16
P rotests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) spilled over from Jamia Millia Islamia here and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) to several other high- er educational institutions across the country from Lucknow’s Nadwa College to Hyderabad’s Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU); from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi to Jadavpur University in Kolkata; from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai to Central University of Kerala, Kasargod and Pondicherry University. Students from three Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Kanpur, Madras and Bombay, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru and IIM Ahmedabad among others also joined the protests besides the Delhi University where students boycotted exams and held a protest outside the Arts Faculty in North Campus to express their solidarity with the movement. After the protest at AMU, the administration announced closure of the university till January 5 and students were asked to evacuate the hostels. The AMU campus has been sealed and heavy patrolling is underway, university officials said on Monday. AMU Registrar Abdul Hamid said the police entered the campus on Sunday night and clashes were reported from inside. In Lucknow, 21 people were arrested in connection with the students-police clash at the AMU. “Named FIR has been lodged against 56 people and others unidentified. The process of hostel vacation is on and 25- 30 per cent of them have been vacated, rest expected to be vacated by evening,” SSP (Aligarh) Akash Kulhary said. Internet services in Aligarh, Saharanpur and Meerut stand suspended, a day after protests broke out in cer- tain parts of the State, includ- ing at AMU, against the amended citizenship law, DGP OP Singh said. In Lucknow’s Nadwa College, students gathered in the hundreds shouting slogans like “Awaz do, hum ek hain(call us we are all united) as police tried to control the sit- uation. For a brief while, they hurled stones at the police who threw them back over a campus steel gate. Down South, in Hyderabad, Telangana, students of MANUU, the University of Hyderabad (UoH) and the Osmania University, staged sit- in inside their campuses, hold- ing placards. Besides IIT-Madras, stu- dents of educational institu- tions in Tamil Nadu, including the Loyola College in Chennai and the Central University of Tamil Nadu at Tiruvarur, held protest demonstrations. Over 300 students and citizens staged a protest on the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) campus on Monday evening. Continued on Page 4 U niting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Opposition on Monday demanded a judicial enquiry into the police action in Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) on Sunday. While Left parties gave a call for country- wide protest on Thursday, the Samajwadi Party (SP) called for an emergency Session of Parliament to carry out an amendment to ensure no dis- crimination. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the violence and disturbances over CAA as “unfortunate” and “deeply depressing” while the BJP attacked the Opposition saying some parties are trying to “instigate” students and using them as “pawns” to further their petty political interests. Modi reiterated that the CAA would not affect any bonafide citizen of any religion. The Opposition parties demanded an enquiry by a Supreme Court judge into the incidents of students being thrashed on the campus. Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s D Raja, RJD’s Manoj Jha, SP’s Javed Ali Khan and Sharad Yadav condemned Sunday’s police action against Jamia stu- dents who were protesting against the amended citizen- ship act. “How could the police enter Jamia and unleash such brutality on the students when university authorities did not allow the police to enter inside. There should be a judicial probe into the violence against students by police in the Jamia campus,” said Azad at a joint Press conference. The BJP retaliated accusing former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi of indulging in vote bank and appeasement politics and caus- ing Hindu-Muslim divide. Continued on Page 4 E ven as burning tyres on roads, vandalised public facilities and cancelled trains symbolised the absolute bed- lam that Bengal continued to be in on the third consecutive day of protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said the Centre will have to implement CAA or National Register for Citizens (NRC) over her remains. “I ask you all whether you have faith in your Chief Minister or not. If you trust me, there will be no NRC in Bengal. They (Centre) will have to implement it over my dead body. I will die but not let it happen in Bengal,” Mamata said while addressing the mas- sive anti-CAA rally on Monday. Launching a scathing attack on the BJP Government at the rally for pushing India into its “biggest crises” since Independence, Mamata said, “They think that only the BJP will live in India and all others will have to leave. This is their politics. It will never be allowed,” she said. However, the rally was promptly dismissed by State Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as unconstitutional. Showing how her counter- parts in Delhi, Bihar, Kerala, MP, Punjab and elsewhere had all stood against the CAA and NRC, Mamata said, “Agar sab ka saath nahi hoga to sabka vikaas kaise hoga (how will there be a collective progress if we don’t take everyone along)?” She said, “There was a time when I alone was raising my voice against the NRC, but today many other Chief Ministers like those of Bihar, Punjab, Kerala, MP … have started voicing their concern,” adding, “we are all citizens. Continued on Page 4 A day after clashes between the Delhi Police and Jamia Millia Islamia students, hun- dreds of students were back on the streets on Monday, some standing shirtless in bone chill- ing winter demanding action against the Delhi Police over the Sunday violence on campus. Chanting slogans “inquilab zindabad”, the group of stu- dents also demanded Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) enquiry into the violence. Another group of students, formed a human chain near the university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). On Monday, the protesters including women students, local residents and some guardians also came out in sup- port of protesting students. Carrying a Tricolour, stu- dents clapped and raised slo- gans against the Central Government and the Delhi Police. “This Government is anti-minority, anti-students, anti-poor. We won’t tolerate this. Won’t keep mum,” they said in unison. A group of students claimed that police on Sunday damaged two mosques on the campus, beat up the Imam and a differntly-abled student. They said police also ransacked uni- versity central library. I f the prevailing cold has already left you shivering, then brace yourselves for an increase in its intensity as the MeT department has predict- ed chilly weather conditions during the next couple of days. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday predicted the days will be cold and the nights colder in the national Capital, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and in isolated pockets in Himachal Pradesh. The normal temperature is expected to drop up to six to seven degrees Celsius in the next two days over most parts of North and Central India. Delhiites experienced a chilly day as the maximum temperature settled at 12.9 degrees Celsius, 10 degrees below the season’s average. The minimum temperature was recorded at 10.2 degrees Celsius, two notches above the season’s average. The severe cold day conditions will con- tinue unabated in the national Capital on Tuesday. The visi- bility remained low in many parts of the city due to mod- erate fog. Drass in Jammu & Kashmir emerged as the cold- est place in the region at minus 27.2 degrees Celsius. Himachal Pradesh received fresh snowfall and several other areas in northern India were in the frigid grip of cold wave on Monday even as dense fog dis- rupted several flights in Chandigarh. Dense fog is like- ly at some places and moder- ate at many places in the morn- ing over the northwestern plains. Continued on Page 4 A Delhi court convicted expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar on Monday for raping a woman in Unnao in 2017 saying the vic- tim’s testimony was “truthful and unblemished” against a “powerful person”. The court convicted Sengar for rape under the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act for offence by a public servant committing penetrative sexual assault against a child. The court will hear argu- ments on quantum on sentence on Wednesday. The offences entail maximum punishment of life imprisonment. District Judge Dharmesh Sharma, however, acquitted co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges. Convicting Sengar, 53, under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the court said the CBI proved that the victim was a minor and he was right- ly prosecuted under the special law. “I found her statement truthful and unblemished that she was sexually assaulted. She was under threat, worried. She is a village girl, not from cos- mopolitan educated area... Sengar was powerful person. So she took her time..,” the judge said while reading out the verdict. Continued on Page 4 U nion Home Minister cum BJP national president Amit Shah on Monday assured that a “grand” Ram temple will be constructed in Ayodhya within four months from now. Shah addressing public rallies in Pakur and Poraiyahat of Santhal Pargana said, “The Supreme Court has given its verdict. Now within four months, a sky- high temple of Lord Rama will be built in Ayodhya.” The BJP national presi- dent on the occasion also attacked Congress party for creating obstacles and keeping the issue pending for decades. He said, “Congress has the politics of keeping issue of national importance on pend- ing list. Continued on Page 4 A s the law & order situation improved in Assam, the administration on Monday relaxed curfew from 6 am to 9 pm in Guwahati but trains between West Bengal and the Northeast have come to a com- plete halt with the Eastern Railway suspending all its ser- vices to the northern region of the State. However, Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma alleged the involvement of a Congress activist in the incident involving vandalism at the Sankardev Kalakshetra in Guwahati during the protests against the amend- ed Citizenship Act. “If he (Congress activist) has done in his individual capacity or was part of an organised crime that needs to be probed,” Sarma said. He said there is a specific pattern in the mob violence in Guwahati. “There is a huge involvement of people who are not citizens of Guwahati and who have come from the lower Assam districts.” Whether they have come for participation in the agita- tion or they have been brought here by some kind of design, will be investigated by the Government. The Constitution of a proper investigation team will be announced in a day or two, he said, adding curfew has been withdrawn and there will not be curfew during the day time. However, night curfew will remain imposed until the situation is reviewed and a decision to the effect is taken, he maintained. Sarma said the situation was returning to nor- malcy and soon the curfew will be lifted and internet services restored. Efforts were on to lift restrictions so that education- al institutions could be opened, he added. Continued on Page 4 T he Supreme Court on Monday took serious note of rioting and destruction of public property during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the country and said that “violence must stop immediately”. The top court said it, prima facie, does not think court can do much in the mat- ter as it is a law and order problem and police forces have to control it. The apex court, which agreed to hear on Tuesday pleas alleging police atrocities on students holding protests against the Act at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia here, said it will not hear this issue in such an atmosphere of violence. A Bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde said, “We are not here to blame anybody. All we are saying is that this vio- lence must stop.” “If protests and violence and damage of public proper- ty will be there, we will not hear the matter,” it added. The Bench, also comprising justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant, made the observations after a group of lawyers led by senior advocate Indira Jaising and Colin Gonsalves urged it to take suo motu cognisance of the alleged violence unleashed against protesting students. Continued on Page 4 T he Government on Monday appointed Vice Chief of Army Lt General Manoj Mukund Naravane as the next Army Chief after incumbent General Bipin Rawat’s tenure ends on December 31. Naravane took over as the Vice Chief in September. Before that he served as the Eastern Army Commander and Commander Army Training Command (ARTRAC), commissioned into the Sikh Light Infantry, commanded a Rashtriya Rifles battalion in Kashmir, served in the Assam Rifles and has been posted as defence attache to Myanmar. He will be the third Army Chief from the Sikh Light regiment after Gen VP Malik and Gen Bikram Singh. Continued on Page 4

ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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Page 1: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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Protests against theCitizenship Amendment

Act (CAA) spilled over fromJamia Millia Islamia here andAligarh Muslim University(AMU) to several other high-er educational institutionsacross the country fromLucknow’s Nadwa College toHyderabad’s Maulana AzadNational Urdu University(MANUU); from BanarasHindu University (BHU) inVaranasi to Jadavpur Universityin Kolkata; from Tata Instituteof Social Sciences (TISS) inMumbai to Central Universityof Kerala, Kasargod andPondicherry University.

Students from three IndianInstitutes of Technology (IITs)in Kanpur, Madras andBombay, Indian Institute ofScience (IISc) in Bengaluru andIIM Ahmedabad among othersalso joined the protests besidesthe Delhi University wherestudents boycotted exams andheld a protest outside the ArtsFaculty in North Campus toexpress their solidarity with themovement.

After the protest at AMU,the administration announcedclosure of the university tillJanuary 5 and students wereasked to evacuate the hostels.The AMU campus has been

sealed and heavy patrolling isunderway, university officialssaid on Monday. AMURegistrar Abdul Hamid said thepolice entered the campus onSunday night and clashes werereported from inside.

In Lucknow, 21 people werearrested in connection withthe students-police clash at theAMU. “Named FIR has beenlodged against 56 people andothers unidentified. The processof hostel vacation is on and 25-30 per cent of them have beenvacated, rest expected to bevacated by evening,” SSP(Aligarh) Akash Kulhary said.

Internet services inAligarh, Saharanpur andMeerut stand suspended, a dayafter protests broke out in cer-tain parts of the State, includ-ing at AMU, against theamended citizenship law, DGPOP Singh said.

In Lucknow’s NadwaCollege, students gathered inthe hundreds shouting sloganslike “Awaz do, hum ek hain”(call us we are all united) aspolice tried to control the sit-uation. For a brief while, theyhurled stones at the policewho threw them back over acampus steel gate.

Down South, inHyderabad, Telangana, studentsof MANUU, the University ofHyderabad (UoH) and the

Osmania University, staged sit-in inside their campuses, hold-ing placards.

Besides IIT-Madras, stu-dents of educational institu-tions in Tamil Nadu, includingthe Loyola College in Chennaiand the Central University ofTamil Nadu at Tiruvarur, heldprotest demonstrations. Over300 students and citizens stageda protest on the SavitribaiPhule Pune University (SPPU)campus on Monday evening.

Continued on Page 4

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Uniting against theCitizenship Amendment

Act (CAA), the Opposition onMonday demanded a judicialenquiry into the police actionin Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia(JMI) on Sunday. While Leftparties gave a call for country-wide protest on Thursday, theSamajwadi Party (SP) called foran emergency Session ofParliament to carry out anamendment to ensure no dis-crimination.

Prime Minister NarendraModi described the violenceand disturbances over CAA as

“unfortunate” and “deeplydepressing” while the BJPattacked the Opposition sayingsome parties are trying to“instigate” students and usingthem as “pawns” to furthertheir petty political interests.Modi reiterated that the CAAwould not affect any bonafidecitizen of any religion.

The Opposition partiesdemanded an enquiry by aSupreme Court judge into theincidents of students beingthrashed on the campus.

Congress leaders Ghulam NabiAzad and Kapil Sibal, CPI(M)leader Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s DRaja, RJD’s Manoj Jha, SP’sJaved Ali Khan and SharadYadav condemned Sunday’spolice action against Jamia stu-dents who were protestingagainst the amended citizen-ship act.

“How could the policeenter Jamia and unleash suchbrutality on the students whenuniversity authorities did notallow the police to enter inside.

There should be a judicialprobe into the violence againststudents by police in the Jamiacampus,” said Azad at a jointPress conference.

The BJP retaliated accusingformer Congress presidentRahul Gandhi, West BengalChief Minister MamataBanerjee and AIMIM leaderAsaduddin Owaisi ofindulging in vote bank andappeasement politics and caus-ing Hindu-Muslim divide.

Continued on Page 4

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Even as burning tyres onroads, vandalised public

facilities and cancelled trainssymbolised the absolute bed-lam that Bengal continued tobe in on the third consecutiveday of protest against theCitizenship Amendment Act(CAA), Chief Minister MamataBanerjee on Monday said theCentre will have to implementCAA or National Register forCitizens (NRC) over herremains.

“I ask you all whether youhave faith in your ChiefMinister or not. If you trust me,there will be no NRC in Bengal.They (Centre) will have toimplement it over my deadbody. I will die but not let ithappen in Bengal,” Mamatasaid while addressing the mas-sive anti-CAA rally on Monday.

Launching a scathingattack on the BJP Governmentat the rally for pushing Indiainto its “biggest crises” sinceIndependence, Mamata said,“They think that only the BJPwill live in India and all otherswill have to leave. This is theirpolitics. It will never beallowed,” she said. However, therally was promptly dismissedby State Governor Jagdeep

Dhankhar as unconstitutional.Showing how her counter-

parts in Delhi, Bihar, Kerala,MP, Punjab and elsewhere hadall stood against the CAA andNRC, Mamata said, “Agar sabka saath nahi hoga to sabkavikaas kaise hoga (how willthere be a collective progress ifwe don’t take everyone along)?”

She said, “There was atime when I alone was raisingmy voice against the NRC, buttoday many other ChiefMinisters like those of Bihar,Punjab, Kerala, MP … havestarted voicing their concern,”adding, “we are all citizens.

Continued on Page 4

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Aday after clashes betweenthe Delhi Police and Jamia

Millia Islamia students, hun-dreds of students were back onthe streets on Monday, somestanding shirtless in bone chill-ing winter demanding actionagainst the Delhi Police over theSunday violence on campus.

Chanting slogans “inquilabzindabad”, the group of stu-dents also demanded CentralBureau Investigation (CBI)enquiry into the violence.Another group of students,formed a human chain near theuniversity gate to resume theirprotest against the CitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA).

On Monday, the protestersincluding women students,local residents and someguardians also came out in sup-port of protesting students.

Carrying a Tricolour, stu-dents clapped and raised slo-gans against the CentralGovernment and the DelhiPolice. “This Government isanti-minority, anti-students,anti-poor. We won’t toleratethis. Won’t keep mum,” theysaid in unison.

A group of studentsclaimed that police on Sundaydamaged two mosques on thecampus, beat up the Imam anda differntly-abled student. Theysaid police also ransacked uni-versity central library.

�� �&��'��� ;<���<*=�

If the prevailing cold hasalready left you shivering,

then brace yourselves for anincrease in its intensity as theMeT department has predict-ed chilly weather conditionsduring the next couple of days.

The India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) onMonday predicted the dayswill be cold and the nightscolder in the national Capital,Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab,Haryana and Rajasthan and inisolated pockets in HimachalPradesh.

The normal temperature isexpected to drop up to six toseven degrees Celsius in thenext two days over most partsof North and Central India.

Delhiites experienced achilly day as the maximumtemperature settled at 12.9degrees Celsius, 10 degreesbelow the season’s average.The minimum temperaturewas recorded at 10.2 degrees

Celsius, two notches above theseason’s average. The severecold day conditions will con-tinue unabated in the nationalCapital on Tuesday. The visi-bility remained low in manyparts of the city due to mod-erate fog.

Drass in Jammu &Kashmir emerged as the cold-est place in the region at minus27.2 degrees Celsius. Himachal

Pradesh received fresh snowfalland several other areas innorthern India were in thefrigid grip of cold wave onMonday even as dense fog dis-rupted several f lights inChandigarh. Dense fog is like-ly at some places and moder-ate at many places in the morn-ing over the northwesternplains.

Continued on Page 4

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ADelhi court convictedexpelled BJP MLA

Kuldeep Singh Sengar onMonday for raping a woman inUnnao in 2017 saying the vic-tim’s testimony was “truthfuland unblemished” against a“powerful person”.

The court convicted Sengarfor rape under the Indian PenalCode and the POCSO Act foroffence by a public servantcommitting penetrative sexualassault against a child.

The court will hear argu-ments on quantum on sentenceon Wednesday. The offencesentail maximum punishmentof life imprisonment.

District Judge DharmeshSharma, however, acquittedco-accused Shashi Singh of allcharges. Convicting Sengar,53, under Protection ofChildren from Sexual Offences

(POCSO) Act, the court saidthe CBI proved that the victimwas a minor and he was right-ly prosecuted under the speciallaw. “I found her statementtruthful and unblemished thatshe was sexually assaulted. Shewas under threat, worried. Sheis a village girl, not from cos-mopolitan educated area...Sengar was powerful person. Soshe took her time..,” the judgesaid while reading out the verdict.

Continued on Page 4

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Union Home Minister cumBJP national president

Amit Shah on Monday assuredthat a “grand” Ram temple willbe constructed in Ayodhyawithin four months from now.Shah addressing public rallies inPakur and Poraiyahat of SanthalPargana said, “The SupremeCourt has given its verdict. Nowwithin four months, a sky-high temple of Lord Rama willbe built in Ayodhya.”

The BJP national presi-dent on the occasion alsoattacked Congress party forcreating obstacles and keepingthe issue pending for decades.He said, “Congress has thepolitics of keeping issue ofnational importance on pend-ing list.

Continued on Page 4

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As the law & order situationimproved in Assam, the

administration on Mondayrelaxed curfew from 6 am to 9pm in Guwahati but trainsbetween West Bengal and theNortheast have come to a com-plete halt with the EasternRailway suspending all its ser-vices to the northern region ofthe State.

However, Assam Minister

Himanta Biswa Sarma allegedthe involvement of a Congressactivist in the incident involvingvandalism at the SankardevKalakshetra in Guwahati duringthe protests against the amend-ed Citizenship Act. “If he(Congress activist) has done inhis individual capacity or waspart of an organised crime thatneeds to be probed,” Sarma said.

He said there is a specificpattern in the mob violence inGuwahati. “There is a huge

involvement of people whoare not citizens of Guwahatiand who have come from thelower Assam districts.”

Whether they have comefor participation in the agita-tion or they have been broughthere by some kind of design,will be investigated by theGovernment. The Constitutionof a proper investigation teamwill be announced in a day ortwo, he said, adding curfew hasbeen withdrawn and there will

not be curfew during the daytime. However, night curfewwill remain imposed until thesituation is reviewed and adecision to the effect is taken,he maintained. Sarma said thesituation was returning to nor-malcy and soon the curfew willbe lifted and internet servicesrestored. Efforts were on to liftrestrictions so that education-al institutions could be opened,he added.

Continued on Page 4

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The Supreme Court onMonday took serious note

of rioting and destruction ofpublic property duringprotests against theCitizenship Amendment Actacross the country and saidthat “violence must stopimmediately”.

The top court said it,prima facie, does not think

court can do much in the mat-ter as it is a law and orderproblem and police forceshave to control it.

The apex court, whichagreed to hear on Tuesdaypleas alleging police atrocitieson students holding protestsagainst the Act at AligarhMuslim University and JamiaMillia Islamia here, said it willnot hear this issue in such anatmosphere of violence.

A Bench headed by ChiefJustice SA Bobde said, “We arenot here to blame anybody. All

we are saying is that this vio-lence must stop.”

“If protests and violenceand damage of public proper-ty will be there, we will nothear the matter,” it added. TheBench, also comprising justicesBR Gavai and Surya Kant,made the observations after agroup of lawyers led by senioradvocate Indira Jaising andColin Gonsalves urged it totake suo motu cognisance ofthe alleged violence unleashedagainst protesting students.

