon batteries. Later, these bikes were also sup-plied to GIPL.

As per police, GIPL allegedly used to luregullible investors with Rs 62,000 investment perbike of Tiwari's company.

Under the scheme, the investors werepromised a monthly return of Rs 9,765, whichincluded Rs 4,590 as bike rent and Rs 5,175 asprofit. This amounted to Rs 1.17 lakh a year,while additional bonuses were announced forthose taking three bikes.

However, after getting profits in theschemes the directors, partners and owners ofthe scheme fled and did not return any shareto the investors who later lodged FIRs with theGautam Buddha Nagar police in 2019. TheEOW had taken over the case of GIPL onMarch 2, 2020, and the ED had also registereda case and attached moveable and immoveableassets worth over Rs 103 crore of the compa-ny.

So far, as many as 25 persons, includingproprietors, owners and directors of the com-pany have been arrested by teams of STF andthe Economic Offences Wing of the UttarPradesh Police.

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Social media has come handyfor senior police officers in

monitoring their subordinateholding charge of differentpolice stations.

After the Thakurganj case,the Gudamba police arrested ayouth who had thrashed avegetable vendor and upturnedhis cart on being denied free-bies.

The accused was identifiedas Abhay Chauhan of sector Hof Jankipuram. He had pur-chased vegetables from a ven-dor on Wednesday from ChaarNumber crossing and hadthrashed the vendor when hedid not allow the accused to gowithout paying.

The victim was cynicalthat he would ever get justiceas the incident was a commonone that vendors face almostevery day. But the act of theaccused was shot by somecommuters and uploaded onsocial media. The video cliptravelled faster than sunlightand reached senior police offi-cials who enquired about itfrom the officials concerned.

The police swung intoaction and the cops contactedthe vendor who gave a com-plaint. Later the accused wasnabbed.

In the Thakurganj case, thesenior police officials took cog-nisance of a video in which awoman was being beaten up bythe persons whom she hadaccused of harassing her

daughter.The video kept doing

rounds and by afternoon itdrew several comments onsocial media. Senior officialsintervened immediately andthe case was solved.

The Lucknow police com-missionerate has set up a socialmedia cell to keep a hawk eyeon even minute incidents. "Thecell has proved helpful to thepolice to monitor the copsholding the charges of differentpolice stations. A dedicatedteam of cops is handling thecell at present," a cop workingwith the cell said.

According to sources,senior officials find socialmedia as helpful and they keepasking the status and factsrelated to an incident once it is

uploaded on social media.They say the cops holding thecharge of different police sta-tions are however not veryhappy. "The policemen areapprehensive of being filmed insome video and so they takemuch precaution while react-ing to any query or any inci-dent. The social media is dis-ciplining the cops, in a way," thesources said.

�� A stalker was arrested for

harassing a girl and threaten-ing to burn her face by throw-ing acid on her in Hazratganjon Thursday.

The accused was identifiedas Shikhar Uppal of SadarBazaar in Sandila town ofHardoi district.

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Despite facing the brunt of heavyshelling along the Line of Control

in Poonch and Rajouri sectors largenumber of border residents living inthe direct line of firing on Thursdayreacted cautiously to the joint state-ment by the India and Pakistan armyto strictly observe all agreements,understandings and ceasefire alongthe Line of Control and all other sec-tors with effect from midnight 24/25Feb 2021.

"We have been repeatedly target-ed by the roaring Pak guns in the for-ward areas. We want to live in peaceand cultivate our fields. But due toheightened tension in the region wewere not able to do so for a long time.Students in the region suffered themost due to prolonged suspension ofclasses due to repeated incidents ofcross LoC firing, Mohd Imitiyaz ofvillage Shahpur in Poonch said.

A local panch in the area claimed,we cannot trust Pakistan so easily. It'sin the habit of pushing infiltrators viathis route. Our parents suffered dueto regular shelling. Now our genera-tion is also facing the same. We reg-ularly pray and want peace to prevail.The reaction of border residents in theNowshera area of Rajouri was no dif-ferent. Most of the villagers engagedin the farming activity said, we alwayswant peace to prevail and lead peace-ful lives without facing the brunt ofborder firing. We have seen armiesstanding eyeball to eyeball and nowwe want to see our next generation tolive in peace and focus on theircareers.

Meanwhile, political parties inJammu and Kashmir welcomed theagreement between armies of Indiaand Pakistan on ceasefire along theLine of Control (LoC) and other sec-tors.

“We welcome it and hope that thestatement will be followed in letter &spirit. JKNC has always been a strongsupporter of the ceasefire along theLoC,” the party said in astatement.“This will allow people liv-ing along the LoC & IB (InternationalBorder) to go about their normal liveswith minimal disruption & risk,” theparty said.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)President Mehbooba Mufti in a tweetwelcomed the ceasefire announce-ment and said dialogue was the onlyway forward.

“A big & welcome developmentthat India & Pakistan have agreed toa ceasefire along the LoC. Dialogue isthe only way forward if both countrieswant to stop the unending cycle ofviolence & bloodshed across the bor-ders and J&K,” Mehbooba said.

In a statement, Congress partysaid that it always favoured any intia-tives aimed at restoration of peace onthe borders and LOC and ensuringsafety of our residents and jawans inJammu and Kashmir but questionedwhether the infiltration and crossborder terrorism has been stopped byPakistan.Reacting to the latest devel-opments, JKPCC Chief G A MirThursday questioned the Modi gov-ernment for it's flip flop policy as ithad been stating that the talks and ter-rorism / cross border firing can't gotogether.

BJP had been always saying thatthe no talks are possible with Pakistantill it stops cross border terrorism andinfiltration. It had been targetting theprevious UPA government for tracktwo diplomacy and dialogue on theground that no talks should be heldtill Pakistan stops cross borderTerrorism and firing . It always advo-cated tough posturing with Pakistanby claiming that you need a 56" chestto deal with Pakistan.

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President of Samajwadi Party(SP) and former Chief

Minister (CM) Akhilesh Yadavstrongly criticised the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP)-led govern-ment for sharp hike in prices ofpetroleum products. ‘In themanner, the prices of petrol anddiesel have increased in recenttimes, the government hadcollected Rs 2.5 lakh croremuch earlier,’ he said whiletalking to the ppresspersons ininformal chat at Lal BahadurShastri International Airport,

Babatpur here on Thursday.Yadav came here en route

to his visit to adjoining Jaunpurdistrict to meet the bereavedfamilies of four-time MLAfrom Machilishahar JwalaYadav and ex-MLA from SadarHaji Afzal apart from the rel-atives of Kishan Yadav, alleged-ly died in the police custody. Heis on his three days tour to thisbelt of Purvanchal (easternUP) during which he has alsoplanned to visit Mirzapur andother areas in view to strength-en the party’s organisationstructure on the eve of forth-

coming assembly election nextyear.

Making further attacks onthe government, the SP chiefsaid that before coming topower, the BJP had made sev-eral promises but now it hasmaintained silence why theriver Ganga is still dirty andwhen the cities would be madesmart. ‘How long the Banarasiswould wait to see a clean riverVaruna,’ he questioned. Whenhe was the CM, ‘VarunaCorridor’ was one of his ‘dreamprojects’ where the work hasvirtually halted since he lost

power in the state. Speaking oninflation, he said that everyoneis worried in the mannerpoverty has increased in theentire state, along with unem-ployment.

‘The government shouldtell how long the free vaccineswould be given to the poor,’ heasked. When Akhilesh landedat the airport, a good numberof party leaders and othersreached there to accord himwelcome. The security forcespresent there had a tough timeto control the enthusiastic partyworkers.

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Amassive campaign will belaunched to clean the river

Ganga under the leadership ofDistrict Ganga Committee onMarch 7 in which all the ghatsbetween Sant Ravidas Parkand Rajghat will be made dirtfree. This decision was taken ata meeting of the committeeheld under the chairmanship ofDistrict Magistrate (DM)Kaushal Raj Sharma here onWednesday. One volunteer willbe deployed on every 5 metresarea and in all a total of 1,600volunteers will work togetherfor cleaning the stretch of eightkilometres.

For the success of cam-paign, the participation of allcitizens, including civil ser-vants, boatmen, domes, aarticommittees, government

departments, NGOs, CivilDefence volunteers, GangaPraharis, Ganga Mitras andpersonnel of NDRF, SDRF,Task Force etc would beensured. Greater publicity willbe made for maximum partic-ipation of people.

Moving forward as a massmovement, a continuouscampaign wil l beorganised ever y monthto ensure the cleanliness ofboth the rivers Varuna andAssi along with Ganga infuture.

Meanwhile, a district levelcommittee meeting of FoodSafety and DrugAdministration departmentwas also held. Presiding overthe meeting the DM reviewedthe enforcement action takenby the department.

He directed expeditious

filing of legal action and effec-tive decision of the filedclaims based on the reportsreceived after testing the sam-ples collected during theenforcement proceedings.Under the ‘Eat HealthyAbhiyan’ to be run in the city,the department has to listfour categories, viz hotels /lodges, restaurants, chaats andother prepared food shopsincluding carts and temporarystalls by March 10.

The DM instructed totrain the food workers of foodunits to follow the norms asper Schedule 4 of Indian FoodSafety and Standards Act 2006within 30 days.

The Schedule 4 introducesthe concept of FSMS based onimplementation of GoodManufacturing Practices(GMP) and Good Hygiene

Practices (GHP) by food busi-nesses.

In training, the foodtraders should be asked tokeep the walls, doors, floorsetc clean, use covered dust-bins, maintain raw materialsand hygiene properly apartfrom providing them informa-tion about use of high quali-ty ingredients in food itemmanufacturing and their qual-ity checks.

After the training, foodbusiness workers will be pro-vided seven days time forimprovement. Later by April10, the establishments of foodtraders would be inspectedand certified for hygiene rat-ing and if any of them failedto follow the norms, actionwould be taken against thesame.

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General Manager NCR andNER Vinay Kumar

Tripathi reviewed status ofsafety, asset reliability, punctu-ality, loading, revenue andexpenditure control measuresover North Central Railway. Inthis meeting conductedthrough video conferenceAGM NCR Ranjan Yadav,concerned PHODs, DRMsfrom Prayagraj, Jhansi andAgra and other officials fromHeadquarters and Divisionsparticipated.

During safety review,action to be taken in case ofboom breakage at level cross-ings was discussed. GMTripathi emphasised that eachcase of boom breakage must bethoroughly analysed and takento logical conclusion to curb

these incidences. Besides reg-ular awareness campaigns forroad users, North CentralRailway has also equipped itsbusy level crossing gates withsecondary sliding booms tominimise detentions in case ofprimary boom breakage.During the ongoing financialyear 39 gates have beenequipped with sliding booms.

Timely completion ofmobility improvement workshas been a key focus area onNorth Central Railway. Underthe leadership of GM VKTripathi and guidance ofPCSTE Arun Kumar and DRMPrayagraj Mohit Chandra, pro-ject unit of NCR and Prayagrajdivision have commissionedautomatic signalling in 7.5 Kmsection between KanspurGugauli-Malwan stations inPrayagraj Division. CSTE

Project Bholendra Singhinformed that so far automat-ic signaling in six block sectionstotaling 39 kms has been com-missioned in this financial yearand efforts are on to commis-sion automatic signaling incomplete Kanpur-Fatehpur sec-tion by March 2021.

Unreserved trains: Railwayadministration has decided torun unreserved special trainswhich were cancelled earlier tocontain the spread COVID-19pandemic. North CentralRailway will be running, Trainno.-04102/04101 KanpurCentral-Prayagraj Sangamunreserved special expresstrains (Daily), Train no.-04110/04109 Kanpur-Chitrakutdham Karvi unre-served special express trains(Daily), Train no-04117/04118Khajuraho-Lalitpur unreserved

special express trains (Daily),Train no-04171/04172Mathura-Alwar unreservedspecial express trains (Daily)from February 26.

In wake of the running ofthese unreserved special trainsrailway administration hasdecided to restore the servicesof UTS ticket booking at allrelated en-route stations wherestoppages of these trains havebeen scheduled. Apart from it,the catering units which wereclosed due to unavailability oftrains on few stations will alsostart operating with the restora-tion of trains in graded man-ner.

Railway authorities haveissued an appeal to the passen-gers to follow the Covid guide-lines and cooperate with therailwaymen in implementingCovid protocols.

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The Prayagraj DevelopmentAuthority (PDA) on

Thursday razed to earth a pala-tial building of Asad, a closeassociate of mafia don AtiqueAhmed in Kareli area. Duringthe demolition process a bigportion of the building col-lapsed, but fortunately nothinguntoward happened there.

Under “Operation Mafia”launched by the Uttar PradeshChief Minister Yogi Adityanaththe PDA has so far demolisheddozens of buildings of the bigcriminals, gangsters, and theirassociates.

On Thursday the PDA offi-cials reached 60 feet road inKareli with JCB machines andheavy police force to pull downthe huge building of Asad. An

SDM was also there. The houseowner was allowed to take outhis belongings, and then theJCB machines were pressed todemolish the building whichhad been raised illegally with-out an approved blue print ofthe lay out.

Asad had been lookingafter the business of AtiqueAhmed.

ADVOCATES BOY-COTT WORK: Advocatesboycotted judicial work onThursday here at the AllahabadHigh Court to oppose theEducation Tribunal Bill, sayingthat it was passed in the upperhouse of UP with unfair means.

The strike will continue onFriday also, decided the HighCourt Bar Association onThursday.

LT GEN KLER VISITS

MILITARY STATION: LtGen Alok Kler, PVSM, VSM,Army Commander, SouthWestern (Sapta ShaktiCommand) visited PrayagrajMilitary Station from February21 to 25, 2021 to review theoperational preparedness ofRed Eagle Division.

The Army Commanderinteracted with Maj GenAnupinder Bevli, VSM, GOCRed Eagle Division and com-plimented the formation for itsprofessionalism. He exhortedall ranks to continue to workwith zeal and enthusiasm. TheArmy Commander also felici-tated selected individuals fordistinguished service and devo-tion to duty.

FIRE BREAKS OUT INHOUSE: A mysterious firebroke out in a house in the busy

market of Kothaparcha onThursday morning reducingproperties worth lakhs ofrupees to ashes.

The house owner AnandSharma (4 A/5 Kothaparcha)left the house in the morningwith his wife. It was around9.30 am when the neighbourscalled him on phone ininformed that thick smokeswere oozing out from hishouse. He rushed back andentered the house to removeLPG cylinders from thekitchen, which he did success-fully, but the flames hadreduced all his belongings toashes. Fire tenders doused thefire and the LPG cylinderswere cooled down to void anyfurther disaster. Most probablyelectric short circuit wasbehind this fire accident.

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Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha(SCS) candidate Vimlesh

Yadav was elected as the newpresident of the student’s unionof Mahatma Gandhi KashiVidyapeeth (MGKVP) but twoother important posts of vice-president and general secretarywere won by the candidates ofNational Students Union ofIndia (NSUI) Sandeep Pal andPrafull Pandey respectively.The SCS candidate AshishGoswami was elected as thenew library secretary. Earlier,the voting passed off peaceful-ly and 47.38 per cent votersexercised their franchises.

The SCS, student wing ofSamajwadi Party (SP), candi-date of the prestigious post ofpresident Vimlesh Yadavbagged 1,859 votes and defeat-ed his nearest rival Alok Ranjanof NSUI, student wing of AllIndia Congress Committee(AICC) Alok Ranjan by a com-fortable margin of 635 votes.Alok got 1224 votes.

On the post of vice-presi-dent, the NSUI candidateSandeep Pal secured 2,467votes and defeated his nearest

rival Sanjay Kumar Yadav ofSCS by a huge margin of 1,269votes. Sanjay has to satisfywith 1,198 votes.

The NSUI candidate ofother prestigious post of gen-eral secretary Prafull Pandeybagged 2,360 votes and defeat-ed the candidate of AkhilBharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad(ABVP), student wing ofBhartiya Janata Party (BJP),Abhay Shakti Singh by a com-fortable margin of 1,559 votes.Abhay got 801 votes.

On the post of library sec-retary, the SCS candidate AsishGoswami secured a total of2,767 votes and defeated ABVPcandidate Ankit Verma with a

huge margin of 1,494 votes.Ankit manage to get 1,273votes. Besides, Gautam Sharma,Deepak Patel, Satendra Kumar,Ishwar Chandra Patel andVishal Kannoujia secured1,034, 152, 125, 107 and 225votes and we’re elected as therepresentative of humanitarianfaculty, education faculty, lawfaculty, social work faculty andscience & technology facultyrespectively. Milan Modanwaland Ritesh Sonkar were elect-ed unopposed as the represen-tative of social science facultyand faculty of commerce &management respectively.

The newly elected office-bearers of the student’s union

took the oath of post andsecrecy in a brief swearing-inceremony at humanitarian fac-ulty and they were also hand-ed over the certificate of theirelection. The election officerProf KS Jaiswal announced theresults of the election.

Earlier, the voting tookplace peacefully amidst tightsecurity arrangements. Thestudents were allowed to entrethe varsity premises only aftershowing the identity cards. Asmany as 21 polling boothsincluding from 1 to 13 for theboys and from 14 to 23 for thegirls, were made in the premis-es of humanitarian faculty forthe smooth voting.

The voting began at 9 amand continued till 3 pm. In thebeginning, the voting was slowbut after 11 am, the studentsstarted turning up the pollingbooths in large numbers. Outof total 9,062 voters, as many as4,294 electorates (47.38%)including 2,866 boys and 1,428girls used their franchises.

The candidates made theirlast ditch efforts to woo the stu-dents and they did not hesitateeven in bowing down to theirfeet to get their favour.

"��9�7�*��.

Aprofessor working inGynecology Department

of Institute of Medical Sciences(IMS), Banaras HinduUniversity (BHU) has broughtlaurels to the city as Anjali Ranihas been awarded the title ofMrs Goodness Ambassador inthe VPR Mrs India 2021 com-petition held at the all-Indialevel recently. As many as 41contestants from across thecountry took part in this com-petition held in Ahmedabad(Gujarat). This competition,organised for married women,aims to encourage their contri-bution in various roles, so thatthey can move forward to ful-fill their dreams and becomepart of the campaign to bringpositive change in the society.Prof Anjali Rani said that sheparticipated in this competitionso that she can spread aware-

ness about the problems facedby women during pregnancyand maternal mortality rate.

GST REMOVAL FROMFARM MACHINERYDEMANDED: A meeting ofAgricultural MachineryManufacturing Association(AMMA) India was held at itsKabirchaura office here onThursday in which the partic-ipants, while lauding the efforts

of Chief Minister YogiAdityanath for providing thenecessary facilities includingcrop insurance given to farm-ers in the UP Budget, theydemanded withdrawal ofGoods and Service Tax (GST)from all types of agriculturalmachinery along with handand power operated grazingmachines. State vice-presidentof AMMA India and Kashi unit

chief of Laghu Udyog Bharti(LUB) Rajesh Kumar Singhsaid that the intention of boththe Central and state govern-ments has always been toimplement the beneficialschemes for the farmers.According to him, even all theprevious governments duringthe last 70 years avoided taxingagricultural machinery for theoverall interests of the farmersbut it is beyond the compre-hension of all of us that the cen-tral government has imposed12 per cent GST on agricultur-al machinery items. He saidthat the burdens of this taxwould, ultimately, be on thefarmers. He said when thegovernment is providing grantsin view to make some agricul-tural equipment cheaper, whyis it not thinking in the betterinterest of farmers by removingthe GST on all types of agricul-tural machinery immediately.

"��9�7�*��.

Hundreds of doctors andhealth workers who had

received their first vaccineslast month vaccinated for sec-ond shots on Thursday to com-plete the course of two doses.Besides, hundreds of frontlineworkers, who failed to turn-outon the vaccination days earli-er, were also vaccinated in 48sessions at 34 centres. Theprocess of vaccination wouldcontinue on Friday when 3,087health workers would receivevaccines in 40 sessions at 29centres. During the vaccinationprocess, several senior officers

of district administration andHealth department inspectedsome of the centres and despiteall the repeated appeals, thevaccination percentage has yetnot received very enthusiasticresponse in the district.

