16
N ine personnel, six from the Army and three from Central Paramilitary Forces (CAPF), were awarded Shaurya Chakra, the third highest peacetime gallantry medal, on the occasion of the Republic Day. In all, the President approved 409 Gallantry and other defence decorations for the armed forces personnel. Also, President’s Police Medal will be conferred on over 1,000 police personnel for gallantry and distinguished service. These include four President’s Police Medals for Gallantry; 286 Police Medals for Gallantry; 93 President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service, and 657 Police Medal for Meritorious Service. In the list of police personnel listed for the honour, the Jammu & Kashmir Police has the maxi- mum names at 108, followed by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 76. Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad Mandavgane, pilots of Indian Air Force (IAF) Mi-17 heli- copter that was accidentally shot down in Budgam on February 27 last year, were posthumously awarded Vayu Sena Medal (Gallantry). Last October, IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria acknowledged the helicopter crash was a case of friendly fire and was a “big mistake.” Turn to Page 4 A four-storey building hous- ing a coaching centre col- lapsed in Northeast Delhi’s Bhajanpura on Saturday evening, killing five people, including four students, and injuring 10 others. Around 30 minor students were attending classes on the first two floors of the coaching institute, when the roofs of the upper two floors caved in, trapping the students under debris, officials said. The deceased have been identified as Kirti (10), Deeshu (14), Krishna Bharti (9), Farhan (6), all students, and Umesh (30). They were declared brought dead at the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital. Deceased Umesh was the younger brother of Shankar, who owns the building and runs the coaching centre. “The fourth floor of the building was under construc- tion when suddenly the upper two floors of the building col- lapsed. Some of the students were rescued by locals, while 13 others were rescued by the fire department and police,” a senior DFS official said, adding a call regarding the tragedy was received at 4.30pm. Laxmi, the mother of deceased Krishna and injured Nitin, said, “My children were studying there for the past six months. They should not have moved them to the third floor as we heard from locals that the construction material was stored there. I lost my son Krishna and Nitin is injured. He is admitted to the GTB hos- pital.” Arif Sultan, father of deceased Farhan, said, “My daughter who is in Class VIII called me to inform about the incident. I rushed to the spot. I climb up the stair and I myself took out my child from the debris after around one and a half hours. He was not breath- ing. We took him to hospital where he was declared brought dead.” Taking note of the incident, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: “Receiving bad news from Bhajanpura. Praying to God for everyone’s safety. I will reach the spot soon.” S even more people who returned from China have been kept under observation following screening for possi- ble exposure to novel coron- avirus. The Prime Minister’s Office on Saturday reviewed India’s preparedness to deal with the deadly syndrome and mounting global concern over growing number of cases in the neighbouring countries. At a meeting chaired by PK Mishra, Principal Secretary to the PM, Health Ministry offi- cials presented and updated about response measures being undertaken. Turn to Page 4 M ukesh Kumar Singh (32), one of the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya murder and gang-rape case, on Saturday moved the Supreme Court seeking judicial review of the rejection of mercy petition. “A petition has been filed under Article 32 for judicial review of the manner of rejec- tion of the mercy petition in terms of the judgment of the SC in Shatrughan Chauhan case,” said Vrinda Grover, who is representing Mukesh. Earlier, a Delhi court rejected charge that Tihar jail didn’t hand over documents to convicts to file mercy pleas. Turn to Page 4

ˇ ˇ!˚ ˘ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˙ · the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 76. Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad ... blossoming careers, celebrityhood and presence to nurse

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Page 1: ˇ ˇ!˚ ˘ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˙ · the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 76. Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad ... blossoming careers, celebrityhood and presence to nurse

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�������� ���������������� ��� �������� !"� ����-��������������#��"����������� ���� ���� �� ����.������� ���"��������.��,�/�#�)���������������������&���%���������������#�� �� �� ,� ��

����� �0���012/

Nine personnel, six from theArmy and three from

Central Paramilitary Forces(CAPF), were awarded ShauryaChakra, the third highestpeacetime gallantry medal, onthe occasion of the RepublicDay. In all, the Presidentapproved 409 Gallantry andother defence decorations forthe armed forces personnel.

Also, President’s PoliceMedal will be conferred on

over 1,000 police personnel forgallantry and distinguishedservice. These include fourPresident’s Police Medals forGallantry; 286 Police Medalsfor Gallantry; 93 President’sPolice Medal for DistinguishedService, and 657 Police Medalfor Meritorious Service. In thelist of police personnel listed forthe honour, the Jammu &Kashmir Police has the maxi-mum names at 108, followed bythe Central Reserve PoliceForce (CRPF) at 76.

Squadron LeadersSiddharth Vashisht and NinadMandavgane, pilots of IndianAir Force (IAF) Mi-17 heli-copter that was accidentallyshot down in Budgam onFebruary 27 last year, wereposthumously awarded VayuSena Medal (Gallantry). LastOctober, IAF Chief Air ChiefMarshal RKS Bhadauriaacknowledged the helicoptercrash was a case of friendly fireand was a “big mistake.”

Turn to Page 4������������� �0���012/

Afour-storey building hous-ing a coaching centre col-

lapsed in Northeast Delhi’sBhajanpura on Saturdayevening, killing five people,including four students, andinjuring 10 others. Around 30minor students were attendingclasses on the first two floors ofthe coaching institute, when theroofs of the upper two floorscaved in, trapping the studentsunder debris, officials said.

The deceased have beenidentified as Kirti (10), Deeshu(14), Krishna Bharti (9), Farhan(6), all students, and Umesh(30). They were declaredbrought dead at the Guru TegBahadur (GTB) Hospital.Deceased Umesh was theyounger brother of Shankar,who owns the building andruns the coaching centre.

“The fourth floor of thebuilding was under construc-tion when suddenly the uppertwo floors of the building col-lapsed. Some of the studentswere rescued by locals, while 13

others were rescued by thefire department and police,” asenior DFS official said, addinga call regarding the tragedy wasreceived at 4.30pm.

Laxmi, the mother ofdeceased Krishna and injuredNitin, said, “My children werestudying there for the past sixmonths. They should not havemoved them to the third flooras we heard from locals that theconstruction material wasstored there. I lost my sonKrishna and Nitin is injured.He is admitted to the GTB hos-pital.”

Arif Sultan, father of

deceased Farhan, said, “Mydaughter who is in Class VIIIcalled me to inform about theincident. I rushed to the spot.I climb up the stair and Imyself took out my child fromthe debris after around one anda half hours. He was not breath-ing. We took him to hospitalwhere he was declared broughtdead.”

Taking note of the incident,Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal tweeted: “Receivingbad news from Bhajanpura.Praying to God for everyone’ssafety. I will reach the spotsoon.”

����� �0���012/

Seven more people whoreturned from China have

been kept under observationfollowing screening for possi-ble exposure to novel coron-avirus. The Prime Minister’sOffice on Saturday reviewedIndia’s preparedness to dealwith the deadly syndrome andmounting global concern overgrowing number of cases in theneighbouring countries.

At a meeting chaired by PKMishra, Principal Secretary tothe PM, Health Ministry offi-cials presented and updatedabout response measures beingundertaken.

Turn to Page 4

����� �0���012/

Mukesh Kumar Singh (32),one of the four death-row

convicts in the 2012 Nirbhayamurder and gang-rape case, onSaturday moved the SupremeCourt seeking judicial review ofthe rejection of mercy petition.

“A petition has been filedunder Article 32 for judicialreview of the manner of rejec-tion of the mercy petition interms of the judgment of theSC in Shatrughan Chauhancase,” said Vrinda Grover, whois representing Mukesh.

Earlier, a Delhi courtrejected charge that Tihar jaildidn’t hand over documents toconvicts to file mercy pleas.

Turn to Page 4

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Page 2: ˇ ˇ!˚ ˘ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˙ · the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 76. Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad ... blossoming careers, celebrityhood and presence to nurse

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Panga is an ode to comebacksafter motherhood and towomen who give up

blossoming careers, celebrityhoodand presence to nurse their childrenand families. Tat their is a disclaimerthat it is a purely fictitious story, takesaway the mirth attached to sportingmovies. But having said that,Kangana kind of glides into the roleof a yesteryear kabbadi captain nowengrossed in raising her cute childand cuter husband, at the expense ofthe international kabaddi mat and a

career all her own. She makes themovie and her character entirelybelievable though you might want tocredit director Ashwini Iyer for noteven once playing to the gallery.

The movie and its music comeswith a Dangal kind of rustic influencethough this is Bhopal not Haryanathat the action is centred around. Thefilm holds on to the chords ofsensitivity not just for the womanwho gave it all up for her prematurechild but also for the gentlerelationship she has with her husbandand the scenario from where she isdrawn out to dream again, to performagain, this time against all odds.

The pace of the movie is slowand steady and despite the fear of itgetting hijacked by ennui, Iyer keeps

her calm and let’s the proceedings fallout of the home and the stadiumwithout much of a fuss. RichaChadda as Kangana’s friend and co-player now turned coach, is a breezeadding interesting moments to thefilm whenever it starts to flag.However, the role of this straightspeaking Haryanvi girl, is slim in thefilm and that makes you yearn forsome more flesh on her being thanthe footage permits.

Same is the story with NeenaGupta who could have been muchmore than a laddoo-making nani sheis reduced to being in the film. aword about Jassie Gill. He is cool asthe side spouse. It is Kangana all theway to yet another performance ofthe day.

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If one is looking for a storythat is a little beyonddancing, love thy

neighbour and how one thinkof others and their plight, thenStreet Dancer 3D is not thefilm that will hold one’sattention for long. But thisdoesn’t mean that the moviehas nothing to offer.

There is some greatdancing. Those who are farremoved from this art form, itwill amaze them no end towhere dancing stands today —from flips to head spins thatwill spin your head to breakdance steps that one wouldhave thought would actuallybreak bones.

Then there is the musicand songs. It is a film of dance,so yes, there are somenoteworthy music and songs

that will remain with you tillthe next chartbuster isreleased.

Then there is VarunDhawan, Shraddha Kapoorand Nora Fetehi. It goeswithout saying Varun Dhawanis a great dancer. he is mostcertainly give Tiger Shroff arun for his moves. Nora Fatehiis fantastic. But the surprisehere is Shraddha Kapoor. Hersize zero and moves are trulygreat. Efforts of choreographerRahul Shetty needs to belauded.

The icing on the cake isthe presence of Prabhu Devaall through. Usually hisappearance is in bits andpieces and only a few dancemoves. There is a treat waitingfor all those who are his fansand love the way he dances.

Street Dancer 3D holdsground, even though havebeen better dance movies byHollywood.

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WINNERS OF GALLANTRY AND DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARDSWINNERS OF GALLANTRY AND DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARDS7171st st REPUBLIC DAY, 26REPUBLIC DAY, 26 JANUARY 2020JANUARY 2020

PARAM VISHISHT SEVA MEDAL1. LT GEN RANBIR SINGH, AVSM**, YSM, SM, INFANTRY2. LT GEN SANJEEV KUMAR SHRIVASTAVA, AVSM, ENGINEERS3. LT GEN RAJEEV CHOPRA, AVSM, INFANTRY4. LT GEN PODALI SHANKAR RAJESHWAR, AVSM, VSM, ARTILLERY5. LT GEN SATINDER KUMAR SAINI, AVSM, YSM, VSM, INFANTRY6. LT GEN AMARJEET SINGH BEDI, UYSM, YSM, VSM, INFANTRY7. LT GEN ANIL CHAUHAN, UYSM, AVSM, SM, VSM, INFANTRY8. LT GEN JAIVEER SINGH NEGI, AVSM, YSM, VSM**, INFANTRY9. LT GEN SANTOSH KUMAR UPADHYA, AVSM, SM, VSM, INFANTRY10. LT GEN SANJEEV KANAL, AVSM, ARTILLERY11. LT GEN RAJNI KANT JAGGA, AVSM, VSM, ADC,

ARMOURED CORPS (RETD)12. LT GEN ALOK SINGH KLER, VSM, ARMOURED CORPS13. LT GEN RAVENDRA PAL SINGH, AVSM, VSM,

MECHANISED INFANTRY14. LT GEN ARVIND DUTTA, AVSM, VSM, INFANTRY15. LT GEN HARPAL SINGH, AVSM, VSM, ENGINEERS16. LT GEN DALIP SINGH, VSM, ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS17. MAJ GEN SANDEEPAN HANDA, ARMY AVIATION (RETD)18. MAJ GEN MUKESH KUMAR, SM, INFANTRY19. MAJ GEN ASHWANI KUMAR CHANNAN, SM, ARTILLERY

UTTAM YUDH SEVA MEDAL1. LT GEN PARAMJIT SINGH SANGHA, AVSM, SM, INFANTRY 2. LT GEN YOGESH KUMAR JOSHI, AVSM, VrC, SM, INFANTRY3. LT GEN RAJEEV SIROHI, AVSM, VSM, INFANTRY4. LT GEN KANWAL JEET SINGH DHILLON, YSM, VSM, INFANTRY

ATI VISHISHT SEVA MEDAL1. LT GEN SUNIL SRIVASTAVA, VSM**, ARTILLERY2. LT GEN ANIL KAPOOR, VSM, ELECTRONICS AND

MECHANICAL ENGINEERS3. LT GEN PANDALA NAGESH RAO, YSM, SM, INFANTRY4. LT GEN RAKESH KUMAR ANAND, SM, VSM, SIGNALS5. LT GEN SUKHDEEP SANGWAN, SM**, INFANTRY6. MAJ GEN VIRINDER SINGH RANDHAWA, VSM, ELECTRONICS AND

MECHANICAL ENGINEERS (RETD)7. MAJ GEN RAJESH CHOPRA, MECHANISED INFANTRY, (RETD)8. MAJ GEN AMIT KUMAR SANYAL, VSM, ARMOURED CORPS (RETD)9. MAJ GEN BASAVARAJ GURUSIDDAPPA GILGANCHI,

SIGNALS (RETD)10. MAJ GEN SANDEEP SHARMA, VSM, INFANTRY11. MAJ GEN PAWAN ANAND, ENGINEERS12. MAJ GEN SANJAY SINGH, SM**, VSM, INFANTRY13. MAJ GEN KC PANCHANATHAN, ENGINEERS14. MAJ GEN NS RAJA SUBRAMANI, SM, VSM, INFANTRY15. MAJ GEN DEVENDRA PRATAP PANDEY, VSM, INFANTRY16. MAJ GEN RAVIN KHOSLA, SM, VSM, INFANTRY 17. MAJ GEN VIJAY KUMAR MISHRA, INFANTRY18. MAJ GEN JASBIR SINGH SANDHU, INFANTRY19. MAJ GEN JYOTINDER SINGH SANDHU, ARMOURED CORPS20. MAJ GEN JOHNSON P MATHEW, VSM, INFANTRY21. MAJ GEN P GOPALAKRISHNA MENON, INFANTRY22. MAJ GEN PRADEEP CHANDRAN NAIR, YSM, INFANTRY23. MAJ GEN SANJIV RAI, SM, VSM, INFANTRY24. MAJ GEN RAJINDER DEWAN, VSM, INFANTRY25. MAJ GEN ATUL RAWAT, MECHANISED, INFANTRY 26. MAJ GEN GURBIRPAL SINGH, VSM, INFANTRY27. MAJ GEN RAJESH KUNDRA, SM, GUARDS28. MAJ GEN SHAMMI RAJ, SM, ARTILLERY (RETD)29. MAJ GEN KALIKA PRASAD SINGH, YSM, INFANTRY30. MAJ GEN SANJAY DARSHAN BEHERA, ARMY MEDICAL CORPS31. MAJ GEN VIVEK SHARMA, ARMY MEDICAL CORPS (RETD)32. BRIG PREET PAL SINGH, VSM, INFANTRY

SHAURYA CHAKRA1. LT COL JYOTI LAMA, INFANTRY, ASSAM RIFLES 2. MAJ KONJENGBAM BIJENDRA SINGH, ARMY AIR DEFENCE,

ASSAM RIFLES 3. NB SUB NARENDER SINGH, INFANTRY4. NB SUB SOMBIR, INFANTRY,RASHTRIYA RIFLES (POSTHUMOUS)5. NK NARESH KUMAR, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES6. SEP KARMDEO ORAON, INFANTRY

YUDH SEVA MEDAL1. BRIG VIJAY KUMAR PUROHIT, SM, INFANTRY2. BRIG VIKAS CHOUDHARY, INFANTRY3. BRIG SACHIN MALIK, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES4. BRIG PAWAN BHARDWAJ, INFANTRY5. BRIG BALBIR SINGH, VSM, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES6. BRIG SURESH KUMAR SHEORAN, SM, INFANTRY, ASSAM RIFLES 7. COL NARESH CHANDRA GAIROLA, SM, INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES8. COL SHAITAN SINGH, INFANTRY

BAR TO SENA MEDAL (GALLANTRY)1. LT COL SANJEEV KUMAR SINGH, SM, INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES 2. MAJ HARPRIT SINGH, SM, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES3. MAJ VIPUL NARAYAN, SM, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES4. MAJ VARUN GAUR, SM, ARMOURED CORPS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES

SENA MEDAL (GALLANTRY)1. LT COL SUNDEEP SINGH WALIA, ARMY AVIATION2. LT COL RAHUL GUPTA, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES3. LT COL RAJKUMAR PALLAB GOHAIN, INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES4. MAJ SHISHIR KUMAR, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES5. MAJ CHANDAN KUMAR THAKUR, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES6. MAJ BALRAJ SINGH RANDHAWA, INFANTRY 7. MAJ GOOTY BALAJI NIRANJAN, ARMY AVIATION8. MAJ RAHUL KUMAR RAI, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES 9. MAJ VINEET KUMAR, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES10. MAJ PRANAV PRABHAT, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES11. MAJ SACHIN ANDOTRA, ARMY SERVICES CORPS,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES12. MAJ KULBHUSHAN SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES13. MAJ VIKAS, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES14. MAJ KRUNAL THAKRE, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES15. MAJ C PRAVEEN KUMAR, ENGINEERS, ASSAM RIFLES 16. MAJ MOHIT KHARE, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES17. MAJ RAHUL BALAMOHAN, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES18. MAJ NILAAV SURENDRA, INFANTRY19. MAJ HARSH KAKRAN, MECHANISED INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES20. MAJ SANDEEP, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES21. MAJ SOURABH SUSHANT, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES22. MAJ A SRINIVAS REDDY, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES23. MAJ ANKIT DAHIYA, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES24. MAJ MOHIT MALIK, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES25. MAJ AJAY KUMAR, GUARDS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES

26. MAJ ANKIT PATHAK, MECHANISED INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES27. MAJ BHANU PRATAP SINGH, ELECTRONICS AND MECHANICAL

ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES28. MAJ NISHANT MEHTA, ENGINEERS29. CAPT AMARINDER SINGH, MECHANISED INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES30. CAPT DEEPAK BISHT, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES31. CAPT ANKUR, ARMOURED CORPS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES32. CAPT PIYUSH SHARMA, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES33. CAPT A RANJITH KUMAR, INFANTRY34. CAPT SIDDHARTHA DAS, INFANTRY35. CAPT RAMAN TIWADI, INFANTRY36. SUB MUKESH KUMAR SINGH, ARTILLERY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES37. SUB DILBAG SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES38. HAV BHAL SINGH, INFANTRY39. HAV PAWAN, INFANTRY40. HAV BANTI, INFANTRY41. HAV SHAMSHER SINGH, INFANTRY42. HAV JASBIR SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES43. HAV RAJIB SWARGIARY, MECHANISED INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES44. HAV BALJEET, MECHANISED INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA

RIFLES (POSTHUMOUS)45. HAV KIRAN KUMAR BOMMALI, MECHANISED INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES46. HAV ESHWAR SINGH BANAFAR, ARTILLERY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES47. HAV HARIBIR SINGH, INFANTRY48. HAV RAJESH SINGH, INFANTRY49. HAV PARDEEP KUMAR, INFANTRY50. HAV PRITAM SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES51. HAV SUNIL SINGH, INFANTRY52. HAV RAVINDRA SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES53. HAV LALTLANZOVA, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES54. L/DFR FAROOQ AHMED KHAN, ARMOURED CORPS,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES55. NK SANDEEP, INFANTRY (POSTHUMOUS)56. NK BISHAN SINGH LIMBU, MECHANISED INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES57. NK DASARI RAMESH, ARTILLERY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES58. NK BUTA SINGH, ARTILLERY (POSTHUMOUS)59. NK SAMAY LAL SINGH, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES60. NK DILEEP POL, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES61. NK KOTA RAGHUNATH REDDY, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES62. NK RAJENDRA SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES63. NK RAVINDER SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES64. NK SONVEER SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES65. NK OUM SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES66. NK SURESH CHAND CHOUDHARY, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES67. NK KULDEEP SINGH, INFANTRY (POSTHUMOUS)68. NK SURENDER SINGH RAUTELA, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES69. NK SURENDRA YADAV, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES70. ALD VINOD KUMAR THAKUR, ARMOURED CORPS,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES71. L/NK PAWAN KUMAR, GUARDS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES72. L/NK ANIL KUMAR, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES73. L/NK YOGENDRA SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES74. L/NK SUBZAR AHMAD WANI, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES75. SEP GURMEET, MECHANISED INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES76. SEP GURDEV SINGH, MECHANISED INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES77. SEP PUSHKAR, MECHANISED INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES78. SEP VINOD KUMAR, ARTILLERY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES79. SEP GURPREET SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES80. SEP AMANDEEP SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES81. SEP TARSEEM SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES82. SEP ARUNESH SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES83. SEP SANDEEP, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES (POSTHUMOUS)84. SEP PRITHVIRAJ, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES85. SEP JAYPAL SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES86. SEP UDAY BHAN, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES87. SEP AMIR KHAN, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES 88. SEP SAIYYAD SAJEED IBRAHIM, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES 89. SEP ANUP SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES90. SEP YOGENDRA SINGH JODHA, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES91. SEP RAMVEER, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES92. SEP MEDOYO NAKI, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES93. SEP UYOKTA KUMAR MARING, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES94. SEP NEHMINLEN HAOKIP, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES95. SEP GRATEFUL, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES96. SEP RATHOD RANJITSINH AMARSINH, INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES97. RFN ANIL KUMAR JASWAL, INFANTRY,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES (POSTHUMOUS)98. RFN AYUB MOHD, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES99. PTR HARI VIYAPAK, INFANTRY100. PTR Y ELONTHUNG LOTHA, INFANTRY101. SWR KULDIP SINGH BHADAURIA, ARMOURED CORPS,

RASHTRIYA RIFLES102. SWR RAMAN KUMAR, ARMOURED CORPS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES103. SPR VIPIN KUMAR UPADHYAY, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES104. SPR NAGENDRA UDYAGOL, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES 105. SPR ELUMALAI R, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES106. SPR ARJUN M, ENGINEERS, RASHTRIYA RIFLES107. GDRS HARI BHAKAR, INFANTRY (POSTHUMOUS)

BAR TO SENA MEDAL (DISTINGUISHED)1. BRIG AMIT KABTHIYAL, SM, INFANTRY2. COL CS PARMAR, SM, INFANTRY3. COL SANJAY SINGH KARKI, SM, INFANTRY4. SUB BALWANT SINGH, SM, SCOUTS

SENA MEDAL (DISTINGUISHED)1. MAJ GEN MANDIP SINGH, VSM, ARTILLERY2. MAJ GEN RAJ VIJAYENDRA SINGH, VSM, ARMY SERVICES CORPS 3. MAJ GEN REENA BHARADWAJ, VSM, ARMY MEDICAL CORPS4. BRIG VINAYAK SAINI, ENGINEERS5. BRIG HARDEV SINGH SOHI, INFANTRY6. BRIG NEERAJ GOSAIN, ENGINEERS7. BRIG RAJESH KUMAR SHARMA, SIGNALS8. BRIG MAN RAJ SINGH MANN, INFANTRY9. BRIG MOHIT SETH, VSM, INFANTRY10. BRIG TRAILOKYA MOHAN PATTANAIK, INFANTRY11. BRIG SAUMYA BANERJEE, INFANTRY12. COL RAHUL THAPLIYAL, ARTILLERY13. COL ALOK DASH, INFANTRY14. COL NAGARAJ MOHAN BENDIGERI, INFANTRY15. COL PANKAJ SETHI, ENGINEERS16. COL PUSHPAM KUMAR, INFANTRY17. COL ANKUSH MARKAN, INFANTRY, ASSAM RIFLES

18. COL SANJU MATHEW, INFANTRY19. COL VIJAY PAL SINGH JAMWAL, INFANTRY20. COL KAPIL MOHAN SEHGAL, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES21. COL RAJEEV DHINGRA, ENGINEERS22. COL ARINDAM BARDHAN, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES23. LT COL BISWAS RAMACHANDRAN NAMBIAR, ARMY AVIATION24. LT COL VIVEK KUMAR JHA, INFANTRY25. LT COL IROM CHINGKHEINGANBA, ENGINEERS26. MAJ AASHISH KUMAR, INFANTRY27. MAJ GAURAV DAHIYA, INFANTRY28. MAJ KSHETRIMAYUM BIKRAM SINGH, INFANTRY, ASSAM RIFLES29. CAPT GOURAV KUMAR PRASHAR, INFANTRY, ASSAM RIFLES30. CAPT NAGA MALLIKARJUNA RAO B, ENGINEERS31. RIS MAJ & HONY LT KULDIP SINGH, THE PBG32. NK DINESH KUMAR, SCOUTS33. NK INDAR SINGH ADHIKARI, INFANTRY34. NK NARAYAN SINGH, SCOUTS (POSTHUMOUS)35. L/NK JAYPAL SINGH, INFANTRY36. GDRS DEEPAK KUMAR, INFANTRY

VISHISHT SEVA MEDAL1. MAJ GEN SUNANDA KUMAR PANIGRAHI, ARTILLERY (RETD)2. MAJ GEN AMITABH JOSHI, INTELLIGENCE CORPS3. MAJ GEN SANJAY SHARMA, ARTILLERY (RETD)4. MAJ GEN RAKESH KAPOOR, ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS5. MAJ GEN PAWAN KUMAR SAINI, MECHANISED INFANTRY6. MAJ GEN ULHAS VEERAPPA TALUR, ARMY AIR DEFENCE7. MAJ GEN SURESH CHANDRA TANDI, ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS8. MAJ GEN PREET MOHINDERA SINGH, ARMY SERVICES CORPS9. MAJ GEN PRAVESH PURI, ARMOURED CORPS10. MAJ GEN RAJENDRA SACHDEV, INFANTRY11. MAJ GEN SANJAY SETHI, ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS12. MAJ GEN NANDA KISHORE SAHOO, ARMY DENTAL CORPS13. BRIG RAMESH BALAN, SIGNALS14. BRIG RAJINDER PAL SINGH, ARTILLERY15. BRIG SALIL SHARMA, ARMOURED CORPS (RETD)16. BRIG RAJAGOPALA CHELLAMANI SRIKANTH, ARMY AIR DEFENCE17. BRIG PRAVIN SHINDE, INFANTRY (RETD)18. BRIG SHAILENDRA MALIK, ELECTRONICS AND

MECHANICAL ENGINEERS19. BRIG MUKESH AGGARWAL, ARTILLERY20. BRIG AJEY SETHI, ARTILLERY21. BRIG RAJESH SACHDEV, INFANTRY 22. BRIG MANISH KUMAR, ARMY AIR DEFENCE23. BRIG RAJEEV OHRI, SIGNALS24. BRIG AJAY DUA, ARMOURED CORPS25. BRIG LAKHBINDER SINGH LIDDER, SM, INFANTRY26. BRIG AMIT SINGH SOHAL, ENGINEERS27. BRIG RAMANKUTTY PREM RAJ, MECHANISED INFANTRY 28. BRIG SANDEEP S SHARDA, INFANTRY29. BRIG GIRISH KALIA, INFANTRY30. BRIG RAJESH SETHI, SM, INFANTRY31. BRIG ZUBIN BHATNAGAR, INFANTRY 32. BRIG RAJAT PRAKASH, ARMY MEDICAL CORPS33. BRIG SUSHIL KUMAR JHA, ARMY MEDICAL CORPS34. BRIG APPALLA VENKATA RAMESH, ARMY MEDICAL CORPS35. BRIG ATUL KUMAR SOOD, ARMY MEDICAL CORPS36. COL GAURAV KAUSHAL, ENGINEERS37. COL SUDEEP SINGH, ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS38. COL RAKESH CHAND KATOCH, INFANTRY39. COL SYED TAQUI ABBAS RIZVI, ARMY SERVICES CORPS40. COL ANUJ KALIA, ARMOURED CORPS41. COL ASAD SHEIKH, ARMY SERVICES CORPS42. COL MUNESH CHANDRA TAMANG, INFANTRY43. COL ARVIND KUMAR DIMRI, INFANTRY44. COL AMANDEEP MALHI, INFANTRY45. COL SUBRAHMANYAN RAMAKRISHNA, INFANTRY46. COL DHANURJIWAN JYOTI RANADE, SIGNALS47. COL AKHIL KUMAR SINGH, ELECTRONICS AND

MECHANICAL ENGINEERS48. COL ARUN KUMAR RAI, SM, ARMOURED CORPS49. COL AKSHAY CHANDRAN, INFANTRY50. COL DHEERAJ KUMAR SINGH, INFANTRY51. COL RANJIT SINGH SANDHU, ARTILLERY52. COL PUNAR PREET SINGH MANN, GUARDS53. COL ANTERPREET SINGH, ENGINEERS54. COL AJAY KUMAR, INFANTRY55. COL JAI VIJAY SINGH RAWAT, INFANTRY56. COL NISHIT MURAT SINGH THAKUR, INFANTRY, ASSAM RIFLES57. COL SUMIT SHARMA, ENGINEERS58. COL DEBASHIS NATH, INFANTRY59. COL BHUPINDER SINGH, INFANTRY60. LT COL PALLAV BORA, ARMY AIR DEFENCE61. LT COL ROHIT RASAILY, ARTILLERY62. LT COL HARSHVARDHAN SATRE, ARTILLERY63. LT COL VARUN BAJPAI, INFANTRY64. LT COL BINIT KUMAR, INFANTRY65. MAJ HARENDER SINGH RAUTELA, ENGINEERS66. MAJ TASHI THAPLIYAL, SIGNALS67. MAJ ANOOP MISHRA, ENGINEERS68. MAJ ABDUL HAMEED, INFANTRY69. MAJ PRAVEEN KUMAR, INFANTRY70. SUB MAJ RANJEET SINGH SHEKHAWAT, INFANTRY71. SUB JITU RAI, SM, INFANTRY72. SUB NEERAJ CHOPRA, INFANTRY73. NB SUB OM PRAKASH MITHARVAL, INFANTRY74. NB SUB JINSON JOHNSON, ARTILLERY75. NB SUB GAURAV SOLANKI, ENGINEERS76. NB SUB AMIT, INFANTRY

MENTION-IN-DESPATCHES

OPERATION RHINO1. LT COL RAHUL NARANG, ARMY AVIATION

OPERATION RAKSHAK2. MAJ ASHUTOSH PANT, INFANTRY3. MAJ BIKRANT AZAD, INFANTRY4. MAJ GIDDALURU GANGA PRASAD, ARTILLERY5. CAPT KIRTIMAN KUMAR SINGH, ARTILLERY6. MAJ NAVEEN BHANDARI, INFANTRY7. CAPT VISHESH BATRA, ARTILLERY8. SUB PATIL MACHHINDRANATH GOVINDA, INFANTRY9. SUB BHOGAN SAMBHAJI GOVIND, INFANTRY10. NB SUB LALIT MOHAN CHAND, ARTILLERY11. HAV APPASAMY RAJKUMAR, ENGINEERS, NSG12. NK RAMU MASHYAL, INFANTRY13. L/NK AJAY KUMAR, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES14. L/NK MD JAWED, INFANTRY (POSTHUMOUS)15. SEP DHARMENDRA SINGH, INFANTRY, RASHTRIYA RIFLES

Page 3: ˇ ˇ!˚ ˘ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˙ · the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 76. Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad ... blossoming careers, celebrityhood and presence to nurse

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Making a strong pitch against theongoing protest at ShaheenBagh against the Citizenship

(Amendment) Act and National Registerof Citizens, Union Minister PrakashJavadekar has termed the sit-in “politi-cally motivated”. In an interview with ThePioneer’s Sapna Singh, Javadekar said theprotest was deliberately being stretchedand there was a vicious attempt to poi-son the young children who are callingout for the killing of PM Modi and AmitShah. Javadekar, also the BJP’s poll in-charge in Delhi, spoke at length on issueslike selection of candidates, the party’sstrategies for the polls and the cam-paign to take on the rulingAAP Government. Excerptsfrom the interview:

� How big the impact ofCAA/NRC protest isgoing to have in Delhipolls. Will the ongoingprotest in ShaheenBagh backfire?

Protest againstCAA is politicallymotivated and agen-da-based. This willhave no impact onDelhi polls as it is notgoing to polarise Hinduor Muslim votes. Eventhose opposing the CAA are wellaware that the law has nothingto do with people of India. Theprotest is troubling lakhs ofpeople every day. What we seeis five-year-old children call-ing out for killing of Modiand Shah.

People in India are wellaware about original 1955- CAA which gives citi-zenship to anyone whofulfils the criteria. Therecent amendment inthe Act will give citi-zenship to those whoare persecuted onreligious bases inP a k i s t a n ,Afghanistan andBangladesh. BJP isensuring that noone's citizenship isin danger.

CAA is in lime-light because a hand-ful of people have beenprotesting in the

Capital for the last 40 days. There arevarious confusions among people whichwill be definitely cleared and may takethree or six months.

� BJP is relying heavily on young orlesser known faces. What is the strate-gy behind this. Do you think fieldingnewcomers against sitting Minster ofAAP will work for BJP?

This is the rule of our party (BJP) togive ticket to new faces. One third can-didates will always remain new. Thosewho are relevant in today's time in his/her

constituency, ticket will be given tohim/her. In BJP, winnability is theonly criteria. We ensure and pro-mote equal participation ofwomen candidate.

� What is BJP's take onAAP's freebies?

The Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) is giving bene-fits to lakhs of Delhiites.With the regularisation ofunauthorised colonies inDelhi, with few registrationcharges, BJP is giving them

the benefit in Lakhs insteadof few thousands by providing

free water/electricity. It is Arvind Kejriwal, who is

keeping away Delhi people from theCentral Government benefit. Forinstance; we give six thousand rupeesto farmers across India. However,Kejriwal deprived Delhi farmers of this benefit by not submittingfarmers' list to us. In Ayushmanscheme, he has done the same by notimplementing it in Delhi.

� Is this election a

fight between Prime Minister NarendraModi and Delhi Chief Minsiter ArvindKejriwal?

No. BJP is projecting PM Modi forhis policies favouring every citizen ofIndia. PM vs Kejriwal is an idea of goodgovernance and bad governance. in pre-vious Delhi elections, people camefrom outside to support AAP but thistime, no one has come forward beac-sue people feel betrayed from Kejriwal'sgovernance where most of the partycandidates are facing charges of cor-ruption. There is a wave of deceptionabout AAP which we do not want.That's why PM Modi is an example ofgood governance.

� If BJP wins election in Delhi, will yousupport the idea of full statehood sta-tus to Delhi?

Well, full statehood status to thenational Capital is a matter of debateacross the globe. Our aim is to focus ondevelopment.

� BJP is contesting elections in Delhiwithout a CM face for the first time. In2008, VK Malhotra, in 2013 DrHarshvardhan and in 2015, KiranBedi. Please comment.

The rule of law in party is: Peoplevote for the party not to a face! We didnot project CM face in Haryana,Maharashtra. This will go for Delhi elec-tions as well.

� What is BJP's strategy for Delhi elec-tion campaigining?

Yes, everyday, our Ministers areengaging with Delhi people in smallgathering. The purpose of this engage-ment is to convey what BJP has done forpeople— be it abrogation of Article 370,triple talaq, Ram Mandir or CAA/NRC.From 27 January onwards, there will bethousands of meetings for the next 10days and thus, there will be a carpetbombing with 10,000 meetings. FromCabinet Ministers to party workers,everyone is involved with masses atbooth level. We are announcing ourvision document soon.

� Despite having old relationship withSAD, the party is not contesting elec-tions. Is BJP anti-Sikh ?

Every party has a ideology or a line,BJP respects it. SAD was not agreeingto CAA. Our alliance will remainintact but SAD has refused to contestelections in Delhi.

Shaheen Bagh poisoning young minds

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Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s)national convener and Chief

Minister Arvind Kejriwal toldUnion Home Minister AmitShah on Saturday not to makeeducation a part of dirty politicsor make fun of the hard workput in by students, teacher andparents of Delhi Governmentschools.

Kejriwal’s remark came afterShah alleged the ruling AAP fornot building new schools aftercoming to power. “The condi-

tion of existing schools deterio-rated, Kejriwal promised tobuild 500 schools, “far frombuilding new schools, the con-dition of existing schools is alsoin shambles. Seven-hundredschools do not have principals,more than 1,000 schools do nothave science wing, there is short-age of 19,000 teachers. TheKejriwal Government could notspend 30 per cent of the educa-tion budget,” Shah tweeted.

Reacting to the allegation,Kejriwal invited Shah to see forhimself the condition of

Government schools in Delhi."Don't make education a

part of your dirty politics. Pleasetake out time and come with meto visit Government schools.You are surrounded by negativ-ity the whole day, meet our stu-dents, you will get some posi-tivity. Do positive politics overeducation," he said at a pressconference.

Kejriwal also said, "Don'tmake fun of the hard work putin by students, teachers, and par-ents of Delhi Governmentschools."

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The Election Commission(EC) on Saturday imposed

a 48-hour campaigning ban onBJP candidate from Delhi’sModel Town constituencyKapil Mishra over his contro-versial tweets. The ban order,approved by the Chief ElectionCommissioner and two fellowElection Commissioners, cameinto force from 5 pm onSaturday, EC officials said.

The order, they said,

referred to Mishra's tweets ofJanuary 22 and 23. "Delhi meinchote chote Pakistan bane(Number of mini Pakistan hasbeen created in Delhi)","Shaheen Bagh mein Pakistanki entry", "India Vs PakistanFebruary 8 Delhi", and AAPand Congress have createdShaheen Bagh like Pakistan aresome of the contents in thetweets the EC order referred to.

While Twitter had takendown one of his controversialtweets on Friday following

directions of the EC, an FIR waslodged against him under sec-tion 125 of the Representationof the People Act dealing withcreating enmity among class-es.The order said the poll panelwas not satisfied with Mishra'sreply to the show cause noticeissued to him.

It charged Mishra withviolating provisions of themodel code of Conduct deal-ing with aggravating existingdifferences or creating mutualhatred.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday hitout at the Centre alleging that anyone who

opposes the ruling BJP's "agenda of hate" isdubbed as an "Urban Naxal".

A day after the Centre handed over theBhima-Koregaon case to the NIA, Rahul attackedthe central agency saying its "stooges" can nevererase "the symbol of resistance". "Anyone whoopposes the MOSH agenda of hate is an 'UrbanNaxal'.

"Bhima-Koregaon is a symbol of resistancethat the Government's NIA stooges can nevererase," he said on Twitter.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA)took over the probe into the 2018 Koregaon-Bhima violence on Friday, a day after theMaharashtra Government held a review meetingwith senior Pune police officers to take a call onpursuing the matter.