Continued on Page 4

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The Government on Mondayappointed Vice Chief of

Army Lt General ManojMukund Naravane as the nextArmy Chief after incumbentGeneral Bipin Rawat’s tenureends on December 31.Naravane took over as the ViceChief in September.

Before that he served as theEastern Army Commanderand Commander ArmyTraining Command(ARTRAC), commissionedinto the Sikh Light Infantry,commanded a Rashtriya Riflesbattalion in Kashmir, served inthe Assam Rifles and has beenposted as defence attache toMyanmar. He will be the thirdArmy Chief from the SikhLight regiment after Gen VPMalik and Gen Bikram Singh.

Continued on Page 4

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Page 2: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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The Crime Branch will inves-tigate the Jamia violence

and people should not pay anyheed to social media rumours,the Delhi Police said on Mondayand insisted that there was nofiring during the incident.

Explaining the entiresequence since day 1 protest atJamia, Mandeep Singh Ran-dhawa, the Deputy Com-missioner of Police (DCP), andPublic Relation officer (PRO) ofDelhi Police, the protest at Jamiastarted on Friday and properarrangements were in place withpicket deployment in SaraiJullena and Sukhdev Nagar.

“When students arrived atthese places, they were stoppedand they even tried to push thepolicemen who exercised max-imum restraint. These studentsleft the spot after a while,” saidRandhawa.

“The protests followed onSaturday but police used maxi-mum restraint after which thedemonstrators left the spot. OnSunday, the protests startedaround 2 pm and residents of thearea also joined the students.

The protest took place in JamiaNagar and adjoining areas,” saidthe PRO.

“The protesters thenmarched towards Sarai Jullena,but our police personnel weredeployed there and properarrangements were made. Theprotesters were provoking butwe used maximum restraint,”Randhawa said.

“Around 4.30 pm, some ofthe protesters changed the routeand headed toward MataMandhir Marg in the NewFriends Colony area which is

also a residential area. Afterreaching there, when policetried to push them, they resort-ed to vandalism. We started get-ting calls from panic residents.We used minimum force whenprotesters torched buses,” saidthe DCP.

“Police were pelted withstones when they tried to pushthe protesters back towardsJamia Nagar. The Jamia campusis not unified and it is situatedon both sides of the road, whenviolence erupted there, bottles,bulb and tube lights were also

thrown,” said the DCP.“The situation was later

brought under control. At least30 police personnel, includingDCP rank officers, sufferedinjuries and one of them is stillin the Intensive Care Unit(ICU),” he said.

Some students weredetained when police were chas-ing protesters and trying topush them towards Jamia Nagar.Later, they were released afterverification,” said the DCP.

“Police will take actionagainst those involved in illegal

activity. We are trying to iden-tify those involved in the inci-dent and action will be takenagainst them,” said the DCP.

“One of the videos viral onsocial media shows police per-sonnel setting vehicles on fire,however, it was just a spark andpolicemen were containing itimmediately with availableresources. The bus did not suf-fer any damage and it was safe-ly removed from the scene,” headded. When asked if policeentered the girls’ hostel, theofficer denied the charges andsaid the force only enteredadministrative block of theUniversity.

Meanwhile The Pioneertalked to Jamia student, AnasSiddiqui who said that the policecalled them terrorists and daredthem to come out of the campusand face them.

“Our collage mates havebeen beaten up badly. Thepolicemen entered bathrooms,libraries and beaten up girls. Ourprotest is against the goonscalled Delhi Police,” a researchscholar, who did not want to beidentified, said on Monday.

A few students and localswere seen clearing the roads toallow smooth movement ofvehicles. Bano, a local, saidpolice patrolled Jamia Nagar andthe neighbourhood and claimedthat there was a “lockdown” inthe area.

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After Jawaharlal NehruUniversity (JNU), several

students of Delhi University(DU) also boycotted theirexams and held a protest onMonday in solidarity with theJamia Millia Islamia Universitystudents who staged protestagainst the CitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA).

The students also raisedslogans against the Delhi Policefor using tear gas and laathi-charging the protesting stu-dents of Jamia on Sunday.

However, the DU protestultimately turned into a clashbetween the Akhil BhartiyaVidyarti Parishad (ABVP)and National Student Union ofIndia (NSUI) and Left affiliat-ed students.

Videos of alleged activistsbeating the protesting studentsat Arts faculty went viral.Witnessing the students gath-ering against the Delhi Police,the DU teachers have also calleda protest at the Art Faculty insupport of the protesting stu-dents against the police action.

Some teachers haveclaimed that police used forceon protesters in the DU cam-pus as well. Some studentswere said to be detained andtaken to Maurice Nagar PoliceStation. However, Delhi Policedenied the allegations and said,“No students were detained.

With their permission, theywere just taken to disperse theprotest to avoid any kind ofclash between the groups.”

NSUI and Left backed stu-dents unions such as All IndiaStudent Association (AISA)and Student Federation of India(SFI) has alleged that someABVP activists has barged intothe protest and started assault-ing the protesting students.“We have evidence and videoand the people who are hitting,attacking and abusing are

ABVP activists and membersand are not the students of DU.they can clearly be seen assault-ing students at Arts Faculty. Itis clear that this was a wellcoordinated and plannedattempt to assault students byABVP goons,” said AkshayLakra, Delhi State President ofNSUI.

While Akshit Dahiya,President of Delhi UniversityStudent Union (DUSU),“Everyone has the right toprotest but these leftists force-

fully entered the examinationhalls where the students werewriting their Political Sciencepaper. You have your choice toboycott the examination butwhy are you ruining others’exam. The students appearingfor the exams came to me in themorning for help and as a pres-ident of DUSU, I will help andthe protesters also raised anti-national slogans and we cannotbear such nuisances in ourUniversity.”

Dahiya also claimed that,

“They raised anti-national slo-gans in front of me. We cannever let such things happen inDU. We reject any lockdowncall for DU and I reach out toall students to appear for examswithout fear. We condemn theact of such violent perpetratorsand such environment buildingcannot be tolerated.”

ABVP members alsoclaimed that this was a pre-planned protest and the pro-testers have planned to disruptthe ongoing examinations.

“I am neither with AISA,ABVP or NSUI. I came toprotest in solidarity with Jamiastudents against the DelhiPolice and CAA. The protestwas silent but some ABVPmembers and activists force-fully started abusing and beat-ing, kicking the students,” saidAlishan, a student of DU.

Another student NeeravMadhav said, “We were con-ducting a peaceful protestagainst the CAA but the policeforcefully crackdown on theprotesters.” However, a seniorpolice officer said some stu-dents were stopping othersfrom taking exams and policewere there keeping a watch.

“We were at the campusjust to keep a watch as somestudents who were stoppingothers from taking exams,”said Monika Bhardwaj, DeputyCommissioner of Police(North).

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Condemning the Delhi Policecrackdown against students,

Najma Akhtar, the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of JamiaMillia Islamia (JMI) on Mondaydemanded a high-level probeinto the incident. Stating thatnearly 200 students have beeninjured, the V-C said that theatrocity against students, espe-cially inside the library, wasunacceptable.

Akhtar asserted the univer-sity will not tolerate police pres-ence on campus. She also madeit clear that the Jamia adminis-tration will not allow any polit-ical person to visit the universi-ty and will only coordinate withthe HRD Ministry.

“Police entered the campuswithout permission. We willnot tolerate their presence on thecampus. They scared our stu-dents with brutality. There hasbeen huge damage to universi-ty property,” said Akhtar.

“We will file a complaint on

damage of property and police action on students. Wewant a high-level inquiry. I willpresent facts to the HRDMinister. I have already spokento the HRD Secretary andbriefed him about the situation,”she added

The V-C appealed to peoplenot to believe in rumors. Shedenied that any student diedduring Sunday’s violence, butsaid 200 were injured.

“There’s been a great loss,who will compensate for that?And what about our emotional loss, our confidenceloss? The incident has also leftbad impact on students psy-chologically? Who will beresponsible for that? Ten thou-sand people are running on theroad and you chase 10 inside thecampus?” she said whileaddressing media persons onMonday.

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Several parents and localguardians of students study-

ing in Jamia Millia Islamiacame out in support of the stu-dents and condemned policeaction during a protest over theamended Citizenship Act a dayearlier.

The parents, mostly fromnearby areas, said they couldnot confined themselves totheir homes when their chil-dren were being attacked.

Saira Bano, 55, whose twochildren studying in the uni-versity said that no motherwould tolerate the atrocitiesbeing inflicted on the studentsof Jamia.

Zaheer Ahmed, 60, said hewas accompanying his daugh-ter to the protest against thepolitics of hatred.

Shaheen Kausar, 52, wholed a group of women to theprotest site, said the studentswere dragged, pushed, kickedand caned.

“It is not only about mychildren. This is about all thosewho have come leaving theirfamilies behind. These stu-dents have come from all cor-ners of our the country and areall our children,” said Kausar.

A group of around 50women, including students andtheir family members, demand-ed that Home Minister Amit

Shah resignation in the wake ofpolice atrocities inflicted on stu-dents on Sunday.

“My name is not important,my voice is. We are not goingto backout. Our sisters andbrothers were pulled by theirhair and dragged on streets.Their clothes were torn andthey were left for dead. This isnot Palestine. We won’t give upuntil Amit Shah resigns,” said agirl student, who did not wishto be identified.

“Delhi Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal and universi-ty Vice-Chancellor NajmaAkhtar did not even bother tovisit the injured students,” theprotesters alleged.

Earlier, when a few womenescorted an injured student tonarrate their ordeal to themedia, some people were seenasking them not to give anystatements.

“We were inside the uni-versity when the police bargedin. Around 20 policemen camefrom gate no 7 and 50 otherscame from the rear gate. Wetold them we were not involvedin the violence. They didn’t lis-ten. They didn’t even sparewomen,” said Khanzala, whosuffered injuries in the legs andabdomen. Abdur Rehman, astudent of the physiotherapydepartment, claimed that hospitals in the locality, barring Holy Family, denied

treatment to the injured stu-dents.

Rakshanda, another stu-dent, alleged that the policefailed to control the violence onSunday and targeted themwhen they could do nothing about the actual

culprits.Protestors torched four

public buses and two policevehicles on Sunday as theyclashed with police in NewFriends’ Colony near JamiaMillia Islamia during a demon-stration against the amended

Citizenship Act, leaving nearly 60 people, includingstudents, policemen and firefighters injured. Policehad used batons and teargas shells to disperse theviolent mob, but denied firingat them.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party’s(BJP’s) Delhi unit has

lodged a complaint with policeagainst Deputy Chief MinisterManish Sisodia and other AAPleaders on Monday accusingthem of inciting Sunday’s vio-lence during a protest againstthe amended citizenship lawnear Jamia Millia Islamia.

The complaint filed withthe Delhi Police Commissioneraccused Sisodia, Aam AadmiParty (AAP) MLAAmanatullah Khan and otherparty leaders of hatching crim-inal conspiracy and incitingviolence.

Delhi BJP president ManojTiwari lodged the complaint ina meeting with PoliceCommissioner AmulyaPatnaik. The complaint wassigned by Tiwari, South DelhiBJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri andother party leaders.

The BJP leaders demand-ed a thorough and time-boundprobe into the violence andarson in the Jamia Nagar area.Earlier, in a Press conferenceTiwari accused Sisodia ofdefaming police by circulatinga video.

Sisodia had on Sunday

tweeted a purported video ofthe incident and wrote, “TheBJP scared of defeat in(Assembly) polls is puttingDelhi on fire. The AAP isagainst any kind of violence. Itis BJP’s petty politics. See in thisvideo how under police pro-tection arson is being carried out.”

The mob tried to torch thebus but the policemen put itout using water, Tiwari saidclaiming that the bus was onlydamaged and not gutted.

Tiwari blamed AAP lead-ers, including Sisodia andAmanatullah Khan, for “insti-gating” people and urged stu-dents not to become a “pawn”of politicians like them.

Scores of protesters includ-ing Jamia students, policemenand locals were injured, fourpublic buses were torched andover 100 private vehicles weredamaged in the violence andarson that took place duringthe protest on Sunday.

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The Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) leader and Rajya

Sabha Member Sanjay Singh onMonday said ever since AmitShah has taken the charge ofHome Ministry, the DelhiPolice has been resorting toextreme brutalities on all sec-tions - lawyers, students, farm-ers, differently-abled personsand even on women.

Following the ongoingprotest and violence in theJamia Millia Islamia Universitylast week, Singh issued a state-ment reacting to the BJP com-ments and allegations whopointed AAP for the ongoingprotest at Jamia and across thecity.

“The law and order situa-tion in national Capital is amatter of serious concern anda thorough inquiry is requiredto find out who burnt thebuses on Sunday evening dur-ing the protest held by the stu-dents of Jamia Millia IslamiaUniversity students. Whoeveris behind the conspiracy andthe BJP’s role in the entire inci-dent needs to be exposed,’ hesaid.

He added, “Peace shouldbe restored at the earliest andwe have appealed to Delhiites

to stay away from any activitywhere there could be a possi-bility of any kind of violentactivity. At present, need of thehour is to ensure that we raiseour voice in a completelydemocratic manner withinConstitutional permitted lim-its with all courage.”

AAP further condemnedthe Delhi Police action(laathi-charge and tear gas)against the students of JamiaUniversity on Sundayevening.

“The entry of policeinside the university campus,library and the hostels with-out the permission of uni-versity needs to be con-demned in strongest possibleterms,” they said.

Singh further said in thestatement that the BJP isresorting to its original ‘dirtypolitics’ sensing its route inthe coming Assembly elec-tions.

“It needs to keep in mindthat even before the 2015Assembly polls; BJP had triedthe same tactics in Trilokpuriand Bawana. It is doing theplaying the same game againby defaming the OkhlaMember of Legislative(MLA) Amanatullah Khan,though it is in public domain

that the MLA was not even pre-sent at the spot where the agi-tation turned violent. Hismovement of Sunday is pub-licly known and is recorded inCCTV cameras of the area,” headded.

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Page 3: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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While Indian Army cele-brated Vijay Diwas,

marking the 48th anniversaryof 1971 Indo-Pak war onMonday, two Indian soldierssacrificed their lives during'unprovoked' ceasefire viola-tions by Pakistan Army alongthe line of control in four dif-ferent sectors across J&K.

In North Kashmir's Gurezsector, an Indian soldier sacri-ficed his life in heavy firing byPakistan Army on Monday.Hitting back, Indian Armyretaliated strongly.

According to DefencePRO, the martyred soldier hasbeen identified as HavildarChougule Jotiba Ganpati. Hehailed from Kolhapur districtof Maharashtra and is sur-vived by his wife.

In Jammu region, PakistanArmy attempted to push agroup of heavily armed infil-trators via Sunderbani late

Monday evening. However, Indian troops,

after noticing suspiciousmovement along LoC inLaleali, Sunderbani sectorretaliated strongly to foil anyinfiltration bid under the garbof cover firing by the PakistaniArmy.

In the ongoing heavyexchange of fire, one soldierattained martyrdom.

According to Defence PROLt Col Devendra Anand, "Afternoticing the suspicious move-ment along LoC in Lalealiarea of Sunderbani sectors,Indian army troops chal-lenged them". "Initially, it wasretaliated by fire and then aheavy explosion took placefollowed by heavy firing fromPakistan to support the suspi-cious movement".

Till the time of filing thereport, the operation in thearea was going on and heavyexchange of fire was takingplace from both sides.

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Following a complaint byBJP leaders, led by Union

Textile Minister Smriti Irani,the Election Commission (EC)has sought a factual reportfrom the Jharkhand chief elec-toral officer on Congress leaderRahul Gandhi’s ‘rape in India’comment.

Sources in the EC saidfurther action would be decid-ed after getting the report.“The transcript should be withus anytime now. We are busywith polling in Jharkhand atpresent,” said a senior EC func-tionary.

Addressing the rally inJharkhand’s Godda onThursday, Rahul had said,“Narendra Modi had said'Make in India' but nowadayswherever you look, it is 'Rapein India'.

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An audit panel’s report,highlighting a range of

irregularities in the functioningof the Delhi-based SafdarjungHospital’s Sports Injury Centre(SIC), is languishing with theUnion Health Ministry for thelast several months in want ofaction. Interestingly, the panelwas set up by the HealthMinistry itself.

The seven-member panel inits extensive 62 pages report, sub-mitted to the Ministry in March

2019 for further action, hadpointed out frauds in procure-ment of equipments and facili-ties, financial mismanagementand serious discrepancies inappointments of healthcare pro-fessionals. Prior to this report,the panel had earlier submittedan interim report to the UnionHealth Ministry in October2018 which said that “availablerecords and evidence, prima-facie, indicate collusion of SICwith some suppliers therebycausing loss to the patients andpublic exchequer.”

The panel headed by JointSecretary Rajeev Manjhi was setup by the Ministry followingallegations of financial mis-management in the SIC’s func-tioning in various areas rangingfrom equipments and facilitiesfor operation theatres to theirprocurement and maintenance.

Both the reports have rec-ommended a detailed probeinto the matter in view of “bla-tant violation of CVCs instruc-tions and has sought immedi-ate action against those respon-sible for irregularities” occurred

during the tenure of the thendirector of the SIC, Dr DeepakChaudhary. The matter is nowunder the scanner of UnionHealth Minister Harshvardhan.

The probe panel in itsreport said “On scrutiny of thefiles pertaining to procurementof equipments and facilities foroperation theatre and physio-therapy units of the SIC, it hasbeen observed that there are bla-tant violations of general finan-cial rules (GFRs) and the pro-cedures adopted are repugnantto CVC instructions.”

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From Page 1“We will determine every-

thing but not in this atmos-phere of violence. What is this?Public properties are beingdestroyed, buses are beingburnt,” the Bench said.

When the advocates insist-ed that the court must take cog-nisance of the issue, the CJIsaid, “We are not to be bulliedlike this. If you want the courtto hear the matter then this vio-lence has to stop.”

The Bench said, “Primafacie, we do not see that courtcan do much about it. It is a lawand order problem and policehas to control the situation.”

At the outset, Jaising saidthat the apex court shouldtake suo motu cognisance ofthe violence unleashed on stu-dents all over the country,especially in Aligarh MuslimUniversity.

She told the court she hasreceived messages from thestudents that they are feelinghelpless as no one is there tolook after them.

The senior lawyer said seri-ous violence has taken place

against the students who wereprotesting peacefully and sev-eral of them have been hospi-talised with broken limbs andare running helter-skelter.

“It is serious human rightsviolation,” Jaising said, addingthat when there was a clashbetween lawyers and police ata district court premises here,the Delhi High Court hadtaken suo motu cognisance ofthe incident and passed orders.

“No one can stop peacefuldemonstrations. We don’t wantany rioting. These riotingshave been engineered andblamed on students,” Jaisingsaid. Gonsalves told the courtthat he had visited the hospi-tal and lockup on Sundaywhere students form JamiaMillia Islamia were kept by thepolice. The Bench asked thegroup of lawyers not to speakin unison and argue one byone.

“We are not here to blameanybody. All that we are sayingis we want the riot to stop,” itsaid, adding, “But first stop theviolence. If you want to go tostreets like this we can’t help

you. We are not against peace-ful demonstration”.

Gonsalves said that he isfor the students and the courtshould consider what the ViceChancellor of AMU and ChiefProctor of Jamia Millia Islamiahave said over the violence ontheir campuses.

“I understand that courtcannot be taken to ransom. Iwant only one thing that courtshould constitute a committeeof former judges to go to AMUand see what is happeningthere,” Gonsalves said.

To this, the bench said,“We will do that but let therebe peace first. We don’t knowwhat is happening. If theprotests and violence continue,we will not here you.”

The Bench then asked thelawyers to file their petitionsand said it would hear them onTuesday.

Students of Jamia MilliaIslamia and locals protested atJamia Nagar in Delhi onSunday against the amendedCitizenship Act.

Protesters torched fourbuses and two police vehiclesas they clashed with police inNew Friends Colony.

Police baton charged theprotesters and used tear gasshells to disperse the mob

before entering the varsitycampus, detaining several per-sons allegedly involved in theviolence.

Later in the day, a plea wasfiled by present and ex-studentsof Jamia Millia Islamia, led byVani Xaxa and others, seekingappointment of an independentjudicial inquiry by a retiredapex court or high court judgeinto the entire episode ofSunday and for fixing theresponsibilities for the lapses.

The plea also sought direc-tions to the Centre to forthwithremove the Delhi Police aswell as allied forces deployed byit from the precincts of the uni-versity.

It also sought directions toforthwith release of bona fidestudents of the varsity whowere illegally detained by theDelhi Police from the precinctsof the university on December15, in the midst of the ongoingpeaceful and democraticprotest.

The plea sought directionsto the Registrar of theUniversity to freeze the CCTVfootage recorded by theProctor’s Office, Students

Affairs’ Section and Officeof the Security Advisor, for thepurpose of judicial inquiry.

From Page 1The incoming chief has to sustain the

momentum of Rawat’s modernisation andreform of the Indian Army sinceIndependence. Naravane as the new chiefhave to make the army leaner and mean-er to the fight modern day battle in anenvironment of information technologyand space warfare.

With the appointment of the nextArmy chief, the next awaited appoint-ment is that of the country’s first Chief ofDefence Staff (CDS) expected in the nextfew days. Rawat is the front runner for thepost of CDS.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in hisIndependence Day address this year,announced the appointment of a CDSwho will be above the three Chiefs, a longpending demand to bring in synergy andenable tri-Service integration.