Meanwhile, the prepara-tions are also going on for thevaccination of 60 plus andabove 45 with comorbiditiesfrom March 1. During the vac-cination, enthusiasm was seenat some rural and urban cen-tres but the response was verypoor at a few centres as it wasseen on all the previous vacci-nation days. It was the 12th daysince the beginning of the

process on January 16 last.FOUR TEST COVID-19

POSITIVE: Four more personshave tested COVID-19 posi-tive, increasing the tally ofconfirmed cases to 21,989 byThursday evening. With noCOVID-19 death being report-ed in the last 24 hours, thedeath toll remains at 377. As nomore COVID-19 patient hasbeen cured in home isolation,the number of COVID-19patients recovered in the dis-trict so far remains at 21,572including 18,597 in home iso-lation and 2,975 in Covid hos-pitals.

As present 40 active cases

are under treatment in thedistrict. The recovery rate inthe district is 98.10 per cent andthe mortality rate 1.71 percent.

Meanwhile, mass / groupcorona antigen tests continuedand all the 182 tests werefound negative at SSPGHospital Kabirchaura apartfrom 29 at CHC Shivpur, 75 atVivekanand Hospital Bhelupur,97 at LBS Hospital Ramnagarand 100 at SSH BHU. Alongwith this, samples of 179 fromSSPG, 70 from VivekanandHospital and 94 from SSHBHU have been sent forRTPCR investigation.

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Schools and colleges haveissued an appeal to the

guardians of the students toensure protection of theirwards from Covid. The aware-ness of the guardians will act asa shield for their wards.

It is noticed that theCorona positive students areasymptomatic, so it is difficultto differentiate between theCorona positive and negativestudents. The guardians have toplay a pivotal role to check thespread of Corona.

Corona was well undercontrol in the state, especiallyin Prayagraj, and it impelled thegovernment to open schoolsand colleges with certain guide-lines.

Students who had beenclosed in their houses foralmost one year, are happy, butthey must understand thatCorona was still there andthey would have to take extraprecautions to protect them-selves.

It has been witnessed thatthe number of cases areswelling with the opening of

cinema halls and educationalinstitutions besides malls. It isbut natural that the guardiansof the students will be worriedbecause immune system ofchildren is not that strong ascompared to the young men.

A report of All IndiaInstitute of Medical Sciencesalso says that children below 12years often do not show anysymptom of Corona eventhough they are positive.Children do not maintainsocial distancing in schools,and during their transporta-tion. Schools are adhering to

the guidelines, but theguardians should also be alert.

As per the guidelines onlyone student should sit on oneseat of the school trolley, or bus.Students should be given sani-tiser with an instruction to usethe same frequently.

They should wear maskwhile stepping out and shoulduse it during school time, andshould not touch unnecessarythings.

They should use sanitiserbefore touching their nose oreyes, the schools have told theguardians.

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Acooking competition wasorganised by Suhasini

Sangh, a voluntary organisationof NTPC-Vindhyachal. Duringit participants had to preparesalty items from potatoes andsweet dishes with sesame.Members of Suhasini Sanghparticipated in it and preparedtasty dishes. In this competitionExecutive Director(Vindhyachal) Munish Johri,General Manager (Operation &Maintenance) SC Nayak,General Manager (SSC-NRVindhyachal) Vipan Kumar

and General Manager(Operation) Rajeev Subedarplayed the role of judges. Onthe occasion chairperson ofSuhasini Sangh, Mridula Johri,vice-chairperson, S Nayak,adviser (Welfare) VinitaSubedar, adviser (Tiny Tots)Suman Bhatia and secretary,Suhasini Sangh, Richa Mangla,along with other office-bearersand members were present.After evaluating the deliciousdishes prepared from potatoesand sesame by all the contes-tants the jury gave its decision.According to it in the sweetdish competition, first prize

was given to Firdaus, second toKusum Singh and third toAnjali Mishra and NeenaAggarwal. On the other hand,Anju Dwivedi and Rashmi Sinhawere awarded the consolationprizes. Besides in the salty dishcompetition, Shobha Verma washonoured with the first prize,Rashmi Gupta second andVibhuti Rastogi third prize.Besides Neena Aggarwal, DeepaPal, Priyanka Shrivastava andSadhana Daunde were present-ed the consolation prize. Theefforts of the participants as wellas dishes prepared by them wereappreciated by all the judges.

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Afamily counselling seminarwas organised in order to

apprise the families of coal per-sonnel deployed in NigahiProject, Northern CoalfieldsLimited (NCL) about theworking of mines and the day-to-day challenges, to providesome vital information relatedto their safety along with healthand for discussing importanttopics like establishing coordi-nation in the work area andfamily life. On the occasion thesafety and rescue team ofNigahi area explained to thepersonnel how to stay awayfrom stress and intoxication.Besides medical examination ofthe personnel present there

and their family members wasalso conducted.The eventorganised at Nigahi View Pointwas attended by as many as 19personnel with their families.Project Officer of Nigahi AreaRajendra Verma, MinesManager G Senapati, StaffOfficer (Personnel) SunilKumar Tiwari, Regional

Security Officer PK Singh,Medical Superintendent PPaswan, labour union office-bearers besides other officersand employees were presentduring the programme.Notably, in all the projects ofNCL family counselling pro-grammes have been organisedfrom time to time.

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In order to inspect works carried out byHorticulture department District Magistrate

Praveen Kumar Laxkar visited the polyhousebuilt at Nuaanv village under City block onWednesday. During his visit the DM interact-ed with a farmer who said that he was earning� 3-4 lakh per annum through farming of melonand cucumber in 2,000 square metre area poly-

house. Besides another farmer, Gyan PrakashDubey, told the DM that he had built the poly-house in 2019. He said with the support of expertof Horticulture department he had plantedbanana tissues and dragon fruits and was earn-ing �6-7 lakh per annum and added that he hadsaved water through the use of sprinkler.Horticulture officer Meva Lal told the DM that

the playhouses had been constructed in the dis-trict in the 20,000 square metre area and farm-ers were earning more through cultivation ofdragon fruits.

PROGRAMME ORGANISED: Under thecampaigns ‘Mission Shakti’ and Beti Bachao, BetiPadhao’ a ‘Hak Ki Baat Jiladhikari Ke Saath’ pro-gramme was organised at Collectorate onWednesday. Under it the girl students who hadcome from the different schools wanted to knowfrom DM Praveen Kumar Laxkar about the ini-tiatives taken by the government for eradicat-ing social evils like child marriages, sex-relat-ed violence, dowry etc. Responding to the girlsthe DM said that though laws already had beenmade to safeguard the rights of women butawareness campaign was felt necessary to instilself-confidence among women and makethem self-reliant. Enumerating the pro-grammes related to women the DM said thatOne Stop Centre, women helplines etc were thefacilities under which instant help was avail-able. On the issue of the dowry the DMexpressed anguish over the mentality of thesociety under which double standard was beingadopted. While referring to child marriage theDM said it was already illegal as per law. Heconcluded his address by saying that aware-ness programmes were being organised inorder to make women aware about the laws andtheir rights. The programme was conducted byprobation officer G Dubey and was attended byprincipals of different schools, members ofNGOs and the officials concerned.

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In order to maintain lawand order and to instil

confidence among people afoot march was conductedby in the district onWednesday. In the city themarch was led bySuperintendent of Police(SP) Ajay Kumar Singh andwas accompanied by ASP(City) Sanjay Kumar. It start-ed from Sankatmochan andpassed via Tarkapur, Ramaipatti and other local-

ities of the city. Duringthe march the policechecked the suspects,vehicles, interacted withpublic and took a feed-back. On the occasionan appeal made to peo-ple to maintain peace.Station House Officer(SHO) City Kotwali,Ravindra Yadav,

incharge Vasliganj policeoutpost Ravi KantMishra and heavy police

force was present during the march.

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Railway Protection Force (RPF),North Eastern Railway (NER), makes

continuous efforts to provide security topassengers. In the same sequence, thestaff of RPF Crime Intelligence Branch(CIB), Gorakhpur area, caught one per-son along with 11 e-tickets from a shoprecently against whom action was takenunder the Railways Act and a case wasregistered in this connection. Besides thestaff of RRF post, Gorakhpur, found amentally retarded girl aged 15 years inan abandoned condition on platform No9 of Gorakhpur Junction railway stationrecently. After questioning, the girl washanded over to Child Line, Gorakhpur.,Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO)Pankaj Kumar Singh said. An earlierreport said that the escort team of RPFfound one purse in an unclaimed con-dition from train number -02091 recent-ly. It was handed over to the passengerconcerned by RPF Kathgodam. On theother hand, the RPF, Kannauj, found twobags in an unclaimed condition on a plat-form of Kannauj station. It was laterhanded over to the passenger con-cerned. Besides a 13-year-old boy wasfound in an unclaimed condition in trainNo 09159. After questioning, he washanded over to Child Line, Ghazipur.Besides the RPF post, Nakha Jungle,caught one person from the routegoing to Basti from Bansi Chaurahaalong with one illegal e-ticket recently.

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The body of an unidentified youth was found lyingon the railway track near Gaipura railway station

on Wednesday. GRP Vindhyachal took the body intocustody for completing the legal formalities and wastrying to ascertain the identity of the youth. Meanwhileanother report said that the body Chhaviraji Devi (70),wife of late Badri Vishwakarma, a resident of Kantitunder Vindhyachal police station, was found on rail-way track at Vindhyachal. The police took the body forlegal formalities. SHO Shesh Dhar Pandey said on thebasis of an application investigation was on and as perpreliminary investigation it was a case of suicide.

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The three-day celebrations atShri Dharmnath Swami

Temple belonging to theSvetambar Jains, also known asthe ‘Kaanch Ka Mandir’ (JainGlass Temple), organised inhonour of its 150th foundationday were concluded onThursday.

Initially built out of stone,this temple was transformedby Lala Raghunath Bhandariwith colourful glasses andmeenakari work which hasturned it into a major inter-national tourist attraction.People visit the temple to par-ticipate in prayers and treatthemselves with exquisite art-works. The Jain Glass Templecelebrated 150 years of itscompletion in February.

A three-day festival whichconcluded on Thursday washosted to celebrate this his-toric occasion. ‘18 AbhishekPujan’, a temple purificationceremony in the Jain religionwhere 18 urns of differentherbs and holy water wereused and a religious musicceremony was conducted onTuesday.

On Wednesday, a histori-cal tour of the Shri SiddhaChakra Pujan Temple andaarti ceremony with 108earthen lamps was organised.

Thursday’s list of festivi-ties included Sattarbhedi Pujaand Dhwaja Mahotsava, tra-ditional ceremonies conduct-ed to pay obeisance to the JainTirthankars.

Among the several reli-gious relics of the Jain religionthat find a home at this tem-ple, is the idol of DharmanathSwamiji, the 15th JainTirthankar and ShriSuparshvanatha Swamiji, the7th Jain Tirthankar. The gar-den located in the centre ofthe temple gives it an aura ofserenity and calm.

The temple walls areornamented with a glass dis-play of the visuals of Bihar’sSammed Shikarji TeerthKshetra where 20 out of 24Jain Tirthankars attained nir-vana in Iranian and Rajasthanistyle of artistic creativity.

‘If art and beauty arousepeacefulness within you, thenJain Glass Temple is the placeyou should definitely visit. Ahaven for devotees of all reli-gions, the tranquillity of thisplace will help you in unlock-ing higher stages of medita-tion’, said a devotee Rahul.

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All India Sir PadampatSinghania Memorial

Bridge Tournament will beorganised online fromFebruary 26 to 28. Addressingmediapersons, OrganisingSecretary Lalit Khanna said thetournament can be seen all overthe world. Total 26 players on13 table will play 25 rounds ofbridge from various parts of thecountry. It will be monitoredand controlled by theTournament Manager andAssistant Secretary of BridgeFederation of India TC Pantfrom Delhi. It carries a total prize money of �1.26 lakh which includes � 30000 for the

first winner. The tournamentwas started in 1999 by Late DrGaur Hari Singhania in thefond memory of his belovedfather Late Sir PadampatSinghania. His son YadupatiiSinghania who took over thelegacy unfortunately also diedon August 13 last year.Thereafter, the key person ofthis tournament KailaspatNewatia also passed awayrecently on February 20. Hesaid the winners would beawarded prizes through elec-tronic transfers. OfficeSecretary Gajendra Singh wasalso present at the press con-ference.

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The Kanpur DivisionalCommissioner, Raj

Shekhar, while addressing ameeting at his camp office onThursday said government hadgeared up for the safety ofwomen and girls. He said thisobjective will be accomplishedwith the cooperation ofWomen and ChildDevelopment and theDepartment of Home Affairs.He said the ambitious schemeof the Central Government‘Safe City’ will be operated inanother 13 districts of the of thestate including Kanpur andLucknow.

He said the purpose ofSafe City was to ensure that allpublic places were safe forwomen and girls. He said it alsoaimed at enabling women andgirls to boldly stand up to alloccasions beyond the threat ofgender based violence andharassment.

He said for this purpose,department of police, munici-pal transport, urban local bod-ies and women’s welfare depart-ment will work jointly.

Shekhar said an integratedSmart Control Room will be setup at district level by the policedepartment and will be con-nected to service like Dial 112and 1090.

He said CCTV and droneswill monitor at various loca-tions of the city. He said thepink booth and pink policepost will be set up for womenand patroling will be carriedout by women policemen dri-ving pink SUVs and pink two-wheelers. He said a help deskwill also be established in eachpolice station.

He said apart from thispink toilets will be set up by theKanpur Nagar Nigam andsuch sites will be selected wheremovement of women wasmore. He said if there was noroad light or poor illuminationproper arrangements will bemade for lighting up such dark

spots. He said CCTV camerasand panic buttons will beinstalled in public buses. Headded that bus and SUVs willalso be run for the movementof women personnel and AshaJyoti Centres and women’s shel-ter homes will be made moreeffective and equipped with allfacilities.

Others who took part inthe meeting were DeputyChairman, KanpurDevelopment Authority,Municipal Commissioner,Additional District Magistrate,Police Superintendent West,Deputy Director WomenWelfare and District ProbationOfficer etc.

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The District Magistrate, City,Alok Tiwari conducted a

surprise raid at the RTO onThursday and directed theRTO Officer to ensure hetraced all the persons who fledthe scene on his arrival throughthe video. He also directedthat strict action be takenagainst the ‘unauthorised’ peo-ple who were present on thecampus. He directed the offi-cials concerned to ensure therewas no entry to people who didnot have any specificallyassigned task at the RTO.

He then took a round ofthe entire office and came tothe registration window wherehe found a huge queue of peo-ple standing at the counters. Heinteracted with each personstanding in the queue and

matched the papers in theirpossession.

He also matched theirclaim for their presence on thecampus with the papers intheir possession. He then asked

each person if he or she hadbeen demanded money forany specific work directly orindirectly.

He inquired the people ifthey were facing any problem

in getting their work done atthe counters or if they werebeing made to run from pillarto post for no rhyme or reason.He warned the officials that incase the people who took toheels on his arrival be identi-fied without fail and properexplanation had to be given asto why they fled the scene.

It may be mentioned herethat RTO has a very strong syn-dicate for each and every workand without hiring a ‘tout’ onecannot get any work donesmoothly or in the stipulatedtime frame.

The DM then carried outa sudden inspection of theLand Acquisition Office atWestCott Building and took afirst hand feedback. He theninformed that everything wasfound to be in order at theoffice.

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Hundreds of SamajwadiParty members came out

on road carrying huge poster ofPetroleum Minister,Dharmendra Pradhan, atGhantaghar Crossing and laterstaged an angry demonstrationto protest the collosal andunprecedented hike in fossilfuel and LPG prices whichhad broken all past records ofprice hike. The membersshouted anti-government slo-gans and demanded a roll backof prices and warned that incase they remained apatheticthen they would given furthermomentum to this movement.

Addressing the gatheringthe city president, Dr Imran

said the fuel price hike was infact audaciously being done atthe behest of the CentralGovernment.

He said what is veryshameful that when the globalprices of crude had crashedthen pushing the price of fuelto around �100 can be termedas ‘daylight loot’. He said thePM had lured the voters byoffering them dreams of‘Achche Din’ but today onaccount of the quixotic policiesof the BJP government thepeople of the country werebeing crushed and were suf-fering in silence on account ofthe arm-twisting and brow-beating strategies.

He reminded that at apoint of time when the BJP was

in Opposition it used to raisea hue and cry over the minorprice rise in fuel and LPG nowwhen it had shot to the zenithit was totally insensitive to thecommon man’s problem. Hesaid it was sheer hypocrisythat the government on the onehad screamed of ‘ AtmanirbharBharat’ but on the other it wasmisleading and beguiling themasses.

He said the price hike offuel always had an all roundeffect on commodities andtoday the price of eachand every object has skyrock-etted. He said the worst hit werethe middle class and the poorsection who were unable tomeet a square meal for theirfamilies.

He said it had been provedbeyond doubt that wheneverthe BJP was the helm of affairsit had brought in drastic infla-tion to fill their coffers and ben-efit capitalists.

He demanded roll back ofthe price hike. He said the BJPwas stretching the patience ofthe common man too muchand it would be highly damag-ing in the times to come.Prominent who took part inthe dharna were MLA IrfanSolanki, Abhishek Gupta,Narendra Singh Pintu, Tillu

Jaiswal, Saurabh Jain,Kulwant Singh Gill, NooriShaukat, Shaheen Fatima,Ambar Trivedi, Asif Kadri,Pinky Yadav, Anil Chaubeyand many more.

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The city police are all set touse LED mounted high-

tech drone cameras to trapcriminals, especially duringnight hours. Superintendentof Police (West) Dr Anil Kumarsaid one such camera had beenreceived on Tuesday.

This will help police inzeroing n on the criiminals par-ticularly during night hours, headded.

The advanced drone cam-era arrived at the ReservePolice Lines would soon beadded to the surveillance fleetof Kanpur police.

He said ‘we will start usingan advanced version of LEDmounted high-tech drones forsurveillance soon and will getmore gadgets in near future.We had already used dronecameras during lockdown tonab those who were not fol-lowing COVID-19 protocol.This night vision drone camerawill be able to campture a pic-ture from a distance of nearly10m in the air’.

A mock drill would soonbe conducted to train thepolicemen, the official saidand added dragon light, torch,search lights and vehicle head-lights used by the police dur-ing night hours alert criminalsfrom a distance. And takingadvantage of darkness, theyoften flee. The move aimed atpreventing recurrence of Bikrutype of incident. Therefore, adecision had been taken toupgrade the surveillance sys-tem of the district police whichneeds to be better than thenetworking system of the anti-social elements, said the offi-cial.

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The City InnovationExchange (CiX) platform

was launched by DurgaShanker Mishra, Secretary,Ministry of Housing andUrban Affairs, at an onlineevent on Thursday. The plat-form will be a significant addi-tion to the growing innovationecosystem of India and focus-es on fostering innovativepractices in cities. CiX,through an ‘open innovation’process, engages with innova-tors to design-test-deliver onsolutions to pressing urban

challenges.According to the HUA

ministry, this initiative isamong the ongoing efforts ofthe Government to realisePrime Minister’s vision of Newand AtmaNirbhar Bharat, bymaking cities more self-reliantand enabled to meet the needsof and provide services totheir citizens.

Anil Agrawal, JointSecretary, Department forPromotion of Industry andInternal Trade (DPIIT),Ministry of Commerce andIndustry, Kunal Kumar, JointSecretary and Mission

Director, Smart Cities Mission,CEOs of Smart Cities andother officers of the Centraland State Governments werealso present at the event.

The City InnovationExchange (CiX) will connectcities to innovators across thenational ecosystem to designinnovative solutions for theirpressing challenges. The plat-form will ease the discovery,design& validation of solu-tions through a robust, trans-parent and user centric processthat will reduce barriers forinnovators and cities to dis-cover fitting solutions.

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There is no let up in therenewed rise in daily new

cases in States likeMaharashtra, Kerala, Punjab,West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh,Tamil Nadu, Gujarat andChhattisgarh.

A total of 16,738 new dailyCovid-19 cases have beenrecorded in a span of 24 hourstaking the total tally of activeinfection to 1,51,708.

