16
M aking it clear that the Ayodhya issue would be one of the main campaign agenda in the Lok Sabha poll, BJP president Amit Shah on Friday said the party was com- mitted to a “Bhavya Mandir” and declared that the “2019 battle” between Narendra Modi and his “desperate opponents” would be a decisive one and with a massive impact on com- ing times. Addressing thou- sands of delegates attending the two-day National Council meet here, Shah asked party workers to ensure that Modi returns to power with full majority and continues the “nation building” without a break. The tag line of the Council was “Abki baar phir Modi Sarkar” and the meeting venue reverberated with a loud roar when Shah mentioned Ram Mandir in his speech. The meet was attended by almost all top leaders including Modi, LK Advani, MM Joshi, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, JP Nadda, Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled States including Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath and former Chief Ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh. Yogi was greeted with loud cheers by the BJP council members when he arrived at the stage. The backdrop of the dais had Modi and Shah on the two sides along with Swami Vivekananda and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In his speech, Shah praised the leadership of Atal-Advani which established and con- tributed to the rise of the party at the national level, he said. Shah said BJP is commit- ted for a “grand temple” at the disputed site in Ayodhya and it would be accomplished “at the earliest”. He accused Congress of trying to delay the temple and gave reference of its leader Kapil Sibal who he said sought that the apex court’s hearing on the Ram temple issue be fixed after the Lok Sabha poll. Attaching huge signifi- cance to the result of 2019 gen- eral elections, Shah said it would be a battle between the Modi who has brought “glory” to India and his desperate rivals having contrasting ide- ologies glued together with the sole “oust Modi agenda”. “Opposition parties know that alone they cannot defeat Modi,” he said. Interestingly, the BJP pres- ident while pointing to the sig- nificance of “2019 LS battle” made a reference to the third battle of Panipat between Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali and Marathas where the defeat of the latter led to “gula- mi” (slavery) for 200 years. “Lok Sabha polls battle of two ideologies; BJP stands for cultural nationalism, poor, while rivals together merely for power,” said the BJP president. Shah also threw punches on the “one family rule” and its alleged rein of corruption. He said Congress was leveling charges in the Rafle jet fighter purchase as it was “frustrated” that there was no blemish on Modi dur- ing his full tenure. The election result would impact the future of India, he claimed and went on to say that National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would come back to power with a thumping major- ity and in UP “the party would increase its tally from 71 to 74”. Shah said in last one week, the Modi Government took two major decisions of giving reservation to economically weaker sections in the upper caste and reducing Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the traders. The Modi Government has “fulfilled” the dreams of crores of youths with 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education for the general cat- egory poor, and described the Constitution amendment Bill as one of the most important legislations passed by Parliament. This is one of the most important legislations Parliament has passed, he said. Shah hailed the GST Council’s decision to double the limit for exemption from pay- ment of GST to 40 lakh and announced that the higher turnover cap of 1.5 crore for availing composition scheme of paying 1 per cent tax will be effective from April 1. Modi would deliver the concluding session of the coun- cil on Saturday. I n a major blow to CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana, the Delhi High Court on Friday ruled that he will be investi- gated in the ongoing bribery case and no prior sanction was required to prosecute him, implying he enjoys no protec- tion against a possible arrest. Justice Najmi Waziri said that the allegation of “mala fide” raised against then CBI Director Alok Verma has not been made out. Rejecting a clutch of peti- tions for quashing of the FIR filed against Asthana, CBI DSP Devender Kumar and alleged middleman Manoj Prasad, the HC set a 10-week deadline to complete the investigations in the case. The court held that per- mission for prior sanction to prosecute Asthana was not required considering the facts of the case. Asthana is likely to challenge the HC verdict before the Supreme Court. The HC gave its verdict while dismissing the petitions filed by Asthana, Kumar and Prasad challenging the FIR lodged against them. Asthana was booked on charges of criminal conspiracy, corruption and criminal mis- conduct under the relevant sections of Prevention of Corruption Act. Verma and Asthana were embroiled in bitter feud for sev- eral months and had levelled charges of corruption against each other. Both of them were divested of their charge and sent on leave on the night of October 23. W ith the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) all set to announce the composition of the Uttar Pradesh political alliance on Saturday, the Congress is ready with its plan to walk alone. AICC sources said the party chief Rahul Gandhi, after due consultation with the State unit leaders, was prepared to go solo in the politically crucial State. Amid talks of seat sharing for Lok Sabha polls from which the Congress seems to be out, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati will address a joint Press meet at Lucknow on Saturday. The top leadership of both the parties had met in New Delhi last week to discuss broad parameters of an alliance to take on the BJP unitedly in the Lok Sabha elections. Sources said both the SP and the BSP are planning to contest on 37 seats each out of the 80 on offer in Uttar Pradesh and plan to leave just two, Rae Bareli and Amethi, the bastions of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for the Congress. Smaller parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Nishad Party are also like- ly to be in the alliance. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its allies had won 73 of the 80 seats in UP. Akhilesh and Mayawati decided to bury their differ- ences and pool in their resources to contest three bypolls and won all giving them hope that if they team up, they can pull voters away from the BJP. The mahagathbandhan arithmetic had worked in the bypolls as a consolidation of OBC, Dalit and Muslim votes powered joint opposition can- didates to victory in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana last year. A senior Congress leader said talk on a UP ‘mahagath- bandhan’ had been going on for a while but Congress members in the State were of the opin- ion that the party should it go alone as it has an independent identity among the people. Rahul in an interview to an international newspaper on Thursday said the Congress idea is very powerful in Uttar Pradesh. “So, we are very con- fident of our ability in Uttar Pradesh and we will surprise people,” he was quoted as saying. The Gandhi scion’s com- ments were the first indication of the party’s plan B after the regional players seemed to have deserted it. Rahul is expected to meet UPCC president Raj Babbar and AICC in-charge of party affairs in the State Ghulam Nabi Azad to deliberate on the matter on Sunday evening. “A decision on who to join hands with always rests with the party high command, but we have already shared that workers and supporters want the Congress to go alone in UP where it still has its own identity which is different rom these parties,” said the leader. He recalled than when in 2009 Lok Sabha polls, when, the situation was appar- ently against the Congress, the party got 21 seats in the State, paving the way for the return of the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre. The more indicative of the Congress mind is the fact that Rahul had made it clear that the Congress cannot be underesti- mated. T wo Armymen, including one Major rank officer and an army porter, were martyred in two separate incidents along the line of control (LoC) in fron- tier Rajouri district of Jammu division on Friday. In another attack on Friday, terrorists hurl- ing a grenade on CRPF bunker in Jammu, but there were no reports of loss of life, police said. According to ground reports, a Major rank officer, along with a soldier, received grievous injuries in an impro- vised explosive device explosion and later succumbed while another Army porter was killed in separate incident of ‘unpro- voked’ ceasefire violation by Pakistan army in Sunderbani sector. A lok Verma, who was removed as CBI Director by the PM-led Selection Panel on Thursday, has resigned from the service and claimed that he was transferred on the basis of “false, unsubstantiated and friv- olous allegations” made by only one person, who was inimical to him. Verma was transferred as the Director General Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards after ousting as CBI Director. Verma also complained that the Selection Committee did not provide him an oppor- tunity to explain details as recorded by the CVC before arriving at the decision. “Natural justice was scuttled and the entire process was turned upside down in ensur- ing that the undersigned (Verma) is removed from the post of the Director CBI. The Selection Committee did not consider the fact that the entire CVC report is premised on charges alluded by a complainant who is present- ly under investigation by the CBI,” Verma said in his resig- nation letter to the Secretary of Department of Personnel and Training. C hief Minister Raghubar Das met Union Minister of Steel Birender Singh in New Delhi on Friday and urged him to open the headquarters of Steel research and Technology Mission of India (SRTMI) in Ranchi. The CM said that there is abundant mineral wealth avail- able in Jharkhand. This insti- tute will get the benefit from opening in Ranchi. Mineral based units in the State are SAIL, RDCIS, MECON, MIT, Tata Steel and JSPL. Besides, Rourkela industrial area, Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben- efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government is ready to cooperate to open SRTMI's headquarter in Ranchi. The Union Minister of Steel said that the headquarters of SRTMI will be opened soon in Ranchi. Das urged the Union Steel Minister to take the ini- tiative in the local industry and the common man to get the steel at a justified rate. The Union Steel Minister said that on January 19, a meeting in Bokaro Steel City under the chairmanship of Steel Secretary will be held on the issue. Also, the CM urged the Union Steel Minister to take immediate decision regarding the regularization of the peo- ple living in the BSL area. The Union Steel Minister said that the Steel Secretary will soon come to Ranchi and a meeting on this matter will be decided in the interest of the people at the earliest. The CM said that there is a need to promote local level purchasing to promote local industries based on require- ment of Bokaro Steel. On this issue, the Union Minister said that on May 19 the possibility of considering local purchasing will be con- sidered in the meeting of Central Steel Secretary in Bokaro and promoting more and more local purchases. On the expansion of the steel plant in Chata, the Chief Minister said that the state government will take decision on the allocation of the required iron ore blocks for the steel plant so that the steel plant in Chatra can be made as soon as possible. The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Steel, Vishnu Deo Sai, Union Steel Secretary, Joint Secretary of the Department of Steel, K. Ravikar, Industry Secretary, Jharkhand Government, Private Secretary K P Other officials were pre- sent. J harkhand High Court on Friday directed CBI and the Enforcement Directorate to submit a status report on cases pursued by them against MLAs of the State. The order was passed by a division bench comprising Chief Justice Anirudhha Bose and Justice HC Mishra in a PIL (WP PIL/157/2015). Rajiv Kumar, the petition- er’s lawyer, said the court in its order has asked for the number of cases pending before special courts instituted for hearing CBI and the ED cases. Kumar added that during the argu- ment he submitted before court that many cases were pending in court for years. He pointed out that during a hearing in the case earlier the court had observed that such cases should be monitored. Kumar said Supreme Court has also issued directive for speedy trial of cases against elected representatives. He pointed out that according to elections affidavit filed in 2014, 56 MLAs out of the 81 members of State Assembly of Jharkhand are facing trial in different courts of the State.

 · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

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Page 1:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

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�����!�!�������� ,9:�%9���

Making it clear that theAyodhya issue would be

one of the main campaignagenda in the Lok Sabha poll,BJP president Amit Shah onFriday said the party was com-mitted to a “Bhavya Mandir”and declared that the “2019battle” between Narendra Modiand his “desperate opponents”would be a decisive one andwith a massive impact on com-ing times. Addressing thou-sands of delegates attending thetwo-day National Council meethere, Shah asked party workersto ensure that Modi returns topower with full majority andcontinues the “nation building”without a break.

The tag line of the Councilwas “Abki baar phir ModiSarkar” and the meeting venuereverberated with a loud roarwhen Shah mentioned RamMandir in his speech.

The meet was attended byalmost all top leaders includingModi, LK Advani, MM Joshi,Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj,Arun Jaitley, JP Nadda, ChiefMinisters of BJP-ruled Statesincluding Uttar Pradesh’s YogiAdityanath and former ChiefMinisters Shivraj SinghChouhan and Raman Singh.

Yogi was greeted with loudcheers by the BJP councilmembers when he arrived atthe stage.

The backdrop of the daishad Modi and Shah on the twosides along with SwamiVivekananda and Atal BihariVajpayee.

In his speech, Shah praisedthe leadership of Atal-Advaniwhich established and con-tributed to the rise of the partyat the national level, he said.

Shah said BJP is commit-ted for a “grand temple” at thedisputed site in Ayodhya and itwould be accomplished “at theearliest”. He accused Congressof trying to delay the temple

and gave reference of its leaderKapil Sibal who he said soughtthat the apex court’s hearing onthe Ram temple issue be fixedafter the Lok Sabha poll.

Attaching huge signifi-cance to the result of 2019 gen-eral elections, Shah said itwould be a battle between theModi who has brought “glory”to India and his desperate

rivals having contrasting ide-ologies glued together withthe sole “oust Modi agenda”.“Opposition parties know thatalone they cannot defeatModi,” he said.

Interestingly, the BJP pres-ident while pointing to the sig-nificance of “2019 LS battle”made a reference to the thirdbattle of Panipat between

Afghan ruler Ahmad ShahAbdali and Marathas where thedefeat of the latter led to “gula-mi” (slavery) for 200 years.

“Lok Sabha polls battle oftwo ideologies; BJP stands forcultural nationalism, poor,while rivals together merely forpower,” said the BJP president.Shah also threw punches on the“one family rule” and its alleged

rein of corruption. He saidCongress was leveling chargesin the Rafle jet fighter purchaseas it was “frustrated” that therewas no blemish on Modi dur-ing his full tenure.

The election result wouldimpact the future of India, heclaimed and went on to say thatNational Democratic Alliance(NDA) would come back topower with a thumping major-ity and in UP “the party wouldincrease its tally from 71 to 74”.

Shah said in last one week,the Modi Government tooktwo major decisions of givingreservation to economicallyweaker sections in the uppercaste and reducing Goods andServices Tax (GST) on thetraders. The Modi Governmenthas “fulfilled” the dreams of

crores of youths with 10 percent reservation in jobs andeducation for the general cat-egory poor, and described theConstitution amendment Billas one of the most importantlegislations passed byParliament.

This is one of the mostimportant legislationsParliament has passed, he said.

Shah hailed the GSTCouncil’s decision to double thelimit for exemption from pay-ment of GST to �40 lakh andannounced that the higherturnover cap of �1.5 crore foravailing composition scheme ofpaying 1 per cent tax will beeffective from April 1.

Modi would deliver theconcluding session of the coun-cil on Saturday.

�� �� ,9:�%9���

In a major blow to CBI SpecialDirector Rakesh Asthana,

the Delhi High Court on Fridayruled that he will be investi-gated in the ongoing briberycase and no prior sanctionwas required to prosecute him,implying he enjoys no protec-tion against a possible arrest.

Justice Najmi Waziri saidthat the allegation of “malafide” raised against then CBIDirector Alok Verma has notbeen made out.

Rejecting a clutch of peti-tions for quashing of the FIRfiled against Asthana, CBI DSPDevender Kumar and allegedmiddleman Manoj Prasad, theHC set a 10-week deadline tocomplete the investigations inthe case.

The court held that per-mission for prior sanction toprosecute Asthana was notrequired considering the factsof the case. Asthana is likely tochallenge the HC verdict beforethe Supreme Court.

The HC gave its verdictwhile dismissing the petitions

filed by Asthana, Kumar andPrasad challenging the FIRlodged against them.

Asthana was booked oncharges of criminal conspiracy,corruption and criminal mis-conduct under the relevantsections of Prevention ofCorruption Act.

Verma and Asthana wereembroiled in bitter feud for sev-eral months and had levelledcharges of corruption againsteach other. Both of them weredivested of their charge andsent on leave on the night ofOctober 23.

�� �� ,9:�%9���;�.*�,$:

With the Samajwadi Party(SP) and the Bahujan

Samaj Party (BSP) all set toannounce the composition ofthe Uttar Pradesh politicalalliance on Saturday, theCongress is ready with its planto walk alone.

AICC sources said theparty chief Rahul Gandhi, afterdue consultation with the Stateunit leaders, was prepared to gosolo in the politically crucialState.

Amid talks of seat sharingfor Lok Sabha polls from whichthe Congress seems to be out,Samajwadi Party presidentAkhilesh Yadav and BSP chiefMayawati will address a jointPress meet at Lucknow onSaturday.

The top leadership of boththe parties had met in NewDelhi last week to discussbroad parameters of an allianceto take on the BJP unitedly inthe Lok Sabha elections.

Sources said both the SPand the BSP are planning tocontest on 37 seats each out ofthe 80 on offer in Uttar Pradeshand plan to leave just two, RaeBareli and Amethi, the bastionsof Sonia Gandhi and Rahul

Gandhi for the Congress.Smaller parties like theRashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) andthe Nishad Party are also like-ly to be in the alliance. In the2014 Lok Sabha elections, theBJP and its allies had won 73 ofthe 80 seats in UP.

Akhilesh and Mayawatidecided to bury their differ-ences and pool in theirresources to contest threebypolls and won all givingthem hope that if they team up,they can pull voters away fromthe BJP. The mahagathbandhanarithmetic had worked in thebypolls as a consolidation of

OBC, Dalit and Muslim votespowered joint opposition can-didates to victory inGorakhpur, Phulpur andKairana last year.

A senior Congress leadersaid talk on a UP ‘mahagath-bandhan’ had been going on fora while but Congress membersin the State were of the opin-ion that the party should it goalone as it has an independentidentity among the people.

Rahul in an interview to aninternational newspaper onThursday said the Congressidea is very powerful in UttarPradesh. “So, we are very con-

fident of our ability in UttarPradesh and we will surprisepeople,” he was quoted as saying.

The Gandhi scion’s com-ments were the first indicationof the party’s plan B after theregional players seemed tohave deserted it.

Rahul is expected to meetUPCC president Raj Babbarand AICC in-charge of partyaffairs in the State GhulamNabi Azad to deliberate on thematter on Sunday evening.

“A decision on who to joinhands with always rests withthe party high command, butwe have already shared thatworkers and supporters wantthe Congress to go alonein UP where it still has its ownidentity which is different rom these parties,” said theleader.

He recalled than when in2009 Lok Sabha polls, when, the situation was appar-ently against the Congress, theparty got 21 seats in the State,paving the way for the returnof the Congress-led UPAGovernment at the Centre.

The more indicative of theCongress mind is the fact thatRahul had made it clear that theCongress cannot be underesti-mated.

�����!������� <&//.

Two Armymen, includingone Major rank officer and

an army porter, were martyredin two separate incidents alongthe line of control (LoC) in fron-tier Rajouri district of Jammudivision on Friday. In anotherattack on Friday, terrorists hurl-ing a grenade on CRPF bunkerin Jammu, but there were noreports of loss of life, police said.

According to groundreports, a Major rank officer,along with a soldier, receivedgrievous injuries in an impro-vised explosive device explosionand later succumbed whileanother Army porter was killedin separate incident of ‘unpro-voked’ ceasefire violation byPakistan army in Sunderbanisector.

����������� ���������������������������� ��������������� ���������������������������������������������������������� �

�������������������� ������ �������

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Alok Verma, who wasremoved as CBI Director

by the PM-led Selection Panelon Thursday, has resigned fromthe service and claimed that hewas transferred on the basis of“false, unsubstantiated and friv-olous allegations” made byonly one person, who wasinimical to him.

Verma was transferred asthe Director General FireServices, Civil Defence andHome Guards after ousting asCBI Director.

Verma also complainedthat the Selection Committeedid not provide him an oppor-tunity to explain details asrecorded by the CVC beforearriving at the decision.“Natural justice was scuttledand the entire process was

turned upside down in ensur-ing that the undersigned(Verma) is removed from thepost of the Director CBI.

The Selection Committeedid not consider the fact thatthe entire CVC report ispremised on charges alluded bya complainant who is present-ly under investigation by theCBI,” Verma said in his resig-nation letter to the Secretary ofDepartment of Personnel andTraining.

�������������� �������������������

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����������������������������� ������������������ � �

���������� ����!����������"����� ��#�������$�������%&��#��������'��"�� �����"��$��!�������(�)*��#���������+������������!�,����'�����-��� ���

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Chief Minister RaghubarDas met Union Minister of

Steel Birender Singh in NewDelhi on Friday and urgedhim to open the headquartersof Steel research andTechnology Mission of India(SRTMI) in Ranchi.

The CM said that there isabundant mineral wealth avail-able in Jharkhand. This insti-tute will get the benefit fromopening in Ranchi. Mineralbased units in the State areSAIL, RDCIS, MECON, MIT,Tata Steel and JSPL. Besides,Rourkela industrial area,Durgapur, Burnpur etc are alsoclose from here.

Apart from Jharkhand,West Bengal, Odisha andChhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi.

The State Government isready to cooperate to openSRTMI's headquarter inRanchi.

The Union Minister ofSteel said that the headquartersof SRTMI will be opened soonin Ranchi. Das urged the UnionSteel Minister to take the ini-tiative in the local industry and

the common man to get thesteel at a justified rate. TheUnion Steel Minister said thaton January 19, a meeting inBokaro Steel City under thechairmanship of Steel Secretarywill be held on the issue.

Also, the CM urged theUnion Steel Minister to takeimmediate decision regarding

the regularization of the peo-ple living in the BSL area. TheUnion Steel Minister said thatthe Steel Secretary will sooncome to Ranchi and a meetingon this matter will be decidedin the interest of the people atthe earliest.

The CM said that there isa need to promote local level

purchasing to promote localindustries based on require-ment of Bokaro Steel.

On this issue, the UnionMinister said that on May 19the possibility of consideringlocal purchasing will be con-sidered in the meeting ofCentral Steel Secretary inBokaro and promoting moreand more local purchases.

On the expansion of thesteel plant in Chata, the ChiefMinister said that the stategovernment will take decisionon the allocation of therequired iron ore blocks for thesteel plant so that the steel plantin Chatra can be made as soonas possible.

The meeting was alsoattended by Union Minister ofState for Steel, Vishnu Deo Sai,Union Steel Secretary, JointSecretary of the Department ofSteel, K. Ravikar, IndustrySecretary, JharkhandGovernment, Private SecretaryK P Other officials were pre-sent.

�� �� �&,*��

Jharkhand High Court onFriday directed CBI and the

Enforcement Directorate tosubmit a status report on casespursued by them against MLAsof the State.