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The Congress on Saturdaynodded the formation of a

jumbo Pradesh CongressCommittee for Uttarakhandwith 22 vice presidents, 31general secretaries and 98 sec-retaries.

The new committee wasapproved by Congress presi-dent Sonia Gandhi after sheaccepted the recommendationsmade by senior party leadersin-charge for the state and inconsultation with senior lead-ers from the state.

Sunil Gulati has been made

the new Treasurer of theUttarakhand PCC.

Among the 90 special invi-tees to the committee are for-mer chief minister HarishRawat, Indira Hridesh, KishoreUpadhyay and others.

The Uttarakhand PCC isheaded by MLA Pritam Singh.

Kathmandu: Nepal on Saturday became thefirst South Asian nation to offer to "mediate"between India and Pakistan over Kashmir andcross-border terrorism with a NepalGovernment source underlining the impor-tance of dialogue between the two arch-rivalsto resolve their differences that could also leadto the revival of the SAARC.

Tensions between India and Pakistan havespiked since India abrogated Article 370 of theConstitution to revoke the special status ofJammu & Kashmir in August last year.India's decision evoked strong reactionsfrom Pakistan, which downgraded diplomaticties and expelled the Indian envoy.

"Peaceful talks and discussions are the bestways to resolve any problems. There may becontradictions and differences but it can beresolved through dialogue. If necessary, wecan play the role of the mediator as Nepal isan independent, neutral and peace lovingcountry," the source said here.

The source, however, said that better solu-tion to resolve the issues would be to developbetter dialogue between two countries. PTI

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Thiruvananthapuram: Whilethe country will celebrate its71st Republic Day on Sunday,Kerala will witness a massiveprotest led by the CPI(M) ledLeft Democratic Front in theform of a State-wide humanchain, demanding withdrawalof the controversial CitizenshipAmendment Act.

The LDF has organisedthe 620 km long human chainfrom Kasaragod in northKerala to Kaliyakkavilai in thesouthernmost part of the state

and expect about 60 to 70lakh people to participate in it.

The human chain will beformed at 4 PM followingwhich the preamble of theConstitution will be read out.

"All the leaders of the rul-ing front will join the chain atvarious parts of the state.

Chief Minister PinarayiVijayan will join the protest inThiruvananthapuram.

We will read out the pre-amble of the Constitution andthen take an oath to protect the

Constitution," LDF convener AVijayaraghavan had said.

Senior CPI(M) leader SRamachandran Pillai will bethe first link of the humanchain at Kasaragod, while M ABaby will be the last link atKaliyakkavilai.

"We have invited all theprominent personalities in thestate from all walks of life. Wealso expect UDF leaders to joinus in the fight to protect theConstitution," Vijayaraghavanhad said. PTI

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New Delhi: Former UnionMinisters Arun Jaitley, SushmaSwaraj and George Fernandes,Olympian boxer Mary Komand former Mauritius PrimeMinister Anerood Jugnauthwere among seven prominentpersonalities awarded thePadma Vibhushan on Saturday,the Home Ministry announced.

Famous classical bhajansinger from VaranasiChannulal Mishra andVishveshateertha Swamiji SriPejavara Adhokhaja MathaUdupi, who passed awayrecently, have also been giventhe highest Padma award —Padma Vibhushan.

Former Defence MinisterManohar Parrikar, industrial-ists Anand Mahindra and VenuShrinivasan, Olympian bad-minton player PV Sindhu, for-

mer Nagaland Chief MinisterSC Jamir and Jammu &Kashmir politician MuzaffarHussain Baig have been award-ed the Padma Bhushan, aHome Ministry statement said.

The awards are announcedon the eve of Republic Day.

Jaitley, Swaraj, Fernandes,Parrikar and VishweshaTeertha Swami have been

awarded posthumously, theofficials said.

This year the Presidenthas approved conferment of141 Padma awards includingfour duo cases (in a duo case,the award is counted as one),the statement said.

“Thirty four of theawardees are women and thelist also includes 18 persons

from the category ofForeigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and12 posthumous awardees," itsaid.

Padma Awards - one of thehighest civilian Awards — areconferred in three categories—Padma Vibhushan, PadmaBhushan and Padma Shri.

Sixteen people have beengiven the Padma Bhushan and

118 the Padma Shri.Padma Vibhushan is award-

ed for exceptional and distin-guished service; Padma Bhushanfor distinguished service of highorder and Padma Shri for dis-tinguished service in any field.

Prime Minister NarendraModi congratulated the Padmaawardees, saying they includeextraordinary people.

"Congratulations to allthose who have been con-ferred the Padma Awards," hetweeted.

From Bollywood, film-makers Karan Johar and EktaKapoor and actor KanganaRanaut have been awardedPadma Shri.

Singers Suresh Wadkar andAdnan Sami, as well as veter-an TV actor Sarita Joshi havebeen conferred with the fourthhighest civilian award of thecountry. Six sports personsincluding cricketer ZaheerKhan, current Indian women'shockey captain Rani Rampal,former Indian men's hockeyplayer M P Ganesh, shooter JituRai, former Indian women'sfootball team captain OinamBembem Devi and archerTarundeep Rai have been given

Padma Shri.Naukri.Com founder

Sanjeev Bikhchandani, indus-trialist Bharat Goenka, tech-nocrat Nemnath Jain have beenconferred the Padma Shri.

The award has also beengiven to Lucknow-based his-torian and journalist YogeshPraveen and Assam-based his-torian Jogendra Nath Phukanhave been awarded Padma Shri

There are 21 'unsung'heroes who were given PadmaShri this year including JagdishLal Ahuja, who serves freefood to patients and atten-dants outside PGI hospital inChandigarh; MohammedSharif from Faizabad, who hasperformed last rites of over25,000 unclaimed bodies' andveterinarian from AssamKushal Konwar Sarma who is

known for treating elephants.Seventy-two-year-old Tulasi

Gowda from Karnataka, whoearned the sobriquet "encyclo-pedia of forests" because of hervast knowledge of diverse plantsspecies in spite of lacking formaleducation, has also been giventhe award, it said.

Sathyanarayan Mundayoor,known as Uncle Moosa ofArunachal Pradesh, who hasbeen promoting education andreading culture in remote areasof Northeastern states for lastfour decades; Abdul Jabbar aka'voice of Bhopal' (posthumous-ly), known for fighting for thecause of victims and survivor of1984 Bhopal gas tragedy; andUsha Chaumar, a Dalit socialworker working in the field ofsanitation in Rajasthan, have alsobeen given the award. PTI

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Congress-ruled Rajasthan onSaturday became the third

State to pass a resolution urgingthe Centre to revoke theCitizenship (Amendment) Act(CAA) even as the partyannounced its plans to move aresolution in the Assembly inKerala, where, interestingly, it isin Opposition, to seek GovernorArif Mohammad Khan's recallfor "violating" all democraticprinciples and "publicly ques-tioning" the pride of the legisla-ture. The Government said thepassing of the resolution is aconspiracy to divide the coun-try and is not acceptable, the BJPaccused the ruling Congress ofpursuing appeasement politics.

Governor Khan welcomedthe recall plans but said whateverhe did is part of his duty as perthe Constitution and as inter-preted by the Supreme Courtalso. The Governor's statementcame hours after Leader ofOpposition RameshChennithala said the party willmove a resolution in theAssembly seeking his recall.Chennithala said that he hasgiven a notice to Speaker PSreeramakrishnan seeking hispermission to move the resolu-tion in the Assembly under therule 130 of the legislative busi-ness.

Left-ruled Kerala andCongress-ruled Punjab werethe first two States to pass sucha resolution. The Rajasthan

Assembly passed by voice votethe resolution urging the Centreto repeal the CAA. The resolu-tion also asked the Centre towithdraw the new fields ofinformation that have beensought for updation in NationalPopulation Register (NPR),2020.

"It is evident that the CAAviolates the provisions of theConstitution. Therefore, theHouse resolves to urge upon thegovernment of India to repealthe CAA to avoid any discrim-ination on the basis of religionin granting citizenship and toensure equality before law for allreligious groups of India,"Parliamentary Affairs MinisterShanti Dhariwal said while mov-ing the resolution in the House.

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With the objective to give a boost toties between the two countries,

India and Brazil on Saturday signed 15agreements and unveiled an action planto further broaden strategic ties after talkshere between Prime Minister NarendraModi and President Jair MessiasBolsonaro, who is the chief guest for theRepublic Day parade on Sunday.

The action plan includes two coun-tries firming up specific goals for deep-er cooperation in areas of defence andsecurity, trade and commerce, agricul-ture, civil aviation, energy, environ-ment, health and innovation and vowedto work together to conclude an agree-ment to deal with international terror-ism.

The major focus of the talks betweenModi and Bolsonaro was on boostingbilateral trade and investment as both thelarge economies were hit by global eco-nomic slowdown.

In the this backdrop, the 15 agree-ments will provide for cooperation in awide range of areas including oil and gas,mineral resources, traditional medicine,animal husbandry, bio-energy and tradeand investment.

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From Page 1On the morning of

February 27, as fighters jets ofIndia and Pakistan wereengaged in a dogfight overNaushera sector, a day after theBalakot air strike, the Mi-17crashed in Budgam shortly aftertake-off from Srinagar killing allsix personnel onboard and onecivilian on the ground. TheCourt of Inquiry ordered toinvestigate the crash confirmedthat it was shot by Israeli originground based Spyder surface toair missile system of the IAF.

The Air Chief Marshal hadalso said disciplinary actionwill be taken action againsttwo officers involved and those

who lost their lives will bedeclared battle casualties.

Meanwhile, the overall listof awardees include nineShaurya Chakras, 28 ParamVishisht Seva Medals(PVSM),four Uttam Yudh Seva Medals,53 Ati Vishisht Seva Medals(AVSM), 10 Yudh Seva Medals,123 Vishisht Seva Medals, fourBar to Sena Medals (Gallantry),107 Sena Medals (Gallantry),five Nao Sena Medals(Gallantry), four Vayu SenaMedals (Gallantry), four Bar toSena Medals (Devotion toDuty), 36 Sena Medals(Devotion to Duty), eight NaoSena Medals (Devotion toDuty), one Bar to Vayu SenaMedal (Devotion to Duty) and13 Vayu Sena Medals (Devotionto Duty).

The six Shaurya Chakraawardees include Lt ColonelJyoti Lama, Major KonjengBam Bijendra Singh, NaibSubedar Narender Singh, NaibSubedar Sombir (posthumous),Naik Naresh Kumar and SepoyKarmedeo Oraon. While twoofficers including Lama andBam Bijendra Singh were giventhe medal for their actionsagainst militants in Manipur,the remaining awards weregiven to personnel for gal-lantry in Jammu & Kashmir lastyear. Northern Command chiefLt General Ranbir Singh wasawarded the Param VishishtSeva Medal(PVSM).

Lieutenant Colonel JyotiLama created a vibrant intelli-gence network in Manipur andafter meticulous planningrelentlessly led his team in

apprehending fourteen hardcoreterrorists. Naib Subedar Sombirwas posthumously awarded theShaurya Chakra. He was killedduring an encounter with ter-rorists in Jammu & Kashmir inFebruary last year. During theencounter, three hardcore ter-rorists were killed. One of themwas a foreigner and an ‘A++’ cat-egory terrorist, and he was shotdown by Sombir in a close quar-ter battle.

Major Bijendra Singh led ateam through dense junglesand when pinned down byhostile fire from militants inManipur dashed towards themand in the ensuing firefightkilled two militants.

Naib Subedar NarenderSingh, while deployed on theLine of Control(LOC), detect-ed a team of infiltrators and

chased them. In the close quar-ter battle, he managed to kill twomilitants.

Naik Naresh Kumar, whiledeployed in a village in Jammuand Kashmir, came under heavyfire and sensing grave danger tohis team led the assault killingone category A+ + militant.

Sepoy Karamdeo Oraon’spost on the LoC came underheavy fire from the enemy postsacross the border. Some terror-ists were also firing and in aneffort to discourage them, thesoldier took action and was hitin the chest and leg. Unmindfulof this, he rushed out of hisbunker and fired at the terror-ists killing two of them. Hereturned to the post and keptfiring his light machine gunthereby averting danger to hispost.

From Page 1The meeting was held on the

instructions of Prime Minister NarendraModi.

The Cabinet Secretary, HomeSecretary, Foreign Secretary, DefenceSecretary, Health Secretary, CivilAviation Secretary and several other topofficials attended the meeting. They saidhealth Ministry officials briefed Mishraon the preparedness of hospitals labo-ratories as well as measures beingtaken for the capacity building of rapidresponse teams to deal with possiblecase of coronavirus.

Principal secretary to the PM alsoreviewed the various preventive mea-sures taken by other Ministries like theMinistry of Civil Aviation.

The officials assured Mishra that thesituation is being closely monitored bythe Ministry of Health and Familyaffairs in coordination with variousother Union Ministries as well as StateGovernments and Union Territories.The sources said the National Instituteof virology labs are fully equipped to testthe virus and that all State and districthealth authorities have been alerted.

So far 20,000 people from 115flights at seven international airports inthe country have been screened.

Much to the relief to the authorities,in Mumbai, two persons, who wereadmitted to a civic hospital for possi-

ble exposure to coronavirus, have test-ed negative for the infection, while theblood sample of another person will besent for testing to the National Instituteof Virology (NIV) in Pune on Saturday,officials said.

To review the situation at the Statelevel , Union Health MinisterHarshvardhan has directed for multi-disciplinary Central teams to be sent tothe seven States where thermal screen-ing is being done at the seven designatedairports --- New Delhi Bangaluru,Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata andCochin.

Vardhan, who held a review meet-ing to analyse the preparedness for pre-vention and management of noblecoronavirus in India also spoke to theChief Minister of Uttarakhand onscreening at the border with Nepalwhere one confirmed case has beenreported.

The Punjab Government has askedall district hospitals to put in place nec-essary arrangements to tackle anyemergent situation in view of the out-break of coronavirus in China, and saida team of doctors will be stationed at theAmritsar international airport startingMonday for screening passengers.

Nine people --- 7 in Kerala and oneeach in Bengaluru and Hyderabad whoare among hundreds of passengerswho returned from China in the recentdays --- are under observation in hos-pital to check for possible exposure tothe deadly novel coronavirus.

From page 1The court said no further direc-

tions were required on a plea by thelawyer of the death row convicts in thecase alleging the prison authoritieswere not handing over certain docu-ments required to file mercy and cura-tive petitions, and disposed of the peti-tion.

Additional Sessions Judge AjayKumar Jain said the convicts’ lawyercan take pictures of the relevant doc-uments, notebook and paintings orsketches from the Tihar jail authori-ties.

The court noted that the jailauthorities had already complied withthe request made by the convicts bysupplying the documents whateverwas lying with them.

The warrant for execution ofdeath sentence for the four convictshas been fixed on February 1 at 6 am.

Mukesh had moved the mercypetition after the Supreme Court haddismissed his curative petition againsthis conviction and death sentence.

Along with his, the apex court hadalso rejected the curative petition ofanother death row convict AkshayKumar (31).

Other two convicts Pawan Gupta(25) and Vinay Kumar Sharma are yetto file curative petitions before theSupreme Court.

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Over 1,000 police person-nel will be conferred

President's police medal forgallantry award and distin-guished service on the eve ofRepublic Day. These includefour President's Police Medalsfor Gallantry; 286 PoliceMedals for Gallantry; 93President's Police Medal forDistinguished Service and657 Police Medal forMeritorious Service. In the listof police personnel listed forthe honour, the Jammu &Kashmir Police have the max-imum names at 108 followedby the Central Reserve PoliceForce (CRPF) at 76.

The tally for the UnionTerritory police, involved incounter-terrorist operationsin the Kashmir Valley, alsoincludes three President'sPolice Medal for Gallantry(PPMG), out of the total fourof these top category decora-tions announced this time.

According to the Ministryof Home Affairs, three fromJammu and Kashmir Policeand one from CRPF willreceive the highest honour.Both the forces are engaged incounter terror operations innewly-created union territo-ry. Abdul Jabbar (IPS), Gh.Hassan Sheikh (Deputy

Superintendent of Police) andAsif Iqbal Qureshi(Constable) from Jammu &Kashmir and Late ConstableUtpal Rabha (Posthumous)will receive the highest policegallantry award for their val-our during counter terroroperations.

Out of 286 police per-sonnel who will receive sec-ond highest honour for valour- Police Medal for Gallantry,total 105 personnel fromJammu & Kashmir Police and75 from CRPF will receive themedal. Jharkhand Police hasbeen given 33, Odisha police13, Delhi Police 12,Maharashtra Police 10,Chhattisgarh eight and BiharPolice get seven Police Medalfor Gallantry.

CBI Joint Director DSShukla, an ace investigatorwho headed a team thatdeported the first Indiannational from the UAEbesides cracking several cases,is among 28 officers of theagency who have been award-ed the President's and policemedals for meritorious ser-vice. Deputy SP RamaswamyParthasarathy, who famouslyclimbed the walls of formerFinance Minister PChidambaram's bungalow inJor Bagh to arrest him in theINX Media case, has also

been conferred with themedal. Superintendent ofPolice Binay Kumar of specialcrime unit, who has a knackof solving complex murdercases including infamousKherlanji murders of 2006,Pawanraje Nimbhalkar mur-der, Rinehskhem Kharsohnohmurder case of Meghalaya,Kavita Rani murder case ofMeerut has been awardedPolice Medal for MeritoriousService.

According to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), 15 officials were awarded thepolice service medal on theeve of Republic Day. Second-in-command-rank officerRatan Singh Sonal, SectionOfficer C Durai Raj anddeputy inspector generals ASRawat and Nishith Chandrawere among the officials dec-orated with the distinguishedand meritorious medal.Inspector General DK Dimri,DIG SK Sharma and second-in command-rank officer RKJoshi were also among therecipients of the medal.

According to the min-istry, 29 CISF officials, includ-ing five from the fire wing,have been decorated with dif-ferent police service medalson the eve of the RepublicDay. The awardees includesenior Commandant Vishnu

Swarup, Commandant HKBrahma and AssistantCommandant Abdus Salam.Officers awarded the distin-guished service medal includeDeputy Inspector GeneralSanjay Prakash, AssistantCommandant Harish SinghKarmyal, Assistant SubInspector Rajender Babu.Five officials have been dec-orated with the fire servicemedals including ASIsRashpal Dass and DarmiyanSingh.

A total 93 police person-nel will receive President''sPolice Medal (PPM) forDistinguished Service andmaximum are fromIntelligence Bureau with eightmedals. Four SSB personnelhave been awarded the PMGthis Republic Day for killinga dreaded Naxal commanderin Jharkhand who was want-ed for fatally ambushing anSP-rank officer of the state in2013.

Four officers & personnelof National Disaster ResponseForce (NDRF) have beenawarded with the PoliceMedal for MeritoriousService.

A total 657 personnelreceive Police Medal forMeritorious Service and max-imum are from Uttar Pradeshpolice with 72 awards.

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Congress leader JairamRamesh-headed Adhoc

Committee of the Rajya Sabhahas recommended separateadult section on streaming plat-forms like Netflix and socialmedia platforms like Twitter andFacebook where under-agedchildren could be disallowed. Itsaid social media platformsshould also have mechanism forage verification and restrictingaccess to objectionable/obscenematerial.

The Committee recom-mended 40 changes including inthe Protection of Children fromSexual Offences Act (POCSOAct), 2012 and the InformationTechnology Act, 2000, IndianPenal Code and making moni-toring apps mandatory on alldevices to prevent sexual abuseof children and to contain accessto and transmission of childpornography content on thesocial media.

The Committee soughtinclusions of a clause in thePOCSO Act, 2012 under which

advocating or counseling sexu-al activities with a person underthe age of 18 years through anywritten material, visual repre-sentation or audio recording orany characterisation is made anoffence under the Act.