The Union HealthMinistry said 89.57 per cent ofthe new cases are from theseven states with Maharashtracontinuing to top the chart atthe highest daily new cases at8,807. It is followed by Keralawith 4,106 cases while Punjabreported 558 new cases. Infact, Maharashtra reported 80deaths, highest in two months(since December 24, when 89deaths were reported). Withthis, the total cases in the Statejumped to 21,21,119 and thetoll touched 51,937. TheCentre has already deputedhigh-level multi-disciplinaryteams there to ascertain reasonsfor the surge and coordinatewith the state health depart-ments in Covid-19 control andcontainment measures.

The Centre has also writ-ten to states and UTs to focuson undertaking aggressive

measures to break the chain oftransmission.

States and UTs have beenadvised to increase testing in afocussed manner in the affect-ed districts with the appropri-ate split of RT-PCR and rapidantigen tests and to also ensurethat all symptomatic negativesof antigen tests are compulso-rily tested via RT-PCR tests.

The positive persons are tobe isolated/hospitalised, alltheir close contacts be tracedand also tested without delay.They have been advised tocritically review the emergingsituation on a regular basis withdistrict officials concerned toensure that gains made so farin Covid-19 management arenot lost.

India has administeredover 1.30 Crore vaccine dosesso far. A total of 1,30,67,047vaccine doses have been giventhrough 2,77,303 Sessions, asper the provisional report till 6

pm on Thursday. These include65,82,007 HCWs (75.5%) whohave taken the 1st dose and18,60,859 HCWs (63.6%) whohave taken the 2nd dose, alongwith 46,24,181 frontline work-ers (FLWs) (1st dose) (45.1%).While the countrywide vacci-nation drive was rolled out on16th Jan 2021

Vaccination of the FLWsstarted on 2nd Feb 2021. Justeight states account for morethan 56 per cent of the totalvaccine doses.

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Lok Sabha Speaker OmBirla on Thursday said it

is important for all constitu-tional institutions to com-plement and cooperate witheach other for a strongdemocracy. “Democracy canbe strengthened only when allconstitutional institutionswork in tandem and cooper-ate with each other withintheir respective constitution-al jurisdictions. All the insti-tutions should complementeach other,” Bir la said,addressing the members ofthe Meghalaya LegislativeAssembly.

“There can be dissentduring discussions but weshould not reach an impasse.Our discussions should leadto the welfare of the people ofthe country,” the Speakeradded.

Birla, who is currently ona two-day visit to Meghalaya,said one of his foremost pri-orities in Parliament was tomake women, young andnewly-elected MPs aware ofvarious parliamentary con-ventions and practices. “Ialways promote and welcometheir active participation indebates and discussions thattake place in the House. It isvery important to ensure the

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In a first step towards settingup of the Farmers Produce

Organisations (FPOs) and FishFarmer Producer Organisations(FFPOs) in the Union TerritoryLakshadweep, the islandadministration and NationalCo-operative DevelopmentCorporation (NCDC), haveinked a pact to scale up farm-ing operations of the agricul-tural and coastal communitiesfor better access to qualityinput, technology, credit andmarket through economies ofscale.

The MoU was signedrecently by Sundeep KumarNayak, Managing Director ofNCDC on behalf of the apexfinance entity under the UnionAgriculture Ministry with AAnbarasu, Advisor toLakshadweep Administratorin the presence of UTAdministrator Praful Patel.

As part of the collabora-tion, among various activities,the NCDC would also appointCommunity based BusinessOrganisation (CBBO) to pro-mote FPOs and FPPOs by col-laborating with them in a holis-tic manner, said Nayak.

The NCDC will providehandholding to these organi-zations for next five years tohelp them realise a betterprice of their farm produceand make them self-reliant inthe long term, he added.

On his part, Anbarasuwelcomed the initiative sayingthat the collaboration will

bring innumerable benefitsin the region. “This willensure employment andentrepreneurship skills amongfarmers and fishermen in theisland.

One out of seven personsis a fisherman here engagedin coastal activities like fish-eries, seaweed business andcoconut trade besides farm-ing. This is a good beginningand we are looking forward toforming entities of the farm-ers and fishermen for theirbenefits besides all rounddevelopment of the commu-nity.”

Setting up the FPOs andFFPOs is the part of theNarendra Modi Government’sscheme of bringing more andmore small and marginalfarmers on a big platform as

a joint entity for which bud-getary support of �4,496 croreby 2024 has been allocated.Aim is to form and promoteat least 10,000 new FPOs bythat period across the States.

Currently, there are over3,000 FPOs in the country,considered to be quite lowgiven the fact that the totalmarginal and small farmers,having landholding size ofup to five acres, account forover 85 per cent of total farm-ers in the country.

Besides, as per the pact,the NCDC and Lakshadweepadministration will also worktogether on areas such as ani-mal husbandry, dairy, agri-culture, food processing, ruralfinance and women issuesthrough cooperative princi-ples in the island.

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Former Congress presidentRahul Gandhi on Thursday

said fisherfolk need an inde-pendent fisheries ministry andnot just a department within aMinistry, responding to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’sswipe at him.

At a public meeting inPuducherry, the Prime Ministerexpressed shock over RahulGandhi’s statement last weekthat there was no “dedicated”fisheries ministry. At the time,BJP leaders, including Union

ministers, had also taken aswipe at Gandhi.

Responding to the PM’sswipe, Rahul tweeted, “DearPM, Fisherfolk need an inde-pendent and dedicated min-istry of fisheries, not just adepartment within a ministry.”“PS- ‘Hum do Humare do’obviously hurt bad,” he saidreferring to the jibe he had usedagainst the Government recent-ly to allege that it is being runby Modi and his “corporatefriends”.

Modi, in his remarks inPuducherry, said, “Congress

leaders say we will make a fish-eries ministry. I was shocked.The truth is, it is the currentNDA government that hadmade a ministry for fisheries in2019.” In 2019, the ModiGovernment had formed aMinistry of Fisheries, AnimalHusbandry and Dairying.

In a separate tweet, RahulGandhi also attacked the gov-ernment over a media reportclaiming that the governmenthas started clearing foreigndirect investment proposalsfrom China on a case-by-casebasis.

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At a time when farmerunions have decided to

support the Bharat Bandhcalled by transport and tradeunions on February 26 andappealed farmers to make itsuccess, Union AgricultureMinister Narendra SinghTomar on Thursday said theGovernment cannot imple-ment the farm laws as thematter is with the SupremeCourt and the SC-constitutedcommittee is yet to submit itsfeedback. The Minister alsoadded that the farmer unions,which have been protestingagainst the farm laws for near-ly three months, have not giventheir feedback on the centre’sproposal of putting the farmlaws on hold for 1.5 years.

The Minister said that theGovernment is fully sensitivetowards farmers. “The gov-ernment has held 12 rounds oftalks with the farmers andthey are ready to talk to farm-ers anytime. We have held sev-eral rounds of talks (withunions). We proposed manyamendments as well as keepingthe farm reform Acts on holdfor 1.5 years and setting up ajoint panel to find solutions.But, they have not respondedto our proposals,” Tomar saidon the sidelines of an event onThursday.

“We can’t implement thefarm laws as the matter is withSupreme Court. The SupremeCourt constituted committee isyet to submit its feedback.They did not respond to theproposal. We are ready fortalks whenever farmers bringtheir views on the govern-ment’s proposal,” Tomar added.

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The NIA on Thursday filed achargesheet against the self-

styled Zonal Commander ofTritiya Prastuti Committee(TPC), a Jharkhand based ter-rorist group of Naxal hue. Thesecond supplementarychargesheet was filed before theNIA special court, Ranchi againstVikas Ganjhu, who is knownwith aliases like Avinash,Dashrath Ganjhu and Varun Ji,is a Zonal Commander of TPC.The agency chargesheeted himunder Indian Penal CodeSections relating to criminalconspiracy and extortion besidesprovisions of the UnlawfulActivities (Prevention) Act andCriminal Law Amendment Act.

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capacity-building of themembers to pave way forconstruct ive debates inParliament,” he said.

The Speaker also talkedabout some of the new ini-tiatives being taken in LokSabha to enhance the practi-cal knowledge of the mem-bers, including briefing ses-sions on the bills being intro-duced in the lower house.

He advised that similarprogrammes should beorganised in the legislativeassemblies as well. Birla alsotalked about PRISM, a newservice that was introduced inParliament during the BudgetSession, to provide MPs withparliamentary research andinformation support.

“I would like you to setup a similar modern researchwing in the legislative assem-bly to provide round-the-clock support to the mem-bers. We will be happy toprovide all possible supportfor setting up such a researchwing,” he told the MLAs.

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After nearly a decade ofresearch, scientists from the

Jawaharlal Nehru Centre forAdvanced Scientific Research(JNCASR), Bengaluru, havedeveloped a molecule that couldbe a potential drug candidate tohalt or cure the leading cause ofdementia (70-80 per cent) world-wide. The research has been

published in the journalAdvanced Therapeutics.

About 5-6 per cent of indi-viduals between the ages of 65-70 years in India suffer fromAlzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition which isincurable. However, a recenttrend has been observed wherepeople in their 30s or 40s are alsodeveloping signs of Alzheimer’sdisease, which is a cause of

worry. In such a dismal scenario,the study by the JNCASR, anautonomous institute under theDepartment of Science &Technology (DST) is a ray ofhope for many. As per the study,Dr T Govindaraju, Professor,JNCASR, and his team designedand synthesised molecules whichcan reduce the toxicity of-amy-loid peptide—that accumulates inthe central nervous system.

With the annulment of thepartition of Bengal by EmperorGeorge V in 1911 at the DelhiDurbar, the Hindu punch soft-ened with the idea of havingHindu-Muslim cordiality. Thatwas the inauguration of so-called secularism in Bengal.The Bengali elite began regret-ting their conduct towardsMuslims. Say, inviting a Muslimco-villager to a wedding dinner,making him sit separately to eatand then expecting him tocarry his thali to clean. This isjust one example.

With the rise of NetajiSubhas, the Hindu-Muslimcordiality tended towardsfriendship. A moderate leader,Fazlur Rahman of the KrishakParty, became the Premier ofBengal; this secular trend con-tinued. By early 1947, Netaji’selder brother Sarat Bose, FazlurRahman and Sir Abdul Rahimwere discussing the prospectsof a third dominion, namely,undivided Bengal in additionto Hindustan and Pakistan.

After Independence, theNehruvian ethos and theappeasement of Muslims fortheir votes inflated this trend.The Partition, which displacedmany Hindus, did not lead toany real antagonism againstMuslims in Bengal in its imme-diate aftermath as well as later.So much so that being associ-

ated with the RSS, the HinduMahasabha or the Jana Sanghbecame infra dig. The Hindupolitical movement could notthrow up a popular leaderafter Syama Prasad Mookerjeedied mysteriously in Kashmir.Jana Sangh leader HaripadaBharati was respected but with-out mass appeal. The secularshow persisted and infiltratorsfrom Bangladesh were encour-aged for their votes.

Yet, the Islamist pennydropped at last in the BengaliHindu’s mind. Clearly a revo-lutionary change is takingplace that may well have a reac-tion across the border inBangladesh. There has been acataclysmic change in thethinking of people in WestBengal with the approachingAssembly elections. It is trulya metamorphosis because, fordecades, West Bengal has bothresisted the domination ofwhat the bhadralok would calla “Hindi heartland party” andhas prided itself on its avowed-ly secular outlook; the Bengaliidentity has been preponder-ant over the religious one.

However, the incessantmollycoddling of the religiousminority and even the mostradical jihadist elements hasslowly but surely brought on anabout-turn in the Bengali mind.To the extent that even the most

secular among them havebegun to fear that their Statemight become anotherBangladesh. The first majorsign of West Bengal’s changingpolitical mood was the 2019Lok Sabha election in which theBJP won 18 out of 42 parlia-mentary seats. The rapidly shift-ing scenario with the approachof the 2021 Assembly electionis the beginning of a new chap-ter in West Bengal’s politicaljourney, one that will haveimplications beyond the State.

West Bengal is very much inthe news, especially because ofthe impending Assembly elec-tions. The country is witnessingan acrimonious tussle where theruling Trinamool Congress’incumbent Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee is fighting tosave her Government in the faceof a determined assault by theBJP. The remarkable drama ofthe West Bengal elections is theby-now-discernible wave of dis-content against Mamata — sit-ting Ministers and politicalheavyweights do not otherwisequit on poll eve to join theOpposition. But more signifi-cant is the change taking placein the Bengali psyche. There isgrowing willingness to be moreintegrally an arm of Bharat.

(The writer is a well-knowncolumnist and an author. Theviews expressed are personal.)

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4��6��#��6��#��As lucidly brought out by

Timur Kuran, a TurkishAmerican economistwho teaches at the Duke

University, the practice of Islaminhibits business growth and,therefore, does not enable econom-ic progress or development. Theprohibition of usury is an example.This explains why Islamic societieshave not been economically pro-ductive. Therefore, they had tobecome adept at the conquest ofother lands in search of resources.

Bangladesh has an addedhandicap. For centuries, theBengali elite was more land-owning than business-running.The Bangladeshi culture took itscue from the Bengali elite. Islamis a comprehensive prescriptionfor living, including politics,with the Quran as the ultimatereference point. No Muslimruler could deviate from thatpath. Ideally, jamhuriyat (con-sensus) was the solution.Monarchy, autocracy and oli-garchy were the only alternatives,which left democracy no space.

Sheikh Hasina Wazed some-how fights elections. She haswon four terms in all, is relative-ly secular and grateful to Indiafor the freedom of Bangladesh.Her predecessor, BegumKhaleda Zia, was not. Khaleda’shusband Ziaur Rahman wasalmost pro-Pakistani, being aMuslim ashraf (a descendant ofProphet Muhammad). But whatafter Hasina Wazed retires orrelinquishes power? Would notthere be a change in the coun-try’s foreign policy, especially vis-à-vis India?

It is uncanny that theBengali Hindu elite founded aHindu political ideology. RajNarain Bose is reputed to havecoined the term “Hindutva”, orat least used it for the first timein 1863. He was the grandfatherof Yogi Aurobindo Ghosh. TheHindu Anushilan Samiti wasfounded and functioned only inBengal, with even the greatpoet Rabindranath Tagore beingits leading light. The movementagainst the partition of Bengalin 1905 was largely led by YogiAurobindo and actively supported by Tagore. TheBengal Renaissance was aHindu phenomenon.

�� Sir — It is indeed great that theGovernment has decided to involve pri-vate hospitals in the vaccination drive. Thestep was much needed as it is almostimpossible to vaccinate such a large pop-ulation as ours through the Governmentmachinery only.

The Government cares for the elder-ly population, that’s why it took the deci-sion that everyone above 60 years of ageand those over 45 years with comorbidi-ties will be able to get COVID-19 vaccinesfrom March 1 for free in 10,000Government medical facilities and for acharge at over 20,000 private hospitals.However, how much this charge will be isyet to be seen. The Government mustensures that private hospitals do notcharge “too much” for the jabs.

It is often seen that corrupt employ-ees of Government hospitals, often in col-lusion with private entities, create such ascenario that medicines are not availablein hospital pharmacies or run out of stockwhile these are sold at exorbitant prices byprivate ones. If the COVID vaccine meetsthe same fate, it will be unfortunate andthe ambitious programme will fall flat.Meanwhile, we must not be ready to doleout whatever cost the private hospitalsquote for the jab. The private hospitalsoften take undue advantage as we want toavoid long queues in Government hospi-tals just to save time. We must rememberthat they charge extra only because we areready to pay it.

M Pradyu | Kannur

�� Sir — It refers to the editorial ‘Continuingtravails’ (February 25). With several Statesreporting a surge in COVID-19 cases, itis high time that the RT-PCR test shouldbe made mandatory for entry into allStates. There should also be reasonablerestrictions over interstate movementwhile unnecessary movement should notbe allowed at all.

The increase in Coronavirus cases isbecause many people have stopped follow-

ing the precautions and are lackadaisicalin their approach. People are seen wear-ing masks improperly and are not sanitis-ing their hands. Further, the Governmentalso relaxed the norms as we have seen inMaharashtra, where all categories of com-muters were allowed to travel in the localtrains. This added to the problem whichis now assuming gigantic proportions.

The situation is worse in villages andsmall towns where people don’t even careto wear a mask. They have developed aself-conceived notion that “Corona hasgone” and vaccines have been developed,hence there is no need to worry. Its timethat the Government spread more aware-ness and told people that there is no sub-stitute to the precautions.The situation is do-or-die but we are notready to accept it.

Bal Govind | Noida

�� Sir —Why do we have casinos and whydo Governments want them? What ben-

efit are they? Is it because of the greatamount of money the Governmentreceives from them? The casinos areinvolved in crimes like money launder-ing.

I would like to make just a shortcomment on casinos. Several Australiancasinos have been accused of moneylaundering and generally poor control.The new one in Sydney cannot yet get alicence to operate until it changes itsprocesses.

I must admit that I personally don’tlike casinos and the fact that most peo-ple will lose money, as is obvious by thefact they are profitable. I don’t mind theoccasional bet on horses and a lotteryticket even though I don’t expect to winevery week. But casinos are a lucrativebusiness for the Government and theprofits are high.

Dennis Fitzgerald| Melbourne

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The previous decade saw the fastest increase indebt in emerging economies in the last 50years. The IMF estimated that global public

debt at the end of 2020 would touch 98 per cent ofthe GDP, and India’s gross Government debt wouldbe at 90 per cent of the GDP. According to the IMF’sFiscal Monitor, the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 100per cent in most OECD countries and close to 100per cent in emerging ones. Among the majoreconomies, only China (66.5 per cent), Australia (70per cent) and Germany (72 per cent) have fared bet-ter. The problem economies of Italy and Greece haveseen debt levels rising to 158 per cent and 200 percent of the GDP, respectively, while Japan’s debt is264 per cent. From 2021 onwards, global debt willrise higher than in the pre-COVID times. A cred-ible medium-term fiscal framework is essential tocombat rising debt, but with the pandemic still outof control, additional revenue mobilisation neces-sary for public spending on health and infrastruc-ture is now more difficult than ever before in mostdeveloping countries. The saving grace is that bor-rowing is now cheap, thanks to the interest ratesfalling to exceptionally low levels and is expected toremain lower than the growth rates in most coun-tries. According to S&P Global, in 2023, growth willoutpace interest rates not only in all rich countries,but also in 53 out of 60 emerging economies. The“growth-corrected interest rate”, the differentialbetween interest and nominal growth rates, will be-3.6 per cent in India, -6.5 per cent in China and -33.8 per cent in Argentina.

This legitimately raises the question, shouldemerging economies also rethink their fiscal limits?The Economist quoted India’s budgeted fiscal deficitof 9.5 per cent of the GDP this fiscal year with noroad map to bring it below the three per cent limitprescribed by the Fiscal Responsibility and BudgetManagement Act, while it noted that the latestEconomic Survey had also highlighted that India’sinterest rate has been below its growth rate “by norm,not by exception”, and its assertion that higher debtand fiscal spending during an economic crisis shouldnot cause unnecessary worries. But Fitch Ratings,noted that in the last decade, the average interest ratehad fallen from four per cent to two per cent in devel-oped economies, while across emerging markets, ithad increased from 4.3-5.1 per cent. Thus the ben-efits of lower rates are mostly available to rich nations.

The classical Domar Model lays down two con-ditions for sustainability of Government debt: First,the nominal growth rate should exceed the interestrate on public debt and, second, the primary accountof the Government, which means taking out theinterest payment, should not have any deficit. If bothconditions are satisfied, the debt stock in GDP willdecrease fast, and even if the primary account hasa deficit, it will ultimately converge to a sustainablelevel. But if the growth rate lags behind the interestrate, then public debt will increase indefinitely to beunsustainable. Thus public debt can stabilise at ahigher level but this would render a country vulner-able to economic shocks. However, since thismodel does not consider the interdependenciesexisting between the interest rate, the structure ofpublic spending, the degree of public indebted-ness and the growth rate which influence eachother, economists Hamilton and Flavin suggestedanother model. According to it, the inter-temporalBudget constraint must be satisfied to make the debt

stock sustainable, which requires thepresent value of future primary sur-pluses to cover the size of the currentpublic debt. The uncertainty of futurevalues of projections, interest rates andinflation remains the weakness of thismodel, but whatever model is used,increasing public debt does not nec-essarily imply its unsustainability,especially when a country needsadditional finance to carry out struc-tural forms or for making capitalinvestments on infrastructure.

