2020/12/08 · a proposal for the consideration of farmers and the unions will hold a meeting at Singhu Border to discuss the same with the farmers. The meeting between Shah …

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As Bharat Bandh wound toa mostly peaceful close,

Union Home Minister AmitShah met the farmer leaders,ahead of the sixth round oftalks between Central Ministersand farmer representatives onWednesday but meetingremained inconclusive as theGovernment made it clear thatamendments can be made butthe farm laws won’t bereplealed.

Shah invited all 13 farmerunions on Tuesday to discuss away out by promising to give inwriting that Government willbring in amedmends, but thefarmers refused his proposal.

With this, the sixth roundof talks between farmer leadersand the Government scheduledfor Wednesday has been can-celed, All India Kisan Sabhageneral secretary HannanMollah said after meeting withShah.

“We’ll decide on nextround of talks after consultingothers,” said Hannan Mollah.

This was the first time thatShah met farmers’ leaders todiscuss their concerns anddemands. The meeting waslast over two and half hours.

At the meeting, Shah pro-posed written assurances onamendments on minimumsupport price and APMC. Thenew proposals will be given tofarm unions on Wednesday.

Mollah said theGovernment will instead senda proposal for the considerationof farmers and the unions willhold a meeting at SinghuBorder to discuss the same withthe farmers.

The meeting betweenShah and the leaders of theprotesting farmers on Tuesdaygot delayed owing to a confu-sion over the venue of themeeting. The meeting wasscheduled to begin at 7pm butit began after 8pm as some ofthe union leaders were notready to hold the meeting atAmit Shah’s residence.

Finally, the meeting wasshifted to the office of IndianCouncil of AgriculturalResearch. Agriculture MinisterNarendra Singh Tomar,Consumer Affairs MinisterPiyush Goyal and senior offi-cials of the ministry were alsopresent.

Some farmer leaders saidthey first expected the meetingwould take place at Shah’s res-idence here, but the venue was

shifted to National AgriculturalScience Complex, Pusa. Onefarmer leader, Ruldu SinghMansa, has returned saying hewon’t be part of meeting due toconfusion over venue.

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The Bharat Bandh observedby farmer unions and sup-

ported by 22 political partiesand a number of trade unionson Tuesday evoked a mixedresponse. The wholesale and

retail mandis remained closedin several States even as sever-al shops, commercial estab-lishments, industrial houses,

shopping malls kept their shut-ters open.

All India Motor TransportCongress (AIMTC), repre-

senting about 95 lakh truckersand other entities, hadannounced to suspend opera-tions in the country to supportthe Bharat Bandh called by agi-tating farmers. The AIMTCsaid the support to the farmers’Bharat Bandh call was suc-cessful, and the transportindustry incurred a loss of�2,000 crore on account of halt-ing operations.

“The transport fraternitysupport to farmers has beenhighly successful...About 90lakh trucks, tempo, trailersstood still on the call of AIMTCand the transport industry toobore losses of about �2,000crore,” AIMTC presidentKultarn Singh Atwal said.AIMTC in a statement said itwill continue to extend supportto farmers.

“The support by the trans-port fraternity to the BharatBandh call by farmers is suc-cessful, peaceful and voluntary,”AIMTC secretary generalNaveen Gupta said.

Normal life was disruptedin several parts of the countryespecially in the Opposition-ruled States. Shops and com-mercial establishments stayed

closed, transport service wasaffected and protesters squat-ted on key roads and rail tracksduring the bandh. However, inmany parts of the country, thenormal life remained unaf-fected.

The bandh has been large-ly peaceful except in Jaipurwhere the BJP Yuva Morchaworkers and the Congressworkers clashed while holdinga protest while in MadhyaPradesh’s Gwalior district,police used water cannons todisperse agitators who were ledby a Congress leader. Incidentsof arson have been reportedfrom Rajkot and Sabarkanthaand Agricultural ProduceMarket Committee (APMC)markets in parts of Gujarat.

Swaraj India leaderYogendra Yadav has claimedthe bandh was observed at10,000 places in 25 States acrossthe country.

Farmers blocked nationalhighways and other key roadsat many places in Punjab andHaryana as part of their nation-wide protest to press for repealof the farm laws.

Shops and commercialestablishments remained closedat most places in Punjab andseveral places in Haryana astraders backed the agitatingfarmers.

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Delhi recorded 3,188 freshCovid-19 cases on Tuesday

with a positivity rate of 4.23 percent, authorities said. The pos-itivity rate on Thursday, Friday,Saturday, Sunday and Mondaystood at 4.96 per cent, 4.78 percent, 4.2 per cent, 3.68 per centand 3.15 per cent respectively.

The fresh cases reported onTuesday came out of 75,409

tests, including 31,098 RT-PCR tests, conducted the pre-vious day, according to the lat-est bulletin issued by the Delhihealth department.

Fifty-seven fatalities wererecorded, pushing the toll inthe national Capital to 9,763,the bulletin said.

Active cases on Tuesdaydropped to 22,310 from 22,486the previous day. According tothe bulletin, the total numberof cases has climbed to5,97,112.

Meanwhile, the UnionHealth Ministry on Tuesdaysaid the present cold chain sys-tem in the country is capable ofstoring additional quantity ofCovid-19 vaccine required forfirst 3 crore healthcare workersand frontline warriors.

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The Opposition parties have announced to callon President Ramnath Kovind on

Wednesday to apprise him of the situation aris-ing out of farmers' protest over the farm laws.

The joint delegation of five members willinclude Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and oth-ers, said CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury. TheOpposition parties had last met and requestedthe President not to give his accent to the con-troversial laws which has now become an Act.

NCP president Sharad Pawar said leadersfrom different political parties will discuss andtake a collective stand on the contentious farmlaws before meeting President Ram NathKovind.

"Leaders from different political parties(those opposing the farm laws) will sit, discuss

and take a collective stand on the contentiousfarm laws before meeting President Ram NathKovind," said the former Agriculture Minister.

Pawar also met Defence Rajnath Singh onTuesday though the meeting was pertaining todiscussions on land acquisition for the Purandarairport in Pune district.

Earlier in the day former Congress presidentRahul Gandhi urged people to support theBharat Bandh call given by farmer leaders andasked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stop"stealing" from farmers.

Congress and almost 15 Opposition partiesare supporting the farmers' agitation and theyhave demanded a repeal of the three farm laws.

"Modi ji, stop stealing from farmers. All fel-low citizens know that today is Bharat Bandh.Make our food growers' struggle successful byfully supporting it," Rahul said in a tweet inHindi.

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Key Union Ministers onTuesday blamed

Opposition parties for “mis-leading” the farmers and pro-moting “Bharat Bandh” as theymaintained that new laws weremade “for the welfare of smalland marginal farmers”.

Union Minister forInformation and Broadcastingand Environment PrakashJavedkar said Opposition par-ties stand “exposed” for their“hypocrisy”. Javedkar saidprotests have no basis asAPMC and MSP are going tocontinue and that “90 per centof farmers are in favour of thenew laws”.

Union AgricultureMinister Narendra SinghTomar said farmers are beingmisled and that “Bharat Bandh”is being executed byOpposition, not by kisan.

Tomar, who is leading theGovernment in the ongoingdialogue with the farmers,meanwhile, met Haryana ChiefMinister Manohar Lal Khattarahead of the next-round ofnegotiations on Wednesday.

Union Law Minister

Ravishankar Prasad againlashed out at the Congress andNCP leaders for “supportingagriculture marketing reforms”when they were in the powerand “now jumping into thefarmers bandwagon” to“oppose the ModiGovernment”

“This is deception, double-standards and hypocrisy of theworst order. Farmers interest isnot in the scheme of oppositionparties”, ” the Law Ministermaintained.

Union textile MinisterSmiriti Irani was of view thatOpposition parties did notwant the country to prosperand thereby putting spoke inthe wheels of its progress.

The Opposition partieswant chaos and din but theywould not succeed, sheclaimed.

RSS outfit “Bhartiya KisanSangh” did not participate in“Bharat Bandh” but backedfarmers demand for guaran-teeing the MSP for their farmproduce.

The Union Governmentis, reportedly, ready to makecertain amendments in thelaws to ally the farmers fearsbut refusing to roll-back thelaws which it says are essentialfor “reforms” in the farmingsector which has, long, ceasedto be remunerative.

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Delhi saw a mixed responseover the Bharat Bandh call

given by farmers as most of themarkets remained open andtransport services almostremained unaffected.

The traders, however, com-plained of low footfall.

Most of the markets,including Lajpat Nagar,Chandni Chowk and SadarBazar, in the city remainedopen while police teams couldbe seen patrolling to maintainlaw and order across the city.Public transport services inDelhi remained largely unaf-fected while some auto and taxi

unions kept their vehicles offthe roads in support of theshutdown.

Shopkeepers at Delhi’sSarojini Nagar market tiedblack ribbons around theirarms to express solidarity withthe farmers’ demand whileGhazipur mandi was open butmany traders closed their shopsto support the strike.

“No protesting farmercame here and asked us to closethe shop. If they would havecome and asked we wouldhave closed,” said ManishGulati, a shopkeeper in LajpatNagar area.

Police said there were nomajor fresh protests in the city

except in some Delhi borderareas, but traffic diversionswere made on some routes asa precautionary measure.

Chants of “Jai Kisan”,“Humara bhaichara zindabad,Kisan ekta zindabad”,“Tanashahi nahi chalegi” rentthe air as farmer leaders gaverousing speeches at the protestsites, including Tikri, Singhu,Chilla and Ghazipur vowing tocontinue their agitation.

Several more farmersreached the protest sites acrossthe city borders on tractor-trol-leys and cars amid heavy secu-rity presence to participate inthe nationwide call for bandh.

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The Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) on Tuesday alleged

that the Delhi Police put ChiefMinister Arvind Kejriwalunder house arrest after he metprotesting farmers at theSinghu border. However, theDelhi Police denied the claim,saying the Chief Minister wasfree to go anywhere.

Later, Kejriwal said, “Iwanted to sit with farmerstoday as an aam aadmi but wasnot allowed to go. I hope thatthe Centre will soon accept allthe demands of the farmers sothat farmers are not forced tospend nights in shivering cold.”

AAP chief spokespersonSaurabh Bhardwaj claimed theDelhi Police had put barricadesat all the sides of the CM resi-dence and no one was allowedto meet him.

“Our MLAs were supposedto meet the Delhi ChiefMinister but the Delhi Policedid not allow them to meet.Moreover, the Delhi Policeharassed and beat up partyMLAs and volunteers,” he said.

Bhardwaj said, “The BJP-ruled Central Government isscared because if Delhi ChiefMinister comes out of his res-idence and stands beside thefarmers today in support of the

Bharat Bandh called by thefarmers then the lies of the BJPwill be exposed. The BJP isscared because they have beenlying continuously and want tostop the CM to stand with thefarmers in their protest.”

“The Delhi PoliceCommissioner was informedabout the fact that the DelhiPolice barricaded the CM res-idence. When we informedthe Delhi police Commissionerhe expressed his helplessnesson the recent situation. TheDelhi Police officials haveinformed us that this is hap-pening under the instruction ofthe BJP-ruled CentralGovernment,” he claimed.

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Chhattisgarh Chief MinisterBhupesh Baghel on

Tuesday called for the repeal ofthe three new agriculturereform laws by calling a specialsession of Parliament.

Addressing the media atthe Congress headquarters,Baghel said farmers hailingfrom different states have laidsiege to the national capitaldemanding a rollback of thethree laws.

Baghel said the FarmingProduce Trade and Commerce(Promotion and Facilitation)Law, the Farmers(Empowerment andProtection) Agreement onPrice Assurance and FarmServices Law and the EssentialCommodities (Amendment)Law brought by the Modi gov-ernment favour the corporates

and so are anti-farmer.It is an issue for 62 crore

farmers of the country as the

new laws in long run will helpexploit the farming communi-ty. In Chhattisgarh, a special

Assembly session was called tomake new provisions in theMandi Law.

The BJP-led governmenthas sold Navratna companies,railway stations and airports,now the target is to sell the landholdings of farmers, he said.

The provisions of the newlaws hit the roots of Mandis(Agriculture markets) of thestates. The Corporate playerswill take advantage of the laws,which allows them to procureand stock. Indirectly, it willincrease black marketing ofessential commodities, saidBaghel. The situation in Biharis pathetic as the farmers arebeing forced to sell their paddyat Rs 700-800 per quintal, headded.

Commenting on BJP VicePresident Dr Raman Singh’sallegations on non-implemen-tation of the Congress electionmanifesto, Baghel said even hisparty does not take him seri-ously.

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To mark the support of farm-ers' agitation against the new

farm laws and Bharat Bandh callgiven by farmers, the lawyersheld peaceful protests at variousdistrict court complexes in Delhi.

Advocate Rajiv Khosla,Chief Coordinator of the ActionCommittee of the Bar Council ofDelhi (BCD) in a statementissued said that the governmentshould put a condition in thefarm laws that private companiespay 5 per cent above theMinimum Support Price (MSP)for farm produce, and in case ofdefault they may be subjected to

criminal action ranging from 3-5 year punishment.

Khosla said the action com-mittee of lawyers would soongive a call for all India agitationin case the demands were notmet and soon fix a date for it afterconsulting with several state Barcouncils and Bar associations.

Sanjeev Nasiar, Chairman ofthe Co-ordination Committee,said the government was con-spiring to suppress the voice ofthe people by alleging that everymovement against the Centrewas led by anti-national peopleand trying to project throughfalse propaganda via socialmedia that the farmers agitation

has been backed by 'Khalistan'.Nasiar further said in the

meeting that the BarAssociations stand with thefarmer community on theirdemands and in case the gov-ernment tried to implicate thefarmers in any false case, then thelawyers would provide all legalhelp to them at all levels.

As per the statement, Khoslasaid the alleged illegal step of thegovernment for getting the dis-putes adjudicated from Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM)and Additional DistrictMagistrate (ADM) instead ofJudges was aimed only to deprivethe farmers from getting any jus-

tice as these officials were alwaysunder the thumb and control ofministers and MLAs.

He said the governmentaction in deleting the staples -potatoes, tomatoes and onions -from the Essential Commodities

Act was allegedly aimed at pro-viding heavy profits to big tradersand would deprive the commoncitizen from purchasing these atan unaffordable price while therewould be no penal action againstthe big traders for keeping them

locked in their godowns.Advocate Satya Prakash

Gautam said around 100 lawyersheld a protest march inside theKarkardooma courts premisesshowing solidarity with the farm-ers' agitation.

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The farmers call for BharatBandh saw mixed response

in Ghaziabad. Most of the mar-kets in the district remainedclosed while the farmers blockedhighways and roads, demandingthe Government to withdrawthe new agricultural laws.

In view of the closure offarmers, District Magistrate AjayShankar Pandey and SSPKalanidhi Naithani themselveskept a close watch on law andorder situation.

Both of the senior officialsvisited various places across thecity and gave instructions to theofficials. The police have alreadydetained prominent leaders ofpolitical parties supporting theclosure of farmers.

Inspector in-charge ofDivisional Commissioner RituMaheshwari and IG PoliceMeerut Zone Praveen Kumaralso reviewed the situation inMuradnagar. Following thebandh call, the farmers atGhazipur border (UP) gateblocked all the 14 lanes at

around 11 am. The vehiclescoming towards UP gate werediverted.

Farmers allowed ambu-lances, students and emergencyservices to move during thebandh. The movement at UPGate was led by Rakesh Tikait,national spokesperson of theBharatiya Kisan Union.

Tikait said this is a symbol-ic protest of one day at themoment. “The CentralGovernment should immedi-ately withdraw all three agri-cultural bills,” he said.

The SP City was deployedwith heavy police force on thespot. The entire movement wasmonitored with a drone camera.After 3 o'clock, Rakesh Tikaitannounced the opening of thejam after which the farmers sit-ting on the streets got up and allthe lines of Delhi-MeerutExpressway were opened by thefarmers.

The impact of the BharatBandh was also seen inModinagar area on Tuesdaywhere farmers stopped the traf-fic movement by placing tractortrolleys on NH-58.

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The South Delhi MunicipalCorporation (SDMC) pro-

posed to roll out an amnestyscheme for recently regularisedunauthorised colonies underwhich property holders pro-vided waiver of property taxsince 2004-05.

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The Economic OffencesWing (EOW) of Delhi

Police has arrested a director ofa private company for siphon-ing of public money to the tuneof �2,397 crores. The accusedhas been identified as RajenderPrasad Aggarwal, a resident ofDelhi’s West Punjabi Bagh area,who was arrested by EOW onDecember 7.

According to Dr O PMishra, the JointCommissioner of Police, EOW,Manpreet Singh Suri ofReligare Finvest Ltd (RFL) filedcomplaint against MalvinderMohan Singh, ShivinderMohan Singh, Sunil Godhwaniand others holding key man-agerial posts that the allegedpersons having absolute controlon Religare Enterprises Limited(REL) and its subsidiaries putReligare Finvest Limited (RFL)in poor financial condition byway of disbursing the loans tothe companies having no finan-cial standings.

“These companies willful-ly defaulted in repayments and

caused wrongful loss to RFL tothe tune of �2397 Crores. Thiswas also pointed out and flaggedduring their independent auditby RBI and SEBI. ManinderSingh was the Director andCEO of Religare Group duringthe year 2017and was part oflarger criminal conspiracy withMalvinder Mohan Singh andShivinder Mohan Singh,Promoters of Religare Group,”said the Joint CP.

“The accused Rajender wasthe shareholder and director ofthe companies identified asTara Alloys Limited, GurudevFinancial Services and share-holder of Sridham Distributorsand Annies Apparel where theamount to the tune of �676crores was diverted in the year2016-17. He was part of largercriminal conspiracy withMalvinder Mohan Singh andShivinder Mohan Singh,Promoters of Religare Group.He was involved with StockBroker Narendra KumarGhoushal who has alreadybeen arrested,” said the JointCP.

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Gurugram remained calmeven as workers of the

Congress party, AAP, CITU, all-India Kisaan Sabha andAnganwari workers joined handswith 360 villages of the JharsaKhap to stage demonstrations aspart of Bharat Bandh, a coun-trywide protest against threefarms law enacted by the CentralGovernment, on Tuesday.

Markets across the district,including Gurugram city,remained open and businessactivities remained operational asindustries and market associa-tions said they did not participatein the shutdown.

Even, less traffic movementwas witnessed on the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway on Tuesdayduring the peak hours.

However, hundreds ofworkers including Rajya SabhaMP KK Ragesh, CITU, all-IndiaKisaan Sabha and Anganwariworkers staging a protest insupport of farmers at BilaspurChowk later on Tuesday weretaken into preventive custody bypolice.

With heavy deployment ofpolice personnel across the dis-trict, markets including SadarBazar, food market, wholesalevegetable market remained open,transport services were func-tional and no untoward incidentswere reported from anywhere inthe city.

“There was no major impactof Bharat Bandh on the trafficmovement in Gurugram. All ourpolice force was deployed on thedifferent stretches and borderareas. Also, a huge deploymentof the police teams was ensuredat the sensitive area inGurugram. The traffic move-ment was smooth on Tuesdayacross the day even during peakhours as well, but nothing addi-tional because of the Bandh,” saidUsha Kundu, ACP (headquar-ters).

This bandh, they said, wasobserved by many political par-ties, farmer union, workerunions, Anganwari workers andkhap panchayat of 360 villages.

Around 200 different partyworkers, leaders, village heads,

farmers and worker unions gath-ered at Jharsa Chowk, RajivChowk and Bilaspur Chowk onthe National Highway 48 stageda protest against the farm law andback.