The order was passed by adivision bench comprisingChief Justice Anirudhha Boseand Justice HC Mishra in a PIL(WP PIL/157/2015).

Rajiv Kumar, the petition-er’s lawyer, said the court in itsorder has asked for the numberof cases pending before specialcourts instituted for hearingCBI and the ED cases. Kumaradded that during the argu-ment he submitted before courtthat many cases were pendingin court for years. He pointed

out that during a hearing in thecase earlier the court hadobserved that such cases shouldbe monitored.

Kumar said SupremeCourt has also issued directivefor speedy trial of cases againstelected representatives.

He pointed out thataccording to elections affidavitfiled in 2014, 56 MLAs out ofthe 81 members of StateAssembly of Jharkhand arefacing trial in different courtsof the State.

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Page 2:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

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Movement of several passenger andgoods train were hit on the

Kharagpur-Tatanagar-Chakradharpur rail-way section of South Eastern Railway (SER) on Friday following modification ofsignalling system and other maintenanceactivity at two-places- Chakradharpurand Dhalbhumgarh. The repair workbegan at 11.30am and was scheduled tocontinue till late in the evening.

Several passenger trains includingTata-Chakulia Passenger, Purulia-Jhargram Passenger ( which pass viaTatanagar), Howrah-Ghatshila MEMUPassenger ( both Up and Dn) and Tata-Kharagpur Passenger were cancelled.

Three trains, Hatia-Tata Passenger,Tata-Gua Passenger and Jhargram-PuruliaPassenger, that pass via Tatanagar werecancelled.

The Asansol-Tata MEMU Passengerwas halted at Adra station.

Sources at Garden Reach, the Kolkata-based headquarters of South EasternRailway said that Shalimar- Mumbai LTTKurla Express which was supposed to

reach Tatanagar railway station at 8 pm willbe delayed by about eight hours.

The train is expected to come toTatanagar at 4 am of Saturday. The move-ment of Mumbai-Howrah DurontoExpress was also affected due to the non-interlocking work. Against its schedulearrival time of 3.50 pm at Tatanagar rail-way station the train was expected to comeat around 4.30 pm.

The Titlagarh-Howrah Ispat superfastExpress was rescheduled from Titlagarh bytwo hours. The train was supposed toarrive at Tatanagar at 2.25 pm, but officialsat the Tatangar enquiry said it was expect-ed at 4.30 pm. The Purulia to HowrahLalmati Express which runs via Tatanagar

was running two hours behind schedule.Tatanagar station director H K

Balmuchu said that they got an official cir-cular regarding the railway block. "We hadspread the message for the passengers sothat they are aware about the decisions.The block would be undertaken for mod-ernisation work of railway tracks and sig-nalling system," he added. Chakradharpuris the highest revenue earning railway divi-sion in terms of freight in the country.Notably, about 150 passenger trains passthrough various stations of Chakradharpurrailway division every day. The Tatanagarstation assumes importance in viewbecause it is located on the Howrah-Mumbai main route. Several important

trains travel via Tatanagar,including the high-profileRajdhani Express andDuronto Express. The sta-tion sees a footfall of morethan 60,000 passengers daily.

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Three times former MLAfrom Jamshedpur East

Dinanath Pandey passed awayon Friday. He was 85 years old.Pandey was ill for a long timeand was undergoing treatmentat Tata Man Hospital (TMH).On Friday morning, hebreathed his last.

His last journey will startfrom Birsanagar toSubarnarekha Burning Ghatat Bhuiyandih on January 13.

On the demise of Pandey,Chief Minister Raghubar Das,former Chief Minister ArjunMunda, Food and CivilSupplies Minister Saryu Roy,senior BJP leader AmarpreetSingh Kale and other digni-taries have expressed grief.

“He was a pillar of BJP andhis absence will always be felt.He was like a guardian for me,”said Raghubar Das in a presscommunique issued by hisJamshedpur camp office.Munda also extended his con-dolence to the family and saidthat he was dedicated politicalleader.

Kale said that Pandey wasan inspiration for young lead-

ers as he led a simple yet dig-nified life.

Dinanath Pandey firstcame to the Assembly in 1977after contesting elections fromthe Janata Party ticket.

After this, in the 1980 and85 elections he reached theAssembly on BJP’s ticket. In1990 assembly elections hefaced defeat from Congresscandidate.

On the same seat in 1995,BJP gave ticket to current ChiefMinister Raghubar Das,Dinanath had contested as anIndependent candidate.

While in the 1996 LokSabha election, Pandey con-tested on the ticket from ShivSena. He remained active insocial life till his end.

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Acting on a tip off, Ranchipolice have arrested three

PLFI members including anarea commander while theywere planning to commit crimein Lapung- Itki area located onthe borders of Ranchi andKhunti districts.

Among the nabbedextremists are area commanderKunwar Oroan alias Jainath,Mangra Oroan and TausifAnwar. A 9 mm pistol, a coun-try-made weapon, cartridges,mobile sets, stolen bike, dress-es and other materials wererecovered from them.

Rural SP Ashutosh Shekharinformed that the arrests were

made in a joint search opera-tion of Ranchi and Khuntipolice.

As the police team nearedthem during the operation,the PLFI members hidingin a forest started fleeing away.

Three of them were caughtafter a chase while remainingmembers of the squad man-aged to escape taking advan-tage of thick forest cover.

The arrested extremistshave admitted their involve-ment in several crimes includ-ing murder, loot and extortion.They informed that the squadhad gathered in the forest toextort money from govern-ment schemes.

Police said that KunwarOraon, a resident of Lapung inRanchi district, was involved inmurder of a person namedBabu Khan under Nagri policestation area in October 2018.He was also accused in thekilling of Sukra Oroan, a for-mer PLFI member.

A total of seven cases wereregistered against him withNagri, Itki, Lapung and Karrapolice stations under variouslaws including IPC, Arms Actand CLA.

It may be noted here thatsince the beginning of the yearRanchi police are carrying outintensive anti-extremist oper-ations in the sensitive areas ofthe district.

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Shell Lubricants has enteredinto a new strategic part-

nership with Mahindra &Mahindra Ltd, a part of theUSD 20.7 billion MahindraGroup. Under this agreement,Mahindra and Shell will worktogether to offer market-lead-ing, high-performance lubri-cant products, such as engineoils, transmission and axle oils,including those under the‘Maximile’ brand.

These lubricants will bedistributed through theMahindra dealership networkand bazar networks throughthe Mahindra spares businessunit. Commenting on the part-nership, Mansi Tripathy, country head, Shell Lubricants,

India, said, “At Shell, we havelong standing relationshipswith our OEM partnersand work very closely with

them to benefit customersacross sectors and help themachieve their ambitionsthrough co-engineering andother partnership activities.

We are delighted to partnerwith Mahindra and look for-ward to bring next-generationmobility solutions and newtechnologies to the Indianmarket. At Shell our emphasishas always been to provide cus-tomer delight, fill unmet needs,bring innovative technologiesfor a better future and mutual-ly grow business.

The partnership withMahindra is a major step in oureffort towards this journey.”

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Two youths were convictedand awarded Rigorous

Imprisonment by the districtcourt Bokaro for kidnappingminor girls in Bokaro.

In two separate incidents,Special Judge of POCSO(Protection of Children fromSexual Offences) court RanjeetKumar convicted DeepakKumar Singh (20) a resident ofSardar Mohalla, Dundibaghunder City police station ofBokaro district and Arjun Saw(25) resident of Khurda Villageunder Gomia police stationand awarded them three yearsand two year RI respectively.

The court also imposed afine of Rs 5000 to the offend-ers, informed SK Jha Advocateof the district court.

The court also orderedthree months more imprison-ments if the offenders failed topay the fine, he said.

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Page 3:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

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Union Coal SecretarySumant Chaudhary today

directed official to complete theJharia Action Plan in the settime frame. At the same time,he instructed to digitize the fulldetails of people rehabilitatedfrom the unsafe area. Chairingthe 18th High Powered CentralCommittee meeting here onFriday the Coal Secretarystressed on timely rehabilita-tion of the displaced people ina phased manner.

Chief Secretary SudhirTripathi asked to make societyof rehabilitated persons so thatthey do not face difficulties infuture. He said that they will beable to solve the problem ofmaintenance of their homesand the use of communityassets etc. in the coming dayswith the help of society. At thesame time unanimous decisionwas taken on a suggestion madein the meeting to prevent theftof coal to set up a task force.This task force will include

CISF, coal officer and police.It was informed in the

meeting that JRDA has com-pleted survey of 584 sites out of595 sites under Jharia ActionPlan. As many as 11 sitescome in West Bengal. It was toldthat the work of developingrehabilitated places is continu-ing. In the meeting, the CoalSecretary told the need to payattention to the options to solvesome problems related to reha-bilitation.

On the other hand, whilemeeting with the representa-tives of various coal companies,the Coal Secretary instructedthat all coal companies shouldstart doing timely production.On the occasion, problemsrelated to revenue, forest andenvironmental departments ofcoal mining leasing companieswere addressed. All the coalcompanies were also giventimetable for starting produc-tion.

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The Department of DrinkingWater and Sanitation,

which recently receivedapplaud from PM NarendraModi for engaging womenworkforce in quite a goodnumber in constructing toiletsunder Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan(SBA) in the rural pockets isleaving no stone unturned inimparting training to womenmasons on different facets ofsanitation.

Speaking during the work-shop organised by UNICEFand Jharkhand Governmentto foster capacity building hereon Friday, Secretary,Department of Drinking Waterand Sanitation, AradhnaPatnaik said that the primeobjective of the department isto promote women empower-ment through different means.

“Maximum females resid-ing in the rural pockets havebeen engaged as ‘WomenMasons’ and have emerged as‘Swacchta Champions’ at theirrespective villages, panchayatssetting examples for otherStates,” she said.

Further, Patnaik added thatthe main objective of organis-ing workshop is to make ‘Rani

Mistri’ (Women Masons) awareabout Open Defecation Free(ODF) Plus tool modusoperandi launched recently byMinistry of Housing and UrbanAffairs as a prominent toolkitof ‘Swacchta Survekshan –2019’.

“Under ODF Plus, womenmasons will be divided intogroups. Women masons will betrained to create awarenessamong the masses about issuessuch as cleanliness, drying pit,constructing public toilets etcensuring community partici-pation in huge number,” shesaid.

Patnaik informed that inthe first phase of communica-tion and capacity building pro-gramme with ‘Women Masons’being jointly organised by theDepartment of Drinking Waterand Sanitation and UNICEF, training is beingimparted among the womenmasons of 12 districts aboutODF Plus. SBA -- ODF Plusprotocol focuses on sustainingcommunity/ public toiletusage by ensuring its func-tionality, cleanliness and main-tenance.

“In the first phase, womenmasons of 12 districts ofJharkhand which includes

Godda, Gumla, Chaibasa,Dhanbad, Jamshedpur, Giridih,Jamtara, Garhwa, Lohardaga,Palamau, Ramgarh are beingtrained by the specialists whilein the second phase of ODFPlus program, women masonsof the remaining 12 districtswill be trained,” Patnaik furtheradded.

During the workshop, thewomen masons of the 12 dis-tricts received training aboutmenstrual hygiene, hand wash-ing practice including solidwaste management techniques.Also, the women masonsshared their experiences anddiscussed about the strategiesbeing adopted by them topopularise the ambitious SBAprogramme. The workshopsaw the participation ofDirector -Drinking Water andSanitation, Amit Kumar,UNICEF Jharkhand ChiefMadhulika Jonathan and otherdignitaries.

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As consumers of telecom ser-vices are showing inclina-

tion towards the State run BharatSanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL),the public sector company, onFriday, increased the free offerdate for three more monthsand now it will continue tillMarch, 31.

Addressing a press meetChief General Manager, BSNL,Jharkhand Circle, KK Takursaid, “The Company has doneexcellent job in customer addi-tion according to the report ofJanuary 2.”

While elaborating on someoffers of the company Thakursaid, “As some service providersare threatening customers thatthey will end connection ifthey not recharge monthly byrental of �35 per month. Forthose customers there is noneed to afraid of such kinds ofthreat they should get BSNLconnection and there is noneed of such kinds of recharge.”

Speaking on new offer-WINGS launched by the com-pany Thakur said, “BSNL haslaunched BSNL WINGS aVOIP based service. It is uniqueservice as in WINGS there is noSIM and cable wiring as it is aVOIP based service through anapp. The WINGS serviceunlimited free audio-video call-ing for one year. The service can

be activated with a one-time feeRs. 1,099 plus GST.”

“Calls can be made usingany data connection such aswired broadband, Wi-Fi, 3GOR 4G network of any opera-tor and it can also be used overInternet Leased Lines. WINGSalso support video calls, but isrestricted between WINGS.The facility can be used any-where in the country and theapp automatically uses the exist-ing address book in the phone”he added.

Lauding on service ofWINGS The Chief GeneralManager said, “Unlike otherapp-based such as WhatsAppand Telegram calls, the WINGSapp can make calls to anyphone number free of cost. Asthere is no physical SIM, thenumber can be used as the sec-ond number in phones withoutprovision of second SIM. It canbe a third number in dual-SIMphones.” “One more advantageis that the APP can be down-loaded in tablets where there isno provision for SIM cards. Thedevice has to connect to datanetwork for the calls to work.Your Laptop could become aphone with BSNL number. Theonly condition is that it must beconnected the internet” headded.

On the occasion the com-pany has unveil its calendar foryear 2019.

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With a vision to spread theteachings of India’s great-

est visionary and youth icon –Swami Vivekananda, the StateGovernment has planned elab-orate activities to markNational Youth Day– 2019. Inan attempt to popularise theteachings of Vivekananda, amonth long celebration hasbeen planned by the StateGovernment for the first time.

Besides, unveiling thetallest figurine of SwamiVivekanada (33 ft.) here at theState Capital on Satuday, theGovernment of Jharkhand(GoJ) in collaboration withRamakrishna Mission, Ranchiwill organise a series of eventsranging from symposium,debate, quiz etc across theState to sensitise youths to fol-low the footsteps ofVivekananda.

“Directives had been sentto all district sport officers toorganise block and districtlevel events based on the lifeand philosophy of SwamiVivekananda from January 12onwards. The month long pro-gramme will conclude onFebruary 12 with the organi-sation of a State-level event. Inaccordance to the plan, focuswill be on the teachings ofSwami Vivekananda which willbe depicted through drawingcompetitions, paintings, debateand other activities,” saidDirector (Sports) and Chief ofthe organising committee ofNational Youth Day event, Anil

Kumar Singh.Further, speaking about

the main event, the Director(Sports) added, “Chief MinisterRaghubar Das and other dig-nitaries will unveil the bronzestatuette situated at an islet ofRanchi Lake at 4 PM. For thehistoric moment, the depart-ment of Tourism, YouthsAffairs, Sports has arrangedhelicopter flower showeringshow to mark the occasionalong with other events.”

Interestingly, the statue ofSwami Vivekananda is consid-ered to be the first of its kindin India and is expected to seta benchmark by grabbing cov-eted honour of the higheststatue of Vivekananda set uphere in the tribal heartland afterthe 22 ft. Swami’s statuette atNagpur decked up at a park in2016. Renowned sculptor anda recipient of Padma BhushanRam V Sutar has designed the33 feet bronze figurine at awhopping cost of Rs. 15 crore.

Notably, in January 2016,CM Raghubar Das laid thefoundation stone of the ambi-tious project with a vision toboost tourism.

The project was conceivedby Department of UrbanDevelopment, Housing andPlanning, Department ofSports, Tourism in assistancewith MECON Limited andother civil construction firmswhile the pond beautification,restoration project is beingcarried out under the supervi-sion of Ranchi MunicipalCorporation (RMC)

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After the State Cabinet nod to give retail liquorsale in private hands on the old pattern, the

Excise Department is all set to start the processvery soon.

Excise Commissioner Bhor Singh Yadavsaid, “The department has completed thepreparation work for e-lottery of the liquor shopsand after approval of competent authority thedepartment will start its process formally. Thedepartment will get approval within a week.”

According to the plan of Excise department,at the end of the month application will besought from aspiring candidates for the shops.The department is trying to finalise the distri-bution of shops in mid of the February. The dis-tribution system will be based on electronic lot-tery system and winner of the lottery will getshop license from the first week of March.

While commenting on the new system

Yadav said, “In new system numbers of licenseeliquor shop will increase in the State. At presentthe number of government liquor shops is 706.Out of which the number of government’s liquorshop is 58 in Ranchi. After the lottery systemthe numbers of liquor shop will increase upto1500 in Jharkhand whereas in the State capitalthe numbers of liquor will increase to 158.”

As it may be mentioned here that the num-bers of liquor shop was almost half when StateBeverage Corporation started retail liquor sell-ing in the State. Now once again to bring old sys-tem there is effort to increase numbers of liquorin the State. According to the Excise department’splan, applicant can apply for more than oneliquor shop. One person or one group can applyfor three liquor shop. The Excise department islisting the sites for shops.

The department has made a plan with viewof revenue collection, one to three shops in groupcan be put in lottery system.

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Page 4:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

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Aroad accident in winternight and in an area where

extremism has never been anyout despite a sharp decline ofit here in Palamu it was time forPanki police in Palamu toprove its mettle in such a greatodd and dangerous situation.Panki police proved its mettlebut with active common peo-ple support arranged by anindividual!

Police public joint effortsets an example here in Palamusaid sources. A four wheeler felldown from the BardaggaBridge built on PMGSY roadthere and too close to Hotai acitadel of Maoists. Two died onthe spot. Six were injured.

A tribal family belongingto Oraon caste of Angra villageunder Paton police station wascoming from Hotai after amarriage negotiation when thefour-wheeler jumped off thebridge and fell down leading tothe instantaneous death of twoOraon youths on the spot.The injured were under theupside down vehicle. Therewas no help around.

Manoj Kumar Tiwary offi-cer in charge of Panki policestation said, “We got this newsof death and of injured people.The locale of this accident wasmost dangerous. It was nightand villagers do not come outof their houses in such a situ-ation and odd time. Everyminute was precious for us andfor the injured ones.”

“I got in touch with a civilsociety activist Mumtaz Khanand told him of the whole sit-uation. Khan immediatelyoffered us all kinds of help. Hesent in driver, vehicle and otherlogistics. Khan helped us likeanything. Words fail me toexpress my gratitude to him”said this inspector of policeTiwary

“We reached here with oneminimum mines proof vehicleand one bullet proof vehicle.We rescued the injured. Weretrieved the two dead. Weeven pulled up the fallen vehi-cle and it was a sheer luck it gotstarted and running. Khansent in the villagers. He keptwaiting for us at Asehar till past2.30 at night. The injured wereadmitted in the communityhealth centre in Panki itself. All

are out of danger.”Khan said, “I got a call

from inspector Tiwary ji and Ijust got on the work. I con-tacted my men at Asehar whereis my stone crushing plant andthere are guards too there. I gotwoke up many villagers theretoo who helped police in res-cue and relief as well. I believeevery citizen should do this. Ireturned home in Daltonganjaround 3 AM on Friday night.”

Sources said senior policeofficials were too batted forbreath as anything could havehappened here and the easiestof all was the ambush from theextremists side but the entirerescue and relief operation forthe ill fated Oraon family justpassed off without any moremishap.

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Villagers started to constructa road on won labour at

Bilaspur under BanshidbarNagar block about 50 km awayfrom the district headquarter.According to villagers, on theinitiative of Banshidbar NagarPramukh Rabindra Paswan,on Thursday, the villagers start-ed construction work of a road.

The launch of road con-struction work was done byRavindra Paswan, Ashok Ramand Harivansh Rama jointly bybreaking the coconut.According to Ravindra Paswan,there was no road to visit

Bilaspur Panchayat Bhawan.Due to not having a road, peo-ple have to face difficulties inhaving their problems inPanchayat Bhawan. After com-pletion of this road distance ofthe village to panchayatbhawan will decrease. He againsaid that after assessing theproblems of the people, heheld a meeting with the vil-lagers and proposed to makethe road with own labour.

Later, villagers agreed tobuild the road. OmprakashPaswan, Kapil Dev Gupta,Kundan Paswan, Rajnath Ram,Baiju Ram and many others areengaged in built of road.

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MGM Medical College Hospital's doctorsunder the banner of Indian Medical

Association (IMA) protested against non-implementation of Medical Protection Act inJharkhand.

About 50 doctors gathers outside the hos-pital OPD and shouted slogans, demanding thepassage of Medical Protection Bill in theupcoming Budget session of the Jharkhandassembly.

“Medical Protection Act is the need of thehour as it is implemented in 18 states of thecountry. But in Jharkhand we have only beenreceiving assurance from the state.

This had forced IMA state unit to decide forclosing down OPDs as otherwise we are not feel-ing secure in discharging our duties. We willchalk out future course of our agitation depend-

ing on the government decision,” noted an offi-cial.

The IMA senior functionary also threatened that if government does notrelent after the strike then they would tendermass resignation. Incidentally, doctors aredemanding fixing of duty hours as they claimthat at times they have to work for more than12 hours at a stretch.

IMA's Jamshedpur unit secretary,Mrityunjay Singh had, after demonstration fora brief period at the hospital, fixed posters in sup-port of the Medical Protection Act outside theOPD of the medical college hospital and also atthe Sakchi roundabout.

Singh said that the Medical Protection Actalso has a provision for legal action against thedoctors on the complaint of the patient or hisor his guardians for wrong treatment, over-charging and misbehavior.