As long as primary Budgetdeficits are not too large, the mainproblem is to stabilise public debt,independent of the size of the econ-omy so that it may not go beyondcontrol. This is simple budgetaryarithmetic: If the debt was stable at 60per cent of the GDP with a primarydeficit of three per cent, to stabiliseit at 80 per cent would require the pri-mary deficit to be limited to four percent. The Economic Survey points outthat GDP growth in India has alwaysexceeded interest rates in the last 25years, though the primary accounthas often been in deficit, but less thanthe maximum limit defined by thedebt sustainability equations. The sur-vey concludes that even in the worstcase scenario, with real growth beingonly four per cent for the next 10 yearsand high primary deficits 6.8 per centof the GDP (Centre plus States), fiveper cent inflation and a nominal inter-est rate of six per cent, public debt willstill be sustainable. This scenario isnot peculiar to India. The IMF saysthat emerging economies have expe-rienced growth rates exceeding inter-est rates 75 per cent of the time. Ofcourse, there is an element of risk in

case of high prevalence of externaldebt in the overall debt portfoliobecause if the exchange rate weakens,the debt-to-GDP ratio will risesharply even if the interest rateremains modest. But for India, thisrisk is minimal as external debt con-stitutes only about six per cent of ourtotal liabilities (�5.85 lakh crore in2019-20).

Government debt amounted to73.8 per cent of the GDP in 2019-20,before the pandemic pushed it muchhigher. As per the road map pre-scribed by the 15th FinanceCommission, India’s debt shoulddecline marginally from 89.8 per centto 85.7 per cent of the GDP over2020-26, but the decline will practi-cally take place in the last three years.Thus we need to stabilise our debtaround that level provided theseprojections hold. This may not be thecase as additional spending will berequired on health and infrastructure.

But the moot question is whetherthe high debt level is desirable evenif it is sustainable, as public borrow-ing generally crowds out privateinvestment and hurts the economy.Perhaps the answer lies in how theborrowed funds are used. If theGovernment spends on investment,like the 26 per cent increase in capi-tal spending budgeted for the next fis-cal, this risk would be less, especial-ly when the economy is operatingbelow capacity as is the case now;public spending can then bring inadditional private investment byimproving incomes and profitability.

However, this is not the first timea debt pandemic has hit the world andthere were three earlier waves of debt

accumulation during 1970-89, 1990-2001 and 2002-09, all of which beganduring periods of low real interestrates and easy access to borrowingfrom the financial markets. Eachcaused global recessions in 1982, 1991and 2009 and economic downturnsin 1998 and 2001, and were followedby structural reforms designed tolower vulnerabilities, with greaterreserve accumulation and strength-ening of policy frameworks. Controlslike inflation targeting, fiscal rules andmore robust financial sector supervi-sion became the norm.

We are now riding the crest of thefourth wave that began in 2010 butpeaked during the pandemic with theslowing of economic growth in mostcountries. The conditions wereremarkably similar to those after the2008 meltdown, when interest rateswere low and access to financial mar-kets for capital was easy due to thebanks having extended their outreachremarkably. As the pandemic nowtests the resilience of economies, aglobal recession which was alreadyraging, is now pushing the world intoa deep debt crisis, which marked theend of each previous wave. Like in thecase of previous waves, now alsodeeper structural reforms are calledfor. In the Indian context, this willmean many more reforms of the fac-tor markets, along with reform ofagriculture and financial sectorswhile strengthening the overall reg-ulatory mechanisms. Appropriatepolicy choices are crucial becauseonce recovery gets underway, onlyreforms and the accompanying insti-tutional mechanisms can help restoreour fiscal and debt sustainability.

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Actions on the climatechange front are againin the news in the US

after President Joe Bidentook charge. One of his firstexecutive orders pertained toreassembling a federal, cross-Government team to figureout the “social cost of car-bon.”

So, what is the socialcost of carbon (SCC) or ofGreen House Gases (GHG)?SCC is the present value offuture harm caused by anincremental ton of carbondioxide emissions.

It is difficult to estimateSCC because carbon emis-sions, climate change, andeconomic harm are relatedthrough complex processesthat are not fully under-stood. Additionally, the rateat which to discount futureharm is contentious and crit-ical to the magnitude of thepresent value.

As per the InteragencyWorking Group on SocialCost of Carbon, the USGovernment’s technical sup-port document 2010: “TheSCC is an estimate of themonetised damages associat-ed with an incrementalincrease in carbon emissionsin a given year. It is intend-ed to include (but is notlimited to) changes in netagricultural productivity,human health, propertydamages from increasedflood risk and the value ofecosystem services due to cli-mate change.”

It is a well-establishedfact that consequent to cli-mate change, countries facea slew of adverse impacts;damages that are not ade-quately quantified whileassessing these impacts.Developing economies likeIndia are going to bear anunduly larger share of such

impacts.An analysis of the

Climate Risk Index (CRI),2021, shows India to beamong the top 10 mostaffected countries in 2019 onaccount of climate change-induced extreme weatherevents.

India’s annual monsoonseason continued for amonth longer than usual.From June to the end ofSeptember 2019, 110 percent of the normal rainfalloccurred, a record since1994.

According to the CRI, thefloods caused by the heavyrains were responsible for1,800 deaths across 14 Statesand led to the displacementof 1.8 million people. Overall,11.8 million people wereaffected by the intense mon-soon season with the eco-nomic damage estimated tobe $10 billion.

Furthermore, with a totalof eight tropical cyclones,2019 was one of the mostactive Northern IndianOcean cyclone seasons onrecord. Six of the eightcyclones intensified tobecome “very severe.”

The worst was CycloneFani that occurred in May2019 and impacted a total of28 million people, killingnearly 90 people in India and

Bangladesh and causing eco-nomic losses of $8.1 billion.Then, there are other conse-quences in terms of impactson human health and onfood security, to name a few.

The relation between fos-sil fuels and climate change,too, is now accepted beyondany doubt. However, whilecarrying out the cost-benefitanalysis of different optionsto replace fossil fuels, thesedamages — also known as“externalities” — are eithernot taken into account orremain fuzzy. And that iswhere a tool like the SCCmay help.

As per the Institute forPolicy Integrity, the SCC is “ametric designed to quantifyand monetise climate dam-ages, representing the neteconomic cost of carbondioxide emissions.”

In a country like oursthat is trying to transition to

clean energy through itsambitious NationallyDetermined Contributions(NDCs) in terms of emis-sion-intensity reductions andquantum increase in non-fos-sil electricity; it is imperativethat policymaking and regu-latory frameworks areinformed by scientific evi-dence.

This, in turn, demands amethodology to quantify theimpacts that are based onverifiable numbers and arestandardised across sectors.

But even more impor-tantly, it is developed in anacademically rigorous, trans-parent and peer-reviewedprocess so as to have univer-sal acceptability.

And that is where aninter-agency or an inter-min-isterial approach helps inforging a joint ownership.Given that this is not a one-time exercise, a formal mech-

anism needs to be put inplace.

The Apex Committee forImplementation of ParisAgreement (AIPA) constitut-ed by the Union Ministry ofEnvironment, Forest, andClimate Change (MoEFCC)may very well provide such aunified platform. The mech-anism must also provide forengaging with the public andother stakeholders in anongoing fashion.

Going forward, weshould aim at not only devel-oping a metric for quantify-ing the social cost of GHGbut also of other componentsso that the impact of local airpollution, too, can be holis-tically monetised from a pol-icy formulation perspective.

It is time that such com-plex matters attract a morescience-based approach,thereby obviating any kind ofbiases.

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The writer is a formerDirector-General of the

Office of the Comptrollerand Auditor-General ofIndia and an academic.

The views expressed are personal.

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The writer is Senior Director, SocialTransformation, TERI.

The views expressed are personal.

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Script Open High Low LTPRELIANCE 2078.00 2152.25 2071.00 2144.85TATAMOTORS 325.40 334.50 323.30 333.10HDFC 2733.00 2739.00 2677.65 2684.00INFY 1291.00 1299.00 1271.85 1274.75HSCL 41.80 49.30 39.70 49.30AXISBANK 766.00 783.25 760.00 770.80TCS 2980.00 3029.45 2969.10 2992.90ICICIBANK 640.15 648.35 626.55 627.95EQUITAS 86.75 94.65 86.75 88.75SBIN 411.00 414.90 406.60 407.25COALINDIA 146.90 158.60 145.85 156.35TATACHEM 678.00 737.70 676.45 732.80TATASTEEL 733.10 752.85 731.60 742.90BPCL 441.30 467.60 441.30 461.60BHEL 43.50 47.75 43.40 47.20INDUSINDBK 1081.90 1119.20 1081.00 1109.75MARUTI 7094.00 7094.00 6912.85 6927.10BAJFINANCE 5608.00 5618.00 5513.45 5530.15HINDUNILVR 2190.00 2190.00 2160.00 2163.60ADANIPORTS 667.30 711.40 667.30 704.60ONGC 115.60 120.50 115.40 119.00BHARTIARTL 581.00 584.45 577.00 579.15HINDALCO 336.55 354.45 336.55 350.95UPL 564.95 596.80 559.40 592.45TATAPOWER 94.70 97.60 94.45 96.05IDEA 11.52 11.83 11.46 11.64ASIANPAINT 2369.00 2387.00 2336.60 2373.50ADANIENT 815.00 862.05 808.20 843.35KAJARIACER 949.80 960.00 930.20 944.95IOC 99.20 101.95 98.90 100.90HCLTECH 923.95 934.00 923.15 928.45DRREDDY 4429.00 4589.45 4423.80 4479.25NTPC 103.50 110.10 103.05 107.95HDFCBANK 1622.00 1635.80 1601.40 1605.75JUSTDIAL 671.00 767.50 666.90 767.50ITC 209.80 211.20 208.90 209.15GAIL 146.85 152.70 146.30 150.85BANKBARODA 90.00 90.70 89.10 89.90LT 1531.30 1540.90 1502.90 1506.60CIPLA 792.35 815.00 790.35 809.10IRCTC 1690.00 1738.30 1670.65 1726.10HDFCLIFE 722.50 744.00 720.00 733.60SUNPHARMA 603.00 618.80 602.65 609.70GRASIM 1256.15 1288.70 1255.00 1271.85IBULHSGFIN 220.80 227.40 220.00 225.50KOTAKBANK 1935.00 1964.95 1886.90 1895.35M&M 855.00 866.55 842.40 859.40PNB 42.15 42.70 41.75 41.90ULTRACEMCO 6440.00 6466.00 6301.00 6400.75ASHOKLEY 128.00 131.60 127.30 131.15SAIL 72.45 73.85 72.10 73.20WIPRO 428.00 429.00 420.50 421.40BAJAJFINSV 10270.00 10374.25 10130.35 10263.25JSWSTEEL 412.95 424.90 409.35 421.65NESTLEIND 16394.70 16394.70 16102.00 16114.35TITAN 1460.00 1460.00 1430.75 1436.05MFSL 899.30 938.65 885.80 889.15POWERGRID 224.80 232.70 220.80 227.75EICHERMOT 2550.00 2560.00 2517.05 2552.05TECHM 969.90 969.90 952.80 957.80VEDL 207.40 210.85 205.55 207.95DMART 3150.00 3177.40 3071.00 3086.60IDFCFIRSTB 64.90 65.85 64.45 64.70SBICARD 1045.00 1137.70 1042.00 1109.40IEX 310.40 310.40 299.15 301.25NAUKRI 4975.00 5058.40 4944.00 4958.45MAHABANK 25.00 25.83 24.70 25.83ZEEL 206.25 210.80 206.25 208.65DIVISLAB 3481.00 3513.70 3431.00 3439.00BANDHANBNK 338.80 346.65 337.90 342.15MOTHERSUMI 218.35 222.65 216.50 218.25PEL 1870.00 1963.65 1869.15 1950.40HEROMOTOCO 3449.65 3466.05 3402.75 3435.70IBREALEST 85.80 95.10 85.80 92.55BEML 984.20 1089.90 984.20 1070.15POLYMED 716.35 726.05 677.65 712.95SHILPAMED 371.00 385.00 370.05 377.75NBCC 40.10 42.90 40.10 42.35CANBK 162.55 165.85 162.20 163.60APOLLOHOSP 3086.80 3141.65 3060.00 3091.10HINDCOPPER 135.00 140.80 130.00 140.80NATIONALUM 55.60 57.65 55.60 57.20TATACONSUM 628.90 639.00 624.40 628.55FEDERALBNK 87.00 88.05 85.60 86.25DABUR 507.00 510.00 505.65 509.00QUESS 746.80 807.00 733.15 783.05ADANIGREEN 1180.00 1192.00 1118.00 1129.20RCF 57.40 67.70 56.75 67.70BRITANNIA 3425.00 3426.50 3375.00 3405.60LUPIN 1030.00 1040.05 1009.00 1023.45DLF 316.00 319.05 313.20 314.55BAJAJCON 253.45 259.00 250.00 254.05AMBUJACEM 271.50 281.70 271.30 279.60BAJAJ-AUTO 3979.70 3979.70 3908.20 3940.60CHOLAFIN 511.90 537.95 509.30 525.95MUTHOOTFIN 1294.00 1339.80 1294.00 1329.70HINDPETRO* 245.25 259.20 245.25 252.40SHREECEM 27620.40 27889.95 27260.00 27463.15BEL 136.55 142.95 136.55 141.65RBLBANK 251.20 256.70 247.25 248.95RAIN 169.95 174.00 161.60 166.50SUNTV 496.50 521.00 496.50 513.45SRTRANSFIN 1397.90 1404.55 1372.00 1380.05SBILIFE 878.00 882.60 869.85 872.10ABCAPITAL 125.10 127.70 118.70 120.60VOLTAS 1025.00 1054.60 1017.65 1049.10L&TFH 103.75 106.90 103.50 106.20PETRONET 253.25 260.90 252.80 258.75

APOLLOTYRE 242.00 243.60 239.55 241.55ICICIGI 1492.00 1516.00 1473.10 1482.60GSFC 82.50 91.50 82.10 88.55INDIAMART 8975.00 8999.95 8607.40 8690.45AUROPHARMA 863.15 875.00 856.25 863.15DEEPAKNI 1343.95 1410.05 1330.90 1395.60RVNL 30.50 33.15 30.25 32.70JUBLFOOD 3075.85 3101.75 3016.55 3057.25IOB 18.45 19.03 18.00 19.03JINDALSTEL 339.25 346.95 339.25 344.80CUMMINSIND 783.50 822.85 783.50 805.40HAVELLS 1156.65 1195.95 1150.00 1175.35CONCOR 594.10 596.90 572.00 575.20GODREJPROP 1499.00 1564.25 1499.00 1550.75TORNTPOWER 376.55 395.70 365.55 393.00BATAINDIA 1471.00 1494.00 1470.10 1482.15MARICO 420.10 428.70 406.05 409.80M&MFIN 215.50 220.50 213.85 219.05AMARAJABAT 888.00 899.00 878.90 890.25INDIGO 1635.00 1669.55 1620.95 1659.50LICHSGFIN 446.00 455.75 444.60 451.40NMDC 124.90 129.10 124.55 128.00CADILAHC 441.00 444.70 436.35 437.80BIOCON 396.45 400.50 390.95 397.90TATAMETALI 790.40 804.00 778.00 786.95MGL 1145.30 1207.75 1139.50 1197.50DEEPAKFERT 171.50 183.55 168.45 180.35JINDALSAW 74.00 84.40 74.00 82.75TANLA 899.90 940.00 870.10 885.70EXIDEIND 205.60 209.50 204.50 208.05TATACOFFEE 112.20 119.25 111.60 118.50MRF 88300.00 88677.00 87449.75 87673.15SIEMENS 1934.60 1948.75 1885.80 1907.25PVR 1410.00 1424.30 1385.90 1413.60GREAVESCOT 124.00 134.35 123.90 131.85GNFC 263.90 280.00 261.40 274.70IGL 512.00 516.00 507.15 511.40PIDILITIND 1725.00 1734.40 1697.05 1721.25RECLTD 139.35 145.35 137.15 144.00ESCORTS 1312.65 1334.15 1300.00 1309.45CENTURYTEX 490.35 497.00 486.55 494.65BOSCHLTD 15170.95 15281.80 14891.05 15092.25BALKRISIND 1590.00 1609.70 1570.85 1581.35UBL 1194.00 1202.55 1173.75 1197.10ADANIPOWER 55.95 57.20 55.50 56.50ABFRL 184.00 185.20 176.50 182.20BANKINDIA 88.90 89.70 86.10 86.50BHARATFORG 604.25 623.60 604.25 621.05ACC 1760.00 1810.00 1730.15 1801.60MMTC 36.40 37.60 35.80 36.50FINCABLES 387.00 415.00 387.00 407.60HONAUT 47200.00 47946.00 46713.40 46938.40JKCEMENT 2651.05 2685.90 2580.05 2622.40SONATSOFTW 470.00 500.00 470.00 491.50CHAMBLFERT 232.00 248.70 232.00 243.80MANAPPURAM 173.80 180.55 172.65 179.35GLENMARK 470.00 477.80 468.80 472.55LTI 3711.00 3760.00 3640.00 3658.05PIIND 2235.00 2280.00 2211.00 2217.45GMDCLTD 60.10 64.40 59.05 62.65TATAELXSI 2713.95 2749.95 2665.25 2678.80NBVENTURES 66.50 71.65 65.50 70.55GRANULES 327.95 337.40 325.50 326.65TCNSBRANDS 495.90 505.00 482.00 499.25DIXON 20000.00 20440.00 19980.05 20233.00TATAMTRDVR 126.00 130.00 125.55 129.30COLPAL 1565.00 1575.65 1543.60 1571.80UNIONBANK 41.80 42.35 41.20 41.50FINOLEXIND 617.90 644.80 608.05 642.40BLISSGVS 178.20 178.20 174.10 174.50GMRINFRA 25.50 27.35 25.50 26.85HAL 1074.00 1100.00 1060.15 1095.90INDUSTOWER 281.50 282.00 269.70 273.60GRAPHITE 479.00 494.80 478.25 488.55RAYMOND 382.30 391.90 376.45 378.85SPICEJET 84.05 86.70 84.05 85.05SUZLON 5.75 5.75 5.54 5.75INDIACEM 162.30 169.00 161.80 166.50CEATLTD 1580.00 1665.00 1580.00 1656.50BAJAJELEC 978.90 1024.80 967.95 993.25ENGINERSIN 73.30 76.55 73.30 75.40IDBI 30.60 31.45 30.45 30.80HUDCO 47.05 49.35 46.65 47.90LAURUSLABS 364.40 364.40 356.35 357.35AMBER 3224.95 3269.90 3161.35 3240.35SRF 5401.00 5590.65 5401.00 5540.45JKTYRE 128.05 131.05 125.70 126.45FSL 102.60 103.80 101.30 102.05MPHASIS 1691.15 1698.65 1620.65 1651.75ICICIPRULI 477.00 494.00 475.70 477.80MINDTREE 1605.00 1662.40 1598.55 1604.85CENTRALBK 19.68 19.77 19.28 19.77WOCKPHARMA 495.40 507.40 491.40 493.25TVSMOTOR 602.00 609.45 593.10 596.75UJJIVAN 250.00 256.00 245.20 253.45INDHOTEL 121.50 122.25 118.95 119.35EDELWEISS 67.90 72.35 66.60 70.30IDFC 56.85 57.00 55.40 56.40PFC 125.00 130.95 124.75 129.80HEG 1440.15 1499.00 1440.15 1475.60RADICO 558.10 569.55 558.10 568.45PAGEIND 28939.40 29281.45 28649.00 28792.55NHPC 23.95 24.90 23.80 24.30LTTS 2543.00 2644.00 2509.85 2620.45SCHNEIDER 113.50 120.85 111.95 116.40HDFCAMC 2916.20 2964.25 2916.20 2952.85LALPATHLAB 2330.00 2335.35 2288.00 2304.40SCI 103.00 103.45 100.00 100.45GICRE 197.00 209.40 195.60 198.50

