12
Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy is likely to expand his Cabinet on July 22, after the resignation of Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose and Mopidevi Venkataramana on Wednesday upon their election to the Rajya Sabha. After these two resignations, there are 24 Ministers in the State Cabinet. It is expected that the Chief Minister will fill the two newly- created vacancies and, if sources are to be believed, will inducted new faces after the end of Ashadha Masam. This would most probably take place at the start of Shravana Masam, which com- mences from July 21. Going by the buzz, it appears that the new Ministers will likely take oath on July 22. The two leaders who recent- ly resigned are from the BC community. It is speculated that Jagan will likely pick their replacements from the same community. Bose was handling the rev- enue, registration and stamps portfolio and had taken oath on June 8, 2019. He resigned on July 1, 2020. Mopidevi Venkataramana handled the animal husbandry and fisheries portfolio and had taken oath as minister on June 8, 2019. He also resigned on July 1, 2020. Andhra Pradesh govern- ment-held AP Rajya Sabha elections on June 19 and the YSR Congress Party won all the four seats from the state by virtue of its formidable strength of 151 in the 175-member Andhra Pradesh Assembly. Union HRD Minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank announced that the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main and National Eligibility- cum-Entrance Test (NEET 2020) will now be held in September. The JEE examination will be held between September 1 to 6, JEE advanced exam will be held on September 27 and NEET examination will be held on September 13. "We have decided to post- pone both the exams consid- ering the safety of the stu- dents. Safety is our first con- cern and then value- based education. Now, JEE Main will be held between September 1 and 6 while NEET will be held on September 13. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States, that have almost exhausted their bor- rowing limit through auction of bonds under FRBM norms within three months of the cur- rent fiscal are now utilising the enhanced FRBM limit granted by the Centre recent- ly to overcome the corona- induced financial crisis. Governments of both the states continue to be heavily dependent on auction of bonds since April to raise funds to meet salaries and pensions for staff, retired staff and to meet expenses towards welfare schemes and develop- ment programmes. As per FRBM Act, States are allowed to raise loans up to 3 per cent of their GSDP in a financial year. Accordingly, TS was per- mitted to raise Rs 15,051 crore, while AP was allowed to raise Rs 15,153 crore for the current fiscal 2020-21. However, both the states almost exhausted this limit in the first three months of the fiscal itself as the revenue earnings took a drastic hit due to corona-induced lockdown from mid-March to June. TS and AP had already raised Rs 14,000 crore each in the first three months of this fiscal. Fortunately for the two states, the Centre recently raised the FRBM limit of all the States from 3% to 5% of GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri- sis. With this, both the states got the flexibility to raise an additional Rs 15,000 crore each for this fiscal. Sending a strong message to China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the era of expansionism is over and that India's enemies have seen the "fire and fury" of its armed forces as he made a surprise visit to Ladakh in the midst of a tense border standoff between Indian and Chinese armies in a num- ber of areas in the region. In an address to troops, Modi paid glowing tributes to the 20 Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clashes and said tales of the bravery and valour of the armed forces are echoing in every part of the country. "Bharat Mata's enemies have seen your fire and fury," Modi said in an apparent reference to the Galwan Valley clashes. He said bravery is a pre-requisite for peace and that the weak can never accomplish it. The prime minister said the world has taken note of India's strength due to the "exemplary bravery" of the armed forces in the recent weeks, adding histo- ry is proof that "expansionists" have either lost or perished. "The era of expansionism has come to an end. This is the era of development...History has proved that expansionist forces have either lost or were forced to turn back," he said. Former Minister Kollu Ravindra was on Friday evening arrested at Sitarampuram village of Tuni Mandal in East Godavari district, hours after he went underground after being booked by the Machilipatnam police in the mur- der case of YSRCP leader Moka Bhaskar Rao. A police team that reached his residence earlier in the day returned empty-handed as the TDP leader got a tip- off of the impending arrival of the police and left the place. Ravindra was included in the list of suspects in the sen- sational murder case based on the information given by other accused who were arrested earlier. Following Ravindra’s vanishing act, the police stepped up their search by deploying addi- tional teams to apprehend him. Earlier, two others — for- mer TDP coun- cillor Chintha Chinni and his cousin Chintha Nancharaiah — were arrested in connection with the case. Based on the revelations made by the two, the police also named Kollu Ravindra, who was the Welfare and Fisheries Minister during the TDP rule. Kollu Ravindra held for Perni Nani aide murder In a major setback to TDP MLA K Athannaidu, an ACB court on Friday dismissed his bail plea in the ESI scam case. The former minister, who is currently lodged in Vijayawada Sub-Jail, is accused A-2 in the case of swindling ESI funds meant for the purchase of medicines and equipment for govern- ment hospitals. Atchannaidu was recently remanded to 14-day custody of the ACB that is investigat- ing the case. He was also dis- charged from the govern- ment hospital here, where he was treated for previous ail- ments, following which he was shifted to the sub jail. The oldest government hos- pital in Andhra Pradesh, the King George Hospital in Vizag city, has been chosen by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) for undertaking human clinical trials of Covaxin. ICMR has partnered with Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) for clinical trials of indigenous vaccines for the Coronavirus infection. The BBIL is using the virus strain isolated at ICMR’s National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune of Maharashtra to develop the vaccine. KGH would be one of the 12 medical institutes in India and only one from Andhra Pradesh for carrying out clin- ical trials of Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin as per the directives of ICMR. The ICMR is plan- ning to launch the vaccine on August 15. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has recently allowed the Phase I and II human clinical trials of Covaxin, making it the coun- try’s first Covid-19 vaccine to get such an approval. KGH is the only institute from Andhra Pradesh to make it to the list of 12 med- ical institutes chosen by the ICMR as the clinical trial sites for the vaccine. Kilaru Rosaiah YSRCP MLA from Ponnuru in Guntur dis- trict has tested positive for Covid-19 here on Friday, the first MLA from the district to be infected with the deadly virus. The MLA released a selfie video informing about the infection, setting off alarm bells among the party leaders, officials and others who had met him in the recent past. Rosaiah said that he did not notice any symptoms of Coronavirus but the doctors declared that he was Covid-19 positive after conducting tests hence he was has decided to opt for home isolation under medical care. In what is clearly injustice, the AP State Aids Control (APSAC) contractual employ- ees who are risking their lives attending Covid-19 duty at Isolation wards and also con- ducting the pathogen (Coronavirus) tests, are deprived of insurance cover- age that is provided to other frontline workers. The APSAC employees deployed at ART and ICTC centres (all are contract employees) have been roped in for COVID-19 duties to conduct tests. The APSAC employee union has been pleading with the Director General of the National AIDS Control Organisation seeking the insurance coverage extended by the Union government, but to no avail. They were earlier getting exposed to patients suffering from TB and AIDs, and now Covid, but the authorities concerned are turning a blind eye to their plight and basic demands. “NACO had not responded to our issues and the same apathy continues during the COVID-19 pandemic leav- ing 21,000 employees who are rendering valuable ser- vices at high risk environ- ments to fend for themselves. NACO/APSACS should be held responsible if the employees contract the Covid virus and succumb to it,” said the APSAC employee repre- sentatives. No insurance cover for APSAC contract staff In a deviation from normal behav- iour, Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan on Friday extolled Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy for launching new ambulance vehicles at a time the state is reel- ing under a health emergency due to Covid-19. In a series of tweets, Pawan Kalyan appreciated the style of functioning of the state govern- ment in conducting as many Covid-19 tests as possible during the past three to four months without showing any signs of lethargy. He also exhorted to stand solid- ly behind the State Government, saying, “The whole world is fac- ing hardships at this hour. That is why let us all take precautions and cooperate with the government.” Pawan extols YSRCP govt work King George Hospital chosen for clinical trial of Covaxin AP to raise Rs 12,000 crore through auction of bonds

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Page 1: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

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Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy is likely to expand hisCabinet on July 22, after theresignation of Pilli SubhashChandra Bose and MopideviVenkataramana on Wednesdayupon their election to theRajya Sabha.

After these two resignations,there are 24 Ministers in theState Cabinet.

It is expected that the ChiefMinister will fill the two newly-created vacancies and, ifsources are to be believed, willinducted new faces after the

end of Ashadha Masam.This would most probably

take place at the start ofShravana Masam, which com-

mences from July 21. Going bythe buzz, it appears that thenew Ministers will likely takeoath on July 22.

The two leaders who recent-

ly resigned are from the BCcommunity. It is speculatedthat Jagan will likely pick theirreplacements from the samecommunity.

Bose was handling the rev-enue, registration and stampsportfolio and had taken oathon June 8, 2019. He resigned onJuly 1, 2020.

Mopidevi Venkataramanahandled the animal husbandryand fisheries portfolio and hadtaken oath as minister on June8, 2019. He also resigned onJuly 1, 2020.

Andhra Pradesh govern-ment-held AP Rajya Sabhaelections on June 19 and theYSR Congress Party won all thefour seats from the state byvirtue of its formidable strengthof 151 in the 175-memberAndhra Pradesh Assembly.

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Union HRD Minister Dr.Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishankannounced that the JointEntrance Examination (JEE)Main and National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET2020) will now be held inSeptember.

The JEE examination willbe held betweenSeptember 1 to 6,JEE advancedexam will be held

on September 27 and NEETexamination will be held onSeptember 13.

"We have decided to post-pone both the exams consid-ering the safety of the stu-dents. Safety is our first con-

cern and then value-based education. Now,JEE Main will be heldbetween September 1

and 6 while NEET willbe held on

September 13.

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Telangana and AndhraPradesh States, that havealmost exhausted their bor-rowing limit throughauction of bonds underFRBM norms withinthree months of the cur-rent fiscal are now utilisingthe enhanced FRBM limitgranted by the Centre recent-ly to overcome the corona-induced financial crisis.

Governments of both thestates continue to be heavilydependent on auction ofbonds since April to raisefunds to meet salaries andpensions for staff, retired staffand to meet expenses towardswelfare schemes and develop-ment programmes.

As per FRBM Act, Statesare allowed to raise loans upto 3 per cent of their GSDP ina financial year.

Accordingly, TS was per-mitted to raise Rs 15,051crore, while AP was allowedto raise Rs 15,153 crore for thecurrent fiscal 2020-21.

However, both the statesalmost exhausted this limit inthe first three months of thefiscal itself as the revenueearnings took a drastic hit dueto corona-induced lockdownfrom mid-March to June.

TS and AP had already

raised Rs 14,000 crore each inthe first three months of thisfiscal.

Fortunately for the twostates, the Centre recentlyraised the FRBM limit of allthe States from 3% to 5% ofGSDP to help states to tideover the present financial cri-sis.

With this, both the statesgot the flexibility to raise anadditional Rs 15,000 croreeach for this fiscal.

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Sending a strong message toChina, Prime Minister NarendraModi on Friday said the era ofexpansionism is over and thatIndia's enemies have seen the"fire and fury" of its armedforces as he made a surprise visitto Ladakh in the midst of a tenseborder standoff between Indianand Chinese armies in a num-ber of areas in the region. In anaddress to troops, Modi paidglowing tributes to the 20 Indiansoldiers killed in the GalwanValley clashes and said tales ofthe bravery and valour of thearmed forces are echoing inevery part of the country.

"Bharat Mata's enemies haveseen your fire and fury," Modisaid in an apparent reference tothe Galwan Valley clashes. Hesaid bravery is a pre-requisite forpeace and that the weak cannever accomplish it.

The prime minister said theworld has taken note of India'sstrength due to the "exemplarybravery" of the armed forces inthe recent weeks, adding histo-ry is proof that "expansionists"

have either lost or perished."The era of expansionism

has come to an end. This is theera of development...History

has proved that expansionistforces have either lost or wereforced to turn back," he said.

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Former Minister KolluRavindra was on Fridayevening arrested atSitarampuram villageof Tuni Mandal inEast Godavaridistrict, hoursafter he wentundergroundafter beingbooked by theMachilipatnampolice in the mur-der case of YSRCPleader Moka BhaskarRao.

A police team that reachedhis residence earlier in theday returned empty-handedas the TDP leader got a tip-off of the impending arrivalof the police and left theplace.

Ravindra was included inthe list of suspects in the sen-

sational murder case basedon the information given byother accused who werearrested earlier.

Following Ravindra’svanishing act, the

police stepped uptheir search bydeploying addi-tional teams toa p p r e h e n dhim.

Earlier, twoothers — for-

mer TDP coun-cil lor Chintha

Chinni and his cousinChintha Nancharaiah — werearrested in connection withthe case.

Based on the revelationsmade by the two, the policealso named Kollu Ravindra,who was the Welfare andFisheries Minister during theTDP rule.

Kollu Ravindra held forPerni Nani aide murder

�12�3��#�#$)$3����3���"&�,�"��/�$��*��� ����������

In a major setback to TDPMLA K Athannaidu, an ACBcourt on Friday dismissed hisbail plea in the ESI scam case.

The former minister, whois currently lodged inVijayawada Sub-Jail, isaccused A-2 in the case ofswindling ESI funds meantfor the purchase of medicinesand equipment for govern-ment hospitals.

Atchannaidu was recentlyremanded to 14-day custodyof the ACB that is investigat-ing the case. He was also dis-charged from the govern-ment hospital here, where hewas treated for previous ail-ments, following which hewas shifted to the sub jail.

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The oldest government hos-pital in Andhra Pradesh, theKing George Hospital inVizag city, has been chosen bythe Indian Council forMedical Research (ICMR) forundertaking human clinicaltrials of Covaxin.

ICMR has partnered withBharat Biotech InternationalLimited (BBIL) for clinicaltrials of indigenous vaccinesfor the Coronavirus infection.

The BBIL is using the virusstrain isolated at ICMR’sNational Institute of Virology(NIV) in Pune of

Maharashtra to develop thevaccine.

KGH would be one of the12 medical institutes in Indiaand only one from AndhraPradesh for carrying out clin-

ical trials of Covid-19 vaccineCovaxin as per the directivesof ICMR. The ICMR is plan-ning to launch the vaccine onAugust 15.

The Central DrugsStandard ControlOrganisation has recentlyallowed the Phase I and IIhuman clinical trials ofCovaxin, making it the coun-try’s first Covid-19 vaccine toget such an approval.

KGH is the only institutefrom Andhra Pradesh tomake it to the list of 12 med-ical institutes chosen by theICMR as the clinical trialsites for the vaccine.

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Kilaru Rosaiah YSRCP MLAfrom Ponnuru in Guntur dis-trict has tested positive forCovid-19 here on Friday, thefirst MLA from the district tobe infected with the deadlyvirus. The MLA released aselfie video informing aboutthe infection, setting off alarmbells among the party leaders,officials and others who hadmet him in the recent past.

Rosaiah said that he did notnotice any symptoms ofCoronavirus but the doctorsdeclared that he was Covid-19positive after conducting testshence he was has decided toopt for home isolation undermedical care.

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In what is clearly injustice, theAP State Aids Control(APSAC) contractual employ-ees who are risking their livesattending Covid-19 duty atIsolation wards and also con-ducting the pathogen(Coronavirus) tests, aredeprived of insurance cover-age that is provided to other

frontline workers. TheAPSAC employees deployedat ART and ICTC centres (allare contract employees) havebeen roped in for COVID-19duties to conduct tests.

The APSAC employeeunion has been pleading withthe Director General of theNational AIDS ControlOrganisation seeking theinsurance coverage extended

by the Union government, butto no avail.

They were earlier gettingexposed to patients sufferingfrom TB and AIDs, and nowCovid, but the authoritiesconcerned are turning a blindeye to their plight and basicdemands.

“NACO had not respondedto our issues and the sameapathy continues during the

COVID-19 pandemic leav-ing 21,000 employees whoare rendering valuable ser-vices at high risk environ-ments to fend for themselves.NACO/APSACS should beheld responsible if theemployees contract the Covidvirus and succumb to it,” saidthe APSAC employee repre-sentatives.

No insurance cover for APSAC contract staff�*��� ����������

In a deviation from normal behav-iour, Jana Sena president PawanKalyan on Friday extolled ChiefMinister YS Jaganmohan Reddyfor launching new ambulancevehicles at a time the state is reel-ing under a health emergency dueto Covid-19.

In a series of tweets, PawanKalyan appreciated the style of

functioning of the state govern-ment in conducting as manyCovid-19 tests as possible duringthe past three to four monthswithout showing any signs oflethargy.

He also exhorted to stand solid-ly behind the State Government,saying, “The whole world is fac-ing hardships at this hour. That iswhy let us all take precautions andcooperate with the government.”

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Pawan extols YSRCP govt work

King George Hospital chosenfor clinical trial of Covaxin

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AP to raise Rs 12,000 crorethrough auction of bonds

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Printed and published by B Krishna Prasad for and on behalf of CMYK Printech Ltd., Printed at Sree Seshasai Enterprises, D.No. New 3-88, Old 3-22, Chandra Theatre, Gosala, Penamaluru Mandal, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh - 521 151, Resident Editor: B Krishna Prasad, AIR SURCHARGE of Rs 2.00.

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There is an apocryphalstory about the cyclonethat struck Krishna

District, Andhra Pradesh in1977 and led to a huge loss oflives. As the relief workerswere unable to lift the putrefy-ing bodies, AVS Reddy (specialofficer) issued liquor to them sothat they could cremate thedead bodies. Calamities pro-duce such sort of disarray in theminds of frontline workers.

What this example reveals isthere is a need to reduce chaosin the mind or, using an anal-ogy from thermodynamics,increase psychic negentropy(negative entropy).

In 1943, Nobel LaureateErwin Schrödinger gave a lec-ture at Trinity College Dublinentitled what is life; a year later“What is Life” was published asa book. In this book,Schrödinger answers the ques-tion - “How would we expressthe marvellous faculty of a liv-ing organism, by which itdelays the decay into thermo-dynamical equilibrium(death)?”

His answer is that by meansof the process of metabolism, aliving organism“... feeds uponnegative entropy, attracting ... astream of negative entropyupon itself, to compensate theentropy increase it produces byliving and thus to maintainitself on a stationary and fair-ly low entropy level.” In otherwords, it is possible to boost thepsychic negentropy entropy byengaging with one’s surround-ings in a manner that increas-es the order in the mind.