It also sought another clauseto be inserted in the POCSO Actprescribing a Code of Conductfor intermediaries (online plat-forms) for maintaining childsafety online, ensuring ageappropriate content and curbinguse of children for pornographicpurposes. The Committee rec-

ommended a new section beincluded in the IT Act 2000, pro-viding for punitive measures forthose providing pornographicaccess to children and also thosewho access, produce or transmitChild Sexual Abuse Material(CSAM). The Committee alsorecommended that social mediasites and apps are required toissue age restriction warnings atthe point of accountcreation/sign up that advisesparents not to assist minors inthe creation of underageaccounts.

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Hong Kong on Saturdaydeclared a new coron-

avirus outbreak as an “emer-gency” - the city’s highest warn-ing tier - as authorities rampedup measures to reduce the riskof further infections.

The announcement cameas city leader Carrie Lam facedcriticism in some quarters overher administration’s response tothe crisis.

Of the five people whohave tested positive for thevirus in Hong Kong so far, fourarrived via a newly built high-speed train terminal whichconnects with the mainland.

That led to calls from somemedical experts and politi-cians to limit, or even halt,arrivals from China, the epi-centre of the outbreak with 41people dead.

Lam held emergency meet-ings with health officials onSaturday morning after return-ing from Davos.

“Today I declare the liftingof the response level to emer-gency,” she told reporters.

Schools and universities,which are currently on a LunarNew Year break, would remainclosed until 17 February, Lamsaid.

All mainland arrivals toHong Kong will now need tosign health declaration forms,she added, while public eventsincluding a new year gala andnext month’s marathon, wouldalso be called off.

“We haven’t seen seriousand widespread infections (inHong Kong), but we are takingthis seriously and we hope to beahead of the epidemic,” Lamsaid.

Ho Pak Leung, a microbi-ologist at the University ofHong Kong, said closing themainland border would be the“single most effective mea-sure” in containing the virus.

Transport links with themainland should be re-opened

“when the epidemic is con-trolled, when HK officials areawake, when there are enoughmasks and hand rubs for allHong Kong citizens,” he wroteon his Facebook page.

Hong Kong has a recentexperience of deadly viral out-breaks.-Nearly 300 people werekilled by SARS in 2003, atragedy that left a profoundpsychological impact on one ofthe most densely populatedplaces on earth.

The city’s ability to combatthe crisis was hampered bymoves in mainland China tocover up and play down theoutbreak, leaving a lasting lega-cy of distrust among manyHong Kongers.

Animosity towards themainland has intensified inrecent years as Beijing tightenspolitical control over the semi-autonomous territory.

The outbreak also comes ata sensitive time for Lam, whohas record low approval ratingsafter seven months of pro-democracy protests.

“We must stand united so

that we can prevent and controlthe disease,” she said, in a nodto the political unrest.

The often violent protestshave battered Hong Kong’sreputation for stability andhelped tip it into recession, withthe recent virus outbreak com-pounding the city’s economicwoes. Hospitals are alreadystruggling with the winter fluseason, but officials are isolat-ing anyone with a history oftravel to central China andthose exhibiting respiratorytract infections that look sim-ilar to the virus.

So far some 300 peoplehave been tested and moni-tored for the virus.

Quarantine centres havebeen set up in remote holidayparks for anyone found to havecome into close contact withpeople who tested positive.

On Saturday, officialsannounced a newly built butstill-empty public housingblock would be used for med-ical staff on the frontline whodid not want to risk returningto their families.

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President Xi Jinping onSaturday said that China is

facing a "grave situation" butexuded confidence that thecountry will "win the battle"against the coronavirus epi-demic that has claimed 41lives and infected nearly 1,300people so far.

Stepping up all roundefforts to contain the fastspreading SARS-like virus,China on Saturday announcedthat it will build another1,300-bed makeshift hospitalin Wuhan in the next 15 daysin addition to the 1,000-bedhospital being built in the cityin 10 days to treat more casesof the deadly virus.

The feverish pace atwhich the hospitals are beingbuilt indicate that Chinaapparently is preparing totreat far more patients con-sidering the speed at whichthe virus is spreading.

The virus has spread toHong Kong, Macau, Taiwan,

Nepal, Japan, Singapore, SouthKorea, Thailand, Vietnam andthe US as of Thursday. Japanon Friday reported a secondconfirmed case.

The confirmed cases inChina for the first timecrossed the 1,000 mark androse sharply to 1,287 as ofFriday with 237 people incritical condition battling fortheir lives in China, theNational Health Commissionsaid on Saturday.

Almost all provinces,including Beijing, are report-ing steady rise in the numberof cases mostly of people whotravelled from Wuhan, theepicentre of the coronavirusoutbreak.

The pneumonia situationhas claimed 41 lives, including39 in central

China's Hubei provinceand one in north-easternprovince Heilongjiang, thehealth commission said onSaturday.

Additionally, a total of1,965 suspected cases have

also been reported, it said.China's Communist Party

has set up a leading group tomanage the coronavirus epi-demic, state media reportedon Saturday.

The decision was made ata meeting of the PolitburoStanding Committee - theparty's top leadership tier -chaired by President Xi.

In the meeting, Xi saidthat people from differentethnic groups and sectorsshould work together to sup-port efforts to contain thespread of the deadly virus. Thecountry is facing a “grave sit-uation”, he was quoted as say-ing by the South ChinaMorning Post.

“As long as the nation hasstrong confidence and makesjoint efforts with scientificand targeted measures, thebattle of the prevention andcontrol of the contagion willbe won," Xi said, chairingmeeting on the day of theSpring Festival or Lunar NewYear.

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Pakistan health author-ities on Saturday said a

Chinese national suspect-ed of coronavirus wasadmitted in isolation at amedical facility in Multanin Punjab province.

Feng Fen, 40, was liv-ing in a camp withChinese workers nearMultan after returning fromChina’s Wuhan city 10 days ago.

Feng was brought to

Nishtar Hospital on Fridaynight, National Institute ofHealth officials said.

“One suspected case isadmitted in isolation inMultan right now. His clini-cal condition is stable and itdoes not seem to be a case ofnovel coronavirus. Relevantsamples have been taken,” theNIH said.

Earlier this week,Pakistan setup counters atthe airports to screen pas-sengers coming from China

for coronavirus.Thousands of Chinese

nationals work in Pakistan on

various projects includingunder China-PakistanEconomic Corridor. ManyPakistan students study inChina.

Foreign OfficeSpokesperson Aisha Farooquisaid there were approximately28,000 Pakistani students allover China. “In Wuhan alone,there are close to 500 Pakistanistudents,” she said, adding thataround 1,500 traders fromPakistan travel to China fre-quently.

The death toll due to thecoronavirus rose to 41 in Chinawith 1,287 confirmed cases,China’s National HealthCommission announced onSaturday. Of the confirmedcases, the condition of the 237persons is critical.

The coronavirus hascaused alarm as it is similar toSARS (Severe AcuteRespiratory Syndrome) whichkilled hundreds of peopleacross mainland China andHong Kong in 2002.

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Police at a roadblock on theoutskirts of Wuhan turned

away cars trying to leave thevirus-stricken city on Saturday,as other anxious residentstrapped inside spent the LunarNew Year stocking up onmasks and medical supplies.

Authorities have prevent-ed anyone from leavingWuhan, the city of 11 millionpeople at the heart of the viraloutbreak which has so farinfected nearly 1,300 peopleand killed 41 others.

AFP saw a steady trickle ofcars approaching the road-blocks around 20 kilometres(12 miles) east of the city cen-tre on Saturday morning, onlyfor police in fluorescent jack-ets wearing masks to tell themto turn around.

The barricade, at one ofthe tolls for highways exitingthe city, was blocked with redand yellow plastic barriersand cones.

“Nobody can leave,” apoliceman told AFP.

A stray dog ran across theempty road in front of theroadblocks, which wereshrouded in grey fog and driz-zle.

AFP journalists only sawtwo vehicles allowed to pass theroadblock, including a whitevan which an officer said was“buying medicines” and wouldlater return to the city.

Authorities extendedtransport bans to 17 othercities around Wuhan in a gar-gantuan effort to control theSARS-like virus, restrictingtravel for around 56 million inHubei province.

While there are restric-tions on anyone leavingWuhan, a few people wereallowed to enter the citythrough the barricade:Desperately needed medicalworkers whose holidays werecut short to help overwhelmedhospital.

An empty bus was allowedto pass the roadblock intoWuhan after showing docu-mentation to the police at theroadblock.

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House impeachment man-agers on Friday night con-

cluded their argument beforethe Senate to remove USPresident Donald Trump fromoffice, saying he misused hisposition and indulged inobstruction to the Congress.

The house managersclosed their marathon 24-hourargument spread over threedays with an impassioned pleathat the trial be fair.

The ruling RepublicanParty enjoys 53-47 majority inthe 100-member Senate.Democrats, who have majori-ty in the House, have allegedthat the Republican leadershipin the Senate will be partisanduring the trial.

“I implore you - giveAmerica a fair trial. She’s worthit,” said Chairman of the House

Permanent Select Committeeon Intelligence Adam Schiff.

Trump is only the thirdpresident in American historyto have been formallyimpeached by Congress.

From Saturday, Trump’sattorneys would begin pre-senting their defense. Like theHouse managers they too have24 hours over the next threedays for their argument in

support of the president.Trump has asked the

Senate to dismiss both thecharges against him. He arguesthat he has done no wrong.

In his concluding argu-ment, Schiff outlined what hethinks Trump’s attorneys willsay.

“So what do all thesedefenses mean? What do theymean collectively when youadd them all up? What theymean is under Article 2, thepresident can do whatever hewants. That’s really it, strippedof all the detail and all the histri-onics, what they want us tobelieve is the president can dowhatever he wants under Article2, and there is nothing you or

the House can do about it,”Congressman Schiff asserted.

On Saturday, Trump’steam would present their argu-ment for three hours.

“I guess I would call it atrailer, kind of coming attrac-tions would be the best way tosay it. Obviously, we have threehours to put it out so we’ll takewhatever time is appropriateduring those three hours, kindof layout with that case will lookout like, but no, next week iswhere you’ll see the full pre-sentation, but there will beplenty to see,” Trump’s person-al attorney Jay Sekulow toldreporters. In an interaction withthe media, he slammed Schiff.

“Adam Schiff just said thatthis idea of the solicitation offoreign interference isdeplorable,” he said.

“I wonder if he thought thatabout the fact that the Clintoncampaign had sought when it’scompletely corroborated, it’suncontested, that (the) Steeledossier who is utilising bothsupposedly assets that a formerBritish spy had in Russia to getinformation on the presidentthen candidate. Was that notforeign interference? Was that

not an attempt for foreign inter-ference?” he asked.

The Steele dossier is a pri-vate intelligence document per-taining to alleged misconduct,and co-operation betweenTrump’s presidential campaignand the Russian governmentduring the 2016 election.

“So you can get on yourhorse and act haughty andproud about it,

but you know what? Let’slook at what the evidence says.And here’s what the evidencesays. There was foreign involve-ment, but let’s not forget whereit originated from. Let’s not for-get, and we haven’t even begunto put on our case yet. We stillwill not begin until, actually,tomorrow morning. But I wantyou to think about this. Wheredid that foreign intelligencecome from? Foreign informationcome from?” Sekulow asserted.

“It came from connectionsfrom the Federal Bureau ofinvestigation, the numberthree, whose wife happened towork for Fusion GPS, whohappened to be hired by theDNC to happen to do an inves-tigation on Donald Trump,” heargued.

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Iran is not ruling out negoti-ations with the United States

even after an American dronestrike that killed a top Iraniangeneral, the country’s foreignminister said in an interviewreleased Saturday.

Mohammed Javad Zariftold Germany’s Der Spiegelmagazine that he would “neverrule out the possibility that peo-ple will change their approachand recognize the realities,” inan interview conducted Fridayin Tehran.

There has been growingtension between Washingtonand Tehran since in 2018,when President Donald Trumppulled the United States out ofthe nuclear deal with Iran.The U.S. Has since reimposedtough sanctions that have crip-pled Iran’s economy.

But Zarif suggested Iranwas still willing to talk, thoughreiterated his country’s previousdemand that first the U.S. Wouldhave to lift sanctions.“For us, it doesn’t matter who issitting in the White House, whatmatters is how they behave,” he

said, according to Der Spiegel.“The Trump administra-

tion can correct its past, lift thesanctions and come back to thenegotiating table. We’re still atthe negotiating table. They’rethe ones who left.”

Trump has maintainedthat the 2015 nuclear dealneeds to be renegotiatedbecause it didn’t address Iran’sballistic missile program or itsinvolvement in regional con-flicts.

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Iran condemned Saturdaywhat it called the “illegal and

inhuman” treatment of itsnationals by US border secu-rity officers, after reports a stu-dent was deported despitehaving a valid visa.

“Such absolutely discrim-inatory measures that onlyhappen over people’s race,nationality or religion areagainst international humanrights laws and principles,” for-eign ministry spokesmanAbbas Mousavi said.

“These individuals werequestioned by America’s bor-der security over their politi-

cal views and beliefs, andtheir social media accountswere forcefully entered,” hesaid in a statement.

US media reported onMonday that an Iranian stu-dent headed to a Boston uni-versity had his visa cancelledat the airport and was deport-ed by immigration officials.

Tensions have soaredbetween Tehran andWashington since a US dronestrike killed Iranian generalQasem Soleimani in Baghdadon January 3.

Iran retaliated five dayslater by launching a wave ofmissiles at US troops sta-tioned in Iraq.

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The closure of Libya’s majoroil fields and production

facilities has resulted in lossesof more than USD 255 millionin the six-day period endingJanuary 23, the country’snational oil company saidSaturday.

The closures came whenpowerful tribal groups loyal tomilitary commander KhalifaHifter earlier this monthseized several large exportterminals along the easterncoast as well as southern oilfields.

Hifter controls the easternand much of the southern partof the country.

The moves were meant tochallenge Hifter’s adversaries inthe west, the UN-backed, but weak rival Governmentthat controls the capital, Tripoli.

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Rescue workers raced againsttime Saturday to find sur-

vivors under the rubble after apowerful earthquake claimed22 lives and left more than1,000 injured in eastern Turkey.

The magnitude 6.8 quakestruck on Friday evening, withits epicentre in the small lake-side town of Sivrice in Elazigprovince, and was felt in neigh-bouring countries.

Interior Minister SuleymanSoylu said 39 people have beenrescued alive from collapsedbuildings in Elazig province, witha further 22 people estimated tobe trapped under the rubble. Hesaid the death toll had risen to 22.

Among those found alivewas a pregnant woman whowas rescued 12 hours after thequake hit, state news agencyAnadolu said, while an AFPcorrespondent saw an indi-vidual saved 17 hours later.

Nearly 2,000 search andrescue personnel were sent to

the region while thousands ofbeds, blankets and tents havebeen provided, the Turkishpresidency said. The rescueefforts have been taking placein freezing temperatures aswood and plastic were burnedto keep crowds warm.

Hundreds of people wereanxiously waiting on the otherside of police barriers includ-ing a man who gave his nameas Mustafa.

“I have three relatives inthat building: one man, his wifeand her mother. They are stillunder the rubble,” the 40-year-old told AFP.”May God help us,we can do nothing but pray.”Iwas home during the earth-quake. It lasted for so long, itwas like a nightmare. I froze inthe living room when it hap-pened, my wife and our twochildren were screaming andrunning around,” he said.

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Airline passenger fatalitiesaround the globe has

declined sharply over the pastdecade as new research hasrevealed that the fatalities rateis now one death per 7.9 mil-lion passenger boardings, com-pared to one death per 2.7 mil-lion boardings during the peri-od 1998-2007, and one deathper 1.3 million boardings dur-ing 1988-1997.

The commercial airlinefatality risk was one death per750,000 boardings during1978-1987, and one death per350,000 boardings during1968-1977, said the study pub-lished in the journalTransportation Science.

“The worldwide risk ofbeing killed had been droppingby a factor of two everydecade,” said study authorArnold Barnett, Professor atMassachusetts Institute of

Technology (MIT) SloanSchool of Management.

“Not only has that contin-ued in the last decade, the (lat-est) improvement is closer to afactor of three. The pace ofimprovement has not slackenedat all even as flying has gottenever safer and further gainsbecome harder to achieve,”Barnett said.

The new research alsorevealed that there is dis-cernible regional variation inairline safety around the world.

Nations housing the low-est-risk airlines are the U.S., themembers of the EuropeanUnion, China, Japan, Canada,Australia, New Zealand, andIsrael, showed the results.

The aggregate fatality riskamong those nations was onedeath per 33.1 million passen-ger boardings during 2008-2017.

For airlines in a second setof countries, which Barnett

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With a major turf war hav-ing broken out between

the Centre and theMaharashtra Government overthe take-over of the 2018Bhima Koregaon-ElgaarParishad case by the NIA, NCPchief Sharad Pawar, Congress’former president RahulGandhi and State HomeMinister Anil Deshmukh onSaturday slammed the ModiGovernment for havingexceeded its brief for sheerpolitical reasons.

A day after the UnionMinistry of Home Affairs(MHA) handed over the inves-tigations in the BhimaKoregaon-Yelgaar Parishadcase to the NationalInvestigation (NIA), a miffedPawar charged that the rulingBJP – with an acute fear ofbeing exposed in the BhimaKoregaon-Elgaar Parishad case– had hurriedly handed overthe investigations to the NIA.He demanded that an inde-pendent panel to set up to holdcomprehensive probe into themanner in which the Punepolice had investigated thecase. “Only an independentprobe will bring out truth in thecase,” he said.

“The re-investigations arenecessary in the case, becausethe Centre’s move has arousedsuspicions. The Centre’s deci-sion to hand over the case tothe NIA within hours after theState’s deputy chief ministerand Home Minister reviewedthe case with the state’s policeofficials. Under theConstitution, powers of dealingwith law and order have beenvested with the States. TheCentre might have apprehend-

ed that if a re-investigation isordered into the case, the pre-vious BJP gove3rnment and itshand-picked officials might beexposed,” Pawar said.

“Prima facie it appears thatthe Pune police misused theirpowers during the investiga-tions. The Centre may havehanded over the case to theNIA, but there is a need for thestate government to investigateif the Pune police misusedtheir powers to frame theactivists in the case,” Pawarsaid.

On his part, Gandhialleged that the move to handover the case to a centralagency was part of the “MOSH( Modi-Shah) agenda of hate”.“Anyone who opposes theMOSH agenda of hate is an“Urban Naxal”. Bhima-Koregaon is a symbol of resis-tance that the Government’sNIA stooges can never erase,”the Congress’ former presi-dent tweeted.

State Home MinisterDeshmukh alleged that theCentre had hurriedly handedover the case to the NIA, afterapprehending that the BJPleaders from the previous saf-fron government might benailed for botching up investi-gations in the BhimaKoregaon-Elgaar Parishad casein the re-inquiry planned bythe MVA government. “Beforesetting up a team to re-inves-tigate, the state government willseek legal opinion in the mat-ter,” Deshmukh said.

Meanwhile, former chiefminister and senior BJP leaderDevendra Fadnavis welcomedthe Centre’s decision to handover the Bhima Koregaon-Elgaar Parishad case to theNIA. “When the incident took

place, said the state police hadunearthed a huge network of“urban Naxals’ and submittedall the evidence gathered to thecourt. The Supreme Court hadalso supported the policeaction. “The urban Naxal net-work is spread all across thecountry. The decision to handover the probe to NIA is appro-priate,” Fadnavis said, whiletalking to media persons.

The MHA’s move to handover the case to the NIA camea day after the MVA govern-ment reviewed the chargesheets filed by the Pune policein the case in the light ofPawar’s charge that the previ-ous BJP government hadvengefully implicated severalactivists in the case. On its part,the Maharashtra governmenthad indicated that it wouldhand over the case to a SpecialInvestigation Team (SIT) toascertain whether the Pune –acting allegedly at the behest ofthe then ruling BJP – hadacted against several activistsbased on “trumped up”charges.