An Implementation Committee head-ed by the National Security Advisor wasconstituted to finalise the roles andmodalities of the post of CDS and thecommittee has submitted its report to theCabinet Committee on Security (CCS).

The CDS will act as the single-pointmilitary adviser to the government onmilitary and strategic issues and will alsooversee common service issues like pro-curement, training and logistics.

From Page 1And in a series of tweets,

Modi assured that the amend-ed citizenship law does notaffect any Indian of any reli-gion. “This is the time to main-tain peace, unity and brother-hood. It is my appeal to every-one to stay away from any sortof rumour-mongering andfalsehoods,” Modi stated.

Modi said he unequivocal-ly assures people that thetweaked law does not affect anycitizen of India of any religion.“No Indian has anything toworry regarding this Act. ThisAct is only for those who havefaced years of persecution out-side and have no other place togo except India,” he tweeted.

The Congress, on its part,led by Priyanka Gandhi, held a

symbolic dharna at India Gateeven as party chief SoniaGandhi is scheduled to call onPresident Ram Nath Kovind onTuesday to brief about the cur-rent situation in the aftermathof controversial Act.

In a statement, Soniaaccused the Modi Governmentof being the “creator of violenceand divisiveness” which hasdeclared a war against its ownpeople and said the writers ofthis script of polarisation areModi and Home Minister AmitShah.

Azad also rejected thecharges levelled by Modi thatthe Congress is behind theviolent protests. “It is wrong tomake such accusations and wecondemn it,” he said.

The CPI-M said it wouldfile a petition in the SupremeCourt against the CAA sayingthe tweaked law is violative ofconstitutional provisions. The

party said the amended law isviolative of constitutional pro-visions. Yechury demanded aprobe by a Supreme Courtjudge in the incident.

D Raja said those whogave the orders for police entryin Jamia should be bought tobook and punished. “There isa civil war-like situation in thecountry for which Shah and thePM should be held responsi-ble,” Raja said.

The Left announced that itwould hold a countrywideprotest on December 19 andappealed to all secular anddemocratic forces to join theagitation while RJD’s Manoj Jhasaid history will not forgive theBJP and to protest a call hasbeen given for Bihar bandhon December 21.

SP leader Ram GopalYadav called for an emer-gency session of Parliamentto amend the law.

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From Page 1Congress leader and former Union

Minister Kapil Sibal with an aim to keepAyodhya issue pending had even opposedday-to-day hearing of Ayodhya issue inSupreme Court.”

The Supreme Court on November 9,paved way for construction of Ram tem-ple in Ayodhya as the five- judge benchheaded by then CJI Ranjan Gogoi had aunanimous verdict decreeing the entire2.77 acre disputed land in favour of deity‘Ram Lalla’. The Apex Court had alsodirected Union Government to set up atrust within three months for the con-struction of the Ram Mandir at the dis-puted site. Two days after the verdict, theHome Ministry had started working on set-ting up the trust that will monitor the con-struction.

Shah, on the occasion, also attacked for-mer national president of Congress RahulGandhi for having little knowledge andinformation about country’s affair such asArticle 370, Ayodhya issue and CitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA).

Addressing people Shah said, “I havecome to know that Rahul Baba, who is alsocampaigning in Jharkhand saying that thepeople of Jharkhand have no links or con-nection with Kashmir, Ayodhya and theseissue (Abrogation of Article 370 fromKashmir and SC verdict on Ayodhya) will

have little impact in Jharkhand.” Shah said,“I ask from Rahul Baba that whether themartyrs’ soldier does not come fromJharkhand. Will the construction of RamTemple in Ayodhya will not fulfill thedreams of lakhs of people of State of hav-ing a grand temple in Ayodhya.”

Shah on the occasion also highlight-ed the development works carried out byRaghubar Das government in State. Hewent on to highlight that under the tenureof Narendra Modi and Prime Minister andRaghubar Das as Chief Minister both theCentre and State have initiated severalinfrastructure works in State particularlyin Santhal such as construction of AIIMSand Airport in Deoghar, medical collegein Dumka and waterways terminal inSahibganj among others.

Not only Shah, Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister and firebrand BJP leader YogiAdityanath who too was in Santhal Parganatoo talked about construction of huge tem-ple in Ayodhya. Addressing a rally inJamtara, Yogi said, “If someone IrfanAnsari wins, how will Ram temple be builtin Ayodhya?” He said, “The Ram Templewill not be a religious temple, but it is anation temple to be built on the birthplaceof God, on which the soul of India will beseated. Which will make the world realizethe power of India’s judiciary, democracy?”Irfan Ansari is sitting Congress MLA fromJamtara.

Adityanath said that in 500 years,Hindus fought 176 battles, many millionsof Hindu sacrificed their lives for the landof Ram Janmabhoomi. “Today strongdemocracy and judiciary and the BJP gov-ernment, an atmosphere of security is therein country paving the way for the con-struction of Ram temple.”

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From Page 1The IMD also predicted

that a fresh WesternDisturbance is likely to affecthills of western Himalayanregion from December 18onwards. “Over the plains ofNorth and North west India,northwesterly cool and drywinds will prevail which maylead to cold day conditions forthe next three days. The weath-

er is likely to be dry overremaining parts of the country,”said Dr Kuldeep Srivastava,Senior Scientist of the IMD.

“The mercury is expectedto hover around 7 degreesCelsius over the next threedays and dense fog is likely inthe city and adjoining areas likePunjab, Haryana, Chandigarh,north Rajasthan and UttarPradesh which bear the foot-print of the western distur-bance as it passed across theregion from the West to the

East over the past two or threedays, when it either rainedover the plains or snowed in thehills,” he said.

The series of western dis-turbances will continue to mod-ulate the winter conditions inthis manner during the rest ofthis month and the two monthsthat follow (January andFebruary). “But the one monthfrom mid-December to mid-January is most critical due tothe peak fog season when air,rail and road traffic over Northand North-West India get dis-rupted,”Dr Srivastava added. Afollow-up incoming westerndisturbance arriving fromacross the international borderin the next couple of days isexpected to be a feeble one andmay at best trigger snow alongthe hills of the region.

According to IMD,Pathankot in Punjab andUnion Territory Chandigarhon Monday recorded the sea-son’s coldest day so far at 9.9degrees Celsius and 11.4degrees Celsius respectivelyas maximum temperaturesdropped sharply in the region.

Himachal Pradesh’s capitalShimla received fresh snowfallovernight while Keylong,Kalpa, Manali and Kufri shiv-ered at sub-zero temperatures.Meanwhile, cold wave condi-

tions intensified as tourist des-tination Manali shivered atminus 4.8 degrees Celsius whileKufri recorded minus 1.2degrees Celsius. The lowesttemperature in the state wasrecorded in Lahaul-Spiti’sadministrative centre Keylongat minus 14.9 degrees Celsius..

In Jammu and Kashmir,the IMD has forecast dryweather in the plains and thehigher reaches of the two unionterritories for the next fourdays. Drass town, popularlyknown as ‘the gateway toLadakh’, recorded a minimumof minus 27.2 degrees Celsius,making it the coldest recordedplace in the region. Drassplummeted to an unforgivingminus 60 degrees Celsius onJanuary 9, 1995.

The IMD said Leh town ofLadakh continued to freeze ata low of minus 16.7 degreesCelsius. Srinagar, which wit-nessed an unprecedentedsnowfall last week, marked adip in the day and night tem-peratures which settled at 5.8degrees Celsius and minus 1.6degrees Celsius, respectively, hesaid.The IMD said that coldday conditions prevailed inparts of Rajasthan with thestate’s only hill station MountAbu recording a minimum of1.4 degree Celsius.

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From Page 1In entire Assam, 136 cases

of vandalism and other relatedcrimes have been registeredand 190 persons have beenarrested in connection with therecent incidents that occurredin Guwahati and other parts ofthe State.

Some protesters and theirleaders were detained inGuwahati and later released butInternet services were sus-pended for another 24 hours toprevent “misuse” of socialmedia to disturb peace, officialssaid.

In Dibrugarh district,where curfew has been easedbetween 6 AM to 8 PM, theadministration has warnedpeople against holding protestmeets without permissionbeyond 3 PM.

AASU chief advisorSamujjal Bhattacharya and gen-eral secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoiwere taken into police custodywith more than a hundredprotesters during a rally inGuwahati. They were later letoff.

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From Page 1When the judge started

pronouncing the verdict, co-accused Singh fainted.

The court noted that afterthe victim wrote letter to theUP Chief Minister YogiAdityanath, several criminalcases were filed against herfamily and “imprints of Sengar”were visible in them. The courtexpressed surprise over thedelay by the CBI in filing

charge sheet in the rapecase and said it prolonged trialagainst Sengar and others.

The court pulled up the CBIfor delay in filing the charge asalso the absence of women offi-cer in conducting the probe“without bothering for the kindof harassment, anguish and re-victimisation that occurs for avictim of sexual assault”.

It also expressed displea-sure over the agency leakingselectively the vital informationrelating to the statement of thesurvivor to put a cloud over hercase.

The court said that“according to law there shouldbe female officers in CBI torecord statement of victims in

such cases but surprisingly thegirl was called many times toCBI office instead of going toher residence”.

It noted that investigationin such cases has to be con-ducted by a woman officer asmandated under Section 24 ofthe POCSO Act but the succes-sive statements of the victim girlhad been recorded by calling herat the CBI office “without both-ering for the kind of harassment,anguish and re-victimisationthat occurs for a victim of sex-ual assault in such case”.

Referring to the POCSO,which had come into being toimpart expeditious justiceinvolving children as victims ofsexual assault, the court saidthere was “nothing wrong”with law but its ineffectiveimplementation on ground andlack of human approach of offi-cers concerned led to a situa-tion where justice was delayed.

It said that the CBI itselfwas not following the manualrelating to investigation andprosecution.

The woman was allegedlykidnapped and raped by Sengarin 2017 when she was aminor.The court had alsoframed charges against co-accused Shashi Singh in thecase. Sengar, a four-time BJP

MLA from UP’s Bangermau,was expelled from the BJP inAugust 2019.

The court had on August9 framed charges against theMLA and Singh under Sections120 b (criminal conspiracy),363 (kidnapping), 366 (kid-napping or inducing a womanto compel for marriage), 376(rape) and other relevant sec-tions of the Protection ofChildren from Sexual Offences(POCSO) Act.

The trial in the high pro-file case was held in-cameraafter the Supreme Court trans-ferred the matter from UP tothe national capital.

A special court was alsoheld at AIIMS hospital here onSeptember 11, 12 and 13 torecord the statement of the rapesurvivor, who was admittedthere after she was air-liftedfrom a hospital in Lucknow.

The judge heard the caseon a day-to-day basis fromAugust 5 after it was transferredto Delhi from a court inLucknow on Supreme Court’sdirections.

On July 28 this year, the carof the survivor was hit by atruck and she was severelyinjured. The woman’s two auntswere killed in the accident andher family had alleged foul play.

Her father was allegedlyframed in an illegal arms caseand arrested on April 3, 2018. Hedied while in judicial custody afew days later, on April 9. Thelocal court here has framedmurder and other chargesagainst the MLA, his brotherAtul and nine others in the case.

The apex court, takingcognisance of the rape sur-vivor’s letter written to theChief Justice of India RanjanGogoi, had on August 1 trans-ferred all five cases registeredin connection with the Unnaorape incident from a Lucknowcourt in Uttar Pradesh to thecourt in Delhi with directionsto hold trial on daily basis andcompleting it within 45-days.The trial in the other four cases-- framing of the rape survivor’sfather in illegal firearms caseand his death in judicial cus-tody, conspiracy of Sengar withothers in the accident case anda separate case of gang rape ofthe rape survivor by three oth-ers -- are ongoing in the court.

During the trial in the rapecase which was held in-camera,13 prosecution witnesses andnine defence witnesses wereexamined.

The mother of the rapesurvivor and her uncle were themain witnesses in the case.

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From Page 1Our ideal is harmony of all

religions. We won’t let anyoneleave Bengal. We will live inpeace and free of anxiety. Wewon’t allow NRC and CAA inBengal. We have to maintainpeace.”

Asking the people not totake law and order into theirhands, she said there weresome agents imported by theBJP (read All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen ofAasduddin Owaisi) who werecreating trouble in Bengal tobring Muslims to disrepute.

“Don’t fall into the traps ofthe imported agents from otherStates (Hyderabad) who aretorching public properties andbringing Muslims to disre-pute,” Banerjee said adding“we are all one and united andwill continue our strugglepeacefully.”

Just as Banerjee took outthe massive rally condemningthe Centre’s “divisive politics”the State Governor dismissedher act as”unconstitutional”and advised her to concentrateon restoring peace rather thanmaking pledges to break lawsbeing a Chief Minister herself.

“I am extremely anguished

that CM and Ministers are tospearhead rally against CAA,law of the land. This is uncon-stitutional. I call upon CM todesist from this unconstitu-tional and inflammatory act atthis juncture and devote toretrieve the grim situation,”the Governor who had onSunday urged the ChiefMinister to withdraw adver-tisements showing that theNRC and the CAA will not beimplemented in the State tweet-ed.

Late evening reports fromthe State secretariat at Nabannasaid the Chief Minister haswritten back to the Governorno to criticize her Ministersand senior officials at the hourof crisis and work together withthe Government to bring peacein the State.

Meanwhile, the State BJPquestioned the reason whyBanerjee delivered her speechin Hindi if her main concernwas those Bengali Muslimswhom she felt could be dis-placed. “It is surprising why shedelivered her speech in Hindiif the Bengali Muslims were hertarget audience. It seems thather intention was to make apoint before the Urdu speakingMuslims who were primarilyresponsible for dividing India,”State BJP president Dilip Ghosh

said.As the politicians played to

their respective galleries,Bengal continued to burn forthe third consecutive day onMonday, causing great hardshipto the general public. Reportsof violence and blockadespoured in from Nakashiparaand Simurali in Nadia whereburning tyres were thrown onthe roads to block traffic onNH-34 and Birbhum where theprotesters blocked three roadsfor hours.

In South 24 Parganas pro-testers at Baharu andDhabdhabi off Kolkata peltedstones at moving suburbantrains. Both East and WestMidnapore remained disturbedwith protesters torching vehi-cles and blocking roads. At porttown of Haldia trucks werehalted for hours due to block-ades. Railway sources saidabout 16 trains mainly going toNorth Bengal, Assam andKatihar in North Bihar had tobe cancelled on Monday tooowing to violence. Certainimportant trains to South likeCoromondal Express andHumsafar Express were can-celled sources said.

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Page 5: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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Page 6: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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The Supreme Court onMonday said it will hear on

December 18 a batch of pleas,including those by Congressleader Jairam Ramesh androyal scion of Tripura PradyotKishore Deb Barman, chal-lenging the constitutional valid-ity of the CitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA).

A Bench of Chief JusticeSA Bobde and Justices BRGavai and Surya Kant said thepleas will be heard along withother pending matters comingup for hearing on Wednesday.

Senior advocate AbhishekManu Singhvi mentioned forurgent listing of the two pleasand said they should also beheard along with a similar pleafiled by the Indian UnionMuslim League (IUML) that iscoming up for hearing onWednesday. “I have filed twopleas one by Indian NationalCongress and the other by ex-Maharaja of Tripura challeng-ing the validity of CitizenshipAmendment Act. All I want isthat they should come up forhearing along with a similarpetition filed by IUML onDecember 18,” Singhvi said.

Several petitions, includingby Trinamool Congress MPMahua Moitra have been filedin the Supreme Court chal-lenging the constitutional valid-

ity of the Citizenship(Amendment) Act 2019.

All India Majlis-e-IttehadulMuslimeen (AIMIM) leaderAsaduddin Owaisi has alsofiled a petition challenging thevalidity of the Act. He hassought direction declaring pro-visions of the Citizenship(Amendment) Act, 2019 as“unconstitutional, null and voidand ultra vires Articles 14, 21and 25 of the Constitution ofIndia and hence void ab initio”.

He said the presentAmendment Act miserablyfails on the touchstone ofArticle 14 and the parametersfor non-arbitrariness providedtherein. “The Act is primarilyfocussed on establishing a reli-gion-based classification whichis, in and of itself, an imper-missible classification andtherefore violative of Articles

14, 21 and 25 of the IndianConstitution,” his plea said.

Another petition has beenfiled through advocatePrashant Bhushan for fivehuman rights activists and aca-demicians led Harsh Manderchallenging the valildity of theCitizenship Act.

The plea had sought direc-tion for striking down from theprovisions of the Citizenship(Amendment) Act 2019 thewords “Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist,Jain, Parsi or ChristianCommunity from Afghanistan,Bangladesh or Pakistan, whoentered into India on or before31st day of December, 2014, oralternatively striking down theentire proviso to Section2(1)(b) introduced by theCitizenship (Amendment) Act,2019 as unconstitutional, ille-gal and void”.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Monday described

the violence and disturbancesover Citizenship AmendmentAct (CAA) as “unfortunate”and “deeply depressing” whilethe BJP attacked the Oppositionsaying some parties are tryingto “instigate” students and usingthem as “pawns” to furthertheir petty political interests.

While the ruling BJPaccused former Congress pres-ident Rahul Gandhi, WestBengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee and AIMIM leaderAsaduddin Owaisi of indulgingin the vote bank and appease-ment politics and causingHindu-Muslim divide, PrimeMinister asserted that

Citizenship Act will not affectany bona-fide citizen of any reli-gion. Modi appealed to peopleto stay away from rumour-mongering and not let “vestedinterests” divide the society.

In a series of tweets, Modialso assured that the amendedcitizenship law does not affectany Indian of any religion.

As violence and unrestspread across some States againstthe CA, the Prime Ministersaid “this is the time to maintainpeace, unity and brotherhood. Itis my appeal to everyone to stayaway from any sort of rumour-mongering and falsehoods.”

Violent protests on theamended citizenship law are“unfortunate and deeply dis-tressing”, he said adding thatdebate, discussion and dissent

are essential parts of democra-cy, “but never has damage topublic property and distur-bance of normal life been a partof our ethos.”

Modi said he unequivocal-ly assures people that tweakedlaw does not affect any citizenof India of any religion.

“No Indian has anything toworry regarding this Act. ThisAct is only for those who havefaced years of persecution out-side and have no other place togo except India,” he tweeted.

Asserting that the law waspassed by both Houses ofParliament with overwhelmingsupport, Modi said, “Largenumber of political parties andMPs supported its passage.This Act illustrates India’s cen-turies old culture of acceptance,

harmony, compassion andbrotherhood.”

The ruling BJP said someparties are trying to “instigate”students and using them as“pawns” to further their pettypolitical interests.

Addressing a Press confer-ence, BJP spokesperson SambitPatra accused the Oppositionparties of misleading peopleand trying to “bifurcate” thecountry in the name of Hindusand Muslims by firing from theshoulders of students.

These students are educat-ed and know that the

Citizenship Act does not dis-criminate against any Indiancitizen irrespective of caste orreligion, he said, and urgedpeople to heed the advice of thePrime Minister and ChiefJustice of India againstindulging in any violence.

Patra blamed Congressleader Rahul Gandhi, WestBengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee and AIMIM leaderAsaduddin Owaisi wanting tocurry favour for Muslim votesby orchestrating anti-Citizenship propaganda in thecountry.

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As unrest continues overthe Citizenship

(Amendment) Act in someparts of the country, France onMonday it is an “internal mat-ter of India” and “we respectthat”. Making this assertionhere, French AmbassadorEmmanuel Lenain said hiscountry believes in freedom ofreligion.

He also said though anadvisory was issued to Frenchcitizens travelling in India toavoid certain places due todisturbances, France did notchange the rating of India norissued any demarche.

Interacting with reporters,the French envoy said it is notcorrect to issue any publiccomment on an internal mat-ter. “India is a democracy andwhen there are conflicts inviews of people then they canapproach institutions like theSupreme Court which cancompetently take a decision. Idon’t think it is apt for anycountry to comment on thedomestic matter of India. Webelieve in freedom of religionand it is not for us to commenton the matter,” he said.

Asked if the IndianGovernment briefed countrieson issues like abrogation ofArticle 370 giving special statusto Jammu and Kashmir and theCitizenship Act, Lenain said dis-cussions take place at variouslevels regularly on all issues.

Briefing mediapersons onthe entire gamut of India-France relations, he said fightagainst terrorism is an impor-tant aspect and both the coun-tries share intelligence and

other operational details.Fielding a question about

cross-border terrorism spon-sored by Pakistan, he said“nobody can say Pakistan ful-filled its commitment” toaddress the issue.

Observing that the interna-tional body Financial ActionTask Force (FATF) against ter-rorism has given Pakistan adeadline till February next yearto stop terror finance, the Frenchenvoy said “we are very strict.Not an issue to be taken lightlyand we will maintain pressure.”

Regarding joint fightagainst terrorism, he said Indiaand France are victims of thisscourge and lauded the role ofIndia in taking part in the firstever international conferencehosted in Paris on financingterror last year. Australia willhost the next session followedby India thereby indicating theseriousness attached to theissue, Lenain said.

On growing ties in mar-itime security, he said the twocountries have increased theircommitment in this sphereand share data besides soonstarting joint patrolling. Healso said India will deploy P8Imaritime surveillance aircraft.

He made these observa-tions in the backdrop of boththe countries in an effort toprotect their strategic interestsin the Indian Ocean regiondeciding to embark on jointpatrolling. The Indian mar-itime surveillance plane will bedeployed with the primary aimto check illegal fishing.