The noted psychologistMihaly Csikszentmihaly in hisbook Finding Flow suggestssome principles of devotingattention to tasks in a way thatcalms the mind as well asincreases effectiveness.

The modus operandi con-sists of setting clear goals, get-ting immediate feedback onactions and fully using one’sskills while overcoming chal-

lenges. If the challenge is too high,

one gets frustrated, then wor-ried and finally, anxious. If thechallenge is too low, the resultis apathy. Disorder in the psy-che is reduced when high chal-lenges are evenly matched withhigh skills. In such a case thereis complete clarity on whatshould be done and how, andthere is no place for distractingthoughts or irrelevant feelings.

Let us apply this to Covid-control operations.

First, clear goals have to be

set. In the post-lockdown sce-nario, goals have changed.During lockdown the goal ofCovid-control was mainly toenforce stay-at-home orders.After its withdrawal, the prima-ry goal is implementation of apublic health model of testing,tracking, isolating and quaran-tining. Second, testing wasimportant earlier too, howev-er, now it has acquired evenmore salience because it has tobe stepped-up in the face of anincreasing number of peopletesting positive. Third, test

results have to be followed-upthrough micro-level actions.For this micro-level data on rel-evant indicators is required.Otherwise as Gov. AndrewCuomo forewarns “- when youjust reopen with no regard formetrics or data — it's bad forpublic health and for the econ-omy, and states that reopened

in a rush are now seeing aboomerang”.

Let us consider the case ofpeople with co-morbidities (e.g.high blood pressure, diabetesand tuberculosis). They requirespecial attention in order toavoid contracting Covid-19.

In case they get the infection,then, they require urgent cura-tive care. In such cases, themicro-level actions are: (1) iden-tify people with co-morbiditiesin micro-areas, (2) test them, (3)if the test result is negative con-tinue to get a daily feedback ontheir health status (e.g. bodytemperature, cough), (3) if thetest result is positive, then takeaction for home isolation orinstitutional quarantine, (4) docontact tracing in order to locateand test all the people whocame in contact with the infect-ed individual, and (5) test againonce symptoms subside.

Next, use locally available

skills and resources to carry outgrass root activities. The first stepis to identify vulnerable people.

This requires a rapid house-to-house survey. One excellentresource available is the pulsepolio team. These teams couldbe quickly be mobilised anddeployed for the survey. As thesurvey progresses, testing canbe done the next day (e.g. usemobile vans to collect samples).

Based on the test results andthe profile of the individual(e.g. age, family support) andthe severity of symptoms, adecision could be made forhome isolation or sending to acare-centre. Finally, the ASHAworkers or any other micro-level resource would be used totrace all the people who camein contact with the infectedindividual and arrange fortheir testing. Based on theresults of contact tracing, spe-cific parts of buildings or areas

would be sealed for limitedperiods.

Setting clear and consistentgoals, obtaining immediatefeedback on actions and usingone’s skills fully to overcome thechallenges thrown up byCovid-19 enables one to allo-cate complete attention ontasks as well as drive them.

As a result, harmony is estab-lished between the will, mindand emotions. This is a mani-festation of increase in psychicnegentropy. A restful psychegoes hand-in-hand with betterperformance in Covid-controloperations. In the long run, thecoherent self becomes theunique personal-reality (per-sonality) of the individual.

(Author is a PhD from USAand a DLitt from Kanchi

University. The article is basedon his research and practice

and views are personal)

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Hundreds of people are return-ing to Andhra Pradesh everyday with a fear that lockdownwould be imposed in theneighbouring Telangana State.It may be recalled that hun-dreds of positive cases arebeing reported under theGrater Hyderabad MunicipalCorporation (GHMC) limitsevery day for the past fewweeks. In this backdrop, peo-ple from Andhra Pradesh arereturning to their native placesfrom Hyderabad.

On an average more thanthousand people are crossingthe border every day.Serpentine queues are seen onthe Andhra– Telangana borderas officials are thoroughlychecking the Spandana regis-tration, e-Pass, Aadhaar andother identity proofs. Peopleare allowed to enter Andhraonly if the person has a validpass. Those who do not havepasses are not allowed intoAndhra and are being sentback.

People with valid passeshave to undergo thermal scanand home quarantine are beingstamped on their hands.Officials are allowing entry

into Andhra Pradesh from 7am to 7 pm. During the lastweek on an average 800entered Andhra while duringthe past few days every daymore than 1,000 are crossingthe border and vehicles enter-ing the State have doubledfrom 300 to 600 vehicles everyday.

Speaking to The PioneerSomeswara Rao, a privateemployee, who was stopped onthe Andhra Pradesh-TelanganaState border for not havingpass. He had to plan his trav-el to his native place inBhimavaram as there arerumours that lockdown will beimposed in Hyderabad due toa huge number of Covid-19positive cases.

Venkatamma, a migrantworker from Samalkot town,was struck at Bagh Amberpetin Hyderabad, before lock-down. She has to claim freehouse site on July 8 announcedby Chief Minister JaganmohanReddy, if she comes she will behome quarantined for a week.As she is a month’s old babyfeeding on her it is difficult toher to come and go backimmediately, she says.

Y Nagasri, a softwareemployee, who was sent backfor not carrying e-Pass saysthat there is confusion on theinter-state travel restriction asthe Central government saysno restriction at one point oftime and again it says thatinter-state travel restriction is

left to the State governments todecide. Since the beginning ofthe lockdown all are followingthe guidelines of the Centre.

Meanwhile, DGP Gautam DSawang appealed to peopleentering Andhra Pradesh shallplan their travel in the day timebetween 7 am and 7 pm, all thepeople will be thermalscreened before entering theState. All the travellers shouldposses valid passes obtainedthrough Spandana. Entryrestrictions will be imposed onthe people, who are comingfrom other States to AndhraPradesh and people will not beallowed after 7 pm. Only emer-gency and essentials will beallowed during nights, saidthe DGP.

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The Machavaram policesolved the mystery of a miss-ing Covid-19i n f e c t e dp a t i e n tVasanthaRao, whow e n tm i s s i n gsoon afterhe was admit-ted to the GGH, Vijayawada,on June 24 for treatment. Inthe police investigation, theycame to know that VasanthaRao died on the same night onJune 24 after being admitted tothe GGH.

According to MachavaramCircle Inspector G VinayMohan, Covid-19 patientVasantha Rao died whileundergoing treatment on thesame day. The body ofVasantha Rao was shifted tothe mortuary after his death bythe hospital staff but the detailsof Vastantha Rao were notrecorded by the hospital staff.After the police started theirinvestigation, they tracked theCCTV footage and couldidentify the body of VasanthaRao. Later, relatives identifiedthe body of Vasantha Raosolving the mystery in the case,said the CI.

Meanwhile, the wife and rel-atives of the deceased brokedown after knowing the newsof Vasantha Rao’s death.Relatives of the deceased werefurious on doctors and thestaff of GGH for their negli-gence towards the patients,who are admitted for treat-ment.

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Densely populated urbanarea has huge demand forgreener surroundings andbetter environment. Theurbanisation impact addedwith the impact of climatechange is deteriorating, whichin turn is taking a toll on thepopulation. The urban forestblocks can provide a solace tothis problem by developmentof urban forest parks for cli-mate resilience for city and itspeople.

Forest Minister AllolaIndrakaran Reddy on Fridayinaugurated urban forest parks- Anyaneeya and NarsimhaForest Parks at Raigiri nearYadagirigutta. Speaking on theoccasion, the Minister said thatthe state government was devel-oping lung spaces in the citiesand towns by setting up urbanforest parks and urban tourismparks in the available forestlands.

"The Chief Minister hasdesired to develop parks onthe basis of KBR park modelin all areas of Hyderabad cityas well in all municipalities inthe state. The Chief Ministeralways emphasised on creat-ing better environment to livein as health is wealth. Theseurban forest parks providebetter environment to nearbyhabitations and there by bet-ter health, people shouldvisit/walk in forest parks fortheir health instead of hospi-tals for cure," he further said.

No state except Telanganahas taken up plantation pro-gramme in such a big way inthe country, the Ministersaid and added that the stategovernment has already iden-tified forest lands locatednear cities and towns anddeveloping urban parks insome area of them, he added.He made it clear that urbanlung spaces would be creat-ed at all cities and towns inthe state.

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Thousands of non-residentTelugus in the US and othercountries took part in a demon-stration on July 3 to express theirsolidarity with the farmers ofAmaravati, the present capital cityof Andhra Pradesh, as their agi-tation against the trifurcation ofthe State capital has completed200 days.

More than 24,000 farmers ofAmaravati Capital Region havebeen on the warpath ever sincethe YSRCP government in theState announced on December17 last year about creating threecapitals – Executive Capital inVisakhapatnam, LegislativeCapital in Amaravati and JudicialCapital in Kurnool. These farm-ers belonging to 29 villages - whogave 33,000 acres land to theCapital City during the TDPregime, strongly resisted themove.

“For the last 200 days, farmershave been waging a relentless bat-tle demanding that the capital beretained in Amaravati. Theytook out rallies, held relay hungerstrikes blocked the national high-ways and braved arrests andlathicharge from the police. Someof the farmers died of heartattacks due to pressure,” said BJayaram Komati, former presi-dent of TANA. “Similarly,

Andhra people in other countrieslike Singapore, Thailand,Australia, England and NewZealand have also evinced inter-est in similar demonstrations. Inall, protests are likely to take placein 300 cities,” the NRI business-man said. The NRI Telugus had

contributed to the building of theState capital. When former ChiefMinister N Chandrababu Naidulaunched a campaign – MyBrick, My Amaravati – aimed atselling ‘electronic bricks’ to buildAmaravati, they responded inhuge numbers.

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Rotarian GS Raju, who tookcharge as the Rotary BloodBank Chairman, said the bloodbank will be installing auto-mated blood components sep-arator at the earliest at a costof Rs 18 lakhs. The separatorhelps in collection of bloodcomponents platelets, FreshFrozen Plasma (FFP), PackedRed Blood cells (PRBC),platelets.

He stressed the need to con-ducting more blood donationcamps to meet the growingdemand in view of Covid-19.Rotarian G Rambabu will con-tinue as the secretary after asuccessful year, which sawnew heights in the history of

Rotary Blood Bank.GS Raju lauded the perfor-

mance of the outgoing com-mittee and efforts of the staffof Rotary Blood Bank duringthe pandemic. OutgoingChairman Rotarian KSMK

Murthy said that Rotary BloodBank was the only blood bankin Visakhapatnam serving24x7 during the lockdownperiod and the staff hadworked relentlessly to serve theneedy in spite of being anNGO.

Rotary Blood Bank’s newpublic relations directorRotarian Past President PLKMurthy, outgoing public rela-tions director Rotarian KNagesh Kumar, Rotary clubpresident Rotarian Capt RSKali Prasad, secretary RtnVithal Prasad , president electRotarian DV Varma, commit-tee members Rotarian KSrinivas Reddy, Rotarian SRKReddy and blood bank staffgraced the occasion.

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TDP MP KanakamedalaRavindra Kumar on Fridayaccused Speaker TammineniSitaram of violating theConstitution by making state-ments against the orders ofcourts and the functioning ofthe judiciary. Sitaram onThursday opposed the interfer-ence of courts in governmentpolicies and sought a debate onthe powers of legislation andthe judiciary.

Ravindra Kumar welcomedthe Speaker's demand for adebate on limitations of thecourts and said the TDP wouldtake part in the debate.

He informed the Speaker torecognise the fact that the

Constitution was supreme overand above the Legislature,Judiciary and Executive andreminded that in the BRKapoor Vs Tamil Nadu gov-ernment case, the SupremeCourt said the Constitution issupreme and it prevails over

the will of people that isexpressed through the major-ity party government.

He described it as a deroga-tory for the Speaker to suggestthat judges were interferingwith the government's func-tioning and that the majoritywas not allowed to implementits policies. He stated that itwas unconstitutional forSpeaker to suggest that thecourts may rule by it instead ofinterfering with the govern-ment. Being in a constitution-al post, Sitaram was makingirrational comments and heshould engage experts to learnwhat safeguards were provid-ed in the Constitution againstundemocratic activities of anykind.

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Indian tech and entertainmentfirms are looking to capitalise onsudden opportunities arising froma government ban on Chineseowned apps, including the wildlypopular TikTok, with one rivalvideo app saying it had added 22million users in 48 hours. India thisweek outlawed 59 Chinese-ownedapps including TikTok andTencent's WeChat, in what wasdescribed as a "digital strike"against China by the country'stechnology minister.

The move followed a con-frontation between India and

China at a disputed Himalayanborder site, which left 20 Indiansoldiers dead. With 200 millionIndians users, TikTok, which fea-tures a simple user interface, back-

ground music options and variousspecial effects, was a burgeoningforce in the nation's social mediascene and the ban left its fansscrambling for options.

Roposo, an Indian video-shar-ing social media app similar toTikTok that been around since2014, saw its user base jump by 22million in the two days afterIndia banned the Chinese apps,the company's founder MayankBhangadia told Reuters. "In the lastfew days I've slept for a total of fivehours, and its the same for ourentire team," Bhangadia said. "Theload is so much and we're justensuring that the experience is assmooth as possible."

Roposo's downloads onGoogle's Android now total over80 million, and Bhangadiaexpects that to reach 100 million

in just a few days. Before the ban,Roposo had roughly 50 millioninstalls on Android devices,which account for a bulk ofIndia's nearly 500 million smart-phones. Based in the southernIndian tech hub of Bengaluru, thecompany has just 200 staff nowbut is planning to hire as manyas 10,000 people over the nexttwo years and may take the appglobal, Bhangadia said.

Other home-grown TikTokalternatives such as Chingari andMitron are also finding favourwith users, with many taking tosocial media to echo PrimeMinister Narendra Modi's call

for "atma-nirbhar" or self-reliantIndia. MyGov, the federal gov-ernment's citizen engagementwebsite, last month created itsaccount on Roposo. "We have tocreate our own ecosystem, everycountry has done this, this is ouratma-nirbhar programme," saida government minister. Newplayers are also jumping into thefray.

Mumbai-based ZeeEntertainment Enterprises is setto launch an ad-supported,short-video platform, namedHiPi, in the next two months,Rajneel Kumar, the producthead for its digital unit Zee5 said.

Page 3: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

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The TDP on Friday gave anew definition to the YSRCP,saying that Y stands for YVSubba Reddy, S stands for SaiReddy and R stands forSajjala Ramakrishna Reddy.Former Minister DevineniUmamaheswara Rao allegedthat Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy hasalready distributed 13 dis-tricts for these leaders. Heclaimed that the trio will bethe real power wielders in theState while the Cabinet andthe ministers would be func-tioning without field levelauthority or powers.

The TDP leader allegedthat YV Subba Reddy willrule over three districts onbehalf of Jagan, VijayasaiReddy will act as his deputyin three districts and SajjalaRamakrishna Reddy in fivedistricts.

Uma criticised saying it asan unfortunate that theJaganmohan Reddy govern-ment was conspiring toimplicate BC leader and TDPformer Minister Kol luRavindra in the murder caseof YSRCP leader MokaBhasker R ao in

Machilipatnam. He con-demned the series of conspir-acies by the ruling party tar-geting the backward andweaker sections leaders ofTDP.

The former ministerasserted that the tricks of theChief Minister would notget success eventually as peo-ple and all sections of lead-ers were preparing to opposehis anti-development activi-ties with greater force. Hestated that the TDP wouldstand in the forefront of thefight and struggle againstthe misuse and atrocities ofJaganmohan Reddy in thecoming days.

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Diesel Loco Shed in Vizag,which is the biggest loco shed inAsia for its holding capacity andfor maintenance has been com-bating the spread of pandemicvirus infection with severalinventions so far. Now, it cameup with the latest invention ofultraviolet radiation based dis-infection sanitisers for curren-cy notes, papers and tools.

The Waltair Loco Shed hadprepared thousands of liters ofhand sanitiser for utilisation ofstaff, masks, sanitising tunnel,leg operated (hands free) handwash booths, sensor-based handsanitiser dispensers earlier.

Railways deals with transac-tion of currency notes at pas-senger reservation counters,parcels offices in addition tocashless transactions for hassle-free services. There is also apaper transaction in the formof receipts, tickets and files.Hence, it was the need of thehour to have sanitisers to checkthe spread of the pandemicCovid-19 infection at various

vulnerable locations.Taking into consideration

of this necessity, as per theguidance of Divisional RailwayManager of Waltair ChetanKumar Shrivastava under themonitoring of SeniorDivisional MechanicalEngineer (Diesel) SantoshKumar Patro, the fabrication ofthe UVC sanitisers were doneat Diesel Loco Shed,Visakhapatnam, with in-houseavailable sources.

This equipment works on

the principle of ultra-violetradiation emitted from aGermicidal UVC lamp thatkills up to 99.9% of most virus-es, airborne bacteria and moldspores by destroying nucleicacids and disrupting theirDNA, leaving them unable toperform vital cellular func-tions. Using this technologyDLS, Visakhapatnam, fabri-cated the sanitisers.

A passenger needs to placethe reservation form and cur-rency notes in the tray, the rail-

way staff pulls the tray into theUVC light provided in thebox and presses the push but-ton switch that makes UVClight to glow for 10 seconds,along with the buzzer indica-tion. Just after completion of 10seconds both UVC light andbuzzer stops working and thegreen light will glow indicatingsanitisation is completed andready for another operation.

Thereafter railway staff pullsthe tray towards him/her andcollects the money and puts thereservation tickets & change, ifany, into the tray and repeat the

process before pushing ittowards the passenger. Thismachine can also be used forsanitising mobile phones, wal-lets and any other items, whichfits inside the tray. However,they are required to be sani-tised on both sides as theirthickness is high.

After going through the suc-cessful working of the equipmentEast Coast Railway appreciatedthe work of Team DLS andadvised for fabrication of 150such currency sanitiser equip-ment to be provided at all tick-et counters over its jurisdiction.

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The annual Jyestabhisekamfestival concluded at SriGovindaraja Swamy templeon Friday with KavachaSamarpana in ‘ekantham’ inview of Covid-19 restric-tions.

Earlier, the Kavachas wereparaded within the templeprakaram. Priests performedthe Snapana Tirumanjanamto the Utsava idols of SriGovindaraja Swamy and Hisconsorts.