GODREJAGRO 489.00 491.20 482.45 484.05AUBANK 1207.00 1207.00 1158.65 1165.85BALMLAWRIE 118.00 124.50 117.50 122.55GESHIP 285.00 319.65 285.00 308.55GODREJCP 693.20 698.95 684.60 696.05ALOKTEXT 20.20 20.30 19.90 20.05IPCALAB 1850.00 1878.75 1847.60 1865.50IIFL 281.95 292.00 272.15 277.80PTC 71.65 78.25 71.55 76.35WELSPUNIND 68.40 73.65 67.90 71.85ALKYLAMINE 5069.00 5138.00 5013.10 5131.80GMM 4305.00 4334.30 4204.85 4231.10ATGL 507.50 508.95 495.55 500.35BERGEPAINT 735.00 735.00 715.80 723.10DCBBANK 116.20 118.45 115.40 117.70VIPIND 390.00 403.30 385.00 391.65DBL 659.90 674.10 648.00 666.75NAM-INDIA 338.00 345.80 336.50 340.50NCC 90.90 91.90 90.00 91.05STAR 843.90 865.90 843.90 854.05KTKBANK 72.00 72.00 68.50 69.35OIL 126.60 129.65 126.15 127.85PNBHOUSING 451.45 468.75 451.45 456.65MEGH 78.75 82.15 78.00 81.25KPITTECH 143.00 148.00 139.80 146.70MIDHANI 189.00 193.80 189.00 192.00SOLARA 1377.50 1465.00 1353.20 1443.65NAVINFLUOR 2506.00 2545.20 2470.30 2482.05WELCORP 126.25 132.30 125.40 131.30AARTIDRUGS 644.00 644.00 634.40 635.60CRISIL 1964.00 1976.00 1950.00 1966.00IOLCP 568.00 576.50 565.00 569.90ZENSARTECH 282.00 300.00 278.10 296.95JAICORPLTD 90.10 96.25 90.10 94.50HFCL 30.35 30.50 29.60 29.80NIACL 160.95 169.40 158.60 161.45ABBOTINDIA 14600.00 14650.85 14275.05 14348.45GUJGAS 500.00 502.00 493.35 496.30BOMDYEING 75.40 77.40 75.35 76.05INDIANB 145.00 147.15 142.60 143.00THERMAX 1227.95 1316.70 1227.95 1291.10ALKEM 2780.00 2781.45 2721.70 2736.65OBEROIRLTY 560.00 569.25 546.95 554.05CHENNPETRO 98.80 102.75 97.15 99.60ADANITRANS 749.90 759.95 736.00 740.00TORNTPHARM 2523.70 2523.70 2461.05 2464.80ABB 1598.70 1598.70 1514.10 1536.55COROMANDEL 768.30 786.20 764.60 779.05CASTROLIND 125.00 128.40 125.00 128.20CARBORUNIV 510.00 523.05 503.00 505.35MCX 1509.00 1531.00 1506.05 1519.90MOIL 154.00 156.85 153.00 155.10JSWENERGY 73.90 75.60 72.85 73.30AFFLE 5398.00 5405.05 5162.30 5195.35ASTERDM 151.00 153.50 147.80 148.95UCOBANK 14.70 14.89 14.34 14.41CANFINHOME 497.60 513.00 488.00 489.20FORTIS 159.20 161.95 158.50 159.05

BAJAJHLDNG 3676.95 3756.10 3667.85 3715.85PFIZER 4491.60 4594.90 4471.30 4570.55JKPAPER 148.00 149.45 145.30 145.75HINDZINC 308.50 308.80 302.60 304.25TATAINVEST 1112.00 1130.00 1094.65 1120.55STLTECH 218.00 218.75 212.00 214.20SOUTHBANK 9.07 9.14 8.85 8.90RAMCOCEM 985.00 990.00 962.35 984.00CESC 606.85 617.65 600.65 613.25GARFIBRES 2439.05 2789.00 2385.75 2649.75CUB 168.00 170.15 166.80 167.35ISEC 410.00 412.15 403.45 408.05CENTURYPLY 308.80 310.00 304.85 308.85KRBL 213.00 213.00 199.00 200.00SEQUENT 235.80 248.55 235.80 245.90KALPATPOWR 381.15 395.00 381.15 391.50NATCOPHARM 817.00 823.70 796.30 802.20CGCL 350.00 368.20 344.45 366.05DELTACORP 150.15 153.75 150.15 151.45TATACOMM 1033.10 1101.05 1033.10 1096.40TRENT 792.00 824.90 787.60 819.05MRPL 38.65 40.45 38.50 39.25PHILIPCARB 203.50 204.55 199.15 200.15VENKYS 1594.00 1644.00 1581.80 1618.15APLAPOLLO 1025.00 1073.00 1020.10 1060.45KNRCON 211.00 211.00 204.05 208.65

RAJESHEXPO 496.00 507.00 493.00 500.90POLYCAB 1350.00 1372.45 1347.70 1356.15DALBHARAT 1458.35 1482.90 1433.00 1442.85RELAXO 880.00 889.00 865.00 869.40AARTIIND 1221.15 1242.15 1218.00 1235.65RALLIS 261.00 265.20 259.25 261.95PNCINFRA 263.25 268.60 261.30 265.85IRCON 95.95 95.95 94.35 94.90VBL 1057.00 1057.00 1019.60 1035.25ORIENTCEM 91.20 95.75 91.20 94.25TV18BRDCST 29.60 30.40 29.00 29.70SYNGENE 565.00 570.50 558.80 562.30PRESTIGE 308.00 311.95 301.00 308.25APLLTD 882.00 902.55 881.00 897.80VGUARD 229.25 235.70 225.00 230.70RITES 248.00 252.00 244.00 247.80SUDARSCHEM 534.00 541.50 531.70 537.40NLCINDIA 52.80 53.95 52.15 53.00SWANENERGY 144.95 150.10 144.95 147.90FRETAIL 71.00 71.00 69.65 70.50ASTRAZEN 3535.00 3535.00 3502.00 3508.55ASTRAL 2119.00 2128.00 2079.80 2115.65AVANTI 475.00 488.25 471.00 474.15TTKPRESTIG 7077.65 7650.50 7077.65 7410.05VAKRANGEE 53.85 55.95 53.25 55.90COCHINSHIP 381.95 388.95 375.25 382.25LUXIND 1802.00 1802.00 1753.50 1759.60SWSOLAR 231.00 237.40 226.90 235.80GSPL 248.00 255.50 245.75 253.25NOCIL 171.00 175.95 171.00 172.00AEGISLOG 282.80 306.20 282.55 303.50BDL 349.50 359.90 349.50 356.30DCMSHRIRAM 476.25 482.00 468.75 472.20CROMPTON 386.85 388.20 379.85 383.25ADVENZYMES 367.00 375.30 356.40 360.15JSL 70.00 74.70 70.00 73.10LAXMIMACH 6750.05 6859.70 6521.95 6573.10SUNTECK 345.15 351.65 345.15 349.35SANOFI 8150.00 8245.00 8120.00 8154.65EMAMILTD 465.20 472.70 460.45 463.05TRIDENT 14.10 14.15 13.94 13.98SUPREMEIND 2017.45 2027.25 1968.35 1979.10WHIRLPOOL 2436.00 2436.00 2403.50 2423.15JMFINANCIL 93.50 95.00 92.05 92.40COFORGE 2518.05 2561.75 2507.70 2517.30VRLLOG* 261.30 266.00 258.30 264.95SPARC 170.00 170.20 167.60 168.35J&KBANK 29.90 30.10 29.50 29.65BAYERCROP 5096.00 5239.15 5089.40 5144.15REDINGTON 199.50 199.50 186.65 188.75KANSAINER 573.00 577.00 555.00 572.65CYIENT 651.35 663.55 651.35 656.45VINATIORGA 1445.10 1480.00 1402.65 1420.30GLAXO 1458.55 1481.00 1451.25 1472.10METROPOLIS 1966.80 2025.00 1950.10 1978.90BIRLACORPN 879.00 879.00 860.00 862.90BSOFT 243.50 243.50 231.25 232.00BALRAMCHIN 181.55 182.00 176.80 177.25PGHL 7001.90 7001.90 6687.00 6734.50MOTILALOFS 618.40 625.35 612.05 615.55LINDEINDIA 1434.70 1500.00 1410.00 1478.55TEAMLEASE 3405.00 3508.50 3255.00 3428.20TIMETECHNO 55.70 58.25 55.00 57.30ITI 128.10 130.45 126.85 127.15KEC 425.00 437.70 420.70 430.45BLUEDART 4702.35 4779.30 4691.00 4719.25JSLHISAR 123.65 127.95 123.50 126.55FLUOROCHEM 541.65 592.00 541.60 577.70ATUL 6570.00 6706.55 6521.30 6606.55AAVAS 2213.10 2285.10 2213.10 2254.75OFSS 3025.00 3115.00 3006.05 3018.10SIS 432.50 440.00 432.50 437.30FINEORG 2353.15 2362.40 2282.70 2334.10ENDURANCE 1430.95 1450.00 1390.00 1438.25BBTC 1190.00 1199.60 1166.95 1175.75UJJIVANSFB 34.30 34.65 34.05 34.35SUNDRMFAST 715.50 723.55 675.00 689.35MINDACORP 102.40 105.55 100.35 102.80JCHAC 2629.50 2650.95 2590.80 2627.35CSBBANK 228.70 231.20 226.10 227.45PERSISTENT 1700.00 1700.00 1612.65 1638.153MINDIA 21729.95 22439.00 21565.25 22369.05CARERATING 470.25 479.40 470.25 475.25KSCL 508.00 515.60 507.75 508.55WESTLIFE 495.00 501.00 487.90 495.80NETWORK18 36.80 37.75 36.75 37.40NH 457.00 468.70 437.05 439.90CAPPL 469.90 473.00 463.50 465.30SJVN 25.80 25.80 25.35 25.40VAIBHAVGBL 3312.00 3492.45 3298.05 3467.65DISHTV 11.78 11.78 11.46 11.57JBCHEPHARM 1143.00 1158.00 1121.60 1138.95JKLAKSHMI 370.40 377.85 370.40 375.40IFCI 9.09 9.23 8.86 9.05KSB 709.90 715.80 684.95 709.20SKFINDIA 2265.00 2304.55 2194.10 2218.95GODFRYPHLP 912.55 914.50 903.00 907.85MAHINDCIE 181.70 182.95 180.30 181.20POWERINDIA 1575.00 1630.05 1526.85 1619.95ESABINDIA 1950.00 1950.00 1809.00 1827.40BLUESTARCO 805.00 843.75 805.00 838.65GRSE 200.05 201.85 199.00 200.35AJANTPHARM 1719.00 1760.35 1719.00 1748.20EIHOTEL 98.00 98.90 97.00 97.10SYMPHONY 1058.75 1086.50 1058.75 1075.40GUJALKALI 316.90 324.35 316.85 321.90JAMNAAUTO 69.20 69.20 67.40 67.75MAHLIFE 485.10 524.50 482.35 510.05ORIENTELEC 270.00 275.00 268.10 269.15

HAWKINCOOK 5593.00 5753.00 5399.95 5507.10ASHOKA 114.75 115.70 111.00 113.40SUMICHEM 296.00 301.95 296.00 297.70KEI 505.85 507.25 498.35 505.15LEMONTREE 40.65 41.20 40.65 41.05GDL 177.00 180.90 173.30 177.00RATNAMANI 1921.10 1921.10 1873.85 1890.50INOXLEISUR 316.00 318.80 315.30 316.55SUVENPHAR 481.10 486.15 477.00 478.50ITDC 321.00 327.30 315.25 318.35CHALET 170.00 170.00 165.20 166.05GODREJIND 442.25 448.00 439.65 445.30DCAL 122.50 122.50 119.40 120.70NILKAMAL 1889.95 1900.00 1822.25 1876.55GALAXYSURF 2150.00 2235.70 2150.00 2200.60VARROC 403.80 416.00 403.70 409.20

GEPIL 275.20 284.00 275.20 279.15NAVNETEDUL 87.25 90.45 87.00 89.40BASF 2008.00 2023.00 1980.00 2006.70EPL 227.45 227.70 221.15 225.85PRSMJOHNSN 105.20 110.50 105.20 108.15SOBHA 457.00 457.90 443.75 452.05WABCOINDIA 5885.95 5984.30 5885.95 5957.30EIDPARRY 321.45 324.55 318.00 321.65UFLEX 368.95 370.90 367.20 368.80DBCORP 98.55 99.20 96.90 97.80HEIDELBERG 238.90 238.90 231.80 233.25SUPRAJIT 287.15 300.90 282.85 292.70SHK 120.15 120.85 118.50 119.90PHOENIXLTD 799.00 816.50 792.00 799.90SPANDANA 637.70 641.00 633.00 633.90ECLERX 954.40 954.40 923.00 924.00IRB 108.00 108.15 106.35 106.90FDC 283.00 286.55 280.00 281.45MAHSCOOTER 3769.00 3800.00 3732.05 3745.75CREDITACC 699.65 726.10 691.35 692.70FORCEMOT 1340.00 1343.50 1321.10 1325.80STARCEMENT 102.90 102.90 96.00 98.10AIAENG 1802.05 1830.55 1779.20 1816.80JAGRAN 54.30 55.65 53.95 54.55DHANUKA 732.15 738.00 725.55 728.00GRINDWELL 867.00 896.90 867.00 881.25IFBIND 1280.00 1280.35 1223.05 1239.75TIINDIA 1080.70 1084.45 1047.10 1067.00MAHSEAMLES 287.75 291.55 282.80 285.45HERITGFOOD 335.65 336.65 321.35 324.65FCONSUMER 7.95 8.05 7.92 7.98INDOCO 300.00 300.00 291.65 292.35SCHAEFFLER 5161.00 5246.00 5124.20 5224.60THYROCARE 921.25 923.85 908.00 919.40CCL 239.65 241.80 237.55 238.65GILLETTE 5521.00 5650.00 5520.00 5628.55GPPL 98.40 99.70 97.70 99.00SHOPERSTOP 213.00 213.00 207.00 208.40PGHH 13051.00 13093.70 12900.00 13021.30TIMKEN 1313.50 1319.00 1291.95 1301.05JTEKTINDIA 90.00 92.60 89.35 89.80MINDAIND 554.00 580.00 554.00 568.25SFL 2090.00 2090.00 2039.15 2049.00JYOTHYLAB 149.75 150.80 148.80 149.05CHOLAHLDNG 603.10 614.50 588.70 608.25SOLARINDS 1314.70 1320.90 1303.00 1317.45TRITURBINE 106.00 107.45 103.70 104.50ZYDUSWELL 1905.85 1909.90 1892.80 1904.20BRIGADE 292.95 295.00 289.55 292.05CERA 3976.10 3985.45 3903.05 3948.10VMART 2760.00 2760.00 2677.55 2708.05TASTYBIT 15699.00 15879.80 15451.00 15460.55LAOPALA 221.85 229.00 220.50 222.70KPRMILL 944.95 944.95 918.00 927.90INDOSTAR 324.10 339.00 324.10 339.00GHCL 220.00 220.45 214.30 216.30TVSSRICHAK 1951.45 1980.00 1925.00 1932.70TCIEXP 938.00 945.25 919.30 920.45MHRIL 232.55 233.45 225.05 228.25HATHWAY 29.75 30.30 29.60 30.15NESCO 605.00 605.00 596.45 600.40AKZOINDIA 2144.80 2169.00 2142.05 2152.05GULFOILLUB 707.60 736.55 707.60 731.50ALLCARGO 131.00 131.95 130.45 130.85MAHLOG 469.70 484.85 469.70 480.50VSTIND 3496.30 3496.75 3450.20 3476.55TVTODAY 271.05 272.00 268.45 269.85MASFIN 845.00 845.00 831.10 833.50RESPONIND 177.95 181.15 175.10 177.50ORIENTREF 237.05 238.00 233.90 235.00ERIS 608.90 608.90 586.05 590.10IIFLWAM 1186.05 1199.10 1155.00 1193.80VTL 1127.20 1146.65 1127.20 1143.35SHRIRAMCIT 1603.90 1620.30 1600.30 1609.95OMAXE 71.55 73.15 71.00 71.20

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGENIFTY 50 15079.85 15176.50 15065.35 15097.35 115.35COALINDIA 146.90 157.70 145.75 156.90 12.50UPL 560.80 597.00 559.00 594.50 40.55ADANIPORTS 669.40 711.35 667.15 705.00 39.80HINDALCO 337.60 354.60 337.00 350.00 17.20BPCL 441.95 467.80 441.85 461.30 22.60NTPC 103.60 110.20 103.00 108.20 5.00ONGC 116.00 120.50 115.35 118.75 5.15RELIANCE 2076.00 2152.00 2073.00 2147.00 86.00INDUSINDBK 1080.00 1119.50 1079.00 1110.25 40.25TATAMOTORS 325.35 334.70 323.25 333.60 11.95IOC 99.40 101.95 98.85 101.45 3.50JSWSTEEL 411.00 425.00 410.00 421.00 12.90CIPLA 795.00 814.00 790.45 813.40 24.35GAIL 147.95 152.80 146.20 150.45 4.00AXISBANK 765.00 783.50 762.15 769.00 19.60TATASTEEL 735.20 753.00 731.95 744.50 16.80POWERGRID 223.70 232.80 220.80 227.80 5.05HDFCLIFE 724.00 744.00 721.00 734.95 16.15HCLTECH 925.90 934.05 922.15 931.80 15.80GRASIM 1258.00 1289.00 1254.00 1271.65 21.45SUNPHARMA 606.40 618.90 602.70 611.15 9.70TCS 2974.00 3029.90 2968.45 2985.05 36.95BHARTIARTL 579.90 584.45 577.05 580.10 7.15DRREDDY 4421.15 4590.00 4421.15 4486.00 50.45M&M 853.10 866.60 842.05 859.10 9.50EICHERMOT 2555.00 2558.95 2517.00 2554.00 18.20BAJAJ-AUTO 3936.00 3980.00 3910.05 3953.50 21.65ULTRACEMCO 6406.00 6468.00 6338.45 6441.10 26.55SBILIFE 873.20 882.90 869.70 875.00 3.45ASIANPAINT 2375.00 2386.25 2336.20 2369.90 8.55BAJAJFINSV 10340.00 10377.95 10131.60 10234.00 34.40SBIN 411.00 414.90 406.55 407.40 1.15ITC 209.50 211.20 208.80 209.20 0.35BRITANNIA 3420.00 3425.70 3374.60 3407.50 1.95INFY 1288.45 1299.75 1272.00 1275.00 0.70HDFCBANK 1609.75 1636.25 1602.00 1605.40 -1.05HEROMOTOCO 3450.00 3460.00 3402.25 3435.80 -5.80TECHM 964.00 969.00 952.25 958.00 -2.05SHREECEM 27553.00 27879.90 27238.30 27485.35 -67.65WIPRO 423.10 429.00 420.45 421.95 -1.15MARUTI 7065.00 7069.00 6915.00 6926.05 -26.90BAJFINANCE 5601.00 5619.95 5511.35 5540.00 -22.90HINDUNILVR 2177.00 2185.00 2160.00 2163.45 -15.40HDFC 2718.50 2739.00 2677.00 2687.00 -20.75TITAN 1460.00 1462.95 1430.50 1440.25 -11.60KOTAKBANK 1927.00 1965.20 1887.55 1892.20 -19.00LT 1534.00 1540.60 1502.00 1510.00 -16.60DIVISLAB 3477.25 3513.50 3432.00 3436.40 -43.65NESTLEIND 16306.00 16373.30 16100.00 16119.85 -226.30ICICIBANK 642.70 648.40 626.30 629.00 -12.10

SE 500B

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGENIFTY NEXT 50 34994.75 35180.15 34933.30 34996.80 230.70SBICARD 1045.00 1137.45 1041.75 1113.90 73.80PEL 1873.95 1964.00 1868.20 1953.95 94.75AMBUJACEM 271.20 281.60 271.15 281.10 12.70ACC 1742.00 1810.00 1730.10 1808.70 78.05PFC 125.50 130.95 124.75 130.00 5.60HINDPETRO 246.00 259.25 245.50 252.75 8.00NMDC 124.45 129.15 124.20 127.80 4.05PETRONET 253.95 260.95 252.85 259.20 7.30MUTHOOTFIN 1300.00 1340.00 1300.00 1328.50 35.00HAVELLS 1152.10 1195.90 1152.10 1175.00 28.95BIOCON 391.70 400.70 390.55 399.00 9.50BAJAJHLDNG 3641.00 3757.15 3641.00 3717.00 85.10INDIGO 1621.55 1669.95 1619.55 1658.00 37.00BANDHANBNK 338.00 346.75 337.50 342.45 7.30LUPIN 1021.95 1040.50 1015.00 1030.00 21.70UBL 1178.00 1204.65 1173.00 1199.50 23.60BANKBARODA 89.90 90.65 89.00 90.00 1.65HDFCAMC 2930.00 2965.00 2930.00 2964.70 38.85DABUR 508.00 510.55 505.05 510.25 6.60GICRE 197.60 209.50 195.50 198.50 2.40CADILAHC 441.00 444.40 436.15 438.00 4.55COLPAL 1558.75 1576.60 1543.10 1567.00 12.45GODREJCP 696.00 699.00 684.10 698.00 5.10BOSCHLTD 15080.00 15287.00 14920.00 15065.00 99.00PNB 42.25 42.65 41.75 42.05 0.25MOTHERSUMI 219.20 222.80 216.50 218.40 1.20TATACONSUM 628.90 639.15 624.35 629.00 3.05IGL 510.10 516.40 507.00 510.60 2.35PGHH 13023.95 13144.15 12868.10 13030.00 46.05DLF 317.00 319.00 313.35 314.20 1.00NAUKRI 4995.00 5060.65 4945.00 4950.00 13.45SIEMENS 1926.00 1949.00 1904.40 1908.00 4.90ICICIPRULI 476.50 494.00 475.35 478.60 1.00AUROPHARMA 867.75 875.20 856.35 861.95 -0.05HINDZINC 309.00 309.75 302.20 304.80 -0.35ICICIGI 1499.90 1517.50 1473.25 1482.00 -4.20ALKEM 2782.30 2788.50 2720.05 2752.00 -9.80PIDILITIND 1720.00 1734.40 1695.95 1718.80 -6.30MCDOWELL-N 550.00 551.45 543.30 544.35 -2.25BERGEPAINT 728.00 731.10 715.70 721.80 -2.95ADANITRANS 749.90 758.00 735.50 740.70 -3.05OFSS 3050.75 3150.00 3005.10 3020.00 -17.60TORNTPHARM 2490.00 2523.00 2461.50 2463.00 -14.80INDUSTOWER 282.00 282.65 269.50 274.90 -2.55CONCOR 593.85 597.00 571.45 575.75 -5.60ABBOTINDIA 14591.60 14688.45 14270.05 14368.90 -222.70LTI 3730.00 3763.80 3640.00 3659.00 -59.75DMART 3150.00 3175.85 3070.00 3082.90 -56.80MARICO 422.00 428.75 406.10 410.50 -13.90ADANIGREEN 1174.60 1192.00 1117.45 1131.00 -38.35

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India’s Budget is tilted towardssupporting growth and the

fiscal deficit target of 6.8 percent for 2021-22 is realistic,Moody’s Investors Service saidon Thursday.