In fact, last week visitingFrench Navy Vice AdmiralDidier Maleterre said, who isJoint Commander of the

French forces deployed in theIndian Ocean region, also saidthe two navies will ink anagreement early next year pro-viding for sharing of classifiedinformation for better opera-tional cooperation in theregion.

Giving this informationhere during a media interaction,he also expressed concern overChina expanding its maritimeinfluence in the region, includ-ing through strategic bases likeHambantota port in Sri Lanka,Gwadar port in Pakistan and akey military facility in Djiboutiin the Horn of Africa.

Maleterre said following theattacks on two tankers in southof the Strait of Hormuz aroundfive months back, India decid-ed to deploy one of its frigates inthe area to protect the sea linesof communication. Similarly,the French government alsodecided to permanently deployone frigate in the area. The Straitof Hormuz in the Indian OceanRegion is a key area throughwhich almost a fifth of theworld’s oil supply is shipped.

On the proposed Indo-French pact to facilitate sharingof classified information, hesaid it would be a rare occasionto have such an arrangement byFrance with a non-Nato coun-try. Maleterre said both Indianand French navies are going tohave high-level operations fea-turing carrier battle group, sub-marines and amphibious ships.

He said both India andFrance share same politicalobjectives for the Indian OceanRegion and that the high-levelengagement between the twonavies will further expand inthe coming years.

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Congress leaders led byPriyanka Gandhi Vadra held

a sit-in at the India Gate onMonday in a show of solidaritywith the students from JamiaMillia Islamia and several otheruniversities across the countryprotesting the contentiousamended citizenship law.

The Congress general sec-retary was joined by leaders likeAhmed Patel, AK Antony,Ghulam Nabi Azad andRandeep Singh Surjewala,besides hundreds of party work-ers. Before sitting on the dhar-na at the India Gate lawns,Priyanka Gandhi cited DelhiPolice action against Jamia uni-versity students to hit out at theModi Government, saying theatmosphere in the country hasbecome “bad”. Rahul took totwitter to express his solidaritywith those protesting peaceful-ly against them.

“The country’s atmosphereis bad. Police is entering uni-

versity to beat up (students). Thegovernment has tinkered withthe Constitution. We will fightfor the Constitution,” she said.

“This country is for every-one, it is for all those studentswho were beaten up yesterday.Attack on students is an attackon the soul of India,” she said.She said the citizenship amend-ment law was against India’s

Constitution and that it wasbrought to “destroy” theConstitution.

“Each and every Congressworker will fight against Modigovernment which is turningdictatorial,” said PriyankaGandhi, wondering why PrimeMinister Narendra Modi is“silent” on assault on women,economy, joblessness and what

happened against the students.In a statement Congress

chief Sonia Gandhi alleged thatthe BJP Government’s intentionwas clear about wanting tospread instability and creating anatmosphere of religious tensionfor political interests.

“A Government’s job is tomaintain peace and harmony,deliver governance and protectthe Constitution. But the BJPgovernment has declared a waron its own people. It has becomethe creator of violence and divi-siveness. The government haspushed the country into anabyss of hatred and made thefutures of youth uncertain,”Sonia stated.

Sonia Gandhi claimed thatShah could not muster thecourage to go to the northeastand the Bangladeshi foreignminister and the Japanese primeminister had to postpone theirvisits to India. “The reason isevident -- Modi government hasfailed to govern. Inflation is atits peak, unemployment is on

record high levels, economy isdeclining and educational insti-tutions are in a mess,” Soniaalleged, adding that the Modigovernment is “busy spreadingreligious tension, creating chaosand fomenting violence todeflect attention from key issues”.The amended citizenship actand the National Register ofCitizens are part of theGovernment’s overall agendato “divert the nation’s attentionfrom its failures”.

Rahul Gandhi termed theCAA and the National Registerof Citizens as “weapons of masspolarisation” unleashed by fas-cists on India and said the bestdefence against them is peace-ful satyagraha.

“The CAB and NRC areweapons of mass polarisationunleashed by fascists on India.The best defence against thesedirty weapons is peaceful, nonviolent Satyagraha. I stand in sol-idarity with all those protestingpeacefully against the CAB andNRC,” Rahul said.

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In the wake student protests,Union Home Ministry on

Monday in an advisory askedthe States and Union Territoriesto check violence and ensuresafety of life and property andalso to take strict action againstthose spreading fake news onsocial media. The advisorycomes against the backdrop ofviolence reported from differentparts of the country, especiallyuniversity campuses, duringprotests against the amended cit-izenship act which was passed byParliament and given assent bythe president last week.

“It is imperative that allrequired measures be taken tocontain violence, ensure protec-tion of life and safety of citizensand prevent damage of proper-

ty,” the advisory said. The StateGovernments and UT adminis-trations have been requested totake precautionary measures tomaintain law and order, peaceand public tranquility. “Theyhave also been requested totake action against circulationof fake news and rumours onsocial media having the poten-tial to incite violence,” it said.

Meanwhile, HomeMinister Amit Shah whileaddressing lection rallies inJharkhand reiterated that thereare certain elements unneces-sarily trying to create chaos andthe Citizenship AmendmentAct will give Indian nationali-ty to refugees facing religiouspersecution in three Islamicneighbouring countries andnot take away anyone’s citi-zenship in India.

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New Delhi: HRD Minister RameshPokhriyal Nishank on Monday appealedto students to stay away from violence andmaintain peace on campuses. The HumanResource Development (HRD) Minister’sappeal came against the backdrop ofprotests on campuses across the countryagainst the Citizenship Amendment Actand alleged police crackdown on JamiaMillia Islamia (JMI) and Aligarh MuslimUniversity (AMU) students.

“I appeal to all students to stay awayfrom violence and maintain peace oncampuses. Please do not pay heed torumours. At this point, we need to prop-agate feelings of peace, harmony andbrotherhood. We should not indulge inactivity which is not in interests of thenation,” he said. The Minister said it isunfortunate that “some anti-social ele-ments want to damage national proper-ty by spreading violence and frenzy anddisrupt the law and order situation”.

“After demands from the country forlong, the Citizenship Amendment Bill has

been passed. The Act passed in nation’sinterest is not against any religion, casteor region,” he said.

Earlier in the day, he spoke to JamiaVice-Chancellor Najma Akhtar and tooka stock of the situation. Akhtar addressedthe media after the university’s ExecutiveCouncil meeting and said she will presentall facts before the HRD Ministry.

Akhtar also briefed HRD HigherEducation Secretary Amit Khare who tookcharge of the post Monday.

In recent times the HRD Minister hastaken the initiative to resolve the crisis atearliest with first being during the mas-sive protest by the JNU students over feehike. After protests continued for a cou-ple of days, Nishank had appointed athree-member committee to recommendways to restore normal functioning of theJNU. The committee was mandated to ini-tiate dialogues with students and admin-istration as well as submit recommenda-tions on resolution of all issues which theydid and the matter was resolved. PNS

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Page 7: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

Kolkata: West Bengal BJP presidentDilip Ghosh on Monday said that the party will hold a rally in Kolkataon December 23 to “congratulate” the Centre for amending theCitizenship Act.

Ghosh said the kind of violentprotests taking place in West Bengalclearly shows that there is a need forimplementing NRC and the citizenshiplaw in the state.

He said BJP working president J PNadda will be present at the rally andthe party will hold a similar mass meet-ing in north Bengal on December 24.

Ghosh said the way public proper-ty is vandalised and damaged in WestBengal is unprecedented.

“Even protests are being held inAssam and Tripura. But public propertyhad not been damaged there,” heclaimed.

The BJP leader said the violenceand arson taking place in the state hasbeen a result of instigation by ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjee who hasbeen “speaking in the same tone as thatof Pakistan”.

He said since the citizenship law isa central Act, the state government willhave to implement it. PTI

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Students of the MumbaiUniversity, Tata Institute of

Social Sciences (TISS), Studentsof University of Mumbai andIndian Institute of Technology,Bombay (IIT-B) on Mondaystaged protests over the vio-lence unleashed against thestudents of Jamia Millia Islamia(JMI), Aligarh MuslimUniversity (AMU) and theGuwahati University.

As part of the protests, thestudents from TISS andUniversity of Mumbai alsocondemned the NarendraModi Government over theCitizens Amendment Act(CAA), 2019, and the proposed move to implementNational Register of Citizens (NRC) across thecountry.

More than 300 studentsfrom the University of Mumbaiassembled at Kalina and raisedslogans like “Azadi” and“Samvidhaan humara bhaarihai” and condemned lathi-charge resorted to the policeagainst the students of JMI,AMU and Guwahati University

who are protesting against theCAA. They opposed the man-ner in which CAA discrimi-nated on the basis of religion.

Hundreds of studentsowing allegiance to ChhatraBharati Sanghatana (CBS)expressed their solidarity withthe students of JMI, AMU stu-dents. They also opposed the

CAA and NRC laws at theMumbai University’s KalinaCampus in the afternoon. Theydemanded the immediaterelease of the JMI studentswho were arrested in connec-tion with Sunday’s protests.

Talking to media persons,CBS’s state co-ordinator SachinBansod said: “Apart from con-

demning against CAA andNRC, we — through ourprotest — expressed our soli-darity with the students of JMIstudents. We demand that thestudents who were arrested inyesterday’s protests in Delhi bereleased immediately”.

Condemning the lathi-charge resorted to against the

JMI students, Bansod said:“Just because students speakagainst the Government doesnot mean that they should belathi-charged. We demand thatstringent action be takenagainst all those Delhi policepersons who indulged in high-handed manner against theJMI students”.

Students from TISS, whogathered outside the Institutepremises, carried placards withslogans against theGovernment over CAA andviolence meted out to the stu-dents of JMI and two other uni-versities. They demandedscrapping of CAA and NRC.

The IIT-B students stageda peaceful protest carryingtorches, banners and postersaround the institute campusagainst violence meted out JMIstudents on Sunday night. Theycarried placards and bannerssaying ‘In Solidarity WithJamia’.

The IIT-B students con-cerned took to social media onMonday, giving details of thesilent protest that they under-took on Sunday night.

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As the protests against theCitizenship Amendment

Act(CAA) rages in variousparts of the country, here is alook at the stand of keyregional political parties fromsouthern States.

Tamil Nadu: The rulingAIADMK supports the CAAand it spoke in Parliament forinclusion of Sri Lankan Tamilsunder the purview of the act inParliament. It has mocked atarch-rival DMK for allegedlynot doing anything to get citi-zenship for Lankan Tamilrefugees when it shared powerat the Centre for 17 years.

The DMK vehementlyopposes the act both before andafter its enactment.

The MK Stalin-led princi-pal opposition has lashed out atChief Minister K Palaniswamifor supporting the CAA, alleg-ing it was a “betrayal of minori-ties and Sri Lankan Tamils.”

Telangana and AndhraPradesh: The ruling Telangana

Rashtra Samiti opposes theCAA while in neighbouringAndhra Pradesh, both the rul-ing YSR Congress Party andmain Opposition Telugu DesamParty supported the legislation.

Karnataka: Former PrimeMinister and Janata Dal(Secular) chief H D Deve

Gowda has opposed theact, saying it was against theprinciples of secularism andrights enshrined in theConstitution.

JD(S) Member of RajyaSabha Kupendra Reddy saidtheir party opposed the bill asit was not proper and lackedclarity on various aspects likewhat will happen to those whoare not given citizenship underthis act. “We are not saying thebill was anti Muslim or any-thing, I’m not blamingGovernment... There is lack ofclarity on many things like SriLankan Tamils being left out...,”he said.

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They are known in Kerala as arch political oppo-nents, strong critics of each other. Yet, they came

together on the same platform, shook hands,exchanged pleasantries and raised their voices in uni-son against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act hereon Monday, setting aside their political and ideo-logical differences.

When Kerala Chief Minister and CPI(M) vet-eran Pinarayi Vijayan and senior Congress leader andopposition head in the State Assembly RameshChennitha led a joint protest against the CAA, itbecame a rare chapter in the State’s politics.

Besides them, Vijayan’s Cabinet Masinisters andparty leaders and Chennithala’s party MLAs and col-leagues took part in the protest held at the specialplatform erected in front of the Martyrs’s Columnin the heart of the State capital.

A sense of togetherness against a ‘common threat’seemed to have gripped the atmosphere of the jointprotest venue.

Both the ruling and opposition leaders mincedno words in attacking the BJP-led NDA Governmentover the CAA and seeing “Sangh Parivar agenda”behind the move. While Vijayan said the countrywas facing an ‘explosive’ atmosphere, Chennithala alleged the Sangh was “experimentingwith the idea” of German dictator Adolf Hitler inthe country.

Lucknow: The BJPGovernment has pushed thecountry into “an inferno of vio-lence” by the “destructive”Citizenship Amendment Act,Samajwadi Party chief AkhileshYadav said on Monday.

In a tweet in Hindi, Yadavsaid, “The BJP Government haspushed the country into aninferno of violence by itsdestructive law. It is inflictingfatal injuries on the future ofthe country. It is said thatwhen people start losing, theybecome oppressive.”

He alleged that the coun-try has not seen a “power-hun-gry” party like the BJP before.

Anger over the policecrackdown in Delhi’s JamiaMillia Islamia and at the con-troversial CitizenshipAmendment Act cascadedacross many campuses in thecountry on Monday. PTI

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Courtdirected the State Government onMonday to file a report on action takenregarding law and order situation inWest Bengal, amid violent protestsagainst the citizenship law.

A division bench of Chief JusticeTBN Radhakrishnan and Justice HBhattacharyya gave the directions on apetition filed by a resident of Howrahthat has seen several incidents of van-dalism and arson.

Petitioner Surajit Saha prayed for

direction to the Government to ensuremaintenance of law and order, whichis a state subject. The court directed thestate government to file the report byDecember 18 when the matter will beheard next. The counsel for the stategovernment told the court that reportshave been sought from the affected dis-tricts. The petitioner further urged thatcompensation be given to the railways,which bore the brunt of violence, andalso to private persons who were affected. PTI

Kolkata/Guwahati: The enactment of the new citi-zenship law has left BJP ally Asom Gana Parishad in aquandary following protests in Assam, with the partydeciding to move the Supreme Court to scrap the Act,days after backing it in Parliament.

It, however, is still a partner in the BJP — led NDA.“We will take the legal route to seek revocation of

the amended Act as the indigenous people of Assamare apprehensive that their identity, language mightcome under threat,” AGP leader Kumar Deepak Dashad told PTI on Sunday.

However, the party looked like a divided house withits president and State Minister Atul Bora appearingmore resilient and accomodative.

He said on Sunday that the Brahmaputra Valleyshould be excluded from the purview of the law, whichmay be implemented in the Barak Valley. Barak Valleyhas vast Muslim population, besides substantial num-ber of Hindu migrants from Bangladesh who stand tobenefit from the new law.

The AGP had walked out of the NDA in January thisyear following the passage of the Citizenship(Amendment) Bill by the Lok Sabha. It, however, returnedto the NDA fold as the Bill expired with the dissolutionof the 16th Lok Sabha. It contested the Lok Sabha andstate assembly elections in alliance with the BJP. PTI

Kolkata: Protests over the amendedCitizenship Act continued in Bengal for the fourth con-secutive day on Monday, with incidentsof road and rail blockades reported fromvarious parts of the state, officials said.

In East Midnapore andMurshidabad districts, the agitatorsblocked thoroughfares since morning,inconveniencing hundreds of com-muters, they said.

Several trains have been cancelledor delayed due to the ongoing protests.

A spokesperson of the railwayssaid demonstrators have blocked thetracks in Sealdah-Diamond Harbourand Sealdah- Namkhana sectors.

Efforts were being made to dispersethe mob, he added. Internet servicesremained suspended in six districts ofState — Malda, Uttar Dinajpur,Murshidabad, Howrah, North 24Parganas and parts of South 24 Parganasdistricts — where agitation over theamended Act have brought life to a halt. PTI

Gangtok: Sikkim ChiefMinister Prem Singh Tamangon Monday said the citizenshiplaw will not be implemented inthe State as it enjoys special status under Article 371(F) ofthe Constitution.

Hitting out at theOpposition, Tamang said,“Some people with vested inter-est are misleading people inSikkim on amended citizenshiplaw. It will not have any impli-cations in the State.”

“We have already beenassured by Union HomeMinister Amit Shah that theamended Citizenship Act willnot come into force in Sikkimas the state enjoys a special sta-tus under Article 371(F) of the

Constitution,” Tamang said.The Chief Minister said

despite the Union home min-ister giving a point of clarifi-cation in the Parliament thatthe Act will not be imple-mented in Sikkim till it is rat-

ified by the State Assembly,opposition parties in the statewere “misguiding” people overthe issue.

Opposition partiesCongress, Hamro Sikkim Party(HSP) and the SikkimRepublican Party (SRP) haveexpressed fears that Sikkim,with only six lakh population,will be forced to come underthe purview of the Act.

HSP working presidentBhaichung Bhutia has been afierce critic of the Act, express-ing apprehensions that theamended citizenship law maychange the demography of theState, which is at present in thefavour of Lepchas, Bhutias andGorkhas. PTI

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Thiruvananthapuram/Chennai/Hyderabad:Protests by political parties and studentsagainst the CAA were held in various partsof southern states on Monday as the rulingCPI (M)-led LDF and Opposition Congressheaded UDF in Kerala joined hands tooppose the law, setting aside differences.

Various educational campuses, includ-ing the prestigious Indian Institute ofTechnology (IIT), Madras, the IndianInstitute of Institute of Science (IISc) inBengaluru, saw protests by the studentsagainst the police crackdown in Jamia MilliaIslamia in Delhi on Sunday night and thecontroversial Citizenship (Amendment)Act (CAA).

Actor politician Kamal Haasan ledMakkal Needhi Maiam said it has filed apublic interest litigation in the SupremeCourt on Monday seeking a stay on the newamendment which provides citizenship tothe persecuted religious minorities fromPakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

In a rare show of camaraderie, bitterpolitical foes — Kerala Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan and Leader of Oppositionin the assembly Ramesh Chennithala —came together at a joint protest in the statecapital and condemned the act with the for-mer saying it was an attempt to “curb” freedom. PTI

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Mau (UP): Protesters vandalised a police station andtorched vehicles as a demon-stration against the CitizenshipAmendment Act and policeaction at Jamia Millia IslamiaUniversity turned violent hereon Monday, prompting policeto fire in the air.

The videos of the violence,which have gone viral on socialmedia, show that the comput-er room of Mau's Dakshintolapolice station vandalised withchairs and some computersdamaged. A portion of theboundary wall of the police sta-tion was also damaged, and fire-men could be seen extinguish-ing fire, which had erupted in

one corner of the policestation.

Dakshintola police stationSHO Nihar Nandan Kumartold PTI, "Over 300 bargedinto the police station premis-es between 5.00 pm and 6.00pm. They were agitating, andhad broken the boundary wall.There have been some minordamages. Let me assess theextent of damage."

Police lobbed tear-gas shellsand also fired in the air to con-trol the situation. An eyewitnesssaid protesters set ablaze 15vehicles, including those ofpolice. Police, however, gave outa much smaller number ofvehicles damaged. PTI

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Page 8: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

The statements of six ChiefMinisters belonging to partiesopposed to the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP), that they “will notallow” the implementation of the

Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) intheir States, poses an open and grave chal-lenge to the Constitution and to India’sunity and integrity.

The opposition to the amended Actbegan with West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee. Soon thereafter, KamalNath, Bhupesh Baghel and AmarinderSingh, the Congress Chief Ministers ofMadhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Punjabjoined in, followed by Pinarayi Vijayan ofKerala and Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi. All ofthem have said that they “will not allow” theamended Act to be implemented in theirStates. These statements smack of reckless-ness and do not augur well for the preser-vation of national unity and integrity.

The CAA grants citizenship to six non-Muslim communities from Pakistan,Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who are vic-tims of religious persecution in these Islamicnations. They are identified as Hindus, Sikhs,Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, whofled these nations and entered India untilDecember 31, 2014. The amendment saysthey will not be treated as illegal immigrantsany more.

The legislative powers of the Centre andthe States are clearly demarcated in the UnionList, the State List and the Concurrent Listin the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.Entry 17 in the Union List says, “Citizenship,naturalisation and aliens,” meaning that allmatters pertaining to these issues are whol-ly within the legislative competence of theUnion Government.

Under the Constitution, no State has theright to reject a law made by the Centre with-in the legislative sphere allotted to it.Speaking on Centre-State relations, BRAmbedkar had told the ConstituentAssembly on November 4, 1948, that “thebasic principle of federalism is that the leg-islative and executive authority is partitionedbetween the Centre and the States, not byany law to be made by the Centre but by theConstitution itself. This is what theConstitution does.”

Those who are opposing the amend-ment argue that it violates Article 14 of theConstitution, which guarantees equalitybefore law and the equal protection of thelaws. In their view, the exclusion of Muslimsfrom these three nations constitutes aninfringement of this Article. Several individ-uals are already knocking on the doors of theSupreme Court, questioning the vires of theamendment and one will have to await theopinion of the apex court in the matter.

This law has nothing to do with Indiancitizens, irrespective of their religious affil-iation and those who oppose it are aware ofthis. This amendment does not deny the pro-tection of Article 14 to any citizen of India.

It appears the argument againstthe amendment is that itinfringes on the rights of Muslimcitizens of Pakistan, Bangladeshand Afghanistan. Is any nationobliged to ensure Constitutionalguarantees to the citizens ofother nations?