Thereafter, the BrahmaGhosha was conducted andthe Kavacha Samarpana wasmade to the utsava idols.

Later in the evening, theutsava idols were paraded within the templecompound. Pedda Jeeyangar

and Chinna JeeyangarSwamij is of Tirumala, special grade deputy execu-

tive officer Varalakshmi and other temple staff partic-ipated.

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Continued from Page 1

Rosaiah said that he went toattend Chief Minister’s videoconfer-ence where doctors conducted med-ical tests and found that he wasinfected so he left the Collectorateat Guntur and returned home. TheMLA urged people to contact himon his mobile phone or send theirproblems on his WhatsApp account.

He said that he was quite sure thathis infection would not cause anyproblems to him and expressedhope that he would recover soon.

Rosaiah appealed to the public tobe cautious and to followCoronavirus guidelines to containthe spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, the officials sanitisedthe meeting hall where Rosaiah wasseated to attend a videoconferencewith the CM. Home MinisterMekatothi Sucharita and severalother MLAs decided to take Coronatest in view of Rosaiah testing pos-itive.

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Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy saidthat sugar factories in thecooperative sector wouldbe strengthened and duesworth Rs 54.6 crore wouldbe cleared on July 8. At areview meeting held hereon Friday, the ChiefMinister said that sugarfactories in the cooperativesector should be revivedand asked officials to workin this direction.

A Group of Ministerswould also study the stateof affairs of sugar factoriesin the cooperative sectorand submit its report, hesaid. Their produce shouldget a good price.

The dues aggregating toRs 54.6 crore will be

cleared on July 8, which isbeing observed as theFarmers' Day. About 50Kfarmers will be benefittedwith this, the ChiefMinister said

The government willclear the dues for SriVijayarama GajapathiFactory (Rs 8.41 crore),Codavaram Sugar Factory(Rs 22.12 crore),Etikoppaka Sugar Factory(Rs 10. 56 crore) TandavaSugar Factory (Rs 8.88crore) and AnakapalleSugar Factory (Rs 4.63crore). The Chief Ministerasked officials to submit acomprehensive report byAugust 15. Ministers KKannababu, BotsaSatyanarayana, MGoutham Reddy and offi-cials attended the meeting.

Continued from Page 1

Besides Ravindra, the role ofmany local TDP leaders is alsobeing investigated in the killing ofMoka Bhaskara Rao, a close aideof Information Minister PerniVenkataramaiah (Nani), who alsohails from Machilipatnam.

Machilipatnam DSP MahbubBasha said the investigationrevealed that the murder waspolitically motivated. The murderwas planned by three persons —Chintha Chinni, his cousinChintha Nancharaiah and hisbrother's son Chintha Kishore —the DSP said.

The police official also statedthat a case has been registeredagainst Chintha Chinni,Nancharaiah, Kishore and formerminister Kollu Ravindra at R Petapolice station. Even family mem-bers of Bhaskara Rao also allegedin their complaint that the mur-der plot was executed at thebehest of TDP leader and formerminister Kollu Ravindra. The for-mer minister had the full knowl-edge of the murder plot and was

also in touch with the accusedarrested in the case, the DSP stat-ed. "We have to investigate moresuspects and the details will be dis-closed to the media as soon as theinvestigation is over," the DSP said.

Moka Bhaskara Rao, who wasthe Market Yard Committeechairman, was repeatedly stabbedwith a knife coated with cyanidein broad daylight in the fish mar-ket of Machilipatnam on June 30.He succumbed to the injuries laterat the government hospital.

Meanwhile, Bhaskara Rao’swife Venkateswaramma demand-ed the arrest of Ravindra suspect-ing his role in the murder. "KolluRavindra is behind this murder,since he couldn't withstand thepopularity of YSRCP in the con-stituency. During his tenure asminister, he was involved withmany corruption cases and withthe fear of his corruption beingrevealed, he planned this murderwith his close associates. My hus-band was brutally murdered inbroad daylight and KolluRavindra must be punished andjustice should prevail,” she said.

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Atchannaidu hopes of secur-ing bail and freedom weredashed after the investigatingagency strongly opposed he begiven bail. The ACB submittedto the court that the investiga-tion into the case was at a verycrucial stage and several othersalso need to be questioned inconnection with the ESI scam.It expressed apprehensions thatgiving bail to the A-2 accused atthis juncture might affect theprobe as the evidence could betampered. Concurring with theACB’s argument, the ACB courtrefused bail to Atchannaiduand dismissed his petition.Following this, Atchannaiduwas shifted back to theVijayawada Sub-Jail. BesidesAtchannaidu, eight others

including the former directors ofAndhra Pradesh ESI board werealso arrested in connection withthe case. After preliminary inves-tigation, the ACB has establishedthe involvement of 18 personsbesides Atchannaidu in thescam in which more than Rs 150crore were alleged to have beenmisappropriated. The investigat-ing agency has so far filed twoFIRs in the case.

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He further said: "Yourcourage is higher than theheights where you are servingtoday. When the safety of thecountry is in your hands, thenthere is a belief. Not only me, butthe entire nation believes in you.We all are proud of you."

The prime minister wasaccompanied by Chief ofDefence Staff Gen Bipin Rawatand Army Chief Gen MMNaravane.

"Whether during the worldwars or peace, the world hasseen the victory of our brave sol-diers and their efforts towardspeace," he said amid chants of'Vande Mataram'.

"We are the same peoplewho pray to the flute-playingLord Krishna, but we are alsothose who idolise and pray tothe same Lord Krishna who car-ries the 'Sudarshana Chakra'," hesaid.

The Indian and Chinese

armies are locked in a bitterstandoff in multiple locations ineastern Ladakh for the lastseven weeks. The tension esca-lated manifold after 20 Indiansoldiers were killed in a violentclash in Galwan Valley on June15. The Chinese side also suf-fered casualties but it is yet togive out the details.

In his address, Modi spoke atlength about how the virtues ofpeace, friendship and courage

have been a part of India's cul-ture since time immemorial. Herecalled that India has alwaysgiven a befitting reply to anyonewho has tried to disturb the pre-vailing atmosphere of peaceand progress.

The prime minister affirmedthat India is committed to peaceand friendship but this commit-ment to peace should not beseen as India's weakness.

Today India is becoming

stronger, be it in naval might, airpower, space power and thestrength of our army, he said,adding modernisation ofweapons and upgrading ofinfrastructure has enhanced thecountry's defence capabilitiesmanifold.

He also said that governmentis putting adequate focus onrequirement of armed forces.

Modi travelled to Nimu, a for-ward post, to interact withIndian troops. Nimu is sur-rounded by the Zanskar rangeand is on the banks of riverIndus. The Prime Minister metthe top leadership of the IndianArmy and later interacted withpersonnel of the Army, AirForce and ITBP.

In his address, Modi remem-bered all the "proud sons ofMother India" who made thesupreme sacrifice at the GalwanValley, adding those who weremartyred belong to all parts ofthe country and "epitomised ourland's ethos of bravery".

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A sharp response camefrom Beijing hours later,through its embassyspokesperson. "China hasdemarcated boundary with12 of its 14 neighboringcountries through peaceful

negotiations, turning landborders into bonds offriendly cooperation. It'sgroundless to view China as'expansionist', exaggerateand fabricate its disputeswith neighbours," said JiRong, the spokesperson ofthe Chinese embassy.

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Both the state governmentshave now lined up auctions ofbonds to utilise the enhancedFRBM limit in the next threemonths from July toSeptember.

The AP government hasput up bonds worth Rs12,000 crore for auction fromJuly to September whileTelangana has put up bondsworth Rs 10,000 crore for thesame period.

Both the states are expect-ed to exhaust the major partof even enhanced FRBM limitin the next three months. Yet,their governments are hope-ful that coronavirus will bebrought under control byOctober and normalcy will berestored boosting the rev-enue earnings in the secondhalf of the fiscal and they canmanage the expenses withtheir own resources.

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Apart from IMS andSUM Hospital, the otherinstitutes selected for theclinical trial are located inVisakhapatnam, Rohtak,New Delhi, Patna, Belgaum(Karnataka), Nagpur,Gorakhpur, Kattankulathur(Tamil Nadu), Hyderabad,Arya Nagar, Kanpur (UttarPradesh) and Goa.

In a letter to 12 institutes,the ICMR said that it isenvisaged to launch thevaccine for public healthuse latest by August 15,after completion of all clin-ical trials. BBIL is workingexpeditiously to meet thetarget, however, the finaloutcome will depend on thecooperation of all clinicaltrial sites involved in theproject.

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“We are indeed harmingourselves physically and men-tally but nobody is making anattempt to identify our prob-lems. Nobody is worriedabout what we all are goingthrough.

Our employees while onduty have been exposed toinfections like TB and someof them even lost their lives.But their families were notpaid single paise as compen-sation. Is this our humanityand concern towards a per-son?” questioned theemployees with a heavyheart.

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The JEE Advanced willnow be held on September27. I hope that you will uti-lize this extra time in polish-ing your abilities and worktowards stress-free prepara-tions," the HRD ministersaid in a video message.

The move by the HRDMinistry comes after par-ents and students raised con-cerns about conducting theexams in July, when COVID-19 cases are increasing rapid-ly. The decision was takeafter based on a report sub-mitted by a panel of expertsregarding the prevailing pan-demic situation.

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The Anti-C orrupt ionBureau officials conductedraids on Bandar Sub-Treasury Office on Friday.

The ACB officials con-ducted raids on receivingcomplaints of irregulari-ties in distributing pen-sions and maintaining therecords.

The ACB officials seizedcash from the officers andstaff of the sub-treasuryof f ice . ACB ASPUmamaheswara R ajurecovered the seized cashfrom sub-treasury officerSN Mal leswara R ao,according to sources.

Continued from Page 1

The MPs complained to theLok Sabha Speaker that Rajuwas indulging in anti-partyactivities. Along with the dis-qualification petition, theYSRCP MPs also submittedsoft copies of Raju’s mediastatements to strengthen theirargument that the NarsapuramLok Sabha MP was Raju mak-ing anti-party remarks to lowerthe party’s public image.

A show-cause notice wasalready issued against Rajuwho questioned its legal sanc-tity as it was issued under theletter head of YSR CongressParty and not under the letterhead of Yuvajana SramikaRythu Congress Party which isthe registered name with theElection Commission of India.

Vijayasai Reddy, who issued

the show-cause notice, onFriday confirmed that theYSRCP has submitted a dis-qualification petition againstRaju.

Talking to the media aftermeeting Om Birla, VijayasaiReddy said Raju had consis-tently lowered the public imageof the party by making anti-party statements.

“The heart and soul ofRaghurama Krishnam Raju isnot with the YSRCP,” VijayasaiReddy said.

He said the YSRCP aftermuch deliberations on thematter has finally decided toinitiate stringent possibleaction against the party MP.

Vijayasai Reddy said theYSRCP leadership gave utmostrespect to Raju, despite this hehas been making anti-partystatements.

He recalled that Raju wasappointed Narasapuram as thechairman of the SubordinateLegislation Committee.

Vijayasai Reddy said whileRaju claims to be the faithfulsoldier of the YSRCP, his state-ments prove otherwise. “Hiswords and actions are contra-dictory. He has been usingmost objectionable languageagainst the party’s MLAs. It isnot acceptable to the party. Heviolated the party’s internal dis-cipline. Raju’s actions com-pelled the party to move a dis-qualification petition againsthim,” Vijayasai Reddy said.

Meanwhile, Mithun Reddysaid the people should getready for bypolls inNarsapuram even as Raju’sdisqualification is yet to beapproved by the Lok SabhaSpeaker.

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On the second day of ongoingannual Pavitrotsavams, thesacred ritual of Grandhi PavitraSamarpana was held at SriKapileswara Swamy temple on

Friday in ‘ekantham’ in view ofCovid-19 restrictions. Templedeputy executive officerSubramaniam, superintendentBhupathi, temple inspectorReddy Sekhar and SrinivasNayak also participated.

Page 4: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

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The NCW received 2,043 com-plaints of crimes committedagainst women in June, thehighest in the last eight months.

According to the NationalCommission for Women(NCW) data, 452 complaints ofdomestic violence were receivedin June alone. Of the 2,043, 603complaints related to mentaland emotional abuse and werefiled under the 'right to live withdignity' clause.

The number of complaintsreceived in June have beenhighest since September lastyear when 2,379 complaintswere received, the data showed.

NCW chairperson RekhaSharma attributed the rise incomplaints to the increasedactivity of the commission onsocial media platforms.

"The complaints haveincreased because we are veryactive on social media nowand we are registering casesfrom Twitter and other socialmedia platforms too. We havea WhatsApp number for report-ing cases which was not in placeearlier. People know that we arehelping and that's why they havemore faith in us," Sharma said.

The second highest number

of complaints were receivedunder the clause of ''Protectionof Women against DomesticViolence'' at 452, the datashowed.

Sharma similarly attributedthe increase in domestic vio-lence complaints due to theactive presence of NCW onsocial media.

"Same is with the cases ofdomestic violence. We adver-tised on Doordarshan at primetime to make women aware ofthe ways in which they couldreach us and also started ouremergency WhatsApp helplinenumber which is an easy wayfor women to reach out to us.This is the reason why numbershave increased," she said.

There were 252 complaints ofharassment of married womenand dowry harassment followedby 194 complaints of outragingmodesty of women andmolestation, the data showed.

The NCW data showed that113 complaints of police apathytowards women and 100 com-plaints of cyber crime werereceived by the commission.

As many as 78 complaints ofrape and attempt to rape werereceived, while 38 complaints ofsexual harassment were receivedin June, the data showed.

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PUBG exposes children to aworld of crime and negativethinking, a top scientist haswarned amid calls in some quar-ters to ensure that online games,particularly for kids, complywith best international stan-dards, regulations and practices.

Reports said a 22-year-oldman addicted to the multi- play-er combat game allegedly com-mitted suicide at his home inMaharashtras Yavatmal districtlast month, while a boy, aged 14,killed self after a nightlongPUBG (PlayerUnknownsBattlegrounds) session in Kota inRajasthan in May.

Last year, a 15-year-old boyfrom Bhiwandi in Thane districtof Maharashtra allegedly killedhis elder brother for scolding himover playing PUBG on hismobile phone.

Former chairman of Indian

Space Research Organisation GMadhavan Nair said on FridayPUBG does more harm thangood.

It exposes children to a worldof crime and war. It does notenhance the skill or intellectualcapability of players, especiallychildren. It exposes them to allkinds of negative thinking, Nairtold PTI when asked to com-ment on suggestions from somequarters to ban the game.

It is a chance game and therewill be a tendency to play untilwinning, he added. This is anaddictive process and waste of

time. It only helps to nurturecriminal mentality.

Industry body ASSOCHAMsaid any online game, especial-ly for the children, must complywith the best international stan-dards.

In India, the same best glob-al safety standards should be fol-lowed by the gaming companies,an ASSOCHAM spokespersonsaid.

Information technologyindustry veteran T V MohandasPai said as long as games followthe established regulations andbest practices measurably, theyneed not be banned.

However, the game develop-ers and publishers must be heldaccountable when it comes to theapplication of parental controls,age ratings, user data privacy andlocalisation, identity theft protec-tions and so on, Pai, a formerChief Financial Officer of ITmajor Infosys Ltd, said.

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BJP leaders hailed PrimeMinister Narendra Modi's visitto Ladakh on Friday amid amilitary standoff betweenIndia and China, with partypresident J P Nadda saying his"words give words to the emo-tion of 130 crore Indians andact as a great morale boosterfor our armed forces".

"Veer bhogya vasundhara.PM Narendra Modi's wordsgive words to the emotion of130 crore Indians and act as agreat morale booster for ourarmed forces! True leader-ship in action!" Nadda said ina tweet after Modi addressedsoldiers in Ladakh's Nimu.

"Veer bhogya vasundhara" isa Hindi idiom that means thatthe brave will inherit the earth.Lauding the prime minister'svisit, Home Minister AmitShah said it will boost themorale of our valorous soldiers.

Modi's visit to Ladakh cameamidst the ongoing stand-offbetween the Indian Army andChina's PLA (People'sLiberation Army) in the for-ward areas of the high-altituderegion.

Tensions had escalatedbetween the two countriesafter 20 Indian Army person-nel were killed in a fierceclash with Chinese troops inthe Galwan Valley in easternLadakh last month.

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Pardon sought from the peo-ple by RJD leader TejashwiYadav for "mistakes" thatmight have been committedduring the 15 years when hisparents ruled Bihar as succes-sive chief ministers drewsnide remarks from the rul-ing JD(U)-BJP combine onFriday.

Yadav, who is now leadinghis party as its ChiefMinisterial candidate for theassembly polls due in a fewmonths, made the charmoffensive at a party functionhere on the previous day.

"I was young when theparty was in power. Still, ifthere were any mistakes, Iapologize for that," Yadav, aformer deputy chief minister,who is now the leader of theopposition in the state assem-bly, had said.

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Senior Congress leaderDigvijaya Singh on Friday hitback at former Union ministerJyotiraditya Scindia over hisTiger abhi zinda hai remarkand said "only one tiger lives ina forest".

The Congress Rajya SabhaMP also recalled how he usedto hunt tigers, when it was notbanned, with JyotiradityaScindia's father MadhavraoScindia.

Singh's attack on Scindiacame a day after the expansionof Madhya Pradesh ChiefMinister Shivraj SinghChouhans cabinet which sawa lion's share of berths going tothe supporters of the formerGuna MP who joined the BJPin March.

"You know the character ofa tiger, in a forest only one tigerlives," Singh tweeted in Hindiafter Scindias 'tiger' commentsdirected at him and seniorCongress leader Kamal Nathon Thursday.

Talking to reporters after theexpansion of the Chouhan

cabinet, Scindia, asked aboutCongress leaders tarnishinghis image and that of his loy-alists, said, I will certainlyrespond to the Congress party,but I would like to remind bothNath and Singh that Tigerabhi zinda hai (Tiger is stillalive).

Scindia repeated the 'tiger'remark at a party function onThursday evening.

After the BJP lost power inMP in 2018, it was Chouhanwho had made the Tiger abhizinda hai remark to assert hestill remains a powerful figurein state politics and will stagea comeback soon.

The cabinet expansion sawinduction of 28 ministers,nearly a dozen of them Scindiasupporters, who quit theCongress in March.