With regard to India’sfinances, Moody’s said weakfiscal position will remain a keycredit challenge in 2021.

It said the government’sfiscal deficit for 2020-21 and2021-22 should be lower thanprojected, supported bystronger revenue generationin ongoing March quarter andhigher nominal GDP growth inthe next fiscal year.

“India Budget tends to tilta little bit in favour of supportfor growth. The deficit inBudget for FY’22 was abovewhat we expected, but never-theless we think that the deficit

target is a realistic one.“The government has

incorporated a conservativeassumption of nominal

GDP growth and we thinkmost revenue assumptions con-servative, with the possibleexception of monetisationexpectations pegged in Budget,”Moody’s Associate ManagingDirector (Sovereign Risk) GeneFang said.

Wide fiscal deficits com-bined with lower real and nom-

inal GDP growth over themedium term will constrainthe government’s ability toreduce its debt burden, Fangsaid in an online conferenceorganised by Moody’s and itsaffiliate ICRA on ‘India CreditOutlook 2021’.

Moody’s said the prospectsfor fiscal consolidation remainweak particularly given thegovernment’s mixed trackrecord of implementing rev-enue-raising measures.

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The Government accordstop priority to startups and

wants to create a congenialatmosphere for them to growthrough various incentives andschemes, Union Minister SomParkash said on Thursday.

Addressing the ‘AssochamStartup Finale’ event virtually,the Minister of State forCommerce and Industry high-lighted that a number of incen-tives are being provided by thegovernment for startups, rang-ing from how to form a busi-

ness to income-tax exemptionand relaxation in labour laws.

He also observed that thecredit guarantee scheme and aFund of Funds with SIDBIhave also been initiated.

“So, the government is giv-ing top priority to theseschemes. I assure from thegovernment side whatever helpis required, we all should worktogether to make India strong,to make India Aatmanirbhar,”

Parkash said, adding thathe sees the future of India inthese startups.

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Cooking gas LPG price onThursday was hiked by

�25 per cylinder across all cat-egories, including subsidisedfuel and those availed byUjjwala scheme beneficiaries.

This is the third increasein rates this month on the backof spiralling international ratesas demand recovered.

A 14.2-kg cylinder inDelhi now costs �794 as against�769 at which they were sup-plied on Wednesday, accordingto a price notification fromstate-owned fuel retailers.Theincrease is applicable across allcategories including subsidisedand non-subsidised users. LPGis available only at one rate,market price, across the coun-try. The government, however,gives a small subsidy to selectcustomers. However, this sub-sidy has been eliminated inmetros and major citiesthrough successive priceincreases over the past coupleof years.

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New Delhi:Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday said loansto retail customers, especially those to low-income borrow-ers, will remain most affected due to the shock caused by thecoronavirus pandemic. Despite the pandemic challenges, assetquality at Indian banks has performed better than expectedat the start of the outbreak, Moody’s said.”Corporate loans,in particular, have performed well because banks prior to thepandemic had largely provisioned for legacy problem loansand tightened underwriting standards,” Moody’s VicePresident and Senior Credit Officer Srikanth Vadlamani said.

PTI

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In order to reduce pendencyof cheque bounce cases

which have reached 35 lakh

across courts, the SupremeCourt on Thursday asked theCentre whether it can createadditional courts for expedi-tious disposal of such matters.

A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices LNageswara Rao and S RavindraBhat asked Additional SolicitorGeneral Vikramjit Banerjee to

inform it by next week whetherthe central government waswilling to create additionalcourts under Article 247 forspeedy disposal of cases under

Negotiable Instrument Act (NIACT).

Banerjee said he wouldseek instruction and inform thecourt by next date of hearing.

Article 247 of theConstitution gives power toParliament to establish certainadditional courts for the betteradministration of laws made by

it or of any existing laws withrespect to a matter enumerat-ed in the Union List. The topcourt was hearing a suo motucase to work out a mechanism

for expeditious and just adju-dication of cases relating to dis-honour of cheques, fulfillingthe mandate of law and reducehigh pendency.

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Acrisis over the supply ofmedical oxygen for coron-

avirus patients has strucknations in Africa and LatinAmerica, where warnings wentunheeded at the start of thepandemic and doctors say theshortage has led to unnecessarydeaths.

It takes about 12 weeks toinstall a hospital oxygen plantand even less time to convertindustrial oxygen manufactur-ing systems into a medical-grade network. But in Brazil

and Nigeria, as well as in less-populous nations, decisions tofully address inadequate sup-plies only started being madelast month, after hospitals wereoverwhelmed and patientsstarted to die. The gap in med-ical oxygen availability “is oneof the defining health equityissues, I think, of our age,” saidPeter Piot, director of theLondon School of Hygiene& Tropical Medicine, whosaid he survived a severe coro-navirus infection thanks to theoxygen he received.

Doctors in Nigeria anx-

iously monitor traffic as oxygendeliveries move through thegridlocked streets of Lagos.Desperate families of patientsaround the world sometimesturn to the black market.Governments take action onlyafter hospitals are over-whelmed and the infected dieby the dozens.

In Brazil’s Amazonas state, a pair of swindlers werecaught reselling fire extin-guishers painted to look like medical oxygen tanks. InPeru, people camped out in linesto get cylinders for sick relatives.

Only after the lack of oxy-gen was blamed for the deathsof four people at an Egyptianhospital in January and sixpeople at one in Pakistan inDecember did governmentsaddress the problems.

John Nkengasong, directorof the Africa Centers forDisease Control andPrevention, said medical oxy-gen is a “huge critical need”across the continent of 1.3 bil-lion people and is a main rea-son that Covid-19 patients aremore likely to die there duringsurges.

Yangon: Supporters ofMyanmar’s junta attacked pro-testers demanding the end tothe military government thattook power in a coup, usingslingshots, iron rods and knivesThursday to injure several ofthe demonstrators.

The violence complicatesan already intractable standoffbetween the military and aprotest movement that hasbeen staging large rallies dailyto demand that Aung San SuuKyi’s elected government berestored to power. She andother politicians were oustedand arrested on February 1 ina takeover that shocked theinternational community andreversed years of slow progresstoward democracy.

Facebook, meanwhile,announced that it would ban allaccounts linked to the country’smilitary as well as ads frommilitary-controlled companies— a reflection of internation-al outrage over the takeover.

On Thursday, tensionsescalated on the streets betweenanti-coup protesters and sup-porters of the military. Photosand videos posted on socialmedia showed groups attacking

people in downtown Yangon aspolice stood by without inter-vening. The number of injuredpeople and their condition wasnot immediately clear.

According to accounts andphotos posted on social media,hundreds of people marchedThursday in support of thecoup. They carried banners inEnglish with the slogans “WeStand With Our DefenseServices” and “We Stand WithState Administration Council,”which is the official name of thenew junta.

When the marchers were

jeered by bystanders near thecity’s Central Railway station,they responded by firing sling-shots, throwing stones andthen chasing down thebystanders. One band thatbroke away stabbed and kickeda man they had chased. Videoshows there had been both pro-and anti-coup crowds near thestation Thursday.

Supporters of the militaryhave gathered in the streetsbefore, especially in the daysimmediately before and afterthe coup, but had not used vio-lence so openly. AP

Yerevan: Armenia’s prime ministeraccused top military officers onThursday of attempting a coup afterthey demanded he step down, addingfuel to months long protests calling forhis resignation following the nation’sdefeat in a conflict with Azerbaijan overthe Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The demonstrations began imme-diately after Prime Minister NikolPashinyan signed a November 10 peacedeal that saw Azerbaijan reclaim con-trol over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas thathad been held by Armenian forces formore than a quarter-century.

Those protests have gathered pacethis week, and the feud with his top mil-itary commanders has weakenedPashinyan’s position. The immediatetrigger for the standoff was Pashinyan’sdecision to oust the first deputy chief

of the military’s General Staff, a groupof the armed forces’ top commanders.

In response, the General Staff calledfor Pashinyan’s resignation — but theprime minister doubled down and dis-missed the chief of the General Staff.

He described the military’s state-ment as a “military coup attempt” andurged troops to only listen to hisorders.

He also called on his backers tocome to the streets and then laterwalked among them, using a loud-speaker to rally support. “We need aconversation, not a confrontation,” hesaid.

Pashinyan denied rumors that hewas preparing to flee the country.

Supporters of Pashinyan and theopposition engaged in sporadic scuffleson the streets of Yerevan on Thursday.

AP

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China on Thursday deniedsubjecting US diplomats

to COVID-19 anal tests fol-lowing reports f romWashington that some of itspersonnel were being made toundergo the procedure.

Chinese Foreign Ministryspokesperson Zhao Lijiantold reporters at a daily brief-ing that “China has neverasked US diplomats in Chinato go through anal swabtests .” A US StateDepartment spokespersonsaid Washington was “com-mitted to guaranteeing thesafety and security ofAmerican diplomats andtheir families while preserv-ing their dignity, consistent

with the Vienna Conventionon Diplomatic Relations aswell as other relevant diplo-matic law provisions.” TheWashington Post reportedlast week that some US per-sonnel had told the depart-ment they had been subject-ed to the anal tests.

The procedure has beenapplied in China because it isreportedly more accuratethan nasal or mouth swabs.

China has not reported anew local case of Covid-19 inmore than a week, but hasmaintained strict testing,especially for people arrivingfrom abroad. Diplomats andother foreigners with specialstatus are exempted from aban on most foreigners enter-ing the country.

Washington: Republican lead-ers in the House and Senate saya proposed plan for an inde-pendent commission to studythe Capitol insurrection isoverly tilted towardDemocrats, arguing that thepanel should have an evenparty split like the one formedto study the September 11 ter-rorist attacks.

House Republican leaderKevin McCarthy and SenateRepublican leader MitchMcConnell said Wednesdaythat a legitimate commissionwould be comprised of anequal number of Republicansand Democrats. A draft pro-posed by House SpeakerNancy Pelosi would create an11-member commission withfour Republicans and sevenDemocrats, three of whomwould be chosen by PresidentJoe Biden, according to one ofmultiple aides who spoke oncondition of anonymity to dis-cuss the details under negoti-ation.

Pelosi has not commentedon the draft or said why thereshould be more Democraticmembers. AP

Yangon: Social media giantFacebook announced onThursday it was banning allaccounts linked to Myanmar’smilitary as well as ads frommilitary-con-trolled compa-nies in thewake of thearmy’s seizureof power onFebruary 1.

It said in astatement that it was treatingthe post-coup situation inMyanmar as an “emergency,”explaining that the ban wasprecipitated by events sincethe coup, including “deadlyviolence.”

Facebook already hasbanned several military-linkedaccounts since the coup,including army-controlledMyawaddy TV and state tele-vision broadcaster MRTV.

The bans are also beingapplied on Instagram, which isowned by Facebook. Facebookand other social media plat-forms came under enormouscriticism in 2017 when rightgroups said they failed to actenough to stop hate speechagainst Myanmar’s MuslimRohingya minority. AP

Washington: A legislation hasbeen introduced in the USCongress for countering theChinese propaganda by creatinga new sanctions authorityagainst state-backed disinfor-mation networks.

Republican StudyCommittee ChairmanCongressman Jim Banks andSenator Tom Cotton onWednesday introduced theCountering ChinesePropaganda Act.

The bill requires theSecretary of State to examinewhether or not the United FrontWork Department meets the cri-teria to be sanctioned under thisnew authority.

The legislation is based onrecommendations from theRepublican Study Committee’sNational Security Strategy andauthorises sanctions against theUnited Front Work Department

(UFWD), which is an overseasinfluence arm of the rulingCommunist Party of China(CPC). The United Front par-ticipated directly in the Uyghurgenocide and the oppression ofChristians in China, but its ulti-mate goal is to spread those per-secutory tactics around theglobe, Banks said.

“The leadership inWashington may have changed,but China’s political warfarehasn’t. It’s fallen to Congress toexpose and counter CommunistParty disinformation. We can’tback down now,” he said.

“The Chinese CommunistParty expands its disinformationcampaign each day – concealinginformation on the origin ofCovid-19, lying about its oppres-sion of Uighurs and other reli-gious minorities, and infiltratingAmerican universities and busi-nesses,” Cotton said. PTI

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Hundreds of German police officers con-ducted coordinated raids early on

Thursday in Berlin and the surroundingstate of Brandenburg in the investigation ofan organisation banned over allegations ofIslamic extremism. Some 850 police, includ-ing SWAT teams, were involved in the raidsof apartments linked to members of theorganisation known as Jama’atu Berlin, thestate Interior Ministry said. The organisa-tion, whose name translates literally as the“Berlin Group,” was banned by Berlin’s stateInterior Minister Andreas Geisel ahead ofthe raids on the grounds it was a “very rad-ical” group that followed the Islamic Stategroup’s ideology. “The ban is another clearsignal to all religious extremists,” Geisel said.“We will fight the roots of terror. We willtolerate no place where terror is preachedand the so-called Islamic State is glorified.”

Beijing: President Xi Jinping onThursday declared that Chinahas scored a “complete victory”in its fight against poverty bylifting over 770 million peopleout of it in the last four decades,calling it another “miracle” cre-ated by the country that will godown in history.

Absolute poverty has beeneradicated in the world’s mostpopulous country, Xiannounced while addressing agathering held here to mark thecountry’s accomplishments inpoverty alleviation and honourits model poverty fighters.

China has a population ofaround 1.4 billion.

“No country has been ableto lift hundreds of millions of

people out of poverty in such ashort time,” Xi said.

Xi said that all poor peoplein rural areas have been liftedout of poverty.

With this, China hasachieved the UN goal of pover-ty eradication 10 years ahead ofthe 2030 deadline, he said.

Over the past eight years,the final 98.99 million impov-erished rural residents livingunder the current poverty linehave all been lifted out ofpoverty. All the 832 impover-ished counties and 1,28,000impoverished villages have beenremoved from the poverty list,he said.

Since the launch of thereform and opening up in the

late 1970s, 770 million impov-erished rural residents haveshaken off poverty when cal-culated according to China’scurrent poverty line, he said.

China has contributed tomore than 70 per cent of glob-al poverty reduction over thesame period, Xi, also GeneralSecretary of the rulingCommunist Party of China(CPC), said.

With such achievements,China has created another“miracle” that will “go down inhistory,” he said.

Xi said since he assumedpower, China has invested accu-mulative fiscal funds of nearly1.6 trillion yuan (about $246billion) into poverty alleviation

over the past eight years.He said according to the

World Bank’s internationalpoverty line, the number ofChinese people lifted out ofpoverty over the past 40 yearsaccounts for more than 70 percent of the global total.

China considers extremerural poor are those with annu-al per capita income of less than$620, or about $1.69 a day atcurrent exchange rates, whichcompared closely with theWorld Bank’s minimum stan-dard of $1.90 a day.

Complete eradication ofpoverty in China was the maingoal announced by Xi when hecame to power towards the endof 2012. PTI

Washington: Republicans ral-lied solidly against Democrats’proposed $1.9 trillion Covid-19relief bill as lawmakers await-ed a decision by the Senate’sparliamentarian that could bol-ster or potentially kill a pivotalprovision hiking the federalminimum wage.

Despite their paper-thincongressional majorities,Democratic leaders were poisedto push the sweeping packagethrough the House on Friday.They were hoping the Senate,where changes seem likely,would follow quickly enough tohave legislation on President JoeBiden’s desk by mid-March.

By late Wednesday, not oneRepublican in either chamberhad publicly said he or shewould back the legislation. GOPleaders were honing attacks onthe package as a job killer thatdoes too little to reopen schoolsor businesses shuttered for thecoronavirus pandemic and thatwas not only wasteful but alsoeven unscrupulous.

“I haven’t seen aRepublican yet that’s foundsomething in there that theyagree with,” said HouseMinority Leader KevinMcCarthy, R-Calif. “I think all

Republicans believe in threesimple things: They want a billthat puts us back to work,back to school and back tohealth. This bill is too costly,too corrupt and too liberal.”

The hardening oppositionsuggested that Biden’s firstmajor legislative initiative couldencounter unanimous GOPopposition. That was a coun-terpoint to the new president’srefrain during his campaignabout bringing the countrytogether and a replay of theRepublican wall that newPresident Barack Obamaencountered in 2009 and mostof his administration.

Democrats showed nosigns of backing down, citing

the assistance the measurewould spread to people, busi-nesses and state and local gov-ernments.

“If congressionalRepublicans want to oppose allthat, my response is: Goodluck,” Senate Majority LeaderChuck Schumer, D-N.Y., saidon the Senate floor.

By Wednesday evening,the most suspense was over adecision anticipated fromElizabeth MacDonough, theSenate’s nonpartisan arbiter ofits rules, that promised enor-mous political and legislativeconsequences.

The relief bill includes aprovision that over five yearswould hike the federal mini-mum wage to $15 an hour. Theparliamentarian is involvedbecause Democrats are pushingthe overall $1.9 trillion measurethrough Congress under specialrules that will let them avoid aSenate filibuster by Republicans.

Those same rules prohibitprovisions with only an “inci-dental” impact on the federalbudget because they are chieflydriven by other policy pur-poses. The parliamentariandecides if a provision passesthat test. AP

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As far as news portals, the guidelinesinsist on a self-regulatory body like TVchannels and overseeing mechanism inthe Information Broadcasting Ministry.

Javadekar said publishers of news ondigital media would be required toobserve Norms of Journalistic Conductof the Press Council of India and theProgramme Code under the CableTelevision Networks Regulation Act,providing a level-playing field betweenthe offline (print, TV) and digitalmedia, an official statement said.