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In a shocking case reportedfrom the Bermo in Bokaro

district of Jharkhand, theadministration ordered a probeinto the alleged selling of awoman and her two minorsons by two women ofNawadih block three monthsago in Uttar Pradesh after theincident came to light onWednesday.

Locals said that the inci-dent happened at Jawaharnagararea in Phusro in Bermo sub-division of the district.

According to reports twopoverty stricken couple womenidentified as Sukari Devi andBobby Devi belonging toKatghara village of Nawadihblock and Jawaharnagar inPhusro respectively, sold a localwoman identified as SeemaDevi wife of Vikram KumarTanti alongwith her two minorsons for Rs 43,000 each to abrick kiln owner of Sandia inUttar Pradesh.

An official of the Bermopolice station, Laxamikant said,“Though it is a three-month-old case, the incident has cometo our notice after the husbandof the woman lodged a com-plaint with Bermo police sta-tion.”

The case was reported onWednesday after the twowomen were arrested for sell-ing Seema Devi and her two-month-old and 2- year- oldsons in Sandia in Uttar Pradeshfor Rs 43,000 each. On the basisof information shared by herhusband Vikram Kumar Tanti,the police arrested the accused.

Police sources said that

Tanti had left his house forDelhi for doing some job. Hiswife and two minor sons, whowere living at Jawaharnagar inPhusro. After few months shecame in contact with SukariDevi and Bobby Devi.

She was later brought withher two sons to UP on the pre-text of a job and was subse-quently sold and sexuallyexploited for three months.While Vikram Kumar Tanti,who was had last contact withhis wife on Dipawali could notcontact with her.

He called his relatives tofind his wife but failed to traceher. Lastly he returned Phusroand tried to search her. Finallyhis wife Seema Devi managedto call from clutches to hermother and sought help fromacquaintances, police said.

The woman was kept cap-tive in a room in Sandia in UPand was not allowed to meet ortalk to anyone. Whenever shecould manage to call thewomen over phone who hadbrought her to Sandia in UttarPradesh they would be givenvague answers, police sourcessaid.

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Apicnic turned tragic inAngawali when one of the

members drowned in theDamodar river near Angawalibridge.

The 45-year-old victimidentified as Sanjay Karmaluwas at the venue for a picnic onFriday. Peterwar police wasquoted as saying that around 10friends of the CCL employeeshad gone for the picnic toAngawali river bridge.

The deceased personstepped into the swimmingriver with other members,where he drowned at around4:30 pm. It is reported thatSanjay did not know swim-ming. Following the incident,he was taken to Kargali hospi-tal in Bermo As per a policeofficial, he was declared deadon arrival.

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The Centre has granted sanc-tion to prosecute five offi-

cers including former bureau-crats, who are co-accused withformer Finance Minister PChidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis probe, the CBI on Fridayinformed the 2G court. TheCBI also filed chargesheet in aKolkata court againstChidambaram’s wife Nalini inSaradha scam for acceptingbribes of �1.40 crore from thechit fund owner Sudipto Sen.

The Sanction Prosecutionrequest of CBI was pending inthe Finance Ministry for thepast six months. The co-accused officers withChidambaram and son Kartiare former Finance SecretariesAshok Jha and Ashok Chawlaand two serving IAS officersKumar Sanjay Krishnan(Assam Cadre), Deepak KumarSingh (Bihar Cadre) and retiredUnder Secretary Ram Saran.

Ashok Chawla hasresigned. The CBI in thechargesheet accused these offi-cers, then working in theForeign Investment PromotionBoard (FIPB), of illegally

approving the foreign invest-ment clearance to Malaysianfirm Maxis to acquire mobilephone operator Aircel. AshokChawla is currently Chairmanof National Stock Exchange(NSE). Chidambaram’s lawyersKapil Sibal and AbhisehkSinghvi argued against theCBI’s demand for custodialinterrogation of Chidambaram.The Special Public ProsecutorTushar Mehta said that theagency needed custodial inter-rogation of the former FinanceMinister in the light of new evi-dences procured.

The submissions weremade before Special Judge OPSaini who extended tillFebruary 1 the interim protec-tion from arrest granted toChidambaram and Karti inthe Aircel-Maxis cases filed bythe CBI and the ED.

Meanwhile, in the eveningin another embarrassment toChidambaram, wife Nalini waschargesheeted by the CBI in the

Saradha chit fund case, foraccepting a bribe of �1.40 crore.

The chargesheet, whichwas filed in the special CBIcourt in the Barasat court inKolkata, has alleged that “sheentered into a criminal con-spiracy with Sudipta Sen, theproprietor of the Saradhagroup, and other accused per-sons with an intention of cheat-ing and misappropriation offunds of the Saradha group ofcompanies,” a CBI spokesper-son in New Delhi said.

The CBI alleged thatManoranjana Sinh, estrangedwife of former Union MinisterMatang Sinh, introduced Sen toNalini Chidambaram to man-age probes by various agencieslike Sebi and RoC against himfor which she allegedly received�1.4 crore during 2010-12through his companies. Thechargesheet, the sixth in theSaradha scam, was filed in aspecial court in Kolkata.

The Saradha group hadraised �2,500 crore from peo-ple by luring them with attrac-tive interest rates and the bor-rowed money was not repaid.Sen had closed operations ofthe company in 2013 after fail-ing to pay returns.

In this chargesheet,Anubhuti Printers andPublications Private Limitedand Sen are co-accused alongwith Nalini Chidambaram,who could not be reached fora comment.

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After a delay of several years,Chief Ministers of six

north Indian States —Haryana, Himachal Pradesh,Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthanand Uttar Pradesh — signed anagreement for Renukaji Multi-Purpose Dam project onFriday, in the presence ofUnion Minister Nitin Gadkari.Besides supplying 275 milliongallons of water to Delhi everyday, the dam will generate 40mega watt of electricity forHimachal Pradesh.

The projects were con-ceived in 2008. The dam is con-ceptualised as a three-way pro-ject to be constructed along theYamuna and two of its tribu-taries, the Tons and Giri inUttarakhand and HimachalPradesh. The project has beenconceived as a drinking watersupply scheme for the nation-al capital and envisages theconstruction of 148 m highrock fill dam on river Giri atDadahu in Sirmaur districtand a powerhouse at toe of thedam.

According to the Ministry,the total cost of the project esti-mated on price Level 2015 is �4,596.76 crore out of which thecost of irrigation/drinkingwater component is �4,325.43crore and the power compo-nent �277.33 crore. The shareof water among the States willbe: Haryana-47.8 per cent;Uttar Pradesh/Uttarakhand-33.65 per cent; Himachal-3.15per cent; Rajasthan-9.3 percent and NCT of Delhi: 6.04

per cent.The agreement was signed

by Arvind Kejriwal, AshokGehlot, Yogi Adityanath,Manohar Lal Khattar, Jai RamThakur and Trivendra SinghRawat — the Chief Ministers ofDelhi, Rajasthan, UttarPradesh, Haryana, HimachalPradesh, and Uttarakhand,respectively.

The projects includeLakhwar project on theYamuna in Uttarakhand, Kisauon the Tons in Uttarakhandand Himachal, and Renukaji onthe Giri in Himachal.

“After construction of thedam, the flow of river Giri willincrease by about 110 per centwhich will meet the drinking

water needs of Delhi and otherbasin States up to some extentin the lean period,” Gadkarisaid.

The States had alreadysigned an agreement in respectof sharing of cost and benefitsof Lakhwar project in August2018. Renukaji Dam projecthas been conceived as a storageproject on the Giri river (trib-utary of the Yamuna) inSirmour district of Himachal.It envisages construction if 148m-high rock-filled dam forsupply of 23 cumec water toDelhi and other basin States.“After the construction of thedam, the flow of river Giri willincrease by about 110 per centwhich will meet the drinking

water needs of Delhi and otherbasin states up to some extentin the lean period,” officialsadded.

The power project is pro-posed to be executed byHimachal Pradesh PowerCorporation Ltd (HPPCL).The live storage of Renukajiproject is 0.404 MAF and totalsubmergence area is about1,508 hectares in the territoryof Himachal. Stored water ofRenukaji Dam will be used bythe signatory states.

The Centre will bear 90 percent of cost of irrigation/drink-ing water component, and thebalance cost will be borne bythe states as per the MoUinked by them in 1994.

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The Supreme Court onFriday gave its nod to ongo-

ing projects under theGovernment’s ambitiousChardham development plan,which proposes to provide all-weather connectivity to thefour holy towns ofUttarakhand.

The top court, however,said the stay on stalled projectsunder the plan would contin-ue till further orders. A Benchof justices RF Nariman andVineet Saran asked the Centreto file its affidavit on a pleaseeking a stay on the order theNational Green Tribunal(NGT), which had cleared theprojects and set up a commit-tee to oversee it.

The Chardham projectintends to connect four townsof the hilly state — Yamunotri,Gangotri, Kedarnath andBadrinath — by all-weatherroads.

The top court had onNovember 26 sought the

Centre’s response on why itshould not stay the NGT orderclearing the project.

Advocate Sanjay Parekh,appearing for the petitioner,NGO Citizens for Green Doon,had said that if the project wasallowed to go on, an irre-versible damage would be doneto the ecology which would beequal to damage done by 10hydro power projects.

He had added that moun-tains in Uttarakhand were veryfragile and if environment con-cerns were not taken care of, atragedy like the Kedarnathflash flood of 2013 can happenagain.

The Kedarnath area in thestate had received unprece-

dented rainfall between June14-17 in 2013 and theChorabari lake there had col-lapsed due to cloudburst result-ing in a major flash flood.

Several roads, buildingsand other structures werewashed away and, according tothe state government, the esti-mated death toll was around10,000, with over 3,000 personsmissing.

On September 26, thegreen tribunal had constituteda committee to monitor theambitious road project whilegiving its nod with some safe-guards in view of larger publicinterest and the country’s secu-rity. The committee headed byformer Uttarakhand HighCourt Judge Justice U CDhyani will oversee the imple-mentation of the EnvironmentManagement Plan (EMP) ofthe project.

The petitioner NGO hadsaid that the environmentclearance was must for theproject and the ongoing workwas “blatantly illegal”.

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The Meghalaya Governmentinformed the Supreme

Court on Friday that the IndianNavy has deployed five remote-ly-operated vehicles (ROVs)in the operation to rescue 15miners trapped inside an ille-gal coal mine in East JaintiaHills district since December13.

The State Government tolda bench of Justices AK Sikriand S Abdul Nazeer that onecrore litres of water had beenpumped out from the illegalmine, but seepage from near-by rivers was creating hurdlesin the rescue operation.

The Bench sought to knowfrom the State’s counsel as towhether any action had been taken against thoseindulging in illegal miningactivities.

The counsel told the courtthat the person running theillegal mine where the incidenttook place had been arrested.

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The Supreme Court onFriday sought response

from the Centre and the TamilNadu Government on a pleaseeking to restrain politicalparties from erecting digitalbanners on roadside acrossthe State.

A Bench headed by ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi sought theresponse within six weeks onthe petition filed by a charita-ble trust ‘In Defence ofEnvironment and Animals’ andasked as to why the plea shouldnot be kept open, enabling theMadras High Court to monitorthe developments in the case.

“Issue notice, fixing areturnable date within sixweeks, to show cause as to whythe writ petition should not bekept open to enable the HighCourt to monitor the develop-ments that may take place inthe subject matter from time totime,” the bench, also com-

prising Justice SK Kaul, said.The plea had sought pre-

venting encroachments via reli-gious symbols and politicalgraffiti, advertisements by pri-vate parties on naturalresources like mountains, hills,hillocks, avenue trees and onnational and State highways.

The Madras High Courthad on December 19 last issuedan interim order restrainingpolitical parties from puttingup digital banners on roadsideunless the State Governmentand local bodies came out witha clear undertaking that therules and various orders passedby the court would be strictlyimplemented and no violationwould take place.

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The Supreme Court onFriday closed the case seek-

ing action against US-basedpharma major Johnson andJohnson for allegedly fittingfaulty hip implants, and saidthat steps have been taken bythe Centre to provide com-pensation of up to �1.22 croreto patients who have beenimpacted.

A Bench comprising ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi andJustice SK Kaul took note of thesteps taken by the UnionMinistry of Health and FamilyWelfare on award of compen-sation to the aggrieved personsand said that there was “no jus-tification” to keep the petitionpending.

The apex court wasinformed by Solicitor GeneralTushar Mehta, representingthe Centre, that certain modi-fications were suggested bytwo panels, headed by doctorsArun Kumar Aggarwal and RK

Arya respectively, on determi-nation of quantum of com-pensation payable to the vic-tims of faulty hip implantsand the government hasaccepted them.

The committee “recom-mended that compensation upto the extent of �1.22 croreapproximately can be grantedand also the principles/formu-la for grant of compensationhave/has been recommended,which recommendations havebeen accepted by the Ministryof Health and Family Welfare,”the bench noted in the order.

The apex court was hear-ing the PIL of Arun KumarGoenka alleging that “faulty”and “deadly” hip implants havebeen fitted into the bodies of4,525 Indian patients who hadundergone the replacementsurgeries since 2005.

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India has granted consularaccess to Christian Michel, a

British national who wasbrought here from the UAE lastmonth in connection with the�3,600-crore AgustaWestlandchopper deal.

The British HighCommission had sought con-sular access to Michel after hewas arrested in the first week ofDecember.

“He has been granted con-sular access. A second secre-tary-level officer from theBritish High Commission hasmet Christian Michel based onthe request we received lastmonth,” External AffairsMinistry SpokespersonRaveesh Kumar said at a mediabriefing. The consular access toMichel was given on Thursday,he said.

Asked about Michel’s pleain the Delhi court Thursdayseeking permission to makecalls to his family members andhis lawyers abroad, Kumarsaid, “We have shared in thepast that he has been allowedto communicate with his fam-ily members. I have not seenthe plea which he has enteredon this matter (now).”

Sources, however, said thatif the British High Commissionrequests that he be allowedmore communication, it maybe considered.

Michel, 57, was brought toIndia following his extradi-tion by the United ArabEmirates in connection with

the chopper deal case. At pre-sent, he is lodged in the Tiharjail here.

Michel is one of the threemiddlemen — the two othersGuido Haschke and CarloGerosa — being probed by theCBI and the EnforcementDirectorate in the case.

Michel has denied thecharges. The ED, in its chargesheet filed against Michel in

June 2016, had alleged that hehad received 30 million euros(about �225 crore) fromAgustaWestland.

The CBI, in its chargesheet, has alleged an estimatedloss of 398.21 million euros(about �2,666 crore) to theexchequer in the deal that wassigned on February 8, 2010 forthe supply of VVIP choppersworth 556.262 million euros.

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New Delhi: India slammed Pakistan on Friday for its statementthat New Delhi was not responding to its peace overtures, say-ing there was “no seriousness” in Islamabad’s offer for talks asit continued to extend “explicit support” to terror organisationsand was now trying to mainstream them. India’s sharp reactioncomes days after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan accusedit of not responding to his peace overtures. Responding to Khan’scomments, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson RaveeshKumar said, “I don’t understand these statements. Even beforeImran Khan became Prime Minister, our Prime Minister hadcalled and congratulated him on his election win.” PNS

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New Delhi: A day after Army Chief General Bipin Rawat stat-ed India cannot be left out of the “bandwagon” when a numberof countries are reaching out to the Taliban, the External AffairsMinistry on Friday said there is no change in the position onAfghanistan and New Delhi supports the process which is “inclu-sive” towards achieving peace. External Affairs Ministryspokesperson Raveesh Kumar also said that India has made it“very clear” to the US that the peace and reconciliation inAfghanistan should be Afghan-owned, Afghan-led and Afghan-controlled. PNS

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The Justice HS Bedi com-mittee, which investigated

several cases of alleged fakeencounter in Gujarat from2002 to 2006, has recom-mended prosecution of policeofficials in three out of the 17cases probed by it.

In its final report filed inthe apex court, Justice Bedi hassaid three persons — SameerKhan, Kasam Jafar and HajiHaji Ismail — were prime faciekilled in fake encounters by theGujarat Police officials.

The committee has indict-ed a total of nine police offi-cials, including three inspectorrank officer.

It has however not recom-mended prosecution of anyIPS officer in these cases.

The court had appointedJustice Bedi, ex-Supreme Courtjudge, as chairman of the mon-itoring committee probing 17encounter cases from 2002 to2006 in Gujarat and the panelhad submitted its report to thetop court in a sealed cover inFebruary last year.

On January 9, a benchheaded by Chief Justice RanjanGogoi had rejected the Gujaratgovernment’s plea to maintainconfidentiality of the finalreport of committee andordered that it be given to peti-tioners, including poet andlyricist Javed Akhtar.

Dealing with the case ofSameer Khan, the committeehas recommended prosecu-tion of two inspectors K MVaghela and T A Barot for theoffence of murder and otherrelevant offences.

According to the police,Sameer along with his cousinhad stabbed a police constable,who had died on the spot inMay 1996. While his cousinwas arrested, he had fled fromspot. The police had allegedthat later he went to Pakistanand took training from terrororganisation Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and re-entered India via Nepal.

The report noted that asper police, after the 2002Akshardham Mandir attack,Sameer was directed by aPakistan-based JeM operativeto go to Ahmedabad and killthe then Chief MinisterNarendra Modi.

It noted that Sameer wasarrested by the Crime Branchin a case related to waging waragainst the country and whenhe was taken at the spot wherethe constable was stabbed in1996, he snatched the loadedrevolver of inspector Vaghelaand fired at him and ran away.

As per police, the other twoinspectors — Tarun Barot andAA Chauhan (since dead) —fired at him and he was latertaken to a hospital but wasdeclared dead.

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The 15th Pravasi BhartiyaDivas will be held in Prime

Minister Narendra Modi’s par-liamentary constituencyVaranasi from January 21-23and the Indian diaspora attend-ing the event will also have theopportunity to participate inKumbh Mela and attend theRepublic Day parade.

Minister of State for

External Affairs V K Singh,while announcing the details ofthe event here, said the PravasiBhartiya Divas is held onJanuary 9 every year to markMahatma Gandhi’s return toIndia in 1915, but this year it isdelayed keeping in mindrequests from members of theIndian diaspora to attend theKumbh Mela and the RepublicDay Parade.

Singh, at a media briefing,said Uttar Pradesh will be thepartner state for the event anda novel feature this year will bethe concept of ‘Varanasi hos-

pitality’ under which local peo-ple will host the Indians livingabroad at their homes as “fam-ily guests”.

The Youth Pravasi BhartiyaDivas will be the highlight ofthe first day, while PrimeMinister Narendra Modi willtake part in the official inau-guration on January 22. Thechief guest for that event will beMauritius Prime MinisterPraveen Jugnauth.

On the third day of theevent, President Ram NathKovind will award the PravasiBharatiya Samman.

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Describing his resignationfrom the elite Indian

Administrative Service (IAS) as‘small act of defiance’, ShahFaesal on Friday announced tojoin the electoral politics totransform the system of gov-ernance in the embattledJammu & Kashmir. Contrary toperception that he was joiningthe National Conference (NC),he said he would meet withstakeholders before taking afinal decision.

Faesal, 35, topper of the2009 IAS batch, resigned ear-lier this week shortly aftercompleting a fellowship ongovernance in US basedHarvard University. He said hewould always take pride in hisnine-year association with theelite service.

Addressing his maidenPress conference Faesal saidthat he resigned to remind theCentral Government of itsduties towards Kashmiris. “Iam protesting against lack ofcredible political initiative bythe Centre. It is important thatright to life of Kashmiri peopleis respected,” he said.

He said that he will not joinseparatist Hurriyat Conferencebecause they do not believe inthe electoral system and theirpublic support is unproven. “Iam a man from the system andI would be happy to changethings by being in the system.Hurriyat doesn’t give me that

opportunity as they don’tbelieve in electoral politics,” hesaid. He said he was enoughqualified to become a legislatoror a Parliament member.

He said he was inspired byImran Khan and ArvindKejriwal but differentiated hisspace on the basis of being in aconflict zone. “I wish if young-sters give me support then I willbe very happy to do a retake ofImran Khan and Kejriwal,” hesaid. He said his motive was tomake people believe that elec-toral politics was credible insti-tution. “We want to destroy pol-itics the way it has been hap-pening,” he added.

Faesal also criticised theBJP Government’s attacks onthe State’s “special position andidentity”, and said it was

indulging in such activities forelectoral gains in rest of thecountry. “The rise in lynchmob nationalism in our coun-try also dejects me. There arealso attempts to play one regionof the Jammu & Kashmiragainst another,” he said.

He said his protest wasagainst failure of the CentralGovernment in facilitating thehomecoming of Pandits. “Youneed to create favourable envi-ronment for the return ofPandits who are inalienablepart of Kashmiri society,” hesaid adding that he was alsopained over the loss of life oflimb of border residents, espe-cially in Jammu region.

He said the Centre under-mined the national institu-tions and attacked personal,religious and ideological liber-ties. “The culture of under-mining the institutions likeCBI, NIA are part of the provo-cations that have resulted in mydecision to resign from theIAS,” he said.

He rued over the constantattacks on the identity of J&Kduring the present dispensa-tion. “The Article 370 and35A must be guarded tostrengthen the bond betweenIndia and J&K,” he said.

He said he would approachthe people of India to come tothe rescue of Kashmir. He saidhe would try to build consen-sus in the entire state and dis-courage the politics of pitchingone region against the other.