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The Delhi High Court onFriday declined to entertain aplea challenging the constitu-tional validity of the Karnatakagovernment''s decison toimpose 25 per cent domicilereservation in the NationalLaw School of India Universityin Bengaluru.

A bench of Justices HimaKohli and SubramoniumPrasad said the court of com-petent jurisdiction was inKarnataka as the legislature ofthat state enacted the provisionfor 25 per cent domicile reser-vation and the university wasalso located there.

The petitioner withdrew theplea and the bench grantedhim liberty to approach theappropriate forum for therelief.

At the very outset, the benchmade it clear that it was notgoing to entertain the matterand would dismiss it as thecourt of competent jurisdiction

to the plea was in Karnataka."What are you doing in

Delhi? Nothing has happenedhere," the bench said.

It also told the counsel forthe petitioner that if he has theinterests of his client at heart,he should take immediate stepsto move the appropriate foruminstead of pressing the instantpetition. The petitioner''scounsel initially tried to con-vince the bench that it has the

jurisdiction to hear the matter,but sensing the court''s moodhe decided to withdraw theplea which challenged the con-stitutional validity of theNational Law School of India(amendment) Act of 2020

The Karnataka state assem-bly passed the National LawSchool of India (amendment)Act of 2020 in March this yearand it received the assent of theGovernor in May.

�!�#14#1#���6�1'��!��'!#"&�5��#/�@�&#1+�����.��,� �+�.'�.��& �)�� . 0��#�<�&�.1#�0�6&�#���2�2.�# 1�!��(*#�00�1�'# �)�29�#�&��1�/ 0��2)�#�.25.�1�2++!5221�%&2#�2'#�*&�#�#2=�<&�.8��.�& 0%2.12+�.%��/�00�'�7��&����0� 17�4�0��#2=�<&�.301���&� 0���'#����+200�)2#��&�) +/� .1$0�#!��.1�*#�!�1�&�� 0&��0&2$+1�#�0�� .*��%�84��(*#�00 .'%2.12+�.%�0�29�#��&��1���&2)�<&�.7��2*� �+$'$�0��#��&�0&���,$�0� 1�&�#%+�00 %0�52$+1�%2.� .$���2 .0* #��'�.�#�� 2.0��2�%2/�84�11�.�1��2�&��#��,2$���&�1�/ 0��2)��%�%&2#�2'#�*&�#M�#2=<&�.888��#�� /�+�00%+�00 %0�5 ++�%2.� .$���2 .0* #��'�.�#�� 2.0��2�%2/�8 &���.1�2)��.��#�888���#�)�+�%2.12+�.%�0��2�&�#�)�/ +!�.1�+29�1�2.�08������#2=<&�.74�&���5����18

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State units of the BJP willmake a presentation beforePrime Minister NarendraModi on Saturday about thevarious welfare works theycarried out during the nation-wide lockdown to combat theCOVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing a press confer-ence, BJP general secretaryArun Singh said on Fridaythat other top party leaders,including its president J PNadda and Union ministersAmit Shah, Rajnath Singhand Nitin Gadkari amongothers, will join the exercise,which will be virtual andbroadcast live on the party'sdigital platforms.

Singh said the party organ-ised over 61 virtual rallies tomark the first anniversary,which fell on May 30, of theModi government's secondterm, and over 11.49 crorepeople attended them.

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The Lok Sabha Secretariat onFriday issued guidelines on hold-ing meetings of parliamentarystanding committees with thephysical presence of members inParliament House with somerestrictions, as the governmentexplores the possibility of con-vening the monsson session inAugust-end or September amidthe coronavirus pandemic.

In view of the COVID-19 out-break, chairpersons of variouspanels had requested both LokSabha Speaker Om Birla andRajya Sabha Chairman VenkaiahNaidu for holding virtual meet-ings, but were not granted per-mission.

In its guidelines, the LokSabha Secretariat said, "Withfurther relaxations in the lock-down made with effect fromJuly 1, the sittings of the par-liamentary committees cannow be held while observingsome restrictions."

The secretariat has instructedthat seating arrangement in thecommittee room may be madestrictly adhering to the social dis-tancing norm of six feet.Arrangements should be made

for sanitiser at the entrance of thecommittee room.

No printed material should beused for the purpose of sittingand all documents related to thesitting should be sent to themembers in soft form, the LokSabha secretariat said, addingthat the ministry/departmentappearing for the evidence beforethe panel is advised againstbringing any material, includingannual reports or bags for themembers.

"Ministry/Departmentsappearing before the commit-tee may be advised to restrictthe number of officials to amaximum of five," the notifi-

cation reads.In case a ministry is compelled

to bring more officials, arrange-ments may be made for their sit-ting in the lobby, it said.

The secretariat has alsorestricted the entry of its officialsfor verbatim recording of thestanding committees meetingsand has rather instructed tomake arrangements for audiorecording of the meetings.

Sources said meetings of par-liamentary committee is an exer-cise to make Parliament ready forholding the monsoon sessionwith physical presence of mem-bers.

They further said both Birla

and Naidu have held severalrounds of discussions on how tohold the monsoon session amidthe COVID-19 pandemic.

The government is exploringthe possibility of holding themonsoon session of parliamentstarting from last week of Augustor first week of September withthe physical presence of mem-bers during proceedings, sourcessaid on Wednesday.

However, sources said in thewake of rising cases of coron-avirus nothing has been finalisedyet and it is will be difficult tospecify how the session will beheld while adhering to social dis-tancing norms.

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Facing an ED probe in a money-laundering case, Congress leaderAhmed Patel on Friday said theinvestigation agency has failed toanswer his question on who inthe Gujarat government hadbestowed benefits, privilegesand honours to the Sandesaragroup, for which he is beingquizzed.

Patel said he has answered 128questions posed to him by theEnforcement Directorate (ED)and thanked the agency for vis-iting him thrice in connectionwith the Sandesara money-laun-dering case.

"Thank you officials of ED for

coming to my house thrice."I answered each of their 128

questions but they failed toanswer my one fundamentalquestion - Who in the Gujarat

state government was responsi-ble for bestowing multiple ben-efits, privileges and honours onthe Sandesara group," Patelwrote on Twitter.

Congress general secretaryPriyanka Gandhi Vadra cameout in Patel's support and allegedthat sending the ED to harass thesenior party leader in the mid-dle of the COVID-19 pandem-ic shows the "perversion" of thisgovernment's priorities.

"Thousands are dying, ourhealth workers are desperate forsupportive measures, the econ-omy is facing an unprecedentedcrisis, the Chinese are enteringour territory, our soldiers arebeing killed, and this is what the

Government is busy spendingtime on," she said in a tweet.

"They say crisis unveils thetrue nature of people, it appearsthe saying applies to govern-ments as well," Priyanka Gandhisaid. The ED investigators ques-tioned Patel at his residence forabout 10 hours on Thursdayduring the third round of hisgrilling in connection with theprobe into the Sandesara broth-ers' bank fraud and money-laun-dering case.

"This is political vendetta andharassment against me and myfamily and I do not know underwhose pressure they (investiga-tors) are working," Patel had saidafter his questioning.

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Bar Council of India has consti-tuted a committee to considerthe feasibility of conducting theCommon Law Admission Test(CLAT) for law school admis-sions in vernacular languages.

The BCI said being the reg-ulator of legal education andprofession, it is of the "primafacie" view that no deservingcandidate should be deprivedfrom giving the CLAT onaccount of his/her inability to beproficient in English.

"As the knowledge or lack ofEnglish language does not deter-mine ones intelligence, ability,acumen, dedication, IQ etc.,therefore, prima-facie the examshould be conducted in vernac-ular languages too. Infact theBar Council of India conductsAll India Bar Examination in 11languages including Englis," theBCI said in a statement.

The apex bar body said thatanother aspect that needs beconsidered is, as to in howmany vernacular languages aresemester exams being conduct-ed in Law Universities across theCountry, as on date.

"It is but obvious, that afterclearing CLAT, the next requestcould be to hold semester examsin regional languages too in

National Law Universities.Presently many Universitiesconduct exams in English andin one i.e. regional language ofthe State.

"However, National LawUniversities depict a nationalcharacter, and it cannot becompared to other StateUniversities, or PrivateUniversities, and therefore, this

issue has to be given a deep andthoughtful consideration," theBCI said.

It said that in order to studythis issue and in order take aview of the National LawUniversities, and other interest-ed parties, stake holders, aSeven Member Committee hasbeen constituted to take stock ofthe situation and do the need-ful. This committee consists offormer and sitting Vice-Chancellors of National LawUniversities, other academi-cians and two members of BarCouncil of India, BCI saidadding that the committee willbe headed by former chief jus-tice of a high court. The BCI'sstatement was issued after theDelhi High Court directed it toconsider as a representation aplea seeking holding of theCommon Law Admission Testof 2020, and those in future, inall local languages.

Page 5: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

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Some of the rioters used aWhatsApp group to coordi-nate with each other duringnorth-east Delhi riots inFebruary and killed nineMuslims after they refused tochant 'Jai Shri Ram', Delhipolice has alleged in its chargesheets filed in a court here.

The accused were part of aWhatsApp group -- KattarHindut Ekta -- that was cre-ated on February 25 to take“revenge” on Muslims, thecharge sheets said, addingthat they used it to coordinatewith each other and pro-vide, men, arms and ammu-nition to each other.

The creator of theWhatsApp group is stillabsconding, police said in thecharge sheets.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhitook a veiled swipe at PrimeMinister Narendra Modi onFriday over Chinese intru-sions at the LAC, saying whileLadakhis claim that Chinahas taken their land, the PMsays otherwise and someone is"lying".

"Ladakhis say: China tookour land. PM says: Nobodytook our land. Obviously,someone is lying," he wrote ona Twitter.

Gandhi also shared thevoices of some Ladakhis in avideo alleging that the Chinesehave occupied Indian territo-ry in Ladakh.

The former Congress chief 'sdig came on a day when Modivisited Nimu, a forward loca-tion in Leh to interact with thepersonnel of the Army, AirForce and Indo-TibetanBorder Police (ITBP), days

after a violent face-off betweenIndian and Chinese troops ineastern Ladakh.

Accompanied by Chief ofDefence Staff General BipinRawat, the prime ministerreached Leh around 9.30 am,sources said, adding that Modiwas briefed by senior Armyofficers. Gandhi has accusedthe prime minister of "surren-dering" Indian land to Chinaand "lying" on the borderstandoff issue.

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The Yogi Adityanath govern-ment in UP faced oppositiononslaught on Friday over thekilling of policemen in anencounter in Kanpur, withCongress leader Rahul Gandhisaying it was another proof of"hooliganism", while theSamajwadi Party said the statehas become "Hatya Pradesh".

Eight Uttar Pradesh Policepersonnel, including a deputysuperintendent of police, werekilled and seven others injuredin an encounter with criminalsin Kanpur, officials said onFriday.

Congress leader RahulGandhi slammed the UP gov-ernment over the incident."Another proof of 'goondaraj'(hooliganism) in UP. Whenpolice is not safe how can peo-ple be?. My condolences are withfamily of martyrs and I wishspeedy recovery of injured," he

said in a tweet.Congress General Secretary

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alsocondole the deaths. "Eight police-men were martyred while theywent to nab criminals. I pay mycondolence to the family of themartyrs. In UP, law and order hasbecome very bad and criminalshave no fear. From commonman to policemen, no one issafe," she said on Twitter.

"The responsibility of law andorder is with the chief minister.

He should initiate strict actionand there should be no laxity init," she added.

Samajwadi Party supremoAkhilesh Yadav said, "The BJPgovernment in UP is doing'natak' (drama) of small encoun-ters in fear that it stands exposed.This will affect morale of theforce and their anger willincrease." "Government shouldimmediately announce com-pensation and secure familymembers (of martyrs)," he said.

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The security cover ordered bythe Yogi Adityanath govern-ment to Samajwadi Partyfounder Mulayam SinghYadav's daughter-in-lawAparna Yadav has triggeredmurmurs over her proximityto the ruling BJP, a suggestionshe denies.

Aparna Bisht Yadav, wife ofMulayam Singh Yadav'syounger son Prateek Yadav,was last month provided “Y”category security by the BJPgovernment in Uttar Pradesh.

It triggered speculation thatthe she may be preparing toswitch sides ahead of the 2022assembly polls.

Her brother-in-law and for-mer UP chief ministerAkhilesh Yadav saw aBharatiya Janata Party plot inthe development.

"Providing her security is500 per cent BJP's trick," hesaid in a newspaper interview,which he shared over socialmedia.

When asked if she is stillwith the SP, Aparna Yadavtold PTI, "Yes, I joined theparty in 2016 on the directionsof “netaji” (Mulayam SinghYadav) and am very much a

primary member of the party."But she also criticised her

own party.“There is lack of discipline

in the SP. Party workers shouldknow the party constitution,SP's ideology and about social-ism.'Netaji' always talked aboutdiscipline in the party. What isthe place of women in theparty now?" she said.

"The old guard has changedin the party and the new oneshould take care of it. He mustbe working on it," she said,referring to the power shift inthe family from MulayamSingh Yadav to son AkhileshYadav. The woman rightsactivist also defended herpraise of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for his han-dling of the coronavirus crisis.

"I am a citizen of the coun-try and say whatever I feel iscorrect," she said.

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India has lodged a strong protestwith Pakistan over unprovokedceasefire violations by Pakistaniforces along the Line of Controland the International Borderwith an aim to push terroristsinto Jammu and Kashmir, offi-cial sources said on Friday.

They said 14 Indians havebeen killed and 88 sustainedinjuries in more than 2,432incidents of unprovoked cease-fire violations carried out byPakistani forces till June this year.

The unprovoked ceasefireviolations are in contraventionof the 2003 ceasefire under-standing between the two coun-tries, the sources said.

They said India has also con-veyed its "strong concerns" at thecontinued support being extend-ed by the Pakistani forces tocross border infiltration of ter-rorists, including by providingcovering fire.

"We have registered ourstrong protest at the continuedunprovoked ceasefire violationsby Pakistan forces along the Lineof Control (LoC) and theInternational Boundary," said asource.

Despite these concerns hav-ing been shared, includingthrough the channel of DirectorGenerals Military Operations,the Pakistani forces have notstopped such activities, thesources said.

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Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal on Friday met thefamily members of doctorAseem Gupta who died fight-ing COVID-19 and handedover a cheque of Rs 1 crore asan ex-gratia to them.

The chief minister termedlate Gupta as a "people's doc-tor' and said it was a duty of thegovernment to support thefamilies of those people whosacrificed their lives for others.

"Met with the family of LateDr Aseem Gupta ji who lost hislife to Corona. We cannot doanything to bring back the"People's Doctor", but it is ourduty to support families ofthose who lay down their livesfor us. An ex-gratia of ?1 crorewas given to the family today,"Kejriwal tweeted.

The ex-gratia of Rs 1 croreis being given by the Delhi gov-ernment to all its employeeswho succumb to coronaviruswhile discharging their duties

as frontline warriors in thefight against the pandemic.

Gupta, a consultant anaes-thesiologist at the state-runLNJP hospital, had contractedCOVID-19 while on duty. Hetested positive on June 6 whenhe had mild symptoms andwas shifted to a quarantinefacility.

His symptoms aggravatedon June 7 and he was admit-ted to the Intensive Care Unitof the LNJP hospital. Later hesuccumbed to the virus atMax Smart Hospital in Saket insouth Delhi.

The 52-year-old doctor wasremembered for going out ofhis way to serve his patients.

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Since April 1, the Centre hasdistributed more than 2.02crore N95 masks and over 1.18crore PPE kits among the states,Union territories and centralinstitutions for free, the Unionhealth ministry said on Friday.

In addition, 11,300 "Make inIndia" ventilators have so farbeen dispatched to variousstates, Union territories andcentral institutions, of which6,154 have already been deliv-ered to various hospitals, it said.

"The central government isalso ensuring their installa-tion/commissioning. This willhelp to bridge the massive gapin availability of ventilators inCOVID ICU facilities," theministry said in a statement.

The health ministry is alsosupplying 1.02 lakh oxygencylinders to the states and Unionterritories, of which 72,293 havebeen delivered to strengthen theoxygen-beds there.

Also, more than 6.12 crore

HCQ tablets have been givento the states and Union terri-tories.

The Union government,along with the states andUnion territories, has beenrelentlessly working for theprevention, containment andmanagement of COVID-19,the statement said.

The central role of the gov-ernment has been in strength-ening the health infrastructureto fight the pandemic, it added.

"Along with augmenting

COVID-19 facilities, Centrehas been providing medicalsupplies free of cost to the stateand UT governments to sup-plement their efforts," the min-istry said.

The statement underlinedthat most of the products sup-plied by the Centre were notbeing manufactured in thecountry in the beginning andthere was a global demand dueto the pandemic, resulting ina "scarce availability in the for-eign markets".

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Paying tributes to the 20 Armymen killed in a violent face offwith Chinese troops in eastLadakh, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Friday saidthe bravery shown by the sol-diers has sent a message aboutthe strength of India.

Addressing Army, Air Force

and ITBP personnel during hissurprise visit to Ladakh, he saidIndia's resolve for 'atmanirbharBharat' (self-reliant India)becomes stronger because ofyou and your strong resolve.He told the personnel thattheir will power is as strongand firm as the Himalayasand the whole country is proudof them.

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Amit Shah on Fridaylauded the visit of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi toLadakh and said thetour will boost themorale of "our val-orous soldiers".

Modi's visit toLadakh cameamidst the ongo-ing stand-offbetween the IndianArmy and China'sPLA (People's LiberationArmy) in the forward areas ofthe high altitude region.

Tensions had escalatedbetween the two countriesafter 20 Indian Army person-

nel were killed in a fierce clashwith Chinese troops in theGalwan Valley in easternLadakh last month.

"Leading from thefront. Prime Minister

S h r i@NarendraModiJi with our braveand courageouspersonnel of

Army, Air Force& ITBP at a forward

location in Ladakh."This visit of honourable

PM will surely boost themorale of our valorous sol-diers," he tweeted along withmultiple pictures of Modiwith the soldiers.

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The Odisha government haslaunched a scheme 'Balaram'to provide agricultural cred-it of Rs 1,040 crore to land-less farmers who are facinghardships due to the coron-avirus outbreak, officials saidon Friday.