Second, while the amend-ment speaks of six communities,they are actually a class of per-secuted people, not merelyadherents of certain religions.There are also decisions of theSupreme Court that Article 14provides for reasonable classifi-cation.

The Centre’s decision toreach out to these communitiesmust be welcomed for two rea-sons. First, India has always beenhospitable to persecuted com-munities for millennia. Thearrival of Zoroastrians in the12th century is an example ofthat tradition. In recent times,after the Chinese moved intoTibet, India saw a flood ofTibetan refugees numberingover 80,000 in 1959-60.Thereafter, there has been asteady flow of Tibetan refugeesinto India and the UnionGovernment made special pro-visions for their settlement inDharamshala and in other partsof the country, includingKarnataka. Given the manner inwhich India handled the Tibetanrefugee issue, one would pre-sume this would be the template

to accommodate those comingin from the Islamic nations.

In other words, they will beaccommodated in other parts ofthe country. The fears that thesepeople will be a burden onAssam is, therefore, misplaced.Since this amendment talksabout a cut-off date of December31, 2014, the fear of fresh migra-tions is baseless. The benefits ofthis amendment will not beavailable to those who cross intoIndia in future.

Further, it is not realised thatthis amendment is consequen-tial to a couple of notificationsissued by the CentralGovernment in 2015 and 2016.The first notification said thatindividuals from these six per-secuted communities, whoentered India before December31, 2014, would be exemptedfrom the penal provisions of thePassport Act and The ForeignersAct. This meant that such peo-ple would not face criminalproceedings even if they did nothave passports and other validdocuments. Their entry andstay were regularised.

Thereafter, the CentralGovernment gave these peoplethe facility of long-term visas.The amendment became neces-sary because despite these noti-fications, these people were still“illegal migrants” as per the def-inition in the citizenship Act.Until this amendment is made,

these people cannot apply forIndian citizenship.

The real issue is not whysuch a law has been brought innow. The question to ask is: Whywas it not done earlier? Why didIndia, largely under theCongress’ rule since indepen-dence, turn a blind eye to theplight of adherents of Indic reli-gions and Christians in theseIslamic nations? Further, whyhas the Congress, which hasencouraged Bangladeshi Muslimmigrants and used them as avote-bank all these years, nowprotesting over this law.

The attitude of the Congressis in line with its Muslim appease-ment policy even though it is giv-ing it diminishing returns. Thisparty, which ruled the country formuch of the post-independenceera, is unable to digest its margin-alisation and is adopting an“after me the deluge” kind of anattitude. The only Constitutionaloption available to the opponentsof the amended law is to chal-lenge it in the Supreme Court,which has been done.

When the Congress encour-ages its Chief Ministers to open-ly declare that they will notimplement a Central law, theparty is playing with fire. It willbe wholly responsible for theconsequences.

(The writer is an author spe-cialising in democracy studies.Views expressed are personal.)

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Take the lead” (December 16).In the wake of the abrogation ofArticle 370 and 35(A), theNarendra Modi Governmenttook every precautionary measureto thwart possible violence.Similar was the case ahead of theAyodhya verdict. It should havemoved with equal alacrity duringthe passage of the CitizensAmendment Bill (CAB).

Knowing that it was aninflammatory issue, it shouldhave prepared security personnelto make a distinction betweenpeaceful protests and wilful van-dalism of public properties. Also,there may be much anxiety aboutthe Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) but not all religiousminorities are on their toes tocome back to India, leaving theirproperties in nations where theyhave settled. Only persecutedreligious minorities, who areunable to stay there, will be reha-bilitated. The National Register ofCitizens (NRC), too, does not aimto deport genuine citizens of thecountry. Only those foreignnationals, who have settled downin the country illegally, will be

deported. Opposition parties areworried about the vote-banksthey have nurtured. Of course, thelack of documentation bothers allIndians equally.

KV SeetharamaiahHassan

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Sir — The clash of civilisationswill no longer be a big bang eventbut will gradually escalatethrough infinitesimal attrition.

With increasing levels of migra-tion along open borders and thedemographic situation exploding,politically the Right and Leftwing factions have gelled into anamorphous entity.

Strategically, nanobots and

drones have been game changersbut conflict within technology-based societies will largely be sub-ject to massive collateral damageas shown in the popular sci-fimovie, The Surrogates. Europe isan emerging theatre to studysociological assimilation and therobustness of multi-cultural soci-eties. As in the past, when the twogreat wars had their epicentrehere, the future will also emergefrom this cauldron of humanity.

Anoop HosmathMysuru

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“A Brexit mandate” (December15). It was Boris Johnson’s cam-paign promise to get Brexit donethat led to the Conservative Party’shistoric win in the UK elections. Itwill, however, be a fallacy to thinkthat Britain will be free to do what-ever it wants the moment the Billis passed. Its freedom will dependon the kind of relationship it wantswith the EU and other partners.

PrarthnaVia email

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Page 9: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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Three of India’s leading central universities,located in the Capital, are going through aphase of student-faculty unrest. While stu-

dents at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) areopposing the recent fee revision, Delhi University(DU) teachers have hit the streets demandingabsorption of ad-hoc teachers, disbursal of suspend-ed pensions and promotion. Over the past few days,Jamia Millia Islamia has erupted too, with studentsdenouncing the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA). According to the agitators, the issues whichhave rattled theses campuses violate notions of inclu-sivity, individual dignity and impartiality, as guar-anteed by the Constitution. However, even as thedramatic visuals of demonstration keep trickling inand many decry the situation as “unprecedented”,one needs to admit that Indian universities havenever been immune to such turbulence.

During the days of the Civil DisobedienceMovement in the 1920s, “nationalist” universitiessuch as Jamia were conceptualised and establishedas pockets of resistance. Over the years, these insti-tutions have offered the most trenchant critique ofauthority, whether British or Indian. From theIndependence struggle to the JP Movement, andfrom Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee to Arun Jaitley, uni-versities have supplied both leadership and spineto mass movements in India. However, the state ofaffairs in 2019 begs an important question: Wasthere ever such a phase in modern India when pub-lic sympathy for State-funded universities hadshrunk to the extent it has today?

The custom of criticising universities is near-ly as old as the history of modern education in India.As harbingers of change, these institutions have oftenbeen accused of corrupting time-honoured tradi-tions and causing social anarchy. In a scene fromSunil Gangopadhyay’s celebrated historical novelThose Days, which portrays the lives of several leg-endary reformer-educationists in 19th centuryBengal, Scottish philanthropist David Hare bemoansthe conservatives of Calcutta who believe that“book-learned women are liable to lose their hus-bands.” However, this suspicion has moved beyondthe realm of superstition and has now developedinto an incisive politico-economic critique. Over thepast few years, particularly in rural and semi-urbanareas, this criticism has reached a fever pitch. Themajority appears to have bought the argument thatsubsidising universities is wastage of tax-payers’money, since these institutions foment secession-ist and pro-Naxal sympathies. And that the “age-ing” researchers, who inhabit these campuses, aremere shirkers. Unfortunately, nothing seems to havebolstered public estimation of these universities ortheir students — not their dominance of theNational Institutional Ranking Framework, posi-tions in the Union Cabinet or even a Nobel Prize.

Arguably, had it not been for its proximity tonewsrooms in Delhi and Noida, the State electionin Delhi, the notoriety which JNU has acquired since2016 and the agitation at the three universities wouldhave evaded media attention. Although DU catersto nearly 300,000 students and a large number ofstudents at JNU and Jamia come from extremelyunderprivileged backgrounds, news of unrest hasfailed to trigger a national debate on the need toprotect institutions which continue to provideaffordable education in India.

There is no denying, that part of the problemlies in uncharitable portraiture by certain news chan-

nels, misinformation peddled on social-media and a voyeuristic interest in cam-pus life. But these aren’t the only ones tobe blamed. Popular culture, cinema andby extension, public imagination aresated with several problematic represen-tations of the idea of a university.

First, in a number of films, universi-ties are depicted as breeding grounds forextremists and delusional idealists, typi-fied by JNU and its bespectacled jholachhaap (cloth bag-toting) students. Thefamous thief-scene from the filmRaanjhanaa (2013), where studentsindulge in a futile night-long debate intothe origins of delinquency, is a snideremark on the culture of debates that uni-versities pride themselves on. Second, infilms such as Haasil (2003) and Gulal(2009) and the recent web-series Mirzapur(2018), universities are portrayed as bat-tlegrounds of violent student politics,puppeteered by corrupt musclemen. Athird variety emerges in Karan Johar’sfairyland colleges, exemplified by theStudent of the Year franchise. Of late,thanks to the army of technocrat-turned-comedians, and films such as ThreeIdiots (2009) and Chhichhore (2019),engineering colleges are being imaginedas zoos of quirky characters, lechery andsuch. In a country where cinema, televi-sion and now YouTube define the scopeof reality for millions, such representationshave dented their public perception.

At the same time, mass media haspersistently, if not deliberately, shiedaway from portraying the challengesand the disappointments of university life.No mainstream film speaks of those non-glamorous, bookish-students who wagedaily battles against social sanctions,poverty, joblessness and an endlessly frus-trating bureaucracy in the academia. NoTV-show or web-series examines the exis-tential struggles of thousands of tempo-

rary professors across India who areforced to spend their lives in perpetual fearof termination. University life is notromantic enough to the viewers exceptwhen presented in one of the aforemen-tioned templates. Perhaps no film or bookportrays the agony of university teachersbetter than Anita Desai’s In Custody(1984). But then again, outside the aca-demic circuit, how many have evenheard of this book?

The academic fraternity lacks thewherewithal to contest media hostility ormisrepresentation. Nevertheless, theymust reach out to the community at largeand share their stories. While many pro-fessors have become spokespersons ofmajor political parties, and in that capac-ity, they appear routinely on national tele-vision, rarely, if ever so, do they speak ofthe challenges they face in their profes-sional lives as educators and mentors.These “ambassadors” must utilise televi-sion to highlight the difficulties faced bytheir students, colleagues and institutions.The participation of professors in text-book production, school pedagogy andsocial movements, which has latelydeclined, must be reinvigorated as well.

Unfortunately, the university ecosys-tem insinuates the semblance of a universeunto itself. It creates the illusion that if allis well inside the campus, things are wellelsewhere too. And that the fight for high-er education is as much an emotional sub-ject to people outside, as it is to the aca-demic fraternity. But we need to break outof this chimera. At a recent DelhiUniversity Teachers’ Association protest,when I advised a colleague against rais-ing a certain slogan which has attractedconsiderable popular condemnation overthe past few years, he argued that it wasraised with an objective to educate themasses. It is important to realise thatrespect for popular sentiments or simplic-

ity of expression does not tantamount tosurrender of ideas, however indispensableor progressive they might be. Eventhough perception management is nottheir forte, academicians must speak a lan-guage which the common people under-stand and respect. Through popular arti-cles, public debates, parent-teacher meet-ings and maybe, even a YouTube chan-nel, they have to find ways to engage withthe community they so sincerely serve.

As the President of India pointed outrecently, universities shouldn’t behave likeivory towers. At the same time, given thelegacy of universities and their enormouscontribution to society-building in India,it is important that the Government andthe university administration honourthe circumstances of their origin. Theywere imagined as centres of criticalthinking, and they must remain so. It wasprecisely this culture of dissent andprotest in the universities which militat-ed against State oppression during thedark days of Emergency and saw to it thata reinvigorated democracy was restoredin the country. Had it not been for thisspirit of rational inquiry and the desire toquestion the sacrosanct, our progresstowards ensuring social justice wouldn’thave been half as successful. It is, there-fore, imperative that the Governmentgives a patient hearing to the students andthe academic fraternity. It must constituteforums and coordination committees toengage students on policy decisionswhich concern them. Contrary to popu-lar perception, they aren’t always delusion-al idealists or virulent anarchists. Besides,even from the perspective of law andorder, a controlled outlet of pent-up sen-timents, as philosopher Mikhail Bakhtinhas argued, is preferable to the viciouscycle of mob arson and State reprisal.

(The writer teaches English at DelhiUniversity)

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Not just a believer of the hetero-dox school of economicthought, even a stickler for

classic political economy can’t negatethat “dialectics” has not ceased to influ-ence the course of history and mate-rialism. While Hegel, Marx and Engelshad their interpretation of it, now ina different context, when the “late stagecapitalism” is shaping up regional geo-strategic and economic considerationsin unprecedented ways, the necessityto comprehend the “contradictions”well is something essential.

As globalisation is in the processof travelling extra miles, leadingeconomies are willingly making effortsto go beyond bilateral and other con-

ventional economic diplomacyarrangements. Playing safe with theregional cooperation framework alarge economy gains disproportionate-ly out of the sentimental grouping ofunequal participants. China has beena formidable player on this turf, so itsensed the criticality of India’s non-affirmative positioning on the much-touted Free Trade Agreement (FTA)experiment called the RegionalComprehensive EconomicPartnership (RCEP). However, RCEPbeing a China-dominated association,had to receive India’s response as perits “enlightened self-interest” to keephistory in perspective, house in orderand domestic manufacturing business-es shielded.

Prime Minister Narendra Modihad summed it up eloquently when hesaid, “Whenever I try and gaugeIndia’s interest in light of her joiningRCEP, I do not get an answer in theaffirmative. Neither Gandhiji’s policyof self-reliance nor my wisdom allowsme to join RCEP.” He made the state-ment based on realistic considerations.Among them, one was a silent confes-sion that India’s economy is passing

through a rough phase.Noticeably, India’s GDP growth

has been slowing down for five con-secutive quarters. It is believed that theeconomy was severely hit by demon-etisation and the Goods and ServicesTax (GST) and the core manufactur-ing and real estate sectors have losttheir way. India joining the RCEPwould have exposed its inability tocome to terms with challenges of anew regional framework that wastotally bereft of anything promising forthe industry in the country.

Also, RCEP keeps conflictingintent with the existing regional andsub-regional associations, such asSouth Asian Association for RegionalCooperation (SAARC), South AsianSub-regional Economic Cooperation(SASEC), Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indiaand Nepal (BBIN) and Bay of BengalInitiative for Multi-Sectoral andTechnical and Economic Cooperation(BIMSTEC).

India’s decision not to join RCEPwas a conscious one, after calculatingall the costs and gains that usuallycome with entering a new arrange-ment. Delivering the recent Ramnath

Goenka Memorial Lecture in NewDelhi, India’s External Affairs MinisterS Jaishankar made his statement on it,saying, “And it was that no agreementat this time was better than a badagreement. It is also important torecognise what the RCEP decision isnot. It is not stepping back from theAct East Policy, which in any case isdeeply rooted in distant and contem-porary history.”

He further added, “Our cooper-ation spans so many domains that thisone decision does not really under-mine the basics. Even in trade, Indiaalready has Free Trade Agreementswith 12 of the 15 RCEP partners. Noris there really a connection with ourIndo-Pacific approach, as that goeswell beyond the RCEP membership.”

What the Minister made out wasa narrative that India didn’t miss on“grand strategy.” In fact, this wasclose to the reality, as it was not an ideawhose time had come. RCEP was notjust a matter of trade for India; it wasrelated to strategy and foreign policyas well. While India was at the brinkof taking a decision on it, its neigh-bours, especially Nepal, watched the

proceedings closely. Nepal, whichhas been grappling with high tradedeficit and low manufacturing base,would not have gained much fromIndia’s entry into RCEP and the pos-sibility of cheap goods from member-countries being dumped into it.

As Nepal is passing through adevelopmental phase where the mode,locale and scale of production have tosee a big shift for reciprocating massaspirations, it should aim to work witha model that combines “Make inNepal” with “Make for Nepal”. Onlythis can lead towards an inclusive andsustainable growth agenda. A moreinward-looking approach for industri-al activities, eyeing both domestic andinternational markets, is the need ofhour. Moreover, policy-makers inNepal must think seriously over theunchecked outbound migration,which is causing enormous losses toits own prospects.

India’s tryst with FTAs has beendisappointing. Take, for instance, theIndo-ASEAN FTA, the Indo-KoreaFTA and the Indo-Japan FTA.Notwithstanding the initial excite-ment, in practical terms, FTAs have

proved to be a faulty arrangement forthe country. The experience of manyother countries has not been bettereither. The fault lines can be spottedin the “late stage capitalism” that neces-sitates developing countries to goahead with the public policy of devel-oped and saturated economies. Oneof the common issues with regionalassociations is that there is little scopefor a level playing field, as for the pro-tectionist measures, they only offer“double-standards.”

To maintain parity, an experimentlike RCEP must offer fair competitionto other member-countries not luck-ier than China in protecting theeconomy and playing comfortably inthe world. To make RCEP or any newformation, a positive factor for theAsian Century, the strategic and eco-nomic fundamentals have to be ascer-tained. Simply put, whims and fanciesdon’t help the grand plan. Above all,what matters is the fairness in intentand working for a shared goal. WithRCEP, this was and is missing.

(The writer is a New Delhi-basedpublic policy professional and colum-nist.)

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Facing heat over delay in pay-ment of GST compensation,

the central government onMonday released �35,298 croreto states to make up for the lossof revenue due to rollout of theGoods and Services Tax (GST).

When GST was rolled outon July 1, 2017, states werethrough legislation promised tobe compensated for the loss ofrevenue as not just their taxessuch as VAT were being sub-sumed in the new levy but alsotheir right to levy taxes wasbeing snatched.

The compensation amountwas fixed at 14 per cent on topof revenue in the base year of2016-17. The corpus for payingcompensation was collectedby levying a cess on top of GSTrates on tobacco products, cig-arettes, aerated water, auto-mobiles, and coal.

This compensation was tobe released after every twomonths but the same was

pending since August, drawingprotests from states, particu-larly non-BJP ruled ones.

“The central governmenthas released GST compensa-tion of �35,298 crore to Statesand Union Territories today,”the Central Board of IndirectTaxes and Customs (CBIC)said in a Twitter post.

This comes just days beforethe 38th meeting of the GSTCouncil — the highest deci-sion-making body of the newindirect tax regime — onDecember 18, where the oppo-sition-ruled states had plannedto again raise the issue ofdelayed payments.

Opposition-ruled statessuch as Punjab, West Bengaland Kerala have since lastmonth upped the ante for theimmediate release of GSTCompensation Fund. Theirfinance ministers had also metUnion Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman and theissue came up during the just-concluded Winter Session of

Parliament.Sitharaman had in press

conferences and industryevents acknowledged the duesbut never mentioned timelinesfor making the payment.

She had in the Rajya Sabhaon December 12 stated that in2017-18, the total cess collect-ed was �62,596 crore, of which�41,146 crore was released tostates. The remaining �15,000crore was accumulated in theCess Fund. In the next year,

�95,081 crore was collectedand �69,275 crore released tostates but “cess accumulated inthe Fund was zero,” she hadsaid, according to a verbatimtranscript of her speech avail-able on the Rajya Sabha web-site.

It wasn’t clear how nomoney was accumulated inthe Cess Fund in 2018-19when, according to her, only�69,275 crore out of �95,081crore was paid.

She also hadn’t said whathappens to the surplus thataccumulates in the Fund.

According to Sitharaman,during the current fiscal yearthat began in April 2019, cesscollections till October 31 were�55,467 crore but compensa-tion released to the states was�65,250 crore. “TheGovernment of India hasreleased �9,783 crore morethan the amount raisedthrough cess collections (thisfiscal),” she had said in theRajya Sabha.

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Mumbai: Union FinanceMinister Nirmala Sitharamanon Monday assured States thatthe Centre will not “renege” onthe promise of GST compen-sations. The delays to pass onthe money are due to a slip incollections and the States havenothing to be embarrassedabout, she said. The remarkscome at a time when states likeMaharashtra and Kerala havebeen demanding the compen-sation sooner.

“It is certainly their right,I am not denying. At the sametime, I am also making clear tosay that I am not reneging onthat. States will be given. We arecertainly not reneging on it.

“I admit that the paymentswhich had to go the compensa-tion head have not been givenfor two months slot,” Sitharamansaid, addressing the TimesNetwork’s India EconomicConclave through video con-ferencing. The GST Council, thehighest decision making bodyfor indirect tax, is slated to holdits meeting on December 18.

“I do not want them(states) to feel embarrassed

because it’s not their fault noris it personally my fault,” shesaid, admitting that the GSTcollections have been muchlower than expectations.

She attributed the dip incollections to a slip in GST fil-ing due to natural calamitiesand also due to a slowdown inconsumption that has a directimpact on the collections.

“I am working with thestates. Each of them have takena lot of effort from their endto improve the GST collection.I guess with their efforts andthe centre and revenue depart-ment officials...The prospects ofimproving GST collection islikely to go up,” she said.

When asked about reportsof cuts in GST rates,Sitharaman said there is nosuch call to review.

“I don’t think, I am eventalking about raising or ratio-nalising the slabs at all at thisstage. But Eventually at sometime the GST Council wouldwant to talk about it, but I amnot readying myself for thisparticular meeting on this par-ticular issue,” she said. PTI

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Union Minister NitinGadkari on Monday

approved changes in theInterest Subvention Schemeguidelines for MSMEs and dis-pensed with the requirement ofUdyog Aadhaar Number forunits eligible for GST and set-tlement of claims based oninternal or concurrent auditorcertificate.

The Minister for RoadTransport & Highways andMSME reviewed the function-ing of the scheme, and said thechanges are expected to boostproductivity of MSMEsthrough access to credit atreduced cost.