“Digital media portals have no rightto spread rumour. Media’s freedom isabsolute but with reasonable restrictions.Content matter, especially media, OTTand digital media will be administeredby I&B Ministry. Intermediary platformsmonitoring will be done by the ITMinistry in the manner they have beendoing it,” Javadekar said.

In a move that could have majorramifications for players like Twitter andWhatsApp, the Government said thatsignificant social media intermediariesproviding services primarily in thenature of messaging will have to enableidentification of the “first originator” ofthe information that undermines sov-ereignty of India, security of the State,or public order. The intermediary, how-ever, will not be required to disclose thecontents of any message. The rules alsostate that users who voluntarily want toverify their accounts should be given an

appropriate mechanism to do so, and beaccorded a visible mark of verification.

Users will have to be provided witha prior intimation and explanationwhen significant social media interme-diary removes content on its own. Insuch cases, users have to be provided anadequate and reasonable opportunity todispute the action taken by the inter-mediary.

Rules related to social media will beadministered by the Ministry ofElectronics and IT, while those relatedCode of Ethics and procedure and safe-guards in relation to digital media willbe administered by the Ministry ofInformation and Broadcasting. On rulesrelated to over-the-top (OTT) and dig-ital media, the Government said, guide-lines have been framed keeping inmind the difference between viewershipin a theatre and television, as comparedto watching it on internet. A Code ofEthics and three-tier grievance redres-sal mechanism would be applicable fornews publishers, OTT platforms anddigital media.

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The subject expert committee (SEC)took up the application on Wednesday, butdid not give emergency use authorisationon the basis of the current data set that wasproduced before its members.

“The subject expert committee has

sought more data such as the immuno-genicity data from the company. The appli-cation has not been rejected, they will begiven a chance to present their case onceagain after they have all the relevant doc-uments,” said a senior Government offi-cial on the condition of anonymity.

The company had presented the safe-ty profile of Phase 2 clinical trials, andinterim data from Phase 3 trials.

However, Dr Giridhara R Babu,Bengaluru-based epidemiologist ques-tioned the DCGI stand and asked, “What’sthe rationale for differential decisions?Phase 3 of Sputnik published similar toCovieshield based on data from othercountries. No results from the latter onbridging study but approved for use.Covaxin is approved without phase 3results,” he tweeted.

Dr Rahul Bhargava, Director-BoneMarrow Transplant Programme, FortisMemorial Research Institute, Gurugramtoo termed “wrong” the DCGI’s move tohold the approval decision.

He pointed out that Covaxin was givenEUA in January this year based on 1,500patients data (phase I and II data). He alsopointed out that while Covishieldh had adata from 23,000 patients from Europeancountries, but it had a very low number ofIndian patient data. In contrast, Sputnikhas efficacy data of 91 per cent with 15,00subjects, has not been given the nod, heasserted.

A study published in The Lancetsaid, “Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine demon-strated efficacy of 91.6 percent againstCovid-19, according to interim results ofPhase 3 trials.”

Several countries like Argentina,

Venezuela, UAE, Iran have also started giv-ing Sputnik V jabs to their citizens. Thevaccine is undergoing phase 3 clinical tri-als in India, Dr Bhargava noted.

In September last year, Dr Reddy’spartnered with the Russian DirectInvestment Fund (RDIF) to conduct theclinical trials of Sputnik V and for its dis-tribution rights in India.

According to the RDIF, Egypt hasrecently approved Russia’s Sputnik V vac-cine against Covid-19, becoming the 34thcountry outside of Russia and third inNorth Africa to do so. RDIF, Russia’s sov-ereign wealth fund is responsible formarketing the vaccine abroad.

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Modi can also appeal to the UKSupreme Court but only after the HighCourt certifies that the appeal involves apoint of law of general public importance,and either the High Court or the SupremeCourt gives leave for the appeal to be made.

Meanwhile, Indian-origin MinisterPriti Patel has a number of matters relat-ed to Indian economic offenders addingup. Mallya’s case is yet to be fully concludedand that of accused arms dealer SanjayBhandari is set to begin its magistrates’court proceedings from April.

The UK Court’s judgment is a signif-icant achievement in the context of CBI’sefforts to curb corruption and is areminder that fugitives, who have eludedthe process of law after commission of largevalue frauds, cannot consider themselves

above the process merely because they havechanged jurisdictions. The judgementalso vindicates the painstaking investiga-tion by CBI, especially since Nirav Modihad raised various issues with regard to theadmissibility of evidence, the fairness ofinvestigation, trial, prison conditions,availability of health facilities in India andextraneous consideration, with a view todivert attention from his own acts, it said.

The CBI had registered the case onJanuary 31, 2018 against the partner ofthree private firms and others includingthen officials of Punjab National Bank ona complaint from Punjab National Bankon the allegations that the accused hadhatched a criminal conspiracy amongstthemselves to defraud the Punjab NationalBank to the tune of Rs 6,498 crore(approximately) by fraudulently issuingLetters of Undertaking. During investiga-tion, CBI conducted searches at 42 premis-es and arrested fifteen persons. A largenumber of witnesses were examined andvoluminous documents were collected.

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Pointing out that publishers havebeen providing complete access to“quality journalism with credible news,current affairs, analysis, information andentertainment”, INS said there is a hugedistinction between the editorial contentfrom quality publications and fake newsthat is spreading on other informationplatforms. INS has also noted the devel-opment taken place in Australia and

some other countries in this regard. Itsaid that over the past year, publishersacross the world have been raising theissue of fair payment for content and ofproper sharing of advertising revenuewith Google. “It is also noted thatGoogle has recently agreed to bettercompensate and pay publishers inFrance, the European Union and notablyin Australia,” said INS.

The Society has also pointed out thatadvertising has been the financial back-bone of the news industry.

“However, newspaper publishersare seeing their share of the advertisingpie shrinking in the digital space, evenas Google is taking a ‘giant share ofadvertising spends’, leaving publisherswith a small share,” it said.

INS has also raised the issue of giv-ing greater prominence to editorialcontent from registered news publish-ers to tackle fake news, as Google picksup content from several sites that are notcredible, thus “amplifying misinforma-tion and propagation of fake news”.

Pointing out that the INS is engagedin discussions with Google on these vitalissues, the letter also reiterated that“Indian print media is the most credi-ble source of news and information inthe country, and newspapers play a vitalrole in nation-building”.

It also added that the pandemic andthe current digital business model havebeen unfair to publishers, making itunviable for the print media industry.“We invest heavily on journalism, thecore of our news operations becausenewspapers play a vital role in the soci-ety.”

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Experiential travel has gainedmomentum over the years.People want to spend on expe-

riences and creating memories morethan ever, and this has become afavourable trend for the adventuresports industry. Comprising of vari-ous diverse activities services andexperiences, it has created a niche foritself in all holiday packages and itin-eraries, be it budget trips or luxuryvacations.

The term ‘extreme sports’ is asso-ciated with high- adrenaline activitieslike bungee jumping, skydiving, scubadiving, surfing, rock climbing, etc.They are different from our usualsporting activities, in the sense thatthey are more mentally challengingand about overcoming fears. Theyconsciously establish equanimityamidst ‘perceived chaos’ or usuallyfearful situations, rather than a test ofskill and stamina. This is why stand-ing at the edge of the bungee bridge,you can have an athlete back off, whilesomeone at 110 kgs could not onlyattempt it but accomplish as well. It’san entirely different ball game and welove seeing people face their fears andrise above them.

�Why indulge in adventure sports?They offer thrill, excitement and

adrenaline rush of accomplishing amilestone by overcoming fears. Byindulging in these action-packedactivities, people get to have theironce-in-a-lifetime experiences andmemories to be cherished forever.Needless to say, it’s a great de-stressortoo.

�Discover yourselfAdventure sports are also a way

towards self-discovery. Extreme sportssuch as mountain biking, scuba div-ing; kayaking, rafting, and bungeejumping are life-changing experi-ences that demand extreme courage

and mental strength. Those who stepout of their comfort zone for leisureare considered to be extremely auda-cious.

Research published in the Journalof Humanistic Psychology revealsthat adventure sports lead to a posi-tive transformation in courage andhumility. Bane, one of the researchparticipants discussed his experienceof windsurfing in storm conditionsand admitted that it triggered anabsolute life transformation, makinghim better and stronger.

�Test your limits People participating in adventure

sports go beyond their limits to over-come the anxiety and negativity intheir lives. Moreover, they acquire self-reliance, improved self-esteem, andconfidence to face challenges and sit-uations more optimistically. Suchexperiences often result in betterwell-being and improved lifeexpectancy, reveals the researches.

�Joy of living It is a common misconception

that adventure sports are forfitness/adventure enthusiasts or‘experts’. Just like any other activity inlife, while better fitness levels improvethe experience, it is definitely not aprerequisite. In fact, one must expe-rience these activities to generallyimprove their joy of living.

�Find your calmWhen the pandemic struck us,

tourism was the worst hit. However,once everything started gettingunlocked, people found solace intraveling and adventure sports tosatiate their wanderlust.

Pushing your mental confines,adventure sports often put you inextreme situations which naturallymake you handle it maturely andcalmly. Flying in the open air afterjumping out of the plane is not a cake-walk. Being in such a situation triggerschemical reactions in your mind butkeeping your cool is what it demands.Such epiphanies develop you into amore matured and composed person-ality.

�Broaden your horizonsMeeting new people and visiting

new places introduce you to a newworld every time. It expands therange of your knowledge and percep-tion. New culture, habits and lifestylehelp you become adaptive to theenvironment. You get the opportuni-ty to indulge in unexplored terrains oflife and perpetually gain better per-spective. Involving in adventurousactivities is an ideal getaway from theanxious life. This is a self-realisationjourney that welcomes you to anentirely different world of thrill andpositivity.

(The writer is Director-BusinessDevelopment of an adventure sportscompany, Jumpin Heights.)

Later today, the Indian CarOf The Year (ICOTY) jury

will announce the ICOTY for2021. There are some verystrong contenders this yearand with the diverse jury, ofwhich I am a member, will takea measured decision aboutwhich car will win. It will be aclose contest I am sure. But Irecently drove a car which isalready a strong contender fornext year’s award, the RenaultKiger.

Despite recent events inJapan, the arrest and subse-quent epic escape of CarlosGhosn — which have shakenthe Renault-Nissan alliance toits core, the two companiescontinue to work together inIndia. They share a large man-ufacturing facility South ofChennai and also share sever-al vehicle platforms. The latestshared platform is the CMF-Amodular platform, that allowfor vehicles of different purpos-es to be built sharing commonmechanicals. The first car fromthis was 2019’s Renault Triber,which was quite a good car.Now the Nissan Magnite andthe Renault Kiger go head-to-head in the rather unique toIndia, ‘subcompact’ SportsUtility Vehicle (SUV) or whatsome describe as the ‘beefedup’ hatchback segment.

I’ ll get to the battlebetween the Magnite and theKiger soon, but first a bitabout Renault. The Frenchcarmaker has been moderate-ly successful in India. Theycame into the market with

their eyes open, realised thatIndia was a price-sensitivemarket and entered with theDuster, a built-to-a-price vehi-cle from Renault’s Dacia stablein Romania. As we all know,the Duster was a hit. Yes,Renault’s alliance withMahindra was an ill-fated onewhich likely hit the success ofthe Logan sedan, but so didIndia’s bizarre four-metre rulefor cars. The Fluence and theKaptur were commercial fail-ures, possibly because RenaultIndia did not have the pricingpower that managementthought they did, but converse-ly that is why the Kwid was ahit. Renault is clearly viewed asa value-for-money carmakerthat doesn’t make bad cars.

Honestly, the Kiger is agood car for the money thatyou are paying for it. Prices

start at �5.45 lakh for the basemodel with the 72PS natural-ly-aspirated engine. The RXZvariant powered by the 100PSturbocharged engine that Iwas driving had an ex-show-room price of �8.55 lakh andhad been specified with fea-tures like a wireless charger anda two-tone colour schemewhich would have brought upthe price a bit, but even at eightand a half lakh, you are flab-bergasted at just how good thevalue on the car is.

Let me get one thingstraight up front, is this the bestcar in its class? No, it is not asnice inside and to drive as theKorean twins, the Sonet andVenue. The handling is not assharp and while this turbo-engine responds faster andsounds smoother than whatyou experience on its rivals, the

overall ride comfort, handlingand interiors, particularly thequality of the seats and plasticsare better on the Korean cars.That said, you will be payingalmost two lakh more for aproperly specified variant com-pared to this manual turboKiger. And it isn’t as if youdon’t get some nice features,you can specify wirelesscharging as an accessorywhich allows for wirelesssmartphone integration. TheRenault infotainment operat-ing system feels simpler thanthose on its rivals, but its sim-plicity means it is easier tonavigate. The seven-inch dig-ital display for the instrumentcluster is well laid out and canbe changed depending onwhich of the three drivemodes (Eco, Urban or Sport)you select. Sport mode does

really does sharpen the engineand on the narrow windingroads of Goa’s interiors, if youare willing to deal with someslight floatiness when youcorner hand. My biggest gripeabout the Kiger was actuallythe stitching on the steeringwheel that isn’t flush andwhen your hands need tomove about a bit can be irri-tating.

Between the Magnite andthe Kiger then, which oneshould you choose? Keep inmind that these two cars havefar more in common than theSonet and Venue, not leastbecause unlike Kia andHyundai they have their ownseparate factories. While theSonet and Venue as well as theCreta and Seltos are built onthe same platform, the vehi-cles don’t only look very dif-

ferent, they have noticeabledifferences in the way thatthey drive and handle. TheKiger and Magnite are builton the same production lineby the same assembly work-ers and honestly, I wouldprobably be nitpicking if Ireally wanted to find rideand handling differences.

The main differences arein the looks and interiors.Now, I heard a comment thatcalled the Kiger ‘a Kwid onsteroids’ but, that said, I actu-ally like the Kwid’s looks par-ticularly after the refresh.Personally, I think the Renaultlooks smarter because whilethe Magnite is not bad-look-ing, I really do not like thegrille. But aesthetics are a per-sonal choice. But, I do preferthe interiors of the Kiger,things feel a bit better laid out,and while the interiors aresimilar to the Triber, theTriber does have a nice pas-senger cabin. So, for me, itwould be the Kiger, but thingsare marginal here as well,you are more than welcome todisagree with me on this.

But the biggest differenceis between the two brands, asI wrote earlier, Renault iswell-established. The Duster,Kwid and Triber have all donerelatively well in the Indianmarket, there is a trust aboutthe brand, you know that theproduct will be good andsales and service should notbe worries. Nissan has nothad that success over theyears, and while the newmanagement of the companyis trying to make a difference,in the short run, I’m prettysure the Kiger will outsell theMagnite even though bothcars pretty much cost thesame.

Actor Vaani Kapoor is gear-ing up for three back-to-

back releases in three months.With Bell-Bottom locking May28 as its release date, Shamsherareleasing on June 25 andChandigarh Kare Aashiqui onJuly 9, Vaani will be in anintensely hectic promotionalschedule starting April. She isthrilled that all her films are slat-ed to be big screen entertainers.

Vaani says, “It is remarkablethat I have three back-to-backreleases in three months. So, I’mmentally preparing myself for anintensely hectic work schedule.I don’t think I will have a singleminute for myself for the nextfive months and I’m not com-plaining about that.”

The actor is excited to pre-sent herself in three differentand diverse avatars in a span ofthree months. “It is exciting that

the audience will see me in threeextremely diverse ways throughthese projects. I’m only hopingthat all these three films areaccepted by audiences and playan instrumental role in makingpeople come back to the the-atres,” she says.

Vaani expects the audienceto come back to the theatres towatch good cinema that givesthem an unforgettable experi-ence. She says, “I have shot forthese films during the pan-demic. The industry has shownits intent to only entertain audi-ences when COVID-19 sub-sides. So, I’m really lookingforward to how the audiencewill support our films and theindustry. We will offer themsome of the best films and I’mhoping people will appreciatethe content and head to the-atres.”

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While a number of socio-economicissues hound us today, our right to

basic nutrition and health is one thatshould be demanded across the globe,especially in India. It is, therefore, not sur-prising that the second goal in the 17Sustainable Development Goals is ‘ZeroHunger’, which aims to reduce malnutri-tion in infants and address the nutrition-al needs of adolescent girls, pregnant andlactating women and older people.

While India continues towards itscommitment to becoming a malnutrition-free country, a number of hurdles, furtherexacerbated by the pandemic, continue tohinder and slowdown the progress. It isestimated that the pandemic will lead toa rise in hunger, with approximately 270million people facing food insecurity asopposed to the 149 million during pre-COVID times. These findings are not onlygrave but a serious cause for alarm —India ranks 94 out of 107 countries on theGlobal Hunger Index 2020; in addition tograppling with an advanced protein defi-ciency issue with more than 70 per centof our population at a risk of protein defi-ciency across age groups. A recent surveyindicated that every second household inIndia has experienced a reduction in theirintake of cereals, pulses and vegetables,even months after lockdown restrictionswere lifted in most parts of the country.

It is, therefore, important — nay crit-ical — to tackle the pressing issue of mal-nutrition and protein deficiency in spe-cific head-on by not only creating aware-ness of protein-rich food sources but alsodispelling misconceptions around acces-sibility, affordability, cultural nuances, andinherent hyperlocal habits. And thisProtein Day, celebrated on February 27,with its theme of Powering With PlantProtein, let’s delve into everything protein.

�WHY PLANT PROTEIN?We are perhaps the country with the

single largest vegetarian population in theworld with also a sizable population offlexitarians i.e. those who prefer a vege-tarian diet while still enjoying meat (ani-mal protein) in moderation. One of thekey myths affecting the protein deficien-cy debate in India is the perception thatnot only are protein-rich foods expensivebut that there is limited variety for thosewho don’t eat meat — over 76 per centrecently surveyed shared this sentiment.Moreover, when presented with a num-ber of protein-rich sources, a large seg-ment of Indian mothers could only iden-tify three out of 11 protein-rich foods cor-rectly; thereby eliminating several key pro-tein-rich sources completely.

This lack of knowledge coupled withthe misconceptions that plant-protein isnutritionally inferior is myth to dispel aswe continue in our quest to educateIndians about the role of proteins, espe-cially plant-based protein rich diets thatwill help bridge the protein based nutri-tion and affordability gap.

�IS IT FOR EVERYONE?The quantity, quality and timing of

protein consumed throughout the dayacross one’s life span together play a role

in determining the health benefits ofdietary protein. While one needs differ-ent levels of protein across differentphases of life, the underlying key factremains — protein is a key micronutrientthat is essential for one’s growth and devel-opment throughout life.

It begins with pregnant women andlactating mothers. A woman’s diet duringand immediately after pregnancy is piv-otal for both, mother, and child, with pro-teins playing a key role in overall healthand the baby’s development. Diversity ofdiet and adequate quantity and quality ofprotein through variety of sources likepulses, dals, millets, whole grain cereals,milk and milk products, variety of beansand nuts and oilseeds are pertinent to beincluded in daily diet. For babies, theimmunoglobulin of the breast milkderived from the colostrums adds to thebenefits accrued from exclusive breastfeeding of a baby for a minimum of sixmonths which needs to be emphasised toall lactating mothers. The good qualityprotein based weaning foods with plantprotein diversity should be an integral partof an infant’s weaning foods.

For growing children, the need forprotein intake is even more augmented asit not only helps in muscle and bonegrowth but also adds significantly tostrengthening their immunity. Be it theusual routine at school, extra-curricularactivities and cognitive development,protein plays an important role. The vari-ety can be obtained from pulses andlegumes, nuts and oilseeds, millets, oats,soybeans, almond or soy milk and peanutbutter.

For healthy adults, who go about theirday-to-day life, it is much required to con-tinue to build immunity, maintain ahealthy gut and repair of muscle wear andtear. In fact, it is believed that we maybegin to naturally lose as much as eightper cent of overall muscle mass everydecade after we turn 40, making it moreimportant than ever to consume moreprotein as we age. Be it increased amountsof nuts, seeds, tofu, soy chunks, plant-based milk, beans such as edamame, greenvegetables, jackfruit and pulses andlegumes, adequate protein consumptionbased on one’s requirements and lifestyleis crucial.