Pawar had shot off a letterto Chief Minister UddhavThackeray and State HomeMinistry early this week, seek-ing an SIT probe into the ques-tionable manner in which theBhima Koregaon-ElgaarParishad case and to ascertainif the BJP, the principal rulingparty in the previous BJP-ledgovernment, had conspired toframe the activists in the case.Following the letter, deputychief minister Ajit Pawarchaired a meeting to review thecharge sheets filed in the case.

That the MVA governmentwas taken by the Centre’s moveto hand over the BhimaKoregaon-Elgaar Parishad case

could be evidenced from thefact that it was only late onFriday night that State HomeMinister Anil Deshmukh react-ed to the development, saying:“I strongly condemn the deci-sion to transfer the investigationof “Koregaon-Bhima” case toNIA, by the CentralGovernment without any con-sent of Maharashtra StateGovernment”.

Addressing a news confer-ence at his “Silver Oak” resi-dence here, Pawar said: “TheBJP-led Centre has handed overthe investigations in the case tothe NIA. It is not the case thatall those who speak againstinjustice and atrocities by thegovernment are naxalites. Tobring out truth in the case, it isessential for the state govern-ment to set up an independentteam to investigate the case”.

“Had the state governmentset up an SIT to re-probe thecase, the skeletons of the pre-vious BJP-led government andthe officials who investigatedthe case would have come out.That’s why the Centre hurriedlytook away the case from thePune police and handed itover to the NIA,” the NCP chiefsaid,.

“It is essential to review theinvestigations carried so far bythe Pune police. RetiredSupreme Court Judge P BSawant, retired Judge of theBombay High Court B G KolsePatil and several other peoplehave objected to the manner inwhich the investigations havebeen conducted in the case. Inthis case, several activists hqvebeen arrested and they havebeen declared urban naxals.The charge-sheets registeredagainst the accused are notbased on facts,” Pawar said.

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Averting a major terror attackin Kashmir valley, a joint team of

security forces gunned down threeterrorists of proscribed Pakistani terroroutfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)including it’s Kashmir commander QariYasir in Hariparigam village of Tral in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday.

Addressing a joint press conferencewith police, Chinar Corps Commander,Lt General KJS Dhillon said, “a majorterror attack was planned by these ter-rorists which has been averted”. He toldreporters, on Saturday morning we gotinformation of some Jaish-e-Mohammedterrorists who were planning to do someact of terrorism on January 26 in Tral. So,the operation was launched.He said JeMterrorist Qari Yasir, his close associateMusa and a local terrorist Burhan Sheikhwere killed in the operation.

Commenting on elimination of topcommanders, Lt-Gen Dhillon said theHizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed’s (JeM) top leadership, otherthan one terrorist, has been eliminatedfrom Kashmir Valley. In another opera-tion, 07 hardcore over ground workers ofLeT/HM outfits were arrested in jointoperations by the Bandipore police,Army & CRPF personnel. According topolice, these OGW’s were involved in

harbouring, providing logistics supportto terrorists.

According to reports, JeM terror-ist,Qari Yasir, was active in the area forquite some time and currently he wasimparting training to a local recruit tocarry out sensational strike targetingsecurity forces. Qari’s name had also fig-ured in the killing of two nomads, hail-ing from Rajouri in August 2019.

According to police, the joint oper-ations started in the area on the basis oftip off about the presence of JeM terror-ists in the area. As the security forcestightened the cordon and zeroed in on ahideout the terrorists opened fire frominside. “In the exchange of fire, initial-ly two terrorists were killed and the thirdone was neutralised late in the evening.

According to official sources, anarmy jawan received injures in the fiercegunfight and was shifted to the commandhospital. This is the third major encounterin Kashmir valley in the recent days.

On Thursday, the three-day-longsearches for militants in nearby Khrewarea of Awantipora in Pulwama had con-cluded. Special police officer (SPO)Shahbaz Ahmad and sepoy RahulRainswal of army’s 50 Rashtriya Rifleswere killed after the encounter started atKhrew’s Zantrag on Tuesday. In less than24 hours, the security forces avengedkilling of soldiers by eliminating JeM ter-rorist Abu Saifullah.

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Against the backdrop of protests against thenew citizenship law, though without

directly referring it, President Ram NathKovind on Saturday urged people, particu-larly the youth, to remain non-violent whenfighting for a cause and stressed on the needto “hold fast to constitutional methods” ofachieving social and economic objectives.

In his customary address to the nation onthe eve of 71st Republic Day, Kovind citedMahatma Gandhi’s gift of ‘Ahimsa’ (non-vio-lence) to the humanity and said that his tal-isman for deciding whether an act is rightor wrong “applies to the functioning of ourdemocracy”.

Stressing that both the Government andthe Opposition have “important roles to play”,the President said “while giving expressionto their political ideas both must move for-ward in tandem to ensure that developmentof the country and welfare of its people arepromoted consistently”.

Earlier, on the occasion of the 10thNational Voters Day, Kovind lamented thatthere are some voters who do not understandthe importance of their right to exercise fran-chise and reminded them that in severalcountries people had to struggle to get it.Prime Minister Narendra Modi, VicePresident M. Venkaiah Naidu and other lead-ers across the country extended their greet-ings to the people on the day with the themebeing ‘’Electoral Literacy for StrongerDemocracy’’.

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The Sarbananda Sonowal-led BJP Government has

filed a sedition case againstShaheen Bagh protestsorganiser Sarjeel Imam forhis ‘cut Assam from India’statement.

Speaking at the anti-CAA rally in Shaheen BaghImam instigated the mobsaying if 5 lakh Muslims areorganised then we can cutthe North-east from rest ofIndia.

Talking to the media,Assam Minister HimantaBiswa Sarma said that Stategovernment has taken cog-nizance of this seditiousstatement and has decided toregister a case against him.

“Our responsibility is tocut the Assam from India asonly then the Governmentwill hear our voice. If we haveto help the Assam then wewill have to cut the Assamfrom rest of India,” Imamhad said claiming that peo-ple in the State were beingsent to detention

centres. The Siliguri corridorwhich connects NortheastIndia to the rest of India iscalled the Chicken Neck andis strategically important.

The standoff betweenIndia and China in 2017 inDoklam was an attempt bythe People's Liberation Army(PLA) to gain control overthe corridor.

Imam has made manycontroversial statements overthe CAA in the past.

In his Facebook postyesterday, he urged Muslimsto organise nationwide chak-ka jam and told them toknow the difference betweenchakka jam and sit-inprotests. He further said thatpeople should sit on thenational highways in thecountry and protest againstthe CAA and nation-wideNRC.

Many videos of Imamgiving provocative state-ments are now being circu-lated on social media.

Additional DirectorGeneral of Assam Police G PSingh said the FIR was reg-istered against Imam under

the Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act at the crimebranch police station inGuwahati.

“An FIR has been lodgedagainst Sharjil Imam for hisspeech and inter alia com-mission of offence u/s 13(1)/18 of the UA(P)ACTread with section 153 A,153 B and 124 A IPC atGuwahati Crime BranchPolice Station,” Singh tweet-ed along with the purportedvideo of Imam’s speech.Imam was heard telling inthe audio clip that Assamshould be cut-off from therest of India as Bengalis —both Hindus and Muslims —are being killed or put intodetention centres. Earlier,Assam Minister HimantaBiswa Sarma said the AssamGovernment would registera case against Imam his“seditious” comment “aimed”at disrupting law and orderin the state.

“Assam Government hastaken cognisance of this veryseditious statement and wewill register a case againstthis individual,” Sarma said.

Page 8: ˇ ˇ!˚ ˘ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˙ · the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 76. Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad ... blossoming careers, celebrityhood and presence to nurse

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European Central BankPresident Christine Lagarde

said global growth is likely toget a boost from abating uncer-tainties on trade issues in thewake of new pacts beingsigned.

Speaking here at a sessionon the global economic outlookon the last day of the WEF 2020on Friday, the former IMFchief said uncertainties haveabated on issues like trade andBrexit, and it is likely thatincome growth and low unem-ployment will eventually bereflected in prices.

“Trade has been dramati-cally low recently and didn’thelp growth much. So we aredelighted to see trade agree-ments being negotiated and

completed. I believe this willremove uncertainties the worldover,” she said.

“ I think the distribution ofbenefits and costs as a result oftrade diversion remains to beseen because it is not going tobe win-all arrangements.

“There will be some down-side effect and we at ECB aremeasuring where the chips

will fall and who will lose outof that re-diversion under thevarious agreements,” she said.

In the same session, USTreasury Secretary StevenMnuchin said trade negotia-tions have started with both theEU and the UK and we lookforward to completing both ofthose deals this year.

The US also expects thesecond phase of negotiationsfor a trade deal with China tobegin soon.

“The European CentralBank has launched a broadstrategic review, the first since2003, to revisit the bank’sprocesses and policies and torecommend structuralchanges,” Lagarde said, com-mitting to delivering the out-comes of this review at the nextannual meeting.

A��E������!���������������!7����.������ Davos: The European Union

and 16 WTO members includ-ing China and Australia havesigned a pact to develop amulti-party interim appealarrangement at the global tradebody. The arrangement, signedon Friday on the sidelines ofthe World Economic Forum(WEF) annual meeting, willallow the participating WTOmembers to preserve a func-tioning and two-step disputesettlement system at the WorldTrade Organization (WTO).

This initiative waslaunched in mid-December2019 by the EU and a numberof other WTO members fol-lowing the effective paralysis ofthe WTO Appellate Body dueto the blockage of newappointments since 2017.

EU Commissioner forTrade Phil Hogan said: “Thisstatement testifies to the highimportance that the EU and theparticipating WTO membersattach to retaining a two-stepdispute settlement process inWTO trade matters. The mul-tiparty appeal arbitrationarrangement will guaranteethat the participating WTOmembers continue to haveaccess to a binding, dispute set-tlement system among them.”

“Let me underline againthat this remains a contin-gency measure needed becauseof the paralysis of the WTOAppellate Body. We will con-tinue our efforts to seek a last-ing solution to the AppellateBody impasse, includingthrough necessary reforms andimprovements,” he added.

The multi-party interimarrangement will be based onArticle 25 of the WTO DisputeSettlement Understanding. Itwill secure the participatingWTO members (Australia,Brazil, Canada, China, Chile,Colombia, Costa Rica, theEuropean Union, Guatemala,Republic of Korea, Mexico,New Zealand, Norway, Panama,Singapore, Switzerland, andUruguay) an effective and bind-ing dispute settlement processfor potential trade disputesamong them. PTI

Davos: Trade Ministers from35 member countries of theWTO, including Piyush Goyalfrom India, met here on thesidelines of the WEF 2020 todiscuss priorities and prepara-tions for the June ministerialmeeting of the global trade body.

The informal gathering ofthe WTO members and theWTO General DirectorRoberto Azevedo was held onFriday at the invitation of Swiss

Federal Councillor GuyParmelin. The group met todiscuss and define their prior-ities for the 12th WTO minis-terial conference to be heldfrom 8 to 11 June 2020, at Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan, a post-meeting statement said. It saidthe meeting on the fringes ofWEF Davos summit wasattended by 35 members of theWTO, who represent a widespectrum of trade policy interests. PTI

New Delhi: The Governmenthas nominated DebasishPanda, special secretary in theFinance Ministry, on the boardof State Bank of India.

Panda has been appointedas director in the central boardof the bank with immediateeffect, SBI said in a regulatoryfiling on Saturday. He replacesRavi Mittal, who has been ele-vated as secretary, Ministry ofInformation and Broadcasting.

A 1987-batch UttarPradesh cadre IAS officer,Panda served in various capac-ities in both State and CentralGovernment. PTI

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ICICI Bank on Saturdayreported an over two-fold

rise in its consolidated netprofit at �4,670 crore for theDecember quarter, helpedlargely by the Essar Steel recov-ery and a jump in its coreincome.

The Mumbai-headquar-tered bank, the country’s sec-ond biggest private sectorlender, had posted a consoli-dated net profit of �1,874.33crore in the correspondingthree months of the previousfiscal. On standalone basis, itsnet profit jumped to �4,146crore during the December2019 quarter from �1,605 crorein the year-ago period.

Its core net interest incomegrew 24 per cent to �8,545crore on a 16 per cent domes-tic advances growth and a 0.37per cent expansion in net inter-est margin to 3.77 per cent.

Other income growth was18.77 per cent to �4,043 crore,with the core fee incomeincreasing 17 per cent, thebank said.

Gross slippages came at Rs4,363 crore for the reportingquarter, highest during the fis-cal year, but the recoveriesfrom assets like Essar Steeland a �2,000 crore write-offensured that the same wasdown on a net basis.

Its president Sandeep Batrasaid two well-rated accounts –a troubled broking companyand a south-based industrialgroup — led to the spike in

slippages during the quarter,along with Kisan Credit Cardloans which is a fallout of thefarm loan waivers.

Without offering any num-bers or an outlook on assetquality, he said the exposure tothe broking company has beenfully provided for, while thesame for the industrial com-pany has been done “prudent-ly”. Its standalone provisionscame at �2,083 crore, down 51per cent from the year-agoperiod. Gross non-perform-ing assets ratio was at 5.95 percent as against 7.75 per cent inthe year-ago period.

Its overall recoveries,upgrades and deletions fromthe NPA book was at Rs 4,088crore and the bank did notdivulge the benefit on the EssarSteel recovery.

Just like its smaller peerAxis Bank, the bank has alsoclassified an exposure to atelco as below investmentgrade, which led to the increasein the overall BB and belowbook to �17,403 crore after twoconsecutive quarters of a reduc-tion.

Its overall exposure to thesector has been stable at 1.8 percent and includes two top com-panies, he said, adding noextra provision has been takenon account of this.

Batra said the bank’s coreoperating profit excluding theimpact of the benefit was up 23per cent at �7,017 crore, seek-ing to drive the point of ahealthy overall growth for thebank.

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Private sector lender DCBBank on Saturday reported

an increase of 12.31 per cent inits net profit at �96.70 crore forthe third quarter endedDecember 2019.

Its net profit was �86.10crore in the October-Decemberperiod a year ago, DCB Banksaid in a BSE filing.

DCB Bank’s total incomewas up 13.66 per cent at�990.89 crore during the quar-ter under review as against�871.78 crore in the corre-sponding period a year ago.

Net interest incomeincreased 9.86 per cent to �323crore as against �294 crore forthe same period last fiscal year.

While non-interest incomemarginally declined to �93crore against �94 crore.

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Indian insurance regulator haspermitted non-life insurers to

sell the standardized healthinsurance policy prior to April1, 2020. In a circular dated AprilJanuary 24, 2020, the InsuranceRegulatory and DevelopmentAuthority of India (IRDAI) saidinsurers can offer the ‘ArogyaSanjeevani Policy’ - the standardhealth insurance policy beforeApril 1, 2020.

The insurance regulatorhas said general insurers andstand-alone health insurersselling health insurance policiesshould offer ‘Arogya SanjeevaniPolicy’ on or before April 1,2020.

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Real estate group Supertechhas said it handed over pos-

session of 200 units in its res-idential project Romano tobuyers on Saturday.

The flats handed over arein B2 Tower of Romano locat-ed in sector 118 of Noida andrange from 2BHK to 4BHK,costing �50 lakh to �1.50 crore,the group said.

“The coming year promis-es to be one where the realestate sector soars to newheights and all the investmentsmade by the sector in terms oftechnology and initiatives toimprove transparency come to

fruition. This is a very proudmoment for us, especially asmany new home owners canstart their new year in their newhomes,” Supertech Chairman R K Arora said in astatement.

Spread across 18 acres,Romano has 17 residentialtowers with 2,200 units, ofwhich the possession on thefirst 200 homes was handedover on Saturday. The multi-crore premium residence pro-ject of Supertech was initiallysupposed to be delivered in2016 but the delivery date was subsequently revisedto May 2018, according tosources.

Kochi: The country’s firstSuper Fab Lab, which will givea major push to the hardwareindustry in the country and theonly such facility outside theU.S., was launched at theIntegrated Startup Complex ofthe Kerala Startup Mission(KSUM) here on Saturday.

Chief Minister PinarayiVijayan inaugurated the facil-ity through remote controlfrom Palakkad, where heattended a function at theGovernment PolytechicCollege. PTI

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Fraud-hit CG Power andIndustrial Solutions has

sought the Centre’s approval toremove KK Mankeshwar & Co(KKM) as one of its joint audi-tors due to certain alleged “unex-plained” payments made to theauditor from the company.

In a regulatory filing, CGPower on Friday evening saidthat its Board of Directors hasdetermined that KKM cannot be

considered to be independent.“In the course of review of

payments made in the pastyears, the Company has comeacross certain unexplained pay-ments made to M/s K KMankeshwar & Co, one of theJoint Auditors of the Company(KKM), from the Companyand its subsidiaries as well asso-ciation of its partner with cer-tain identified entities named inPhase-I investigation report(‘Identified Entities’),” it said.

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'3 ��A( �(�Could you give the notepad, he

asks, and tells you to think ofa number. You think, herecomes the trick. In the mean-time, he scribbles something

on the paper. He then asks you to sharethe number you had thought of. Lo andbehold! It is the number on that paper.What is new here?

After all, we all saw Patrick Jane,(Simon Baker) in The Mentalist usinghis special but fraudulent powers tosolve crime. He studied the body lan-guage of the person to find out the truekiller among suspects. Is there a sciencethat allows a person to read minds andbody language to predict things thatcommon people can’t pick up? Or it isjust a fantastic trick by a magician towow his audience?

Lior Suchard, renowned Israelimentalist, mystifier and a supernaturalentertainer, tells you that what he doesis more than parlour tricks.

What exactly is a mentalist and howwhat he does different from a magician?Suchard mixes visual magic, mind read-ing, body language and keen sense ofobservation to influence people.Mentalists usually don’t mix normalmagic tricks for the amazing feats theydo to keep their audience captivated. Amentalist will always dissociate himselffrom theatrical tricks that a magicianperforms on stage — like the Water ofGanga — the famous trick of PC SircarSenior. From a small cauldron, at thebeginning of the show, he would pourwater into a basin. All through his per-formance, he would pour water fromthat cauldron, till the end of the show.The water never ran out!

The 39-year-old is in India after along gap and there is a reason. “It hasbeen a few years. There was a timewhen I used to visit often. Then Istopped. This visit comes after a longwait. To begin with, I used to come hereoften, do tours — visit 20 cities. Afterdoing many shows, I collaborated withAce Production and created a big show.But then I went away on a break. I amback now. I was supposed to come earli-er, but was busy with other performancethe world over but I had a window oftime for this trip and created threeshows — one in Delhi and two inMumbai. Everything this time is new —the acts and crazy interactive sessions.We also wanted to combine this showwhich would benefit children as well.We are helping Create Foundation, I willinteract with children and have a fun-filled interactive session,” says Suchardwho was in the Capital and staying atthe Ambassador, IHCL, SeleQtions. Hetells you that there is no such thing as anormal mind reader.

He decided to stay away from Indiaas he wanted the market to miss himand also to keep his imitators at bay.Back then, when he used to visit andperform across cities, many startedcopying him and calling themselvesmentalists, performing across India.What they were doing, Suchard says,was copying his acts. But he takes it inhis stride and as a compliment. “Ifsomeone is copying you, it means whatyou are doing is good,” he says.

“I opened the floodgates. I wasalways a mind-reading master mentalist.A mentalist is not a magician, I don’t docard tricks, I don’t levitate people, Idon’t do bowling tricks. I work on themind. I know how people think. I useunderground psychology influencinghypnotics, body language reading, non-verbal communication, extra-sensoryperception, strong memory and mathe-matical skills to read the mind. I com-bine all these skills with my love for thestage and share an experience with audi-ence participation,” Suchard says. Hegoes on to prove he is good at what hedoes.