Around seven lakh land-less cultivators will be bene-fited from the programme inthe next two years, they said.

The decision in this regardwas taken at a high-levelmeeting presided over bychief secretary A K Tripathyon Thursday.

The landless farmers, whowere not able to avail farmcredit earlier, will get loansthrough joint liability groupswhich will act as 'social collat-eral', agriculture and farmersempowerment departmentsecretary Sourabh Garg said.

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Eight Uttar Pradesh Police per-sonnel, including a deputy super-intendent of police, were killedand seven others injured in anencounter with criminals inKanpur, officials said on Friday.

In a separate encounter, policekilled two criminals during acombing operation. InspectorGeneral of Police, Kanpur, MohitAgarwal said, "Two personsidentified as Prem PrakashPandey and Atul Dubey werekilled in a separate encounter inNivada village and a pistol,which was taken away by crim-inals from policemen in earlierencounter, was recovered."

The first encounter took placewhen a police team wasapproaching to arrest VikasDubey, a history-sheeter facing60 criminal cases, in Dikru vil-lage under the Chaubeypurpolice station on the interveningnight of Thursday and Friday,police said.

As the police team was aboutto reach the hideout of thedreaded criminal, a hail of bul-lets was showered on them froma building rooftop, leavingDeputy Superintendent of PoliceDevendra Mishra, three sub-inspectors and four constablesdead, the officials said.

Giving details of the incident,Uttar Pradesh Director Generalof Police H C Awasthi said thenotorious criminal might havegot an inkling of the impendingraid.

Dubey's henchmen put upmassive roadblocks to preventthe police personnel from pro-ceeding towards their hideout. Asthe police team was caughtunawares, the criminals fried atthem from a building rooftopleading to the deaths, Awasthisaid. A police spokesman said theattackers also took awayweapons, including an AK-47rifle, an INSAS rifle, a glock pis-tol, two .9mm pistols, from thepolicemen.

On getting information aboutthe incident, Additional DG(Law and Order), IG (Kanpur)and the SSP of Kanpur rushed tothe spot, where a forensic team

has started investigations.Interacting with media per-

sons, IG STF Amitabh Yashclaimed that an automatic 30spring rifle, which was seizedfrom Dubey's possession duringhis arrest by the STF in Lucknowin 2017, was used in the Friday'sattack on policemen.

The automatic rifle wasreleased in someone's favour bya Lucknow court, he added.

"We will investigate underwhich circumstances the auto-matic rifle was released in some-one's else favour," Yash said.

Dubey, who was carrying a

cash reward of Rs 25,000 on hishead, was arrested by the STFfrom Krishna Nagar in 2017. TheSTF had seized an automatic 30spring rifle and a number of car-tridges from Dubey's possession.

The state police chief saidseven policemen were alsoinjured in these encounters andthey have been rushed to a hos-pital. A combing operation is onand the entire area has beensealed, he said.

The injured policemeninclude two sub inspectors, threeconstables and a home guardpersonnel, the spokesman said,

adding a civilian has also sufferedinjuries the the attack by thecriminals. Sources said Dubeyhad allegedly killed SantoshShukla, an MoS-rank BJP leader,inside a police station in 2001.

Chief Minister YogiAdityanath paid tributes to theslain policemen and conveyed hisheartfelt condolences to theirfamily members. According to agovernment spokesperson, thechief minister directed the policechief to take stringent actionagainst the culprits and collectdetailed report from the spotimmediately.

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Page 6: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

For the last two months, India andChina have been involved in a mil-itary and diplomatic stand-offalong the Line of Actual Control(LAC). The current skirmish is not

isolated from the main politics of China. Itis but an extension of the Communist Partyof China’s (CPC) domestic policy. Thedevelopments at the border have come at atime when the CPC is facing internationalbacklash over the outbreak of the pandem-ic. Back home, too, the Chinese are frustrat-ed over the CPC’s role in covering up thespread of the Coronavirus in Wuhan city,which eventually led to the deaths of thou-sands of people. As per the database leakedfrom the National University of DefenceTechnology in Changsha city, China couldhave had 6,40,000 cases instead of the offi-cial 84,000. This revelation has furtheralienated the CPC from the Chinese people.

What, however, is worrying is that 70years on, India’s Tibet dilemma remains.Before Tibet was invaded by China, there wasno sign of well-made road along the India-Tibet border. However, trade routes for packanimals existed. From Srinagar, a route runsto Leh and thence through Southern Tibetto Shigatse and Lhasa. From Lhasa, a much-used route goes to Chamdo. In short, therewas hardly any sign of a good road or anymajor bridge in Tibet. All of this changeddrastically after the Chinese invasion of Tibet.China became India’s new neighbour andwith this new development, the tranquilityacross the Himalayas was hijacked by anauthoritarian party-State.

Ever since the invasion of Tibet, thedevelopment of strategic roads became a toppriority for the CPC. It undertook massiveinfrastructure development projects formore than two decades. And by 1975, Chinahad completed 91 highways totalling 15,800km, with 300 permanent bridges in outerTibet alone, effectively connecting 97 percent of the region’s counties by roads. Thenthe People’s Liberation Army (PLA) startedfocussing on Tibet. Ever since, the numberof exercises and overall military activities inthe Lanzhou and Chengdu military regionshave been noteworthy. In one of the earlyinstances, in October 2011, the PLA wasreported to have carried out two joint exer-cises in the Chengdu and Lanzhou militaryregions.

The Global Times reported on January5, “In the new year exercises, the PLA TibetMilitary Command has deployed heli-copters, armoured vehicles, heavy artilleryand anti-aircraft missiles across the region:From Lhasa, capital of Tibet, with an eleva-tion of 3,700 metres to border defence front-lines with elevations of more than 4,000meters.” It further noted, “China’s latestweapons, including the Type 15 tank and thenew 155-millimetre vehicle-mounted how-itzer, were deployed in Tibet as the PLAbegan the first round of exercises in 2020.”Because of its continuous infrastructuredevelopment, today, the PLA is in a positionto carry out numerous military exercises

even on the inhospitable terrainsof Tibet.

One stone at a time: CPC’sterritorial strategy for futureclaims and control: Early in1995, after the PhilippinesGovernment discovered thatoctagonal bunker-type struc-tures were being constructedon a previously unoccupiedreef, the then Chinese ForeignMinister, Qian Qichen, hadclaimed that it was built by theauthorities of Hainan for theconvenience of Chinese fisher-men around the Spratly Island.Following this incident, therewas a series of diplomaticexchanges and visits by headsof both countries to satisfacto-rily resolve the issue. Despitenumerous diplomatic engage-ments, China continued toupgrade its physical presenceon the Mischief Reef. Laterthese structures became thebase for the CPC laying sover-eignty claim over the islands.

On November 26, 2016,satellite images released by theAsia Maritime TransparencyInitiative (AMTI) showed aseries of hexagonal structuresnow in place on each of theseven islets. They appear to belarge anti-aircraft guns andclose-in weapons systems(CIWS), AMTI said. In fact, thisweapon system can also be usedon land to protect the militarybase. By 2018, the reef hadbeen turned into a militarised

artificial island equipped withanti-ship cruise missiles.

As it is said, “Old habits diehard.” Despite pressurising Indiato stop the construction of roadsin the Galwan Valley andPangong Tso, China continues todevelop an enhanced transportnetwork and military infra-structure across Tibet’s regionsbordering India. The IndianGovernment should not allowthe installation of any temporaryor permanent structures by thePLA on the disputed territory.Any physical structure, eithertemporary or permanent, builtby the PLA should be either dis-mantled or a similar structure beinstalled in the area claimed bythe CPC. Else, it may argue inthe future that the structures arenothing more than shelters forthe PLA soldiers lost in theGalwan Valley. And the con-struction of roads or any otherpermanent military installationnear the disputed border maybecome a source of future claimsand control by China.

Dear CPC, home is whereyour threat is: In the history ofChina, the Chinese populationis a major factor for thedethronement of a number ofdynasties. China was not onlyinvaded many times by nomadicpeople from outside its bordersbut was also turned upsidedown many more times by itsown citizens, mainly peasants. Inall, there were 1,109 main mil-

itary conflicts between theChinese and the northernnomads from 215 BC to AD1684 and as many as 225,887recorded armed rebellionsbetween 210 BC and AD 1910within China. In 20th centuryChina, there were two massmovements, mostly led byyoung students, scholars and lit-erary figures. Later, people fromall walks of life joined in. Thetwo crucial movements were:The 1919 May 4 Movement andthe Tiananmen Square protests.In both these movements, poorgovernance, rampant officials’corruption, high unemploy-ment rate were the main caus-es for the outburst.

Before the TiananmenSquare protests, by October1988, the population of migrantlabourers in Beijing had reachedone million and was growingcontinuously. In Guangzhou,the capital of GuangdongProvince, more than 2.5 millionrural labourers flooded the cityover a short period betweenFebruary and March 1989. Notonly this, thousands of univer-sity graduates failed to get jobsof their interests and the unem-ployment rate was high. Risinginflation added to the woes. Allthese developments sowed theseeds of mass protests. In mod-ern times, too, despite the CPChaving an iron-fist control on theChinese people, between 1993and 2008, there were a total of

614,100 protests across China. This year, with the CPC

attempting to cover up informa-tion pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese peo-ple realised the importance offreedom of expression andaccess to the free flow of infor-mation. It was the denial of theserights that led to the death of LiWenliang and the spread ofCoronavirus in China. Thispandemic didn’t take a long timeto spread and brought the glob-al economy to its nadir.

China, being the source ofthe virus, has been the worst-hiteconomically. In late April, areport by Shandong-basedZhongtai Securities BrokerageCompany in China concludedthat the unemployment rate inChina is at 20.5 per cent withsome 70 million people out ofwork. While the official jobs datareleased by China’s nationalbureau of statistics on May 15put the unemployment rate inApril at six per cent.

Later, the report wasretracted and Li Xunlei, thedirector of the research unit ofZhongtai Securities, wasremoved from his post. Thisshows the CPC’s hyper-sensi-tivity towards unemploymentproblems in China. The onething that the CPC fears themost is the spectre of unem-ployment. During a conferenceon employment and entrepre-neurship related to generalcolleges and universities grad-uates on May 13, ChinesePremier Li Keqiang demandedmore emphasis be put on keygroups by offering college anduniversity graduates targettedjob-seeking services. One of themain reasons behind China’serratic behaviour in Asia is todivert the attention of aggriev-ed, frustrated and millions ofjobless people.

Xi’s predecessor, Mao-Zedong, too, had declared a waron India on account of growingunpopularity in China becauseof his failure of the Great LeapForward, which led to the deathof around 45 million people.Bertil Linter, author of China’sIndia War, concluded that “theborder dispute was only anexcuse to launch the 1962 war.”To secure his power firmly andto divert the attention of theChinese people, war wasdeclared against India amid theCuban crisis. In a bid to divertthe attention of the Chinese peo-ple on account of joblessness,the CPC is behaving erraticallywith its neighbours. In otherwords, in the coming days,developments inside China willshape its foreign policy becausethe real threat for the rulingparty lies within.

(The writer is is a formerresearch fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute)

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Sir — That Prasar Bharati has senta letter to the Press Trust of India(PTI), suggesting that journalismpractised by it was not in “nation-al interest,” wasn’t surprising.The supposedly autonomousbody is now said to be reviewingits future associations with PTI.Prasar Bharati used to pay �9.15crore annually to PTI for its ser-vices. However, since 2017, thepublic broadcaster has allegedlybeen holding back about 25 percent (current figure at �6.75crore) of the contribution as itwants to renegotiate the costs.

In tune with the NarendraModi-led Government at theCentre, Prasar Bharati seems to beequating “national interest” withthat of the Government. It appearsthat Prasar Bharati is upset withthe PTI for not just conducting aninterview with the ChineseAmbassador Sun Weidong —apparently for the first time theofficial conceded that the onus ofde-escalation of tension betweenIndia and China should fall on thelatter — but also for its tweet byIndia’s Ambassador to China,Vikram Misri, where he assertedChina’s obligation to move “back

to its side of the LAC”. In doingso, Misri incidentally acceptedthat the Chinese troops hadindeed ingressed the border and,thus, contradicted the PrimeMinister’s claim. It is likely thatthese two “offences” led PrasarBharati to take steps against PTI.

In the garb of nationalism, Modiand his Government seem to becoercing the media to carry onlythose articles which unfailinglyeulogise the Prime Minister. Thisis shameful.

Bidyut Kumar ChatterjeeFaridabad

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Sir — The situation is still precar-ious in the national capital withmore than 300 active contain-ment zones and ever-rising Covidcases. Concerned authorities

must not only identify varioustrouble spots but also strike at thebasic fault lines.

The Government must con-sider imposing a suitable fine forthose not wearing masks andthose flouting social distancingnorms at public places. The ChiefMinister must think about reim-posing the lockdown in all vul-nerable areas of the capital, irre-spective of their extant promi-nence, proximity and locationsbefore it gets too late.

SwetaVia email

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Sir — In view of China’s nefari-ous design, India, too, must comeup with equal alacrity. A ban onChinese apps is welcome butuncertainty prevails over itsimplementation and the roadahead. Nevertheless, India hassent the message loud and clear:It will not take it lying down andretaliate with full force both onand off the battlefield.

ShantanuVia email

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As the Indian economy witnesses a majordownturn, predictably a negative growth, thedichotomy between monetary and fiscal pol-

icy becomes an irritant. Monetary management byallowing for a nearly �13 trillion loan to the corpo-rate, MSME, agriculture and other sectors of theeconomy is a huge release of capital stuck in thebanking and non-banking sector. Arguably thiswould have turned the wheels of industrial produc-tion but COVID-19, with its multiple slowdowneffects, won’t allow it to happen. Critics have point-ed out that the absence of open chest financing ofGovernment debt and securities, as well as no last-resort cash support to about 14 crore jobless migrantworkers, have depressed the economy both in theshort and long-term. This impacts productive activ-ity negatively in the secondary and tertiary sectorsof the economy with falling demand.

In the absence of fiscal stimuli, distressed andrisk assets in the market stand in the way of anyattempt at recovery. Monetary stimuli in theabsence of effective demand cannot boost the busi-ness cycle. A huge shortfall in revenue, from bothtax and non-tax sources, has only created a spurtin public debt and the consequent rate cut for con-trolling debt has created a precarious imbalancebetween real output and interest rates. Failing inter-est rates create a vicious cycle of inducing stress inasset-based funds that now have to look for stim-uli from financial institutions to survive from debt.In effect, resources of the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) and the available Government funds for loansrun the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term. So circulation of higher liquidity in situationsof Corona-induced insolvency presents a slipperyslope for the management of the macroeconomicpolicy.

The stimulus package of �20 lakh crore formacroeconomic management has not shown signsof much-needed neutralisation of the liquidity trapby raising demand for credit. The package establish-es that there is no liquidity crunch and indeed India’sforeign reserve reaches a peak of over $500 billion,covering much of its import bill. In such a situation,the demand for Government securities and bondsshould have gone higher but the demand situationis such that it prods the investors to hold back suchsecurities. In contrast, the Reliance JIO deal, by rais-ing funds through rights issues in the stock mar-ket, received a preferential treatment from theMinistry of Corporate Affairs to only offset its hugedebt without corresponding expansion of the cred-it market, which could have helped the banks to off-set the situation of a liquidity trap. Had theGovernment issued new bonds and securitiesusing the cut in the rate and generated some addi-tional funds like its blue-eyed boy Reliance, thatwould have probably eased excess liquidity. Instead,given the increasing rate of macroeconomic unem-ployment, almost at 14 per cent, the need for addi-tional funds for employment generating activitiesby way of stimulus packages announced by theGovernment got immobile in the widening liquid-ity trap. The Government has already printed cur-rency notes worth �1.6 lakh crore and only succeed-ed in creating a good accounting ratio between itsincome, expenditure and debt instead of flinchingitself out of the liquidity trap.

What can extricate the economy from the liq-uidity trap is the generation of demand, demand andmore demand. Significantly, two correlated and yethighly-fluctuating monetary instruments, likeIndia’s foreign reserve touching a record $500 bil-lion as external trade falls and the Government’s

internal borrowings from the marketplummeting only to pull down reporates, present a hard picture of control offund flows. It is not clear how the RBI shallchannelise reinvestment of cheaper bor-rowings into production, while suchinvestments in the stock market at presentdo not ensure gains. It is in this grim sce-nario that the Centre’s declaration of flex-ibility in tax slabs to industries, as part ofthe stimulus package, only helps thebusinesses to keep afloat. Deflationarypressure continues unchecked in theproduct market as the Government scam-pers for attracting investment throughfloating rate bonds.

The recent increase of employment inagriculture with the Centre’s �1.5 trillionpackage has generated some demand, yetit does not show signs of revival. Reversemigration from cities to rural areas is animmediate cause of such increaseddemand but last-mile delivery issues donot allow it to be an impact of theGovernment’s �1.5 lakh crore package. Ineffect, if one combines a stalemate in for-eign trade and piling reserve with fallingrates of investment and profit, the stimu-lus on the demand side cannot overcomethis simultaneous fall in both supply anddemand. Restarting the economy to off-set the slump in income and demand,combined with fresh doses of investmentin greenfield areas through stocks, are stillto gather much momentum against theearly signs of a recession. Recessionarytrends in the manufacturing sector com-bined with a deflationary fall in theWholesale Price Index produce a cascadeof compression in the economy, makingrating agencies predict negative GDPgrowth for at least the next two years.

A very paradoxical question to ask is,does a programmatic infusion of demandas the stimulus package enforce austerityand fund crunch arising out of an inher-ited fiscal deficit at the level of nearly fiveper cent of the present GDP? The ques-

tion could be further teetered by askingwhether recessionary trends at the macro-economic level require an open chest fund-ing for every sector of the economy, start-ing with the most distressed. The behav-iour of risk assets such as FranklinTempleton and DHFL withdrawing $25billion from the Indian stock market fur-ther depresses the already sluggishdemand. Does this recessionary symptomcause a decrease in the capacity of the Stateand the Government to respond to thechain of fiscal demands without saving itsback by generation of additional incomethrough revenue and extra-revenue routes?