"We have decided to supportthe farmers' movement in soli-darity and warned the state gov-ernment and said that the cen-tral government is doing injus-

tice to the farmers. If necessary,they will march across the cityand will close the markets ontheir own," ChaudharyMahender Singh Thakran, pres-ident of the 360 village khap, said.

They were carrying placardsand flags and shouted slogansagainst the BJP and accused theparty of passing the agriculturelaws for their own benefits.

"The farmers and workers ofthe country are suffering due tothe dirty policies of this presentgovernment,” said a party leader.

“A number of people havejoined hands with us to raisetheir protest in front of the gov-ernment. We will not allow thegovernment to destroy farmer’s

lives amid these newly passedfarm laws. We will fully supportfarmers' agitation and if requiredwe will march towards thenational capital to support farm-ers agitation,” said a formerminister.

Meanwhile, a BJP leadersaid that the people of

Gurugram rejected the bandhcall as “the people were satis-fied by steps taken by state andcentral governments. Theyknow the truth that thisfarmer's stir has been convert-ed into politics and this movement is now politicallymotivated.”

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Chandigarh: Reiterating thatthe farm laws are anti-farmerwhich were introduced withoutany discussion with the stake-holders, Punjab Chief MinisterAmarinder Singh said onTuesday that the unity show-cased by the farmers throughthe Bharat Bandh has under-scored the need for repealingthe laws, followed by a detaileddiscussion on agriculturalreforms.

The Chief Minister askedwhy the Centre could not heedthe demands of the farmers,who are agitating across thecountry to scrap these laws andhold fresh talks with all thestakeholders.

"Had I been in their place,I would not have taken aminute to accept my mistakeand revoke the laws," he said.

Asserting that the wholecountry is standing with thefarmers in their pain and intheir fight for survival,

Amarinder Singh said theCentre should allow the exist-ing system to continue insteadof scrapping the arhtiya andmandi system, as the farmlaws are designed to do.

"Why are they doing awaywith it? They should let thefarmers decide what theywant," he said, adding thatnobody is stopping privateplayers from purchasing agriproduce but it could not beallowed at the cost of the well-established system which hadstood the farmers in goodstead all these decades.

The Chief Minister furtherdemanded to know why thegovernment of India is not will-ing to give legitimacy to min-imum support price (MSP), ifits assertion of not abolishingit is sincere.

"MSP is our right," he said,adding that "if MSP is notguaranteed and another polit-ical party, apart from the

Congress and the BJP, comes topower at the Centre, who willtake the responsibility of thefarmers getting their mini-mum due?".

He pointed out that thefoodgrains bought at MSP arepushed into the PDS to feed thecountry's poor and all thatwould end if MSP goes.

There is no reason why theCentre can't listen to the farm-ers, who are braving the cold,and send them home happilyafter resolving their concerns,said Amarinder Singh.

This is what he had toldUnion Home Minister AmitShah too, Amarinder Singhsaid, adding that he urgedShah to do everything possibleto resolve the concerns of thepoor farmers in their interest,and also in the interest ofIndia's security.

Categorically rejecting theBJP's allegation that theCongress manifesto had also

talked of scrapping the APMCAct, the Chief Minister said hisparty or the Manmohan Singhgovernment never said theexisting system should be dis-continued.

The Congress manifestospoke about modernisationand not about doing away withwhat we have, he said.

Making it clear thatnobody is against private play-ers, the Chief Minister point-ed out that even now he is intalks with the UAE for supplyof wheat and rice, and thecountry wants to create storagefacilities in India, includingPunjab.

In fact, even in his lasttenure as the CM, he tried tolaunch the farm-to-fork pro-gramme to promote privateinvestment in agriculture relat-ed fields like storage, cold-chain,food processing etc. within theexisting system but the Akalislater shelved it. IANS

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Gurugram: A 40-year-old manhas allegedly shot dead hismaternal uncle over a domes-tic dispute in Sector 39 area inGurugram.

The deceased has beenidentified as Virender Singhalias Pappu of Jharsa village inGurugram.

The victim was returningfrom a wedding ceremony onMonday evening when theincident took place. Aftershooting dead his uncle, theaccused Kaushal surrenderedto the police and handed overthe weapon which was used tocommit the crime.

According to the police,Kaushal was upset as he wasnot getting married. After theincident, he himself informedthe family and the police con-trol room. The family membersof the victim rushed to the spotand took the injured to a pri-vate hospital in Gurugram,where the doctors declaredhim dead.

Singh was a driver and hadseen a girl some time ago forhis nephew Kaushal's wed-ding. But as the accused wasunemployed, his marriage

could not take place. Kaushalwas angry with his uncle overthis.

"On Monday morning, theaccused had visited his uncle'shouse where the duo got intoan argument and Kaushalthreatened his uncle with direconsequences. In the night,Singh went to Sector-39 toattend a wedding ceremony ofa neighbour's daughter. Onhis way back, Kaushal shot himin the chest," said SubhashBoken, spokesperson of theGurugram police.

During investigation, thepolice came to know that theaccused is a drug addict.

"The accused is being ques-tioned about the weapon. Hedisclosed before the police thatthe person from whom he hadbought the weapon has died.The body of the deceased hasbeen handed over to the fam-ily after an autopsy on Tuesday.Further probe is underway,"Boken said.

A case of murder underrelevant sections of the IPC hasbeen registered at the Sadarpolice station in Gurugram.

IANS

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The chairperson of theEnvironment Committee

of the Delhi Assembly Atishion Tuesday said the com-missioners of the East DelhiMunicipal Corporation andNorth Delhi MunicipalCorporation have been askedto appear before theEnvironment Committee ofthe Delhi Assembly to discussissues related to the frequentfire incidents at Ghazipurand Bhalswa landfill sites inthe city.

Atishi said the sitting willbe convened on December 9.“The meeting is called toknow the reason behind thepoor waste management ofthe MCDs, which is leadingto frequent incidents ofgarbage burning and a con-siderable increase in theheight of the landfill sites inDelhi,” she added.

On November 27, a fire

broke out at the garbagemountain at the Ghazipurlandfill site due to which theAQI and pollution levels wentup, and the entire East Delhiwas filled with smoke. Threedays after the incident, amassive fire was reported atthe Bhalswa Dair y landfill.

She said that these fireincidents are making all theef for ts of the DelhiGovernment redundant andstrict action must be takenagainst the authorit iesresponsible for the fires.

"There have been regularinstances of fire breaking outat Gazipur and Bhalswa Dairylandfill sites. The two landfillsites have been the majorcontributors of air-pollutionin Delhi. The two commis-sioners of the MCD havebeen summoned to ensurethat such fire incidents do notoccur in the future," sheadded.

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Air quality in Delhi wasbracketed under 'poor cat-

egory' with overall Air QualityIndex (AQI ) being recorded at367 micrograms per Cubic onTuesday. According to System ofAir Quality and WeatherForecasting And Research (SAFAR ), the surface - levelwinds are calm. “Boundary layerwind direction Northwesterly. Astubble fire count from SAFAR-multi-satellite products isaround 211 and the PM2.5 per-cent share is negligible.”

“The dominating factorsinfluencing Delhi Air quality are

making a swift transformationfrom biomass to intense wintercooled stagnation conditions,lowering of BLH, fog formation,etc.”

“Surface winds are likely tobe picking up slightly and AQIis forecasted to be in the VeryPoor category for the next twodays. AQI is likely to improveand stay in the middle-end ofthe Very Poor category on11th December,” it said in itsshort range air quality forecast.Meanwhile the values ofSuspended Particulate Matters( SPMs) - Particulate Matters (10 and 2.5 ) recorded 343 and207 μgm-3.

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As the Odisha Governmenthas decided to resolve all

border disputes with neigh-bouring States through mutu-al understanding, it hasapproached the AndhraPradesh Government to ensurea reasonable solution to theissue.

Chief Secretary AsitTripathy has written to hisAndhra Pradesh counterpartNilam Sawhney requesting fora joint verification of the inter-State borderlines to reach a con-clusive stage without any delay.

Official sources saidTripathy telephoned Sawhneyrecently regarding the Odisha-AP boundary dispute withrespect to 21 villages, referredas the Kotiya group of villages,in Koraput district borderingVizianagaram district ofAndhra Pradesh.

In an interlocutory orderpassed on December 2, 1968,the Supreme Court had direct-ed that status quo be main-tained by both States.Accordingly, the two Stateshave given their consent toadhere to the status quo untilit is verified by an appropriateauthority in accordance of law.

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In a major achievement in ajoint raid by police and excise

officials, illegal ganja planta-tions worth Rs 20 crore weredestroyed and contrabandworth Rs 4 crore was seized inGanjam district on Tuesday.

Based on inputs from theBrahamapur Excise intelligencewing , a team led by AskaSDPO , Excise DeputySuperintendent Rosan Isu, localTehsildar raided Krushanapurvillage under the Patapur policestation and felled ganja treesplanted in an area of 20 acres.

Besides, ganja worth Rs 4crore was seized from the hous-es of some residents. A car wasalso seized during the raid.

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STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

Everyone needs to standtogether for Mission 2023

‘Vijay Chhattisgarh’ andMission 2024 ‘Bharat Vijay’,BJP General Secretary andin-charge of ChhattisgarhD Purandeswari said onTuesday.

She was addressing BJPMPs, MLAs, former MLAs

and MLA candidates of 2018at the BJP headquarters onthe final leg of her visit to thestate, a BJP statement said.

She said remarkable workwas done for human welfarein Chhattisgarh while the BJPwas in power. With the samesentiments, everyone needs tofurther strengthen the base oforganization. A work planshould be put in place now towin the Assembly election in

2023.Purandeswari said the

country was picking pace inprogress under PrimeMinister Narendra Modi. Allhave to remain active toestablish ‘Antyodaya’ in thesociety.

For Mission 2024, shesaid the axis of the work planshould be the Centralgovernment developmentschemes. In the areas where

the performance is not satis-factory, the need is robustwork.

Nitin Nabin, co-in-charge, said each party work-er is vital. To return to powerin Chhattisgarh, each worker

needs to continue his hardwork. A party's strength areits workers and ideology.

BJP state PresidentVishnudeo Sai and formerChief Minister Dr RamanSingh were present.

RAIPUR | WEDNESDAY | DECEMBER 9, 2020chhattisgarh 03

Durg, Dated: 03.11.2020e- Procurement Tender Notice

1st CallOnline tenders in form ‘‘A’’ percentage rate basis are invited on behalf of Governor of Chhattisgarh dated 22-12-2020 :-

Note-1- General Conditions, detailed NIT. Tender documents & other information of the above construction work downloaded from the

Eprocurement web portal or departmental website http://eproc.cgstate.gov.in.2- NIT No. & Name of the Work should be essentially mentioned on the envelope through the Registerd Post/Speed Post in this office.

OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDING ENGINEER PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, DURG CIRCLE DURG (C.G.)

G- 85484/3 Ryp/Dtd 8.12.20

NIT No. Name of work P.A.C. (Rs.In lacs.)

198/Durg(Durg)/2020 DEPOSIT WORK, M.O.W., S/R A/R WORK & B.T. PATCH REPAIR WORK, UNDER SUBDIVISION NO.3, DIST.- DURG. 170.00199/Durg(Durg)/2020 BT RENEWAL OF DURG GUNDERDEHI BALOD (DGB) ROAD KM 8/4 TO 11/8 = 3.60 KM 192.78200/Durg(Durg)/2020 PROVIDING & FIXING ROAD APPURTENANCES AT VARIOUS ROADS & PLACES, PWD UNDER SUB DIVISION NO. 3 DURG 60.00

Superintending EngineerP.W.D., Durg Circle Durg (C.G.)

Tel. 0788-2210876

e-PROCUREMENT TENDER NOTICEeProcurement Portal: https://eproc.cgstate.gov.in

(1st CALL)System Tender No. : 69506 /NIT No. : 16/SAC/2020-21, Durg, Dated : 07.12.2020Online Tenders are invited for the following works up to 28.12.2020 at 17:30 HourName of Work : RENOVATION OF BORAI DIVERSION HEAD WORK AND LINING OF CANAL WITH

CONSTRUCTION OF 04 NOS V.R.B., 03 NOS FALL, 25 NOS OUTLET, AND 01 NOS WATER COURSE IN BLOCK AND DISTRICT DURG.

Probable Amount of Contract :- Rs. 164.57 LakhsThe details can be viewed and downloaded online directly from the Government of Chhattisgarh

Integrated e-Procurement Portal (https://eproc.cgstate.gov.in) from Date 14.12.2020, at 17:31Hours.(IST) onwards.(1) All eligible/intrested contractors/bidders are mandated to get enrolled on the Integratede-procurement portal (https://eproc.cgstate.gov.in) and get approval on specific vendor class fromPWD under Centralized Contractor/Supplier Registration in order to download the tender documentsand participate in the subsequent bidding process.

GOVERNMENT OF CHHATTISGARH, WATER RESOURCES DEPARTMENTOFFICE OF THE OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDING ENGINEER

SHIVNATH CIRCLE DURG (CHHATTISGARH)

Executive Engineer Tandula Water Resources Division Durg

For, Superintending Engineer Shivnath Circle, Durg C.G.)G- 85482/5 Ryp/Dtd 8.12.20

e-PROCUREMENT TENDER NOTICEeProcurement Portal: https://eproc.cgstate.gov.in

(1st CALL)System Tender No. : 69508 /NIT No. : 17/SAC/2020-21, Durg, Dated : 07.12.2020Online Tenders are invited for the following works up to28.12.2020 at 17:30 HourName of Work : RENOVATION OF BHENDSAR NALLA TANK

AND LINING OF CANAL WITH CONSTRUCTIONOF 04 NOS V.R.B. , 20 NOS OUTLET, AND 01 NOSWATER COURSE IN BLOCK AND DISTRICT DURG.

Probable Amount of Contract :- Rs. 183.04 LakhsThe details can be viewed and downloaded online directly from

the Government of Chhattisgarh Integrated e-Procurement Portal(https://eproc.cgstate.gov.in) from Date 14.12.2020, at 17:31Hours.(IST) onwards.(1) All eligible/intrested contractors/bidders are mandated to getenrolled on the Integrated e-procurement portal(https://eproc.cgstate.gov.in) and get approval on specific vendorclass from PWD under Centralized Contractor/Supplier Registrationin order to download the tender documents and participate in thesubsequent bidding process.

GOVERNMENT OF CHHATTISGARH, WATER RESOURCES DEPARTMENTOFFICE OF THE OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDING ENGINEER

SHIVNATH CIRCLE DURG (CHHATTISGARH)

Executive Engineer Tandula Water Resources Division Durg

For, Superintending Engineer Shivnath Circle, Durg C.G.)G- 85480/3 Ryp/Dtd 8.12.20

STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

Roads were deserted and allshops barring chemists

were shut across Raipur andmost of Chhattisgarh onTuesday as part of the nation-wide shutdown called by thefarmers protesting against thethree farm laws.

Congress leaders whowent around the Chhattisgarhcapital Raipur and other urbancentres urging the people tosupport the ‘Bharat Bandh’said the show of strength wasby and large peaceful.

By 6.30 am, rulingCongress leaders were on theroads appealing to the citizensto support the general strike.

The ChhattisgarhChamber of Commerce andIndustries and TheConfederation of All IndiaTraders (CAIT) extendedsupport to the shutdown.

Pradesh CongressCommittee President MohanMarkam and other Congress

leaders went around Raipuron tractors soliciting support.A similar exercise was con-ducted by the Congress lead-ers across the state.

While medical shops andhospitals were open, even

petrol pumps remained shut.The roads presented anempty look. The shops startedto reopen after 3.00 pm inmany parts of the capital. By6.30 pm, most shops wereopen.

Raipur witnessed deploy-ment of police personnel toensure law and order.

According to reportsfrom Bilaspur, Korba, Durg,Rajnandgaon, Janjgir-Champa, Raigarh, Surguja

and Jashpur districts, thestrike was near total. Similarreports came from Bhilai,Durg, Jagdalpur and othertowns.

A few social organiza-tions in Raipur helped the

destitute, passengers strandedin bus stands and railway sta-tions as well as family mem-bers of patients in hospitals.They provided food andwater to the adults and breadand milk to the children.

Near-total shutdown across C’garhSTAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

Chhattisgarh Chief MinisterBhupesh Baghel on

Tuesday told officials to issuetokens for paddy procurementto small and marginal farmerson priority.

“The Collectors shouldmake sure that on prioritybasis cooperative societiesmust issue token for small andmarginal farmers,” ChiefMinister Bhupesh Baghel wasquoted in a press release.

The Chief Minister toldofficials to make sure that ofthe total tokens issued, 70 per-cent must be for small andmarginal farmers. Also, everydistrict should try to purchasethe whole paddy a farmer hasregistered at one time.

Baghel told officials not tohassle the farmers duringpaddy purchase.

He has also asked officials

to immediately rectify differ-ences in the acreage and‘gidawari’ (cultivated area) iffound in the record of farmersregistered for selling paddy.

Paddy procurement forKharif season 2020-21 hadstarted in Chhattisgarh onDecember 1 and will concludeon January 31, 2021.

As per governmentrecord, by December 7 in all8.46 lakh tonnes of paddy hadbeen purchased from 2.40lakh farmers in Chhattisgarh.

RAIPUR: Farmers in Chhattisgarhcan get their problems, includingthose related to paddy procure-ment, resolved through Dial 112service in line with a directive givenby Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.

This service will be provided tothe farmers during the paddyprocurement season. Presently,emergency services are providedunder Dial 112. The Collectors andSPs have been directed to ensureimmediate redressal of thecomplaints thus received fromfarmers.

The farmers can get all theinformation about registration,entry of acreage, lack of acreage,any error in Girdawari, problems inselling paddy and need for financialassistance by dialing 112, an officialcommunication said on Tuesday.

Every week, the Chief Secretarywill review the complaints and theaction taken to redress them.

STAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

The Congress governmenthas not fulfilled the promis-

es made to the people ofChhattisgarh even after twoyears in power, BJP GeneralSecretary D. Purandeswari saidon Tuesday.

She told the media thatwhile the farmers are dis-traught, the youth in the statehave not received the promisedunemployment allowance.

Purandeswari, the partyin-charge of Chhattisgarh,along with co-in-charge NitinNabin visited the state.

She said the Centralgovernment has decided toprocure 60 lakh tonnes fromChhattisgarh under the Centralpool of rice but the completepaddy procurement from

farmers has not been done.In the last two years, not

one industry has been estab-lished in the state. More than500 cases of molestation inci-dents have been recorded.

Regarding meetings relatedto the BJP, Purandeswari saidafter the introduction of leadersand party workers wide ranginginteractions were held.

“We are working on a 1,000days roadmap in the state. Wewill be working at the boothlevel. We will open all avenuesagainst the Congress govern-ment in the state. The non-ful-filment of the promises will beraised before the public,” shesaid.

She said the new agricul-ture laws favour the farmers.

Four killed inroad accidentAMBIKAPUR: Four personswere killed while five were seri-ously injured when a pick-upvehicle turned turtle inDhaurpur police station limitsof Chhattisgarh's Surguja dis-trict, police said on Tuesday.

“The victims were return-ing from a marriage inSemardih village in the Lundrapolice station area and hadreached Dhaurpur village onMonday night. The pick-updriver tried to save a bike butlost control of the vehicle,”Surguja AdditionalSuperintendent of Police OmChandel said.

The driver was drunk, headded.

The accident was sointense that three persons diedon the spot while a girl whowas taken to the GovernmentMedical College at Ambikapurdied on Tuesday morning, hesaid.