Bengaluru: Declaring thatIndia’s second Moon mission isplanned for mid-April thisyear, ISRO on Friday said it wasalso gearing up for its maidenhuman spaceflight programme‘Gaganyaan’ by 2021-end thatis likely to include a womanastronaut.

The space agency had ear-lier said Chandrayaan-2 will belaunched in a window fromJanuary-February 16, 2019.

“Right now Chandrayaan isscheduled from March 25 toApril end. Most probably, thenormal targeted date is Aprilmiddle,” ISRO Chairman KSivan said.

The space agency had ear-

lier planned to launch thespacecraft sometime betweenJanuary and February but itcould not materialise becausecertain tests could not be con-ducted, Sivan told reporters ashe laid out ISRO’s programmes.

“If we miss April, it will goto June,” he said in response toa question about the nextlaunch window available,adding that “but, we will be tar-geting April”.

Chandrayaan-2 mission,costing nearly Rs 800 crore, is anadvanced version of the previ-ous Chandrayaan-1 missionabout 10 years ago. It is a total-ly indigenous venture and com-prises an orbiter, a lander and a

rover. After a controlled descent,the lander will soft-land on thelunar surface at a specified siteand deploy a rover, according tothe Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO).

The six-wheeled rover willmove around the landing siteon the lunar surface in a semi-autonomous mode as decidedby the ground commands.

The instruments on therover will observe the lunarsurface and send back data,which will be useful for analy-sis of the lunar soil.

The 3,290-kgChandrayaan-2 will orbit theMoon and perform the objec-tives of remote sensing it.

The payloads will collectscientific information on lunartopography, mineralogy, ele-mental abundance, lunar exos-phere and signatures of hydrox-yl and water-ice, the space

agency said.It might take 35 to 45 days

to reach the Moon after thelaunch, as ISRO plans six-stage orbit raising manoeu-vres, Sivan said. PTI

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Shillong: A bus carrying ateam of rescuers from Odisha,headed to aid the operations totrace 15 miners trapped in a rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya,was attacked in East Jaintia Hillsdistrict allegedly by peopleprotesting against the citizen-ship bill, police said on Friday.

District Superintendent of

Police Sylvester Nongtyngersaid while there was no injuriesto any personnel when the buswas targeted on Thursday nighton the National Highway in theKhasi-Jaintia Hills region, thevehicle was partially damaged.

Protests have been report-ed from several places in thenortheast region against the

Citizenship (Amendment) Billthat seeks to accord Indian cit-izenship on non-Muslims fromAfghanistan, Bangladesh andPakistan. On Thursday night,a group of 14 NGO sponsoreda night blockade on highwaysand hence traffic movementon the National Highway wasdisrupted, police said. PTI

Imphal: The BJP-ledGovernment in Manipur hasdecided to urge the Centre toexempt the State from the juris-diction of the Citizenship(Amendment) Bill, the latestvoice from the North-Eastagainst the proposed legislation.

Protesters hit the streetsagainst the bill on Friday. Threepersons, including a womanand a police officer, wereinjured in a clash between stu-dents, women vendors and thepolice at the KhwairambanBazaar, the main market here,during a mass rally against the

Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.

Police had to fire teargasshells to disperse the agitators,who joined the mass rally joint-ly organised by six students’organisations and the womenvendors of the KhwairambanBazaar. A police officer, whodid not want to be quoted, saidsome unidentified student agi-tators threw mineral water bot-tles at the police personnel, inwhich a sub-divisional policeofficer (SDPO) got injured onhis face and he was hospi-talised. PTI

Mumbai: The Sharad Pawar-led NCP on Friday saidMaharashtra Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis ‘spied on’the party’s rally by video-graphing it through police,and accused the BJP-led gov-ernment of imposing ‘emer-gency’ through back door.

State NCP president JayantPatil said the party would on itsown send videos of its rallies tothe government, which healleged was “misusing” policemachinery.

The NCP has been holdingrallies as part of its public out-reach programme called the

‘Parivartan Yatra’ to highlightalleged failures of the BJP-ledCentral and State Governmentsahead of the 2019 general polls.

“Fadnavis instructed policeto record videos of our#ParivartanYatra to keep an eyeon us! Instead of such hiddenspying, we will personally send

you videos. Hope you will alsonotice the public anger towardsyour Government in thesevideos. Don’t misuse the PoliceForce!” Patil tweeted.

He shared on the micro-blogging site the photo of apoliceman filming the NCP’srally at Khed in coastal

Ratnagiri district.Speaking at the rally, NCP

leader Ajit Pawar said policehave been filming the party’spublic meetings at a time whenneither elections were beingheld nor the model code ofconduct was in force.

PTI

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Kannauj: A day before his joint Pressconference with Bahujan Samaj Party chiefMayawati, Samajwadi Party presidentAkhilesh Yadav on Friday said the alliancewill get the math right in the upcoming LokSabha election and the BJP will face defeat.

The two parties have agreed to an in-principle alliance ahead of the parliamentary elections, SP’s nationalspokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary hadsaid last week.

“Last time we had come together in theLok Sabha by-elections and BJP had lostthe seats (earlier held by) Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath and Deputy ChiefMinister Keshav Prasad Maurya. This timetoo our math will be right and the BJP willface defeat,” Yadav said at a chaupal here.

A formal announcement on thealliance between the two Uttar Pradesh-based parties will be made at Saturday’sjoint press conference with BSP, he said.Responding to a question, the former UttarPradesh Chief Minister said the BJP had

strengthened because it joined handswith regional parties and his party was alsogaining strength by forming a coalition.

“Our (BSP and SP) coming togetherhas not only created fear in the BJP but alsoin the Congress,” Yadav added.

The BSP and SP alliance has virtual-ly shut its doors to Congress in the State.

However, Chaudhary had said thealliance will not field candidates in Amethiand Raebareli, leaving the two Lok Sabhaconstituencies for Congress presidentRahul Gandhi and United ProgressAlliance (UPA) chief Sonia Gandhi. Yadavgave a slogan for the upcoming polls:“Humara kaam bolta hai, BJP ka dhokhabolta hai” (Our work speaks for itself, BJP’sbetrayal speaks).

He also took a dig at the BJP-led StateGovernment’s decision to levy an addi-tional 0.5 per cent cess on excise items to fund cow shelters, saying peoplewill have to drink more liquor now for cow safety. PTI

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In a gratis display of courtesyand political civility — a

rare species in today’s politics— Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee on Fridaystood out and stood by ageingformer Prime MinisterManmohan Singh vehementlyquestioning the vile taste thatwent into the making of theAccidental Prime Minister.

Without referring directlyto Prime Minister NarendraModi for inspiring the movie,Mamata advised the makersand viewers to also see “TheDisastrous Prime Minister.”

Even as a group ofCongress men protested thelaunch of the movie at a NorthKolkata multiplex, Banerjee

thundered before a cheeringcrowd at Barasat “look whatthey are doing in the name ofthe Accidental Prime Minister,”expressing the hurt she felt inhearing how Dr Singh wasbeing lampooned.

“You know I am from a dif-ferent party. I came out of theCongress and formed theTrinamool Congress with yourblessings because I had differ-ences with them. But that is adifferent issue. Now I thinkwhat they are doing is a dis-tortion (of facts) which iswrong” Banerjee said askingthe people to see another “film”the story of which had startedunfolding already — “TheDisastrous Prime Minister.”

She would not howevername Dr Singh’s successor.

“Those who are doing adrama before the elections overAccidental Prime Minister,should also see another film —‘The Disastrous PM’,” she said,

adding the film would soon beshown in coming days.

“No one will be spared.Today you are misrepresentingsomeone. Tomorrow thingswill be reflected back on you,”she warned.

Though she would notname the senior BJP leader, shecompared him with the villainof a super hit film of 1970s, say-ing “he can’t even talk andsmile properly” and people arescared of his appearance.

Attacking the ModiGovernment for making a“drama” out of reservationsfor upper castes Banerjee won-dered “where is the job that youwill give o the people” addingthe whole reservation gim-mick was a drama enacted towin votes before the elections.

Mathura: Rashtriya Lok Dalpresident Ajit Singh hasreferred to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, Uttar PradeshChief Minister Yogi Adityanathand Union Minister SmritiIrani as “bull, calf and cow”,triggering a row.

Calling the remarks“undignified”, a BJP leaderdemanded an apology from theRLD chief. During his ‘Kisanonse Samvad’ (dialogue withfarmers) event at Kosi Kalanhere, Singh said it is the virtueof democracy that the peoplehave the right to change aPrime Minister after five yearsif they get a “wrong” one.

“I read in newspapers thesedays that your cows, bulls andcalves (gai-bail-bachhde) areroaming around a lot,” he saidin an apparent reference to thestray cattle menace.

“You are locking them upin schools and colleges. Peoplecall them Modi-Yogi. Is thatright?” he added.

“Some people also say thata ‘hatti-katti gai’ (well-builtcow) has come. Smriti Irani isalso moving around,” Singhsaid. PTI

Jammu: Jammu & KashmirGovernor Satya Pal Malik onFriday said the administrationwas ready for Assembly elec-tions in the State and a call inthis direction should be takenby the Election Commissionand New Delhi.

“Whenever, they (EC) tellus, we are ready for the polls (toassembly),” he told reportershere after the oath-taking cer-emony of sarpanch of Jammuregion. On IAS officer ShahFaesal’s resignation, Malik saidhe himself was a Governmentemployee and did not wish tocomment on the matter.

The EC had in Novemberlast said fresh elections in J&Kwill be held within the next sixmonths, even as the body didnot rule out the possibility ofholding the State polls beforethe Lok Sabha polls due thisyear. PTI

Thiruvananthapuram: Amidmedia reports that the LDFGovernment in Kerala plannedto remove the Sabarimalatantri, Travancore DevaswomBoard (TDB), the apex templebody, on Friday said it had noteven discussed the matter andthe controversy was to createtrouble in the coming‘Makaravilakku’ festival.

TDB president APadmakumar said there wereseveral court verdicts on theappointment and powers of thetantri (head priest) of Hindushrines and the Board couldnot take a decision without tak-ing into account all these.

However, the Kerala TantriSamajam, an umbrella organ-isation of head priests of tem-ples in the State, on Thursdaysaid they would approach theSupreme Court and the union government if theCPI(M)-led LDF Governmenttakes any decision to removeKandararu Rajeevaru as theSabarimala tantri.

Senior Kerala minister GSudhakaran had even calledhim a “Brahmin monster” forconducting the ‘purification’.

PTI

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DMK president MK Stalinon Friday declared that his

party will never forge any kindof alliance with the “NarendraModi-led National DemocraticAlliance” in the upcoming LokSabha elections and shut thedoors on the Prime Ministerfor his ‘invitation to old friendsto join the NDA’.

Stalin’s statement was inresponse to a comment made byPrime Minister Narendra Modiduring an interaction with BJP’sbooth level workers from fivedistricts in Tamil Nadu throughvideo-conferencing. “Twentyyears ago the visionary leaderAtal Bihari Vajpayee had ush-ered in a new culture in Indianpolitics, that of successful coali-tion politics,” Modi had told oneof the booth level worker whoasked the Prime Ministerwhether the BJP would haveelectoral alliance with theAIADMK, DMK or other polit-ical entities in the State.

Modi replied that the BJPalways cherished its old friends.“Our doors are always open forparties,” he had said onThursday. It may be remem-

bered that the DMK was aconstituent of the BJP-led NDAduring 1999 to 2003 and theparty’s representatives like lateMurasoli Maran, T R Baalu, ARaja were members of the coun-cil of ministers led by Vajpayee.It was after the announcementof the 2004 Lok Sabha electionthe DMK quit the NDA andjoined the Congress-led UPA.

In a scathing rebuff, Stalinsaid that Narendra Modi wasnot Atal Bihari Vajpayee andthere was no possibility of theDMK joining hands with the“Narendra Modi-led NationalDemocratic Alliance”.

“In the last four and halfyears Modi has been onlyspeaking and has not taken anysteps to strengthen India’sintegrity… I categorically statethat the DMK will not ally withthe Narendra Modi-led BJPwhich has been governing thecountry without giving cre-dentials to the core ideas likesecularism, social justice, equal-ity, alliance dharma and feder-al rights. It should be noted thatthe DMK was part of the NDAduring the 1999 Lok SabhaElections and supported theAtal Bihari Vajpayee govern-ment until 2003,” said Stalin.

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Tamil Nadu Chief MinisterK Palaniswami on Friday

said the ruling AIADMK willsupport only a party that doesgood to the State. Speaking ata function where members ofvarious parties joined hisAIADMK, Palaniswami said:“We will not accept those whobetray the interests of TamilNadu’s people.”

His reference to an elec-toral alliance comes a day afterPrime Minister Narendra Modi

declared that the party’s doorswere open for alliances and itcherished old friends. But Modidid not name any party.

Most Tamil Nadu parties,be it AIADMK, DMK, PMKand MDMK, had aligned withthe BJP in the past. But the BJPhas no ally in Tamil Nadu now.

Tamil Nadu parties arenow opposed to the centralgovernment’s permission toKarnataka to prepare a detailedproject report (DPR) for con-struction of a dam across theCauvery river at Mekadatu.

Yavatmal: In a first, farm widowVaishali S Yede on Friday inau-gurated the controversy-ridden92nd Akhil Bharatiya MarathiSahitya Sammelan, amid aprotest by a section of invitees.

“This is first time that a non-literary personality who repre-sents the peasantry of this regionhas been invited to inauguratethe 92nd ABMSS,” VidarbhaSahitya Sangh PresidentManohar Mhaisalkar said short-ly before the inaugural.

All eyes were on the ABMSS

event since last Sunday when theparent body, Akhil BharatiyaMarathi Sahitya Mahamandalabruptly withdrew its invitationto renowned English writerNayantara Sahgal to inauguratethe 92nd conference.

The raging row resulted intop Marathi literary figuresdeclining invites to replaceSahgal for the inaugural, otherinvitees boycotting the ABMSS,culminating in the resignationof ABMSM president ShripadJoshi three days ago. IANS

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Page 8:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

The first thing that 93-year-oldMahathir Mohamad said whenvoted back as Malaysian PrimeMinister was, “Yes I am alive…andthe country’s youth voted for me.”

The grand patriarch’s return by an electorate,40 per cent of which is young, was anendorsement of his past experience as arobust builder who had made modernMalaysia as the world knew it, enough tooverlook the ghosts from his past. Voters maynot have forgiven his autocratic and mono-lithic ways of functioning but realised he wasstill worth placing a bet on for the greatergood. This analogy perfectly fits the returnof former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshitas president of the state Congress to steer itin mission mode for the general elections.

Yes, she is 80, in good health havingrecovered from her heart condition, and isback in the familiar saddle. Of course, she hasthe “Mahathir” advantage if one may call itthat. Having been the Delhi Chief Ministerfor 15 years, winning three rounds of elec-tions between 1998 and 2008, she is undoubt-edly responsible for reshaping Delhi as aworld capital with her brand of developmentpolitics. In fact, much of the template ofDelhi’s governance has frankly been reset byher. Whether it is road safety, which she pio-neered with the “wear the seat belt” campaign,clean air, which she committed to by chang-ing the city’s traffic fleet to CNG, theengagement and stakeholdership with locals,which she started with the Bhaagidarischeme, prioritising education in governmentschools and improving their performance,cleaning up the city and taking advantage ofthe Delhi Metro’s progress, she did give thecity a reloaded version of the post-Asiadmakeover. Her grandmotherly image cutacross sections of society. To the lesser priv-ileged, she appeared as one they could com-miserate and share their burdens with, to theupper crust, she was the erudite thinker whocould rationalise her priorities and to theyoung, she was the aunt who could be trust-ed to address their concerns and more impor-tantly, had the farsightedness to factor in theirfuture. And despite the faction fights andcompetitive voices in her party unit, she didmanage to hold it all together. Even earn atacit acknowledgement from the Oppositionparties then. Whatever the shortcomings inher last term, it is this legacy that has heldher in good stead, enough to be called backto the only political turf that worked for her.

Track record shows she could do it withelan. While current AAP Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal laments how his hands aretied in executing his vision and his publicspats with the LG are common knowledge,Dikshit wrapped her head around partialstatehood issues with equanimity. She con-ducted herself without making a public spec-tacle of her problems but working within lim-itations. As she writes in her memoirs, “Thiscumbersome process of requiring so manylevels of approval was unique to Delhi. But

the bottomline was that fullstatehood or not, to the peopleof Delhi, the Chief Minister sig-nified the face of governance.They would not have muchpatience for a chief minister try-ing to explain an underwhelm-ing ‘report card’ by enumerat-ing all the areas that fell outsideher jurisdiction. There are twoways of dealing with such situ-ations. One can throw up one’shands and say it is impossible toperform under these circum-stances or negotiate one’s waythrough innumerable mine-fields in the belief that the pri-mary aim is to deliver on thepromise of governance.”

True, Dikshit had not seensuccess as a politician in UP,where she was aided by herillustrious father-in-law andveteran Congress leader UmaShankar Dikshit. But the auranever worked for her electoral-ly. Till she sought to rescue it in1998 with Delhi. Within thestate unit, she had to do a toughbalancing act with several aspi-rant leaders. Many claimed thatshe survived because she hadthe party high command’sendorsement and never quiteheeded the grassroots cadre. Buteven that relationship, thoughsome might have taken forgranted, has had a rocky runwith highs and lows. Yet Dikshitwas able to get beyond hergubernatorial assignments post-defeat and find her way back torelevance, with the party nam-

ing her as chief ministerial can-didate for the Uttar Pradeshpolls. But sensing she could bea scapegoat here given theCongress’ dismal voteshare andsaffron tide, she was wiseenough to bow out of the race.This time she has the tradewinds in her favour. The recentvictories of the Congress in theAssembly elections in the threecrucial heartland States haveproved again that leaders witha depth of grassroots experience,deft political management andreadiness to plunge deep candeliver the goods. Even makethe Young Turks sit up and takenotice. Besides, Dikshit has anadded advantage. Delhi voters,tormented by the endless powertussle between the AAP govern-ment and the Centre, are nowtired of the stasis when it comesto civic issues plaguing the city.Many neutral voices have evencompared the present scenariowith the better times of Dikshit’sDelhi. So she has an edge in per-ception, something that shehad worked on in the early yearswith deft media management.

This time, Dikshit too refus-es to be a foregone conclusionand is itching to claim her rele-vance. But there is the shadowof corruption charges over theconduct of the CommonwealthGames during her regime. Andhad it not been for the scale ofthe scam, where Central partyleaders like Suresh Kalmadiwere directly implicated while

she managed to stay inside thering of fire without singing her-self too much, Kejriwal wouldnot have spiralled to legitimacythe way he did. Little wonderthen that soon after theannouncement of her anoint-ment as Delhi Congress chief,Kejriwal raked up her taintedpast, saying the party clearly hada “leadership deficit.”

However, Dikshit is up forthe challenge. Yes, there’s theKejriwal barrage, his claims ofslum development and reduc-ing power bills, but the moreimportant one is tying up theparty together. Present partypresident Ajay Maken may havebowed out citing ill-health andpublicly given her the vote ofconfidence but Dikshit’s jobwill be to keep him in thescheme of things, consideringhe did helm the party duringtroubling times and solidify ananti-AAP narrative. She needshim and other stalwarts to pullup the Congress votebase, makean electoral difference and atleast get a bargaining advantage.

There is a lot of talk in thepower corridors about Congressand AAP having a broaderunderstanding to defeat theBJP in the Lok Sabha polls.Maken has been a known oppo-nent of this formula for short-term gain and hates risking along-term revival of the party.And though many predict thatDikshit has been brought in toease this arrangement, consid-

ering the combined voteshare ofboth parties can indeed squelchthe BJP for Lok Sabha, she her-self has been blowing hot andcold over AAP given her owntumultuous history with it.However, she is known to fall inline with the high commandand given the AAP’s irrele-vance outside Delhi and theresurgent Congress in states, thismay not yet be a priority.

Dikshit’s big challenge willbe consolidation of votes. Canshe break into the larger com-munity of businessmen, tradersand Poorvanchalis, which isstrongly in the BJP’s grip? Canshe, most importantly, win backthe crucial Dalit and Muslimvotes, which have happilymigrated to the AAP? Can she“broom” them back andbecome the mohalla queen? Ifwe go by the 2017 municipalpolls, AAP’s vote share is downto 26 per cent while theCongress is up to about 22 percent. But elections are alsomuch about chemistry thanarithmetic. And Dikshit certain-ly has a past history of workingmagic with Delhi.

Besides, she is not alone insurviving and winning.Octogenarians around theworld, from politics to perform-ing arts, are delivering and stillgoing strong. So much so thattrend forecasters are wonderingif 80s are the new 40s for 2019.

(The writer is AssociateEditor, The Pioneer)

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Career suicide” (January 11).Cricket all-rounder HardikPandya and his team buddy KLRahul, more known for theirexploits on the field, are nowdrawing infamy off it. And whereis Karan Johar, who started allthis? Since this was not a liveshow, he could have surely edit-ed them. Questions raised by himwere heavily sexist, making itmandatory for those replying toanswer in the same vein. Butentertainment being the leitmo-tif of the idiot box, both cricketersand Bollywood stars now come inthe same bracket.