Possibly this question brings out thereason why the Centre is raising the pricesof petrol, diesel and other fuels when crudeprices are at the lowest. Could this be theonly means to generate extra revenue sothat fiscal deficit can be covered up andprofits made by oil companies could beused for funding a longer crisis? Given thelockdown-induced loss of capacity, theGovernment is adopting this easy route inspite of its deleterious impact on the pricesof essential goods. The situation returnsto the same vicious cycle as fall in income,investment, interest, wage and demandmake it impossible to revive the economydespite good supply side management interms of monetary policy. Post lockdown,the economy then looks like a quicksandthat eats up the stimulus without thedesired impact. The economy continuesto move in the trajectory of decline in realGDP and rates of profit. This lies beyondthe scope of monetary and fiscal readjust-ments as the Centre struggles to maintainthe fundamentals of the economy.

Nothing could have been moretreacherous than the Chinese aggressionat this time of crisis. Though theGovernment is able to make large pay-ments for defence purchases such as �3 bil-lion to the US, �2.1 billion to Israel, �16billion to Russia, yet there is a seeming lackof funds for medical preparedness to fight

COVID-19 and defence preparedness tofight China. With a heady mix of grow-ing income inequality, falling consump-tion and revenue and stressed assets inmoney markets, a Government with itshands full of funds does not have manyoptions to spend. As a result, the much-needed panacea of Direct Cash Transferto 25 crore migrant workers and otherrural labourers has not been taken up byan internally and externally-shakenGovernment.

One requires a proper framework tounderstand such a dysfunctional state ofthe economy. Economist Thomas Piketty’sfamous thesis on India’s growth story, interms of the falling contribution of peo-ple at the bottom and an artificial attemptby the Government to keep rate of inter-est lower than the rate of return from cap-ital, seems to dominate the money mar-ket. The absence of an appropriate schemefor re-distribution of profit and income forsocial good turns advantages in themoney market ineffective as prognosticat-ed by Piketty and Paul Krugman.

In the deflationary pressure inducedby the pandemic, what remains inexplic-able is the hoarding of funds, which cre-ates a suffocating liquidity trap in the mar-ket. Piketty’s suggestion that India shouldinitiate a universal basic income schemecould have balanced out this excess liquid-ity in favour of increased demand had theGovernment succeeded in kicking off theeconomy at the level of pre-lockdown pro-ductivity.

Instead, the Government’s austeremove to curtail public expenditure due torevenue shortfall is in sync with the exist-ing recessionary trend in the economy. TheChinese perception of this economicrecession is the salient factor that promptsChina to create a war-like situation withIndia in the interest of augmenting its owninternal demands.

(The writer is a Political Economy ana-lyst and Philosopher based in Shillong)

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Though the economic fallout ofthe pandemic is more vivid, itsimpact has political dimensions,

too. Many short-term measuresimposed now may have a long-terminfluence on both national and inter-national governance and political ide-ology. The political impact, in thenational context, seems to be arisingout of four factors: Nature of responseby countries; manner of response;deepening of societal fault lines andnature of the regimes vis-à-vis theireffectiveness in controlling the virus.

It might impact the world order,too, due to the shifting of the balanceof power and the ideological debate on

global cooperation vs isolationismand liberalism vs authoritarianism.

Normally, the response to a dis-aster is 3R: Rescue, Relief andRehabilitation. But in the case of theCorona, a fourth R has crept in and thisis Regulation. The lockdown resultedin complete disruption of all move-ment, the economy and personal lib-erty. Across countries, not only theframework of regulations but themanner of imposition has a commonpattern.

The executive, with or without theconsent of the legislature and otherstakeholders, gave itself absolute pow-ers and responded by executivedecrees. The differential impact of sud-den economic disruption on differentstrata of society has exacerbated thestrain across the existing societal faultlines of rich vs poor, urban vs rural,region vs region, local vs migrants,employer vs employees and so on.

The crisis has also fuelled debateon the effectiveness of authoritarianregimes vis-à-vis democracies as major

democracies like the US, Germany andItaly faltered in their effort whileauthoritarian regimes of Singapore andVietnam controlled the virus well.Now, let us see the likely impact. Thefirst political impact is the centralisa-tion of power. The ruling elite inHungary, the Philippines, China, ElSalvador and Uganda have used thecrisis to accredit themselves withemergency powers, moving them fur-ther away from democracy. In India,the invoking of the National DisasterManagement Act, too, resulted incentralisation of powers in the nation-al executive.

The second is the abridgment offundamental rights, expanded Statesurveillance and banishing of protests.In Hungary, Jordan, Chile, Thailandand so on, punishments were pre-scribed for spreading misinformation,which opens the possibility of muz-zling any voice of dissent. Invasive sur-veillance systems in Israel, SouthKorea and Singapore, unthinkableearlier, are being hailed as effective

measures for slowing infections. Plus, the social strains caused by

economic disruption may changepolitical alignments and the landscapeof political debate by creating morefractured societies. The spirit of fed-eralism has also been impacted due toexcessive centralisation of power.

Another impact of this outbreakmay be reduction in the influence ofthe neo-liberal trend of decreasing roleof the State, considering the strong,dominant and pivoting role played bythe State to counter the virus. Giventhe experience of the current crisis, itwill be difficult to argue that the pri-vate sector and philanthropy can be asubstitute for a competent State dur-ing a national emergency.

While it may be argued that theseare emergency measures and wereneeded to tackle an unprecedented sit-uation with a firm hand, it cannot bepredicted with certainty that all thesemeasures will be done away with oncethe crisis is over. More so because thiscontagion is going to stay for some

time. The longer it prevails, the moredifficult it will be to dismantle emer-gency powers. Forget about authori-tarian or tending to be authoritarianregimes, it may tempt even democra-tically-elected governments to contin-ue the emergency measures in thesame or modified form, to centralisepowers and strengthen their hold onthe polity, given the comfort it providesto the ruling elite. The most danger-ous possibility is posed by the use ofhigh-end technologies for surveil-lance, which opens up many possibil-ities for misuse during normal times,too.

The current crisis has also broughtto the fore the debate over the futureof a new world order. There may betwo types of impacts on the worldorder. First may be the shift in balanceof power and resultant shifting dom-inance over international organisa-tions. The second might be a boost tothe ideology of isolationism vis-à-visglobal cooperation and authoritarian-ism vis-à-vis liberal democracy.

The global distribution of powerseems to be shifting away from the USand Europe, which are faring badly incontaining the disaster as compared tothe East Asian countries which havefared well. The slogan of “AmericaFirst” under the Trump presidency andits unwillingness to take the positionof a global leader, before and duringthe pandemic, has led to the beginningof China’s dominance and aggressionin the new world order. Beijing wasalready silently working towards dom-ination in the economic order, globaltrade balance and supply chains,spreading hegemony over the rulingelite of developing countries, in Africaand Asia through debt-trap diploma-cy and more recently in capturing theUnited Nations institutions. The out-break has only accelerated this process.

At the ideological level, the disrup-tion of global supply chains, the lead-ing role of State actors and centralis-ing tendencies may lead to a domi-nance of nationalist, isolationist andilliberal ideologies on the internation-

al arena. Globally, at the national level,we may see a rise in authoritarian, cen-tralising tendencies and changingpolitical landscape on account of frac-tured societies. At the internationallevel, in the absence of a change in USpolicy and its hesitation in providinga rallying point for liberal democracies,it would be a free road for China toadvance its ideology, technology andpolitico-economic dominance in theemerging world order.

Some scholars point to the lack ofgoodwill of China as a counter argu-ment to its rising influence but wemust remember that global politics isnot a popularity contest. Hard politi-co-economic facts cannot be ignored.Second, the failure to ensure globalcooperation in tackling the pandem-ic may lead to rising nationalist andisolationist tendencies and wear out theeffectiveness of international organi-sations.

(The writer is a senior IAS officerserving in Bihar. Views expressed hereare personal)

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India’s crippled services indus-try, the lifeblood of economicgrowth and jobs, contractedsharply in June as an extendedlockdown imposed to stop thespread of the coronavirusstalled business activity, a pri-vate sector survey showed.

Although the pace of declinemoderated from May - theNikkei/IHS Markit ServicesPurchasing Managers’ Indexjumped to 33.7 in June fromMay’s 12.6 - it remained a longway from the 50-mark separat-ing growth from contraction.June was the fourth straightmonth the index was sub-50,the longest such stretch since aten-month run to April 2014.

“India’s service sector contin-ued to struggle in June as thecountry’s coronavirus crisisworsened,” Joe Hayes, an econ-omist at IHS Markit, said in arelease.

“Simply put, the country isgripped in an unprecedentedeconomic downturn which iscertainly going to spill over intothe second half of this yearunless the infection rate can be

brought under control.”The lockdown of 1.3 billion

people, which started on March25, has been extended in someareas until the end of July asIndia now has over 600,000coronavirus cases, fewer thanonly the United States, Braziland Russia.

Although improved fromMay, sub-indexes showeddomestic and foreign demandcontinued to decline sharplyleading firms to cut jobs for thefourth straight month in June.

And with forward lookingindicators giving little hope foran imminent turnaround, firms

were at their most pessimisticabout the year ahead since thesurvey began in December2005. A composite PMI, whichincludes manufacturing andservices, also pointed to a deepcontraction in Asia’s third-largest economy, which aReuters poll said shrank 5.2%last quarter. It registered at37.8, up from May’s 14.8.

“A large fraction of the sur-vey panel are still reportingfalling activity and order bookvolumes, reflecting an intense-ly challenging domestic picturein India,” IHS Markit’s Hayesadded.

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Intel Corp’s investment armwill pay some $255 million fora small stake in RelianceIndustries Ltd’s digital unit JioPlatforms, the latest in a slewof share sales that havehelped the Indian con-glomerate pay downdebt.

Reliance has nowsold just over aquarter of JioPlatforms, the unitthat houses its tele-coms venture JioInfocomm and its music andmovie apps, raising $15.8 bil-lion from investors includingFacebook Inc and KKR & Co.

The telecoms unit hasalready decimated severalrivals with cut-throat pricing,while Reliance is also using JioPlatforms’ technology in itsnew e-commerce venture thatseeks to rival Amazon andWalmart’s Flipkart. JioPlatforms is also working onconnected cars, security sys-tems and smart homes.

The sale of the0.39% stake for18.95 billionrupees gives JioPlatforms an enter-

prise value of 5.16trillion rupees ($69

billion), Reliance saidin a statement. The deals anda $7 billion share sale havehelped Reliance become net-debt free, the company saidlast month.

The oil-to-retail conglomer-ate, controlled by India’s rich-est man Mukesh Ambani,plans to wrap up most of itsprivate fundraising for JioPlatforms by the third quarterof 2020 and then explore apotential public listing in theUnited States in 2021, a sourcefamiliar with matter has said..

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Indian companies will needgovernment permission toimport power supply equip-ment and components fromChina, according to an order bythe power ministry, amid ris-ing military tensions betweenthe South Asian neighbours.

India will inspect all importsrelated to electricity supply tosee if they pose a cyber threatand “to protect the security,integrity and reliability of thestrategically important andcritical power supply systemand network”, the ministrysaid in the order.

“This is something we can’ttolerate, we have a country that

transgresses and kills our sol-diers and yet we are creatingjobs there,” Power MinisterR.K. Singh told a virtual con-ference of state power minis-ters. The order comes weeksafter Indian and Chinese troopsclashed on their disputed bor-der, causing casualties.

Chinese firms such as HarbinElectric, Dongfang Electric,Shanghai Electric and SifangAutomation either supply equip-ment or manage power distrib-ution networks in India. Indianfirms have long lobbied againstChinese involvement in thep o w e rsector, raising security concernsand saying they get no recipro-cal access to Chinese markets.

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The chief of India’s top clini-cal research agency said in aleaked letter circulated onFriday it envisaged launchinga novel coronavirus vaccine byAug. 15, prompting derisionfrom some health experts whoquestioned the timeline.

Dozens of vaccine candi-dates are at various stages ofdevelopment around the worldto control the coronaviruspandemic.

One candidate, from India’sBharat Biotech, which is beingdeveloped with the IndianCouncil of Medical Research,was this week approved forPhase I and Phase II clinicaltrials.

“It is envisaged to launch thevaccine for public health uselatest by August 15, 2020, aftercompletion of all clinical trials,”ICMR Director GeneralBalram Bhargava said in theletter, dated July 2 and

addressed to institutionsinvolved in the trials.

Phase I and Phase II trialstypically test the safety of adrug before it enters Phase IIItrials that test its efficacy.

Each phase can last months,if not years, but regulatorsglobally have been fast-track-ing trials on medicines andvaccines aimed at tackling the

cornavirus, which has infect-ed more than 10.89 millionpeople globally and killedmore than 520,066, accordingto a Reuters tally.

The Indian vaccine projectwas being monitored “at thetopmost level of the govern-ment”, Bhargava said in the let-ter, which was widely circulat-ed on social media.

A Bharat Biotechspokesman declined to com-ment but an ICMR official,who asked not to be identified,said the letter was a privatecommunication and was beingmisinterpreted.

Anant Bhan, a doctor andpublic health researcher, ques-tioned the speed of the trialsuggested in the letter andasked if its efficacy was beingdecided in advance.

“To my knowledge, such anaccelerated development path-way has not been done EVERfor any kind of vaccine, evenfor the ones being tried out inother countries,” Bhan said

on Twitter.“Even with accelerated time-

lines, this seems really rushed,and hence with potential risks,inadequate attention toprocess.”

Several other health expertsalso questioned the proposedlaunch date of the vaccine.

The ICMR official said theaim was to complete all trialson the vaccine candidate byAug. 15. He did not say exact-ly when he thought the vaccinemight be launched for publicuse.

“The letter is somethingand interpretation is some-thing (else),” the official said.

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The income tax departmenthas issued refunds worth Rs62,361 crore to over 20 lakhtaxpayers between April 8 andJune 30.

This includes personalincome tax (PIT)refunds amount-ing to Rs23,453.57 croreissued to 19.07lakh taxpayersand corporatetax refundsamounting to Rs38,908.37 crore toover 1.36 lakh taxpayersduring this period.

"The income tax depart-ment has issued tax refunds ata speed of 76 cases per minutefrom April 8 to June 30, 2020.During this period of just 56weekdays, the Central Boardof Direct taxes (CBDT) hasissued refunds in more than20.44 lakh cases amounting to

more than Rs 62,361 crore," anofficial statement said.

These refunds have beendirectly deposited into thebank accounts of the taxpay-ers and no taxpayer had toapproach the Department to

request for release of refund.The CBDT furtherasked taxpayers to

provide immediateresponse to e-mailsof the departmentso that refunds intheir cases too

could be processedand issued right away."Such e-mails of the I-

T department seek taxpayersto confirm their outstandingdemand, their bank accountnumber and reconciliation ofdefect/mismatch prior to issueof refund. In all such cases,quick responses from the tax-payers would enable the I-Tdepartment to process theirrefunds expeditiously," itadded.

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Telecom industry bodyCOAI's director generalRajan S Mathews has quit theorganisation, and handedover the charge to formerTSSC CEO S P Kochar.

Mathews has been advo-cating for favourable policyfor the telecom industry sincethe last 10 years.

"I have been here for thelast 10 years. Finished 10AGM on Thursday. Now, it'stime for me to go back and bewith family in the US. I havehanded over the charge to thenew regime today," Mathewstold PTI.

When contacted, Kocharconfirmed taking over thecharge.

Kochar gave shape toTelecom Sector Skill Counciland continues to be with theorganisation as mentor andadvisor.

Mathews, who is an US cit-izen, will be heading to theUS to join his family in NewJersey.

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The power ministry hasmade prior permissionmandatory to import electric-ity equipment - used in sup-ply network - from prior ref-erence countries like Chinaand Pakistan.

The decision taken by theministry amid a stand-offwith China at the border.

For India, China andPakistan are prior referencecountries with whom itshares land border.

Earlier in the day, PowerMinister R K Singh told hisstate counterparts in a virtu-al conference that India willnot give permission forimport of power equipmentfrom prior reference counties.

The recent order of theministry is a step in thatdirection to discourageimports from reference coun-tries, mainly China.

He has also asked states notto order equipment for theirDiscoms from Chinese com-panies.

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Mutual funds' asset basedropped eight per cent to near-ly Rs 25 lakh crore in the quar-ter ended June 30, mainly dueto outflow pressure in equityand debt categories.

Average asset under man-agement (AAUM) of the indus-try, comprising 45 players,stood at Rs 24.82 lakh crore inApril-June quarter 2020 ascompared to Rs 27 lakh crorein the preceding quarter,according to a data byAssociation of Mutual Funds inIndia (Amfi).

The asset base of the indus-try was Rs 25.5 lakh crore in

the same period a year ago.The industry registered the

decline of eight per cent onquarter-on-quarter basis as net

inflows have reduced acrossmost of the asset and categoriesin mutual fund schemes, saidOmkeshwar Singh, who is headRankMF at Samco Securities.

"In spite of a 24 per centclimb back in the Nifty for theJune quarter, fund's struggledto grow AUM - on account ofoutflow pressure both in debtand equity. While debt out-flows were triggered by debtevents such as the Franklin

Templeton issue, profit book-ing on rally led to equityinflows.

"Besides, lower investment,with economic uncertaintythreatening jobs and leading topay cuts, could be the reasonfor decline in the assets base,moreover, fresh inflows werealso relatively weak," VidyaBala, co-founder ofPrimeinvestor.in, said.

All the top five fund houses,

SBI MF, HDFC MF, ICICIPrudential MF, Aditya BirlaSunlife MF and Nippon IndiaMF have witnessed decline intheir respective average AUMs.

With an asset base of Rs3,64,363 crore, SBI MutualFund continue to be thelargest fund house in the coun-try during the June quarter2020. Although, average AUMof the fund house plungedfrom Rs 3,73,536 crore report-ed in the preceding quarter.HDFC MF, which is at the sec-ond position, have seen a dropin its asset base to Rs 3,56,183crore during the quarter underreview from Rs 3,69,783 crorein March quarter.

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The government will focus onstrategic stake sales to meet theRs 1.20 lakh crore CPSE disin-vestment target in the currentfiscal, DIPAM Secretary TuhinKanta Pandey said on Friday.