Give priority to smallfarmers in tokendistribution: CM

Farmers can Dial 112for any problem, CSto review complaints

Congress govt failed inC’garh: Purandeswari

STAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

In what could be seen as a sign ofrestoring health services in Maoist

violence-hit region of Chhattisgarh, awoman gave birth to a baby boy at asub-health centre in Jinelanka village inBijapur district.

“It is for the first time a baby wasborn in the Golapalli centre. Both themother and child are safe. With theHealth department's efforts, the centrewas reactivated after being shut for sev-eral years,” a press release said.

Nagmani Madvi (23) of Jinelankavillage, about four km from theGolapalli centre, became a motherunder the supervision of trained med-ical staff, added the press release.

Golapalli is about 500 km south ofRaipur.

This is the second son born toNagmani. About four years back, she gavebirth to a son at her home in the village.

“This time I was not in much stress

as I knew I was under the proper care oftrained health workers. I received thedoctor’s supervision which was quiterelieving for my family,” Nagmani wasquoted as saying in the press release.

Her husband Lakhan Madvi alsoexpressed happiness on re-starting ofthe health centre.

"The female health workersprovided us with pre-childbirth careand advice regarding diet which wefollowed," he said in the press release.

The centre will also providevaccination for the new born.

Institutional deliveryin Naxalite region

Stay united for Mission 2023, 2024: Purandeswari

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The Government plans torope in over 1.54 lakh

Auxiliary Nurse Midwives(ANMs) to execute its Covid-19 immunisation plan amongits vaccinating prioritygroups—frontline workersincluding all healthcare pro-fessionals in the first stage,emergency workers in the sec-ond stage and people with co-morbidity in the third stage.

Sharing the details of theproposed Covid-19 immuni-sation programme withreporters at a press briefinghere, Union Health SecretaryRajesh Bhushan hinted thatthe vaccination might startsoon, once the vaccine isapproved.

While 2.38 lakh auxiliarynurse midwives (ANMs) pro-vide various health servicesincluding vaccination underuniversal immunisation pro-gramme, only 1.54 lakh suchhealth workers will be used forCOVID-19 inoculation. “We

do not want to hamper ourroutine immunisation pro-gramme,” he said.

The existing cold chainfacilities in India are capable ofstoring the first shipment ofnearly three crore novel coronavirus vaccines that havebeen earmarked for frontline healthcare and med-ical workers, said Bhushan.

Delhi and Hyderabad air-

ports have already begun prep-ping temperature-controlledcontainers and zones to storemillions of doses expected to be made availableover the next few weeks andmonths.

Both airports, whichalready have advanced pharmaand vaccine storage and pro-cessing zones, also have special“cool chambers” in which tem-

perature can be set as low as -20 degrees Celsius and “cooldollies”, or special trolleys thatensure vaccines are protected(and optimum temperaturesmaintained) during move-ment of cargo between the air-craft and cargo terminal.

In addition, both airports,which operated as major hubsin the early days of the pan-

demic and transported mil-lions of PPE kits, medicalsupplies and perishable goods,have also taken steps to minimise human contact withthe chain of transportationand storage of the vaccinedoses.

The Government has alsocreated an application Co-WIN which can be down-

loaded by the vaccine users, sothat the authorities can mon-itor the process from thebeginning to the end.

The Health Secretary said,“Process of collecting databaseof health workers has startedacross all States and UTs andCentral Ministries. This datais being uploaded on CO-WIN software. This data will

be verified.”He explained that on the

basis of the “National ExpertGroup on VaccineAdministration for COVID-19(NEGVAC) has recommend-ed, around one crore healthworkers would be given priority in the vaccinationdrive.

“As per the NEGVAC rec-

ommendation, inoculationgroups have been prioritised--- healthcare providers andworkers in healthcare setting,personnel from state and &central police, armed forces,home guards, civil defenceand disaster management vol-unteers and municipal work-ers and persons above 50years,” he said.

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With three vaccine-makershaving applied for emer-

gency use authorisation inIndia, the vaccination drive inIndia is all likely to be kickedoff soon though the UnionHealth Ministry did not spec-ify the exact date, leaving itupon the DCGI approval forlicense.

Three COVID-19 vaccinescandidates, developed byBharat Biotech, Serum Instituteof India and Pfizer, are underactive consideration of India’sdrug regulator and there ishope that early licensure is pos-sible for all or any of them,Union Health Secretary RajeshBhushan said at a presser hereon Tuesday.

Over the last four days, theIndian arm of US pharmaceu-tical giant Pfizer, Pune-basedSerum Institute of India andHyderabad-based pharmaceu-tical firm Bharat Biotech haveapplied to the Drugs ControllerGeneral of India (DCGI) seek-ing emergency use authorisa-tion for their potentialCOVID-19 vaccines.

“Once we get a green sig-nal from our scientists, we’ll

launch massive production ofthe vaccine. We’ve made all thepreparations and drawn anoutline to ramp up productionof the vaccine to make it avail-able to each and every personin the shortest possible time,”said the Secretary.

Asked what steps would befollowed by the DCGI in theabsence of a water-tight emer-gency use authorisation law forgranting licence to vaccinemakers, Bhushan said not allcountries’ regulatory frame-work or rules and acts mentionemergency Use authorisation.

“So, the fact that thisphrase is not used in thenational regulatory frameworkof any country does not meanthat specific country does nothave an enabling provision to

accord an approval which isearly and which is distinctfrom a regular marketapproval.

“India’s regulatory frame-work has a specific provisionfor grant of emergency useauthorisation. Although thisphrase is not used,” he said.

The New Drugs andClinical Trials Rules, 2019,clearly specifies that underspecific special situations,relaxation, abbreviation, omis-sion, or deferment of dataincluding local clinical trialdata may be considered forapproval.

Presently, eight vaccinesare at different stages of devel-opment in the country.

One is Covishield, which isbeing manufactured by Serum

Institute of India in collabora-tion with AstraZeneca. Phasetwo and three clinical trials ofthis vaccine is underway andthe firm has applied formemergency use authorisation.

Another is Covaxin, whichis being indigenously devel-oped by Bharat Biotech in col-laboration with Indian Councilof Medical Research (ICMR)and is presently in phase threeof clinical trials. It has alsoapplied to the DCGI seekingemergency use authorisation.

The third one is ZyCOV-D,being developed by CadilaHealthcare Ltd in Ahmedabadin collaboration with centralgovernment’s Department ofBiotechnology and is in phasetwo of the trials.

The fourth vaccine candi-date is Sputnik V which is beingmanufactured by Dr Reddy’sLab, Hyderabad, in collabora-tion with Russia’s GamaleyaNational Centre and accordingto their mutual agreement.The phase two trial in India isover and phase three will beginnext week.

The fifth one is NVX-CoV2373, which is being devel-oped by Serum Institute ofIndia in collaboration with

Novavax and its phase threeclinical trial is under consider-ation with the drug regulatorwhile the sixth vaccine candi-date is Recombinant ProteinAntigen based vaccine, to bemanufactured by Biological ELtd, Hyderabad, in collabora-tion with MIT, USA. Anotherone is HGCO 19 being manu-factured by Genova in Pune incollaboration with HDT, USA.

The eighth vaccine is beingdeveloped by Bharat BiotechInternational Ltd in collabora-tion with Thomas JeffersonUniversity, USA and it is at thepre-clinical stages.

However, Bhushan said,adding, “Vaccination does notmean people become care-free.”

NITI Aayog member(Health) V K Paul said theCOVID-19 situation in Indiahas stabilised with active casesshowing a “clear-cut decliningtrend” even though the pan-demic situation in many othercountries is becoming quiteserious.

The concern and anxietythat arose following an increasein daily cases of infection inDelhi has also settled now, hesaid.

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The Ministry of ExternalAffairs is organising a visit

of more that 60 Foreign Headsof Missions (HoMs) in India tothe leading biotech companiesBharat Biotech and BiologicalE in Hyderabad on December9 to showcase New Delhi’svaccine preparedness. This isthe first such visit and it will be

followed by visits to facilities inother cities, sources saidadding the visit is in continu-ation of the MEA’s briefing onCovid-19 to 190 HoMs onNovember 6.

India has already con-ducted online training ses-sions for nearly 90 participantsfrom 8 neighbouring countriesto develop capacity in clinicaltrials and clinical practices.

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The National InvestigationAgency (NIA) has arrested

an accused Rajeev RanjanSingh alias Chunnu Singh ofGaya, Bihar in an arms traf-ficking case relating to stealingof weapon parts from CentralOrdnance Depot, Jabalpur.

Background of the case isthat three AK series weaponswere recovered in DistrictMunger, Bihar from the houseof one accused RizwanaBegum.

The case was originallyregistered as FIR No. 323/2018dated September 7, 2018 atPolice Station Muffasil, DistrictMunger.This case was latertaken up and re-registered byNIA for investigation.

The investigation in thecase has revealed that prohib-ited bore/ AK series weaponswere stolen and smuggled fromthe sheds of Central Ordnance

Depot by serving and retiredpersonnel of the depot and soldto arms traffickers based inMunger, Bihar which wereeventually sold to various Naxalorganisations and criminal syn-dicates, the NIA said.

Earlier, the NIA had arrest-ed and chargesheeted 13accused persons.

“Investigation has disclosedincriminating evidence ofinvolvement of accused RajeevSingh alias Chunnu Singh,who is a habitual arms traf-ficker and was one of the mainconduits for supply of weaponsin this case,”the agency said,adding further investigationin the case continuing.

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The winners in the BiharAssembly elections bagged

an average 25.23 per cent of thetotal registered votes, accordingto a report by the Associationfor Democratic Reforms(ADR).

The elections for 243 constituencies took place inthree phases on October 28 (for71 seats), November 3 (for 94seats) and November 7 (for 78seats). The National Democratic

Alliance won the elections aftersecuring majority.

In a statement, the pollrights group said the winnerswon with an average of 25.23per cent of the total registeredvoters. “This implies that thewinners represent on an verage 25.23 per cent of thetotal electorate.”

In the previous Assemblyelections in 2015, the winnersbagged an average 25.09 percent of the total registeredvotes, it said.

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Improving access to formalagriculture credit, new farm-

ing techniques and agri inputslike quality seeds, and onlinetrading marketplace for farm-ers, the Common ServicesCenters (CSC), under theMinistry of Electronics & IT,have in recent times partneredwith farmers and agricultureworkers and stakeholdersacross the country.

Despite the Covid pan-demic and the nation-widelockdown by the Government,CSC, in a latest report, has saidthat it launched Kisan e-Mart,a unique online trading plat-form for farm produce. CSCKisan e-Mart leverages tech-nology to connect farmers withthe buyers through the VillageLevel Entrepreneurs of CSC.With the pandemic disruptingthe supply chain between theproducers, sellers and buyers,Kisan e-Mart has helped farm-ers connect with buyers at theregional and global level, itclaimed.

The platform creates a win-win situation for the farmer,buyer and VLE as there are nomediators in this platform.The farmer is directly con-nected to the buyer. The farmeris guaranteed a minimum pricewhich is competitive to themarket rates, officials said.

The platform came to the

rescue of farmers from Solapurwho were not able to sell theirharvest of onion due to themarkets being closed. ThroughKisan e-Mart, 60 quintals ofonion were sold to a buyerfrom Singapore, benefittingthe farmers. Abhikant Kumar,a litchi farmer fromMuzaffarpur district in Bihar,sold ten quintals of Shahi Litchito a buyer in London throughCSC Kisan e-Mart run byVillage Level EntrepreneurRoopak Kumar.

Managing Director, CSCSPV, Dr. Dinesh Tyagi said,“Our partnership with agri-culture workers is a step aheadin furthering the agenda of theGovernment in serving thefarmers across the country.CSC has also partnered withthe Indian Council ofAgricultural Research (ICAR)to provide agriculture relatedteleconsultations to farmersthrough qualified agriculturalscientists at Krishi VigyanKendras. Till October 2020,about one lakh farmers havetaken agriculture related tele-consultations with agricultur-al scientist at KVKs throughCSC”.

Officials said CSC has beenregistering farmers for croploan under Pradhan MantriFasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY),the third largest crop insurancescheme in the world. Thescheme aims at protecting

farmers’ investment from nat-ural adversity as well as ensurescontinued flow of capital with-in the agricultural economy.

In the Kharif season 2020,CSC registered a total of 51lakh policies with a total pre-mium of �576 crores from 13States, namely HimachalPradesh, Kerala, Uttarakhand,Haryana, Uttar Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, TamilNadu, Assam, Odisha, Tripura,Karnataka and Maharashtra.

CSC also executed a MoUwith the Department ofAgriculture & Farmers Welfarelast year for carrying out enrol-ment of farmers under PradhanMantri Kisan Maan-DhanYojana, a voluntary and con-tributory pension scheme forsmall and marginal land-hold-ing farmers to provide themsocial security. Under thisscheme, a monthly pension of�3,000 is provided to all eligi-ble farmers. Till September2020, 20.77 lakh farmers havebeen enrolled under PM KisanMaan-Dhan Yojana throughCSCs.

The Ministry ofAgriculture partnered withCSC in February 2020 to pro-vide institutional credit to 14.65land holding farmers in thecountry. Through CSC, it wasdesired to cover all PM Kisanbeneficiaries under KisanCredit Card (KCC) Scheme,said the report on the subject.

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The Supreme Court onTuesday upheld the notifi-

cation for acquisition of landfor the�10,000-crore Chennai-Salem eight-lane green corridorproject and said that the Centreand NHAI may proceed toacquire land for constriction ofthe highway.

The top court, in its verdict,however, dismissed the appealof land owners against theacquisition of their land for theproject.

The apex court’s verdictcame on a batch of appeals filedby the Centre and the NationalHighways Authority of India(NHAI) and few land ownersand others including PMKleader Anbumani Ramadoss.

These pleas were filedagainst the Madras High Court’sjudgement, delivered on April 8,2019, holding as “illegal and badin law” the notifications issuedunder Section 3A(1) of theNational Highways Act foracquisition of specified lands for

construction of the new high-way which was part of the larg-er ‘Bharatmala Pariyojna– PhaseI5’ project.

A bench of Justices A MKhanwilkar, B R Gavai andKrishna Murari partly allowedthe appeals of the Centre andthe NHAI to the extent ofquashing of the notification toacquire land for the highwayproject by the Madras HighCourt and gave its nod to again

proceed with the process.“The impugned judgment

and order is modified. Thechallenge to impugned notifi-cations under Sections 2(2) and3A of the 1956 Act, respective-ly, is negative. The CentralGovernment and/or NHAI mayproceed further in the matter inaccordance with law for acqui-sition of notified lands for con-struction of a national highwayfor the proposed

section/stretch,” the judge.The ambitious 277.3-km-

long eight-lane greenfield pro-ject aims to cut travel timebetween the two cities Chennaiand Salem half to about twohours and 15 minutes

However, i t has been fac-ing opposition from a section oflocals, including farmers, overfears of losing their land, besidesenvironmentalists who areagainst felling trees for it.

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Social media was abuzz onTuesday with messages of

solidarity with the agitatingfarmers on ‘Bharat Bandh’ dayas netizens made ploughs, trac-tors, crops and ‘Kisan’ trend onTwitter in support of the pro-testers’ demands. As the agita-tion picked up in the morning,the hashtag#Aaj_Bharat_Bandh_Hai wastrending till late afternoon.

Other hashtags widely usedby the netizens were# T r a c t o r T o T w i t t e r ,#IStandWithFarmers, #Kisan,#FarmersProtest and#NoFarmersNoFood.Manyusers also shared videos ofdeserted markets in cities inGujarat, Maharashtra and otherstates to show the impact of thestir.”I stand with Farmers andstrongly support .. Kisaan haitoh Desh hai.#AajBharatBandhHai,” tweeteduser @gschahal, and shared aphoto from the main protestsite at Delhi-Haryana border.

Images of ploughs lockinga door drawn in the shape ofIndia’s map and tractors tri-umphing over odds were wide-ly shared to convey the idea ofbandh and farmers’ struggle.

Punjabi singer DiljitDosanjh, who recently had anugly spat with actress KanganaRanaut over the farmers’protest issue, shared posters of‘Bharat Bandh’ and the trend-ing hashtag#AajBharatBandhHai.Manyother Twitter users postedposters, pictures and videos toconvey their solidarity withthe farmers.

“Finally ThumbsupThumbs upThumbs upWorldwide trending on num-ber 1 #AajBharatBandhHai,”wrote @JowanjotKaur whilesharing an image of a Punjabi‘kisan’ holding a flag atop thehood of a tractor.

Bharat Kisan Union tweet-ed bilingually: “Keep support-ing! Strengthen Farmer’s Voice!Maximum Retweet!#8December #Bharat_Bandh#FarmersProtestDelhi2020# F a r m e r s D e l h i P r o t e s t# F a r m e r s D i l l i C h a l o# A a j B h a r a t B a n d h H a i ,”# R e p e a l B l a c k L a w s#FarmersProtest2020.”

Another user @JAafiatweeted: “I stand with OurKissan Brothers I support#bharathbandh Raised fistFarm laws need to be revokedand Justice should be done toour Farmer Brothers Raised fistAgree = Retweet Down point-ing backhand index# i _ s t a n d _ w i t h _ f a r m e r s# F a r m e r P r o t e s t

# N o F a r m e r s N o F o o d#AajBharatBandhHai _Rahega#AajBharatBandhHai.”

The user posted an imageof a lock and chain over themap of India to represent thenationwide stir.”Farmers play avital role in the Earth’sFoodsystem, without themhuman race’s survival is diffi-cult. #FarmBills is also a hugethreat towards the global foodsecurity. Let us support#BharatBandh,” wrote user@KTRTRS.

“I am a Panjabi, I am afarmer Tractor? ?I grew up ina village as a farmer, my wholevillage in Panjab is a farmingcommunity ! ? ? I will ALWAYSstand with my people RaisedfistRaised fist? ? #IamAFarmer# S o n O f P a n j a b#StandWithFarmers #Farmers# F a r m e r P r o t e s t#TractorToTwitter,” tweeted@RaviSinghKA.

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The BJP on Tuesdaylaunched a social media

campaign to back the threenew farm laws introduced bythe Central Government inSeptember and to bust the“myths and rumours” beingspread by political opponentsof the Narendra Modi regime.It released some Hindi-lan-guage infographics on Twitterand Facebook and highlightedthe positive aspects of the newfarm laws.

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All India Motor TransportCongress (AIMTC), rep-

resenting about 95 lakh truck-ers and other entities, onTuesday said that its supportto the farmers’ Bharat Bandhcall was successful andclaimed the transport industryincurred a loss of � 2,000 croreon account of halting its oper-ations. The transport fraternitysupport to farmers has beenhighly successful. About 90lakh trucks, tempo, trailersstood still on the call ofAIMTC.

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The Supreme Court onTuesday agreed to hear a

plea of Maharashtra GovernorBhagat Singh Koshyari againstissuance of a show cause noticeby the Uttarakhand High Courton a petition seeking contemptproceedings against him forhis alleged failure to pay rent fora Government bungalow allo-cated to him as ex-ChiefMinister of the state.

A bench of justices R FNariman, K M Joseph andKrishna Murari issued notice tothe Uttarakhand Governmentand tagged the matter alongwith the pending petitions onthe issue. The counsel appear-ing for the State Governmentaccepted the notice.

On October 26, the topcourt had stayed contempt pro-ceedings initiated against Unionminister Ramesh Pokhriyal foralleged non-compliance of theUttarakhand High Court’s lastyear order on payment of rentby former chief ministers of theState for occupyingGovernment accommodation.

Koshyari, who sought stayof the high court order, con-tended in his plea that he is thesitting Governor of Maharashtraand referred to Article 361 of theConstitution which providesprotection to President andGovernors from invoking anysuch proceedings.