The modifications in oper-ational guidelines carried outare based on suggestions madeby various stakeholders, includ-ing banks and lending institu-tions who had brought to light

operational difficulties thatwere hindering a smooth roll-out of the scheme, an officialstatement said.

The improvements are setto provide momentum givingfillip to the MSME sector, itadded.

“It is expected that themodifications in the schemeguidelines will lead to fulfil-ment of objectives of thescheme, i.E. To increase pro-ductivity in MSMEs throughaccess to credit at reducedcost,” Gadkari said.

The minister highlightedthat the government is com-mitted to enhancing credit tothe MSME sector and theimplementation of the schemeis being closely monitored tohelp micro, small and mediumenterprises (MSMEs) get incre-mental credit of up to �1 crorewith an interest subvention of2 per cent.

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IT hardware and mobile man-ufacturers on Monday sought

clarity over recent reduction inexport incentives and demand-ed rationalisation of tax struc-ture, including GST rate onhandsets, during a pre-Budgetmeet with Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman.

According to the IndiaCellular and ElectronicsAssociation (ICEA), reductionin export incentives will lead tomassive job losses.

“Many have emphasised

that some schemes that are onthe anvil can be brought inquickly like some incentives forlarge-scale manufacturing.There are a number of incen-tives,” Electronics and ITSecretary Ajay PrakashSawhney said after the pre-Budget meeting.

On the meeting, ICEAChairman Pankaj Mohindroosaid the government has strongintention to support Indiancompanies as well as attractglobal brands to make thecountry a hub of mobile man-ufacturing.

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The announcement of atrade deal between the US

and China that will de-escalatetrade tensions, along with otherdevelopments like reduced like-lihood of a no-deal Brexit, islikely to support a pick-up inthe global economic activity in2020, said IMF ChiefEconomist Gita Gopinath.

Global growth moderatedto the lowest level since theglobal financial crisis this year,Gopinath said adding that thisis an outcome of heightenedtrade and geopolitical tensionsand country-specific factors in

emerging markets. In addition,advanced economies’ growth isbeing weighed down by weakproductivity growth and agingdemographics. These factorslead to sharp weakness in man-ufacturing and trade almostacross the globe, she added.

The IMF’s October 2019World Economic Outlook pro-jected global growth at 3 percent this year and 3.4 per centin 2020 — 0.3 and 0.2 percent-age points lower than our Aprilforecast respectively, she noted.

“A recovery is expected in2020 but that remains precar-ious. Since then, global growthhas been lower-than-forecast-

ed in some large emergingmarkets, notably India, andcivil unrest is taking a toll onsome countries,” Gopinath toldPTI in an interview.

Gopinath, 48, one of thetop world economist, joinedthe IMF early this year. “It hasbeen a wonderful learningexperience and I am enjoyingall aspects of the job,” she toldPTI when asked about herexperience at the world body.

“At the same time, we areseeing tentative signs of stabil-isation, with the decline inmanufacturing and tradeappearing to have bottomed out.

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Wholesale inflation rose to0.58 per cent in November

mainly on account of risingprices of food articles, withonion alone spurting by over 172per cent during the month vis-a-vis a year ago, governmentdata showed on Monday.

The annual rate of infla-tion, based on monthly whole-sale price index (WPI) was at0.16 per cent in October.

The inflation was at 4.47per cent in the same month ayear ago (November 2018).

Build up inflation rate inthe financial year so far was 2per cent compared to a buildup rate of 4.56 per cent in thecorresponding period of theprevious year, as per the datareleased by the Office ofEconomic Adviser, Ministryof Commerce & Industry.

Inflation in food articles asa group rose to 11.08 per centduring the month as against9.80 per cent in the previousmonth, mainly driven by exor-bitantly high onion prices, therates of which spiked by over172 per cent from a year-ago.

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Market benchmark Sensexdeclined by 71 points to

close at 40,938.72 on Monday,dragged by losses in energy,FMCG and auto stocks amidweak macroeconomic num-bers. The 30-share BSE barom-eter had opened higher and hita lifetime high of 41,185.03 inthe opening session.

Losses in FMCG, auto,energy and select bankingstocks eroded the gains laterwith Sensex settling 70.99points or 0.17 per cent down at

40,938.72. The broader NSENifty finished 32.75 points or0.27 per cent lower at 12,053.95as 37 of its componentsdeclined. ITC was the top loserin the Sensex pack, shedding1.97 per cent, followed by TataSteel 1.80 per cent, HUL 1.57per cent, Vedanta 1.44 percent, Bharti Airtel 1.37 per centand M&M 1.35 per cent.

On the other hand, ITstocks rallied due to weaknessin the rupee. TCS rose by 2.70per cent, Tech Mahindra 1.60per cent, and HCL Tech by 1.57per cent.

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With economic growthslowing to a six-year low,

IMF Chief Economist GitaGopinath says the governmentshould undertake structuralreforms such as bank clean-upand labour reforms to addressthe slowdown in domesticdemand.

Gopinath, 48, who is trav-elling to India this week, root-

ed for government policiesfocusing on managing a slow-down in domestic demand,and on boosting productivitygrowth and supportingemployment creation in themedium term.

“Given the cyclical positionand the structural challenges ofthe Indian economy at thispoint, we recommend thatpolicies focus on managing theslowdown in domestic

demand, and on boosting pro-ductivity growth and support-ing employment creation in themedium term,” she told PTI inan interview.

Recommending a seriesof key policy priorities for thePrime Minister NarendraModi government, she said,“Politically, the time — early inthe government’s second term— is right for a structuralreform push.”

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Sebi Chairman Ajay Tyagi onMonday expressed hope that

positive impact of the insolven-cy law will be visible on thedomestic corporate bond marketin five years. Describing theInsolvency and Bankruptcy Code(IBC) as a “landmark reform” inthe country’s economic history,Tyagi said the Code has broughtin behavioural changes amongcorporate debtors.

The Code came into forcein December 2016.

“IBC has been a landmarkreform that has successfullyempowered creditors byincreasing their recoveries,improved their debtor disci-pline... There is scope for fur-ther improvement,” Tyagi saidhere. According to him,reforms in bankruptcy lawsleading to bolstering of credi-

tor rights have generally beenfound to have a positive impacton corporate bond marketsowing to increased investorconfidence in the markets.

“In case of three BRICScountries — Brazil, Russia andChina — the five-year averageof outstanding corporate bondsto GDP ratio after implemen-tation of bankruptcy reformshave nearly doubled comparedto five-year average of out-standing corporate bonds toGDP ratio prior to implemen-tation of the reforms.

“While there is a positivecorrelation between recoveryrate, recovery timeline andcorporate bonds to GDP ratio,experiences also show thatthere is a time lag betweenimplementation of bankruptcylaws and effect on bond mar-ket to the extent of 5-10 years,”he noted.

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UK High Court has dis-missed a $680 million

claim application filed byChinese banks against RelianceCommunications ChairmanAnil Ambani, a spokesperson of Ambani saidon Monday.

The hearing in the mattertook place on November 7and the order was issued onMonday, the spokesperson saidin a statement.

UK High Court has dis-missed “summary judgementapplication of Chinese banks

against Anil Ambani” in whichthe “Chinese banks hadclaimed $680 million from Mr.Ambani against Chinese banks’corporate loans to RelianceCommunications Limited(RCom)”, it said.

“Mr Ambani’s position thatthe claim made by Chinesebanks in relation to his allegedguarantee for corporate loansavailed by RelianceCommunications Limited(RCom) could not be grantedby way of a summary judge-ment has been duly upheld bythe UK High Court,” thespokesperson said.

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Page 11: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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While those of us who thought TB is a pulmonary diseaseaffecting our lungs need to think again! According to the

medical statistics, 5-10 per cent of the total TB patients in Indiasuffer from bone TB and the figure is on constant rise, more dueto ignorance about bone TB, during which the bacterium caus-ing TB affects bones and the spine. In fact, if we talk about num-bers, India is home to about one lakh people who suffer fromosteoarticular tuberculosis which leads to limb shortening ingrowing children and full body paralysis in a few cases.

Although TB, primarily affects the lungs, it can spreadthrough the blood stream to other sites, commonly called extrapulmonary or disseminated tuberculosis. Usually the ends of longbones and the vertebrae are common sites of extra pulmonarytuberculosis and the disease can hit people of every strata, nomatter whether they are rich or poor.

Also, it can affect any bone, but most commonly it attacksthe spine and weight-bearing joints, like hands, wrists and elbows.The type of pain too depends on the exact location of the tuber-culosis, for instance in case of spine TB the pain in lower backis so severe that the patient ends up seeking medical treatment.

How to diagnose?Bone TB in its early stages is often misdiagnosed as arthri-

tis. Therefore, to distinguish it from arthritic pain, patients shouldobserve the nature of pain. Most patients of arthritis experiencerelief at night when lying down. Whereas for those suffering frombone TB, lying flat increases discomfort due to increased bac-terial activity.

Diagnosis of the disease is made by X-ray and lab tests onfluid aspirated from the affected joint area. While in case of spineand skeletal TB, diagnosis are to be done with the help of CTscans and MRI reports.

Spinal tuberculosis, alsocalled Pott’s disease, usuallyaffects the thoracic part of thespine. It causes constant andunbearable back pain as thevirus degrades the discs cushion-ing the vertebrae. TB in thejoints also causes an achingpain along with stiffness. WhileTuberculous osteomyelitis, orbone infection, causes constantpain in the bone itself and cancause complications in nearbytissues, such as carpal tunnelsyndrome if the wrist is affect-ed.

How to identify the correctsymptoms?

Patients with TB in theirbones might or might not exhib-

it generalised signs of tuberculosis such as fever, fatigue, nightsweats and unexplained weight loss. Although about half of allpatients with bone TB also have infected lungs, the disease usu-ally is not active there which also means that most patients withbone TB do not suffer from coughing and probably do not sus-pect that they have tuberculosis. At times it may take years tostart showing its initial symptoms.

Patients with bone TB are generally not contagious becausethe disease spreads through coughed up active virus particlesunless you come in contact with a patient’s pus. Another impor-tant point to remember is that bone TB may affect the bone mar-row, so timely and complete course of treatment can only curethe patients.

The treatment for normal bone TB may last at least one yearand in case of spine TB causing paralysis treatment and recov-ery time depends if paralysis is mild, moderate or severe. Also,in case of MDR TB, in which patients fail to respond well to multidrugs, it may take longer to recover completely. The TB patientsare strictly advised to complete the medication course and neverto leave it in between, without consulting their doctor. It's impor-tant for patients to understand that TB is curable if it is timelydetected and treated well. In case of bone TB, bed rest, good diet,medicines and physiotherapy can help you get back to normallife. Therefore, don’t ignore symptoms or take them lightly. Ifproper medical attention is not received, TB can be fatal.

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�'����� � ���� Apumpkin seed is the

edible seed of a pumpkin orcertain other cultivars ofsquash. The seeds aretypically flat andasymmetricallyoval, have awhite outerhusk and arelight green incolour afterthe husk isremoved.

The seedsare r ich inantioxidants likecarotenoids andVitamin E.

Antioxidants can reduceinflammation and protectyour cells from harmful freeradicals. That’s why consum-ing foods rich in antioxidants

can help protect against manydiseases.

They are also high in fibrethat is known for promoting

digestive health. Notonly this the seeds

are rich in mag-n e s i u m .C o n s u m i n ga d e q u a t emagnesiumlevels resultin bettersleep.

The pres-ence of high

amounts ofantioxidants and

phytochemicals ensurea good immune system andfurther reduce the possibilityof viral infections that maylead to cold, flu, fatigueand other ailments.

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E-cigarette use sig-nificantly increasesa person's risk of

developing chronic lungdiseases like asthma, bron-chitis, emphysema or chronic obstructivepulmonary disease, says a new study.

The study, published in the Americanjournal of Preventive Medicine, also foundthat people who used e-cigarettes and alsosmoked tobacco by far the most commonpattern among adult e-cigarette users wereat an even higher risk of developing chron-ic lung disease than those who used eitherproduct alone.

“What we found is that for e-cigaretteusers, the odds of developing lung diseaseincreased by about a third, even after con-trolling for their tobacco use and theirclinical and demographic information,”said study senior author Stanton Glantz,PhD, Professor at the University ofCalifornia in the US.

“We concluded that e-cigarettes areharmful on their own, and the effects areindependent of smoking conventionaltobacco," Glantz said.

The study also found that switchingfrom smoked tobacco to e-cigaretteslowered the risk of developing lung dis-ease, fewer than one per cent of the smok-ers had completely switched to e-ciga-rettes.

“This study contributes to the grow-ing case that e-cigarettes have long-termadverse effects on health and are makingthe tobacco epidemic worse,” Glantzadded.

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Dry, cracked and chappedlips can be a problem —be it winters or sum-

mers. The peeling skin is notonly annoying, it doesn’t lookgood as well. But thereare several homeremedies that onecan follow withgreat results.

V i r g i ncoconut oil isnot just good forthe skin and hair,but also for thelips. Get some virgincoconut oil and grape-seed oil. One can use grapeseedoil as well.

If you don’t have virgincoconut oil and grapeseed oil,mix olive oil and jojoba oil oralmond oil and neem oil. Addone to two drops of both the oilsand apply onto the lips. Do thistwo-three times a day.

One can use honey and

vaseline. Apply a layer of honeyon the lips. Apply a layer ofvaseline on top of this. Leavefor10-15 minutes. Use a damp tis-sue or a damp cloth to wipe it

off. Repeat this once everyday for lasting results.

Use rose petalsand milk. Soakfive-six rosepetals in one-fourth cup of rawmilk for three

hours. Mash thepetals in the milk to

get a paste-like consis-tency. Apply this paste on

your lips. Keep it on for about20 minutes. Rinse it off withcold water. Do this every day fora week.

One can use cucumber aswell. Rub a cucumber slicegently on the lips for a minuteor two. Leave the cucumberjuice on for 10 minutes andthen wash your lips.

Dry and chapped lips are common problems during the

winter months. While lip balmshelp, ROSHANI DEVI shares

home remedies that can provebeneficial

Rubiya Khursheed, a PhD researchscholar at School of Pharmaceutical

Sciences of Lovely Professional University(LPU) has developed a herbal formulationcontaining a combination ofSynbiotics (a dietary supplementthat combines prebiotics andprobiotics) and curcumin(haldi) that helps in thetreatment of Diabetes.

She recently made Indiaproud by presenting herpath breaking research atone of the world’s foremostPharma conferences, AmericanAssociation of Pharmaceutical ScientistsPharmSci 360’, held at San Antonio, Texas,US.

Titled Exploring the role of Synbioticsas carrier to solidify Self-Nano emulsifyingDrug Delivery System, her research exploresthe usage of Synbiotics. The emulsified drug

is absorbed by the body easily, leading tosignificantly lower dosage requirement ofjust 5 mg against 500 mg that is generallyprescribed for Type 2 Diabetes.

This not only brings down the costof the medicine for the patients but

also eliminates the side effectscaused by high dosages like lowblood sugar, upset stomach,skin rashes or itching.Interestingly, Rubiya has usedmushroom polysaccharide as

prebiotic and friendly bacteriaprobiotic to develop the Synbitoics,

leading to it being 100% chemical freeand non-synthetic.

Fifteen Nobel Laureates, 6000-plusscientists and 600-plus pharmacy industryrepresentatives from across the worldincluding Dr Vivek H Murthy, 19thSurgeon General of the US, attended theconference.

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Plastic has implanted into our everyday liveslike an unavoidable fundamental. We have

been abusing it since a better than average timeframe not exclusively leaving plastic-impressionson earth anyway also delivering significant dam-age in our well being framework. From puttingaway nourishment to cooking and utilisationfrom it, the Petro-compound issue is keenly rot-ting our environment. The key compoundutilised for the assembling of plastics isBisphenol-A or BPA.

BPA is a modern concoction that has beenutilised to make certain plastics and pitches sincethe 1960s. BPA is found in polycarbonate plas-tics and epoxy saps. Polycarbonate plastics arefrequently utilised in compartments that areutilised for putting away nourishment andrefreshments, for example, water bottles. Theymay likewise be utilised in other ordinary buyerproducts. BPA and different poisons broke downin nourishment and water put away in plasticholders advance into your circulation system,which can cause a large group of issues includ-ing different malignant growths such as liver andkidney harm.

These destructive synthetic concoctionsdisintegrate even quickly when interact with hotnourishment or fluid. To be better protected andgrieved, plastic containers ought to be stayedaway from to keep up legitimate wellbeing capac-ity. Our typical plastic jugs and holders can besupplanted with gut-solid kansa.� Pure kansa or bronze is a ultra-predominantmetal compound comprising 78 per cent of cop-per and 22 per cent of tin.� It is seen for its great wellbeing and recuper-ating properties and is profoundly establishedin our way of life and ayurvedic science.� Also used to make sanctuary stock, purekansa is known to be the best metal to be utilisedfor feasting and water stockpiling purposesbecause of its restorative advantages.� It has properties that stem unadulterated, pro-found vibrations which likewise refine thenourishment and water we consume. Kansa hasan exceptional character that doesn’t enable itto respond with nourishment or water indepen-dent of its temperature.� Since a large portion of our customs are tiedwith great wellbeing, pure kansa is profoundlyprescribed to drink and eating from going forvast prosperity.� Kansa sharpens our insight and pays tributeto its remedial forces, its antacid properties sani-tise the nourishment as well as eliminatesmicrobes and microorganism.� The water or nourishment put away inkansa vessels naturally gains the crucial thera-peutic and remedial properties.� If utilised for eating and drinking every day,it energetically improves gut wellbeing.� It helps in improving insusceptibility and hin-ders sickness

Boycotting plastic and inclining towardunadulterated kansa metal for every day utili-sation can be a stage towards a more beneficialcondition with decreased carbon impressionsand prosperity. To ensure the immaculatenessof the metal whenever ringed is should make areverberant sound like tolls utilised for uncom-mon otherworldly vibrations. Kansa is a funda-mental material in building the vitality frame-works of things to come. It assumes a significantjob in sustainable power source frameworks, forexample, sun oriented, wind, tidal, hydro, bio-mass and geothermal.

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G O B A C K

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The cold reduces the blood circulation inJoints which amplifies arthritis pain. Lesssunlight during winters means lower

Vitamin D levels and leads to weakened bones andjoints arthritis, a progressive disorder, typicallystarts gradually and gets worse with time. Suchpatients who often find difficulty in walking feelstiffness, or pain ranging from sharp pain to dullache in hips more during the winters.

Though joint problems are often neglecteduntil they cause distress, it is important especial-ly during winters to diagnose the condition earlyfor better treatment outcomes.

To describe it in simple terms, arthritis occurswhen the joint space of your hip is narrowed andthe soft tissues surrounding it start to shrink andtighten. The condition may arise due to geneticor hereditary reasons and certain other conditionslike wear and tear of joints over time or due totough training regime, or being obese as well.

If we examine the make-up of our hip joint,it is a ball and socket joint and is very mobile.During arthritis when we stretch and move, thehip joint hurts and over time leads to greater stiff-ness and worsening of the condition that allevi-ates pain. Thus, it explains why the hip is one ofthe most common joints affected by arthritis.

There are different types of arthritis that canaffect the hip and its treatment is based on fac-tors such as the type of arthritis, how early the con-dition is diagnosed, age of the patient and med-ical history (if any).

Types: There are three main types of arthri-

tis that can affect the hip joint. These are:Osteoarthritis: This is most common form

of arthritis seen especially in elderly people.Although it is also caused due to structural prob-lems with the hip joint, advancing age, obesity, hipinjury and others. Obesity is one of the major caus-es of Osteoarthritis and knee-related ailments,where knees undergo six times the body weightthereby affecting the joints.

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Rheumatoid arthri-tis (RA) affects your entire body and not just thehip joint. It affects people of all age groups includ-ing children and is commonly seen in women thanmen. The cause of inflammation in RA is due toan immune system response rather than wear andtear. The condition causes pain and swelling inboth the hips unlike osteoarthritis that occurs only

in one hip, and eventually, it leads to deteriora-tion of the bone and cartilage of the joint. Besidespain and swelling, RA also causes weakness andfatigue.

Ankylosing spondylitis: It is a chronicinflammation of the spine and sacroiliac joint (thejoint where the spine meets the pelvis). The con-dition may affect people of all age groups,including children, but typically its onset isbetween the age of 17 and 35. Unlike RA,Ankylosing spondylitis is more common in menthan women.

Some of the factors leading to hip joint prob-lems in the oldage include usage of steroids or sup-plements during younger age for body building.

Symptoms: Common symptoms associatedwith arthritis of hip are: � Pain in the hip joint that includes the groin,outer thigh and buttocks� Pain is worse in the morning and lessens overthe day� Difficulty in walking� Stiffness in the hip� Pain over back and radiating to knee throughfront of thigh

Diagnosis: If you suspect of having arthritisof the hip, get diagnostic evaluation immediate-ly. This may include: � Your medical history and physical examina-tion� X-rays can help in determining abnormalitiesin the joint.� Blood tests.

Non-surgical options: Based onyour diagnosis, your surgeon

will prescribe the type of treatmentthat is appropriate for your condition.

Non-surgical treatment forarthritis of the hip may include:� Anti-inflammatory medications� Physiotherapy or exercise pro-grams to improve flexibility and mus-cle strength� Swimming is an excellent exercisefor arthritis � Weight reduction in case of over-weight patients� Devices such as canes/walkers tomake it easier to walk

Surgical options: Many peoplewith arthritis of the hip are candi-dates for surgery. Surgery can helpto reduce pain, enhance quality oflife, and improve an individual's abil-

ity to perform everyday activitieswith no restrictions.