The government has alreadyinvited bids for strategic sale ofnational carrier Air India andoil major BPCL. However,their bid deadlines have beenextended amid the COVID-19pandemic.

For BPCL, in which thegovernment is selling 52.98 percent stake, the deadline hasbeen extended till July 31. For100 per cent stake sale in AirIndia, the deadline for bidsubmission is now August 31.

Speaking at a webinar onBharat Bond ETF, Pandey saidthe Department of Investmentand Public Asset Management(DIPAM) has minority stakesales of CPSEs on its table butthe emphasis is on strategicdisinvestment.

"Many of our strategic trans-actions are going on and mov-

ing forward. There was little bitof disruption due to COVIDand extensions given in termsof EoI (Expression of Interest)but the government has clari-fied that we are very much onthe same track of aggressivelypursuing strategic disinvest-ment. More focus on that.

"Of course, there will be OFS(offer for sale), buybacks...(but)it will be more focused onstrategic disinvestment," hesaid.

For the 2020-21 fiscal, thegovernment has set a disin-

vestment target of Rs 2.10lakh crore. Of this, Rs 1.20lakh crore will come from dis-investment of public sectorundertakings and another Rs90,000 crore from stake salesin financial institutions,including life insurance behe-moth LIC.

The government had inMay announced that a maxi-mum of four public sectorcompanies will be present instrategic sectors, while state-owned firms in other seg-ments will be privatised.

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L&T Finance Holdings(LTFH) plans to raise up to Rs2,000 crore by issuing prefer-ence shares through publicoffer or private placement,the non-banking finance com-pany said in its annual reportfor FY2019-20.

The company will seekshareholders' approval to theproposal at the annual gener-al meeting (AGM) scheduledto take place on July 28through audio/visual mode,the report said. The companysaid it will create, issue andallot 20 crore cumulative com-pulsorily redeemable non-convertible preference shares(preference shares), in one ormore tranches, of the facevalue of Rs 100 each for cashat par or at premium aggregat-ing to Rs 2,000 crore.

The preference shares willallotted to various personseither through public offer or

private placement, in one ormore tranches. In an explana-tory note on the fund mop-upplan, LTFH said the steadygrowth in the operations of thesubsidiaries of the companyhas necessitated regular infu-sion of equity and tier I or tierII debt in its subsidiaries.

"Being the holding compa-ny, the company would need toraise funds for such infusion.The company would also needfunds for its working capitalrequirements includingredemption of preferenceshares from time to time," thecompany said.

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Bharat Bond ETF, India'sfirst ever corporatebond exchangetraded fund, maylook at including'AA' rated securi-ties of public sec-tor companiesgoing ahead asthe governmentaims to deepen themarket, DIPAMSecretary Tuhin KantaPamdey said on Friday.

The ETF currently investsonly in 'AAA' rated bonds ofpublic sector companies.

To a query on whether theETF will include 'AA' rated

bonds going forward, Pandeysaid: "We have kept that

provision. We havenot restricted it to'AAA' rated infuture. As we goalong, we mayhave to consider,

because we want todevelop a bond mar-

ket. The opportunityfor more corporates".

Bharat Bond ETF with afixed maturity of 3 years and10 years, had fetched about Rs12,400 crore from its debutoffer in December 2019.

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Page 9: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

o you know whathappens to yourbody when youlose sleep anddon’t log enoughhours under the

covers? Even missing as littleas one hour can have animpact on how you feel, affectyour ability to think, remem-ber and process information,weaken your immune system,increase the risk of certaincancers, lead to weight gainand the list might just keepgoing on... Hence, it has beenrightly said that gettingenough sleep is important tohelp a person maintain opti-mal health and well-being.

Since the lockdown-induced anxieties have highlycompromised our sleepingpatterns, experts suggest afew ways to make sure youhave a good night’s sleep.

Usually, we drift off tosleep when our body hasused up most of its energy.With stay-at-home orders, weare not using all our energylevels and to top it off, mostof us end up binge-watching,chit-chatting with friends tilllate night or maybe evenwork for prolonged hours.Kabir Siddiq, founder andCEO of SleepyCat, a mattresscompany, explains that thisflips our body-clock to awhole 180 degree. “In orderto get back that sound sleep,you should try and adhere tosome rules such as shuttingthe digital screens at leastthree hours before bedtimeand rather picking up read-ing. Avoid working till late

hours. By spending even 20minutes a day exercising, weare able to put all the builtenergy to good use and itallows our body to feel tired,which eventually leads to agood night’s sleep. Try tuninginto calming music at night.It has a direct effect on theparasympathetic nervous sys-tem, which helps your bodyrelax and prepare for ahealthier sleep,” says he.

Recently, a survey, con-ducted at the University ofBasel, Switzerland, and theUniversity’s PsychiatricHospital, reported that sleepquality has badly deterioratedduring the lockdown. Ourcycle of work and leisure isoften mismatched with ourinternal biological clock. Ifthe differences in sleep tim-ing and duration betweenwork days and days offbecome too large, this canlead to ‘social jetlag’. The sur-vey found that a relaxation ofsocial rhythms — for exam-ple, through more flexibleworking hours — led to areduction in ‘social jetlagging’.

Mudit Dandwate, co-founder of Dozee, a sleepmonitoring device company,shares that one good practiceto induce a sound sleep is toconsume some soothinggreen tea as it helps boostdigestion and reduce corebody temperature. “Also, tak-ing a hot water shower beforegoing to bed does the exactsame thing, which initiatesdeep sleep. One should alsocut down on the caffeineintake at least six hours

before sleeping to build aproper sleeping schedule. Aswe know that certain yogaexercises have been useful instimulating good sleep andrelaxation. Try practisingyoga on a daily basis, even ifit is for 15 minutes. Yoganidra, an ancient technique,has been proved to be veryuseful. Approximately, 20minutes of yoga nidra isequivalent to two hours ofsound sleep,” he says.

A study suggests that it isnot right to exercise post 8pm. Mudit explains the rea-son, saying, “An intense exer-cise routine releases a lot ofadrenaline, which keeps oneawake until late. However, aquick brisk walk is a goodstress buster for the mind.Although, it’s great to do it inthe morning.”

A restless night hasbecome a routine for almostall of us. Stress and anxietycause major sleeping prob-lems or worsen existingissues. Following healthysleep habits — also known assleep hygiene — helps inreducing anxiety, depressivesymptoms and allows one tofeel more energetic and posi-tive, believes Dr AnuneetSabharwal, MBBS MD,Psychiatrist. He suggests afew other methods, whichhave proven to be useful:

pStick to a sleep scheduleof the same time. Sleepingand waking up daily at thesame time helps regulate thebody-clock, which helps usfall asleep much faster.

pHave a relaxing environ-

ment. Mindful meditation ordeep breathing exercises rightbefore going to bed hasproved to be effective. It alsoreduces stress.

pAvoid consumption ofalcohol, cigarettes and heavymeals, especially during theevening. Eating big or spicymeals can cause discomfortfrom indigestion that canmake it hard to fall asleep.

pTry to avoid eating largemeals for two to three hoursbefore bedtime. Rich foods,fatty-fried meals, spicy dish-es, citrus fruits and carbonat-ed drinks can trigger indiges-tion in some people. Whenthis occurs close to bedtime,

it can lead to painful heart-burn that disrupts sleep.

pLimiting daytime naps to30 minutes. Sleeping in thedaytime can confuse yourinternal clock, which meansthat you may struggle tosleep at night. Don’t underes-timate the power of a shortnap. Just 20 to 30 minutescan help to improve mood,alertness and performance.

pEnsuring adequate expo-sure to natural light. This isparticularly important forindividuals, who mostly stayindoors. Exposure to sunlightduring the day as well as dark-ness at night helps to maintaina healthy sleep-wake cycle.

pLet the sleep environmentseduce you. Mattress and pil-lows should be comfortable.The bedroom should be coolbetween 24 and 30 degreesfor optimal sleep. Turn off alllights. Consider using black-out curtains, eye shades, earplugs, “white noise”machines, humidifiers, fansand other devices that canmake the bedroom morerelaxing and you’ll fall asleepin no time.

Experts feel that a rightmattress can also make allthe difference between asound sleep and a sleeplessnight. A good mattress offersa perfect balance of required

comfort and support, keepingthe natural spinal alignmentand body posture in place,thus significantly enhancingthe quality of sleep.

Kabir tells us that ourmind and body are connect-ed by a neural pathway. It iswhen the body feels comfort-able that we slowly start todrift off into deep sleep.Thus, making sure you sleepon a comfortable surface isvery important. An old anduncomfortable mattress canlead to stress buildup. Headds, “A quality mattress pro-vides support to the bodyand ensures that you don’tend up with a sore in the

morning. The type of surfacemay differ from person toperson. Some may prefer amore supportive mattress,while others would want amore hotel-like softness.Either way, it’s about whatsuits your body the best.”

When it comes to the rightsleeping position, try lyingon your back or to the side asthey are usually considered tobe good positions, suggestexperts. “Different sleep posi-tions have different benefits.If you have pain or otherissues, you might need toswitch your sleep position tohelp manage it better,” addsKabir.

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ai KiranRathan and SaiKiranAnugadalarecentlyannounced the

launch of an app called“BingeIt” which enablespeer to peer recommen-dation platform for con-tent lovers. With an aimto help users easily findmovies and web showsbased on their interests,the BingeIt app alsoallows a user to knowwhat their friends arewatching! The appfounder, who is a comput-er science post-graduatefrom the University ofNew York, says, “My part-ner Sai Kiran Alagundala,and I, believe in solvingreal-world problems andwe were highly motivatedfor the success of our newventure.”

A one-step solution inthe world of digitisation,BingeIT tells what’s trend-ing globally. “Once I hadthis pertinent desire ofwatching a web show onan OTT platform but ittook me almost half anhour to choose. This trig-gered within us an idea todesign an app that letscontent lovers differenti-ate between what to watcheasily,” says Sai KiranAlugandala. His co-founder adds, “To validateour idea we carried outsurveys and picked up dayto day scenarios. Werealised, often we tend towatch shows suggested byour friends or family and

more the people suggest aparticular content, thestronger is our motivationto watch that content.This led to the birth ofBingeIT with user-basedpreferences.”

BingeIt also allows theuser to maintain a watch-list, and have alreadyacquired more than tenthousand users. It’s avail-able for free and mainlyfocuses on building a funexperience for the user.Considering the app to bethe next new thing in thecity, the team is develop-ing an immersive andpersonalised experiencefor users. At BingeIt, theyare constantly listening tothe demands of theiraudience and are creatinginnovative content forthem that’s highly engag-ing so that they can accessthe best content easily.

ith everyonestuck homeand lookingfor ways andmeans to notlose hope and

focus, YFLO chairpersonApurva Jain and commit-tee invited the renownedMeher Pudumjee,Chairperson ThermaxIndustries to help severalwomen refocus andinspire them to aspire.

Pudumjee is the lead-ing name in the energyand environmental engi-neering field in India.She is the chairperson ofthe AkankshaFoundation, a Trustee ofTeach to Lead, Mumbaiand, is also an activephilanthropist with akeen interest in the fieldof Education. Moderatingthe session of this busi-ness legend was our veryown Hyderabad basedentrepreneur, AnuAcharya, CEO ofMapmygenome, who sin-gle-handedly, with a

unique range of genom-ic-based reports success-fully bridged the gapbetween the mysterybehind DNA and the endcustomer.

Pudumjee spoke onhow COVID brought tothe surface many thingsthat already existed likethe fall in the economy,our relations with China,etc. In regards to theenvironment, she isamazed to see so manybirds around, singingbeautifully. “The noise ofthe pollution and trafficnever allowed us to hearthis. The sky, the air ismuch cleaner. Civil soci-eties all over the worldare going to startdemanding a cleanerenvironment,” she shared.

Pudumjee unraveledher childhood stories,learning, and relationshipwith her mother the leg-endary Anu Aga, andjourney with Thermaxwith ease and grace. Shestarted from the lowest

rung of the ladder in hercompany, worked her wayup, had her share ofstumbles, and learnt fromconstant persistence.Akanksha Foundation is ashared enthusiasm withher mother and sheworked on making it afree of cost educationmodel. “Education is thebiggest leveler in society”;was the key thoughtbehind Teach for India toprovide opportunities forunderprivileged kids. Sheanswered audiencequeries and explained theissues being a woman inthe business field, empha-sised on performanceenhancement, philan-thropic interests, and herpassion for music.

The session was alearning experience forall. Each question wasanswered with real-lifesituations. The rapid-fireround found her to bevery compassionate,humorous, and a brilliantlistener.

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SaturdayJuly 4, 2020

Follow us on

@TheDailyPioneer

facebook.com/dailypioneer

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FUN

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ARCHIE

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REALITY CHECK SPEED BUMP CROSSWORD

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NANCY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

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Yesterday’s solution

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horeographer Saroj Khandied of a cardiac arrest ina Mumbai hospital onFriday; she was 71. MsKhan was taken to GuruNanak Hospital on June

20 after complaining of breathingtrouble. A test for COVID-19 gave anegative result. “She passed away dueto cardiac arrest at around 2.30 am atthe hospital,” Saroj Khan’s nephewManish Jagwani told news agencyPTI. Just days ago, family sourcessaid Ms Khan was better and wouldbe discharged soon. Saroj Khan’sfuneral was held on Friday morning.

Bollywood celebrities includingAmitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumarand Farah Khan took to social mediato mourn the death of veteran chore-ographer Saroj Khan, who passedaway following a massive heartattack here on Friday morning.

One of the most prominent chore-ographers in Hindi cinema, SarojKhan, who was fondly called as“Masterji” in the industry, hasworked in over 2,000 songs. Hermost famous collaborations werewith Madhuri Dixit for (Dhak dhakkarne laga) and Sridevi (Hawahawai) among many others.

Her recent work includes Tabaahho gaye in last year’s Kalank pic-turised on Madhuri.

Here’s what the celebrities havewritten:

Amitabh Bachchan: T 3582 -Prayers .. haath jude hai, mannashant.

Akshay Kumar: Woke up to the sadnews that legendary choreographer#SarojKhan ji is no more. She madedance look easy almost like anybodycan dance, a huge loss for the industry.May her soul rest in peace

Kunal Kohli: Hindi cinema haslost its adaa #Saroj Khan.

Farah Khan: Rest in peace Sarojji..u were an inspiration to many,myself included. Thank you for thesongs #SarojKhan

Genelia Deshmukh: RIP Saroji ... Ithank God I got a chance to bechoreographed by you.. Prayers andStrength to the Family. #SarojKhan

Riteish Deshmukh: Rest in PeaceSaroj Khan ji. This loss is immeasur-able for the industry & filmlovers.Having choreographed morethan 2000 songs she single handedlychanged the landscape of how songswere shot. I had the pleasure ofbeing Choerographed by her in

Aladin. One tick off my bucketlistMadhur Bhandarkar: Woke up to

the news that Saroj Khan is no morewith us, Most talented trend setterchoreographer of Film industry, Mycondolences to her family members& admirers. We will miss you. #RIP

Anubhav Sinha: Kya masterji?What a loss... a legend, a star and eraSarojji. This is such a ridiculous year.#SarojKhan.

Rakulpreet Singh: 2020 pleasedon’t give any more bad news. So sadto hear about #SarojKhan ma’am.Always dreamt of doing atleast one

song Choreographed by her. Yourgrace and contribution to indian cin-ema shall always be remembered.May your soul RIP. Strength to thefamily

Hansika Motwane:#RestInPeaceSarojKhan ji . I stillremember your words of wisdom tome , when you told me “beta befocused and give it your all and youwill achieve whatever you want”.Grew up watching your choreogra-phy. This year has taken away way tomuch Broken heart May your hersoul rest in peace.

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adame Gandhi hasseen talentedwomen beingquestioned,silenced and over-looked simply

because of their gender, andfelt belittled because of thesame. The multi-talentedartiste feels we have to “pressmute on lyrics or visualimagery that perpetuatestereotypes about women,girls and LGBTQIA+ folks”.

“It has largely been due togender. That is why genderliberation and personalpower are such deep themesin my work,” Kiran Gandhi,known onstage as MadameGandhi, told IANS whileopening up about her strug-gle with stereotypical atti-tudes.

“I have felt quieted becauseI identify as female. I havefelt small. I have seen otherwomen who are richly talent-ed in their work be ques-tioned, silenced or over-looked simply because theway we understand commu-nication is so masculine,aggressive and loud. May weall be so self-aware as to diveinto the power of those whohave so much to say but areoften erased,” added the LosAngeles-based electronicartiste, who has come outwith her single “Waiting for me”.

Asked how havethings changedfor women inthe musicindus-try,she

said: “I only work withwomen and other queerfolks. This is our biggestpower. Keep putting eachother on fearlessly, instead ofaspiring to standards thatwere never designed for us!”

She feels everyone has arole to play when it comes toeliminating normalisedmisogyny.

“We have to change thechannel or press mute onlyrics or visual imagery thatperpetuate stereotypesabout women, girls andLGBTQIA+ folks thathold us down! Thistrains the industryand the algorithmsthat we demandbetter and we willnot listen to musicthat oppresses us!We live in a capi-talist society, somoving our spend-ing power else-where has hugelyeffective ramifica-tions,” she said.

With her rootstracing back toIndia,

Madame Gandhi uses hermusic to focus on femaleempowerment and fourth-wave feminism. Her music isa blend of thought-provokingactivism and non-binary gen-der views, and is embeddedwith cross-cultural influ-ences.

“I have embraced myIndian roots by celebratingcolour, fashion, style, andespecially the fierceness of

Indian womenand queer

folks! Iam

using the global platform. Ihave to shed light on thesejoyful aspects of my SouthAsian heritage,” said themusic producer, who grew upbetween Mumbai and NewYork.

Now, she has come outwith her first-ever video shotin India “Waiting for me”,released on Vh1 India.Through the song, she chron-icles her upbringing in India.Conceptualised and pro-duced by an all-female team,the video features queer,trans, female and gendernon-conforming cast mem-bers.

Talking about the song, shesaid: “In this song, I explore

personal and collectivepower! We move from theoppressed individual to

the empowered collective!I had a deeply powerful and

collaborative experiencewith the team, who workedto bring this piece to life. Weare daily in communicationon WhatsApp and Facetime,ironing out every detail, dis-cussing every choice. It hasbeen one of the best experi-ences of my life, and it allowsme to know that healthy,

major scale productionsare possible!”