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Delhi police took AbdullahDanish on 10 days remand

to clear the doubts that theDelhi Police and agencies haveabout him. Since the estab-lishment of SIMI, there aremany questions about the con-nection to the IndianMujahideen, whose answersare yet to be revealed. Hisfamily, relatives and closefriends are also on the radar ofagencies.

The team of Delhi Special

Cell Inspector Shiv Kumar andKarmaveer Singh arrestedDanish from the flat numberC-3 of the third floor ofDodhpur’s Shami apartment.He was taken to Delhi fromhere and after interrogation,police came again here to leavehis wife.

A ten-day custody remandhas also been approved.According to Delhi Police,apart from Delhi Police, agen-cies will also interrogate him ondifferent aspects for the nextten days.

Aligarh: In protest against thethree new agricultural laws, theBharat Bandh of farmers, whohad been protesting in Delhi for13 days, had a partial effect onthe markets of Aligarh, but thestir among Opposition parties isintensifying. The Mandi, marketnear highway etc remained closebut the city markets were open.

The opposing political par-ties including Congress and SPactively participated in theprotest. Many SP workers weretaken into custody by theadministration. The police andadministration took the situationunder control and not muchhavoc created in the city and thebharat bandh was conducted

peacefully.An alert was issued in the

district regarding the call ofBharat Bandh of Kisan UnitedFront. The police administrationmade security arrangements bydividing the city into seven sec-tors. Force on borders wasincreased. Apart from the RAF,PAC, the police station wasmonitoring each and every area.Thre magistrate and the COmanaged security in theirrespective areas.

Farmers are agitating againstFarm Bill. In this sequence, thepolice administration was onalert on the Bharat Bandh onDecember 8 of the Kisan UnitedFront. PNS

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Bengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee on Tuesday came down

heavily on the BJP for “manufactur-ing” dead bodies to win elections. Herimmediate point of reference was thedeath of a BJP worker who onMonday died of injuries suffered dur-ing a saffron rally in Siliguri.

“The BJP is a party that spreadsrumors like a storm,” Banerjee saidreferring to the “unfortunate death”of the BJP worker. Refuting BJP’s alle-gations that the victim Ulen Roy diedin police firing Banerjee referring tothe postmortem report said “thepolice never uses pellet guns and thevictim died of pellet injuries whichmeans that there were criminals inthe BJP rally.”

Banerjee alleged “it is the BJP’shabit to infest its ranks with miscre-ants” as it happened on Monday. “Thevictim died when these miscreantsopened fire …” Banerjee told a meet-ing at Raiganj adding the BJP killedits own workers to gain sympathy and“just for publicity and propaganda.”

Claiming that her partyTrinamool Congress “never kicksup storm of rumors,” Banerjee said“we kick up storms of developmentunlike the BJP which fans storm ofriots, arson, disinformation and falsepropaganda.”

The Chief Minister’s claims werecountered by a petition being filed atthe court of Jalpaiguri Chief JudicialMagistrate for conducting a re-post-mortem.

“We cannot understand theurgency of the police to conduct apostmortem during the dead of night

which they did… we want a videographed re-postmortem conductedby at least three doctors,” the NorthBengal BJP leadership said.

Banerjee’s hard-hitting wordscame against the back drop of a policereport which on Tuesday’s morningsaid that the 50-year-old victim whodied in the Monday’s pitched battlebetween the BJP workers and thepolice was killed with a shotgun thatlocal law enforcement agencies didnot use.

Referring to the postmortemreports that Bengal Police tweeted, “asper the PM (post mortem examina-tion) report death was due to theeffects of shotgun injuries… Police donot use shotguns. It’s obvious thatduring yesterday’s protest in Siliguri,armed persons were brought and theyfired from firearms,”

The State police said that the vic-tim “received pellet injuries from ashotgun fired from close range by aperson standing near the deceased inthe protest program. This is unprece-dented. Bringing armed persons inprotest programs and inciting themto fire is unheard off.”

Confirming that the case hadbeen transferred to the CID, StatePolice said “there was a malafideintention to create violence by the useof firearms. CID West Bengal hasbeen asked to investigate. Truth willcome out and strong action will betaken against all those who plannedand executed the heinous crime.”

Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghoshimmediately hit back calling it a “fool-ish remark” that workers of the sameparty would kill their own colleagues.“Such comments can come from the

Chief Minister only,” he said addinghow “about 10 more people are lyingin the hospital bed with similarinjuries … It is a confirmed reportthat Ulen Roy and these other injuredpeople were in the fore front of therally and the local witnesses are say-ing that the police invited them tobreak the barricades after whichbullets were fired at them.”

Monday’s rally witnessed large-scale violence in Siliguri with thepolice firing tear gas shells and lathi-charging the protesters even as theymarched towards Uttar Kanya thesecond Secretariat of the State.

“It seems like the TrinamoolCongress goons had infiltrated thepolice ranks and fired at our work-ers,” Ghosh and other BJP workerslike Samik Bhattacharya said addinghow the Bengal Police was in a habitof committing the same misconducteverywhere.

“Now it is the responsibility of thepolice to find out the real culprits,” hesaid even as State party vice presidentJaya Prakash Majumdar demanded aCBI investigation into the matter.

Referring to the demand for a re-postmortem the North BengalMedical College doctor PK Deb saidthe postmortem had indeed beenvideo graphed and was conducted bythree doctors adding “if the courtorders a re-postmortem to be donethen we have no problem doing it.”

Meanwhile, there was backlash ofMonday’s skirmish with the BJPcalled North Bengal bandh getting amixed response in the zone amidstclashes between saffron workers andTMC men.

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The sand layers found below the ground atthe Ram Janambhoomi temple site in

Ayodhya, will not affect construction of thetemple.

“Experts have found sand below theground but it has not come as a surprise. Loosesand was expected as Ayodhya is situated onthe banks of river Saryu,” said Anil Mishra,member of the Shri Ram Janambhoomi TeerthKshetra Trust.

He said, “Take the example of Taj Mahal.It stands on a land that has loose sand under-neath but it has caused no damage to the struc-ture.” He said experts were working to final-ize the laying of foundation.

The chairman of Ram Mandir construc-tion committee, Nripendra Mishra, is inAyodhya on a two-day visit to finalise detailsrelated to the ongoing foundation work of tem-ple.

Mishra visited the Ram Janambhoomipremises on Monday with Mishra, treasurerGovind Dev Giri, trust secretary Champat Rai,and experts from Larsen and Toubro (L&T)and Tata Consultancy Services to take stockof the work.

Later, he held a meeting with experts andtrustees at Faizabad circuit house.

Though there was no official briefing bythe trust regarding the meeting, sources saidthe committee was pushing for speedy con-struction of the temple.

Mishra said: “Experts are trying to ensurethat the foundation of the grand Ram templeis strong enough to last, at least, 1,000 years.”

Earlier, there were reports that loose sandbelow the ground was delaying the foundationlaying work and it was discussed how the pil-lars would be jammed and made sturdy to givestrength to the structure.

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Bengaluru: Braving inclement weath-er, Covid scare and tight security, thou-sands of farmers, workers and theirsupporters staged massive rallies anddemonstrations in cities, towns and vil-lages across Karnataka on Tuesday inprotest against the three farm laws anddemanded their repeal.

“The Bharat Bandh has got mixedresponse in the southern State, as thou-sands of farmers led peaceful protestrallies, staged sit-in demonstrationsand urged the central government towithdraw the 3 anti-farmer laws imme-diately,” a state home department offi-cial told IANS here. IANS

Lucknow: The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has clearly affect-ed the Haj pilgrimage, as therewere only 3,200 applicantsfrom Uttar Pradesh to travel in2021, compared to last year's29,000.

The window for onlineand offline applications openedon November 7 and the lastdate for depositing the form isDecember 10.

Officials have said that thepandemic was one of the mainreasons for a lesser number ofHaj applications this year.

Not even a single womanhas applied under the catego-ry of 'without mehram' (onlywomen group).

Under the category,women can apply in the groupsof three.

The Haj Committee ofIndia has reserved 500 seats forsuch women.

With nothing final on thenumber of pilgrims to beallowed by Saudi Arabia, thequota of states has not beendecided as yet.

No one knows how manypilgrims would be visitingMecca and Medina from UttarPradesh next year.

However, the SecretaryState Haj Committee, RahulGupta, said: “We want to sendthe maximum number of pil-grims for Haj but some thingsare not in our hands. We can-not comment on the quota ofUttar Pradesh because we arestill awaiting directives aboutthe numbers.” IANS

Eluru (Andhra Pradesh):Excessive amounts of heavymetals such as lead and nickelwere found in the blood samplesof patients suffering from themysterious disease in Elurutown of West Godavari districtin Andhra Pradesh.

“We found lead and nickelin the blood samples in excessamount. This can be one of thecauses. We are sending moresamples to the All India Instituteof Medical Sciences (AIIMS) inNew Delhi,” Himanshu Shukla,joint collector, West Godavaridistrict told IANS.

He said scientists were sus-pecting these heavy metals werecausing the mysterious ailment

that has already affected hun-dreds. Eluru, 58 km northeast ofVijayawada, headquarters ofWest Godavari district, is apaddy cultivation and aquacul-ture heavyweight.

“We are working backwardsin trying to find out the sourcesfrom which this nickel and leadwould have come,” he said.

Shukla said water and milkhave already been tested forthese metals and their absencein them has ruled them out tobe a cause. “So definitely it is notwater and milk. It can be otherthings. Already we have coveredvegetables if they could be asource and there are multipleother sources like sweets,” said

the Indian AdministrativeService officer.

Officials and medicalexperts have adopted the elim-ination method, ruling one pos-sibility after the other as the mal-ady is of elusive nature and yetto be confirmed with authority.

Last night, vegetables sam-ples were shipped to theNational Institute of Nutrition(NIN) in Hyderabad for testing.Other samples have also beenflown to Delhi, whose resultscould be expected in the next 12hours.

Meanwhile, cases of the ill-ness rose to 551, out of which174 are active while 350 havebeen discharged. IANS

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The Bharat Bandh called bythe 15-plus parties, includ-

ing the Left and the Congress,in support of the protestingfarmers in Delhi evoked partialresponse in Bengal which sawlesser amount of vehicular traf-fic to the effect that many veg-etable and other markets wherecommodities are transportedfrom villages either remainedfully closed or thinly attended,sources said.

Supporters of the Left andthe Congress on Tuesdayblocked railway tracks at anumber of places in north-sub-urban section of Sealdah and

Howrah divisions affecting therailway traffic. Rail traffic wasblocked at Burdwan, Malda,Bankura, Purulia and otherparts of the State.

The farmers who bringtheir vegetables and other itemsto Kolkata early morningremained mostly absent withsuggestions that rural Bengalgot good response of the BharatBandh called by the farmersand supported by oppositionparties.

Roads were blocked byLeft and Congress supportersat Madhyamgram Chowmathain North 24 Parganas district,Panskura in West Midnapore,Bali in Howrah district,Baharampur in Murshidabad

and Kharagpur as police triedto persuade them to allowvehicular movement.

Sit-ins were roads wereorganised by Left and Congressworkers to enforce the shut-down in Bengal and roadswere blocked intermittently atLake Town, College Street,Jadavpur and Shyambazar Five-Point Crossing.

With the StateGovernment making atten-dance mandatory theGovernment offices witnessednear-normal attendancethough there was less numberof workers joining work atindustrial belt at North 24Parganas, West Burdwan andHooghly districts, sources said.

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Jaipur: Rajasthan Chief MinisterAshok Gehlot's call to observe theBharat Bandh in Rajasthan in apeaceful manner proved futile onTuesday after Congress workersgheraoed and pelted stones at thestate BJP headquarters here, gettingembroiled in a clash with theworkers of the Bharatiya JanataYuva Morcha (BJYM).

Terming the Congress workersas 'goons', state BJP PresidentSatish Poonia tweeted taggingGehlot, “Congress goons peltedstones at BJP state headquarters inthe presence of police. What kindof bandh is this? What kind ofprotest is this? What is the reason

for this and what is the fuss about?”

He also asked the CM where ishis democracy and good gover-nance model? “This much pride isnot good,” he said.

During the unrest at the stateBJP headquarters, workers of NSUIand BJYM exchanged blows andthe police had to be called in tocontrol the situation.

The NSUI workers, as per theset schedule, came to ghearo thestate BJP headquarters as part ofthe nationwide Bharat Bandh callgiven by the farmers protestingagainst the Central farm lawsenacted in September. IANS

Amaravati:Amid a peaceful'Bharat Bandh' in AndhraPradesh, state BJP PresidentSomu Veerraju on Tuesday sup-ported the new central farm laws,even as his party colleagues triedto explain their finer pointsthrough explanatory videos andslides.

“I am with Prime MinisterNarendra Modi. I will not givesupport to Bharat Bandh,” saidVeerraju.

S Vishnu Vardhan Reddy,state BJP General Secretary,claimed that the farm laws wouldbe a game changer for farmers.“They will help them increasetheir incomes. It will empowerthem. They will also help increaseIndia's GDP and achieve the fullpotential of agriculture sector,” heclaimed.

Reddy said people need toknow about the Acts properly andasked them to read them beforeprotesting against the govern-ment. He criticised the Congressfor participating in the protests.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP GVLNarasimha Rao claimed that thenew laws were aimed at givingfreedom to farmers, who heclaimed had suffered decades-long manipulation at the hands ofsome government players andmiddlemen.

“These are revolutionarylaws. Many governments delib-erated but did not dare to imple-ment them,” he asserted. IANS

Jaipur: Chief Minister ShriAshok Gehlot has said thatfarmers and agriculture arethe main axis of the country'seconomy and their upliftmentis the top priority of the StateGovernment. Banking sectorcooperation is important in thedevelopment of this sector.Along with NABARD andcooperative banks, the nation-alized banks of the countryshould also extend credit facil-ities for agriculture and alliedsectors, so that the financialneeds of the farmers are met ontime and their prosperity ispaved.

Gehlot was addressingNABARD's State Level DebtSeminar on 2021-22 through avideo conference at the ChiefMinister's residence onTuesday. On this occasion, healso released NABARD's 'StateFocus Paper: Year 2021-22'. Hesaid that the geographical con-ditions of Rajasthan areuneven, but there are immensepossibilities of development inthe agricultural sector. Keepingthis in mind, for the progressof infrastructure in agriculture,NABARD, RBI and otherbanks should increase the ratioof long-term agricultural cred-

it to agriculture by 20 percent.Currently this ratio is 20 per-cent of the total agriculturalcredit.

The Chief Minister saidthat the farmer of the countryis choked with debt, to make itprosperous, along with expan-sion in credit facilities, bolddecisions like debt waiver areneeded. As soon as our gov-ernment was formed in thestate, we made the first decisionto waive farmers' debt, bene-fiting about 20 lakh farmers ofthe state. If nationalized bankscooperate in this, then morefarmers can get the benefit. Inthis regard, we have also writ-ten a letter to Prime MinisterShri Narendra Modi to make alump sum agreement plan.

Shri Gehlot said that inorder to provide the farmerswith a reasonable price for thecrop, it is necessary that theprocurement at the minimumsupport price (MSP) be close tothe farmers' fields. For this itis necessary to strengthen theVillage Service CooperativeSocieties (GSSS) and developother basic facilities includingstorage capacity there.NABARD can play a big role inthis task.

Thiruvananthapuram: Keralaon Tuesday recorded 5,032new coronavirus cases from60,521 samples was tested inthe past 24 hours, state HealthMinister K.K. Shailaja said.

In a statement, Shailajaalso said that 4,735 peopletested negative, taking the totalnumber of cured to 5,82,351,while the state presently has59,732 active Covid cases.

Across the state, there were3,10,345 people under obser-vation at various places whichincluded 14,141 people at hos-pitals. IANS

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Jammu: Recoveries again out-numbered new Covid-19 casesin J&K on Tuesday with 524patients recovering from thedisease against 470 new casesgetting reported in the last 24hours.

So far, 1,14,038 people havebeen infected with coronavirusin J&K out of which 1,07,282have recovered.

An official bulletin saidthat 524 patients were dis-charged after recovery while

470 tested positive, including277 in Jammu division and 193in Kashmir division.

Six more people suc-cumbed to the virus in the last24 hours, taking the UnionTerritory's Covid death toll to1,761.

The UT presently has 4,995active cases, of which 2,462 arein Jammu division and 2,533 inKashmir division. IANS

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The ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)constituents – Shiv Sena, NCP and

Congress – and other friendly parties flexedtheir muscles on Tuesday, as they ensureda near total closure in rural and semi-urbanareas of the state in response to the “BandhBandh” called by farmer organisations andthe national opposition parties to demandscrapping three recent farm laws.

A day ahead of the meeting SharadPawar-led Opposition delegation’s meetingwith President Ram Nath Kovind over thefarm bills issue, the MVA-ruled Maharashtraeffectively lodged a protest against the BJP-led Union government over the controver-sial farm laws and extended its support tothe pongoing farmers’ agitation.

On a day when the bandh organisers hadspared essential services from its purview,rural and semi-urban areas in coastalKonkan districts of Thane, Palghar,Ratnagiri, Raigad, Sindhudurg, several partsof other regions like Marathwada, NorthMaharashtra, Western Maharashtra andVidarbha joined the bandh.

While no untoward incidents werereported from any part of the state, the farm-ers and workers of different political partiesresorted to “rasta rokos” in various parts ofthe state, including Thane, Palghar,Aurangabad, Solapur, Nashik, Pune,Buldhana h and some other districts in thestate.

All Agricultural Produce MarketingCommittees (APMCs) in the state wore adeserted look with the agitating farmers stay-ing away from these places. However, nor-mal life remained in major towns and citiesin the state where shops, hotels and businessestablishments remained open. The bandhhad no impact on the life in Mumbai, wherethe Central and Western Railways operat-ed the suburban train services normally.

Apart from the ruling MVA constituentslike the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, theother parties like Samajwadi Party, BahujanVikas Aghadi, the CPI, CPM, Dalit parties,political outfits linked to farmer organisa-tions, students organisations and the TradeUnions and bank unions had supportedSaturday Bandh.

While the NCP and Congress organizeddemonstrations in Mumbai, Nagpur, Puneand other cities, a large number ofGurudwaras and Punjabi associations organ-ised human chains between Mumbai andNavi Mumbai . Several parties joined togeth-er to organized a motorcycle rally at Thane,a satellite city of Mumbai.

At Ralefgan-Siddhi in Ahmednagardistrict, the 83-year old social activist AnnaHazare joined the farmers’ agitation by hold-ing a day-long token hunger strike at the vil-lage temple.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra PradeshCongress Committee Chairman andRevenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said thatthere was outrage across the country againstthese laws and the agitation of farmers hasnow become a mass agitation and wouldcontinue their agitation till their demandswere not met.

As part of the bandh, Thorat staged adharna near the statue of former PrimeMinister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Mumbai.“These laws are not in the interest of thefarmers but have been brought in for the ben-efit of a handful of moneylenders, industri-alists and stockists. This will be detrimen-tal to both the farmers and the consumers,”Throat said.

While Sena’s Minister of State AbdulSattar dubbed the three farm laws as a ‘Hitler-style’ assault on farmers which was neverresorted to by any government or even theBritish rulers in the past, Congress MinisterVijay Wadettiwar asked the BJP to forsakeits arrogance and repeal the bills forthwith.