Pointing to a person, he asks howwell one knows him. He asks him towrite a name on a strip of paper anddestroy it. “To get rid of the evidence,”he explains. He looks at the person for afew seconds and begins. “When I lookat the body language, the name that waswritten is that of a woman. It was aname that came immediately to you.The name you have written is uncom-mon. I am not sure. It has three-fouralphabets, like a nickname but in thiscase, it is her given name. It is not accu-rate science; sometimes I make mis-takes. But right now, the name thatcomes up is Mini,” he tells you, leaving atrail of amazement. For Suchard, it issimple. He just observed the person andused his skills to arrive at the name.

“What I do is not a trick. What peo-ple think is real or not real, it is all partof the show. For me, the most importantthing is for people to be happy, enjoyand have an amazing experience. It isnot about believing or not believing.people are welcome to be sceptical; theycan have fun with the show. If peoplebelieve, that’s good. Albert Einstein said:‘There are two ways to live life. One is as

though nothing is a miracle. The otheris as though everything is a miracle’. Ifyou are choosing that nothing is a mira-cle, you are many doors. I don’t try totalk about power, it is about ability. I tellpeople in my show that everyone hasthe ability to do amazing things. Onejust has to believe in himself,” Suchardexplains.

Almost all mentalists say that theyare not magicians and what they do is adifferent art form altogether. A mental-ist on the other hand has a great knowl-edge about psychology of human natureand understand how people think.Instead of sawing women in half ormaking wild animals appear from bigboxes, a mentalist tries to enter the mostsacred and closely guarded place — ourmind. Because of this, the audienceexperiences incredible things like bend-ing of the spoon, like guessing the cor-rect number that he wrote on the paper,like coming up with the correct answerevery time the dice is rolled — all thisand much more even when he is notlooking at the person. One can say thatit is crazy thought manipulations.

Magicians, on the other hand, don’thide the fact that that they are doing is atrick in a manner that entertains. Theaudience too understands that what heis witnessing is an illusion and what he

is actually seeing can’t really be done. Aperfect example is the sawing of thewoman into two and putting her backagain. We all know that the magicianreally didn’t cut her into two. But thisdoesn’t mean that they don’t mix a bit oftrick with mind games thrown in for agood measure. Some of us have watchedthe TV shows of people like DavidBlaine, an American illusionist,endurance artist and extreme performer,who perform mind-blowing mind-read-ing stunts that leaves the audience inawe.

A special mention for The AmazingKreskin — an American mentalist whobecame popular on TV in the 1970s.The story goes that Kreskin would asksomeone from the audience hide thepayment he was to receive from theshow. If he couldn’t find it by the end ofhis performance, he would not get paid!Such was his talent.

One is told that while there aremany great magicians, there are veryfew – only a handful of people who aretrue mentalists. “If one had to think of aname, it will be difficult for people tocome up with the name on the spot.Our world is very small. We are just ahandful of people who are true mental-ists.

His own journey began when he

was very young. He tells you that thereis no school that teaches mind reading –the high academics of mind reading. Heis self-taught and tells you on a lark thatmaybe he should open a school thatteaches what he does.

“It was a combination of things thathe developed and learnt when he wasyoung. He read a lot of books, travelledthe world, he invented things and ideas,met people from radical Math calcula-tions to spirituality. What I do movesfrom accuracy, to Math to precisementto spirituality, meditation and Zen. Ittakes skills that I have into account andcombines that with a lot of fun, humourand craziness that I love. I studied allthis and mastered what I do today.

The mentalist has a cup of activitieswaiting for him once his India tourends.

As of now, he has two TV series inthe US with celebs. He is also in theprocess of developing a new show andgoing to part of a big talk show. For thishe has to be on top of the game; hepractices, constantly thinking of newideas and inventing all the time.

Interestingly, what he does can betaught and learnt. “It is similar to play-ing the piano. If I learnt the art from atutor for 10 years, I would know how toand be pretty good with practice. But it

doesn’t mean one will become Mozart.One can me taught. I have written abook — Mind Reader: Unlocking thePower of Your Mind to Get What YouWant. It has been translated into eightlanguages. The book teaches a littleabout how one can influence others, toread people and mind techniques. Iwrote it with the belief that people canbe taught to do it. But there is a pointup to which one can teach. Somethinghas to come from within just like anyother art form say like a sport. One canlearn to play cricket but not everyonewill be a Sachin Tendulkar. I take hisname since he is a good friend of mine.You need to have that little extra to beright at the top,” Suchard tells you.

Self-belief and hard work are impor-tant pillars for a mentalist. “Take risks isanother aspect. All these ties together tobe a professional and be very good atwhat one does. Taking risks doesn’tmean putting oneself or others in dan-ger but it means to do things that out ofthe extraordinary and think out-of-the-box. There a phrase – the differencebetween try and triumph is the little bitof ‘umph’. One needs to really hard workto even put out the simplest of acts,” hetells you.

He draws inspiration from travel-ling, meeting people and getting into astore. He tells you that the show that heis preparing for to be aired in the US,the act that it has were thought of threeyears back. I drew the ideas and thenthought of combining it with a fewthings. Some of the acts that I showcasethat takes years in process. For this tour,I have totally new ideas. The good partabout this collaboration is that the pro-duction house and I have a good match,I am a high-end performer and I wanteverything to be perfect — from light-ing to sound to stage. I prepared newacts that is going to blow the minds ofthe audience. Some of the acts are so bigthat it will involve the entire audience.In this instead of one person coming onthe stage while the others watched, ifthe audience has thousand people, eachwill experience it and be part of theshow. This is a rarity. It is tough to do aswell. When one wants to be good atsomething — have showmanship,charisma, performance and the acts – ifone has greats ideas but doesn’t knowhow to deliver it or if one is good butdoesn’t know how to put out the idea, inboth circumstances, it is not good. Oneneeds to have ideas and know how todeliver it. For this tour, I am going todazzle, confuse and make those presenthappy at the same time,” he says.

Dazzle he did. The act that involvedthe entire audience showed how opti-mism and the metaphor of finding love,everyone found it withing themselvesthrough a crazy interactive experiment.There was mind-reading, mind influ-encing and predictions. Things movedwith super high-end camera crew, lights,screens and sounds.

He tells you that what he does is 90per cent real and 10 per cent trick. “I dotricks just to have fun with the audience.The 90 per cent is based on psychologyand how the mind works. The humanmind is the same. I don’t know what oneis thinking, I know how one is thinking.I can take advantage of it and influencethe person. That is how I could predictthe number and gave that name,”Suchard says.

Even though he can predict whatthe other person is thinking, it doesn’tbother him since what he does is usedfor the positive purpose.

“I never think of negativity. Likewhen I came up with the name, the per-son is going to call her and tell her whathappened and the other person wouldbe just as amazed. I am a perfectionist. Iam constantly improvising. Sometimes,I look at the place and change my acts.Sometimes, I improvise on the spot.This means that I change my actsdepending on the people gathered. Ilove to invent new acts,” Suchard tellsyou. He is the best in his profession, heinsists.

One can’t call oneself mentalist on awhim. One has to be a purist. Mentalistis a sacred art. There are many magi-cians making millions of dollars fromtheir art. But many call themselves amentalist because it is more prestigious.Being mentalist is tough. Some peoplethink that being in the presence of amentalist is scary. Charlie Chaplin said:A day without laughter, is a waste day. Ilaugh everyday and do the same for oth-ers,” Suchard says.

He tells you that people are scaredbecause they think he can read theirmind. “I am very sensitive to people. Itis hard for a person to lie to me. I amnot hearing thoughts of people and thatcould be why they are wary, what I do isa process that I have perfected over theyears.

To end on a positive note: Alwayshave happy thoughts; one never knowswho might read them,” Suchard says.

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Page 10: ˇ ˇ!˚ ˘ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˙ · the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 76. Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad ... blossoming careers, celebrityhood and presence to nurse

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India are unlikely to changea winning combination but

a few changes in the bowlingdepartment won’t come as asurprise when the visitorstake on New Zealand in thesecond T20 at the high-scor-ing Eden Park today.

Jasprit Bumrah was theonly bowler on either side toconcede less than eight runsper over at the peculiarshaped ground with shortboundaries in the seriesopener.

Both Mohammad Shami(0/53 in 4 overs) and ShardulThakur (1/44 in 3 overs)were taken to the cleanerswith New Zealand batsmenusing their pace to collectboundaries at will.

Since Shami is expectedto retain his place in the play-ing eleven, Thakur mightmake way for Navdeep Saini.However, Saini, with his extrapace, too could go for bigruns at the small ground.

It remains to be seenwhether India stick to threespecialist pacers and twospinners combination orbring in an extra tweaker inKuldeep Yadav to partner

Yuzvendra Chahal andRavindra Jadeja. WashingtonSundar is the the other spinoption India have.

If India do play an extratweaker, all-rounder Shivam

Dube will be third fast bowl-ing option.

On the batting front,Virat Kohli was a pleasedskipper as the much scruti-nised middle-order delivered

for the team under pressure.Shreyas Iyer solidified at hisposition at number four withan unbeaten 58 off 29 balls.

As Manish Pandey andDube alternate in finishingduties, aided by K L Rahul’swicket-keeping skills, India’sT20 batting line-up finally seemsset in the shortterm barringunforeseen changes.

New Zealand were leftpondering about a shortage of10-15 runs to their total aswell as missed chances in thefield that allowed the visitingbatsmen to get away with ahigh scoring rate.

Partly, it also had to dowith India’s surprisingly quickadaptation to the awkwardconditions on offer at EdenPark.

In turn, the Black Capsthemselves now have to cometo terms with India’s adapta-tion if they are to prevent anearly 2-0 lead within threedays.

Irrespective of the result,the tide seemed to turn forthe hosts in terms of their bat-ting form. Senior batsmenKane Williamson and RossTaylor defied recent criti-cism to score attacking half-centuries. It complimented

their top-order’s runs,albeit they onlyfinished with a

par score.India won key battles

during their innings in thatnew batsmen at the creasewere able to maintain themomentum previously gen-erated. It is something NewZealand cannot simply fixwith a change in personnel.As such they will be hopingthe likes of Colin deGrandhomme and TimSeifert to come good.

New Zealand expect tofield the same eleven, avoid-ing any temptation to take alook at all-rounders ScottKuggeleijn and DarylMitchell.

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Home favourite Nick Kyrgios wentfive sets to ensure an AustralianOpen showdown with Rafael

Nadal on Saturday as a series of shockscaused carnage in the women’s draw.

Kyrgios survived the longest matchof his career to beat Russia’s KarenKhachanov 6-2, 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (6/8), 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (10/8), collapsing on his backafter the fifth-set tie-breaker.

“That was insane —I’ve got no words to showI’m feeling right now,” hesaid, after the 4hr 26minmarathon marked by histrademark tweeners and exchanges withthe umpire.

“This is just epic man, I don’t evenknow what’s going on. My legs feel about40 kilos each.”

The outspoken Aussie now headsinto a last-16 clash with Nadal, withwhom he has history after calling him“super salty” following criticism from theSpaniard last year.

“Whatever happens between us,he’s an amazing player, he’s arguably thegreatest of all time,” said Kyrgios.

Top seed Nadal had a comparative-ly easy ride against his Davis Cup team-mate Pablo Carreno Busta, racingthrough 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in what he calledhis “best match of the tournament so far”.

While the men’s Big Three of Nadal,Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic areall still alive, it’s a different story in thewomen’s competition where six of thetop 10 seeds crashed out in the thirdround.

After Serena Williams and title-holder Naomi Osaka fell by the waysideon Friday, second seed Karolina Pliskovabombed on Saturday with a 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/3) defeat to AnastasiaPavlyuchenkova.

“I was about 40 percent today of mygame,” lamented the Czech.

RESURGENT MUGURUZASwitzerland’s Belinda Bencic, the

sixth seed, won only one game againstEstonia’s Anett Kontaveit, the worldnumber 31, as she went down 6-0, 6-1.

And a resurgent Garbine Muguruza,a two-time Major-winner,thrashed fifth seed ElinaSvitolina 6-1, 6-2. Tenth seedMadison Keys lost to MariaSakkari on Friday.

“I was very concentratedand focused on what I wantedto do, it all went fast my way,”said Muguruza, who raced through thefirst set in just 23 minutes.

Croatian 19th seed Donna Vekicalso crumbled to lower-ranked opposi-tion when she lost 7-5, 6-3 to Poland’sIga Swiatek, who is returning from a

stress fracture in her foot.However, Wimbledon champion

Simona Halep stayed on course with a6-1, 6-4 victory over Kazakhstan’s YuliaPutintseva.

“I’m sure that for you guys (media)it’s a little bit of shock when the top-10

players are losing,” said Halep,shrugging off the exodus of topseeds.

“But it’s life and we cannotbe 100 percent every day.”

The Romanian fourth seedwill now play Belgium’s EliseMertens, who won in three

sets against CiCi Bellis — ending theAmerican’s Grand Slam return fromlong-term injury.

Angelique Kerber, the 2016 cham-pion, beat Camila Giorgi 6-2, 6-7 (4/7),6-3 to set up a meeting with

Pavlyuchenkova, the Russian 30th seed.Elsewhere, Germany’s Alexander

Zverev dismissed Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 to set up a last-16 clash withRussia's Andrey Rublev, who remainedunbeaten this year with his 2-6, 7-6(7/3), 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) win over DavidGoffin.

Austrian fifth seed Dominic Thiemcame through 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4against Taylor Fritz, Gael Monfils beatErnests Gulbis 7-6 (7/2), 6-4, 6-3 andStanislas Wawrinka, the 2014 champi-on, progressed when John Isner retiredin the second set.

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Skipper Babar Azam andsenior batsman Mohammad

Hafeez stroked masterful half-centuries to steer Pakistan to aconvincing nine-wicket winover a hapless Bangladesh inthe second Twenty20I at

Gaddafi stadium on Saturday.Babar scored a 44-ball 66

not out for his 13th half-cen-tury and Hafeez made an unde-feated 49-ball 67 to guidePakistan to a modest 137-runtarget in 16.4 overs, taking anunbeatable 2-0 lead in thethree-match series.

Bangladesh again failed toput up a challenging totaldespite opener Tamim Iqbal’s53-ball 65, managing 136-6 intheir 20 overs after winning thetoss and batting for a secondconsecutive match.

Pakistan were never introuble despite losing openerAhsan Ali in the second over,caught by Mahmudullah Riyadoff paceman Shafiul Islam inthe second over.

World number oneTwenty20 batsman Babar, whowas out without scoring onFriday, was in a punishingmood right from the outset,hitting seven boundaries and asix in his knock.

Hafeez, recalled after 14months in the Twenty20 side,stroked nine boundaries and asix in his 11th T20 fifty as thetwo added 131 for the unbro-ken second wickets stand.

��-� �� ��� Pakistan Cricket Board CEOWasim Khan on Saturday hinted that India’sleague matches in the Asia Cup, which it willbe hosting, could be held at a neutral venueif the sport’s continental body gives the nod.

Pakistan is scheduled to host the AsiaCup T20 tournament in September this yearbut there remains doubts over India’s par-ticipation considering the prevailing polit-ical climate.

Saying that the call will rest on the AsianCricket Council (ACC), the PCB chiefexecutive also clarified that he has never saidPakistan would not play the 2021 World T20,to be hosted by India, if India skips the AsiaCup, as it is an ICC tournament.

“The question is what if India doesn’ttour Pakistan? My response is the ACC thenneeds to make a decision but since we havebeen awarded hosting rights, we fully expectthe Asia Cup to happen in Pakistan. TheACC will then need to make a decision asto where they will play the India games,”Khan said.

Asked if India could play their match-es at a neutral venue, Khan sounded posi-tive.

“Possibly. If there’s an India versusPakistan final, it depends upon the ACC todecide where the final is played. Discussionshaven’t taken place yet on formats and sched-uling but then that’s ACC’s call.” PTI

��������Teenager Erling Braut Haalandscored twice more off the bench on Fridayas Borussia Dortmund moved up to thirdin the Bundesliga with a 5-1 thumping ofCologne.

Having claimed a hat-trick as a replace-ment on his Dortmund debut last Saturdayto inspire a 5-3 win away at Augsburg,Haaland, 19, again showed clinical finish-ing.

“For Erling, it’s simply wonderful — fivegoals, two games, there are worse starts,” saidDortmund captain Marco Reus.

“Especially here at home — that’s whywe signed him.

“That was a good step forward from us— also from me personally,” added Reuswho was criticised for missing clear chancesagainst Augsburg.

With his team 3-1 up, Haaland came onfor his first home appearance with an hourgone and 11 minutes later was on the score-sheet, slamming home the rebound of asaved Julian Brandt shot.

He then showed his speed to beatCologne goalkeeper Timo Horn, tucking theball into an empty net on 87 minutes.

Dortmund coach Lucien Favreexplained why Haaland was again only asecond-half replacement.

“He didn’t train in December due toinjury, therefore we have to be careful withhim,” said the Swiss.

“He’s not ready to play from the start,we have a plan for him.”

The result leaves Dortmund level on 36points with defending champions BayernMunich and four behind leaders RB Leipzig.

Goals by Raphael Guerreiro and MarcoReus gave Dortmund a 2-0 half-time lead.

England winger Jadon Sancho grabbeda third after the break and Cologne strikerMark Uth claimed his first goal for the vis-itors before Haaland’s entrance. AFP

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Quique Setien's honey-moon period lasted less

than a fortnight as he tast-ed his first Barcelona defeaton Saturday in his secondLa Liga game in chargeafter a 2-0 loss to Valencia.

Maxi Gomez’s strikeand a Jordi Alba own goalat Mestalla handed Barcatheir fourth league defeat ofthe campaign, giving RealMadrid the chance to movethree points clear of thechampions at the top of thetable when they visit RealValladolid today.

Barcelona had most ofthe ball but their oppo-nents had the best chancesas Gomez missed a penaltyand also hit the crossbar inthe f irst half. GabrielPaulista saw a third goalruled out late on.

While performancesunder previous coachErnesto Valverde werestodgy, he left a team thatsat top of the table.

Setien promised a new

style but despite dominatingpossession, Barcelona wentnowhere with it and asValencia grew in confi-dence, they ceded control.

Valencia climb to fifthand continue to improveunder Albert Celades. Thissuccess came without theircaptain Dani Parejo and,largely, without star strikerRodrigo Moreno, who hasbeen linked with a Januarymove to Barcelona.

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Indian women table tennis team’squest for a Tokyo Olympics berth

ended on Saturday after losing toFrance 2-3 in a play-off match of thequalification tournament.

Ranked 23rd just a place aboveFrance, the Indian team took the leadthrough Ayhika Mukherjee andSutirtha Mukehrjee in the openingmatch, beating Stephanie Loeuilletteand Yuan Jian Nan 11-7, 6-11, 10-12,11-4, 11-8.

Though Manika Batra, ranked61st, lost her opening singles 7-11, 11-3, 9-11, 11-3, 7-11 to Marie Migot,ranked 195th, she was able to put Indiaback in the reckoning when she won11-7, 12-10, 11-4 against StephanieLoeuillette in the second singles.

But the euphoria lasted just a cou-ple of games as Ayhika, playing the lastmatch of the tie against Marie, led 2-1but her French opponent pulled levelbefore winning the decider to sendingIndia packing. Ayhika lost 11-6, 8-11,11-5, 9-11, 9-11.

With just two singles entriesallowed per country, the Indian women,especially Manika and ArchanaKamath, can hope for the best whenthey participate in the April event inThailand for singles qualification.

������������Left-arm pacerKhaleel Ahmed was onSaturday ruled out of India A’songoing tour of New Zealandwith a wrist injury.

“Khaleel Ahmed fracturedthe scaphoid bone in his leftwrist during India A’s firstone-day match against NewZealand A at Lincoln onJanuary 22,” the BCCI said ina statement.

“His hand has been placedin a plaster cast and the left-arm fast bowler has been ruledout of the remainder of IndiaA’s tour. NCA will manage hisrehabilitation,” it added.