Minimally invasive hipreplacement surgery: It is an appro-priate treatment option if the hipjoint is severely damaged or if painand swelling reduces motion injoints and affects quality of life. Hipreplacement surgery is one of themost successful modernorthopaedic surgical proceduresand it is performed with smallerincisions which mean quickerrecovery. During a hip replace-ment surgery, the surgeon removesdamaged cartilage and bone fromthe hip joint and replaces them withman-made parts.&!� ����������� ��&����������6���) �����������76���>���8�������+ ��%�

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Page 12: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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Akey Democratic lawmakersaid on Sunday that

President Donald Trump’s mis-conduct amounted to “a crimein progress” that threatens USdemocracy, as the full Houseprepares for a historic vote onimpeachment.

“Do we have a constitu-tional democracy, or do wehave a monarchy, where thepresident is unaccountable?”Representative Jerry Nadlerasked on ABC’s “This Week.”“That’s what’s at stake here.”

He expressed anger withSenate Republicans who saidthey had already made up theirmind to exonerate the president— even without hearing evi-dence or testimony — in theSenate trial expected next month.

When the Democratic-controlled House convenesWednesday to weigh the twocharges approved by Nadler’sJudiciary Committee, Trump isexpected to become only thethird US President to beimpeached, after AndrewJohnson in 1868 and BillClinton in 1998.

Richard Nixon resigned in1974 just before a Houseimpeachment vote. NeitherJohnson nor Clinton was con-victed in the Senate.

Trump is counting on theRepublican majority in theSenate to exonerate him.

In repeated tweets Sundayhe mocked a process that, tojudge by his frequent tweets,appears to consume him.

He retweeted one conser-vative commentator as saying:

“The President did nothingwrong here. There is no crime,”before adding: “ImpeachmentHoax!”

Some influential SenateRepublicans have suggestedthey have already made uptheir minds and don’t need tohear the evidence compiled byHouse Democrats in severalweeks of hearings.

Senate majority leaderMitch McConnell haspromised “total coordination”with the White House andsaid there is no chance Trumpwill be convicted.

And Republican SenatorLindsey Graham, a Trumpconfidant, told CNN, “I’m nottrying to pretend to be a fairjuror here,” dismissing thecharges against Trump as “par-tisan nonsense.”

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Chinese President Xi Jinpingreiterated his support for

Hong Kong’s embattled leaderon Monday even as he declaredthat the former British colonyhas faced its “grimmest andmost complex year” since itsreturn to China.

Xi praised Hong KongChief Executive Carrie Lam forholding fast to the principle of“one country, two systems,”and for courage and commit-ment during an “extraordi-nary period” for Hong Kong,where Lam has faced harshcriticism for how she has han-dled months of fiery anti-gov-ernment protests.

Lam briefed Xi andPremier Li Keqiang during herfirst visit to Beijing since pro-democracy candidates sweptlocal Hong Kong elections lastmonth in a clear rebuke of heradministration.

Hong Kong has been

“haunted by this social unrest,”Lam said at an evening newsbriefing, adding that theChinese leaders called the sit-uation “unprecedented.”

“Given the severity of thesituation and the difficultiesthat we are facing, I can say thatthe leaders are fully apprecia-tive of the efforts needed,” shesaid.

“I am heartened becausewe know that our work to stop the violence hasn’t ended. We are not out of thiscrisis yet.”

Hong Kong was returnedto China in 1997 under a “onecountry, two systems” frame-work that promises the citymore democratic rights thanare allowed on the mainland.

In recent years, however,the arrests of booksellers andactivists have stoked fears of agrowing encroachment by theruling Communist Party.

The mass demonstrationsbegan in June in response to

proposed legislation that wouldhave allowed Hong Kong res-idents to be tried for crimes inmainland China. While Lamhas since withdrawn the bill,

protesters have continued call-ing for broader democraticreforms and an independentinquiry into accusations ofpolice brutality.

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Prime Minister BorisJohnson got down to work

on Monday following hissweeping election victory,appointing Ministers andannouncing plans to publishlegislation this week to getBritain out of the European Union.

The Conservative leaderwas expected to carry out a lim-ited cabinet re-shuffle beforewelcoming new MPs to parlia-ment following his landslide win in Thursday’sgeneral election.

But his main focus is onfulfilling his promise to get

Britain out of the EuropeanUnion by the end of nextmonth after years of acrimo-nious debate in parliamentand across the nation.

Johnson will present legis-lation on Friday that begins theprocess of ratifying the divorceterms he struck with Brusselsin October, his spokesmansaid.

“The government has just been elected with a clearmajority to deliver Brexit, and we’re focused on passingthe legislation to ensure thathappens by January 31,” he said.

Johnson’s simple promiseto “get Brexit done” resonatedin a snap election Thursday

that for many became a re-runof Britain’s 2016 EU member-ship referendum.

A narrow majority hadopted to leave the EU back thenbut was followed by years ofdebate in parliament over how— or even when — Britainshould end almost five decadesof integration with its closestneighbours.

Johnson declared the argu-ment settled when hisConservatives won 44 percentof the vote on Thursday, givingit a majority of 80 in the 650-seat Commons — its biggestsince the heyday of MargaretThatcher in the 1980s.

The main opposition

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China on Monday called theexpulsion of diplomats from

the US a “mistake”, followingreports that Washington quiet-ly expelled two embassy officialsin September after they droveonto a sensitive military base inVirginia. The incident is the lat-est spat between the world’s twobiggest economies and comesdays after they announced atruce in the form of a mini-dealto reduce some tariffs in a bruis-ing trade war which has weighedon both sides.

Commenting on The New

York Times report, foreign min-istry spokesman Geng Shuangcalled the accusations “com-pletely contrary to the facts” andsaid they “strongly urge the USto correct its mistake”.

Geng said Beijing hadlodged “solemn representationsand protests to the US” andcalled for Washington to “protectthe legitimate rights and interestsof Chinese diplomats”. The inci-dent appeared to be the first timein over 30 years that the US hasexpelled Chinese diplomats onsuspicion of espionage, the news-paper said on Sunday, citing peo-ple familiar with the episode.

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The top US representative intalks with North Korea on

Monday slammed Pyongyang’sdemands as hostile and unnec-essary as its end-of-year deadlineapproaches, but held open thedoor for fresh negotiations.

The North has insisted thatWashington offer it new con-cessions by the end of 2019 withthe process largely deadlockedsince the collapse of a summit inHanoi in February.

Pyongyang has issued aseries of increasingly stridentdeclarations in recent weeks, andUS special representativeStephen Biegun told reporters inSeoul: “We have heard themall.”

“It is regrettable that the

tone of these statements towardsthe United States, the Republicof Korea, Japan and our friendsin Europe have been so hostileand negative and so unneces-sary,” he said. “The US does nothave a deadline, we have a goal.”

Pyongyang has said that ifWashington fails to make it anacceptable offer, it will adopt aso-far-unspecified “new way”.

It has also carried out aseries of static tests at its Sohaerocket facility this month, aftera number of weapons launchesin recent weeks, some of themdescribed as ballistic missiles byJapan and others -- whichPyongyang is banned from test-ing under UN sanctions.

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Turkey’s President RecepTayyip Erdogan on Sunday

threatened to close two strategicmilitary bases used by theUnited States in Turkey, afterWashington warned of sanctionsover Ankara buying Russian arms.

“If necessary, we can closeIncirlik and we can closeKurecik,” Erdogan said on thepro-government A Haber tele-vision channel. The two bases siton Turkey’s southwest coast,near the border with Syria.

Erdogan has regularly raisedthis possibility in the past, attimes of tension between the twocountries. The US air force usesthe airbase at Incirlik for raids onpositions held by the so-calledIslamic State group in Syria. TheKurecik base houses a majorNATO radar station.

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Qatar’s Foreign Minister hasvoiced optimism over end-

ing a bitter rift with Riyadh,saying early talks broke a “stale-mate” but stressed Doha’sunwillingness to downgradeties with Turkey as a pre-con-dition.

Saudi Arabia along with itsallies the United Arab Emirates,Bahrain and Egypt cut alldiplomatic and transport tieswith Qatar in June 2017.

The four nations accusedDoha of backing radicalIslamists, including the MuslimBrotherhood, and seeking clos-er ties with Saudi arch rivalTehran — allegations Qatarvehemently denies.

“There (is) some progress...We have broken the stalemateof non-communication to

starting communication withthe Saudis,” Qatari ForeignMinister Mohammed binAbdulrahman Al-Thani toldCNN in an interview broadcaston Sunday.

“Honestly, from our per-spective in Qatar, we want tounderstand the grievances. Wewant to study them and toassess them and to look at thesolutions that can safeguard usin the future from any otherpotential crisis.”

The Saudi-led bloc made13-key demands to resolve thedispute, including shuttingdown broadcaster Al Jazeera,downgrading ties with Iranand closing a Turkish militarybase on its territory.

But the UAE has sought todownplay the emerging recon-ciliation effort.

“The recent Qatari leaks

regarding resolving Doha’s cri-sis with Saudi Arabia, withoutthe three other countries, are arepetition of Doha’s quest todivide ranks and evade com-mitments,” Abu Dhabi’sMinister of State for ForeignAffairs Anwar Gargash wroteon Twitter at the weekend.

Several diplomats and ana-lysts have suggested to AFP thatSaudi Arabia could embrace arapprochement with Dohawhile the UAE keeps its dis-tance, a position echoed bysources briefed on the nascenttalks.

Responding to the chargesof Gulf boycott countries,Qatar’s foreign minister deniedDoha had direct ties with theBrotherhood, branded by sev-eral countries — includingSaudi Arabia — as a terroristorganisation.

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The wife of Zimbabwe’s vicepresident has been charged

with attempting to murder herhusband.

Marry Chiwenga, a formermodel and wife of Vice PresidentConstantino Chiwenga,appeared at the HarareMagistrates Court Mondaywhere she was also chargedwith money laundering andfraud, amid reports of a troubledmarriage.

Wearing a floral dress, shewaved to journalists as sheentered the court’s holding cells.The magistrate ordered that sheremain in custody pending a bailhearing. She is accused of tryingto kill her husband in SouthAfrica in July.

First, she tried to deny med-

ical treatment to Chiwenga byinsisting he stay at a hotelinstead of a hospital when hewas flown to South Africa foremergency medical treatment,according to the charge sheet.

Security officers later tookChiwenga to hospital, accordingto the charge sheet.

She allegedly went to thehospital on July 8, asked thesecurity to leave the room and“while alone” with Chiwenga,she “unlawfully removed themedical intravenous drip aswell as a central venous catheter,”causing Chiwenga to bleed pro-fusely, according to the chargesheet.

She forced her husband offthe hospital bed and tried to leadhim out of the ward before beingintercepted by his securitydetails, said the charges.

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Lebanon’s president onMonday postponed talks on

naming a new prime ministerafter security forces repeatedlyused tear gas, rubber bullets andwater cannons against hun-dreds of protesters over theweekend.

The clashes were the mostviolent since daily anti-govern-ment demonstrations erupted inLebanon in mid-October. Theprotests have plunged Lebanoninto unprecedented politicaland financial turmoil.

President Michel Aoun wasto meet with the heads ofLebanese parliamentary blocs onMonday to discuss the naming

of the new prime minister amiddivisions on the shape of thenext government.

The presidential palace saidthe consultations would insteadtake place on Thursday, follow-ing a special request from out-going Prime Minister SaadHariri. A similar postponementhappened last week as well.

The UN SpecialCoordinator for Lebanon JanKubis warned Monday that,with the collapsing economy,such postponements were “arisky hazard both for the politi-cians but even more so” for thepeople.

Hariri resigned in lateOctober, after protests first brokeout earlier that month over

widespread corruption andmismanagement. The palacesaid Hariri had asked Aoun toallow for more time for dis-cussions among politicalgroups before official consul-tations.

Earlier, the country’s mainChristian groups refused toback Hariri, who has served aspremier three times. TheLebanese Forces Party, with 15seats in the 128-member par-liament, said it won’t nameanyone, while the KataebParty said it will proposeLebanon’s former UNAmbassador Nawaf Salam forthe post. Hariri is now appar-ently trying anew to persuadeChristian parties to back him.

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Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu’s chal-

lenger for the post of rulingLikud party leader is picking upmore endorsements ahead ofthe official launch of his pri-mary campaign on Monday.

Gideon Saar’s associatesexpect about 1,000 partyactivists to attend the launchand have been buoyed by sup-port of a half-dozen Likudlawmakers, including the pow-erful chairman of the party’sexecutive body.

Saar’s leadership bid marks

the first serious internal chal-lenge to Netanyahu in hisdecade-plus in power. Thoughstill a decided underdog to theembattled prime minister, Saarseems to be gaining tractionahead of the December 26vote among the party faithfulwhere there isgrowing skepti-cism that Netanyahu can stilldeliver after two indecisiveelection results and a corrup-tion indictment that may forcehim out of office.

Netanyahu faces charges ofbribery, fraud and breach oftrust in three corruption casesin which he is accused of trad-

ing legislative or regulatoryfavors in exchange for lavishgifts or favorable media cover-age. He denies wrongdoingand has waged an angry cam-paign against the media andlaw enforcement officials hesaid are bent on ousting himfrom office.

Outwardly, Likud mem-bers have strongly supportedtheir leader and joined indenouncing the alleged “coup”of the liberal elites against him.

But Saar’s burgeoninginsurrection has begun toreveal some cracks.

While Netanyahu’s vari-

ous opponents across the polit-ical spectrum have called onhim to resign because of hislegal woes, Saar has kept say-ing the party needs a newleader because Netanyahu hasbeen unable to form a stablecoalition government and isunlikely to be able to again ifgiven another chance.

Recent polls show that withSaar as leader, Likud wouldmake a more powerful blocwith its natural ultra-Orthodoxand nationalist allies. Saarwould also be in an easierposition to create a nationalunity government with the

centrist Blue and White partyif, as expected, the upcomingMarch election produces adeadlock like the previoustwo rounds have.

Blue and White haveruled out serving withNetanyahu because of hisindictment. Even amid thepolitical disarray, Saar’s chal-lenge is a risky maneuver ina party that fiercely valuesloyalty and has had onlyfour leaders in its 70-plus-year history.

Netanyahu himself hasdenounced Saar as “subver-sive.”

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Chinese President XiJinping on Monday

praised beleaguered HongKong leader Carrie Lam aswell as the city’s police andsaid Beijing has “unswervingdetermination” to protectChina’s sovereignty over theformer British colony as hemet her for the second timein two months.

Since June, Hong Konghas seen massive, regulardemonstrations, which start-

ed in opposition to a pro-posed Bill that would haveallowed its citizens to beextradited to the mainland.The protests quickly mor-phed into wider calls fordemocracy and opposition togrowing Chinese influence.

Lam, who is visiting Beijing for consultations with the CentralGovernment on the futurecourse of action, met President Xi andPremier Li Keqiang andother top officials.

Page 13: ˆ˝ ˆ - The Pioneer...university gate to resume their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). ... Kuldeep Singh Sengar on ... co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges

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�How did you conceptualiseyour set for Black Dog EasyEvenings — Savour The Pause?What inspired it?

The conceptualisation for a setoften depends on the crowd thatyou are performing for. In the caseof Black Dog Easy Evenings, it ismostly a very classy audiencecomprising of HNIs in their 30s or40s, so I plan my set accordingly.It is different as compared towhen I am on tour and there is amuch younger audience in atten-dance. The content also dependsa lot on the venue. Again, in thiscase, locations are mostly at fancyhotels and clubs so my primaryfocus while conceptualising my setautomatically depends on theaudience, the demographics andthe venue of the show.

�Earlier, comedy was onlylooked at as something that wasfun and was supposed to givepeople a break from monotony.Today, humour has become a toolof dissent and something thatcould be used to put across astrong perspective in a satiricalway. What’s your take on thischange in stand-up comedy?

The comedy scene today hasevolved as a whole. Comedians arebecoming content creators and areconceptualising it in various forms.But we are all very different fromeach other in our approach andwork. While some of us may wantto take a firm stand on certainissues, some would shy away fromit. Comedy is, however, a great toolof communication since you areputting across a message in afunny way and that almost alwaysmakes people listen to what youhave to say. Even filmmakers aretaking that path these days to putacross a strong message in the soci-ety without preaching by makingit funny.

�Adding to that, it seems likestand-up comics are becomingthe primary opposition partywhen the politicians are floun-

dering. Kunal Kamra is an exam-ple...

Comedians are comedians atthe end of the day and while theymight put across points that chal-lenge authority, they are onlycracking jokes. Let’s look at it thatway...

�How have you seen the comedyindustry evolve in India? Therehave been talent hunt showsaround dance and music butComicstaan was first of its kind...

The comedy scene in India isvery new. We are only around 10years-old. It is now going to get

bigger and better. Two to threeyears ago, we had comedy clubsonly in the metro cities, Mumbai,Delhi and Bengaluru. Today, theyexist in Tier 2 cities l ikeChandigarh and Jaipur as well. Alot of comedians and comedy isalso going international, whichaids in increasing the volume ofaudience that is exposed to it.There is online content being cre-ated and uploaded onto platformslike YouTube and Amazon PrimeVideo which is again getting a largeaudience for it.

�You had said in an interview

some time ago, “Indians getoffended very easily.” What’s thispressure on comedians to writeand tell their jokes in a way thatit is palatable to the audience?There is no pressure as such.However, you always have to useyour discretion when you put outcontent. The main point of differ-ence lies between watching theshow live versus watching thesame video online. When it is live,the audience has paid money andbought a ticket. They know whatto expect, are prepared, have asense of comedy and its style. Theyare already in that zone and frameof mind, so that they don’t reallyget offended. When they do, ittakes place mostly online. When itis just a snippet of the larger set orwhen people don’t necessarilyhave a context to the joke as theyare watching it from a differentpart of the world and are maybeunaware of your work and yourstyle of humour, is when theymight get offended. So it varies asper the situation and venue as wellas platform.

�The American web show, TheMarvelous Mrs Maisel, revolvesaround the journey of a youngcomedienne and how the indus-try functions. Do you think thereshould be more such shows whenit comes to talking about come-dians in everyday life?

Yes definitely, the more com-edy shows there are, the better itis for the whole industry. VipulGoyal did a show with TVF calledHumorously Yours that showcasedhim building his comic brand.With the rise of OTT platforms,I’m sure there will be many more.

�How did you conceptualiseOne Mic Stand. What made youget actors, a YouTube sensationand a politician on board? Whatwere the risks and ongroundchallenges?

I always wanted to do a showwith stand-up as the focal point. Iknew that I wanted to get a vari-ety of guests onboard which wouldimprove the quality of content. Ididn’t want it to be onlyBollywood-led. Since this wasbeing done for the first time, a lotof guests did back out as they werescared. However, anything whichis done for the first time has chal-lenges. Season 1 took off really welland I am glad that it was receivedwarmly.

Iconic Irish rock band U2made sure that their first-ever Mumbai concert was

nothing less than legendary. Theband had the audience groovingto their popular tracks such asWith or Without You, Where theStreets Have No Name and I StillHaven’t Found What I’m LookingFor from their 1987 album, TheJoshua Tree.

Paparazzi surrounded theband in Mumbai but they had noqualms striking quirky poses forthe shutterbugs. This was theirfirst-ever concert in India andmarked the closure of The JoshuaTree Tour 2019, which celebrated32 years of their album TheJoshua Tree.

Celebrities around townqueued up. Spotted at the concertwere B-town stars Ranveer Singhand Deepika Padukone, HrithikRoshan, Sussanne Khan, AmaalMallik, Diana Penty, Riya Senwith husband Shivam Tewari,Anurag Kashyap and RohitDhawan. Kunal Kapoor with wifeNaina Bachchan, Nitya Mehra,Mira Rajput, Rannvijay Singhawith wife Priyanka Vohra,Shaheen Bhatt, and Javed Jaffreywith son Mizaan Jaffrey werethere as well.

Cricket maestro SachinTendulkar with wife AnjaliTendulkar and Ness Wadia werealso seen grooving to U2 beats.

The concert turned into amagical affair as Indian maestroAR Rahman joined Bono, TheEdge, Adam Clayton and LarryMullen Jr on stage. Rahman tookto the stage with his daughtersKhatija and Raheema, and per-formed the single Ahimsa, whichhe composed in collaborationwith the rock band. Bonodescribed the ideal practised byMahatma Gandhi “India’s great-est gift to the world.” Psychedeliclights paired with Bono’s vocalsand Rahman trio’s chant-like ren-dition which cast a spell.

In their special segment,called Herstory, the musicianspaid tribute to icons of the coun-try and featured photos of women— projected on a giant screenwhich formed the backdrop of thestage — as the band played theirtrack Ultraviolet. Author-activistArundhati Roy, Smriti Irani,astronaught Kalpana Chawla,journalists Gauri Lankesh andRana Ayyub were some whowere featured. U2 also acknowl-edged the contribution of GretaThunberg.

To highlight the security con-cern women face the world over,the band also included picturesfrom the recent protest march inHyderabad after a young vet wasraped and killed. “When womenfeel safe at homes or walking onthe street, that’s a beautiful day.