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Soldiering is extremely riskybusiness, even without theescalation to a full-fledgedwar. The unpredictablevagaries of nature,

machines, circumstances and theoperating turf combine to test thewarrior at each step – it is from thatfount of perennial uncertainty thatthe military families silently invoke,“We wait. We hope. We pray. Untilyou’re home again.” The truism ofthe daily dangers that beset a war-rior’s life manifested in the tragicincident of Indian Navy’s MiG-29K,which went down over the ArabianSea. While one of the pilots wasimmediately rescued, the other,instructor Commander NishantSingh, had remained untraceable.Tragically and finally, the family,squadron and the other loved onesof Commander Nishant Singhwere joined in their prayers by agrateful nation, in the poignantmoment of necessary “closure”, asthe news of a body believed to behis was recovered from high seasafter 11 days of relentless search.

In an ode to the timeless spir-it of “I will never leave a comradebehind,” which underpins thesacred ethos of all warriors, theIndian Navy launched intensivesearch operations, deploying ninewarships, 14 aircraft and fast inter-ceptor craft.

Even among the comity of war-riors, the naval aviators are cut froma brazenly different cloth, as theyearn their swaggering-flyer mys-tique owing to the inherent dangersand glory that accompany theirprofessional calling. These very fewmen and women manage the addi-tional complexity of landing theirmachines on a moving aircraft car-rier deck by snagging the “tailhook”to arresting high-tensile wires, afterhaving approached the deck atexactly the right angle. Then thepilot counterintuitively pushes theengines to full power, in order tostop. All strategising and coordina-tion has to happen in a matter ofseconds. The complexities, theadrenaline rush and the dangers aresimply unmatched.

Despite the advent of moderntechnology and guiding systems,naval aviation remains among theriskiest services. The soul of a truenaval aviator is forged amid thattrying loneliness of flying over theendless azure of daytime or thehaunting darkness of the openocean at night – either way temper-ing mind into steel so that when

that split second critical decisionis required, it is done to perfec-tion. These rare warriors need tocombine the multiple dimen-sions of sea, air and land, simul-taneously.

Conversely the extremepressures of job also lead tounique personalities that typifynaval aviators. Ironically, it wasNishant who had jumped intopopular imagination with anow-famous letter written to hissenior, seeking permission to“bite the bullet (get married).”Nishant had asked tongue-in-cheek, “I regret to be droppingthis bomb on you at such a shortnotice, but as you would agree,I intend to drop a nuclear one onmyself and I realise that just likeall the split second decisions wetake up in the air in the heat ofcombat, I cannot afford to allowmyself the luxury to re-evaluatemy decision,” and had serendip-itously added, “I promise tonever repeat such a perfor-mance in air or teach it to mytrainee pilots.” His CommandingOfficer, another naval aviator,had matched Nishant’s good-humoured (albeit, private com-munication) with, “But all thegood things have to finally cometo an end” and recorded hisacquiescence with jest, “wel-come to hell!” Certainly, no onehad imagined or ever assumedthe “end” to imply death. Beyondthe obvious camaraderie and theclassic flamboyance and élan ofnaval aviators, there is also thehuman side of warriors whocherish nothing more thanhome and family, above all.Very often, owing to ignoranceor sheer lack of concern, the cit-

izenry forgets the dangers thatare inherent, routine andunimaginable on land, air andsea, in the course of maintain-ing the sovereignty of the nation,which could lead to the paymentof the “ultimate price” in the dis-charge of military duties.

It was to its home base atINS Hansa, Goa, that the all-weather, carrier-based, multi-role fighter aircraft, i.e. MiG-29K, was flying back from theaircraft carrier, INSVikramaditya. Part of the IndianNavy’s famed “Black Panther”squadron, this has been thethird accident involving theMiG-29K fighter in the last oneyear, albeit, this entailed thetrainer two-seater variant. LastNovember, a trainer crashed inGoa after engine failure due toa bird hit. Both pilots ejectedsafely. In February, a MiG-29Kon a routine training sortiecrashed off Goa due to techni-cal glitch. The pilot ejected safe-ly and was recovered. Of course,the aircraft has reported glitch-es in the past and in othercountries though the Navy hasrectified the engine. Hopefully,going forward, operational defi-ciencies will be looked at muchmore keenly before acquisitions.

But while the armed forceswill never forget its own inCommander Nishant Singh, itwill persevere whatever theodds, as they do not know of anyother way, except to fight theodds, everyday. The flyers havea unique tradition of honouringtheir fallen pilots with flying ina “missing man formation.” Lastyear, the Indian Air Force Chiefhimself led a group of MiG-21s

to give a symbolically movingaerial salute through the “miss-ing man formation” to honourthe valour and supreme sacri-fices of its pilots at Kargil.

The pain of not knowingthe fate and hoping-against-hope that the family ofCommander Nishant Singhhad to endure for all of 11 daysis of indescribable magnitudebut it ends now. The author toohad a family elder, Lt BikramSingh Rathore of 6 Kumaon,who took the “last stand” in thefierce Battle of Walong in 1962.At 22, the lionheart had foughttill last man, last bullet. Thenoble warrior had stoutlyrefused to surrender or retreat,and towards the same actionTime magazine famously noted,“At Walong, Indian troopslacked everything. The onlything they did not lack wasguts.” Lt Bikram Singh Rathorewas last seen dragged away bythe Chinese, never to be afford-ed a “closure” for the family asthe official status is “missing,believed killed.” Such are theways of the profession of armsthat seldom does a warrior out-live a couple of chances, yet thesoldiers will always back theirinstincts and take calculatedchances to fight another day.“I’ve got your back” is a reas-surance they convey each otherbut for now, the nation mournsits naval aviator, CommanderNishant Singh, who will remainsymbolically the “missing man”for his family, squadron and thenation.

(The author is former LtGovernor of Andaman andNicobar Islands & Puducherry)

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�� Sir — All religions teach human-ity vital lessons in tolerance.Religion is not subject to anyplace, time, colour, person ornation and it is the same foreveryone. In a United Nations(UN) discussion on the “Cultureof Peace,” India criticised theWorld Union for being “selective”in the protection of theAbrahamic religions, Islam,Christianity and Judaism and notspeaking out for the remainingreligions of the world. The UNshould not be partisan and mustcondemn hatred against all reli-gions as that represents thewicked face of civilisation. Itshould be discouraged andcrushed wherever in the world itraises its ugly head.

Sunil ChilwalHaldwani

��This is with reference to the arti-cle, “Girls please, not brides.” It isa sad fact that the Coronavirusoutbreak has pushed so manychildren into marriage at a timewhen they are not mentally,emotionally and physically readyfor it. It is an evil that is hidingin plain sight. And the irony is

that while we can put an end toit by raising awareness and beingalert, we choose to ignore it. We,as a nation, refuse to heed theclarion call of “Beti padhao, betibachao.” How many of ourdaughters will need to be sacri-ficed at the altar of a patriarchalsociety? We cannot absolve our-

selves of this responsibility in anation that worships goddessesas much as it worships maledeities.

Abhinav SharmaDelhi

��Sir — The Ministry of Education

is considering a proposal that willempower it to initiate an inquiryagainst the Board of Governorsof any of the 20 IIMs if they arefound to be in violation of theIIM Act. The heads of the insti-tutes are alarmed, rightfully so,at this clear move to encroach onthe autonomy guaranteed to the

IIMs almost three years ago bythe very same Act. The recentstand-off between theGovernment and the IIMsinvolves its one-year programme.The IIMs call it an MBA degree,as is the global norm in manybusiness schools. But the UGCsays only two-year programmesdeserve that term. This illustratesthe kind of tussle over trivialitiesthat bureaucratic systems expendenergies on, almost by reflex.

This kind of a war eruptedin 2016, too, but at that time thePMO interfered in the matterand it was settled amicably. Thecurrent move threatens to undothat detente and slide back intocentral micro-management forgoals that remain extremelyunclear.

The Prime Minister haschampioned the autonomy of theIIM, a system which has provedits mettle over and over again.The National Education Policy(NEP) 2020 too envisages greaterfreedom for institutions of high-er learning. Neither of thoseobjectives are met by thisattempted change in law.

Yash Pal RalhanJalandhar

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Astrong Primary Health System (PHS)ensures equity, efficiency and effectivenessin extending healthcare facilities to people.

The local health centre is the first point of con-tact between the citizens and the healthcare sys-tem. India started working on the establishmentof the PHS with the implementation of its firstNational Health Policy (NHP) in 1983, based onthe World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) AlmaAta declaration of 1978. According to the decla-ration, the objective of a PHS should be to deliv-er “curative, preventive, promotive and rehabili-tative” health services. However, even afterdecades, these objectives still pose a challenge topolicymakers. Though consistent efforts arebeing made in this direction, one of the key fac-tors that can help achieve the NHP’s objectives isto ensure that care providers are able to reach outto people in the remotest parts of the country. Inrural India, the first point of contact with the com-munity is the sub-centre at the gram panchayatlevel, that is supposed to take care of five to sixvillages.

The basic healthcare facilities offered at thesub-centre are through the Accredited SocialHealth Activists (ASHAs) and the Auxiliary NurseMidwife (ANM). The next level is the PrimaryHealth Centre (PHC) that takes care of the pop-ulation of around 50-60 villages. The PHC is thereferral unit for six sub-centres, a medical officerand around 14 paramedics. The uppermost is theCommunity Health Centre (CHC) for 100 villagesor one lakh population. It provides the facility ofa 30-bed hospital with specialised services. A CHCis termed a fully-operational first referral unit ifit is equipped to provide round-the-clock emer-gency obstetric care and blood storage.

The Urban PHC (UPHC) is structured in asimilar way. For a population of 50,000-60,000 andfor every five to six UPHCs, there is an UrbanCommunity Health Centre (UCHC), whichincludes empanelled secondary/tertiary privatehealthcare providers. Though historically, India’spolicy has been rural-centric, in May 2013 theNational Urban Health Mission (NUHM) waslaunched as a part of the National Health Mission(NHM). This was done to cater to the healthcarerequirements of an increasing number of urbanpoor as a result of a mass exodus of people fromrural to urban areas. A strong PHS has immenseimportance in a country like India, which is a vastnation of over 1.36 billion people with diversityin terms of needs, socio-cultural norms, aninequitable distribution of facilities and so on. Thisis because the primary healthcare system involveseducating the community about the prevailinghealth problems and methods of preventing andcontrolling them.

Also, it operates using socially-acceptablemethods and technology with full community par-ticipation. For example, the network of ASHA andAnganwadi workers at the PHC level played a piv-otal role in helping to achieve rapid progress inreducing the Child Mortality Rate (CMR) byensuring that Government schemes on immuni-sation reach the beneficiaries. Plus, the PHS doesnot involve huge infrastructure costs while deliv-ering major benefits. The Health and WellnessCentres announced in 2018 under the AyushmanBharat scheme now aim to build on health sys-tems, thus strengthening the NRHM.

In rural India, considerable progress has beenmade in the number of sub-centres, PHCs andCHCs. However, there is still a huge shortfall ascompared to the population. As per data available

in the Ninth Common Review MissionReport, 2015 of the NHM, there has beena 5.2 per cent increase in the number ofsub-centres, 8.9 per cent increase inPHCs and a 61.3 per cent increase in thenumber of CHCs since 2005 to 2015,

In India, the States are responsiblefor organising and delivering health ser-vices to the citizens. Vast disparities existas far as the condition of the PHS in dif-ferent States and the health outcomes areconcerned. This is also true for rural andurban areas. There are some States thatare leading in terms of achievement ofhealth outcomes, whether it is maternal,child or general healthcare, whereassome are way behind. In States likeRajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, onePHC caters to around 41,000 peoplewhereas ideally there should be one PHCfor a population of 20,000. The story isrepeated in many other States around thenation, meaning that the first line ofhealthcare services is very weak.

One way in which this problem canbe overcome is through use of technol-ogy, especially mobile technology. Thereis a need to step up investments in thefield of mHealth, which is basically theuse of mobile communication devices(such as personal digital assistants,smartphones) to enhance the delivery ofhealthcare services and the technologyfor healthcare in the developing world.

The ubiquity of mobile phones andinternet penetration in rural and remoteareas of India has paved the way forincreased use of mobile phones asdevices to deliver healthcare services inseveral ways. The mHealth applicationson phones (smartphones or simplehandsets) are being used to send SMSreminders for prenatal or postnatalcheck-ups in case of maternal and childhealthcare. These reminders help the

ANMs track the medical records of preg-nant women and infants, which ulti-mately helps to improve maternal andchild mortality. Much research is beingcarried out in emerging economies andmany projects have been carried out inIndia to prove the effectiveness of suchinterventions on healthcare.

Mobile phones with internet con-nectivity can also help in connectingpatients in remote areas to obtain pre-liminary diagnostic services from qual-ified doctors sitting miles away fromthem. Many start-ups are developingmobile applications for this, sensing thebusiness opportunity. For example, anapp named “Aayu”, available in Hindiand English, can be easily downloadedon an Android phone and is fairly sim-ple to use. Patients just have to just press“E-Consult” after which s/he can justchoose the category that best describesthe ailment.

The categories range from issues likeacidity, breathlessness, common cold, eardiscomfort, fever, headache, insect bite,joint pain, loose motions and skininfections among others. The patientthen needs to answer some questions tonarrow down the problem, and finallya specialist doctor is matched, who maygive diagnosis and prescribe medicinesas required. Interaction with the doctorsis possible through video calls. Suchmobile applications would solve theproblem of access to qualified doctors.It also provides digital records to patientsthat can be used by them in the futureas well.

Not only as a tool for providingaccess to healthcare services in remoteareas of developing countries but glob-ally, too, the mobile healthcare marketis growing exponentially due to fastinternet connectivity, increasing cost and

space constraints for hospitals, less sup-ply of qualified doctors in comparisonto demand, the increasing problem oflifestyle diseases and an increasingnumber of consumers who demandhealthcare anywhere and anytime.

The number of mHealth apps avail-able in the market globally has increasedsubstantially. There are now over3,18,000 healthcare apps available on thetop app stores worldwide, nearly dou-ble the number of apps available in 2015.This amounts to more than 200 appsbeing added each day.

According to a report titled MobileHealth App Market: Industry, Trends,Opportunities and Forecasts to 2023 byResearch and Markets, the globalmHealth app market is projected to bevalued at $28.320 billion in 2018 and isexpected to reach up to $102.35 billionby 2023. With such investments expect-ed in mHeath app market, one shouldhope that these serve the purpose ofenabling delivery of quality healthcare,especially primary healthcare services,in developing and under developedcountries.The recent COVID-19 crisiscaught the world quite unprepared as faras development of the health infrastruc-ture, required to deal with a prolongedpandemic, is concerned. Not only this,the research on microbial diseases, itsimpact and public awareness aboutsuch epidemics was found wanting.

Taking proactive steps, govern-ments in developing countries must nowstep up research in the field of mHealthand increasingly leverage mHealth appli-cations for solving the problem of pro-viding quality healthcare services to theirpeople.

(The writer is Joint Director, NationalInstitute of Labour Economics, Researchand Development, NITI Aayog)

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Be fearful when others are greedy,and be greedy when others arefearful.” This statement by the

famous investor Warren Buffett puts ina nutshell the concept of contrarianinvesting. It is an approach that has ben-efited many successful investors likeBuffett himself and billionaires likePeter Lynch and John Templeton, toname a few. Contrarian investing is anapproach that follows rational behav-iour when the popular sentiment on thebourses is irrational. Contrarianinvestors go against the prevalent mar-ket sentiment and invest in stocks andsectors that have vast growth potential

in the long run but are currentlyundervalued due to a short-term neg-ative sentiment. The stock market ismade up of traders and investors.Traders have a short-term view andinvest based upon the temporary upsand downs which are created by posi-tive and negative news and investor sen-timents. Stocks which are not funda-mentally strong get overvalued in a bullphase and scrips, which are intrinsical-ly strong, get beaten down in a bearphase. This definitely does not meanthat every stock that is overvalued isstrong or every scrip that is underval-ued is fundamentally weak.

A long-term or fundamentalinvestor identifies healthy companieswhose share value increases proportion-ately as the business grows and investsin them. Many times, due to temporaryeconomic conditions, war, or pan-demics, stock markets enter an extend-ed bear phase. During this time, allstocks, strong or weak, take a beatingand their values go down. This time ismarked with extreme pessimism whereall investors panic, behave irrationally

and start selling their shares. The gen-eral view is that such times are unsuit-able to start investing in scrip. However,this view is not shared by the contrar-ian investors, who look at the beatenmarket as an opportune time for bar-gain hunting and invest in stocks thathave strong fundamentals.

These contrarian investors reaphuge benefits when the negative senti-ment settles down and the market startsits upward journey, making their invest-ments multi-baggers.

The 2008 economic crisis is onesuch instance when the investors acrossthe globe went into panic selling mode,leading to massive selling on the glob-al bourses. Shares of fundamentallystrong companies were available at hugediscounts. During this time, contrari-an investors avoided the herd mental-ity and picked up beaten but healthycompanies and subsequently enjoyedsignificant returns during the recoveryphase. The main strength of a contrar-ian investor is to identify scrips that arefundamentally strong but undervalued.They use financial ratios like low Price

to Earnings (PE), Price to Book Value,Price to Cash Earnings and otherfinancial ratios to discover undervaluedstocks. Over the years, contrarianinvestors started using several addition-al ratios like Earnings to Price (E/P),they use Book to Market (B/M), CashFlow to Price (C/P) and Past Growthof Sales (GS) to ascertain the value offirms. Studies regarding contrarianinvesting can go back as far as 1977when Basu analysed the performanceof US stocks, based on their PE ratio,for a period of 14 years from 1957-1971,and found that lower PE stocks gener-ate higher returns when compared tohigher PE scrip. Here are some contrar-ian investment strategies that are fol-lowed by most successful investors.Swim against the tide: As humans aresocial animals, almost all of them arebound by social confirmations. Whena majority of people believe in some-thing, it is thought to be true. This herdmentality is also visible in stock mar-kets during a bear or bull phase.Investors tend to follow others either inpanic selling or buying, irrespective of

the valuation of the shares. So they endup either buying overvalued or sellingundervalued stock. Contrarians, on theother hand, have independent thinkingand do not follow the crowd. Theymake investment decisions based on thefundamentals of the stocks.

Seeing opportunity in a crisis: Forirrational investors, a market crash is abad news as they panic and follow theherd. For contrarians, every marketcrash is an opportunity. They wait forthe downward slide in the market tobuy good stocks at a bargain.

Be a long-term investor:Contrarian investors believe in long-term investing. They pick up greatstocks when they are undervalued andwait patiently for the prices to go up.

Research: Due to changing eco-nomic and business scenarios, a con-trarian investor should not depend onlyon the past performance of the scrip.Research has to be continuous asmany stocks that were consideredintrinsically strong earlier are nowhereto be found now. If a company is show-ing continuous downfall in financial

performance, it is better to exit the stockand look for an alternative.

Any investment style is not with-out its pitfalls, and so is contrarianinvesting. It is hard to practise, as goingagainst the general market sentiment isnever easy and is often marred by self-doubt. Despite having the backing ofresearch and careful analysis, contrar-ian investing does not guarantee suc-cess. Even a shrewd and experiencedbusinessman like Buffett lost $443million by investing in Dexter Shoes in1993, that was making year-on-yearprofit, but went out of business in 2008as competition increased.

To conclude, contrarian investingis a technique practised by a handful ofinvestors who have the expertise andrationality to pick intrinsically-strongbargain stocks, and extreme optimismto see hope in market downturns.Through a careful analysis, the righttiming and expertise, a contrarianinvesting approach can make a fortunefor investors.

(The writer is Associate Professor,Amity University, Noida)

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London: A 90-year-old Britishgrandmother, Margaret“Maggie” Keenan, on Tuesdaybecame the first person in theworld to receive thePfizer/BioNTech jab againstCovid-19 as the UK kicked offits biggest-ever vaccine cam-paign in history.