“I am dying to hearwhat my Indian

audience receivesfrom this

video! I hopemore radicalart continuesto be made,allowing allof us toquestionsystems thatno longerwork for us,”she added.

Page 11: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

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Jurgen Klopp admitted ManchesterCity are the one side capable of“smashing” his newly-crowned

Premier League winners afterLiverpool’s first match since becom-ing English champions ended in a 4-0 thrashing at the Etihad.

City sent a warning shot of theirintentions to take the title back nextseason as Kevin De Bruyne, RaheemSterling and Phil Foden all struckbefore half-time to inflict justLiverpool’s third league defeat in 71games.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s owngoal rounded off a miserable night forKlopp’s men, who could have conced-ed many more in the second half.

The gap at the top of the table

between the two remains 20 points,but Liverpool’s charge to better aseries of records set by City two sea-sons ago was stalled on a chasteningnight for the champions.

City began the evening by givinga guard of honour to their opponents,but showed little respect once theaction got underway.

The early signs suggestedLiverpool would be able to pick offa leaky City defence that has costthem their title.

Mohamed Salah struck the postand Sadio Mane headed wastefullywide as chances came and went forthe visitors. “We had our momentswhere we were really close to makesomething,” added Klopp. “Theyused our mistakes, we didn’t use theirmistakes.”

Liverpool’s first big error camewhen Joe Gomez pulled Sterling tothe ground inside the area and DeBruyne converted the resulting penal-ty. Sterling was suspended by Englandmanager Gareth Southgate after hesquared up to Gomez in the canteenon International duty the day afterLiverpool's 3-1 win over City atAnfield earlier in the season.

The City forward wisely did histalking on the pitch this time as hescored for the first time in a compet-itive match against his old side byturning inside Gomez and sending ashot through the defender’s legs asLiverpool were caught on thecounter-attack.

Foden has been hugely impres-sive since the Premier League’s restartfrom a three-month layoff and the 20-

year-old combined with De Bruynefor a brilliant one-two to leave AndyRobertson floundering before lifting

the ball over the advancing AlissonBecker to make it 3-0.

But for the Brazilian goalkeeperand some wayward finishing,Liverpool could have been on the endof an embarrassing scoreline early inthe second half as Gabriel Jesus firedstraight at his internationalteammate, Sterling saw a shotdeflected just wide and Virgilvan Dijk cleared off the linefrom Foden.

There was a touch of for-tune when City’s fourth didarrive as Sterling’s shot was headingwide before being turned into his ownnet by Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Riyad Mahrez had a fifth goal instoppage time ruled out by a VARreview for handball as City just failedto match the 5-0 scoreline they

inflicted on Liverpool at the Etihadin 2017.

But City more than laid down amarker and also showed why they are

among the favourites to win theChampions League for the first timewhen European football returns inAugust.

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Real Madrid took a big steptowards winning La Liga on

Thursday by battling past Getafeto move four points clear ofBarcelona, with five games left.

Sergio Ramos’ late penaltyproved the difference at the

Alfredo di Stefano Stadiumwhere Madrid were made to feeluncomfortable by Getafe butdug out a gutsy 1-0 victory wor-thy of champions.

This was arguably Madrid’stoughest fixture remaining andwith a four-point advantageover Barca, as well as the supe-

rior head-to-head, the trophy isnow firmly within their grasp.

“We have not won any-thing,” insisted coach ZinedineZidane.

“We are doing things well,yes, but there are five games stillto go. If we continue like this,staying solid, it will be fine.”

*��� ���+ , Australia’s SteveSmith and retired SouthAfrican swashbuckler AB deVilliers are the two batsmen,India’s leg-spinner KuldeepYadav finds most challenging tocontain.

Yadav, who went through aprolonged lean patch in 2019,said both the batsmen haveunique abilities.

“Smith plays me mostly offthe back foot. He plays the ballvery late as well, so it becomeschallenging to bowl to him,”Yadav told Deep Dasgupta inthe latest episode ofCricketbaazi on ESPNCricinfo.

“In ODIs, AB de Villiers isa good player.

He has a unique style. Nowthat he’s retired, it’s a good thing!But other than him, I haven’tfound any other batsman whoI am sacred will hit me for a lotof runs,” he said. PTI

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Former Australian batsmanMichael Hussey is fearful of

the prospect of Australia host-ing the T20 World Cup inOctober-November and says a16-team event amid the ragingCovid-19 pandemic couldprove to be a logistical nightmare.Cricket Australia itself has said thatit is a bit “unrealistic” to stage theT20 World Cup as per schedule inthe current circumstances but theICC is yet to take a final call on thematter. Hussey too doesn’t see theshowpiece event taking place thisyear.

“I am really fearful about theT20 World Cup to be honest andthe reason for that is I think it isokay to bring out one team to playinternational cricket and get themto isolate and stay safe and prepare

well for a series,” he said in a pod-cast called HotSpot.

“But having to bring a numberof teams and getting them to iso-late to prepare and then movearound the country to differentvenues I think that will be a logis-tical nightmare. From what we are

hearing perhaps the T20 WorldCup will have to be postponed for2021 or even 2022,” said the south-paw.

The India tour of Australia thathas been scheduled after the T20World Cup is likely to go ahead asper the plan, according to Hussey.

“I am a lot more positive aboutthe Indian tour of Australia goingahead and the reason is bringingone team to tour here and gettingthem to a hub is easier.

“For example Adelaide Ovalhas just built a hotel connected tothe stadium, so the Indian teamcould base themselves there, trainand prepare for a series, and playagainst Australia.

“We have all got our fingerscrossed, as we know that this pan-demic keeps throwing these curveballs and we need to adapt andmove quickly,” said Hussey.

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Seasoned paceman ShannonGabriel, returning from an

ankle surgery, has been draftedinto the 15-man West IndiesTest squad for the Test seriesagainst England beginning onJuly 8.

Gabirel was among thereserves when the West Indiesplayers landed in England butproved his fitness with impres-sive performances in the twointer-squad warm-up matches atthe Old Trafford here.

He is now part of a strongpace attack which also includescaptain Jason Holder, KemarRoach, Chemar Holder, AlzarriJoseph and Raymon Reifer.

“I am delighted thatwe are able to addShannon to the Testsquad. He has shownthat he is fit and ready, hewill add experi-ence, firepowerand potency tothe bowlingunit,” RogerH a r p e r ,C r i c k e tWest Indiesselector said.

G a b r i e l

bowled in three inningsand grabbed eight wick-ets for 122 runs. The 32-

year-old had made his Testdebut at the Lord’s in

May 2012 andhas so far

played 45matchest a k i n g1 3 3w i c k -ets.

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Formula One worldchampion Lewis

Hamilton posted thefastest time in the first twopractice sessions for theseason-opening AustrianGrand Prix on Friday.

The British drivertwice finished ahead of hisMercedes teammateValtteri Bottas on the 4.3-kilometer (2.7-mile) RedBull Ring circuit inSpielberg nestled at thefoot of the Styrian moun-tains in southern Austria.

Bottas was .356 sec-onds behind Hamilton inthe damp and overcast

morning run andimproved to .197 back asthe track dried andbecame warmer in theafternoon. Late in thatsession, however, he hadto return to the pitsbecause of a braking issue.

Red Bull driver Max

Verstappen, who has wonthe past two races here,was third quickest in thefirst practice but slipped toeighth in the second ses-sion and encounteredoversteering problems.

Ferrari struggled forspeed in the morning with

Charles Leclerc 10thquickest and SebastianVettel only 12th, butimproved in the after-noon with Vettel pushingup to fourth behind SergioPerez in third. Perez’sRacing Point team usesMercedes engines.

Although Vettelshowed good corneringspeed, he was still a some-what distant .657 secondsadrift of Hamilton’s timein the second session.

Ferrari is racing withthe same car it used in pre-season testing in Februaryand has not made anyupgrades, while Mercedesand other teams have.

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Jose Mourinho claimed VAR willmake fans fall out of love with

football after Tottenham were thevictims of a controversial goalreversal in their 3-1 defeat againstSheffield United on Thursday.

Blades took the lead throughSander Berge’s first-half strike atBramall Lane.

But Tottenham were denied anequaliser moments later whenHarry Kane’s goal was chalked offby VAR for a dubious handballagainst Lucas Moura.

Lucas appeared to have the ballkicked against his arm in the build-up to Kane’s strike and Tottenhammanager Mourinho complainedangrily on the touchline. LysMousset and Oli McBurnie rubbed

salt into Mourinho’s wounds asthey both netted for Unitedafter the interval.

Kane’s last-minute goal wasno consolation for Tottenham,who are now in grave danger ofmissing out on next season’s

Champions League.In a Premier League season

marred by VAR making debatablecalls too often, Mourinho said hefears for the future of football if thesystem is not addressed.

“I can only say that normallyI’m a professional guy on the benchin these moments, I never complainat the guy with the whistle becauseit’s not the referee anymore,”Mourinho said. “This is the start ofeverything. I think the refereeshould always be the man on thepitch and the people in the officeshould just support and assist.

“That’s not the way it is. The ref-eree who is not very good on thepitch, we cannot expect that he’sgood in the office. “We’re going ina direction that’s really bad for thebeautiful game, the game thateverybody fell in love with.”

Tottenham now sit nine pointsbehind fourth-placed Chelsea andseven adrift of fifth-placedManchester United after their firstdefeat since the restart.

While the Blades, winners forthe first time in five games follow-ing the hiatus, moved two pointsabove Tottenham into seventh place,keeping alive their hopes of quali-fying for European action.

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�#��������������"��:��?���:�����-�+����-*, England all-rounder Sam Curran onFriday tested negative forcoronavirus, making himeligible to return to training,the country’s cricket boardannounced.

The England and WalesCricket Board (ECB) said the22-year-old will return totraining in a day or two.

Curran, who went intoself-isolation in his hotelroom at the Ageas Bowlafter he felt ill, had given his

sample on Thursday. PTI

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Page 12: 0 ˜# &-#! ˜&˜ ˛ · pensions for staff, retired staff ... GSDP to help states to tide over the present financial cri-sis. ... run the risk of turning into NPAs even in the short-term

eading production houseUV Creations is creditedto have revivedSharwanand’s career withRun Raja Run six yearsago. Later, they collabo-

rated with the actor for Express Rajaand Mahanubhavudu (joint produc-tion with GA2 Pictures) successfully.Buzz about them joining forces againfor a new flick have been doing therounds for the past one month.Freshly, reports suggest that theactor green-lit a debutantSriram’s action-drama, whereinhe is tipped to play a ruthless cop.It is said the project will go to

floors sometime later next year.Sharwanand, who will first finish

pending portions of Sreekaram afteractive filming resumes, has projectslined up with Kishore Tirumala andAjay Bhupathi for the remainder ofthe year. Mind you, he also needs tocomplete portions of his Telugu-

Tamil bilingualwith Shree

Karthik.

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outh-Hindiactress NithyaMenen says thereare times whenshe finds her jobemotionally

draining. The trailer of herupcoming web seriesBreathe: Into The Shadowsis out now. In the briefvideo, she is seen breaking

down and trying to lookfor her missing child.

Asked if playingthe role was emo-tionally drainingfor her, Nithyasaid, “A lot oftimes, the job isemotionallydraining. Butthis characterwas very dif-ferent, in thesense whatwas expectedof me toemote. It's ahypotheti-cal situa-

tion. It’s not something thatany of us have experiencedbefore that we can imaginewhat it will be like. I want-ed to make the perfor-mance very authentic.”

“I was continuouslythinking what the graph is,what is she going to feelright now. It was quiteintense in the sense thatevery minute I was think-ing about her,” sheadded.This is also herdebut in the web world,but she is not nervousabout it.

“I rarely get nervous inmy life. I don’t think I wasnervous even for my firstfilm. I am very excitedabout Breathe because inmy opinion, it is one of thebest performances I havegiven till date. I am actuallycurious to see how it lookson screen,” said the actress.Breathe: Into The Shadowsstreams from July 10 onAmazon Prime Video.

ctor RanaDaggubati, who pre-sented the romanticcomedy Krishna andhis Leela, which pre-miered on Netflix a

week ago, believes that over-the-top platforms will be the

voice of independent filmmak-ers. “World is at the lowest inmorale, economy, and manyother things, so it is time forartists to tell inspiring storiesand shine. This is a moment tomake a future, and overcomethe big hit that has arisen dueto this pandemic. With plat-

forms like OTT, we have thepower to create. It doesn’t haveto be where we are. Talentedpeople will have the opportuni-ty to come forward and showtheir body of work. OTT willbe the voice of independentfilmmakers. There will be a lotof fun to watch out for,” Ranaexpressed. He was fieldingquestions on cinema, lifestyleand wellness at the CII Lifestyleand Wellness Summit webinarin Hyderabad on Friday.

When asked on what keepshim going during this pandem-ic, he noted, “I felt the uncer-

tainty would stay here for along time, so I have immediate-ly decided on a long term. I wassure we would not have filmprojects, so I planned back-wards, and we were able to cre-ate a pipeline of animation pro-jects for the next couple ofyears. I feel like I found anotherjob quickly. Finding things thatexcite you means it doesn’t haveto be big and doesn’t have to belike our main business.”

Replying to a question onwellness and being fit, he point-ed out, “Now am pretty mucheating clean, most of my diet

usually depends on thefilm I’m doing. If Ihave to look big ina certain film, Ihave to eat accord-ingly. Now it’s beenneutral, I just takefour meals a day and Idon’t eat carbs after 7pm. As I’m mostly con-fined to home, I’m noteating too much meat.Our family is growing alot of food, in the houseand on our farm, so it’sjust been eating cleanand training hard.”

aroj Khan, who isone of the mostcelebrated choreo-graphers of theHindi film indus-try, succumbed to

cardiac arrest in Mumbai dur-ing the wee hours of Friday.While most of her work — ina career spanning fourdecades — was confined toHindi cinema, the three-timeNational Award winner hasalso worked on a handful ofTelugu films. Prominentamong them includeChoodalani Vundi andDaddy, both of which fea-tured megastar Chiranjeevi.Speaking to us exclusively,Choodalani Vundi directorGunasekhar recalls, “The filmwas my fourth and ManiSharma’s second as a compos-er, so we took it as a challengeto deliver a super hit sound-track. If you observe closely,the album was sung by a mixof South and North singers(Shankar Mahadevan,Hariharan, KavithaKrishnamurthy), which was a

first-of-its-kind. It became atrend later. For a star ofChiranjeevi garu’s repute andimage, we tried to experimentmusically and we had his andproducer Aswini Dutt garu’sblessings. During this process,I felt Chiru garu’s dance,under Saroj Khan’s choreogra-phy, would augur well for thesongs. Dutt garu immediatelyendorsed the idea, saying it’s agood one. Back then, Saroj jiwas the highest paid Hindichoreographer. Plus, she wasworking round the clock, butChiru garu’s association withthe project meant that she was

in. For a choreographer likeher, working with a greatdancer like Chiranjeevi garuwas a delight, as he would ele-vate her choreography to thenext level with his unmatchedskills. Even if she was offereda big Hindi film back then,she would still chooseChiranjeevi garu’s film.Collaborating with him waslike work satisfaction to her.”

He continues, “Impressedwith the song, Oh Mariya(which she choreographed)from the soundtrack, she toldme that Mani Sharma has abright future. And when she

visited the set of the song, shewas floored by the art direc-tion and lighting pattern,appreciating the care I’vetaken as a director. Sheadvised me to maintain samework ethics all throughout mycareer. Later, I’ve realised thatshe was putting into practicethe advice she doled out tome. She was like a beginnerwho never believed in theidea of relaxing on sets. Shewould go about her job like apassionate beginner whowants to make it count.”

Guna adds that her part-nership with the megastar

erupted in claps from the unitafter every dance shot. “As aunit, we enjoyed their part-nership and so did the audi-ence upon the film’s release.The song fetched her NandiAward for BestChoreographer back then,” herecalls fondly.

The director wasn’t doneyet. He decided to repeat herfor the romantic melodyAbbaba iddu, much to theshock of the unit. “Some ofthe members asked why Iwanted her for a melody.There was also chat about herhigh pay check. They advisedme to go with someone elsebut I told them, ‘Her ability tocome up with great stepsaside, she ensures that actorsgive out great expressions’. Shedid that with Sridevi andMadhuri Dixit in Hindi. Shewas a pioneer when it comesto ‘expressive dance’ choreog-raphy irrespective of the typeof song. Dutt garu once againsided with me. The end resultwas that Abbaba too was asuper hit, with graceful movesby Chiru garu and fantasticexpressions by Soundarya,”the director points out.

Further, he is of the opinionthat it was Saroj Khan whopopularized Bollywood danceworld-wide with her leg-endary skills. “Her death is agreat loss to Indian industryand the dancing fraternityacross the country,” he ends.

Vijayawada Saturday July 4 2020���������

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ooks like Prabhas haslined-up one more projectafter Nag Ashwin’s sci-fithriller. According to thegrapevine, the actor, whohas turned extremely

choosy after two-part Baahubali,has given his consent to frontMarathi-Hindi director OmRaut’s next. Raut recently madehis Hindi debut with AjayDevgn-starrer Tanjahi, whichwas a box-office smash. He wassupposed to team up with KartikAryan next for a 3D actionfilm but it’s been puton hold.

Apparently,Prabhas’ goodfriend Vamsi, whois one of thefounding mem-bers of UVCreations, wasinstrumental insetting up the pro-ject. It is believedthat T-SeriesBhushan

Kumar who understandsPrabhas’ taste felt Raut’s storywould satiate the actor’s fans inTelugu states and across thecountry, before ensuring that thedirector gets an audience withVamsi. Impressed by the content,Vamsi ensured that Prabhas toohears it. The actor was in later, itis understood.

We texted Vamsi for a confir-mation but it didn’t elicit anyresponse until the time of goingto press.

As things stand now, Prabhasneeds to complete his on-sets

film with Jil fame RadhaKrishna up next. Close to

45 per cent of the as-yet-untitled film’s shoothas been wrapped up,

with 90 days of shootingstill left. After wrappingup this film, he will

move to Nag Ashwin’snext, which will at least

take a year to becompleted.

— NG

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