When sisters around the worldare in school like their brothers,that’s a beautiful day. Whenwomen of the world unite torewrite history as their story,that’s a beautiful day. To rewritehistory as her story is a beautifulday,” Bono said as the crowderupted in applause.

Bono, in his greeting to theaudience which began with“namaste Mumbai,” acknowl-edged that it took them a while tovisit the country. “It took us only

four decades to come here. India,what a country! Tonight it’s goingto be the best ever show. We havefallen head over heels in love withIndia. Our prayer for the eveningis for an epic night of rock and rollwhich transcends beyond. Wecome to India as pilgrims. We arestudents, you are our teachers,”Bono said.

The singer-songwriter saidthe band was honoured to closetheir tour in the country. “We havebeen here for a few days but it

already looks to me that we justhave to come back,” Larry said.The Edge said though it has takenthe band quite some time tocome to the country, “It’s such athrill. This feels something special.We are grateful that our journey

has brought us to India. I’m soglad these companions have comehere tonight,” Adam added.

“We say thank you for yourpatience. Tonight is the last nightfor The Joshua Tree tour... Whenwomen and men, left and right

work together for change, that’show we change the world,” he said.

(The concert was brought byBookmyshow. It was held onSunday evening at Navi Mumbai’sDY Patil Stadium.)

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You might find similaritiesbetween two fashion

houses. But it is not often thata car and a fashion brandshare similar traits. Recently,designer-duo Shantanu &Nikhil collaborated withPorsche for the launch ofCayenne Coupé.

Shantanu Mehra believesthat the car blends into theworld of contrasts like they doin their clothing line. “You seea lot of glory but at the sametime there is lot of guts too.There is a hint of vintage inthe structure but at the sametime it seems contemporary.These are the features thatboth the brands bring to thetable,” he said.

The duo known for craft-ing dresses with narrativestraced their journey and saidthat they broke the stereotyp-ical notion of Indian fashionwhen they started off. “Anemphasis on draping becamean entrance to a new revolu-tionary fashion. It came to usin a way that even after 15years we continue to focus onit. It is the true form of wear-ability and functionality,” saidShantanu. Another out-of-the-box thought that they intro-duced was men’s drape.“Initially, it was mocked and

not welcomed by people butlater it became mainstream.We wanted to create a gender-fluid world where everyonecan stand tall wearing genderequality,” added Nikhil.

At the launch, modelswalked the ramp donninggolden and pale chestnutgowns and floral printed jack-ets. The showstopper,Jacqueline Fernandez, grabbedeyeballs for her red gownwhich was colour coordinatedwith Coupé. She said, “Iresemble a lot with the Coupé,on one hand there is ease andon the other, strength andendurance.”

This version of the car thatfeatures an all-new body shapeand two different roof conceptsshares the same technicalattributes as the third genera-tion Cayenne, what sets itapart are its sharpened propor-tions and dramatically slopingroofline that give it a more ath-letic appearance.

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Probir Gupta’s immersively installedsolo show, Family is Plural, traverses the

history of loss and the beauty of knowl-edge to create fragments of human rela-tionships.

���� ���( �������Curator Shaheen Merali says, “In

Gupta’s artworks, one can find transitorycompositions that together create new“half-forms.” The collective framing organ-ises these parts or sometimes suggests pos-sibilities in their unrealised forms.Throughout his images, one is drawn bythe skill set necessary for the audience tocomprehend the diverse aspects thatreveal empathy and care.”

�������%���������& �����Two installations become notes of a

flashback because Gupta flits through thepages of time. His art has always been aresponse to the social and political unrestof his times. He often oscillates betweenthe past and the present. Gupta creates twoworks that talk to us about ongoing rela-tionships and the collaborative influenceson human activity. Influences from life,other struggles and events impact his artand understanding of the world as he cre-ates narratives.

Gupta employs conceptual and per-sonal strategies of great conviction to med-

itate on the nature of his own artistic prac-tice. He also brings the viewer into the con-versation about the role of an artist as botha preternaturally talented individual andthe link to the history of both literature andculture. An example of this is seen in amanner of his narrative power that makeshis works unravel like a series “sequence-portraits” — altered or staged. He finds hisown language in pivoting away fromconceptual work and explores the complexpossibilities inherent in the art of creatinginstallations. These speak of the spectacleand of the power of the human figure.

Merali says Gupta’s is a sovereign prac-tice with comments on race, gender andcaste. In the process, he makes use ofmodernist visual art tropes to suggest bothimmediacy and the place of the infinites-

imal event in the making of history. Theinventive use of chroma and the camou-flage is an innovative source which is a dif-ficult space of multiple encounters. Yet itallows Gupta to re-examine trauma in thepursuit of our ethnographic televisuallives.

�& ������Fibre glass bricks upholstery and

hair come together in a deeply surrealinstallation The Wall. This singular instal-lation makes us think of pastoral scenesand quaint portrayals created with a sin-gular palette of bricks and hair that ref-erence human as well as architecturalmotifs. The artist makes us think of manythings — a visual response to industrial-isation and modernism, a specifically

complex psychological narrative andabstract concepts like time and the placeof man in the journey of trials and tribu-lations.

What endears is Gupta’s ability totranslate the passage of time through hisincisive approach of capturing differinglighting situations as we think of storiesthat unveil over many seasons, months oreven different times of day.

(��'����&��������� ��&The impulse Gupta feels to transform

the nature of his work culminates in apowerful visual shift that has preoccupiedhim for decades and resulted in this seriesof paintings and installations. The displayhas incredible depth, consistency andnuance. Also in a subtle way, Gupta rebutsmodern day monochromatic aesthetics inthe hyper-saturated, imagined landscapesand cityscapes that we see as run of themill.

Family is Plural is about the historyof man and woman, art and its lastinginfluence on modern and contemporarytastes alike.

You tell her that you read somewherethat the most beautiful places in the

world are cursed with conflict. She paus-es, and whispers that she didn’t really emo-tionally investigate that thought in thebook. You then ask what is the first imagethat comes to her mind when she hearsthe word ‘Kabul’? She says, almost imme-diately, “Mountains. And snow sitting ontop of them”.

Author Taran Khan’s Shadow City: AWoman Walks Kabul, published recentlyby Penguin Random House India capturesthe Afghan capital through the writer’seyes, who has been spending time theresince 2006, and reveals a fragile city in astate of flux: stricken by near-constant war,but flickering with the promise of peace,a shape-shifting place governed by age-old codes, but experimenting with newmodes of living.

She goes to the unvisited tombs of thedead, and to the land of the living: thebooksellers, archaeologists, intrepid film-makers and entrepreneurs who are remak-ing and rebuilding this ancient 3,000-year-old city.

Talking about the city, Khan empha-sises that she wouldn’t want to create aromantic vision of Kabul or use the cliche‘there is more to the place than war’because that would also be a kind of dis-service. She thinks it is always importantto describe people as people while writ-ing about them.

“For me, the key was to shed light oneverything — the nuances, the situations,the entire environment. I think that’s whatI really enjoy doing in this book — essen-tially talk about the humanity of thesepeople by focussing on specifics, bystressing on their experiences,” says she.

Insisting that for her the over-whelming emotion in peoplethere was humanity,great humour,warmth and extraor-dinary hospitality asdecades of conflict hastaught them how quick-ly life could change, andit was, therefore, impor-tant to hold on to thosequalities.

Khan says, “I felt thatwarmth when I went for thefirst time and I continue tofeel it, even today. I certainlynever felt that they were uni-dimensional and defined bytheir suffering, unlike how theyhave been portrayed by themedia.”

Stressing that she was still intouch with many of the charactersin the book, even those who have leftKabul and taken refuge in different coun-tries, Khan adds, “Some of them were inthe process of leaving when I was there.Things have changed for them as well, butthese are relationships that are continu-ing, beyond the life of a book.”

The author reveals that she didn’t setout to write the book in a certain way, butin fact, derived the essence from meetingpeople over several years, observingthings that changed and remainedunchanged in their lives.

She says, “There was both continuityand alteration. They were generousenough to include me in their lives. Thathelped me get the perspective — thatcomes from participation and observingthe every day. You know that automati-cally gives you a way, layers to talk aboutcomplexity or ordinariness. And the lat-ter can be a wonderful thing. You oftendon’t get to hear that quality aboutKabul... how ordinary days are, howeveryday life goes, what do you do whenyou are sitting by a window and reading.I was fortunate enough to see and describethat.”

Interestingly, fortified and high secu-rity-areas, and not the streets and people’shomes made her uneasy and insecure. Shelaughs and adds, “Maybe that’s just me.Honestly, if I was in an armoured car,moving through the city’s traffic, I felt very‘exposed’. For me, it was always less fright-ening to be a regular, normal home or arestaurant.”

Though she had been writing elabo-rate pieces for different publications fromKabul since 2006, somewhere along theway, it stuck her that maybe she was justscratching the surface.

“It was a peculiar ‘writer’ instinct. I feltthere was something more, and there was

a different way of getting at that. So I start-ed writing longer stories, which went intolucid themes, which I found very enjoy-able. I kept writing them and finding

places to pitch them. I thoughtyes, there is a book here,somewhere.” However, it wasonly after she left Kabul in2013 that she actually start-ed writing the book.

Ask her if the ‘dis-tance’ helped put things inperspective, and sheasserts, “Yes, I think leav-ing Kabul was part ofthe writing process andhelped me see pat-terns. I could see howthings connected andcould therefore,move pieces aroundin a freer way.”

Khan, whowrote three drafts,

admits that being ajournalist did help, as she did-

n’t feel that she was attempting somethingdramatically different.

“I had the discipline of writing. Ofcourse, this book required a completelydifferent kind of immersion and I lovedevery moment of it, despite it beingextremely difficult. Also, a lot of help camemy way — friends and other writers whowould read drafts and encourage. If Iweren’t a journalist, I wouldn’t have thiscommunity of people who understood theprocess and could hold me up when theyfelt my resolve wavering. I also had accessto resources that I could ask other jour-nalists for help. I knew where I needed tolook when I need information,” saysKhan.

She is not worried going back to jour-nalism with its demand of set templatesand word counts... “I like writing non-fic-tion generally and not worried about get-ting bored with it. In fact, the last series Idid was about Afghan refugees inGermany, an eight part series boasting ofabout 24,000 words.”

So we can expect a non-fiction now?She laughs and says, “Well, why can’t weexpect it? I would love to work on anoth-er book but it has to be something con-suming. I would like to find somethingthat I can invest myself in, something thatcan hold myself with the kind of powerthat Kabul did.”

Ask her about her plans to go back toKabul and if she will encounter the citythrough the book’s prism, Khan says, “Noimmediate plans but if I go back, I knowit will be to a very different city. In thebook, I looked through the prism of mymemories. The people I spent so muchtime with there, don’t live in Kabul any-more. But yes, when I meet them in dif-ferent parts of the world, it is like the citytakes a form there, and comes alivebeyond its geography.”

A'#��

The fact that the crowdshave swelled is obviouseven to a casual observer

who has been visiting Jashn-e-Rekhta since its second edition.How many of them reached theMajor Dhyan Chand NationalStadium for the pure love of Urducould be anyone’s guess as the fes-tival has gradually acquired theconnotation of must-be-seen atevent in the December calendar.Or maybe it has just become theplace to rub shoulders withBollywood celebrities or postcheck-ins on social media as thenumber of people clicking selfiesat several premier spots werepractically tripping over eachother.

While entering, one encoun-

tered the beautiful pandals withcolourful strips adorning theceiling at each venue. Therewere, of course, performancesand discussions which form themainstay of the festival along withthe sideshows which consist offood stalls and vendors sellingdifferent merchandise. However,the proceedings this year weremarred, especially on the thirdday, with reports of violencecoming in from Jamia MiliaIslamia. In between the debatesabout which session to attendnext, snatches of conversationcould be heard about the CentralUniversity as well.

The inauguration on the firstday by Dr Karan Singh was fol-lowed by a performance by singer

Harshdeep Kaur who set thestage on fire with her foot-tap-ping numbers.

The second day saw a vari-ety of performances where JavedAkhtar, speaking on SahirLuhiyanvi, shared not just hiswork but his personal life too.While he elaborated onLudhiyanvi’s paradoxical nature,the loudest roars and apprecia-tion were reserved for the timewhen Akhtar said that increas-ingly the way to judge if a per-sonal was nationalistic was tofind out if s/he hated anyone ornot? Coming against the back-drop of his latest recital of hispoem, Jo baat kehte darte hainsab, tu woh baat likh (write whateveryone is afraid of writing),

there was no mistaking whowas at the receiving end of hissubtle criticism.

Old friends Munawwar Ranaand Rahat Indori got together todiscuss the falling standards ofmushairas while detailing theperils of inviting poets on thebasis of instagram likes.Peppered with funny incidents,it was a display of the cama-raderie that the two poets share.

The next day, too, sawBollywood representation. Whileat one place actor Divya Duttaheld forth on her book followedby Piyush Mishra, at the largerenclosure, sufi Kathak dancerManjari Chaturvedi performedon the Begums and Baijis ofBollywood. Ustad Shujaat Khan

wove magic on the sitar withpoetry written by the likes ofAmir Khusrau and KrishnaBihari Noor.

In the evening, a rock fusionband, Indie Routes, tried tomatch the high notes of UstadNusra Fateh Ali Khan and RahatFateh Ali Khan.

A performance by JaspinderNarula concluded the ninth edi-tion of the Rekhta, even as theinitial days leading upto it weremired in a controversy. The fes-tival, which till date, had pro-claimed to celebrate Urdu, in itsposters had changed it to say itwas a festival of Hindustani lan-guages. The uproar that followedon social media meant that it wasrestored to the original.

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Often accused of not puttingenough premium on hiswicket, rising Indian bats-

man Rishabh Pant says he has nowunderstood that there is no conceptof “natural game” in internationalcricket where one has to play accord-ing to the situation.

Pant’s reckless strokeplay at cru-cial junctures, leading to soft dis-missals, as well as poor work behindthe stumps have been the talkingpoints and a matter of concern forthe Indian team.

But the 22-year-old wicketkeep-er-batsman from Delhi finally camegood and struck his maiden ODIhalf century, albeit in a losing cause,in the first one-dayer against WestIndies. Pant said he is constantly try-ing to improve his game.

“I’ve realised after playing a fairbit at international level that unlikeat amateur levels of cricket, there isn’tanything like a natural game. At theinternational level, you have to playaccording to the situation or whatthe team demands,” Pant said at thepost-match press conference.

“It’s my learning curve, I’mthinking that. From team’s point ofview, whatever I can do to help myteam win, to have a good score onthe scoreboard, that’s what I wasfocussing on. In the end, I got someruns,” he added.

He said he will continue to focuson his game rather than think aboutthe “talk going around” about him.

“As an individual and as a play-er, I want to focus on my processes.All the talk going around, they’regood and sometimes they’re not. Atthe moment, I’m concentrating onmy game and that will hold me ingood stead,” said Pant who scored 71off 69 deliveries for his maiden ODIhalf-century.

Asked what kept him goingdespite the constant criticism, Pant

said it was all about believing in him-self and following the process ofgrowth.

“I will always tell a person thatyou have to believe in yourself. Itdoesn’t matter what people sayaround you. Sometimes you don'tget runs, sometimes you get runsbut the process is always impor-tant,” said the wicketkeeper-bats-man.

Asked how important thisknock was in the current circum-stances, he said every innings wasimportant for him and he wantedto improve every day.

"Personally, if I play for India,every innings is important for me.As a youngster I want to improveeach and every day," Pant said.

Pant has been greeted withchants of 'Dhoni, Dhoni' by crowds

at various stadiums but not here."Sometimes it's important

when crowd supports you. From anindividual point of view, I was try-ing to improve myself every day butI wasn't getting there. I am not say-ing I got there, but I try toimprove."

Pant, who revived the Indianinnings after the loss of three quickwickets in the company of ShreyasIyer (70), said the idea was to stitchtogether a partnership and staylonger on the crease.

"At the start, (Shreyas) Iyer andI were thinking of first stitching

together a partnership and taking thegame to the 35th-40th over becausea 50-over game is a fairly long one.

"Our idea was that the longerour partnership will be, it'd help usin capitalising late in the innings,"said Pant who plays for DelhiCapitals in the IPL.

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Holders Liverpool willreturn to the scene of

last season’s ChampionsLeague triumph after theywere drawn against AtleticoMadrid in the last 16 of thecompetition on Monday andManchester City face 13-timewinners Real Madrid.

Jurgen Klopp’s side willtravel to the WandaMetropolitano, whereLiverpool lifted the trophy inJune, for the first leg of theirtie against three-time run-ners-up Atletico.

“Madrid is the place wherewe only have fantastic mem-ories, all of us, so that’s great,but this time we play Atleticothere and it’s their homeground,” said Klopp.

“It’s a tough one, but if you

go through all of the draws,there are pretty much four orfive potential finals already inthe last 16.”

Pep Guardiola’s City, whoare trying to win a firstChampions League crown,face a tough task againstReal, the record winners ofEurope’s top club prize,for a place in the quar-ter-finals.

The two clubs met in the2015-16 semi-finals, the fur-

thest City have progressed inthe tournament. That tie waswon 1-0 on aggregate by Real.

“It is a difficult one, ofcourse. Real Madrid have won13 times so they are the best,”City director of football Txiki

Begiristain told BTSport.“We want to be the

best so we want to beatthem.”

The clash is a firstcompetitive meetingbetween Guardiola and

Zinedine Zidane, who won theChampions League three

times in a row with Real from2016.

Chelsea face Germangiants Bayern Munich in arepeat of the 2012 final won bythe Blues.

However, Bayern goal-keeper Manuel Neuer has fondmemories of London, wherethe Bavarians beat BorussiaDortmund in the 2013 final atWembley.

“We’re happy to go toLondon, we have great expe-riences from there. Chelsea area dangerous team and wemust take them extremely

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Swashbuckling WestIndies batsman

Shimron Hetmyerdescribed his match-win-ning 139 against India inthe first one-dayer as thebest knock of his careerbut said he would havebeen happier had he fin-ished off the game.

Hetmyer was out inthe 39th over after stitch-ing 218 runs for the sec-ond wicket with fellowcenturion Shai Hope (102not out), with the WestIndies at the stage need-ing 59 runs from 11.2overs with eight wicketsin hand.

“This is my highestscore in internationalcricket, so this would bethe best one. It’s alwaysnice chasing a score than

a setting one. Chasingand taking the teamhome is a much betterfeeling. Sad that I didn’tfinish the game, but it’s awork in progress for me,”Hetmyer said.

He said he just keptit simple and batting withHope also made it easier

as they have good under-standing between them.

“We just keep it sim-ple because we’ve playedwith each other for quitea while now. So, I knowhis game and he knowsmine. So, basically whenwe’re batting together,most of the time, I’m theaggressor and he’s theperson who sticks aroundand bats around,” saidHetmyer who faced 106deliveries during hisknock.

“And if he gets theboundary ball, he puts itaway. For us, it’s alwaysnice batting with some-one like him becausehe’s going to make sureyou get the strike asmuch as possible and it’seasier to execute,” headded.

His career-best

knock also came justbefore the IPL auctionon December 19 but the22-year-old batsmansaid he was not thinkingmuch about the upcom-ing cash-rich T20 leagueat the moment.

Asked if he was try-ing to prove a point witha ton days before the IPLauction, he said for himit was about enjoyinghis batting.

“To me it’s aboutenjoying my batting, it’scricket, sometimes youscore runs and some-times you don’t. Didn’thave the best IPL (2019season), it’s a nice expe-rience, it always helpsyou to come back muchstronger from there. Ijust try as much as pos-sible to put that behindme,” he said.

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seriously,” said Neuer.Bayern forward Robert

Lewandowski is the competi-tion’s leading scorer this sea-son after netting 10 times infive group stage games.

Paris Saint-Germain, whoimpressed in the group stageand will be trying to avoid afourth successive last-16 exit,will take on 1997 championsDortmund.

BARCELONA MEET NAPOLIBarcelona will play Napoli

for the first time as the Catalangiants, five-time Europeanchampions, attempt to moveon from last season's painful

semi-final loss to Liverpool.Napoli appointed Gennaro

Gattuso as coach last weekafter Carlo Ancelotti wassacked just hours after a 4-0win over Genk which sent theItalian side into the last 16.

Italian championsJuventus and CristianoRonaldo will fancy theirchances of overcoming Frenchside Lyon, who lost captainMemphis Depay to a season-ending injury on Sunday.

Tottenham Hotspur, beat-en 2-0 by Liverpool in last sea-son’s final in Spain, will lockhorns with Bundesliga leadersRB Leipzig, who are through

to the knockout stages for thefirst time.

Spurs can count on theexperience of new coach JoseMourinho — a two-time win-ner of the competition, withPorto in 2004 and Inter Milanin 2010.

The Portuguese is one offive managers appointed byclubs who made it through tothe knockout rounds whowere not in charge when thedraw for the group stage wasmade.

Champions League debu-tants Atalanta continue theiradventure against two-timeformer finalists Valencia, who

knocked out Ajax in midweekto finish top of their group.

This is the first time sincethe current ChampionsLeague format was introducedin 2003 that every clubthrough to the last 16 hascome from Europe’s biggestfive domestic leagues.

The first legs will beplayed over February 18-19and February 25-26 with thereturn fixtures scheduled forMarch 10, 11, 17 and 18.

The final is on May 30 atthe Ataturk Stadium inIstanbul, where Liverpool wona thrilling 2005 final on penal-ties against AC Milan.

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