At 6:31 am GMT earlyriser Margaret, known to fam-ily and friends as Maggie, wasgiven the life-saving jab bynurse May Parsons at her localhospital in Coventry to markwhat the National HealthService (NHS) has dubbed a“landmark moment” on V-Dayor Vaccine Day in the fightagainst the deadly virus.

Maggie is among the firstset of people contacted inadvance by the NHS for the jabbased on a predeterminedhealth risk criteria.

The second person vacci-nated was 81-year-old WilliamShakespeare fromWarwickshire, who said he was“pleased” to be given the jab.

They’re joined by an 87-

year-old British Indian grand-father of nine Dr Hari Shuklaand his 83-year-old wife who

became the first Indian-origincouple in the world to get a vac-cine against Covid-19.

“I feel so privileged to bethe first person vaccinatedagainst Covid-19, it’s the best

early birthday present I couldwish for because it means I canfinally look forward to spend-ing time with my family andfriends in the New Year afterbeing on my own for most ofthe year,” said Maggie, whoturns 91 next week.

The former jewellery shopassistant who retired four yearsago has a daughter, a son andfour grandchildren and is look-ing forward to being able to goout again once she receives thetop-up booster dose 21 dayslater.

“I can’t thank May and theNHS staff enough who havelooked after me tremendously,and my advice to anyoneoffered the vaccine is to take it– if I can have it at 90 then youcan have it too,” she said.

“It’s a huge honour to be thefirst person in the country todeliver a Covid-19 jab to apatient, I’m just glad that I’mable to play a part in this his-toric day,” said nurse Parsons.

Dr Shukla and his wife gotinjected with their first of two

doses of the Pfizer/BioNTechjab at a hospital in Newcastle.

Shukla, a race relationscampaigner based in Tyne andWear, had been contacted bythe NHS last week. His wife,Ranjan, then volunteered forthe jab as she also falls withinthe first phase of people aged 80and over, care home workers as

well as NHS workers at highrisk eligible to receive the “life-saving jab”.

“I’m so pleased we arehopefully coming towards theend of this pandemic and I amdelighted to be doing my bit byhaving the vaccine, I feel it is myduty to do so and do whateverI can to help,” said Dr Shukla,

who was born in Kenya andwhose father hailed fromMumbai.

They have been pickedbased on the criteria set by theUK’s Joint Committee onVaccination and Immunisationphased rollout based on thoseat the highest risk of death fromthe deadly virus. PTI

Kabul: A US-based institutewarned on Tuesday that therehas been a dramatic increase inairstrikes conducted by Afghangovernment forces from July toSeptember this year, attacksthat have led to a sharp rise incivilian casualties.

The Watson Institute ofInternational and PublicAffairs, a research center atBrown University, said in itsreport that 70 Afghan civilianshave been killed in the thirdquarter of this year, comparedto 86 killed in the first sixmonths of 2020.

The somber statistic comeseven as Afghan governmentrepresentatives and the Talibanare holding negotiations abouta peaceful resolution to thecountry’s 19-year war. The

talks have been underway sinceSeptember in Qatar, where theTaliban maintain a politicaloffice. The two sides last weekfinally made a step forwardafter a long impasse, agreeingon rules and procedures for thenegotiations.

In its report, the institutealso said that from 2017through 2019, civilian deathsdue to US and allied forces’airstrikes in Afghanistan dra-matically increased. In 2019,airstrikes killed 700 civilians –more civilians than in anyother year since the beginningof the war in 2001 and 2002.

The civilians have bornethe brunt of the fighting,despite repeated pleas fromthe United Nations to sparecivilian lives. AP

Yerevan (Armenia), Dec 8(AP) Dozens of protesters tookto the streets of the Armeniancapital Tuesday, demanding theresignation of the country’sprime minister over his handlingof the conflict with Azerbaijanover Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian opposition politi-cians and their supporters havebeen calling for Prime MinisterNikol Pashinyan to step downever since he signed a peace dealthat halted 44 days of deadlyfighting over the separatistregion, but called for territorialconcessions to Azerbaijan.

On Saturday, oppositionparties warned Pashinyan therewould be civil disobedienceacross the country if he does notresign by noon on Tuesday.

The prime minister hasrefused to step down, defendingthe peace agreement as a painfulbut necessary move that pre-vented Azerbaijan from over-running the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Protesters on Tuesday tem-porarily blocked traffic on dif-

ferent streets of Yerevan,Armenia’s capital, and at onepoint blocked trains at one of thecity’s subway stations.

The subway had to shutdown as the result until furthernotice, spokeswoman of theYerevan subway TatevKhachatryan told TheAssociated Press.

Demonstrators chanted“Armenia without Nikol,” “Nikol,go away!”. Police detained sev-eral dozen protesters. Similar

protests were held in otherArmenian cities.

The Armenian ApostolicChurch on Tuesday joined in onthe opposition’s calls forPashinyan to step down. Thehead of the church, Catholicosof All Armenians Karekin II,urged the prime minister toresign in a statement, saying thatthe move would “preventupheavals in public life, as wellas possible clashes and tragicconsequences.” AP

Beijing: China on Tuesdaylashed out at the US over newsanctions against Chinese offi-cials and the sale of more mil-itary equipment to Taiwan.

The US actions are part ofwhat critics see as an effort bythe Trump administration toput in place high-pressure tac-tics toward Beijing that couldmake it more difficult forPresident-elect Joe Biden tosteady relations.

The Cabinet’s office forHong Kong affairs expressed“strong outrage and condem-nation” over the sanctions lev-elled against 14 members of thestanding committee of China’slegislature, which passed asweeping Hong Kong NationalSecurity Law earlier this year.

Foreign ministryspokesperson Hua Chunying,meanwhile, demanded the UScancel its latest arms sale toTaiwan and said China wouldmake a “proper and necessary

response.”The State Department on

Monday said it added 14 mem-bers of the Chinese legislature’sstanding committee to the listof officials banned from trav-eling to the US or havingaccess to the US financial sys-tem over the crackdown oncivil rights in Hong Kong.

It also announced theapproval of a $280 million saleof advanced military commu-nications equipment to Taiwan.

President Donald Trump’sadministration has incensedBeijing with 11 separate armssales and closer military andpolitical ties with the self-gov-erning island democracy thatBeijing claims as its own terri-tory, to be annexed by force ifnecessary.

China has stepped up mil-itary flights near the island andpledged to punish US compa-nies involved in the arms dealsin response. AP

Paris: The French FarmMinistry said on Tuesday thathighly pathogenic H5N8 bird fluhad been found on a duck farmin the southwest of the country,confirming France’s first farmoutbreak of the virus this year.

The outbreak was firstreported on Monday but at thetime it was unclear what strainof the virus it was.

Bird flu has been spreadingrapidly in Europe, putting thepoultry industry on alert afterprevious outbreaks led to theculling of tens of millions ofbirds.

“The ANSES national ref-erence laboratory confirmedtoday the infection of a farm of6,000 ducks by the H5N8 virus

in the municipality of Benesse-Maremne (Landes region), inwhich high mortality wasobserved on Dec 5,” the min-istry said in a statement.

A security zone was set uparound the farm on Dec 7,implying extra monitoring, aban on the move of poultry andadditional sanitary measures,the ministry said, adding thatall the ducks on the farm wereculled.

France has already detect-ed the H5N8 virus on birds soldin three pet stores.Investigations found that thewild birds had been sold by thesame person in northernFrance, the agriculture ministrysaid last week. AGENCY

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Washington: Documentsreleased by US regulators onTuesday confirmed that Pfizerand BioNTech’s COVID-19vaccine was strongly protectiveagainst COVID-19 -- offeringthe world’s first detailed look atthe evidence behind the shots.

The Food and DrugAdministration posted itsanalysis online even as acrossthe Atlantic, Britain on Tuesdaybegan vaccinating its oldest

citizens with the Pfizer-BioNTech shots.

But the U.S. Judges exper-imental vaccines in a uniqueway: On Thursday, the FDAwill convene what’s essentiallya science court that will debate-- in public and live-streamed-- just how strong the databacking the shots really is.

A panel of independent sci-entists will pick apart the FDA’sfirst-pass review before rec-

ommending whether the vac-cine appears safe and effectiveenough for millions ofAmericans. The FDA, whichtypically follows the commit-tee’s advice, is expected to issuea decision in the days followingthe review. If given the greenlight, the first recipients wouldbe health care workers andnursing home residents accord-ing to plans laid out by eachstate. AP

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London: Britain’s House ofLords has voted to back pro-posals aimed at preventing theUK from making trade dealswith any country deemed by theBritish High Court to be com-mitting genocide.

Members voted lateMonday for two proposals toamend the Government’s post-Brexit trade bill to bar trade dealswith countries that commit seri-ous human rights abuses.

Under one of the plans,minorities alleging they havebeen the subject of genocide canfor the first time apply to theHigh Court of England and askfor judges to determine if acountry trading with the UKHas perpetrated genocide.

Bilateral trade agreementscan then be revoked if the courtmakes a preliminary rulingagainst that country.

The proposals were intend-ed as a way around the lack ofinternational action in address-ing human rights abuses in

countries such as China.Proponents argue that

despite mounting evidence ofatrocities targeting Uighurs inthe western Chinese region ofXinjiang, the United Nations ishighly unlikely to refer Beijingto the International CriminalCourt because China, a perma-nent member of the SecurityCouncil, will veto the move.

“Parliament has had enoughof this unconscionable inertia.We owe it to Uighurs to findanother way, and now we have,”said Conservative lawmakerAnthony Mangnall.

Britain’s Conservative gov-ernment opposes the measures,which will go to the lower houseof Parliament next for debate.

British Foreign SecretaryDominic Raab has said he isconsidering further action toaddress the Chinese govern-ment’s alleged rights abusesagainst Uighur Muslims, includ-ing mass detentions and forcedbirth control. AP

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Kathmandu: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, squeezed by thefeud within the ruling NepalCommunist Party (NCP) andchallenge from pro-monarchistsfrom outside, on Tuesday con-vened an all-party meeting todiscuss the current politicalissues, calling for unity in thefight against the COVID-19pandemic and anti-constitu-tional activities in the country.

The meeting began at 11am at Baluwatar, the official res-idence of the prime minister,said Surya Thapa, Oli’s pressadviser. Addressing the meeting,Oli called for unity among allthe political forces at a timewhen the country is facingCovid–19 and anti-constitu-tional and violent activities.

“The Prime Ministerstressed on the need for con-trolling Covid, protectingdemocratic achievements, andforging unity among all againstanti-constitutional and violentactivities,” Thapa said on socialmedia. Senior leaders of the

NCP, main Opposition NepaliCongress, Janata SamajwadiParty, Rastriya Prajatantra Party,Rastriya Jana Morcha and NepalWorkers and Peasants Partyare taking part in the meeting.

The meeting comes at atime when pro-monarchistforces are organising protest ral-lies in different parts of thecountry, including national cap-ital, Kathmandu demandingreinstatement of constitutionalmonarchy and re-establishingNepal as the Hindu state.

Demonstrations in sup-port of former king Gyanendrahave been initiated in differentparts of the country with pro-testers raising slogans in favourof the monarchy and theHindu nation. PTI

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Afederal judge has blockedPresident Donald Trump’s

attempts to ban TikTok, the lat-est legal defeat for the admin-istration as it tries to wrest thepopular app from its Chineseowners.

The Trump administrationhad tried to ban the short-formvideo app from smartphoneapp stores in the US and cut itoff from vital technical services.TikTok sued, arguing suchactions would violate freespeech and due process rights.

Judge Carl Nichols of theUS District Court inWashington, DC, said in a ruling Monday that theCommerce Department “likely overstepped” its use of presidential emergency pow-ers “and acted in an arbitraryand capricious manner by failing to consider obviousalternatives.”

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New Delhi:Markets regulatorSebi on Tuesday introducedadditional payment mecha-nism, including ASBA, formaking subscription and pay-ment of balance money for callsin respect of partly paid secu-rities issued by listed entities.The decision has been taken aspayment through ApplicationSupported by Blocked Amount(ASBA) mechanism is investorfriendly and enables fastercompletion of the process, Sebisaid in a circular. A call, in mar-ket parlance, is a demand madeby the company on its share-holders to pay whole or part ofthe balance remaining unpaidon each share at any time dur-

ing the life time of a company.“It has been decided to intro-duce additional paymentmechanism (i.E. ASBA, etc) formaking subscription and/orpayment of calls in respect ofpartly paid specified securitiesthrough SCSBs and interme-diaries such as trading mem-bers/ brokers - having three inone type account and Registrarand Transfer agents (RTA),”Sebi said. The additional pay-ment methods provided bySebi are online as well as phys-ical ASBA and the facility oflinked online trading, dematand bank account (three-in-one type) account offered bysome brokers. PTI

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Niti Aayog CEO AmitabhKant on Tuesday said it is

difficult to carry out toughreforms in India as there is ‘toomuch of democracy’, andemphasised that more reformsare needed make the countrycompetitive.Addressing a vir-tual event organised bySwarajya magazine, Kant saidfor the first time, the Centre hascarried out hard reforms acrosssectors, including mining, coal,labour, agriculture, and thenext wave of reforms must bepushed by the states.

“Tough reforms are verydifficult in the Indian context,we have too much of democ-racy...You needed political willto carry out these reforms(mining, coal, labour, agricul-ture) and many more reformsstill need to be done,” he said.

It is not easy to competeagainst China without hardreforms, Kant said.

“This government hasdemonstrated political will tocarry out hard reforms,” headded.

The Niti Aayog CEOstressed that the next wave ofreforms must come from states.

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Equity-oriented mutualfunds witnessed a massive

outflow of �12,917 crore inNovember, making it the fifthstraight month of withdrawalas investors booked profit amidhigher market valuations.

“We still believe that thereis significant amount of moneythat can come back to themarket in the event of any cor-

rection. The medium to long term

potential of the equity marketsremain strong,” GPradeepkumar, CEO of UnionAMC, said.

Despite the outflow, theAssets Under Management(AUM) of the industry reacheda record �30 lakh crore at theend of November from �28.23lakh crore in October, datafrom the Association of

MutualFunds in India (Amfi)showed on Tuesday.

“Accommodative creditpolicy stance, continuous glob-al liquidity flows, coupled withimproved economic sentimentdriven by healthier corporateearnings and positive GDPgrowth forecast has led toIndian mutual fund industryAUMs crossing historic highsand touching highest ever �30lakh crore landmark,” N S

Venkatesh, Chief Executive ofAmfi, said.

On the other hand,investors put in �44,984 crorein debt Mutual Funds (MFs)last month as compared to Rs1.1 lakh crore in October.

Overall, the mutual fundindustry witnessed a net inflowof �27,914 crore across all seg-ments during the period underreview as against an inflow of�98,576 crore in October.

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The festive season boostedIndia’s automobile retail

sales by 29.32 per cent inNovember on a sequentialbasis, industry data showed onTuesday.However, salesremained in the red on a year-on-year basis.

The Federation ofAutomobile DealersAssociations data showed thatvehicle registration inNovember rose to 18,27,990units from 14,13,549 units soldin October.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Tuesday said that

all stakeholders in the telecomsector along with the govern-ment will have to work togeth-er to ensure a timely roll-out ofthe fifth generation technolo-gy.

Addressing the IndiaMobile Congress (IMC), Modiurged the industry for workingtogether to make India a glob-al hub for telecom equipment,design development and man-ufacturing.

“Let us work together tomake India a global hub fortelecom equipment, design,development and manufactur-

ing,” he said.PM Modi said that it is

because of mobile technologythat benefits worth billions ofdollars were available to mil-lions of Indians. He addedthat it is because of mobiletechnology that the govern-ment was able to help the poor

and vulnerable “quickly” dur-ing the pandemic.

“It is because of mobiletechnology that we are seeingbillions of cashless transac-tions which boost formalisationand transparency. It is becauseof mobile technology that wewill enable smooth contactlessinterface on toll booths,” thePrime Minister told the indus-try participants.

Commending the telecomand technology players amidthe pandemic and the lock-down, Modi said that it wasbecause of the efforts of theindustry and its innovationsthat the world was functionaleven during the pandemic,including connectivity, educa-tion and business and otheroperations.

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WhatsApp on Tuesday saidit is adding ‘carts’ feature

to make it easier for business-es to conduct transactionsthrough the platform.

Last month, the Facebook-owned company had startedrolling out a shopping buttonon its app to make it easier forpeople to discover a business’catalog to get informationabout the goods and servicesoffered by the firm.

“WhatsApp is fast becom-ing a store counter to discussproducts and coordinate sales.Catalogs have allowed peopleto quickly see what’s available

and helped businesses organisetheir chats around particularitems. With more and moreshopping happening throughchats, we want to make buyingand selling even easier,”WhatsApp said in a blog poston Tuesday.WhatsApp said the‘Catalogs’ feature has allowedbuyers to quickly see what’savailable while helping busi-nesses organise their chatsaround particular items.

“Starting today, we’re excit-ed to bring carts to WhatsApp.Carts are great when messag-ing businesses that typically sellmultiple items at once, like alocal restaurant or clothingstore...This will make it simpler

for businesses to keep track oforder inquiries, managerequests from customers andclose sales,” the blog said.

It added that ‘carts’ featureis going live around the worldon Tuesday, just in time for theholiday season.With carts, peo-ple can browse a catalog, selectmultiple products and sendthe order as one message to thebusiness.Previously, WhatsApphas stated that more than 175million people message aWhatsApp Business accountevery day and more than 40million people view a business’catalog each month – includ-ing more than 3 million inIndia.

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Hinduja Group-owned GulfOil International on

Tuesday said it has reached anagreement to acquire a lubri-cant blending plant fromOcean Tankers (PTE) Ltd,Singapore, which will help itexpand market share in marinelubes. The plant, which is inthe Tuas region of the Islandcity-nation will be acquiredwith wharf access, storage tankfarm and terminal facility asper the agreement, Gulf OilLubricants India Ltd said in arelease. The facility will beacquired and continue to oper-ate as a going concern, it said,adding the agreement is subject

to closing conditions. The com-pany, however, did not sharespecific details such as invest-ment in the release. Gulf OilInternational is the majorityshareholder in Gulf OilLubricants India Ltd. “Thisfacility provides a strategicopportunity for Gulf to investfurther in the marine segmentand grow its market share inmarine lubricants and otherservices. It will also provide aregional hub to accelerate ourbusiness development plans inSouth East Asia within theautomotive sector, with a focuson Vietnam, Malaysia andThailand, as well as Oceania,”said Sanjay Hinduja, Chairmanof Gulf Oil Lubricants India Ltd.

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India has a huge opportuni-ty to work on aspects like

transforming total costs ofrunning a network anddemonstrating leadership as5G adoption gains tractionacross the globe, a topFacebook executive said onTuesday.

Speaking at the IndiaMobile Congress 2020,Facebook Vice President DanRabinovitsj said the group’sfocus is on getting more peo-ple online to a faster internet,and collaborating with part-ners in the ecosystem to helptransform the underlying eco-

nomics of developing andoperating telecom networks.“...One of the biggest oppor-tunities is how do I transformthe total costs of running andowning a network, which Ithink is one of the greatopportunities for India toleapfrog the rest of the world,”he said.

Rabinovitsj further stat-ed that India has talent den-sity in this domain, and it is anopportunity to “demonstrateleadership here in a way thatyou know we haven’t seen inthe past”.

He noted that deploy-ment of 5G has a number ofuse cases for enterprises.