And while one may believe that pro-tein’s role with age might diminish, it isquite the contrary: With reports suggest-ing that one in three adults over the ageof 50 experiences advanced muscle andstrength loss, and thus, adequate proteinintake is recommended for aging adultsto support muscle and strength require-ments.

Even as we recognise and act thisProtein Day, it is important to make notethat this cannot be a one-time or one-daydiscourse. Protein-related issues are verymuch an ongoing concern that needconstant discussion, dialogue and educa-tion to continue on India’s journey inbecoming a healthy nation with sustain-able well-being at its core.

(The writer is the National Presidentof Indian Dietetic Association and support-er of the Right To Protein initiative.)

How would you definegood times? Rather, howwould you describe that

I am really “into” the food? Forme, it’s when a dish lands at mytable and ‘just one bite’ turns intofive... The next thing I know isI am overeating just to hit thatsingle moment of satisfactionover and over again. Doesn’t ithappen with you too? Well,tucked away in Gurugram’supmarket 32nd Milestone, THC— The House of Celeste is anIndian restaurant that triggeredthis feeling of contentment.

You know what they say,“The best chefs don’t merely pre-pare food, but they serve mem-ories.” And it makes so muchsense because once your belly isfull, your sense of taste has beenstimulated and your cravingmitigated, what lives on are thememories. You may not remem-ber all that you ate for a partic-ular dinner but you will consis-tently recall the fulfillment youfelt toward its end, perhaps,because of the freshness of theingredients or the aroma of aspecific dish. And that’s why Ithink my visit to The House ofCeleste was worth it!

Walking past the exteriors,through a hallway, I made myway into the cafe, which was seg-regated into different parts. Theinteriors were done up withround mirrors. The ambience —replete with solid colours, pep-pered with floral upholstery —seemed to be tailor-made forexperimentation. As I ran myeyes over the menu, I realisedthat the cafe’s USP was to offera sense of familiarity and nostal-gia. For instance, the very firstdish corporate chef ValiceFrancis brought to the table wasPuchka Pebbles. He asked me tohave it in one go, which I did,and later to my surprise, I foundout that they were a modern takeon pani puris aka gol gappas. The‘pebbles’ were made of whitechocolate and had a chilly shellwith a filling of tamarind chut-ney, mint and coriander water,and saffron tart. This sweet-salty,not so spicy treat was a great way

to start the meal. “This idea actu-ally came from a molten chocolava cake,” chef Francis shared.

The cafe presents ‘borderlesscuisine with Indian elements’.The main endeavour was toprovide rich and flavourful foodmade with local ingredients andvegetables, which have beensourced with highest safety stan-dards in mind. It presented aninnovative and contemporarymenu offering small plates, largeplates, sides and desserts with theseason’s finest ingredients. Eachdish was centered around onecore ingredient and was createdto perfection with contrastingtextures, colours and flavours.

Next in line was the THCPapadi Chaat. It was preparedusing crisp fried dough wafersknown as papadi, along withboiled chickpeas, boiled pota-toes, dahi (yogurt), tamarindchutney, and topped with chatmasala and sev. The dish hadsweet, sour, tangy and spicyflavours blended in one. I canstill feel its creamy and crunchytexture in my mouth.

The next dish that caughtmy fancy was Calcutta Beat

Balls. Yes, it very much resem-bles the non-vegetarian meatballs. It was an unique entirelyvegetarian creation that imi-tates non-vegetarian flavours.The tiny red balls were made ofbeetroot with a filling of smokedgoat cheese cream to give an illu-sion of the meat balls — bothvisually and in taste. The flavourswere impeccable, but the way itwas presented was what stole theshow. The chef rightly said as hechuckled, “It’s an ideal option fora vegetarian who wishes to knowwhat meat tastes like.”

Typically, people, especiallythe more gastronomically expe-rienced ones, concur that beinga vegetarian is “out of place” withbeing a foodie. However, I canproudly say that I am both — avegetarian and a foodie. And themenu bore witness to it too as ithad a delectable list of vegetar-ian dishes.

Just like the food, the spe-cially-curated cocktails werenothing short of indulgent. Thecocktail menu aimed to elevatepleasure to a celestial level,where the familiar takes on anew sparkle, where the comfort-

ing becomes playful, and whereclassics find a contemporaryform. Mixologist Dhawan SinghJeena shared that they had anabsolute-zero-waste bar. “Forinstance, fruit peels, dry flowers,coffee powder, leftover mintstems, squeezed limes, orangeshells or other freeze-dried itemsare usually used in syrups andconcoctions,” said he. He believesthat small steps can result in bigchanges.

To accompany the delec-table food, the mixologist madea few cocktails like CoffeeColada, Bittle Blush, Celest Muleand more. Mixologist Dhawanshared that they haven’t finalisedtheir cocktail menu yet as theyare still testing and pokingaround in the bar to createsomething refreshing and new.They would continue to adddrinks to the menu, whichseemed like a bonus for me toreturn.

The cafe had an inviting,comforting and laidback atmos-phere. As I was still samplingfood, Paneer Khurchan made itsway to my plate. Apparently, theidea of the dish was derived from

the Hindi word ‘khurachna’which means ‘to scrape’. So it wasbasically scraped paneer in asemi-dry gravy with some acharcream in it. The filling wasstuffed in a steamed bun, whichlooked similar to a mini kulcha.I can bet one could eat this notso spicy and creamy delicacyeven on a full stomach.

As I neared a saturation, themain course was in line, whichincluded Paneer Pasanda, SoyaKeema Chettinad, DalMoradabadi along with Gobi-Matar Kulcha and traditionalJodhpuri Chur Chur Naan. Thesous chef Ishan Ahluwalia’sapproach towards PaneerPasanda was a little Europeanand hence, he engineered thedish in the form of Ravioli. Thecherry on top was that thepaneer was baked instead offried. The chef explained, “Theauthentic one is usually shallowfried. The stuffing has a lot ofvariations, but people preferadding khoya and chopped nutsto it.” It was served with parme-san crisp as garnish. Its gravy wasa modification of Makhani gravywith the addition of onion paste.Well, full marks to the presenta-tion as well as for setting mytongue on fire.

I am sure you would agreethat Keema recipes are a popu-lar element among all the meatlovers. THC’s Soya Keema, pre-pared in a very Chettinad way,is a bonus for vegetarians likeme. It had South-inspiredflavours. They garnished it withMalgapudi, a South Indian spicemix, traditionally served withidlis. When you have travelledapproximately 45 kms on traffic-stifled streets that too on aweeknight with very little expec-tations from the food, but arewelcomed with something mar-velous, it is bound to win hearts.

With all this and more, whatmade my visit to THC pricelesswas the care and attention thatchef Francis, sous chef Ishan andmixologist Dhawan put intoevery element, from the flavours,texture, presentation to the smelland the taste.

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India captain Virat Kohli on Thursdaysaid poor batting and not the pitch wasresponsible for the day-night third Test

against England winding up inside two daysand described the performance of batsmenon both sides as “bizarre”.

Kohli insisted there were no demons inthe pitch, which has been called “not ideal”by several former players like MichaelVaughan and Harbhajan Singh. Kohli saidthe track was absolutely fine at least in thefirst innings and only the odd ball was turn-ing in the game which India won by 10 wick-ets on Thursday.

“To be honest, I don’t think the quali-ty of batting was up to standards. We were100 for 3 and bowled out for less than 150.It was just that the odd ball turning and itwas a good wicket to bat in the firstinnings,” the India skipper said in hisdefence of the pitch.

Kohli said batsmen of both the sides didnot apply themselves enough. Only RohitSharma (66 and 25 not out) and fromEngland Zak Crawley (53 in first innings)managed to bat with ease.

“It was bizarre that 21 of the 30 wick-ets fell to straight balls. Test cricket is abouttrusting your defence. Lack of applicationensured it was a quick finish,” Kohli said.

Left-arm spinner Axar Patel stole thelimelight in only his second Test along sideveteran Ravichandran Ashwin by returningwith match figures of 11 for 70 to earn theplayer-of-the-match award as India decimat-ed England by 10 wickets to take an unas-sailable 2-1 lead in the four-match series.

Off-spinner Ashwin (15-3-48-4) alsobecame the fourth Indian bowler and sec-ond fastest in the world to complete a com-mendable milestone of 400 Test wickets onThursday.

Kohli showered praise on his two spin-ners for their match-winning efforts.

“A bizzare game which got over in 2days. A lot of people were relieved whenJaddu (Ravindra Jadeja) got injured. But thenthis guy (Axar) comes in. Bowls it quickerand from a bigger height as well. If the wick-

et has something in it, Axar is very lethal.“I think we need to stand up and take

notice of what Ashwin has done. In Tests,he is a modern day legend. As a captain, Iam so pleased he is in my team,” he said.

England skipper Joe Root was in nomood to give excuses for the heavy defeat,saying the tourists failed to capitalise on adecent start in the first innings after optingto bat.

“We were 70 for 2. But we didn’t reallycapitalise on it. 250 on that wicket wouldhave made it different. We will come backusing this hurt and come back as a betterteam,” he said.

Instead of blaming the pitch, Root saidit was India’s “high quality bowling” thatmade the difference.

“The plastic coating on the ball gathered

pace of the wicket. It was high quality bowl-ing as well. Both sides struggled on thatwicket. We don’t define ourselves on a per-formance like this,” he said.

“We shouldn’t have any baggage fromthe previous games going into the last game.We have seen with the ball in hand, we canpick up wickets. I think it sums up the wick-et, if I am getting a fifer.”

He also congratulated Ishant Sharma forplaying his landmark 100 Tests and Ashwinfor his 400 Test wickets.

Man-of-the-match Axar said his focuswould remain on bowling wicket-to-wick-et, a plan which has reaped him rich divi-dends so far in his nascent Test career.

“When it happens, it feels so easy, notso much when it doesn't,” he joked.

“I am not thinking much. I want to con-

tinue this form. I am happy that if I am notcontributing with the bat, I am doing it withthe ball.

“My strength is to bowl wicket-to-wick-et and not give any room...I just want to bowlas many dot balls as possible and make lifedifficult for batsmen,” he said.

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Mumbai captain Prithvi Shaw onThursday became the highest indi-

vidual scorer in Vijay Hazare Trophynational 50-over championships as hesmashed an unbeaten 227 off just 152balls to help Mumbai beat Puducherryby 233 runs in their Elite Group D gamehere.

The 21-year-old Shaw, who hasplayed in five Tests and five ODIs, brokethe earlier record of the highest individ-ual score held by Sanju Samson (212 notout against Goa in 2019).

This was the maiden List-A double

hundred for Shaw, which he got in 142balls. Shaw hammered 31 fours and fivesixes during his onslaught. He alsobecame the eighth Indian to score a ListA double hundred.

This was the fourth double hundredin the history of the Vijay HazareTrophy.

Also, this was Prithvi’s second cen-tury of the tournament after his unbeat-en 105 in the lung-opener against Delhi.

This was also the highest score by acaptain in List A cricket in the world afterthe youngster surpassed the unbeaten222 by Graeme Pollock versus Border inEast London.

For the record, the existing highestindividual List A score is 268 by AliBrown.

Puducherry’s decision to putMumbai in to bat backfired badly asShaw and Suryakumar Yadav (133 off 58balls) toyed with their bowling attack atthe Sawai Mansingh Stadium and posta mammoth 457/4.

Leg-spinner Prashant Solanki (5/48)then picked a five-for as Mumbai bun-dled out Puducherry for 224 to registertheir third win on the trot.

The diminutive right-handed Shawand Yashasvi Jaiswal (10) added 58 runsfor the first wicket to lay the foundation.After Jaiswal was dismissed, Shaw foundan able partner in Aditya Tare (56, 7x4)as the duo stitched a 153-run stand forthe second wicket. Tare played the per-fect second fiddle to Shaw.

Suryakumar, who came in at No. 4,was in his elements, hitting 22 fours andfour sixes. He and Shaw added 201 runsfor the third wicket stand and helpedMumbai go past the 400-run mark.

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Veteran batsman MartinGuptill returned to form

with a blistering 97 as NewZealand held on for a nail-bit-ing win over Australia in the sec-ond T20I in Dunedin onThursday.

Guptill’s Black Caps setAustralia a challenging target of220 after losing the toss but weremade to sweat as Australia camewithin four runs of victory.

Both sides took advantage ofUniversity Oval’s short bound-aries in a thrilling match that fea-tured 30 sixes and 434 runs at anaverage of 10.9 an over.

Marcus Stoinis starred forthe Australians with 78 from 37balls but Guptill’s 97 from 50 laidthe foundation for NewZealand’s win.

Black Caps spinner MitchellSantner also shone amid the bat-ting fireworks, taking four for 31,while Australian paceman KaneRichardson managed three for43.

New Zealand allrounderJimmy Neesham was anotherexceptional performer, takingtwo wickets in the final overwhen a rampant Australia need-ed 15 runs for victory. Neeshamalso scored an undefeated 45,including six sixes.

The result puts NewZealand 2-0 up in the five-matchseries, on the brink of a win overthe world’s second-rankedT20 team.

Guptill’s innings gavehim the record for themost sixes in T20Internationals with132, taking him pastIndia’s Rohit Sharmaon 127.

The 34-year-old clubbed theball over theboundary eighttimes, blud-geoning allcomers in theAustralian attack. He fell justshort of his third Twenty20 cen-tury after being caught trying

to hit a Daniel Sams delivery outof the ground.

Guptill averaged only 17 inthe recent series against theWest Indies and Pakistan, thenmanaged just 11.5 in the domes-tic competition before pickingup a hamstring injury.

Pressure on the openerintensified when he made aduck in the first match againstAustralia on Monday, with callsfor uncapped Finn Allen to join

the squad. But heanswered his criticswith a return to hisbig-hitting best,

bringing up 50 off27 balls, with

eight bound-aries, includ-ing foursixes. Guptillinsisted hehad notchanged hisa p p r o a c hduring thegame-turn-ing innings.

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Real Madrid struggled tobreak down 10-man

Atalanta before Ferland Mendynetted an 86th-minute winnerto give the Spanish giant a 1-0win in the first leg of the roundof 16.

Madrid entered the game asthe big favorite despite a slew ofinjuries, and Atalanta’s chancesdiminished further when mid-fielder Remo Freuler was sentoff in the 17th minute afterbeing adjudged to have denieda scoring opportunity.

“The match was ruined,”Atalanta coach Gian PieroGasperini said. “I don’t knowwhat the result would havebeen, we might have still lost,but it would have been a muchdifferent and better match.”

Madrid — playing withoutKarim Benzema, Eden Hazard

and captain Sergio Ramos —still found it difficult to testAtalanta goalkeeper PierluigiGollini until the end of the firsthalf, when he pulled off a great

reaction save to keep outCasemiro’s header from ToniKroos’ free kick.

Just as it looked as ifAtalanta would hold on for a

draw, Mendy received the balloutside the area after a cornerand curled a shot into the rightside of the net from 20 yards.

“Yes, we’d practiced thatplay, but it wasn’t supposed tobe Ferland who took the shot,”said Madrid coach Zinedine

Zidane with a smile. “We did-n’t have a great game tonight butwhat was most important wasthe result. Scoring away fromhome was important for us.”

The second leg will be onMarch 16 in Madrid. Atalantacan take comfort from the factit has won all its Europeanmatches away from home thisseason, including a 2-0 victoryover Liverpool at Anfield.

“We just have to win inMadrid,” Gasperini said. “It’seasy , we just have one possibil-ity. We must win.”

��

Barcelona: Lionel Messi soared past LuisSuarez to become La Liga’s top scorer onWednesday by adding his 17th and 18th goalsof the season in a much-needed 3-0 victory forBarcelona over Elche.

Barca had followed up last week’s crushingChampions League loss to PSG by drawing athome to Cadiz on Sunday but eased the strainwith a comfortable win at the Camp Nou.

Messi’s double owed much to a pair ofsuperb assists, with a supreme dribble byFrenkie de Jong coming after a sublime flickfrom Martin Braithwaite, who also set up JordiAlba to score a third.

After failing to take full advantage ofleague leaders Atletico Madrid’s defeat byLevante on Saturday, this victory puts Barcelonaback in third, five points off the top, havingplayed a game more than Atletico.

Just as importantly, it puts Ronald Koeman’sside back on track after two disappointing resultsthreatened to extinguish momentum gained inrecent weeks.

Even if Atletico prove too far ahead to catch,a positive performance was important, especial-ly with a semi-final second leg to come nextweek against Sevilla in the Copa del Rey, whichmay be their only chance of winning a trophythis term.

Messi’s return to top form comes as a hugeboost too. This was his fifth and sixth goal inhis last four games while no player from the topfive European leagues has scored more than his13 this year in all competitions. Bayern Munich’sRobert Lewandowski is closest on 12. AFP

London: Dele Alli scored withan overhead kick and set uptwo other goals as Tottenhambeat Wolfsberg 4-0 in theEuropa League to become thefirst team to qualify for the last16.

Alli, handed a rare start byJose Mourinho, flicked theball up after meeting a right-wing cross by Matt Dohertythen leapt with his back togoal and directed an acrobat-ic effort into the bottom cor-

ner in the 11th minute of thesecond-leg match in the roundof 32.

The midfielder crossedfor Carlos Vinicius to head inthe second goal in the 50ththen played in substituteGareth Bale to curl a power-ful 73rd-minute shot into thetop corner.

Vinicius added a fourthfor Tottenham, which com-pleted an 8-1 victory on aggre-gate. AP

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England skipper Joe Root on Thursdaysaid it is up to the ICC, and not the play-

ers, to decide whether the “difficult”Motera pitch is suitable for Test cricket afterhis side was crushed inside two days byIndia in a low-scoring day-nighter here.

Root refused to blame the surface forEngland’s batting woes after the team fold-ed for 112 and 81 in its two innings. Buthe said it is the ICC that should considerthe suitability of the pitch for Test cricket.

“I think that this surface, it’s a verychallenging one, is a very difficult one toplay on. It is not for players to decidewhether it is fit for purpose or not and thatis upto the ICC,” said Root, who took acareer-best five-wicket haul during India’sfirst innings.

“As players we are going to try andcounter what is in front of us as best as wecan,” he added.

Root said his team missed the oppor-tunity to get a big first innings total, whichseemed possible when it was 70 odd for justtwo wickets.

“We are disappointed, I feel we havemissed an opportunity, more so in the firstinnings than anything. The position wefound ourselves in at 71/2, we had a realchance to (score big).

“In hindsight, if we would have got 200,that would have been a very good score onthat wicket and the game would havelooked completely different,” Root said atthe virtual post-match press conference.

Indian left-arm spinner Axar Patel(6/38 and 5/32) and Ravichandran Ashwin(3/26 and 4/48) wreaked havoc on the sur-face. “We have got to get better and we aregoing to keep looking to find a way to scor-ing runs on surfaces like this,” Root said.

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��!��)"*�� Ahmedabad: India knocked England outof contention from the ICC World TestChampionship (WTC) final in June withtheir 10-wicket triumph which propelledthe hosts to the top of the standings.

India now have to either win or drawthe final game here starting March 4 toclaim the right to take on New Zealand atthe Lord’s. The Black Caps have alreadyqualified and are placed second in the lat-est list.

“England have dropped to 64.1 per-centage points on the points table, whichis now led by India with 71 percentage

points,” the ICC stated.“England are out of the race for a place

in the final of the ICC World TestChampionship after losing the third Testagainst India in Ahmedabad,” it added.

England, who are now 2-1 down in thefour-match series, needed to win the four-match series 3-1 to play the June 18-22 final.

New Zealand are assured of a place inthe final with 70 percentage points.

If India lose the final Test thenAustralia, who are in third place with 69.2percentage points, will sneak in to make thefinal. PTI

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Virat Kohli on Thursday surpassedMahendra Singh Dhoni's record of

winning maximum number of Testmatches as captain on home soil afterleading the side to a 10-wicket victoryover England in the day-night thirdTest.

Kohli now has 22 victories at homein 29 Tests as captain which is one bet-ter than Dhoni, who had 21 wins in 30Tests. Kohli already is India’s most suc-cessful Test captain with 35 wins.

Sourav Ganguly and MohammedAzharuddin have 21 and 14 victories totheir credit as captains.

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