The BCCI, however, didnot name any replacement forthe fast bowler.

Khaleel, who has played 11ODIs and 14 T20Internationals for India,returned with figures of 2 for46 from his 8 overs in the sec-ond one-day match in NewZealand. In the series opener,he had taken four wickets for43 runs in 9.1 overs. PTI

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�� ���)��� ���� ������/ ������ ��� �������India’s Rohan Bopannaand his Ukrainian partner NadiiaKichenok moved into the mixeddoubles second round on Saturday.

The Indo-Ukrainian pair beatLyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraiuneand Austin Krajicek from USA 7-5,4-6, 10-6 in one hour ad 15 minutes.

They will next take on AmericanNicole Melichar and Brazilian BrunoSoares.

Bopanna was supposed to pair upwith compatriot Sania Mirza but thelatter pulled out due to a calf injury.

Veteran Leander Paes is alsocompeting in the mixed doubleswith Jelena Ostapenko. PTI

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Celebrated boxer M C MaryKom will be conferred with

the Padma Vibhushan, thecountry’s second highest civil-ian award, while world champi-on shuttler P V Sindhu will getthe Padma Bhushan amongeight sportspersons named forthe prestigious honours onSaturday.

The names of the awardeeswere announced by the govern-ment on the eve of the country’s

71st Republic Day.The 36-year-old Mary

Kom, also a Rajya SabhaMember of Parliament, won aBronze medal at the 2012London Olympics while alsobeing crowned as world cham-pion six times in an illustriouscareer.

She is one of seven eminentpersonalities to be awarded thePadma Vibhushan this year.

The Manipuri boxer, whowas conferred with the PadmaBhushan in 2013 and Padma

Shri in 2006, is only the fourthsportsperson in the country to begiven the Padma Vibhushan afterchess wizard Viswanathan Anand,mountaineer Edmund Hillaryand cricket icon Sachin Tendulkarwho all got the coveted award in2008.

The 24-year-old Sindhu isamong 16 persons named for thePadma Bhushan, the country’sthird highest civilian award. Sheis a Silver medallist at the 2016 RioOlympics and is the only Indianworld champion in badminton.

Sindhu has also won fourother World Championshipsmedals — 2 Silver and 2 Bronze— besides the Gold she won lastyear. She won the Padma Shri in2015.

Cricketer Zaheer Khan, cur-rent Indian women’s hockey teamcaptain Rani Rampal, formermen’s hockey skipper M PGanesh, ace shooter Jitu Rai, for-mer Indian women’s football teamcaptain Oinam Bembem Deviand archer Tarundeep Rai wereamong the six other sportspersonswho figured in the list of the 118Padma Shri awardees. PTI

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� What is your role in Panga?I play Prashant Shrivastava, a rail-

way engineer. He is a supportive hus-band who wants to fulfill his wife’sdreams. The concept of the film is howa woman who had to sacrifice herdreams because of her marriage getsanother chance to chase her them. The

character is inspiring and the audienceis loving it.� What made you take up the

role?When I got the call for

audition for this role, Ididn’t know much about

the film. However, Imade a video and sendit to the team.Fortunately, I wasfinalised for the role.It was only duringthe narration that Igot to know about the

story. The one thingthat I loved about the

film was that it is a real-life inspired story which

many people can relate to. I

took it as an opportunity of giving mybest and playing a part in bringing reallife stories to the audience.� How was the experience workingwith Kangana Ranaut?

It was a wonderful experience. Wehad to shoot at a lot of different loca-tions but the vibes and the atmosphereat the set remained the same. ForKangana, she is such a professional towork with. I always say that wheneveryou work with good actors there’salways a learning experience with them.One can learn so many things just byobserving them. It was the same withKangana too. Also she is very sincerewith her job and always gives her bestduring the shoot.� You made your Bollywood debutwith Happy Phir Bhaag Jayegi along-side Sonakshi Sinha. How did thathappen?

The Colour Yellow Productionsteam called me for a meeting after see-ing one of my song’s video. I thoughtthat they were calling me to sing a songin the movie. When I went for the meet-ing, I was asked if I was ready to play

Khushwant Singh Gill in the film sinceI best suit the character. I said yes andwe went for a look test. I was selected.That’s how I got that project.� A singer turned actor. What is yourapproach towards acting?

I always try to give my 200 per centin whatever I do. When I am singing,I feel a bit relaxed because I have writ-ten the song and I can experiment withit. But when you are acting, you aredoing a job for someone. The directorrelies upon you. There’s a sense ofresponsibility. The only thing I keep inmind is to give the best I can.� You were born as Jasdeep SinghGill. How did you get the name JassiGill?

It’s a very Punjabi thing. In Punjab,people have the habit of giving nick-names to their children and so did myfamily. Jassi comes close to Jasdeep,that’s how I got the name. When Ientered the industry, there was no pagewith this name on the Internet. Itsounded unique back then so I decid-ed to go by this name. � You struggled before entering the

industry...Yes. I was in college and used to per-

form in fests. My friends liked my per-formance and encouraged me to take itup as a profession. That’s when Irealised I could make it big in singingand acting. But had to put the idea onhold due to financial constraints.Amidst this period my visa for Australiagot approved. I decided to earn somemoney. I washed cars for three monthsand returned to India with the money.Then I joined the Punjabi film indus-try.� What kind of roles attract you?

I like to play roles that most peo-ple can relate to and that are inspiredby real life.� Any actor or director you wantt towork with?

It will be unfair to name any oneperson since our industry is full of tal-ented people. I will grab any goodopportunity that comes to me.� Upcoming projects?

I have completed shooting for aBollywood project and we shall makethe announcement for it soon.

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Known for giving hit songs like Bapu Zimidar,Nakhre, Dill Tutda and many others, Gill is

now seen opposite Kangana Ranaut inPanga. He tells Musba Hashmi how he

came on board for the role, stories ofthe tough times and

upcoming pro-

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A radio buzzing in a corner, the trans-mission is unclear, the signal seems tobe wavering. I adjust the antennae thatwe have fixed near the roof of the room.The voice on the side becomes better. Bythis time, I had repeated this ritual sev-eral times. However, the crackling com-mentary of the cricket match on theother side made up for all the hardwork and irritation. Both my youngerbrother and myself are stuck with theradio for the whole day. Our parents arenot at home. My mother wanted to callour grandma and therefore she went tothe post office to book a trunk call. Itwould take few hours of waiting beforeher turn comes and she can speak overthe government run public land phone,before returning home. We had thewhole day to ourselves. It took longerthan expected for our parents to comeback home. They could not find a taxinear the post office and had to walk fornearly a kilometre before they found atransport. Poor mom, she had to cookthe dinner after a long day. Meanwhile,India had lost the match. We spent thewhole evening helping our mom in thekitchen. Another uneventful day hadcome to an end. But we had someexcitement coming-up. Sunday was justa day away when we will catch anotherepisode of ‘Star Trek’ and by that timewe should also be getting a letter frommy cousin brother who was sharing oursecret encryption code, as he hadpromised in his last letter. This was toprevent elders from finding out the con-tents of our letter. And yes, he was alsosending some photos from his recentvacation...

When I tell this child-hood story of mine tomy son, after listeningto me with rapt atten-tion, he tells me that

there are technical flaws in my story.What? Technical flaws! I find hisexpression amusing, he finds it evenmore. He asks me: ‘Why were you lis-tening to the radio and not streaminglive cricket over the Internet?; Why didyour parents go to the post office tomake a call and not use their mobile tomake a video call?; Why did your par-ents not call an Uber instead of walk-ing a long distance?; Why didn’t youorder food over an app instead of let-ting your tired mom cook the dinner?;Why did you wait for Sunday to watchyour favourite show and not stream itover Netflix?; And why were you wait-ing for days for a letter instead of usingWhatsApp or Instagram?’

Not his fault, how will his genera-tion that has been born in the cradle oftechnology and rocked by social mediahandles understand the times when wewere children. They were born in atransformed world where on one handrapid advancements in technologyhave opened the realm of possibilities,including space tourism, whereas onother hand the same technologythreatens our very existence.

On one hand, the world has beenbrought closer than ever before withnetworks that defy limits of distance,and on the other hand, it has beenfragmented by economic, political andreligious conflicts. Everyone has morefriends than before, yet there is dearthof human connection. Today, they takemore photos than Kodak films wouldever allow, share them over Instagram,yet they will never know the nostalgiaof opening an old dusted photo album.

Zeners or Generation Z, born year2000 and after are a unique generation,shaped by transformed times. Theirformative years are shaped by a worldthat offers them tremendous opportu-nities and tools on the plate, yet theuncertainty and volatility of the samemakes them highly vulnerable. Howdo you otherwise explain the contrasts,when a 17-year-old boy discovers aplanet on the third day of his NASAinternship but on the other hand a 12-year-old girl kills herself after beingseverely cyberbullied.

Ronit has so much information on

his tablet that he can crack the mostchallenging quizzes, yet all that mattersat the end of the day are his grades inschool where he finds no use of hisknowledge of the world.

The high potential, high intelli-gence and high ability of this genera-tion is true on one hand, but in theworld that they live in, they find theirhomes changing, pressures mountingand the world becoming more preda-tory. They find themselves prey to anx-iety, depression and vulnerable to poormental health. Their susceptibility isoften disproved by many terming it asjitters of growing-up, but such peoplefail to count the transformed environ-ment that actually magnifies theirchallenges.

While writing the book ‘The Life ofZ: Understanding Digital Pre-Teen andAdolescent Generation’ I had the oppor-tunity of talking to countless zeners,their parents, teachers, tutors, childcounsellors, child psychologists, pedia-tricians and I came across such con-trasting stories. There are a group ofschool children who have turned theirschool project into an entrepreneurialjourney while there are many othersstruggling to realise their dreamsbecause they find low acceptance oftheir ideas with their elders.

There are also parents likeSubalaxmi who after understanding theaptitude and personality of her childhas dared to homeschool him, and herson, Akash, has excelled in many waysincluding being invited by a well-known scientist to work in his lab.There are parents like Mukta andSudhanshu, who have supported their

five-year-old daughter in her pursuit ofart and their five year old daughterKamakshi’s name has entered the Indiabook of records for being the youngestMandala artist. Interviewing Bollywoodcelebrity kids like Jannat Zubair (of TVseries Phulwa fame), Ricky Patel(Tubelight with Salman Khan), JineetRath (Talash with Aamir Khan) theirlife stories are interesting and filled withinsights on parenting this modern gen-eration. But, I also came across parentstorn apart by trauma whose onlytwelve-year-old son killed himself inBangalore, depressed by bullying andhis inability to share his anxiety; anoth-er parent who lost their child whokilled himself unable to cope with arelationship stress.

Being a parent of a teenage zenermyself, and in the profession of teach-ing and dabbling with social psycholo-gy, I can understand that parenting,teaching or counselling the zeners isnot at all an easy task. This generationis nothing like we were as kids or evenwhat millennials were when they weregrowing-up. They live in a differenttime, grow in a different environmentand mature early in many ways, yet aresusceptible to falling prey to onlineand offline predators.

There is a need to understandthem and their life issues that are oftencomplex. Without doing the same, thepath is that of ignorance. Recently Icame across a message shared in zeston a WhatsApp group. It read:“Today’s 13-year olds have relationshipstress. When I was that age, I used toclose the fridge door slowly to see howthe light goes off.” This was shared by a

40-something person, parent of azener. Some thought this was funny,but frankly I do not find it funny at all.This is just an evidence of how less weunderstand this generation.

I would not blame the zeners, ortheir parents, teachers or whoevermanages them. Often, we are ourselvesconfused or our thoughts are not inte-grated and zeners get confused by thevarying voices. Take little Ishaan’sexample. He studies in an alternateschool. Ishaan loves reading storybooks. But of late his mother has toldhim that she will not buy him storybooks as they need to care for theenvironment and save paper. Ishaandoes not quite like reading story bookson a digital reader. Anyways, he stud-ies everything academic on the tabletand even writes his notes on that, playsgames on mobile, but when it comes tostory books, he like them printed. Hehas read in his books that environ-mental sustainability means notadding non-biodegradable wastes,keeping the surroundings clean andrecycling wherever possible. Ishaan didnot quite fathom how buying storybooks is not caring for the environ-ment and is quite vocal about his dis-agreement.

During his recent visit to the pedi-atric ophthalmologist, the doctor toldhim to reduce exposure to digitaldevices as it is not good for his eyes.He hardly knows what it is to writewith a pencil or a pen as he uses stylusinstead. He remembers a physicianwho visited his school for medicalcheck-up of kids told his class thatwriting is not only important to have a

good handwriting, but it is also like anexercise that strengthens finger mus-cles and improves general health con-dition. Ishaan does not know whetherto believe his mother or his teacher orhis doctors.

Who do you really blame here?Hard to tell. But one thing is absolutelyclear that the older generation has toassume responsibility. The contrastingstories also make it clear that rightunderstanding and right guidance ofthe older generation can do wonders,but failure is seldom an option. Theparents/teachers have to stop project-ing their childhood or their issues onthe present generation pre-teens andadolescents; make a concerted effort tounderstand the times that they live,empathize with them and their lifeissues; and then manage them. Onlythen the efforts will be synchronised athome, at school and in the society atlarge, and we will be able to connectwith this generation and raise them tobe functional happy adults.

Zeners make close to 32% of theworld population and together withmillennials hold the key to our futureand the future of this planet andhuman civilization. Any short-sighted-ness in understanding them will becatastrophical, to say the least.

The writer is an award-winningauthor of the book, ‘The Life of Y:

Understanding Millennials asEmployees and Consumers’. His latest

book ‘The Life of Z: UnderstandingDigital Pre-teen and Adolescent

Generation’ (SAGE India) releasedrecently on Amazon

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When travelling abroad, trav-el insurance is no longerconsidered optional.

Escalating costs of healthcare, theftand loss combined with availabilityof affordable insurance makes it a no-brainer.

Take an example of a couplehoneymooning in Thailand withplans for sightseeing and adventuresports. While a regular insurancewould cost a few hundred rupees, anyhealth emergency and evacuationcould end up costing tens of thou-sands of dollars. Hospitals, even inAsia, can easily cost US$ 500 a day.Stolen papers, wallets, baggage —stories all too common for most trav-ellers — are also covered in mostplans. In the case of such travels, careshould be taken to ensure that acci-dents during adventure sports arecovered in the policy they purchase.

A variety of customised travelplans are region or risk-specific, like

it is mandatory for an individual tohave a Schengen travel insurance pol-icy or a health insurance plan alongwith the Schengen Visa. Schengentravel insurance policies generallyinclude benefits like emergencymedical expenses, repatriation, acci-dental bodily injury, death or perma-nent disability, extended protectionfor the family, etc in Schengen coun-tries. Meanwhile, to provide aneffortless globe-trotting experience tosenior citizens there is comprehen-sive travel insurance that has addi-tional benefits like cashless medicalservices, medical concierge services,state-of-the-art health care facilities,distress allowance, etc. Many trav-ellers are unaware that their travelinsurance can be extended if theirstay is prolonged. Different insurersoffer specific extension periodsdepending on the travel destinationand the type of traveller.

There are niche products in the

market as well, depending on thekind of travel you are planning: cov-erage for races and adventure sportslike bungee jumping, mountaineer-ing and parasailing, plans that covermedical costs pertaining to pre-existing conditions by offering awaiver to the exclusion, kidnappingetc are some of the value add-onsavailable for policies. We’re hearingof policies that will cover “ cold feetcancellation” for guests heading to adestination wedding, or inconve-niences related to being hijacked —a daily benefit if you are delayed inreaching your destination due to this.

A good idea when choosinginsurance policies is to first take alook at what is covered in your exist-ing plans — sometimes your home-owners or renters’ policies will covervaluables, or your health insurancewill cover emergencies abroad. Next,look at any risks you are taking onthe trip(s) you are covering (scuba

diving, hiking, cruises may requirea niche policy), and then choose apolicy that covers them all.

Another thing to consider whilebuying a travel plan is to keep an eyeout for the deductible. The deductibleis the amount that the policyholderagrees to pay if they need to make aclaim. The insurance company thenreimburses the costs over and abovethat amount. With most travel insur-ance policies, the deductible isapplied to emergency medical carecosts. It may also extend to baggageor trip cancellation/interruption cov-erage. Insurers usually offer a rangeof deductible amounts. Generally,higher the amount, the greater thediscount on the premium. So, addinga deductible is especially beneficialfor people paying high premiums-e.g., those staying abroad for monthsat a time. The growing trend is forpolicies that have a zero deductible,meaning there will be no out-of-

pocket expenses if a claim is filedwith the insurance company. Incountries with extremely high med-ical costs, like the United States, find-ing an insurance plan with a zerodeductible is always wise and almostimperative.

In the event of buying insuranceonline (obviously the most conve-nient option), the customers shouldconsider checking the travel insur-ance coverage, quote for the travelduration, claim settlement ratio andease of contacting customer care.Fine print matters — accidentsunder the influence of intoxicants arenot covered, acts of war or terrorismare often not covered — but for allpurposes, if you don’t have time togo through the various checklists,remember that the important thingis to be covered.

The writer is an insuranceexpert; CEO & co-founder,

Toffee Insurance

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Spectators gathered along Rajpath towitness the Republic Day parade onJanuary 26, 2015 were surprised tosee the tableau of Jharkhand. Eversince the state was formed, it was

perceived to be the land of jungles and a richtribal culture. Beyond that were its indus-trial cities like Jamshedpur and Bokaro, butlargely, it remained unexplored.

The 2015 tableau of Jharkhand was are-creation of a few terracotta temples andthe face of an unknown Goddess enshrinedin one of those temples. It created a hugewave of interest among the audience pre-sent, as well as those who watched the tele-vised version. For many, it was their intro-duction to the terracotta temples of Maluti,a small village in Dumka district ofJharkhand. Up till now people were onlyfamiliar with the Bengal terracotta temples.This small village Maluti has 72 terracottatemples, most of which are embellished withexotic panels of baked clay.

Few months later, Maluti attractedattention once again, when in newly builtRanchi airport, tourism department ofJharkhand placed a huge poster of Malutiwith an objective of encouraging tourismin this almost unknown heritage village.Today, Maluti is counted among the uniqueheritage spots of India.

No where else can one find an instancewhere within a radius of 1,150 ft, a few gen-erations of zamindars have built more than100 terracotta temples instead of palaces andpleasure chambers. Even in Bengal, a statethat houses several world class terracottatemples, there is no such distinctive a vil-lage. Incidentally, Maluti is just a few kilo-metres from Bengal border and its dwellersspeak Bengali and not Hindi. The villagecult and customs are more Bengali thanJharkhand.

Though not much information orknowledge is available on these temples, thelocal folklore/legend has it that this placewas known as Mallahati, a zone owned byMalla dynasty that ruled Bishnupur ofBengal. It is the same place that housesmany world famous terracotta temples.

The place, it is believed, derives its namefrom a local Goddess named Moulakshi,who has no reference in Hindu mytholo-gy. It is assumed that this Goddess camefrom Tantrik cult of Buddhism in which sheis described as elder sister of Tara. Later, shemay have been adopted by the Hindus astheir Goddess and started attracting devo-tees. Based on this information, manybelieve that this place was once influencedby Vajrayana Buddhism, in which shadowof Tantrik cult is said to be profound.

A website claims Adi Shankara visitedthis place when he was touring India in hismission of re-emerging Hinduism overBuddhism. The conversion of a BuddhistGoddess into a Hindu Goddess may be atestimony of that forgotten past.

Legend has it that in the 15th century,a new rule was established by an orphannamed Baj Basanta, who got a huge tax freeland/property as gift, courtesy the thenSultan of Bengal, Alauddin Hussain Shah(1495-1525).

It is said that once during his huntingexpedition, Sultan lost his pet falcon andwas deeply depressed. Basanta, the village

boy, salvaged the falcon and got the birdback to the Sultan. Happy to have his fal-con back, Sultan rewarded Basanta with asizable land. The boy thus got famous as BajBasanta.