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Global credit rating agencyFitch on Tuesday raised its

FY21 GDP growth forecast forIndia by predicting a narrow-er economic contraction of (-) 9.4 per cent from an earlierpredicted fall of (-) 10.5 percent “We now expect GDP tocontract 9.4 per cent in fiscalyear to end March 2021, fol-lowed by (+) 11 per cent and(+) 6.3 per cent in the follow-ing years,” Fitch Ratings said inits latest Global EconomicOutlook (GEO) for December.

“The coronavirus reces-sion has nevertheless inflictedsevere economic scarring.

The need to repair balancesheets, increased caution aboutlong-term planning, and firm

closures will limit investmentdemand.”

Furthermore, it pointedout that increased financial-sector weakness - amid deteri-orating asset quality - will holdback credit provision.

“The failure of anotherbank in recent weeks - the thirdfailure in the past 16 months -underlines the challenges in thefinancial sector,” the DecemberGEO said.

Recently, India recorded afaster than anticipated eco-nomic recovery. The country’sGDP contracted 7.5 per cent inthe July-September period, asthe economy rebounded froma record slump of 23.9 per centin the previous quarter due toslowdown caused by the coro-navirus pandemic.

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The RBI on Tuesday said ithas cancelled the licence of

The Karad Janata SahakariBank Ltd, Karad, Maharashtra,as it does not have adequatecapital and earning prospects.More than 99 per cent of thedepositors of the bank will getfull payment of their depositsfrom Deposit Insurance andCredit Guarantee Corporation(DICGC), the Reserve Banksaid in a statement. With thecancellation of licence andcommencement of liquidationproceedings, the process ofpaying the depositors of TheKarad Janata Sahakari Bankwill be set in motion.

On liquidation, everydepositor is entitled to repay-ment of his/her deposits up toa monetary ceiling of Rs 5 lakhonly from the DepositInsurance and CreditGuarantee Corporation(DICGC) as per usual termsand conditions. Consequent tothe cancellation of its licencefrom close of business onDecember 7, the bank hasbeen prohibited from con-ducting the business of ‘bank-ing’ which includes acceptanceof deposits and repayment of

deposits with immediate effect.Giving details, the RBI said

the bank was under “all inclu-sive directions” since November07, 2017. The Commissionerfor Cooperation and Registrarof Cooperative Societies, Mahahas also been requested to issuean order for winding up thebank and appoint a liquidatorfor the bank.The RBI said itcancelled the licence of thebank as it “does not have ade-quate capital and earningprospects”. As such, it does notcomply with the relevant pro-visions of the BankingRegulation Act, 1949 “The con-tinuance of the bank is preju-dicial to the interests of itsdepositors,” it said, and addedthe bank with its present finan-cial position would be unable topay its present depositors in full.Also, public interest would beadversely affected if the bank isallowed to carry on its bankingbusiness any further.

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We have witnessed some inter-esting trends coming out in the

last couple of quarters, where busi-nesses took years’ worth of decisionsin a matter of weeks to sail throughthese challenging times. The behav-iour, needs, as well as wants of con-sumers shifted rapidly.

To meet consumers where theyare, businesses had to reconstructtheir business models. Innovationsthat would normally take years tohappen, in some industry verticals,took place in a matter of months.Organisations that looked at thingsdifferently and innovated at a rapidpace while adapting to the situationoutperformed their peers who failedto adapt.

Few of the questions that comein mind are how can your organi-sation turn all the great ideas yourteams are coming up with into real-ity as quickly as possible? How canyou fast-track innovation? Theanswer not only lies in sound lead-ership, cross-functional team col-laborations, and communicationwith these six approaches:

Make innovation imperative:Will it be enough for businessleaders to just support and providea platform for innovation? What ifonly a handful of them step forwardand take the initiative? That's notgoing to be enough. Innovationshould be embedded into the mis-sion; the way workforce thinks andthe way it works daily. Only thencan you expect to drive break-throughs. It's like the age-old say-ing: can you walk the talk?Organisations need to be seriousabout being innovative. While theworkforce keeps churning out ideas

and transforms them into con-cepts, leadership should help refineit.

Value creativity at all times:Creativity lies at the heart of inno-vation. With ever-evolving con-sumer trends and demand cycles,companies need to consistentlyinnovate their products or servicesto stay ahead of the curve. AlbertEinstein famously said, “We can’tsolve problems by using the samekind of thinking we used when we

created them.” Therefore, it isabsolutely essential to provideemployees with the space to exer-cise their imaginative thinking.The freedom to express ideas andthoughts is crucial because itsabsence can obstruct the free-flowof creativity and, in the long run,hurt business interests.

Focus more on your employ-ees: An organisation’s growth isdirectly dependent on its employ-ees and therefore it is crucial to keep

them satisfied and motivated.Empower them to think about dif-ficult problems and give them spaceto exert their individual agency andvalues to arrive at solutions. To getthe best out of people, recognitionand rewards also go a long way.Rewarding successful new ideasserves to motivate others to thinkout of the box.

Try a non-hierarchal man-agement: If your goal is to encour-age innovation, depending on awell-defined hierarchy might doworse than good. Allowing employ-ees to break down workplace bar-riers enables greater interactionacross all levels which results in bet-ter cooperation and idea generation.Easy sharing of ideas and problemssupports critical thinking, which isessential for innovation and effec-tive decision-making.

Try again. Fail again. Fail bet-ter: The path to innovation ispaved with failures. Therefore, it isbetter to make peace with the pos-sibility of failure and keep movingforwards regardless than not tryingat all.$ ��.��#��-��A

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The Jagvimal Consultants,one of the spearheading

undergraduates migration advi-sors in the nation zeroing in onconfirmations in MBBS cours-es abroad has come up as a beamof home for some undergradu-ates who need to take affirma-tions in unfamiliar colleges forMBBS. In the previous fewmonths, Jagvimal Consultantshas effectively done 60+ confir-mations in nations like China ,Kazakhstan, Russia and Georgia.

Likewise, during the ongo-

ing pandemic crisis, JagvimalConsultants has applied RTI forrealising online classes areaccessible for MBBS or not par-ticularly for the undergraduateswho needed to seek after MBBSfrom outside countries.

Not only this, during coro-navirus, Jagvimal Consultantshas made various letters to thehuman Government help officeto recognise candidates as fulltime masters in crown disasterto complete the openness ofauthorities who complete theirMBBS from abroad withoutFMGE test.

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The SRM Medical CollegeHospital and Research Centre

(SRM MCHRC), Kattankulathurhas successfully completed twophases of human testing of theCOVAXIN trial and the thirdphase for the same will starttoday (7th December 2020), saysSRM MCHRC’s Pro Chancellor(Academics) Dr PSathyanarayanan.

Speaking at a press meet heldat the launch of the third phase ofthe COVAXIN trail in the hospi-tal, he said that the number of

patients who will be tested in thisfinal phase will be over 1000.

“Until now we have received500 volunteers for the test. Wewill be taking in more volunteerstill the end of December 2020. Weare trying our best to make this

work, as it will be India’s firstindigenous vaccine,” he added.

“Any person above 18 years ofage and had not sufferedCOVID19 illness in the past canparticipate as a volunteer in thistrial. Pregnant women are exclud-ed. The vaccine shot will beadministered twice — 28 daysapart,” said Principal Investigatorfor COVAXIN, Dr SatyajitMahopatra.

The hospital will be able toconduct the trial for 50 people aday. Once the process is success-ful, the vaccine will be approvedon a fast track basis.

Whether we talk about thedevelopment of private resi-dential structures, business

structures, or building bridges, infra-structure managers need to possessknowledge and skills related to thedevelopment and management of thebuilt infrastructure.

It is up to the infrastructure devel-opment manager to oversee everyactivity in compliance with the projectrequirements, while additionally keep-ing up a safe and effective workplaceenvironment. They likewise need todeal with the financial plans, create andmanage deadlines, strategise and coor-dinate for feedback and updates withall the involved stakeholders.

Aspirants desirous of developing acareer in infrastructure developmentand related industries must remainfocused on the following seven skills,along with possessing experience andthe technical know-how:

Basic technical skills: Technicalskills in the areas of engineering (civil,

mechanical and electrical) will help stu-dents understand the ground details ofprojects and create innovative solutions,aligned with industry expectationsand recent developments in the sector.

Contract management: Given themulti-stakeholder nature of infra-structure projects, a single infrastruc-ture project can have multiple contractsin force. A skilled infrastructure pro-fessional must possess the acumen toidentify potential contractual defaultsahead of time, and recommend/preparethe most cost effective mitigation strat-egy. Thus creating water tight contractsand subsequently managing the con-tracts must come naturally to contractprofessionals.

Project management:Infrastructure projects span acrossseveral years and are usually multi-stakeholder projects, including gov-ernment, private investors and impactlocal citizenry. Thus effective projectmanagement skills are essential, suchthat time delays, resulting cost overruns

and resulting risks can be managed, tominimise social and economic costs.

Financial structuring: Due to thelarge scale of investments coupledwith paucity of funds with the gov-ernment, Public-Private-Partnership(PPP) based projects are likely to con-tinue to be at the front and centre ofInfra projects. Within PPP projects,new and innovative financing modulesare emerging such as the HybridAnnuity Model (HAM) in road pro-jects, amongst others. Thus studentsneed to stay abreast of financial inno-vations in the sector.

Risk Management: With largeinfrastructure projects, come higherrisks. Risks such as construction risks,operational risks, change in forcemajeure, change in law, and other envi-ronmental risks need effective plan-ning, mitigation and monitoring.

Communication skills: The abil-ity to concisely yet transparently com-municate their requirements and ideasis another most significant skill that stu-

dents must learn. Good communica-tion skills ensure that no detail is lostin comprehension. However, when wetalk about communication, it not onlyincludes prowess in expressing oneselfbut also the patience to listen to whatthe client or other members of the teamhave to say.

Entrepreneurial and leadershipmindset: Managing any project is likerunning a business. Each project thatyou manage will have its own set ofchallenges. So, having an entrepre-neurial and leadership mindset is ahuge advantage. Expansions in smalland entrepreneurial businesses in infra-structure projects holds promise in thecoming future, owing to increase gov-ernment focus on the sector. Thus pos-sessing risk taking abilities and leadingsmall businesses will become an essen-tial skill in the sector.

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Electricity is a source of energy,which has the capacity to

change the world. Power is and willbe a part of our lives for as long asthe mind can imagine. A citydweller will have to take extremeefforts to disconnect with power,even momentarily. Even a villagercannot think of surviving withoutPower, such intimate is our presentrelationship with Power.

It is a fact that India is one of thebiggest economies in the world. TheGovernment’s “Make in India” ini-tiative, will lead to a huge spurt inindustrialisation, as a consequenceof which, demand for power willincrease. The rural electrificationprojects under the Government’sDeen Dayal Upadhyay Gram JyotiYojna (DDUGJY) and PM’s PradhanMantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana(Saubhagya Scheme) to electrifyover 3.89 crore households, andincreasing per capita energy con-sumption will further add to thedemand for Power. According to theNational Electricity Plan, by the year2026-2027, there will be the demandfor 2047 billion units of electricityin the country.

Skill gap in the sectorDue to the high demand for

electric energy, the demand ofskilled and trained people in thisarea will increase. It is estimated that

the Power Sector will need an addi-tional 16.6 lakh skilled manpower by2025. Meeting this demand foradditional skilled manpower in theentire chain of the power sector anddownstream value-added serviceswill be a challenge for the sector.This situation is unfolding right nowas we discuss, not in some distantfuture.

The irony is that despite demo-graphic dividend in our favor, thesector is not able to take advantage.The Demographic Dividend occurs

when the proportion of workingpeople in the total population ishigh, which indicates that peoplehave more potential to be produc-tive and contribute to the growth ofthe economy. This is happeningbecause the power sector faces anenormous shortage of workers withrequisite competencies. With digi-talisation driving across the valuechain, skill development becomesimperative for the entire sector andall the more so in the distributionsegment.

Distribution companies needto undertake measures like smartmetering, smart grid technology,switching to renewable sources ofenergy, adoption of Blockchain inmanaging distributed energyresources and Artificial Intelligence.All of this calls for upscaling of exist-ing workforce and preparing futurepower sector professionals to makestrong impacts.

The need of the hour is to havewell-established training institu-tions to train and fill the scarcity ofastute power sector professionals.Considering this, Power Sector SkillCouncil (PSSC) has engaged capa-ble training partners who are pro-viding meaningful training to theworkforce.

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Stubble burning is one of the majorsources of pollution in the country,

especially in the northern region. Year onyear the intensifying pollution is becom-ing a serious health threat to humansalong with flora and fauna. While theGovernment is aggressively looking forsolutions to curb the pollution caused bythe burning of stubble, KJ SomaiyaCollege of Engineering and GodavariBiorefineries Ltd have come togetherwith a solution to help abate the harm-ful effects of burning paddy straw.

Prof Shivangi Viral Thakker, FacultyMechanical Department from the insti-

tute has proposed to use paddy straw formaking useful products like pulp andtableware. The three-year-long projecthas been approved and funded by theDepartment of Science and Technology.

With the primary objective of man-aging the stubble waste, the project alsoaims to replace plastic with agriculturalproducts to address another nationalissue of Plastic Ban.

The project focuses on process opti-misation for pulping the paddy straw toproduce eco-friendly tableware. Theprocess includes the segregation of sili-ca and pulp by pulping the rice straw. Thepulp developed will then be used formaking 100% biodegradable tableware.

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Withstanding the onslaught of global pan-demic, the media students of

Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies(VIPS), New Delhi accomplished a historicalfeat by organising their annual media festivalonline with over thousand participants acrossthe globe. Themed at digital literacy, media andpandemic, the three-day event with a total of22 Competitive and Non Competitive Eventswas organised by over 300 media students ofVivekananda School of Journalism and MassCommunication (VSJMC) from December 3to December 5.

Industry veterans across the globe partic-ipated in various events. Amongst the varioussessions, a ‘Ad Man’s Webinar’ was organisedto picturise the current status of the advertis-ing industry during the pandemic.

Industry veteran Suraja Kishore, who iscurrently CEO — BBDO India, addressed par-ticipants and discussed the ground realities ofthe advertising industry and human’s coun-terbalance to it.

Exemplifying the festival, Prof SidharthMishra, chairperson VSJMC, says: “Wheneverything stopped and the world was intro-duced to a new normal, digital platformsbecame the only resort for education andshowcasing talents, and bringing normalcy inour lives.

The media students of VIPS have demon-strated a high level of commitment and sin-cerity by organising Spandan 2020 on the vir-tual mode.”

The organising team of students wasmentored by Dr Charulata Singh, Dr PraveenK Singh, Dr Ramesh K Sharma, Dr SunilMishra and Anurag Gupta under the leader-ship of Prof Mishra.

Spandan 2020 allowed experiencing nor-

malcy, instilling creativity, competitive high,excitement, and happiness to every participanteven in such unpredictable times.

Spandan 2020 concluded with a musicalextravaganza, where over 100 students par-ticipated in a lineup for the musical perfor-mances in the form of Grand Musical Finaleincluding dance, music, jugalbandi and the-atrical acts.

Exemplifying the festival, Prof SidharthMishra, chairperson VSJMC, says: “Wheneverything stopped and the world was intro-duced to a new normal, digital platformsbecame the only resort for education andshowcasing talents, and bringing normalcy inour lives. The media students of VIPS havedemonstrated a high level of commitment andsincerity by organising Spandan 2020 on thevirtual mode.”

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The National Educaion Policy(NEP) 2020 is bold and auda-cious, no doubt. Its success will

determine the path education takes inIndia. The paradigm shift in educationenvisioned by the NEP requires large-scale overhaul of our educational sys-tem. But any overhaul must begin at thebase and in education, that is theteacher. The role of the teacher is instru-mental, to say the least, not just at theprimary level but at all levels.

India is already facing a dismaldearth of well-trained teachers. Whilethe NEP aims to take a holisticapproach to address poor teachingquality with a slew of changes in ped-agogy and recruitment, there are cer-tain elements in teacher training thatmust be addressed to guarantee success.

Teaching teachers how to teach:According to IndiaSpend 2019 reports,after five years of schooling, just overhalf (51%) of students aged 10-11years in India can read a grade II-leveltext (appropriate for 7-8 year olds). Thisthrows light on the poor teachingskills. The NEP emphasizes a holisticapproach that will focus on students'understanding of the practical imple-mentation of a subject using critical andinnovative thinking.

In order to impart such skills,teachers first need to be trained onteaching pedagogy itself. From steppingaway from chalk-and-talk to adoptingactivity-based teaching, teachers needto be trained on multiple, diversestrategies to engage students, teacheffectively, and assess holistically. Thisis the crux of success.

Incorporating teacher feedbackinto training programmes: Accordingto NEP 2020, a National CurriculumFramework for Teacher Education willbe drafted to guide all teacher educa-tion, pre-service and in-service, inacademic, vocational and special edu-cation streams. While this is good, it isimportant for NEP to collect andinculcate feedback from teachers todevelop a training pedagogy that is rel-evant and meaningful to them.Teachers in different parts of India facea varied set of problems.

Thus, the training should bedevised to address the cultural, geo-

graphical and economic diversity of ourcountry. What works for one teacherwill not necessarily work for another.A one-size-fits-all, integrated B.Ed pro-gram cannot be the answer.

Ongoing professional develop-ment through a blended model: Therehas been a seismic shift in the educa-tion industry this year as it leaped intothe digital arena. Classrooms will neverbe the same after the coronavirus cri-sis. As online learning and teachingcontinue to evolve, changes will be con-stant in the education space, too.

Thus, the training given to teach-ers needs to be an ongoing one thatreacts to and complements the situationon the ground. How are teachers han-dling online teaching? How are studentsreacting? What needs to change? Atechnology-enabled platform thatallows training to become continuousand measurable and also makes real-time metrics on student engagementavailable is essential.

The NEP is a visionary policy aim-ing to bring much-awaited, holisticchanges in the teaching industry.Emphasis on teacher training willguarantee its success. How this will beachieved will be the litmus test.

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The University ofStrathclyde, Glasgowinvites applications for

Faculty of Science MastersScholarship. It is open to inter-national students. The schol-arships between £3,000-£5,000are available to new interna-tional students joining a post-graduate taught masters degreein the Faculty of Science in the2021-2022 academic year at theuniversity.

Help with tuition fees:One year.

Subject: Chemistry,Computer and informationsciences, Mathematics and sta-tistics, Pharmacy and biomed-ical sciences, Physics, Forensicscience, Biochemistry, Biologyand biological sciences,Biomedical science,Immunology, Microbiology,Pharmacology, Pharmacy

Eligibility: Candidatesmust: Be a new, internationalfee-paying student holding anoffer of admission for a full-time, taught masters degree inthe Faculty of Science for the2021/2022 academic year.

Be self-funded. Studentswho receive full scholarships,for example from a govern-ment office or embassy, will notbe eligible.

Application deadline: It isJuly 31, 2021

For further information -https://www.strath.ac.uk/study-

w ithus/scholarships/sc i -encescholarships/facultyof-sciencemastersscholarships-forinternationalstudents202122/or contact: [email protected]

The University of DetroitMercy invits applications forits international undergrad-uate students scholarships forthe academic session 2021-2022.

Award: $10,000 per acad-emic year.

Eligibility: Pursuing abachelor’s degree courseworkin any subject stream; Studentshave to enrol in an under-graduate degree program at theuniversity.

Supporting documents:The university may ask you fora copy of the bank statement,statement of financial supportform and copy of passport.

Candidates of all national-ities can apply.

Admission requirements:Applicants must hold a previ-ous degree certificate and otheradmission requirements of theuniversity.

Language requirement:Candidates are required toprovide evidence of Englishlanguage proficiency for admis-sion.

How to apply: Interestedaspirants are enforced to takeadmission in the undergradu-ate degree coursework at theuniversity.