Hardik Pandya’s commentswere crude. As role models,cricketers need to be far morerespectful. But while Pandya isbeing punished for it, questionnow is: How can we ensure thatall of this doesn’t happen in thefuture? For, young athletes, deal-ing with stardom isn’t easy.Money, glamour and fame aren’teasy to handle and there aremany who aren’t ready to dealwith it all. Pandya is a classicexample. In the course of the lasttwo years, he has become a

multi-millionaire with an incred-ible number of fans looking upto him as a role model. Peopleseek him out for autographs,want to pose for pictures withhim and share the same socialspace with him. He is an Indiannational team cricketer, whichalmost literally is one in a billion.It is a heady world.

Our cricketers need to bementored. They need to be

taught how to deal with themedia and conduct themselvesin the public, even on TV shows.They need to understand whereto draw the line. For some, likeSachin Tendulkar or RahulDravid, things came naturally.For others, like Pandya, we needto make them more sensitive topeople’s sentiments.

J Akshobhya Mysuru

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Sir — It is indeed welcome thatArmy Chief Gen Bipin Rawat didnot mince words while giving astern warning to his Armymen.Nobody in the Army is permit-ted to indulge in gay sex or adul-tery as the conduct of personnelis governed by the Army Act,1950. The Army finds the act of

‘adultery’ as “stealing the affectionof a brother officer’s wife.” This isquite a convincing definition thatcan deter our Armymen fromperpetrating the crime.

But at the same time, theArmy Chief, while respectingthe country’s law, said, “ We arenot above the country’s law. Butwhen one joins the Indian Army,some of the rights and privilegesone enjoys must be forfeited as atrue Indian soldier.” So consider-ing the entirety of the gay sexissue in the Army, Rawat has sethis own strict code of conductwith lofty ideals that can hold theArmy in high esteem.

TK Nandanan Chennai

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Sir — Reservations cannot erad-icate poverty, solve agrarian cri-sis or generate employment. At atime when systemic responses tothese problems are warranted,choosing the easy way of reserva-tion amounts to escapism.

RatnaVia email

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Page 9:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

The Director of the Pak Instituteof Peace Studies (PIPS), AmirRana, wrote in his December 30,

2018 article for daily Dawn that theState’s romance with radical Barelvigroups was short-lived because itfailed to build a counter-narrative tothat of the Deobandi militant groups.This is an accurate observation. ButRana only explores it in the context ofthe swift rise and equally rapid collapseof a nexus between the State and theTehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).

Rana is correct in seeing the aboveas an experiment that was initiated tocounter the militant narrative of themore dogmatic Deobandi groups. Thenecessity in this context arose when,between 2015 and 2017, the State waslargely successful in overcoming themore belligerent expressions of thesegroups, but struggled to counter theimpact of the radical mindset fostered

by these groups in the past.The irony is that the same radical

Deobandi segments were created by theState itself from the 1980s onwards tofacilitate some of its rather imaginative‘strategic’ ambitions rooted in thepost-1979 civil wars in Afghanistan. Inhindsight, most political historiansand analysts had lamented that thewhole process of forming and fundingradical religious groups to fight aninsurgency against the Soviet-backedregime in Afghanistan was a disaster.It was perhaps at par with the mannerin which the rise of fascism in Germanyand Italy in the 1920s and 1930s wasinitially ignored by the US and the UK.

Some lessons were learned byWestern powers after the end of WorldWar II. Consequently, much was doneto limit and erase any lingering impactof Nazism and fascism. But the narra-tive built during the anti-Soviet insur-gency in the 1980s was allowed to runamok and permeate both the States andsocieties of many Muslim countries.From the 1990s onwards, Muslim-majority realms such as Pakistan,Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia,Sudan, Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria wereravaged by militant religious insurgen-cies that now saw the States and soci-

eties in Muslim countries to be as god-less as the Soviet soldiers that they hadfaced in Afghanistan. One of the worsthit was Pakistan, the country that hadbecome a willing broker-state betweenthe US/Saudi funding and the insur-gents. The home-grown sectarian andinsurgent groups raised by the PakistaniState for this purpose turned inwards.And as the militant mindset formulat-ed to inspire ‘jihad’ in Afghanistanflooded society, the militants foundapologists and supporters within thebody politic of the country. Faced bythis dilemma and also the fact that, bythe late 1980s, the country’sConstitution had lost much of itscivic-nationalist dimension, the Stateattempted to enhance the country’s his-torical link with Sufism to underminethe onset of the more intransigentstrands of faith.

But this was not the first time. Theonly difference is that, this time, theState tried to tap into the more con-frontational aspects of ‘Sufism’ througha populist Barelvi outfit (TLP), where-as in the past the State had banked moreon the concept of Sufism that it hadformed with the help of progressiveintelligentsia and urban middle-classenthusiasts. During her in-depth study

of modern-day Sufism in Pakistan,Katherine Ewing, a professor of religionat Columbia University, wrote inArguing Sainthood that in the 1960s,intellectuals close to the regimedescribed the ancient Sufi saints of theregion as men who held an enlightenedoutlook of Islam and were teachers ofprogress. She explained that the person-alities of the saints were shaped accord-ing to the ‘modernist’ ideas of the Ayubregime. According to her study, duringthe ‘left-leaning’ ZA Bhutto regime, thesame saints were given a more populistdisposition. They became men whohad stood up against economicexploitation and the dogmatic clergy.

Ewing wrote that the saints thenbecame “learned ulema” during theconservative Zia dictatorship. But, asthe French cultural anthropologistAlix Philippon noted in the antholo-gy State and Nation-Building inPakistan, there was never one versionof Sufism in Pakistan. As mentioned,there is the Sufism, which was formu-lated by the State and mainly appealsto the urban middle classes. It describesSufi saints as people who were enlight-ened and had spread Islam through tol-erant means. Then there is the versionof Sufism which was formulated in the

mid-1960s by Sindhi and Punjabinationalists. They, too, described thesaints as enlightened and tolerant butgave them indigenous ethnic identities.Phillipon’s study mentioned anotherbrand of Sufism, but one which oppos-es the version formulated by the State.

This brand of Sufism has been for-mulated by Barelvi religious partiessuch as the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan(JUP) and, more recently, by the SunniTehreek (ST) and the TLP. It rejects theidea that Sufi saints were entirelypeaceful and views Sufism as a militantstrand of faith which was embroiled ina theological, doctrinal and political warwith ‘deviant sects’. It champions theimposition and continuation of the1974 Second Amendment and 1986’sBlasphemy Laws in the country’sConstitution. It is willing to use violenceagainst even the thought of introduc-ing minor reforms to these laws.

Goethe University’s TK Gugler inFaith-Based Violence in Pakistan wrotethat even though the Zia regime bol-stered Deobandi militant outfits, theJUP, too, was given a free hand to rad-icalise Pakistan’s Barelvi majority. Butthis saw JUP split into various factionsand a manifold increase in the incidentsof violence between Deobandi and

Barelvi groups. According to Gugler,after 9/11, when the Musharraf regimewas once again flexing the state-backed and urban version of Sufism tocounter rising incidents of ‘Islamist’ vio-lence, the influential think-tank, theRAND Corporation — in a paper titled“Civic-Democratic Islam” — suggest-ed that the traditionalist Barelvi shouldbe facilitated to counter the militantDeobandi narrative. According to theJanuary 12, 2012 issue of ExpressTribune, the US gave the Barelvi SunniIttehad Council $36,607 in 2009 toorganise anti-Taliban rallies.

The move backfired when a radi-cal Barelvi shot dead former PunjabGovernor Salman Taseer for criticisingthe country’s blasphemy laws. Yet, sixyears later, the State decided to bypassits own version of Sufism and use a rad-ical Barelvi outfit to aggressively counterthe more severe non-Barelvi groups.This experiment, too, crashed whenthis group began lashing out againststate institutions. But as Rana notes, theState now wants to move forward witha new and more ‘controllable’ religiousnarrative. This is yet to be fully under-stood. But it does need to be clearlyarticulated and discussed.

(Courtesy: Dawn)

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The song, Chah Barbaad KaregiHemen...’ from KL Saigal’s film,Shahjehan (1946) and ‘Papa kehtehain...’ from Qayamat Se QayamatTak (1989) happen to be among the

most popular songs of the era in which theyappeared. Separated by more than fourdecades, one is full of expectations and hopebesides uncertainties of future, while theother reflects a mood of despondency andbeing on the abyss of a deep depression. Boththe songs stand in complete contrast to eachother in style as well as meter. But despite theobvious generational gap, they have an organ-ic commonality and that is the genius ofMajrooh Sultanpuri.

Even as a student at Lucknow, Majrooh’stalent had become well-recognised on theMushaira circuit. Inspired by poet JigarMoradabadi and under the guidance of RashidAhmad Siddiqui of the Aligarh MuslimUniversity, he was able to hone his skills as aghazal writer and had almost become acelebrity at a very young age with invitationsfrom all over the country.

It was his lucky break that during one suchmushaira in Mumbai, the famous film produc-er of the 1940s, Abdur Rashid Kardar, was pre-sent. Kadar could immediately sense MajroohSultanpuri’s potential as a superbly talentedpoet and offered him the lyrics of Shah Jehan(1946). This was virtually a dream debut forMajrooh Sultanpuri beyond imagination as itwas a Kardar film with music by Naushad. Theicing on the cake, however, was that his lyricswere to be given the voice on-screen by noneother than KL Saigal himself.

Majrooh Sultanpuri’s lyrics for Shah Jehanwas not only able to capture the mood of thecharacter but also reflected the overall atmos-pherics of the film. Saigal became so obsessedwith the song, ‘Jab dil hi toot gaya toh ji karkya karenge’ that as willed by him, this songwas played at the time of his cremation.

Majrooh’s language skills sharpened overa six-year period at Lucknow. This coupledwith his natural talent as a poet helped himfine-tune his knack for penning down situa-tional lyrics, bef itt ing the character on screen and in line with the meter of themusic and tune. He, in a way, became the pio-neer in the field of writing lyrics to analready prepared tune, a trend which has con-tinued ever since.

It was this felicity of Majrooh that enduredhim for over five decades and a few thousandlyrics to give us some memorable ghazals,songs on foot-tapping beats as well as pureclassicals. Getting under the skin of a charac-ter, visualising the situation in context of thestoryline and then writing lyrics on a tune canbe a formidable challenge. Nevertheless,Majrooh not only handled it all with aplombbut went on to perfect this art as was seen inMehboob’s works like Andaz, Bimal Roy’sSujata, Suchitra Sen starrer Mamta, NassirHussain’s Yaadon Ki Baaraat, and TeesriManzil and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Abhimaan.

He was very well-equipped even to han-dle the inimitable yodelling of Kishore as in

Jewel Thief (1967) with his song, ‘Yeh dil nahota bechara’, becoming a chartbuster orPanch rupaiya barah aana from Chalti KaNaam Gaadi (1958), both composed by SDBurman. Incidentally, Dada (as everybodycalled SD lovingly) and Majrooh shared a com-mon date of birth and made a hit pair in films like Solva Saal, KalaPani, Baat Ek Raat Ki, Teen Devian and manymore.

After Dada, it was RD Burman who ush-ered a new wave in film music. Undaunted,Majrooh fitted into the new paradigm. It wasas if they were made for each other. After Dadaand RD, Majrooh had the distinction of transiting and working with the new genera-tion wth effortless ease. For instance, heworked with Rajesh Roshan after Roshan andAnand Milind after Chitragupta. This signi-f ied his strength as well as flexibility to meet this youthful change with-out compromising on the core philosophy ofhis poetry.

Like all youngsters, Majrooh of the late1940s was a firebrand poet and soon came atthe forefront of the Leftist movement. In fact,the Bombay film world and the Indian People’sTheatre Association (IPTA) of the 1940s andthe early 1950s had several towering person-alities like Balraj Sahni, Chetan Anand, KaifiAzmi and KA Abbas, who keept the Leftistmovement alive. However, Majrooh was a stepahead of them in activities and had to evenspend a brief period in Byculla jail.

In an illustrious career spanning a fewdecades, there was no dearth of awards for himbut the real reward was the adulation of the

public which kept Majrooh going even till aripe old age. The usual Bombay film politicsmade sure that he got just one Filmfare awardfor Dosti (1964) but his crowning glory wasthe official recognition and the very first DadaSaheb Phalke Award (1993) as a lyricist. Later,a postage stamp was also issued by theGovernment in his honour.

Some of his Majrooh’s breezy hits includeJab Dil Hi Toot Gaya from Shah Jehan (1946);Kahe Agar Jeevan Bhar from Andaz (1949);Chand Phir Nikla, Magar Tum Na Aaye from Paying Guest (1957); Jalte Hain JiskeLiye from Sujata (1959); Chahunga MainTujhe Saanjh Savere from Dosti 1964 for whichhe got the best lyrisist award; Rahe na rahe hummehka karenge from Mamta (1966); Yaadon Ki Baaraat from Yaadon Ki Baaraat(1973); Ek Din Bik Jaayega Mati Ke Mol from Dharam Karam (1975); Kala PaniHum Bekhudi Mein Tumko Pukare Kala Pani (1958); and Papa Kehte Hain Bada Naam Karega from Qayamat Se QayamatTak (1989).

Having led the famous celebrated quartetof Shakeel Badayuni, Kaifi Azmi and QamarJalalabadi (unfortunately Sahir passed awayvery young, way back in 1980) Majrooh wasone of those Urdu poets who not only enter-tained but enriched the Indian cinema and itsculture. In the current scenario, except forGulzar and Javed Akhtar, who are carrying thetorch forward, this rich legacy appears to beclearly in danger of being lost.

(The writer is a retired Delhi PoliceCommissioner and former UttarakhandGovernor)

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Page 10:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

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Infosys on Friday said it willbuyback shares worth up to

�8,260 crore and offer share-holders a special dividend of �4per share as part of the com-pany’s �13,000 crore-capitalallocation policy.

The board has alsoapproved the re-appointmentof Kiran Mazumdar Shaw asthe Lead IndependentDirector for the second termfrom April 1, 2019 to March22, 2023.

Infosys, in a regulatory fil-ing, said its Board has approvedbuyback of up to 10,32,50,000equity shares, comprisingapproximately 2.36 per cent ofthe paid-up capital of the com-pany as of December 31, 2018for up to �8,260 crore.

The shares, which will bepurchased through the openmarket route via Indian stockexchanges, will be bought for aprice not exceeding �800 pershare, it added.

Also, ADS (Americandepositary share) holders arepermitted to convert their ADSinto equity shares, and, subse-quently opt to sell such equityshares on the Indian stockexchanges during the buybackperiod, the filing said.

Infosys had completed itsmaiden buyback of �13,000crore in December 2017, com-prising 11.3-crore equity sharesat a price of �1,150 per share.The buyback scheme — a firstin the company’s over threedecade history — had seen par-ticipation from SudhaGopalakrishnan, Rohan Murtyand LIC among others.

Infosys, in its Friday filing,said the Board has constituteda buyback committee “com-prising the Chief OperatingOfficer, the Chief FinancialOfficer, the Deputy ChiefFinancial Officer, the GeneralCounsel and the CompanySecretary of the company”.

The buyback is subject tothe approval of the members ofthe company by way of a spe-

cial resolution through postalballot and all other applicablestatutory/regulatory approvals.

Infosys said it willannounce the process, time-lines and other statutory detailsof the buyback in due course.

Besides, it has fixed January25, 2019 as record date andJanuary 28 as the paymentdate for the special dividend ofRs 4 per share.

“After the execution of theabove, along with the specialdividend (including dividenddistribution tax) of �2,633crore ($386 million) alreadypaid in June 2018, the compa-ny would complete the distri-bution of �13,000 crore, whichwas announced as part of itscapital allocation policy inApril 2018,” it added.

As of January 9, 2019, pro-moter and promoter groupheld 12.82 per cent share inInfosys, while Indian financialinstitutions, banks and mutu-al funds held 12.88 per centshares.

Over 52 per cent shareswere held byFII/FPI/ADRs/foreign nation-als and OCB, while the remain-ing 22.21 per cent was held byIndian public, corporates andothers.

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Surrendering early gains,benchmark Sensex on

Friday dropped 96 points toend at 36,009.84 as investorsbooked profits even as globalequities rose.

The 30-share index openedon a strong note at 36,191.87,but failed to hold on its gainsand settled 96.66 points, or 0.27per cent, lower at 36,009.84.Intra-day, the gauge swungbetween 36,214.26 and35,840.60.

The NSE Nifty too slippedby 26.65 points to close at10,794.95.

The major losers on theSensex included IndusindBank, Tata Motors, TCS, YesBank and L&T.

Among the gainers wereITC, ONGC, Vedanta Ltd,Infosys, Axis Bank andHDFC.

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The announcement byAmazon founder Jeff

Bezos, the world’s wealthiestman, and his wife that they willdivorce has captivated theimagination — how will theysplit his giant fortune, esti-mated at $136 billion?

And what will happen tothe Internet retail giant - willhis soon-to-be ex get a signif-icant stake, and how would thataffect his control of the com-pany? The former MacKenzieTuttle knew the 54-year-oldBezos before fame and wealthcame calling.

The couple met in 1992when he was a hedge fundmanager on Wall Street, beforehe became an entrepreneurwho changed the way hun-dreds of millions of people live.They married less than a yearlater.

She was by his side for theentire Amazon adventure, fromthe company’s humble begin-nings in his Seattle garage in 1994to its mammoth success today.They have four children — threesons and an adopted daughter —aged up to their late teens.

As of Wednesday, whenthe couple formally announcedthey would divorce after a

long separation, the 48-year-old MacKenzie, a novelist, islikely to become the richestwoman in the world.

According to celebritynews outlet TMZ, the Bezosesdid not have a prenuptialagreement — which couldmean an even split of assets.

They were married inFlorida in September 1993,according to documents seenby AFP. But their last place ofresidence would be the decid-ing factor in any divorce pro-ceedings.

The couple has numerousresidences: in Seattle, whereAmazon is based, but also inWashington DC, Texas andBeverly Hills, California.

According to RandallKessler, a founding partner atAtlanta family law firm Kesslerand Solomiany, the locationwill not matter so much.

“Some states have com-munity property, some stateshave equitable division whichmeans fair division, but even inthose states, it usually comesout 50-50. That’s the startingpoint,” he said.

Bezos, who was onceAmazon’s primary stakehold-er, now owns about 16 per centof the company — the bulk ofhis net worth.

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State-owned power giantNTPC on Friday said it has

raised �4,000 crore via bondsissued through private place-ment basis.

Bidding for the bond issueopened on Friday and itreceived an overwhelmingresponse, the company said ina statement.

Against an issue size of�500 crore, with green shoeoption to retain over-sub-

scription up to �3,500 crore,bids of �12,520 crore werereceived, it said.

“The NTPC’s series 67 BondIssue through private place-ment, for which bidding tookplace today, has received over-whelming response from theinvestors,” the statement said.

The issue generated lot ofinterest among investors, there-by pulling down the yield for10-year bonds to attractivelevels of 8.30 per cent annu-alised.

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Tokyo prosecutors on Fridayfiled two new charges of

financial misconduct againstformer Nissan chief CarlosGhosn, meaning the autotycoon is unlikely to be leavinghis jail cell soon.

Lawyers for the former jet-setting executive filed a bailapplication hours later, buthave acknowledged that hewill probably be detained untila trial.

Ghosn denies any wrong-doing and argued in a dramat-ic first court appearance onTuesday that he has been“wrongly accused and unfair-ly detained.”

He was already facing a firstcharge for allegedly under-reporting his compensation overfive years to the tune of five bil-lion yen ($46 million) in officialdocuments to shareholders. Thecharges filed today allege that theunder-reporting continued foranother three years.

And they include a chargeof “aggravated breach of trust”

over a complex alleged schemein which Ghosn is said to havetried to transfer losses on for-eign exchange contracts toNissan’s books.

As part of the scheme, heis accused of also using com-pany funds to repay a Saudiacquaintance who put up col-lateral for the contracts.

Prosecutors also filedcharges Friday against Nissanand Ghosn aide Greg Kelly overthe additional three years ofunder-reporting pay.

“We took these steps todaybecause we believed that theyare cases worthy of indictmentand going to trial,” said deputychief prosecutor ShinKukimoto.

A prosecutor’s office spokes-woman said charges againstGhosn carry a maximum prisonsentence of 15 years.

The breach of trust chargeis regarded as particularly seri-ous, and Ghosn’s lawyerMotonari Otsuru admittedTuesday it would be “very dif-ficult” to secure bail for hisclient.

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GViswanathan, Founder andChancellor of Vellore

Institute of Technology, hasbeen bestowed with the JeevanGaurav Puraskar — LifetimeAward for remaining an inspir-ing teacher throughout andfor Teaching, Research andInstitution Building by theNational Teachers’ Congressand MIT World PeaceUniversity, Pune.

The award ceremony tookplace at the 3rd Global NationalTeachers’ Congress held at MITWorld Peace University,Kothrud, Pune on Sunday,January 6.

The Lifetime award is thelatest feather in the cap ofnoted educationist, formerParliamentarian and formerMinister in the Tamil NaduGovernment, Dr.G.Viswanathan, who has beeninstrumental in creating andnurturing Vellore Institute ofTechnology as one of India’sfinest higher educational insti-

tution providing engineering,management, legal, agricul-ture and arts and science edu-cation to young women andmen, especially economicallyweaker sections from all overIndia.