Baj Basanta founded his capital at aplace named Dumra. His several genera-tions ruled the area as prominent tax col-lecting landowners.

In 1680, Baj Basanta’s great grandson,named Rajchandra, was killed in a battlewith another king of Rajnagar in Birbhum.Following the incident, his four sons shift-ed their capital to Mallahati. They found theplace to be very peaceful. Once settled, thefamily branched into four and startedexpanding by building a plethora of tem-ples. It is believed that all four branchesstarted founding temples instead of build-ing palaces and pleasure houses.

Gradually, in the next 200 years, a timecame when it was found that the village had108 temples dedicated to various HinduGoddess and almost all decorated withexceptionally beautiful terracotta panels.Today, only 72 temples can be found inMaluti. Rest are either grounded or in adilapidated condition.

These 72 temples are situated in 4 clus-ters in the village and one needs to take nar-row lanes and beaten tracks to visit all. Itis a different matter that the village is verysmall and thinly populated, and so it doesnot take much time to visit all clusters. Poormaintenance and lack of public awarenesshas marred the charm of the place to a greatextent.

The first cluster is known as Madhyambari. The second and third clusters are locat-ed very close to each other and appear asone. They are known as temples of Rajbariand Sikhir bari. The last group of templeswhich are in equally bad condition is knownas Chayer taraf. Apart from these temples,there is a hexagonal rasmancha.

While all temples were originallyembellished with terracotta, due to weath-ering and random defacing of walls, manyof these temples lay painfully bare now. Inmany temples, panels are continuouslycrumbling. The temples have developedcracks and wild vegetation grows uncon-trolled. In a few temples, walls are defaced

with writings and cattle roam inside. Sometemples are still in use and hundreds of peo-ple continue to cause damage to its rich artworks. During Diwali, on occasion ofKalipuja, fairs are organised at temples clus-ters, attracting large crowds. These fairs areyet another cause of continuous damage tothe temples.

The beauty of the terracotta panelsfound on the walls of Maluti temples is dis-tinct from the panels found on the walls ofthe various temples of Bengal. In Bengal,apart from mythology and epic references,various social aspects also feature in terra-cotta panels, whereas in Maluti stories ofRamayana appears to be the main theme.

The central arch and its surroundingareas are all decorated with the battlesequence of Lord Ram and ten-headedRavana. In some panels, Ram is shown onthe shoulder of Hanuman, whereas, in sometemples the same warrior is shown fight-ing on his feet. In some panels, Ram sportsa manly moustache. In a similar manner,Ravana is also visualised in different formsand shapes. He has his usual ten heads andten hands but his postures are distinctivedifferent and vary from temple to temple.

While Ram is accompanied by Laxman andHanuman, Ravana is followed by demonwarriors elegantly dressed up and spirited.The panoply and shoes of Ravana in everytemple are beautiful and distinctive. In somepanels, Ravana can also be seen fightingalone on foot.

Some of the divine figures are veryunique and not commonly found in otherterracotta temples. Musicians, flyingdemons, foot soldiers with naked swords etcare in plenty on each front wall of temples.Social sequences like a royal man onpalanquin, worshiping, goat sacrifice andso on are also found aplenty.

The numbers of panels on the side wallsand back wall, however, are unusually fewand appear to have been removed. A rowof small chariots is carved under every fig-ure of Ram and Ravana. These rows of char-iots are placed just on the apex of mainentrance and again, those are very richlydecorated with warriors fighting withdeadly weapons, either on horses or ele-phants. Beautiful floral designs with vari-ous hindu motifs are etched all over the wall.

Mahishasurmardini Durga is anothercommon feature to be found on these ter-racotta decorated temples. Here, she mountsan animal which neither looks like a lionnor a horse. However, some panels depictexcellent horse statues. In some panels, sheappears with Laxmi and Saraswati on hereither sides and in some, she is depicted byherself.

Even though these temples are largelybelieved to be made of terracotta, there isa contention that these panels may actual-ly be carvings on a very soft type of sand-stone, locally known as phool pathar.Which is a possibility because in Birbhumdistrict of Bengal, some temples are actu-ally decorated with phool pathar and arecommonly confused for terracotta.

The locals have also been using thehexagonal roof less rasmancha (platform)to celebrate Holi and Raas Utsav of Radha-Krishna, which is causing considerableharm to the structure.

Temples of Maluti follow the Bengalschool of temple architecture but sadly notmuch variation found in that. Most of thetemples are made in charchala style, that has

single pinnacle with four sides slopes. Onlya few temples are made of atchala and deulstyle. So a monotony grips while taking atour. However, the thrill of photography seesno bound of satisfaction when one gets tocapture a plethora of similar looking tem-ples in a single frame.

As for now, the temple village ofMaluti is a victim of sheer negligence fromthe government side. The village remainedlost to world and even to the people of itsown state, the undivided Bihar, as well asBengal even before 1979 when ASI officialnamed AK Sinha first undertook a projecton this village and submitted a detailedreport of his work

Despite this report, no basic minimumamenities were built in Maluti and the placedid not find mention in any of the tourismpromotional literature. In 2009, GlobalHeritage Fund surveyed this village andmarked it as one of the fastest vanishing her-itage of the world. Even after that, no majorGovernment fund was sanctioned to pro-tect these temples.

It is heartening to see that the presentgovernment is atleast making that effort topromote it as a unique heritage site of thestate. At an individual level, a local residentnamed Gopaldas Banerjee who has beenobserving the gradual decline of the her-itage has done excellent work to record andprotect these temples. As someone born andbred in the village, Banerjee had heard var-ious legends and stories from his early child-hood and has penned several authenticbooks on the subject. He was recently felic-itated by Jharkhand Government for hiswork of recording history.

The temples of Maluti are a burning tes-timonial to India’s rich yet hidden heritageand if proper protection and exposure is notgiven these beautiful structures, all will belost. Their dilapidated condition is onlyworsened by overgrown vegetation andmassive water leakage from the roof and thewalls. A few of the temples have alreadycrumbled owing to neglect and many areawaiting the same fate. Though somerestoration work has started recently, but noamenities can still be found for the tourists.It would be a pity if these temples are lost— a sin beyond pardoning.

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Novel (new) coronavirus (termed“2019-nCoV”) — a new strain of virus

from China — has the world on edgebecause it’s a close cousin to viruses thatkilled hundreds in separate outbreaks.While it’s too early to tell if this latest threatwill prove as deadly, health authorities aredrawing on lessons from that grim past.

WHAT’S THE LINKThe new virus comes from a large fam-

ily of coronaviruses, some causing noth-ing worse than a cold. But in late 2002, acoronavirus named SARS erupted insouthern China, causing a severe pneu-monia that rapidly spread to other coun-tries. It infected more than 8,000 peopleand killed 774 — and then it disappeared,thanks to public health measures.

In 2012, another coronavirus dubbedMERS began sickening people in SaudiArabia. It’s still hanging around, causingsmall numbers of infections each year. TheWorld Health Organization has countednearly 2,500 cases of MERS in the WestAsia and beyond, and more than 850deaths.

So far, deaths from the new virus havebeen a small fraction of the roughly1,300 confirmed infections, most of thosecases in China.

WHERE DO THESE VIRUSESCOME FROM?

SARS and MERS came from animals,and this newest virus almost certainly did,too. The first people infected visited orworked at a seafood market in the Chinesecity of Wuhan.

SARS initially was traced to civet catssold in a live animal market, but later sci-entists decided it probably originated inbats that infected the civets. People cancatch MERS from infected camels,although again, bats likely first spread thatcoronavirus to camels.

That animal-to-human jump is ahuge concern for all kinds of viruses. Everyso often, new strains of bird flu make the

jump from Asian live poultry markets topeople, for example.

“These wildlife markets are a risk,” saidDr Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, whoassisted the WHO and China during theSARS outbreak and advises Saudi Arabiaabout MERS.

HOW SIMILAR ARE THEY?Experts can’t yet tell whether the new

virus called 2019-nCoV — it stands for

“novel coronavirus” — is more like SARSor MERS. Genetically, they’re all closelyrelated but “they really are different virus-es,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, infectious dis-eases chief at the US National Institutes ofHealth.

One indication of a virus’ danger ishow easily it spreads from person to per-son. Unlike SARS, “it looks like it doesn’ttransmit through the air very easily andprobably transmits through close contact,”

said Dr David Heymann, who headedWHO’s global response to SARS.

And while it’s too soon to be sure,Heymann said the new virus appears mostdangerous to older adults who have otherhealth problems. .

Complicating matters, if this newvirus is fairly mild, it may be harder to stemthe spread. That’s because people whoaren’t sick enough to see a doctor and thusdon’t learn they should be isolated could

keep spreading it, noted Neil Ferguson ofImperial College London, who has consulted for WHO. Nor is there any wayto know yet how often people become infected but show no obvioussymptoms.

“We may see more mild cases as thesurveillance intensifies,” WHO spokesmanTarik Jasarevic said Friday in Geneva. “Sothe issue is not so much really numbersthat we know will go up.”

HOW WILL PEOPLE KNOWTHE DIFFERENCE?

Since symptoms are similar — fever,cough and in more severe cases shortnessof breath or pneumonia — it’ll take a med-ical test to tell. There is one, but healthauthorities in China, the US and elsewhereare working to make it more widely avail-able. Given that it is flu season in China,too, it’s “all the more impressive that theywere able to recognize this outbreakquickly,” Dr Brian Garibaldi of JohnsHopkins University said.

Precautions that hospitals often use forflu season and for other infectious diseasesshould help for this, too, Garibaldi added.For example, in many US hospitals peo-ple are given masks if they arrive with afever and cough during flu season. And alegacy of the 2014 West Africa Ebola out-break — which also resulted in infectedtravelers — is that doctors and hospitalsare supposed to ask about recent foreigntrips.

HUNTING VACCINESWhile there is no vaccine — or spe-

cific treatment — for SARS or MERS,Fauci said it is technically possible to cre-ate a vaccine against this new virus. NIHdid develop a potential vaccine candidatefor SARS. It proved safe in a small first-step study in people but never was testedfurther because by then, the outbreak wasending.

This time around, scientists havemore of a head start. Just weeks after thefirst unusual pneumonias were reported,Chinese scientists mapped the genes of theviral suspect and shared them with worldhealth authorities.

Now, NIH is among several groupsworking to create a vaccine for the newvirus, using newer and faster technologythan was available during SARS. Faucihopes to begin first-step safety tests inabout three months, but something ready for real-world use would take farlonger. AP

���!�?�������������������4��������"������Sebastian Kurz, the youngest

Chancellor of Austria at theage of 33, has just taken over asthe Chancellor of the countryfor the second time. ThePeople’s Party, known as Öster-reichische Volkspartei (OVP),he represents, is primarily acentre-right political party.However, it regards itself as aprogressive centre party whichis the successor of the ChristianSocial Party, established wayback in the 1890s. In fact, theOVP came into being imme-diately after the reestablish-ment of the Republic of Austriain 1945.

Kurz became active in thepolitics of the OVP since theage of 16. As a law student inVienna, he was elected to thepost of the chairman of theyouth wing of the party. By2011, he left his studies to joinas a junior Interior Ministerand rose up to the rank ofForeign Minister in 2013, onlyat the age of 27. In 2015, whenthe whole Europe was plaguedby massive immigration fromwar-torn nations of West Asia,he proposed a plan for imme-diate integration of these immi-grant communities into themainstream. But then he wasall in praise for Hungary’s fire-brand populist leader andPrime Minister Victor Orban.That was the time he was allagainst absorbing more immi-grants from the troubledregions of West Asia and NorthAfrica, such as Syria, Iraq,Libya, etc.

Also, Kurz credited Orbanfor closing the Balkan immi-gration route in 2016. It mustbe noted here that though theopposition in Hungary accus-es him of backsliding when itcomes to democratic freedoms,but he has remained unde-terred in his shaping of a newpolity what he likes to call as“illiberal democracy”. Howeverthe critics simply brand it as asemi-authoritarian state. Withthis kind of a liking, Kurz hasfully endorsed a strong rightturn in Austrian politics and ofcourse change of tactics incoming elections.

Afterwards, he was electedchairman of the OVP in May2017. Surprisingly he led theparty to victory by garneringmore than 31 per cent of thevotes and became theChancellor with the support

from the far right FPO partyfrom December 2017 to May2019. His coalition govern-ment fell only when his coali-tion partner and its leaderHeinz-Christian Strache wererocked by the historic Ibizagatescandal. Therefore, the partythis time has dropped its for-mer coalition partner, the FPO.The OVP was forced to stayaway from this tie-up as theleader of the FPO, Strache, wascaught offering bribe to awoman who posed as the nieceof a Russian oligarch. And allthese took place in Ibiza, oneof the Balearic Islands of Spainlocated in the MediterraneanSea. The Ibizagate trimmed

down the voting share of theparty to only 16 per cent, asharp fall from 26 per cent inthe last elections. The OVP haswon 37 per cent of the votes, upfrom 31 per cent from the lastelection.

It is interesting to know thepolicies and programmes of theparty as they are simply goingto shape the future of Austria.The party is insisting on animmediate ban on theIdentitarian Movement (alsocalled as IBOe) once launchedby the far-right. In fact, itcame into light even before thegeneral election in September.Further the OVP leader AugustWoeginger repeatedly remind-

ed his party colleagues and theAustrian public that the ban onthe Identitarian Movementwould be a condition for mak-ing the next coalitionGovernment of the country.The IBOe is famous for its anti-immigration agenda. But ithas faced crisis as its leaderMartin Sellner is accused ofreceiving money and exchang-ing e-mails with the suspectedperpetrators of gun attacks onmosques in New Zealand, inwhich 51 people died.

Thus finally, the OVP hasstitched an unlikely coalitionwith the Green Party, headedby Werner Kogler. Interestingly,the Greens achieved a historic

win in this election by gettingmore than 13.9 per cent of thevotes. But ironically, Kurz hasbeen stressing for a proper cen-tre-right coalition deal sincethe beginning of the snap pollthat was held in September2019. In that case, the FPOcould have been the logicalpartner to deal with and forma government of their mutualinterests. On the other hand,the FPO was seriously dis-turbed by internal differences.And the party also indicated inthe recent past that it couldvery well go back and take theposition of an opposition party.

Further, the old coalitioni.e. OVP-SPO (Social

Democratic Party) that sur-vived the most parts of thepost-World War II periodseemed to be completely unvi-able today. This coalition isdeeply unpopular among theAustrian electorate today, par-ticularly among the young-sters. At the same time, Kurz,the new chairman of the party,has been criticising the newpower-sharing system devel-oped by both these parties asProporz. Hence, there was nooption left for Kurz, exceptaligning with the Greens.

For the first time inAustria, a female majorityGovernment has come topower this month. And in the

Cabinet of 17 Ministers in thisC o n s e r v a t i v e - G r e e nGovernment, 9 are womenministers. Kurz calls this coali-tion as the “best of bothworlds”. But some say that itwould be difficult for him tosurvive such an unusual tie-up.The reason behind is that howsuch a coalition of centre rightand centre left would survive?It would be difficult for boththe parties to further theirown interests. There are highchances that their supportersand sympathisers would soonbe disillusioned in the days tocome. The ideological gapbetween the Greens and theOVP is too big. The OVP hasa set agenda to cut taxes, dereg-ulate, and reduce public expen-diture whereas the Greenswould like to go for new taxeson inheritance, carbon emis-sions and capital gains, want toengage in huge public infra-structure projects for buildingpublic transportation networksacross the country. Again theGreens will find it really diffi-cult to support Kurz on issueslike tough stance on illegalimmigration, slashing publicfunds for refugees and deport-ing asylum applicants uponreceiving a negative noticeeven if they have jobs and suc-cessfully integrated with theAustrian society. Both the par-ties have strong differencesover education and welfarereforms. His going with theGreens is a critical misreadingof his long-term strategies.The ideological flexibility thathe is displaying at the momentis simply overstated. He willsimply pay for it in the nearfuture. Many thought he is rais-ing an illiberal democracy ofOrban type in Hungary. Butinstead, it seems he is trying tocling to power even with thehelp of the Greens. His brandof politics may soon lose steam.And if cracks appear in thepartnership, this will onceagain push Austria into a newuncertainty only.

Whatsoever it may be, peo-ple in Austria are just thinking‘schau ma mal’ i.e. Let’s see. Itis very apparent that it is acoalition that Kurz never want-ed and many say that it isunlikely to last.

(The writer is an expert oninternational affairs)

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Picking up threads from the previ-ous issue, let us now look at theprognosis of the young man’s

endeavour since his session with me. Hewas advised to reflect upon his innerframe of mind in a meditative mode,identify the inherent fault lines,acknowledge them, and make necessaryamends from the root level throughfresh educative inputs. He did reflect fora while, but not in a meditative mode. Infact, he used to seek guidance on how tomodify his conduct. As also, on how torelate to his parents so as to keep themin good humour. The saner side of himwas then driving his thought process, aswould Jupiter beneficially aligned tomind signifying Moon may mean.

He, thereafter, began consciouslyevading getting into unnecessary argu-ment with his parents, unlike earlierwhen he would react to everything.That helped improve his relationshipwith parents over a period of time, butnot without intermittent bouts ofaggression. His habit tendencies wouldthen temporarily overtake his thoughtprocess. But after offending them, hewould regret, seek clarification onwhere and why he went wrong, and as

advised, say sorry to mend fences.Remember, habits die hard, and wouldnot spare you unless the thought-seedsto which they are rooted in the innerrealms of mind, are resolved from thebase level. That is only possible throughself-reflection in meditative mode.Otherwise, when caught unguarded, theinherent tendencies will come intoimmediate play, and evidently to one’sdetriment.

On work front, he was not contend-ed with just his family business, whichbeing considerably big demanded full-time engagement. His sense of insecuri-ty played heavy on his mind, coming asit may with the Sun placed adverse toSaturn. The trigger was, not beingnamed a director in the company,whereas his first cousins were inductedinto the board of his uncle’s company.He felt that he was being denied his due.He was afraid that because of tempera-mental differences with parents, hewould be deprived of his legacy. It couldnot register in his mind that they werein fact grooming him in a way thatbefore he was handed charge, he getstime and space to get over his attitudi-nal limitations, so that he could lead

with prudence and patience. The man in hurry wished to hur-

riedly create something of his own. Trueto his nature, he was toying with manyentrepreneurial ventures. For, mind sig-nifying Moon is posited in a Mercuryowned sign, a planet identified withmultiplicity. He was advised to take upone project at a time, take it to its logi-cal end, stabilise it, before getting intoanother venture. But given his habit, hekept arguing to prove his point andwon’t listen.

He tried to enter into partnershipwith one start-up company that wasassisting him in one of his projects. Butthe promoters refused. That raked uphis ego, as would the Sun placed adverseto Jupiter imply. He could not digestrefusal and thus got trapped in his ownbind. In reaction, he rushed throughpartnership with another start-up com-pany that was also assisting him in hisproject, just with the intent to outsmartthe other company. Made dispropor-tionate investment despite stiff resis-tance from his associates. Later, herealised that the return he expected maytake some time. He forgot that anymaiden venture has to go through meandown time before giving returns. Hethen lost his nerves. Following which,

he on the strength of money powerbegan playing all tricks in his hand totake over the company, which met withstiff resistance from the original pro-moters. Eventually the partnershipbroke off and he lost heavily.

If all that would not be enough, hespent heavily in branding himself. Hisillusionary perceptions made himignore all advice to wait till his venturetook off well, as would the Sun oppositemischievous Neptune imply. Beingyoung, he had enough time in hand forimage building. But he was in a hurry torough shoulders with the bigwigs in theBusiness world. In the process he wentout of proportion to pay a hefty sum tobecome a member of an Internationalorganisation.

Now, because of economic down-turn, on completion of his project, hisproduct line is not moving on expectedlines. Consequently, he is now undersevere financial pressure, making it dif-ficult to push through his product in themarket.

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