Application deadline: Thelast date to apply is March 30,2021.

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This COVID-19 pandemicimpacted education of 1.26billion children worldwide

as estimated by the UNESCO, withover 300 million children justfrom India. As a response, theonline and edtech industry hasgrown tremendously. Also, edu-cational institutions have rapidlyadopted digital technologies andincreased the use of the Internet toimpart learning digitally.

The change in digital learninglandscape was already happening.As per Statista, today India hasaround 700 million Internet users.This is expected to grow immense-ly in the next decade. Given thecontext, the online learning spaceis witnessing the following emerg-ing trends.

Transitioning to online learn-ing: Digital transformation,whether in part or in whole, isgoing to be vital for traditionaleducation businesses. This essen-tially means that educational insti-tutions will implement hybridmodels which will have students inclasses as well as those connectedvirtually. The way one teaches willalso transform significantly, mak-ing classrooms equally suited for

the digitally connected students.Those businesses who don't turndigital will lose market advantage.

Rapid growth in K12-edtechsector: As per a 2019 industryreport, the K12 education sector isexpected to show a six timesgrowth to reach $1.7 Bn by 2022.More schools and institutions willnow have hybrid formats, lever-aging technologies to promotedigital learning amongst studentsacross families. This is going to bea marked shift from traditionalmedium.

Strengthening role onlinelearning in post-K12 sector: Thepost-K12 sector includes highereducation, technical skilling, testpreparation for Government andother professions. The impor-tance of higher education degreesfor better job roles has grown inthe past decade. There is a lot offocus on both technical and non-technical skilling and upskilling.Also, traditionally, high volume ofaspirants prepare for governmentexams. Collectively, the entirepost-K12 online learning space isexpected to grow by three times totouch $1.8 Bn by 2022.

Video-based content will

grow:. Online learning is going tobe one of the biggest space for pro-ducing and consuming video con-tent. The content will range fromstreaming and recording of liveclassrooms to production of ded-icated videos on educational con-cepts.

Focus on interactive con-tent: One of the major benefits ofoffline classes is that they appearmore interactive, personal, andfocused yet exciting. However,for an educator or a student, thevirtual class today may appear lesspersonal and interactive. Onlinelearning space is grappling withthe challenge at present and isfinding ways and means, such asdigital boards, real-time quizzes,polls, etc., to make virtual class-rooms more interactive and par-ticipatory through either contentor technology.

Rise of advance digital tech-nologies: Evolving technologieslike artificial intelligence, aug-mented reality (AR), and virtualreality (VR) will completely rein-vent the online learning experi-ence.

AI has the potential to under-stand and assess the learning abil-

ities of students and help us buildwith stronger educational pro-grammes. AR/VR has the poten-tial to transport a student to a ded-icated, programmed educationalenvironment and experiencelearning like never before.

Supporting operations:Admissions, customer service andmarketing. Online learning ischanging the complete experi-ence of enrolling in a course tocompleting it. Therefore, thereare chat bots and AI tools to guidea candidate through the completeprocess of filling forms. These toolsare also being leveraged to respondto program specific or content spe-cific queries.

The customer and education-al services including content, tech-nology, and programmes, exceptthose being conducted live, will beavailable 24X7 for the benefit ofstudents. Also, with more peopleavailable on the Internet, digitalmarketing will take central stagefor offline or online institutions.

The 5G Internet connectivitycan be a game changer in the fieldof online learning, making variouspossibilities a reality.

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Australian bowlers heldtheir nerves to come uptrumps against the

genius of Virat Kohli, stalling anIndian clean-sweep with a 12-run victory in the third andfinal T20I at Sydney CricketGround on Tuesday.

While India won the short-est format 2-1, it was overall aneven result for the two teamswhich won three white-ballgames each. Tuesday’s lossended the visitors’10-matchwinning streak in the format.

Kohli got as many as fourreprieves and cashed in wellenough to smash his way to 85off 61 balls but India could onlyreach as far as 174/7 in theirpursuit of 187 in 20 overs.

It was a slash drive offAndrew Tye in the penultimateover which was plucked inch-es off the ground by DanielSams, who compensated for aforgettable day with the ball.

An over before that HardikPandya’s swagger was checkedby Adam Zampa (1/21 in 3overs). Zampa’s leg-breakturned enough to force the‘Baroda Bomber’ to hit oneagainst the turn and be caughtat short third-man.

Once Pandya was gone,there was too much pressure onKohli and this was one rareoccasion when he failed totake the team home.

While he hit four fours andthree sixes, Kohli did lead acharmed life as Steve Smithmissed a dolly at deep mid-wicket fence when he gaveMaxwell the charge.

Then Sean Abbott failed toget his hands on a tough returncatch while another slippedthrough Tye’s palms. During thefag end, Matthew Wade missedan easy stumping.

The Indian captain scoredhis third fifty of the tour and aneffortless six off Abbott afterthe completion of the milestonegave much-needed relief tothe Indian dug-out. This wasafter man of the matchSwepson’s (3/23) innocuousleg-breaks reduced them to100 for 4.

Swepson would be the firstto admit that he was lucky todismiss Shikhar Dhawan (28 off21 balls) with a half-tracker andever unreliable Sanju Samson(10) with a low full-toss.

The only wicket-takingdelivery he bowled was the onethat got Shreyas Iyer out for afirst-ball duck.

Earlier, Wade’s second con-secutive half-century was well-complemented by Maxwell’sblazing strokeplay as Australiaposted a competitive 186 for 5after being put into bat.

Wade, who has played allhis big T20 knocks againstIndia, smashed his way to 80 off53 balls with the help sevenfours and two sixes.

Maxwell, who struggledwith his timing initially, also gotinto the act during the last sixovers with a 35-ball-54 and athird-wicket stand of 90 runs in8.4 overs with Wade.

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In the form of a sedate half-century, Wriddhiman Sahagot himself some invaluable batting practice ahead of

the first Test against Australia, but his other famed Indiancolleagues failed to bat long as their warm-up gameagainst Australia A concluded in a draw here on Tuesday.

Medium pacer Mark Steketee, who returned impres-sive figures of 5/37, came in the way of what could havebeen a few sessions of good batting practice on the thirdand final day for the touring Indians.

Making up for his first-innings nought, Saha top-scored for the visitors with 54 after facing 100 deliver-ies at the Drummoyne Oval on the final day of tune-up.

Bracing for the first Test, the seasoned Saha foundthe fence seven times during his stay in the middle.

Beginning with a deficit of 59 runs, the Indiansdeclared their second innings at 189 for nine and in reply,the Australians, needing 130 in 15 overs to register anoutright victory, reached 52 for one when the stumps weredrawn for one last time in the game.

India vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, who is going tolead the team in the absence of Virat Kohli after the firstTest, followed up his neat first-innings century with aknock of 28. Cheteshwar Pujara, who made a solid half-century in preparation for the marquee series opener,however, failed to open his account in the second essay.

The young opening duo of Prithvi Shah (19) andShubman Gill (29) added 37 runs for the first wicketbefore Cameron Green sent the former back.

Pujara did not last long and was bowled by MichaelNesar, which brought to crease Hanuma Vihari. Viharimade 28 before Nesar had him caught by Burns.

For the home team, Green enjoyed a fine all-roundouting having scored a hundred in the first innings whichended at 306 for nine declared.

After his impressive performance in the first innings,during which he picked up three wickets, pacer UmeshYadav added another scalp to his name when theAustralians went out to bat again.

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Potentially in line for a Test debutagainst India, Australian bats-

man Will Pucovski suffered a con-cussion after being struck on thehelmet by pacer Kartik Tyagi dur-ing the warm-up game againstIndia A on Tuesday and was ruledout of the second tour game start-ing December 11.

Considered a sure-shot selec-tion for the series-opener, begin-ning December 17 in Adelaide,with David Warner ruled outowing to an injury, Pucovski wasbatting on 23 when he was hit onthe helmet by a delivery from Tyagiin the 13th over of Australia A’s sec-ond innings.

“Will experienced mild con-cussion symptoms but was able toleave the field unassisted,” teamdoctor John Orchard said in a state-ment posted by cricket.Com.Au.

“He was monitored in ourmedical room and was communi-cating freely with staff and team-mates as well as family over the

phone.“Will will remain with the

Australia A squad but will not playin the three-day tour match againstIndia at the SCG,” he added.

Pucovski was hit on the frontof his protective equipment and hefell to his knees, staying there fora few minutes before managing towalk off the field.

The 22-year-old opener was

immediately attended to by themedical team even as he droppedthe bat and remained on his handsand knees for a few minutes on thepitch.

The impact had put a questionmark on his availability for the firstTest but Cricket Australia con-firmed that he was able to walkafter being attended by team doc-tor John Orchard.

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Impressed by newcomer TNatarajan’s ability to deliver

under pressure, India captainVirat Kohli on Tuesday saidthe seamer could be a greatasset for the team heading intonext year’s T20 World Cup.

The 29-year-old fromTamil Nadu has been sensa-tional since making his inter-national debut in the thirdODI at Canberra, snappingeight wickets in four matches.

“Special mention forNatrajan, in the absence of(Mohammed) Shami andJasprit (Bumrah), he stoodout and really delivered underpressure,” Kohli said at thepost-match press conference.

“It is outstanding becausehe is playing his first fewgames at the internationallevel. He looks very com-posed, he is a humble and hardworking guy, he is sure of whathe is doing.”

India is scheduled to hostthe T20 World Cup in Octoberand November next year.

“I hope he continues tokeep working hard on hisgame and gets better becausea left-arm bowler is an assetfor any team and if he cankeep bowling in this way con-sistently, it will be a great thingfor us heading into the WorldCup next year,” Kohli said.

India lost the third T20Ibut claimed the series 2-1, andKohli said he was impressedwith the way the team nevergave up despite missing expe-rienced players such as Rohit

Sharma, Bumrah and Shami.“We played good cricket

over the last 11-12 T20s, thefact that this squad had play-ers that don’t have much expo-sure in international cricket,from that point of view it wasa nice performance especiallyafter losing the first two ODIs.We came back nicely andshowed belief.”

“We carried the momen-tum, fighting back again in thefirst T20s and even tonight,the game was close, so thestandout is that guys are notgiving up.”

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Swashbuckling India all-rounder Hardik Pandya on

Tuesday said he is “headingback home”, two days afterraising hopes of extending hisstay in Australia for the upcom-ing Test series following hisincredible outing in the limit-ed-overs leg.

Coming off a back surgeryand yet to start bowling on aregular basis, Pandya’s showingin the just-concluded limitedovers leg of the tour gave riseto hopes that he might be con-sidered for Test selection.

And those beliefs werestrengthened when the all-rounder, after his match-win-ning effort on Sunday, said hewouldn’t mind staying back ifthe team management wants.

However, two days later, heconfirmed that he is goingback to India.

“I think I should headback home and spend somequality time with my family. Ihaven’t seen my child for four

months, so I’d like to spendsome time with family rightnow,” Pandya said after thethird T20I.

“Maybe in the future. Idon’t know, maybe,” he addedwhen asked about his Testcomeback.

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Adjudged Player of the T20Series for his superb show

with the bat against Australia,India all-rounder HardikPandya on Tuesday said thatnewcomer T Natarajandeserved it more than him forhis “outstanding” bowling per-formance.

The 29-year-old fromTamil Nadu has been sensa-tional since making his inter-national debut in the thirdODI, snapping eight wickets infour matches.

“Natarajan, you were out-standing this series. To per-form brilliantly in difficultconditions on your India

debut speaks volumes of yourtalent and hardwork. Youdeserve Man of the Seriesfrom my side bhai!Congratulations to#TeamIndia on the win,”Pandya tweeted.

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Hardik Pandya’s stupendousbatting in the white ball

series has given him an extraoption of a designated “finish-er” but India skipper ViratKohli is clear that the all-rounder needs to start bowlingregularly in order to be consid-ered for Test cricket.

Pandya has had scored of90 and 92 in the first and thirdODIs respectively and a match-winning knock of 42 not out in22 balls in the second T20I,which helped India to seal theT20 series, got him the Man ofthe series award.

Asked if he would betempted to keep Pandya backas a pure batting option for theupcoming four-Test series,Kohli answered in the negative.

“Hardik couldn’t bowl andwe knew he will not be able tobowl but we saw in the IPL theheadspace that he has been.But Test cricket is a differentchallenge and we need him tobowl,” Kohli was clear about

priorities.“We have spoken about it.

He is one guy who brings in alot of balance for us in overseasconditions like South Africa,England. We were able to com-pete for longer periods of timeand he adds a lot of balance interms of his bowling.”

Kohli believes Pandya isgetting into the zone where he

would like to perform in allformats of the game.

“He is definitely in a zonewhere he wants to perform forIndia in all three disciplines.That’s always been his ‘X-fac-tor’. In white ball cricket, wefound some one who can fin-ish games consistently,” theskipper said.

But according to him, even

Pandya realises that he needsto get back to peak bowlingform.

“He himself wants to getback into the bowling spaceand make sure he is available

in Tests because it becomesway more important for fivedays, that little bit extra.

“He understands that hehas to come back the fittest heis able to,” he added.

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Paul Pogba is “unhappy” atManchester United and should

leave in the next transfer window, hisagent Mino Raiola said, in commentsthat may signal the exit of the one-time world’s most expensive player.

Raiola said the World Cup-win-ning France midfielder, 27, needs a“change of scene” after struggling toestablish himself under United man-ager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

“Paul’s unhappy at ManchesterUnited, he can’t express himself anymore as he would like to and as weexpect of him,” Raiola told Italiannewspaper Tuttosport.

“He has to change teams, he needsa change of scene. His contract is upin a year-and-a-half, in the summerof 2022, but I think the best solutionfor all sides is a transfer in the nextwindow.”

He added that Pogba, whoreturned from a spell at Juventus fora then world record fee of £89 million($118 million) in 2016, has no plansto extend his contract.

“The club... knows it risks losinghim for nothing, as at the moment the

player has no intention of extendinghis contract,” Raiola said. “If anyonedoesn’t understand, they don’t under-stand anything about football.”

SAINTS UP TO 5TH �� Southampton extendedits unbeaten run against Brighton toeight games and moved into fifth placein the Premier League with a 2-1 win.

Brighton took the lead from thespot in the 25th minute, when PascalGross sent goalkeeper Alex McCarthythe wrong way after James Ward-Prowse handled the ball in the area.

Ralph Hasenhuttl’s lineup equal-ized just before halftime after Ward-Prowse made up for his earlier errorto pick out Jan Vestergaard, who head-ed home the corner.

With 10 minutes remaining, sub-stitute Danny Ings fired home on hisreturn from injury after Southamptonwas awarded a disputed penalty.

��New Zealand’s No1 wicketkeeper BJ Watling is setto return from injury for the sec-ond Test against the West Indies,while the tourists suffered a dou-ble blow on Tuesday with KemarRoach and Shane Dowrich out.

Pace bowler Roach isreturning home following thedeath of his father last weekwhile wicketkeeper Dowrichcontinues to be troubled by thehand injury that sidelined himafter day one of the first Test.

Watling, who had been suf-fering a hamstring strain, wasconfident he would be able totake his place in the Black Capsline up when the second Teststarts on Friday in Wellington.

“It seem to be progressingpretty well,” he said. “I’ve beenthrough a few fitness tests anddid a bit of training last weekduring the Test match and itseems to have pulled up prettygood.” AFP

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Two people in the Englandcricket tour party who gave

unconfirmed positive coron-avirus tests in South Africawere cleared on Tuesday andfreed from self-isolating.

The two positive tests,along with an outbreak in theSouth Africa camp and amongworkers at their shared bio-secure hotel in Cape Townprompted the rest of the tourto be abandoned on Monday.

England officials still want-ed independent ratification ofthe positive results in its camp.

“Following further testingand analysis, in the opinion ofthe independent virologistsbased in Cape Town andLondon, the two individualsare not infected, and do notpose any risk of passing on theinfection to the rest of the

party,” the England and WalesCricket Board said in a state-ment.

“The advice is they arenow free to join the rest of thegroup and are no longer self-isolating.”

The England party willhead home on Thursday.

The teams played out athree-match Twenty20 seriesbut the first one-day interna-tional scheduled for last Fridaywas postponed to Sundaybecause of another infection inthe South Africa team, thencanceled when two hotel work-ers caught the virus. Thatmade England undergo around of tests, producing twounconfirmed positives.

With outbreaks apparent-ly in both camps, officials can-celed the other scheduled ODIson Monday and Wednesday,too.

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Pakistan’s cricketers left quarantine inChristchurch on Tuesday after testing

negative for Covid-19, New Zealand healthauthorities said.

The touring party of more than 50 play-ers and officials had been holed up in theirhotel for two weeks as they underwentmandatory isolation under New Zealand’sstrict coronavirus protocols.

They had been confined to their roomsunable to train for most of that time after 10virus cases were detected among the group,with coach Misbah-ul-Haq complaining thisweek about the impact on his players.

But New Zealand’s health ministry con-firmed on Tuesday that the latest swabs hadall come back negative and the bulk of thegroup had been cleared to leave quarantine.

“After extensive testing and completionof their time in managed isolation inChristchurch, the Canterbury (district)medical officer of health is satisfied these

people pose a very low risk to the commu-nity,” it said.

The department said one person wasbeing kept in isolation at the Christchurchquarantine hotel to ensure he was fully recov-ered from the virus.

The tourists will travel to Queenstownfor training ahead of their first Twenty20match against the Black Caps in Aucklandon December 18.

Pakistan will play three T20s and twoTests in New Zealand.

�� The 30 extra runs thatAustralian keeper-batsmanMatthew Wade scored after alucky reprieve due to a delayedDRS call by the Indian teamturned out to be decisive andskipper Virat Kohli termed thelate reaction as “unacceptable”.It was in the 11th over thatWade was rapped on the padsby a Natarajan delivery thatstraightened after pitching.While the umpire ruled it notout, the Indian team, after some

deliberations, decided to appealand the umpire signalled forDRS.

However, Wade promptlyobjected stating that the stipu-lated 15 seconds for taking areview were over for the Indianteam and the decision of allow-ing the DRS was overturned.

“That LBW was a strangeone, we were still discussing thatif ball was going down leg sideand decided to go for the reviewbut umpire said nothing can be

done,” Kohli said at the post-match press conference.

“We felt as management,such mistakes (being late) can-not be done at the highest level.In an important game it canprove really costly.”

The TV replays showedthat it would have been LBW inIndia’s favour and what wouldpinch them is the victory mar-gin of 12 runs as Wade added30 more to his score of 50 at thetime of the incident. PTI

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�� India captain ViratKohli on Tuesday hinted that hemight skip the three-day pink-ball warm-up game ahead of theeagerly-awaited Test seriesagainst Australia after an intenselimited-overs leg of the tourwhich ended on Tuesday.

The tour game againstAustralia A is due to begin inthree days time and will beIndia’s final tune-up before theopening day-night Test inAdelaide from December 17.

Kohli will lead the team inthe opener of the four-matchseries, after which he will goback to India for the birth of hisfirst child.

“I will wake up tomorrowand see if I can play the tourmatch. Playing it on and off is

not my thing and I like to playthe full game. I will talk to ourphysio and then decide on myparticipation,” Kohli said afterthe third T20I.

Having won the series,Kohli was looking forward to theTests and said the current teamis stronger than the one thatmade history by winning its firstTest series Down Under twoyears ago.

“We need to take the samecompetitive attitude into theTests, and having played here afew times, we can score runs aswell.

“Once it’s time to capitaliseand score, we need to do thatsession by session. I’m sure thecurrent side is stronger than lasttime,” Kohli said. PTI

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