A citation, signed by AnilKakodkar, renowned AtomicEnergy Scientist and FoundingPatron of National Teachers’Congress, R.A.Mashelkar,President of the Congress andNational Research Professorand Eminent Scientist and Dr.VishwanathKarad , Founderof MIT World PeaceUniversityrecognised Dr.Viswanathan’s recognition andappreciation of his momentouscontribution as a VisionaryAcademic Leader.

The citation listed out theexemplary career, political, aca-demic and public life of Dr.Viswanathan and also noted:“You are an academic leaderwith an unending thirst forknowledge that makes youstrive harder and achieve var-ious milestones.”

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Industry lobby AssochamFriday met Reserve Bank

governor Shaktikanta Das anddiscussed the liquidity issuesbeing faced by non-bankingfinancial companies and hous-ing finance players, and sug-gested some steps to ease thecrisis.

Since taking charge onDecember 12, Das has metbanks, both public and privatesector and also NBFCs andMSMEs. This is the first meet-

ing the governor has had withan industry lobby, though.

The delegation, which metthe governor in New Delhi,told him that over-regulation ofthe sector is hampering thegrowth of the NBFC model oflending.

The players requested thegovernor to maintain the exist-ing asset liability mismatch(ALM) norms till the normal-cy is restored.

The industry body saidNBFCs need the regulator toalso play the role of facilitator.

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India has emerged as thefastest growing paper market

amongst large economies inthe world. In the last 10 years,the domestic demand hasalmost doubled from around 9million tonnes in FY 2007-08to over 17 million tonnes in2017-18.

The Industry estimates theoverall paper demand to growat a compounded annualgrowth rate of 6-7%, reachingto about 20 million tonnes byFY 2019-20, this was stated byMr Saurabh Bangur, PresidentIndian Paper ManufacturersAssociation (IPMA) at 19thAnnual Session of IndianPaper ManufacturersAssociation (IPMA),

According to IPMA, Makein India in paper is threatenedin view of comparatively high-er cost of raw material espe-cially wood and cheaperimports which have beengrowing at a pace faster thangrowth in domestic produc-

tion.Even as the industry is

grappling with the issue of pro-ducing paper and paperboardat competitive cost, the prob-lem has been exacerbated bythe Government’s policy ofextending preferential tarifftreatment to import of paperand paperboard under the dif-ferent free trade agreements(FTAs) and other bilateral andmultilateral trade agreementsand pacts.

“Paper is a key segment ofIndian industry andGovernment is committed toensure domestic manufactur-ing. Government will consultthe industry before embarkingupon any further Free TradeAgreements (FTAs). Domesticplayers need to get priority tomeet the demand. One of themain objectives of the tradepolicy has to be promotion ofdomestic manufacturing”, saidMr Suresh Prabhu, Minister ofCommerce & Industry andCivil Aviation and Chief Gueston the occasion.

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Page 11:  · Durgapur, Burnpur etc are also close from here. Apart from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will also get ben-efit from its opening in Ranchi. The State Government

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Security has been beefed upacross the Bokaro district

ahead of Republic Day. Policeare keeping a hawk-eyed vigilto spoil any possible threats,said Kartik S, SP Bokaro.

The Intelligence Bureauhas issued an alert stating thatMaoists could carry out strikesduring this occasion, saidsources adding that they couldtarget security personnel andgovernment properties too.Maoists could plant landminesto target security forces inBokaro, Dhanbad and Giridihdistricts, sources said.

Meanwhile, the districtpolice have decided to putcities under foolproof securitycover. On the direction ofhigher-ups, a high alert hasbeen declared across the dis-trict, said police. Cops areinstructed to tackle all adversesituations and keep strongsecurity arrangements.Patrolling has been intensified

in the districts, he said.More than 35 spots were

identified as the most sensitiveplace only in Bokaro and copswere asked to keep specialattention, sources said.

Senior police officials askedthe District Superintendents ofpolice of Bokaro, Dhanbad,Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Girdih,Koderma and Chatra to expe-dite the patrolling in theirzones to tackle any such move-ments of the Naxalites whosemovements in small groupshave been observed by thesecurity forces at Uparghat,Nawadih, Gomia, Vishnugarhborder area and Prasnath zone,police sources informed.

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Tata Motors on Friday reported 13.9 per cent decline in groupglobal wholesales, including that of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR),

at 1,00,551 units in December 2018.Tata Motors’ group global wholesales in December 2017 stood

at 1,16,677 units. Global wholesales of all Tata passenger vehicleslast month stood at 59,898 units, lower by 14 per cent from theyear-ago period, Tata Motors said in a statement. JLR sales wereat 45,474 units. While Jaguar wholesales for the month were 14,088vehicles, that of Land Rover stood at 31,386 units. The companyfurther said its global wholesales of all Tata Motors commercialvehicles and Tata Daewoo range stood at 40,653 units last month,down 14 per cent from December 2017.

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After days of back and forthover US President Donald

Trump’s decision to pulloutAmerican troops from Syria, aUS military official said onFriday the process of with-drawal has begun, declining tocomment on specific timetablesor movements.

Col Sean Ryan, spokesmanfor the US-led coalition fight-ing the Islamic State group, said“the process of our deliberatewithdrawal from Syria” hasstarted.

“Out of concern for oper-ational security, we will not dis-cuss specific timelines, loca-tions or troops movements,”the Baghdad-based official saidin a statement emailed to TheAssociated Press.

There were no otherdetails, and it was not imme-diately clear how many vehiclesor whether any troop units hadwithdrawn.

The Britain-based SyrianObservatory for HumanRights, which monitors theconflict in Syria through anetwork of activists on theground, said the withdrawalbegan Thursday night. It saida convoy of about 10 armoredvehicles, in addition to some

trucks, pulled out from Syria’snortheastern town of Rmeilaninto Iraq.

Confirmation of the firstwithdrawals comes amid con-fusion over plans to implementTrump’s pullout order andthreats from Turkey to attackthe Kurds, who have beenAmerica’s partners on theground in the war against theIslamic State group in Syria.

There are 2,000 Americantroops in Syria. Trump’s abruptdecision in December to pullthem, declaring in a tweet thedefeat of IS, sent shockwavesacross the region and a flurryof criticism from some of hisgenerals and national securityadvisers, and led to the resig-nation of US Defense MinisterJames Mattis and the top USenvoy to the anti-IS coalition.It also led to major criticismthat the US was abandoning itslocal Kurdish allies amidTurkish threats of an imminentattack.

On Sunday, US nationalsecurity adviser John Boltonsaid American troops will notleave northeastern Syria until ISis defeated and American-allied Kurdish fighters are pro-tected, signaling a slow-downin Trump’s initial order for arapid withdrawal. Secretary

of State Mike Pompeo, who ison a tour of the region, has alsosought to reassure the Kurdsthat they will be safe after U.S.Troops withdraw from thecountry.

“These have been folksthat have fought with us and it’simportant that we do every-thing we can to ensure thatthose folks that fought with usare protected,” Pompeo said ofthe Kurds while visiting Irbil,the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region,after talks in Baghdad.

After initially tweetingabout the decision to bringback US troops “now,” Trumpthis week said “we will be leav-ing at a proper pace while at thesame time continuing to fightISIS and doing all else that isprudent and necessary!”Kurdish officials, meanwhile,have demanded clarificationsfrom the US over its intentions.

A US troop pullout leavesthe Kurds exposed to Turkishattacks from one side, andSyrian government troops onthe other. The withdrawal ben-efits Syrian President BasharAssad and his internationalbackers, Russia and Iran, whoare primed to move into theregion to fill a vacuum leftbehind by the Americans.

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An estimated 25,000 peoplehave fled escalating vio-

lence over the last six monthsin eastern Syria, where die-hardjihadists are defending their lastbastions, the UN said on Friday.

Much of the unrest hasbeen centred around Hajin inDeir Ezzor province, whichhad been the last town of notecontrolled by the Islamic Stategroup in the area until it wastaken in December by the US-backed Syrian DemocraticForces (SDF).

The United Nationsrefugee agency said that clash-es and air strikes have forced25,000 people to run and seekshelter in camps or informalsettlements, sometimes afterspending several nights in thedesert exposed to harsh weath-er and without access to foodor water.

The agency also warnedover “mounting civilian casu-alties” in the area, withoutproviding figures. An estimat-ed 2,000 civilians remaintrapped in Hajin, where con-flict continues, the UN said.

The SDF is currently flush-ing out the very last pockets ofland controlled by the jihadistsin the Euphrates River valley.

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US President Donald Trumpon Friday appeared to be

inching closer to imposing anational emergency that couldallow him to bypass Congress tofund a controversial wall alongthe US-Mexico border that hasled to a bitter political impasseand a 21-day government shut-down.

Trump has asked for USD5.6 billion from Congress to con-struct the border wall, which hesaid is crucial to stop the flow ofillegal immigrants and smug-gling of drugs into the country.

The Democrats have repeat-edly refused to approve anylegislation to fund the wall. Thestandoff led to the partial gov-ernment shutdown.

During his visit to the

southern border state Texas onThursday to push for the wallplan, Trump was asked if he iscloser to declaring an emergency-- an action that would likelyface legal challenges.

“We are. I would like to lookit broader. I think we could dothis quickly, because this iscommon sense and it’s notexpensive. We will save the costof the wall every year but muchmore than that,” the presidentsaid.

Trump had on Wednesdaysaid that imposing a nationalemergency is the last option andthreatened to use it if theDemocrats did not allocate USD5.7 billion funding for the wall.

The president’s inclinationtowards declaring a nationalemergency has gained momen-tum after he walked out of a

meeting with top Democraticleaders -- House Speaker NancyPelosi and Senate MinorityLeader Senator Chuck Schumer-- on Wednesday following theirrefusal to allocate funding.

During an interaction withmedia personnel in Texas onThursday, Trump said, “I wouldlike to do a much broader formof immigration, and we can doimmigration reform. It’ll takelonger. It’s been complex. It’s

been going on for 30-35 years,they’ve been talking aboutimmigration reform. But beforewe do that, we have to create abarrier. That we could do veryquickly.”

Contending strongly forconstruction of a barrier, con-crete or steel, along the southernborder with Mexico, the presi-dent has been claiming that ille-gal immigrants cause USD 250billion drain on the Americaneconomy. Republican leadersinsist the party stands behind thepresident, although someRepublican lawmakers have spo-ken out in favour of ending theshutdown.

The opposition Democrats,who are now in majority in theHouse of Representatives haverefused to support such a movearguing that building the wall isa waste of taxpayers’ money.

Referring to his meetingwith Reggie Singh, the brotherof Indian-origin policemanRonil Singh killed in Californiarecently allegedly by an illegalimmigrant during a borderpatro, Trump said, “Reggie, I gotto know him today a little bit.This shouldn’t be happening inour country.”

“This shouldn’t be happen-ing. And what you see of theborder, that’s not as much of aproblem as they (illegal immi-grants) come through the bor-der and they go out throughoutour nation,” Trump said.

“As hard as we work, and aswell as we’re doing nationwideon crime, a lot of it is caused bypeople that come in through thesouthern border. So, and youknow, if we had the barrier, itwouldn’t happen,” he toldreporters.

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European CommissionPresident Jean-Claude

Juncker said on Friday that “everyeffort” must be made to find away through the Brexit condun-drum ahead of a crucial vote nextweek by British lawmakers.

Prime Minister TheresaMay is facing defeat when MPsvote Tuesday on her draftdivorce deal, which has arousedfierce opposition from EU sup-porters and Brexit enthusiastsalike.

Brussels and London are in“constant” contact to see whatassurances the EU can give topersuade British MPs to backthe deal, Juncker said, but hereiterated the oft-repeated warn-ing that the deal struck inNovember is not up for rene-gotiation.

“We are in constant contact- the commission and myself -with 10 Downing Street and wewill see on Tuesday what con-clusions the British parliamentreaches on the texts that havebeen proposed,” Juncker said ata press conference in Bucharestto mark the start of Romania’sstint at the helm of the rotatingEU presidency.

“No deal would be a cata-strophe both for our Britishfriends and for continentalEuropeans, so every effort mustbe made between now andTuesday to bring this importantissue to a good conclusion.”May, under increasing pres-sure to rule out a “no-deal”Brexit, in which Britain crash-es out without an agreementwith the EU to ensure a smooth,orderly departure, on Thursdayrepeated her warning that theonly way to ensure this was toback her deal.

B r e x i t - s u p p o r t i n gConservative MPs are opposedto the deal, arguing it leaves thecountry too closely tied toEurope, and May has alreadypulled the vote once with defeatlooming. Asked about reports ofa letter to London offering assur-ances about the controversialIrish “backstop” arrangement,which has inflamed BrexiteerMPs, Juncker said he would notget into “speculation and guess-ing games”.

“We have said - both theEuropean Council and the com-mission in full harmony -- thatthere can be no renegotiation,but there can be clarifications,”Juncker said.

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Germany recognises its his-torical responsibility for

crimes committed by the Nazisin Greece, Chancellor AngelaMerkel said on Friday on herfirst visit to Athens since 2014.

“We recognise our histor-ical responsibility. We knowhow much suffering we, asGermany in the time ofNazism, have brought toGreece,” she said.

“That is why it’s a lesson forus to do everything to havegood relations with Greece,and to lend each other supportfor the prosperity of both coun-tries.” Tensions linger overwartime reparations for theWorld War II Nazi occupationof Greece, with Berlin arguing

the issue was settled in 1960 ina deal with several Europeangovernments.

In talks with PrimeMinister Alexis Tsipras afterher arrival on Thursday, Merkellauded the sacrifices Greeksmade during the country’s eco-nomic crisis of 2010-2014.

During her first visit to

Greece in 2014, Merkel facedmajor protests and sought toease tensions with Athenswhere Berlin was often blamedfor biting austerity and bailouts.

Also in 2014, ex-presidentJoachim Gauck sought publicforgiveness in the name ofGermany from relatives ofthose murdered by the Nazis inthe mountains of northernGreece.

Merkel was to hold talkswith conservative oppositionNew Democracy party leaderKyriakos Mitsotakis, an EUparliament ally of her ChristianDemocrats, and meet PresidentProkopis Pavlopoulos.

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Two Reuters journalists jailedfor seven years while inves-

tigating atrocities committedagainst the Rohingya inMyanmar had their appeal dis-missed on Friday, dismaying col-leagues and tearful family mem-bers who had held slim hopesthey would walk free.

Reporters Wa Lone, 32, andKyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrestedin Yangon in December 2017and later jailed for violating thestate secrets act, a charge Reuterssaid was trumped up to muzzletheir reporting.

Prosecutors say the two hadclassified information regardingsecurity operations in Rakhinestate, from where hundreds ofthousands of Rohingya Muslimsfled during an army-led crack-down the United Nations hasdescribed as “ethnic cleansing”.

Aung Naing, a judge at theYangon Regional High Court,said the original verdict was a“reasonable decision” deliveredin line with the law. “The courtdecides to dismiss the appeal,” hesaid. The reporters’ wives criedafter the decision, which con-demns the pair to continuetheir incarceration at Yangon’snotorious Insein prison, wherethey have been held for the last13 months.

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So working after Season One,what’s your experience likeworking on a very important

show? Did you learn anything dif-ferent? Do you feel any more pres-sure for the second season?Yeah, definitely, I feel like when youstart a project, when you start a show,there’s no way to know how it’s goingto be received. There’s no way toknow what it’s going to look like whenyou put it all together. It’s like you’rein a bubble, meaning that everyonethat’s working on the show thinks it’sgreat, but who knows how it’s goingto be received.

We knew we were doing some-thing important. We knew that wewanted to make something with a lotof integrity. But to have it released tothe world, and have them receive itin the way that they have, to haveeveryone talk about how timely theshow is... we definitely didn’t see allof that coming. I think for SeasonTwo, there’s a sense, at least for me,of a new-found responsibility to getthe story right. To make sure thatwe’re giving, you know, our audiencewhat they have come to know andlove about the show. And stay con-sistent with that.

And yeah, it does feel like a lit-tle more pressure, especially with allthe awards the show has received. It’slike guys, we got to do that again.

What do you think is the worstaspect of what Moira has to gothrough in Gilead? To be honest, I think coming from theperspective of my character, one ofthe things that is obviously horribleis the rape. But I think for Moira, andfor people, women who are gay, it isan affront that is indescribable andjust the worst thing that could everhappen to you. To be violated in thatway. Any woman, but of course, awomen who doesn’t even have inter-course with men by choice, I think it’sindescribably horrible. That’s what Ifeel is the most horrible thing for

Moira to go through.

Moira still picks Jezebels over thecolonies at some point. What areyour thoughts on that decision?I think that it’s this dichotomy ofwhat’s the lesser evil? And Moiraknows for a fact that if she goes to thecolonies she will die. She’s weighinggoing to the colonies, and you know,doing drugs every day, and drinkingalcohol and making herself complete-ly numb to it all.

In that moment she had to makea decision and, thank God she didbecause now she’s in Toronto.

Can we expect Moira to be inCanada in Season Two? Yes, Moira’s going to be there inSeason Two. I’ll tell you that much.She’s reunited with Luke. And theyhave to kind of form this makeshiftfamily, and move to a place inCanada called Little America.

She gets a job at the embassybecause she was so affected by thatmoment when she first got intoCanada and how much the embassyhelped her.

So she has in turn taken that andis helping refugees in the refugee cen-ter.

And when you think aboutMoira being a refugee, you thinkabout how wonderful that is. She’sescaped, and she’s in this new place.But, as a refugee, it’s also terriblebecause you don’t know the land.You’re not with your people. And it’sthis rollercoaster that I think we’regoing to see with her, the good andthe bad of being a refugee.

From misogyny to refugees, thisshow has a never ending list ofimportant topics. You’ve been inanother show that was also packedwith very important subjects. Thechoices you make as an actress, arethey politically motivated? You know, I wish that I could sit hereand tell you yes. But I think for meas an actor, the thing that pulls metoward projects is the heart of thecharacter. First and foremost, beforethe project, and of course the projectis very important itself. But for me,

in terms of what attracts me tosomething, is the heart of the char-acter. And what their essence is, whatthey’re fighting for. And just fromreading something, I say to myself, doI feel I can bring that person to life?

And if the answer is no, it’s goingto be too hard of a challenge then Idon’t want to do that because I feellike it’s a disservice to the actress coulddo a really good job. But I’ve beenreally, really lucky in terms of the pro-jects that I’ve been involved in, thatas you say, have been on the forefront

of people’s conscientiousness.

A major theme of the show is sur-vival. What do you think drivesMoira? How does she find thestrength to go, to escape? And howdo you bring life to the character? We always talk about nature versusnurture. And I think Moira’s natureis a person that’s just a bull dog. Likeshe’s a tough person, she’s got thatingrained in her.

In the scene, where she’s atJezebel’s and she’s been broken and

has the conversation with June, Ithink she comes back to herself in thatmoment, in that conversation withher best friend. June is able to say,basically where are you, where haveyou gone? This is not you. Don’t letthe bad people grind you down.

And I think in that moment shecomes back to herself and she realis-es, oh, I’m not a victim, or I don’t haveto be a victim.

I can be proactive and I can fig-ure out how to get out of here.

For me, in terms of bringing lifeto the character, I think a lot of thathas to do with all the things that makeher a minority. She’s black, she’s gay,she’s a woman. Me being all of thosethings in my life as Samira, I can tellyou that definitely influences the waythat I move through the world. So Ithink that’s one of the things that I canpoint to.

This is a very dark show but thetheme of empowerment is alsovery present. Do you feel that thereis a lot of hope in this story? Honestly, in the last episode of thefirst season, doing the escape scenewe had drones following me. I waslike, this is awesome. It’s was amoment of almost too much joy toeven take because Moira’s escaped toCanada. It is a story of survival. It isa story of perseverance. And I thinkthat a lot of times people focus onhow dark the show is but the messagethat we want to keep beating, theunder beat of the whole show, is thismessage of hope.

Were you proud or surprised when

you saw the pictures of peoplewearing Handmaid’s costumes atthe Women’s March? What wasyour feeling when you saw that? It was definitely surprising, in the bestway possible. You know when you’reworking on something, whatever it is,you always hope that it impactswhoever’s going to watch it. Whetherthat’s one person or a bunch of peo-ple. You want them to have a conver-sation they wouldn’t have had other-wise. I want people to think aboutsomething they wouldn’t havethought about without seeing the pro-ject.

So to see that, and to see how theshow has impacted the whole world,and also Hillary Clinton quoted theshow... all of those things are veryoverwhelming and also very hum-bling to know that something thatyou’re doing is out there in people’sconsciousness.

You’ve been in shows that arevery female-driven. Do you thinkplacing women behind the cameraas well as in front of the cameramakes television more relevant andactually more interesting? Yes, I’ve been really blessed to be onThe Handmaid’s Tale and Orange isthe New Black, to be surrounded byso many women in power... thewomen in the cast, the directors. Evenin The Handmaid’s Tale last season,every single director we had was awoman, except for one.

I do feel really naive and lucky tobe in this position because I haven’tbeen surrounded by a bunch ofmen. And I do think that is complete-ly a reflection of the time that I amworking in. You know, thank Godthat I am working in this time. I thinkit’s our job really as artists to reflectthe time that we are living in so thatpeople can look back and say that wasgoing on.

(Watch Handmaid’s Tale Season 2 every Monday at 10 pm

on AXN.)

Idid cheat in myEconomics exams. I hadan invigilator who letthe entire class cheat. Iam not proud of that,”

says actor Emraan Hashmiwith great candour. He is inthe capital to promote hisfilm, Why Cheat India,and unlike many from thefraternity who prefer to bepolitically correct, the 39-year-old’s no-holds-barreddiscussion is certainly wel-

come. Nothing is off limits,whether it is nepotism or his

child’s battle with illness oreven a political gaffe (deliber-

ate or otherwise about one‘Modi’ being the biggest cheater,

which he later clarified as beingNirav) that he made at a recent

press conference. “I don’t mince words. Over the

course of the year, I have learnt somuch about what is wrong witheducation in the country that itenrages me. So much can be doneand should have been done but isnot being attended to,” he says andgoes on to talk about how only aminuscule amount of the GDP,about 2-3 per cent, is beingploughed back into education as

compared to other countries whereit is as high as 25 per cent. He elabo-

rates, “When you do not have enoughmoney to pump into the education sector,

you don’t get qualified teachers or goodschools. Then at the University level, thereare not enough seats and the justification thatis given is that unless you get a 98 per centyou cannot get a seat in college. Even if youare a 90 per cent holder, you will still be a fail-ure. But the reason is that there are notenough seats,” he says. It was while research-ing for the movie that he learnt how the cheat-ing mafia in different states is eroding andeating the system. “As it is, there is 60 per centreservation — 50 per cent for the lower casteand 10 per cent for the economically weakupper caste. Of the minuscule per cent left,the cheating mafia is spreading its net overthat too. So where do the deserving studentsgo? The systems promises that you can be

what you want to be. If you work hard, youwill get dividends. But you see jobless peo-ple and kids committing suicide,” says theactor.

It is not as if he is just critical. Emraandoes have ideas on a system that could bemore holistic and inclusive and enable a childto develop to his full potential. “Universitiesmight move out of the brick and mortarbuilding. They are now in the internet as onecan get more information there rather thansitting for eight hours in the class where youare told facts that are of no use. Everythingis a click away. In the school and college ofthe future, you can learn from the comfortof your home. And at the physical building,there can be case studies, projects and dis-cussions rather than sitting like a robot in aclassroom. Children need to learn things thathave real world application — communica-tion skills, emotions, responsibility, discipline,managing your mind that comes in thedomain of spirituality. Do you know the aver-age depression age is 15? It is alarming,” saysthe actor.

There is no hint of the swagger that wascommon in his earlier movies. Emraan comesacross as an ordinary person who just hap-pens to work on the big screen. Talking abouthis course of action, he elaborates further andsays, “It is not necessary that I will only dosocially-relevant films. But there is essential-ly a departure from the kind of things thatI was doing. I have changed as an actor dur-ing the past 18 years that I have been in theindustry because of life experiences, matu-rity and the evolution of my craft. From 10kisses in a film, I am down to one and thatis some progress,” he laughs hinting at themoniker of ‘kissing star” on account of thecontent of his films like Murder, AashiqBanaya Aapne and more.

But there has been an attempt to breakout of that image, he believes, successfully.“Once you do another genre, it is a step inthe right direction. I couldn’t do that for therest of my life. A 45-year-old snogging witha 20 something. How sick is that? Of course,I couldn’t do it overnight for it is a gradualprocess,” says the actor dressed in a tan jack-et and matching shoes paired with jeans andblack-rimmed glasses.

Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai was one ofthe seminal movies that set him on the paththat he is trying to chart out. “It gave me what

10 blockbusters couldn’t even though it wasnot a hit. It gave me a perspective that I couldplay a characters in films rather than the star,”which was a revelation to him as at that point.He goes on to explain the difference betweenthe two. “A star means that you change andadapt the script to suit your star quotient butan actor is someone who adapts to fit intothe script. That is what the film did and itpaid huge dividends. A huge section of thecinema-going audience, which was slightlymore evolved, felt that he can act.”

The winds of change had started blow-ing and have come to a head. “There is achange in content which is helping everyoneas one can engage with a lot more creativematerial than was done 10 years ago. Youcouldn’t have made Why Cheat India 10 yearsback because either it would not have beenmade or it would not be a box office success,”he says.

He feels that the film is like starting afresheven if it does not make big money. “I knowthat it will build on the fresh different per-sona of myself,” he says.

Not just in himself, he also wants achange in the way films are classified. “I firm-ly believe that films should not be slotted onthe basis of budget but on the basis of the idea.The big films should be the ones which havethe bigger ideas. This year a lot of big bud-get films did not do well,” he says, drivinghome the point.

The change is also evident in him turn-ing producer with the film. “I have seen theprocess from its infancy, starting with thestory, script, screenplay right to marketing.While it does not help in the craft of acting,it does give you a bird’s eye view of where thefilm is going. If it starts raining then we need

to figure out how to finish the shoot withina given time. You are a part of the entire deci-sion-making process and you are not limit-ed to your performance on screen,” he says.

Having started the process, he hasdecided to start producing more films. Nextone up is Father’s Day, which is starting inMay, and another by the end of this year. Hewill also be seen in Body, directed by JeethuJoseph, the director of Malyalam Drishyam,which co stars Rishi Kapoor and two freshfaces. He will also be seen in Bard of Blood,a Netflix show which should be out in August.It is based on on a book of the same name.“It is about an English literature teacher whoteaches Shakespeare and is an ex spy. He isthrown back into the battlefield and goes toBalochistan to rescue agents,” he divulges.

Talking of web content, he agrees,“There is better content as the audience hasevolved because of the many diverse influ-ences. This keeps us on our toes and makesus test our creativity because we cannot takethe audience for granted. There are a lot moreoptions including cinema, OTT platforms,TV and YouTube. It has become a con-sumers’ market now. Films with stars crashedlast year as mediocre content and shoddy sto-ries don’t work,” he says.

For making better content and charac-ters that are more evolved involves a lot moreresearch than goes into playing a lover boyor an action hero. For Why Cheat India, heresearched a lot as it factually based on a sys-tem. “I spoke on the phone to a lot of peo-ple who are a part of the cheating mafia tounderstand how it works and is organised.They refused to identify themselves but I triedto understand their take on education andif they are looking for a justification for doingwhat they were doing. I had to completelyimmerse myself,” he says.

He goes on to add that the tonality of thefilm is very realistic. “In that sense, it is adeparture from my earlier work. It is like youhave placed a camera in a home in Lucknowor in a college where you see these charac-ters come alive. We will pull you into thisworld and hopefully teach you how cheat-ing works,” he says.

Coming back to the film, it ran into trou-ble with its initial name of Cheat India. “Idon’t look for logic. The Censor Board looksat the negative connotation without lookingat the overall context of the movie and the

perspective it has on scams and cheating. Itis in a pathetic state. I often call it the ‘sense-less censor board’”, he says.

Arguing his case further, he points to afilm like Simmba which had a UA certifica-tion. “Children can watch this film whichtalks about rape and putting cocaine in aschool child’s bag with parental supervision.A 13-year-old might understand it but aseven-year-old might not. Why can’t theymake it more elaborate and change it withmore grades,” he says, shrugs and adds, “ButI don’t know if it is effective because what isPG 13 or PG 15 by their logic might notwork.”

Talking about children, one can’t help buttalk about Emraan’s boy who battled and suc-cessfully overcame cancer. “It is very tough.It is more palatable to hear that you have anillness but when you hear that a three year10 month-old-kid has that illness, it shattersyou,” he says. While they battled cancer as afamily, there was learning involved. “It is closeto five years. We lied to him as we had to takehim to the hospital. We realised only whenwe took him for treatment to Canada that weshould have told him that there is a mon-ster in his body and that we need to fight it.We could have used that narrative and addeda philosophical aspect to it,” he says. Emraanwrote a book, Kiss of Life about how to fightthe disease effectively which he hopes wouldhelp anyone fighting cancer.

Talking of his child also brings us to thequestion of nepotism in the industry. Heagrees that he would not have been in theindustry had he not been related to MaheshBhatt. “On the flip side, you still have to workhard. The family can’t make you work as onlythe audience can. It is their acceptance thatgoverns if you will be a star or you will bechucked out. It is that which makes or breaksyou. On the other hand people expect a lotfrom actors who have successful fathers andif they can’t match up, they are overshadowedby legacy,” he says.

Emraan acted in about 20-25 advertise-ments as a child for brands like GoodnightRasna, Bournvita and more in the eighties.“I was trying to get hold of the material toput on my website but it was all damaged. Igot pushed into acing later and took it as asummer job and things happened. I was anaccidental actor!” he says with a laugh andwalks off. (The film releases on January 18.)

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Why did you only choose ErichKästner’s Emil and the Detectivesfor your direction?

This production is Slingsby’s seventh.Previously, we have adapted a GrimmBrother story (The Mouse, The Bird and theSausage), an Oscar Wilde story (The YoungKing) and created four completely originalworks including an opera. I was first attract-ed to the story of Emil and the Detectivesbecause it is often referenced by great con-temporary children’s authors like PhilipPullman as a real point of inspiration forthem. The story is a great adventure forchildren and families but it also has somedark, truthful moments about the world welive in. The story is very honest for childrenabout the wonder and strangeness of life.This mirrors Slingsby’s approach to mak-ing theatre for an audience that includeschildren and adults.

Slingsby is particularly interested inbringing ‘coming of age’ or ‘getting wise’ sto-ries to the stage. We find that these storiesoften have the power of being immediate-ly relatable to our multi-generational audi-ence (aged eight+ including adults attend-ing on their own and in groups) as well asbeing philosophical enough to be open toinfinite interpretation.

When I read Erich Kästner’s Emil andthe Detectives, I was excited by the wayKästner presents a world filled with goodas well as flawed people. Even though thisis a story for children, he had presented acomplex world where happiness and sad-ness co-exist. This really struck a chord withwhat we are trying to explore with Slingsby’swork. To show that there is darkness in theworld — but that it serves to make the lightmoments even brighter and more wonder-ful.

What was the challenge in setting up andcreating an atmosphere of the late 1920sfor the stage? How have you transformedthe play to suit to the current generation?The design of our production is inspiredby several leading Australian visual artistsof the 1930s, including John Brack andCharles Blackman. These artistes emigrat-ed from Europe to Australia — in much thesame way the story did. Using theseartistes as inspiration gives the productiona distinctly Australian look and feel witha European heritage.

What goes into transforming a writtenplay into a stage performance?Each new show has its own discoveries —we continue to explore new ways to workas a team and to refine our theatre mak-ing process. The starting point for a newSlingsby show is an image, an idea or a storythat moves me. Something that I feel is epicenough to have a universal appeal acrossa wide age range. We need to find a storyor an idea that has enough at risk for us toreally care about and identify with the char-acter in a high stakes way. Theatre is a com-pressed moment in time. For us to really

engage with a story, it must in some wayaddress an anxiety deep within us. This iswhy coming-of-age stories are so potent forus. As humans we are constantly evolvinginto a new phase of our lives, leaving partof our old selves behind and forging newgrounds.

Once I have selected a book, an imageor an idea to adapt to the stage, we bringtogether a team of artists to forge a looseidea into a new theatre production. Theprocess for each of our seven productionshas varied but for the last two shows (TheYoung King and Emil and the Detectives) wehave commenced our development with aprocess we call ‘Paths Less Travelled’.This ‘theatre laboratory’ brings together ourcore team, Quincy Grant, Geoff Cobhamand Wendy Todd along with one or moreactors and sometimes a writer and otherdesign collaborators. Through this two-week-long process, we experiment with thetheatrical possibilities of the story orimage. We really try to discover a new wayto share this with an audience and dig intothe philosophy of the piece. Through this,we hope to find failure as well as success.This is where we can take real risks. Theaim of this process is to push theatricalform and find new ways to share time and

space with our audience.In the final stages of this process, we

will often invite our ‘critical appraisalgroup’ to see the very early period of thiswork in development. It is a small groupof peers and individuals that we respect andare confident in their ability to provide anoutside eye to the development of each newshow. This group will generally include aBoard Director of Slingsby, a theatremaker, an educator and from time to timea young audience member. This group willsee showings at various stages of the mak-ing of a new work and the final production— meeting with me at each stage to offerinsights and feedback and to ask questionsof me and for me to ask questions of them.

The next phase of development willoften include commissioning a playwrightto write a script informed by the initial idea,image or story along with the discoveriesfrom the ‘Paths Less Travelled’ process.

Following the first few drafts of thescript, we will undertake a second creativedevelopment with the cast — often involv-ing a reading of the script to a young audi-ence — to gauge their interest in the storyand the language of the piece. This secondstage development will always includeQuincy Grant as composer, joining us in

the room to contribute ideas and music asthe piece develops. The scoring is forgedas the piece is being blocked. There is thena constant dance and conversation betweentext, music and image as we make the work.This second stage of development can varyin duration between three days to twoweeks — depending on budget, artistavailability and how ambitious we are beingwith the form of the piece. Geoff Cobhamand Wendy Todd (and other design cre-atives) are always welcome in the room dur-ing this phase and collaborate equally in avery open and integrated way. As a teamwe are all trying to find the best and mostimpactful and interesting way to stage eachmoment.

Where possible, we try to bring pro-duction and design elements into theroom as early as possible – with ideas beinggenerated and refined throughout theprocess. This differs from some otherprocesses where the design may be setbefore rehearsals begin.

The final rehearsal phase for our pro-ductions is when all of the elements cometogether, final design and Geoff Cobham’slighting are the culminating pieces to thepuzzle. It is in this final process that QuincyGrant will coordinate the recording of his

score and the integration of that into showcontrol. The final stage is balancing all ofthese elements. Meticulous attention isgiven to balancing sound, image, text andlive performance. This is when a newSlingsby show is born. The audience is thefinal and most important ingredient. Witheach successive one our understanding ofthe show grows and we continue to refinethe production after each performance.Even with The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy,which we have performed, well over 250times we still refine moments followingevery performance. Perfection is ephemer-al if not an illusion.

Emil’s character is very young. How didyou script the role in such a way that peo-ple find it relatable?As soon as I decided to adapt Kästner’sstory, I decided I wanted to cast ElizabethHay. It was because I feel that the charac-ter of Emil is a hero and that the genderof the character is not relevant. This is achild’s story of discovery and not a boy’s ora girl’s — simply a child’s. Emil’s gender isnever mentioned. I hope this allows bothboys and girls to identify with the charac-ter. Elizabeth is a wonderful actor and hasthe ability to convey the wide-eyed inno-

cence wonderfully. She is an adult (we area touring company so it is very difficult totour with child artists) but is able toembody that discovery of the world with-out overplaying it. And it is more aboutplaying the character and not the age.

Are there any particular additions thatyou have made in your script to suit theIndian audience? We keep our focus on the audience. Wehave not adapted anything specifically forIndia. I believe that the audience is simi-lar across the world. We have toured 11other countries and have had similarresponses wherever we tour. We are veryexcited to be in India for the first time.

The play is a funny as well as a smart storyabout how a group of children finds theirway. Given its universality, how did youend up choosing costumes and craftingdialogues? Often is it the action and the fun of a sit-uation that makes an audience laugh, ratherthan just the dialogues or jokes. The showhas a lot of physical action — children andadults often find this to be a lot of fun. Wehave not modernised the story at all, we stillrefer to and use rotary telephones and thedesign is inspired by the 1930s. We find thatthe young audience really enjoy being invit-ed into a world that is strange, mysteriousand new to them but full of details. If thestory is relevant to their emotional lives, itholds their attention.

Are there any particular literary plays orplaywrights that you take inspirationfrom? For this production, I have been veryinspired by Hitchcock and Buster Keaton.We began by trying to tell this story with-out any words, but we discovered that westill needed narration and some dialoguesto drive the story forward. However, muchof it is non-verbal.

Anything that you ideally look for in aplay and try to incorporate in yours aswell? It’s great to see the audience moved emo-tionally by our performances. I also try tomake that happen. I want Emil and theDetectives to be fun and full of laughs butat the same time want the people to pos-sibly relate to the sadness and perhaps sheda small tear. If something like that happensthrough a theatre performance, it surelyimplies that we are watching somethingimportant.

I want to give the people a surprisingand delightful experience, and somethingthat moves them. And through this, I wantthem to feel connected to each other, to ourproduction and to have developed a greaterempathy for each other. The play is all aboutmeeting people, becoming a community,and being there to support each other.

(The play will be staged on January 13at Siri Fort Auditorium.)

Even though music is some-thing that doesn’t need an ini-tial push, it just comes from

within. For British-Indian singer-songwriter, Reshrich, the greatIndian heritage plays a huge role inproviding him the right inspirationfor his music. The singer, whosefather originally hails from India,hopes to capitalise on the trendamong Indian composers to exper-iment with the Western culture andsonics.

The singer, who has had two hitreleases previous year and is readywith a third offering, believes thatIndia is at a point where music sce-nario is really diverse and people areslowly moving away from the tra-ditional sounds and are experiment-ing more with the Western culture.

So, is the current youth driftingmore towards rap and pop music?Has the traditional music lost itscharm over the years? He says, “Idon’t believe that it has lost itscharm, classical music inBollywood, or music from the 80s,90s will always be an inspiration fortoday’s music industry, in bothWestern and Indian society.However, if viewed from the busi-ness perspective, the demand forclassical music has declined over theyears, especially among the youth,due to which there is an increase indemand for pop and rap musicamong the youth.”

He believes that this causes con-tent creators like producers, song-writers and artists to want to caterto that kind of market and make rapor pop music more than other clas-sical forms.

For Reshrich, the journey of

making his way to the global musicindustry wasn’t an easy one. Hebelieves that it takes “a lot of dedi-cation and patience” to learn andgrow as an artist and for other peo-ple to recognise and notice thepotential.

He feels that it is important forevery artist to connect with thewider audience to grow.“Commercial music is a great wayfor artists to get their name into thepublic. Constantly being in a nicheas an artist will not allow someoneto grow and connect with a wideraudience. It’s also a great way forthem to experiment with bringingtheir niche sound to the public andby doing so develop better versionsof themselves and their sounds.”

The singer says that he isquite open to accepting offersfrom Bollywood. He says, “I’veloved the industry since my child-hood. I have always seen my

grandparents listening to it in thehouse.”

The “mostly self-taught” artistsays that his recently-releasedtracks have been inspired fromthe “sounds that I like and vibewith when I’m in the studio withthe producers. I don’t like tocopy other artists or rip off a tune,I just make music that I enjoybecause I know, originality iswhat makes it the best. I believeit will also my listeners enjoy it.”

He adds, “Music is a trial anderror journey that an artist has togo through.”

When his forthcoming work,Gasoline, is released, he believes, itwill make people realise the direc-tion he his headed towards.

He says, “It’s going to be matur-er than before , both in terms ofmusic and visual. So when it comesout next year, people will be sur-prised.” He explains that the songshows how in a fruitful and truerelationship, there’s no need to goanywhere else or seek for otherthings for inspiration.

The singer, who was featured inBBC Asian for his previous hits —Buy Me love and Moonlight — feelsthat making his first two singles hasbeen a very different and an inspir-ing journey for him.

He says that while makingBuy Me Love, he wanted to createsong that would combine andexperiment with tablas and theIndian vocals to give a “tradition-al touch.”

He says that he has beeninspired by musicians like EdSheeran, Arijit Singh, Enrique andDrake the most.

For decades, India-Pakistan rela-tion has followed a set patternof diplomacy. After every major

terror strike, both the countries startthe blame game. Almost two yearsago the moment of reckoningarrived when special commandos ofIndian Army crossed the Line ofControl (LoC) to hit targets inPakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Surgical strikes require not justdetailed and exhaustive planning butneed to be carried out with absoluteprecision to achieve the objective oftaking down targets. The film Uri:The Surgical Strike starring YamiGautam as an intelligence officerdepicts the Uri attack that had ledto widespread anger against terror.

The film follows the one carriedby the Indian army against Pakistanafter the latter attacked the IndianArmy camp at Uri.

The surgical strike stunnedPakistan and before it could evenunderstand what happened in itsown backyard, the Indian Army’sspecial commandos had come backto their side of the LoC.

So when asked Yami, How didshe manage to get in the characterof the skin as this the first time sheportrays something like this on

screen, she says, “I asked Aditya(Dhar), what should I do to get com-pletely into the role? Should I watchsomething? He said, you just have tobe real Yami, you have to find thecharacter within you. So it’s betterif you rely on your own instincts.Intelligence officers are absolutelyreal and unpretentious. You won’teven get a single hint if an intelli-gence officer is sitting next you, theyare that real. Their identities are clas-sified. My excitement was onaccount of the subject of the filmwhich was reasonable and sensible.Another thing that attracted me wasthat Aditya told me that he wanted

to make a movie which not onlyinterests the audience but also ofwhich the Indian Army is proud of.”She also says that as an intelligenceofficer, it’s her job, to foresee theunseen. It was an interestingapproach for Yami as an actor,because she had to be natural whenit came to expressions and dialoguedelivery. She says, “The whole ideawas to keep it as real as possible.”

Yami shares that this is the filmvery close to her heart, not just asan actor, but also as the citizen ofIndia. She says, “I absolutely love mycharacter, I play a pivotal role in theentire operation. And the surgical

strikes are definitely one of the mostimportant events in the history ofthe Indian Army. Because it is thefirst time we took such an initiativeand it is also one of the most bril-liantly planned and coordinatedattacks and that is why I think it’svital for every individual be it achild, to know what actually hap-pened.”

The film shows what it means tostep into the army men’s shoes, whoare ready to take a bullet for us. Yamiinterestingly shares an incident ofwhich she’s proud of, “When wescreened the film for the IndianArmy, an officer came to me andsaid ‘we really loved the film, the wayit’s written as well as executed it’sreally commendable.’ He praised meby saying that my acting matchedthat of an intelligence officer’sdemeanour. And that it appeared tobe exactly the way they are in reallife. Getting a compliment from suchdignitaries meant the world to me.”

The Indian Armed Forces areselflessly guarding the borders andmake so many sacrifices for us. Shesees Uri as a very small and hum-ble way to pay tribute to the IndianArmy.

Ask Yami, how did she under-stand the incident better after doingthe film, she says, “When the Uriattack happened, I was just aware asas any layperson. Back then I did-n’t even know the meaning of sur-gical strikes properly. So when Iread the script, it gave me an insideout of what actually happened andwhat our soldiers have gonethrough. I remember that there wasonly one sentiment that everybodywas angry, everybody was hurt as anIndian. The way this attack was car-ried out on our soldiers, who weresleeping at that time was really verybad.”

“Patriotism cannot be shownonly on two particular dates; itneeds to go beyond that. I feel cin-ema, in that way, is a very power-ful tool and can successfully influ-ence young minds,” adds she.

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Stressing that India has the poten-tial to win and enter the knock-

outs, football coach StephenConstantine on Friday said the teamneeds to get its act together aheadof the clash with Bahrain in theAFC Asian Cup.

India went down to hostsUnited Arab Emirates 0-2 in theirsecond group stage match after theyhad defeated Thailand in theiropening game.

"We have to pick ourselves upand get ready for the next game. Weneed to aim for a win and get some-thing from that game. Hopefully, wecan get the result to qualify,"Constantine said.

India face Bahrain on Mondayin their final group stage match anda victory will ensure the Blue Tigersa spot in the Round of 16.

Talismanic striker Sunil Chhetri

also echoed Constantine's words."We are still in the running. We

are ready to face Bahrain. As a team,we are united. We are ready to fight.That's our game plan againstBahrain," Chhetri said.

Against UAE, the Indians

missed several opportunities, hit-ting the bar twice and eventuallygoing down 0-2.

Referring to the last match,Constantine explained: "I said tothe boys you did not lose this game.You have shown what you are

capable of. Even they(UAE players) were sur-prised and did notbelieve that we werethis good."

"We are only goingto get better with these

kinds of games. The team has anaverage age of 25. The players willget only better from here. We hadfour clear chances to score but UAEscored with the half chance theyhad," he said.

Skipper Chhetri added: "It wasa tight game. If we could have takenour chances it could have been dif-ferent. UAE are a good side, andthey converted their chances."

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Atearful Andy Murray onFriday announced he wouldlikely retire this year due to

severe pain from a hip injury, sayingnext week's Australian Open couldbe the last tournament of a glitter-ing career.

The former world number oneand three-time Grand Slam winnerbroke down at a press conference inMelbourne as he said the pain hadbecome almost unbearable.

"I can play with limitations. Buthaving the limitations and the painis not allowing me to enjoy com-peting or training," the emotionalScot said.

Thirty-one-year-old "Sir Andy"said he would like to finish at hishome Grand Slam in Wimbledon,but ruefully admitted he might notmake it that far.

He will be remembered as thefirst British man to win Wimbledonin 77 years and as a player who bat-tled his way to the top in a goldenera for the game alongside RogerFederer, Novak Djokovic and RafaelNadal.

"Wimbledon is where I wouldlike to stop playing, but I am not cer-

tain I am able to do that," he said."I've been struggling for a long

time. I'm not sure I can play throughthe pain for another four or fivemonths.

"Pretty much done everythingthat I could to try and get my hipfeeling better and it hasn't helpedloads." He pulled out of last year'sAustralian Open to have hip surgeryand only returned in June at Queen'sClub in London.

He ended the season atShenzhen in September after only ahandful of appearances to concen-trate on working his way back to fullfitness.

But he was knocked out in thesecond round on his return atBrisbane last week and called it quitson Thursday after less than an hourof a practice match in Melbourneagainst Djokovic, with his movementclearly hampered.

"I think there is a chance theAustralian Open is my last tourna-ment," he said. While he intends tobegin his opening-round matchagainst 22nd seed Roberto BautistaAgut next week, how his body with-stands potentially gruelling five-setclashes in energy-sapping heatremains to be seen.

"I'm going to play. I can still play toa level, not a level I'm happy playing at,"he said.

"���������������!�GOne of the so-called Big Four,

along with Federer, Djokovic and Nadal,who have dominated the game for years,Murray's ranking has slumped to 230.

He hasn't reached a Grand Slamfinal since winning his secondWimbledon title in 2016, but has nev-ertheless enjoyed a glittering career sinceturning professional in 2005, with notonly three Grand Slam titles, but twoOlympic Gold medals and 45 ATPcrowns.

Notably, in 2013 Murray becamethe first British man to win Wimbledonfor 77 years, ending the nation's obses-sion with finding a champion to followin the footsteps of Fred Perry.

Top Australian coach Darren Cahill,who until recently was mentoringworld number one Simona Halep, said

Murray was an example of the never-say-die attitude that separated the bestfrom the average.

"When you search for examples of'emptied the bucket to be as good as theycould be' there should be a picture ofAndy Murray sitting under that quote,"he tweeted.

"Remarkable discipline for training,competition, sacrifice, perfection, a lit-tle crazy but a legend of a bloke." Formerstar Andy Roddick also paid tribute onTwitter.

"I tip my cap to @andy_murray!Absolute legend. Short list of best tac-ticians in history. Unreal results in a bru-tal era. Nothing but respect here. I hopehe can finish strong and healthy," hesaid.

Murray said he had an option ofanother operation on his troublesomehip, but it was more about his qualityof life after hanging up his racquet.

"That's something I'm seriouslyconsidering right now," he said.

���������� Outlining hisgrowth as a player, a consistentPrajnesh Gunneswaran sealedhis maiden appearance in the main draw of aGrand Slam by qualifying for the AustralianOpen men's singles event here on Friday.

The 29-year-old from Chennai came frombehind to beat Japan's Yosuke Watanuki 6-7(5),6-4, 6-4 in the third and final qualifying round.

Prajnesh is only third Indian in five yearsto feature in the men's singles main draw of aGrand Slam, the other being SomdevDevvarman and Yuki Bhambri.

While Yuki played in all four Grand Slamsin 2018 before a knee injury cut short his sea-son, Somdev, who is now retired, last played atthe 2013 US Open.

"It's obviously huge for me. First time everin a Grand Slam main draw, something I havealways dreamt of. I am really happy, don't havewords to describe it but it's big deal for sure,"Prajnesh said.

"I am very proud that I stuck to it and putin all this work. I got here much later than mostpeople do. I had the tennis to reach here, nowjust need to rest and recover for the main draw,"Prajnesh added.

Prajnesh will open his campaign Americanworld number 39 Frances Tiafoe and if hecrosses the opening hurdle, he is likely to facefifth seed and Wimbledon finalist KevinAnderson. PTI

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Barcelona could not overcomethe absence of Lionel Messi

and other regular starters onThursday, losing 2-1 at Levante inthe first leg of the Copa del Rey'sround of 16.

Barcelona's second-stringersstruggled from the start inValencia, escaping an even greaterdefeat only because Levante's for-wards squandered some clearscoring chances.

The return game is nextThursday at Camp Nou Stadiumin Barcelona, when the four-time defendingchampion is expected to have some of its startersback in action after they were rested this week.

Levante took the lead early with a close-rangeheader by Uruguayan defender Erick Cabaco inthe third minute, and striker Borja Mayoral scoredthe second goal with a low cross shot in the 18th.

The hosts kept threateningthroughout the match, takingadvantage of a Barcelona defensethat was without Gerard Pique andJordi Alba. Newly signedColombian player Jeison Murillowas making his club debut in cen-tral defense.

Without Messi and Luis Suarezin attack, the Catalan club had dif-ficulties creating scoring opportu-nities. The trio of PhilippeCoutinho, Ousmane Dembele andMalcom was largely ineffective,and the team's lone goal came latewith a penalty kick converted by

Coutinho in the 85th after substitute DenisSuarez got past a defender and was fouled insidethe area.

"In the second leg hopefully we will takeadvantage of Coutinho's goal," Murillo said.

Barcelona routed Levante 5-0 in Valencia ina league match in December.

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New Zealand-raised BritonCameron Norrie and

American Tennys Sandgrenwill contest the ATP AucklandClassic title after winningtheir semi-finals in contrast-ing fashion on Friday.

Norrie outlastedGermany's Jan-Lennard Struffin a three-set battle of the bigservers 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 whileSandgren comfortably hadthe measure of PhilippKohlschreiber 6-4, 6-2.

Sandgren and Norrie haveplayed each other six times inthe past, with Norrie winningfour of their encounters.

"Three times in a row hebeat me. In consecutive tour-naments in the fall of 2017,which wasn't a lot of fun,"Sandgren recalled.

Norrie, who was born inSouth Africa and raised inNew Zealand before movingto Britain, broke Struff at 6-5to take the first set.

Struff took the early ini-tiative in the second set, withNorrie dropping a serve forthe first time this week.

There was a further ser-vice break each before Struffheld on to take the set.

However, Norrie was notto be denied in the decider ashe raced to a 3-0 lead andstayed in control from there.

Even when a touch ofnerves while serving at 5-3saw him down 0-30 he wasable to steady himself to takethe match.

Sandgren, ranked 63 inthe world and the last playeraccepted into the main drawof the tournament, picked upa deciding break early in eachset against the 34th-rankedKohlschreiber and was neverunder pressure.

Kohlschreiber managedto save two match points at 2-5 in the second set before los-ing the match with a doublefault.

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Australia's Ashleigh Bartyclaimed another top 10

scalp to power into the SydneyInternational final on Friday,while veteran Andreas Seppiupset third seed DiegoSchwartzman to reach themen's decider.

The 22-year-old Barty ison a hot run, stretching herunbeaten streak to sevenmatches dating back to hercareer's biggest title at theWTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai.

She is one of the formplayers heading into theAustralian Open next week,but had to dig deep to scram-ble past world number nineand seventh seed Kiki Bertens(6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 7-5).

Her reward is a clash witheither 2015 champion PetraKvitova, who beat Belarusianqualifier AliaksandraSasnovich 6-1, 6-2 in the othersemifinal.

Barty had already account-ed for world number oneSimona Halep and formerFrench Open champion JelenaOstapenko before beating 10thseeded Belgian Elise Mertensin the quarter-finals.

She came into the matchwith the advantage of havingtwice beaten Dutch starBertens previously, including

as recently as last Augustin Montreal.

Seppi edged pastSchwartzman 7-6 (7/3),6-4, a day after derailingthe hopes of top seedStefanos Tsitsipas, prov-ing he still has what it takes atage 34.

The Italian, seeded eight,had made three previous semi-finals in Sydney — the first wayback in 2006. But he hadnever gone further and wasdelighted to get a crack atanother ATP title to add tothree he already owns.

"It was never easy, he is agreat fighter and makes youplay a lot of balls and you haveto run a lot," said Seppi of theArgentinian. "But I played a

good match today andwas happy to close it out.

"I'm trying to keepworking hard and Ialways play well inAustralia. My last finalwas in 2015, so excited

to be on another one," headded.

Australia has been a happyhunting ground for Seppi.

As well as his deep runs inSydney, he has a trio of round-of-16 appearances at theAustralian Open, when hepulled off upsets against MarinCilic in 2013, Roger Federer in2015 and Nick Kyrgios in 2017

He will play either excitingyoung Australian Alex deMinaur or veteran French starGilles Simon in the final.

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Hit hard by an unexpected con-troversy after the high of theTest triumph, India will look

to fine tune their World Cup prepa-rations in the three-match ODI seriesagainst an under-fire Australia, begin-ning here on Saturday.

On the eve of the opening game,the BCCI suspended Hardik Pandyaand K L Rahul pending an inquiry fortheir unsavoury remarks on womenduring a TV show, effectively rulingthem out of the series.

While Pandya was a certainty inthe playing XI, an out-of-form Rahulwas not in contention to play onSaturday.

Pandya's presence as the all-rounder provides crucial balance tothe ODI side with his ability to bowl10 overs as well as bat in the middleorder.

Pandya's absence means that Indiawill have to rejig their attack. JaspritBumrah has already been rested forthis series, as well as the tour of NewZealand, and this allows the think-tank to conduct one final experimentwith their bowling attack.Bhuvneshwar Kumar is a shoe-in, andthereafter it depends if Kohli wants togo in with a three-man pace attack tocompensate for Pandya's loss.

In such a scenario, MohammedShami and Khaleel Ahmed are expect-ed to get the nod, as India continuezeroing on the pace quartet for theWorld Cup squad. There is a sprin-kling of grass on the SCG pitch andit could push the Indian skipper to optfor a three-pacer and two-spinnercombination.

Kohli also stated that, in Pandya'sabsence, Ravindra Jadeja would stepup as the all-rounder. He would part-ner up with left-arm wrist spinnerKuldeep Yadav as India's five-prongedattack, with Kedar Jadhav fulfilling anypart-time bowling duties if needed.

With the two openers, and Kohliat number three, the remaining bat-ting line-up picks itself. Jadhav, MSDhoni and Ambati Rayudu will formthe middle order, and there will bekeen interest in the latter duo's formhere.

Dhoni had an off-colour 2018,managing 275 runs in 20 ODIs ataverage 25 without a half-century.While this is a meagre return for abatsman of his stature, the worryingaspect is Dhoni's strike-rate of 71.42,which is remarkably lower than hisODI career strike-rate of 87.89.

India brought in Rayudu for theall-important number four role, andsince the Asia Cup last September,have given him a long run in the mid-dle order. In this interim, Rayuduscored 392 runs in 11 ODIs in the AsiaCup and against West Indies at aver-age 56 including a hundred and threehalf-centuries.

While he put in a more consistentshowing than any of the other previ-ously tried contenders, this run camein conditions different from those inEngland. As such, how Rayudu fareson this twin tour of Australia and NewZealand will be a closer representationof whether the Indian team has final-ly cracked the number four quandary.

India's ODI record in Australia isquite poor. Apart from the 1985

World Championship and 2008 CBSeries wins, they have lost 35 out of48 ODIs played against Australia ontheir home soil.

The absence of David Warner(220 runs in three matches in 2016)and Steve Smith (315 runs in fivematches in 2016) might help themagain though, as also the absence ofMitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and JoshHazlewood, with the trio rested fromthis series.

Australia have named their play-ing eleven ahead of the first ODI, withNathan Lyon featuring as the lonespinner and Peter Siddle returning tothis format for the first time since2010. Keeper-batsman Alex Careywill open in ODI cricket for the firsttime, and will pair up with skipperAaron Finch, while Usman Khawaja,Shaun Marsh and Peter Handscombwill form the middle order.

The hosts bat deep with Marcus

Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell lined upat numbers six and seven, albeittheir pace attack seems weak onpaper. With Siddle returning to theformat after eight years, left-armpacer Jason Behrendorff will make hisODI debut on Saturday.

8��� India: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit

Sharma, KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan,Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik,Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (wk), HardikPandya, Kuldeep Yadav, YuzvendraChahal, Ravindra Jadeja,Bhuvneshwar Kumar, KhaleelAhmed, Mohammed Shami,Mohammed Siraj.

Australia (playing XI): AaronFinch (c), Alex Carey (wk), UsmanKhawaja, Shaun Marsh, PeterHandscomb, Marcus Stoinis, GlennMaxwell, Nathan Lyon, Peter Siddle,Jhye Richardson, Jason Behrendorff.

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Australian skipper Aaron Finch on Friday saidIndian batting is heavily reliant on its top-three

and his team will be looking to exploit that weaknessin the three-match ODI series beginning here onSaturday.

Finch said his side's target will be to dismiss India'stop-three batsmen — Shikhar Dhawan, RohitSharma and Virat Kohli — cheaply.

"Over the last 12 months Virat's averaged 133,Shikhar 75, and Rohit 50; so there's a lot of runs andballs faced from their top three. It's important to getthem as early as you can because once they get in,they score fast and they don't seem to get out too eas-ily," said Finch on Friday.

With the success of the top-order, the middle-order comprising M S Dhoni has not been testedenough.

" D i n e s hKarthik, KedarJadhav, Dhonithese are the guysthat can all playtheir part as well.The top three arevery importantbut you can't justlook at that other-wise there's some-one else that willcatch you off-guard and get the job done as well," saidFinch. Like India, Australia will kick off their 2019World Cup preparations in Sydney, albeit they havea Test series against Sri Lanka in between.

The hosts announced their playing eleven for theseries opener as per norm, with keeper-batsman AlexCarey set to open the batting with Finch. The bat-ting runs deep with Glenn Maxwell at number seven.

"It's just an opportunity to see Alex play in a posi-tion he's done quite bit in Big Bash and one-day crick-et. He's been shuffled around the order a bit in thelast little while... We are trying to search for thatprocess and right balance of the side.

"We've got three games here which will be verytough then straight to India for five ODIs thenPakistan so that's a very tough 13 games, then a fewwarm-up and practice games against New Zealand.

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Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul willbe sent home on the first avail-

able flight from Australia as theBCCI suspended them on Friday fortheir outrage-evoking comments onwomen, hours after the duo's on-fieldleader Virat Kohli expressed his dis-approval.

The under-fire players have beensuspended pending an inquiry intotheir sexist comments on a TV show,ruling them out of the three-matchODI series against Australia begin-ning Saturday in Sydney.

"Both Pandya and Rahul havebeen suspended pending an inquiry,"the Committee of Administrators(CoA) chairman Vinod Rai said.

A few hours later it was con-firmed that a decision has been takento send them home from Australia.

"It's confirmed. The duo is beingsent back. If they can book ticketsthen tomorrow they will be leaving(for India) or latest by day after," asenior BCCI official said.

He added that at this point theirchances of making the squad for theNew Zealand tour are also "bleak".

The 'Koffee with Karan' episodefeaturing the cricketers has sincebeen taken down by the channel'sonline platform.

On the show, Pandya had boast-ed about hooking up with multiplewomen and being open about it withhis parents. Rahul was, however, ashade more restrained in his respons-es on relationships and women.

A source in the BCCI said the twowill be issued fresh show causenotices before a formal enquirybegins.

"Whether it will be an internalcommittee of the BCCI or an ad hocombudsman who will conduct an

inquiry, is yet to be ascertained," theofficial said.

Pandya has regretted his com-ments twice since the show went onair on Sunday — first on his officialTwitter page and then in response tothe BCCI show cause notice onWednesday.

Rahul, on the other hand, is yetto react to the controversy.

The decision to hand them sus-pensions came after Rai's CoA col-league Diana Edulji recommendedthe same till further action against thetwo. This was after the BCCI's legalteam refused to declare the com-ments a violation of the code of con-duct.

Edulji had initially suggested atwo-match suspension for the duobut referred the matter to the legalcell after Rai agreed with her and rec-ommended the same.

In Sydney, on the eve of the ODIseries, captain Kohli condemned thetwo for what he termed "inappro-priate" comments but said he was nottoo stressed about the possibility ofa ban on the all-rounder.

"...It's good that we have someonelike (Ravindra) Jadeja who can do theall-rounder's role if a scenario likethat occurs," Kohli said.

Days after their historic maidenTest series triumph, Kohli assertedthat the side does not stand by the"individual opinions", which havetriggered a social media storm.

The likes of Rishabh Pant andManish Pandey will now be in con-tention to be their replacements.While Pandya was a certainty in theplaying XI, an out-of-form Rahul wasnot in contention to play on Saturday.

It is speculated that the BCCImight bar players from appearing onentertainment shows owing to theongoing furore.

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Indian captain Virat Kohli onFriday said he is not too

stressed about ban on all-rounder Hardik Pandya for his"inappropriate" comments onwomen as the side has a readyreplacement in Ravindra Jadeja.

"We played in India againstthe West Indies with a fingerspinner and a wrist spinner. Soit's good that we have someonelike Jadeja who can do the all-rounder's role if a scenario likethat occurs," Kohli said on theeve of the first ODI.

"So we are not too stressedas a team because you'll alwayshave things that you can do interms of creating that balancefor the side. And hence, we keepplayers who can provide bal-ance with bat and ball as abackup anyway," he added.

Kohli has distanced theteam from the controversy bysaying that the side does notstand by the duo on the issue.

"I don't think we will havetoo much of trouble if we haveto change our combinations.We are pretty comfortable as aside and any combination thatwe go in with," he said.

Kohli said he is pleasedwith the current team's combi-nation and there isn't too muchroom for tinkering with thissquad in the build-up to theODI World Cup in England

starting May 30."The fact we have not many

games left before the WorldCup and hence we want to playthe side that more or less willfeature in the World Cup. Theexceptional case of JaspritBumrah being rested is purelybecause of the workload in theTest series.

"But apart from that I don'tthink combination-wise we aregoing to look to tinker toomuch," he said.

However, Kohli did admitthat form and fitness could bedecisive for a couple of spots.

"...A couple of spots whichmight need rectification will belooked at but apart from thatthe idea is to make that com-bination and that team playtogether for the whole periodleft before the World Cup,"said Kohli.

Pandya and Rahul mightnot be available for the start ofthis three-match series, andcombined with Bumrah'sabsence, Kohli said this is anopportunity to experiment witha few more pacers before final-ising the preferred attack for theWorld Cup.

"What's exciting is thatBhuvneshwar Kumar is comingback into the scenario. He'sbeen working hard during theTests. Khaleel Ahmed has donewell when given the opportu-nities.

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