HC slams govt over fire NOC and BU permit issue

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: The Gu-jarat High Court on Fri-day came down heavily on the state government over the issue of fire no objection certificates (NOCs) and Building Use (BU) permission, stating that the govern-ment had not taken any action against officers

involved in allowing il-legal construction and then permitting such buildings to function without fire NOCs. It was of the opinion that the state government was not exercising the power entrusted to it by the Constitution.

The High Court bench comprising Jus-tices Bela Trivedi and

Bhargav D Karia gave the Gujarat govern-ment and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation

(AMC) four weeks’ time to come up with a “con-crete plan” to address the Turn to P6

Gujarat High Court. —FILE PHOTO

UNDER FIRE

Asks it and AMC to take “concrete steps” to come up with an action plan by exercising constitutional powers

PHYSICAL HEARING IN HC FROM 2ND WEEK OF JULY

z Chief Justice Vikram Nath on Friday hinted that physical hearings of the high court are likely to be resumed from the second week of July.

z The accused in the Naroda Gam riot case (2002) have withdrawn their application seek-ing to add IPS Rahul Sharma and PL Mal to the list of accused.

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AHMEDABAD l SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021 l Pages 12 l 3.00 RNI NO. GUJENG/2019/16208 l Vol 2 l Issue No. 196

OUR EDITIONS: JAIPUR, AHMEDABAD & LUCKNOW

Mumbai: After scaling fresh all-time highs on Friday morning, Sensex and Nifty trimmed some advance but managed to close the day’s trade in the positive territory. S&P BSE Sensex was at 52,474 on closing while the Nifty 50 index was at 15,799 - the highest closing levels for both the indices. Among the top gainers were Dr Reddy’s, Power Grid, TCS and HCL Tech.

SENSEX ENDS AT 52,474, NIFTY JUST

BELOW 15,799

n Feeling ‘suffocated’ in Bharatiya Janata Party, Mukul Roy rejoins Trinamool Congress along with son Shubhranshu

n BJP GATES OPEN FOR REVERSE TIDE AS MAMATA SAYS MORE TO FOLLOW

n Suvendu’s appointment as LoP in West Bengal Assembly proved to be last nail in coffin

Mohd Fahad

Kolkata: Ending weeks of speculation, BJP na-tional vice-president Mukul Roy, along with his son and former MLA Subhrangshu, returned to the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) fold on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Roy arrived at the Trinamool Bhawan along with his son, where he held a meeting with Chief Min-ister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, MP Abhishek Banerjee, and other senior leaders be-fore formally rejoining the party.

Although Roy won the Krishnanagar North seat on a BJP ticket, he had been maintaining distance from the party after it lost the polls.

Once a close aide of Mamata Banerjee, Roy resigned from the TMC in September 2017 and was suspended by the party for six years for anti-party activities.

Turn to P6

New Delhi: The United States has decided not to give emergency use au-thorisation (EUA) to Bharat Biotech’s Cov-id-19 vaccine, Covaxin.

The main reason for this is insufficient in-formation to make a de-cision on an EUA re-quest for this vaccine.

According to Ocugen, the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) has recommend-ed that it pursue full authorisation for Cov-axin through a biolog-ics license application (BLA). In its feedback, the FDA has “requested additional Turn to P6

Mumbai: NCP Presi-dent Sharad Pawar’s lunch with political strategist Prashant Kishor at the former’s residence in Mum-bai on F r i d a y has set the politi-cal pot s i m m e r -ing in the state, even as MP Supriya Sule and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar called it a private lunch and dis-pelled rumours.

Turn to P6

PK lunch with Pawar sets off political buzz

OH ROY!TURNCOAT RETURNS HOME

CRUCIAL READ1 NATION, 1 RATION FOR MIGRANTS: SCNew Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the West Bengal govern-ment to implement one nation-one ration card scheme with immediate effect. The court further stated “they (migrant workers and unorganised workers) can avail the wel-fare benefits given under various schemes of the government.

WILL CONTINUE AS CM FOR 2 YEARS: BSBengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Friday said that he will con-tinue as Chief Minister for the next two years and there is nothing to worry about.He said, “I’ll continue as CM for the next two years. Central leaders also have said the same and have confidence in me. I’ll put in an honest effort for the development of the state.”

NO MINISTRY TEAM AT TOKYO OLYMPICSNew Delhi: The Sports Ministry has decided against sending its delega-tion to Tokyo Olympics to accommodate “maximum” support staff, including coaches and physios, for the athletes competing in the Summer Games. A total of 100 Indian athletes have so far qualified for games scheduled from July 23 to August 8.

125-YEAR-OLD MAN RECEIVES COVID JAB IN VARANASIVaranasi: This elderly man become the oldest person to get vac-cinated. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but the man aged 125 years got himself inoculated against Covid-19 in Varanasi on Wednesday. Swami Shivanand reached a vaccine centre and left the medical staff stunned into silence when he presented his Aadhaar. His date of birth on the Aadhar card is mentioned as August 8, 1896.

Mukul Roy has re-turned to his roots. He could not work in

the BJP. During polls, he did not make any anti-TMC state-ments. He has found peace now. Mukul will continue to play same role in our party which he used to play earlier MAMATA BANERJEE, West Bengal CM

It feels good to see my former colleagues here. Bengal will restore its

glory under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. I will issue a written statement on why I left the BJP. Under the present condition, no one can remain in the BJP MUKUL ROY, after joining TMC

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting in New Delhi on Friday. —PHOTOS BY PTI

A ‘Compelled’ Yogi finally says ‘Yes’ to the Centre!

Shashikant Sharma

New Delhi/Lucknow: According to highly placed sources, after his two day long New Delhi visit, before re-turning to Lucknow on Friday evening, a virtu-ally ‘compelled’ but powerful UP Chief Minister Yogi Adity-anath finally suc-cumbed to central lead-ership’s pressure for a likely major cabinet reshuffle including the installation of AK Sharma as deputy CM or a powerful cabinet

minister with some key portfolios. Similarly, in-spite of initial opposi-tion Yogi also assured Narendra Modi-Amit Shah and JP Nadda that he will execute Centre’s final move to

divide the country’s most politically volatile state - Uttar Pradesh - in two or three states which may be named as Purvanchal, Bun-delkhand, Western UP or Awadh Pradesh.

It is also possible that with view to dilute or deprive Mayawati to take any political cred-it from this move, the centre may create only two new states rather than three, which was proposed by Mayawati as the UP Chief Minis-ter in 2011 but after Sa-majwadi Turn to P5

UP CM Yogi Adityanath with BJP National President JP Nadda in New Delhi on Friday.

BJP leader Mukul Roy with TMC National General Secretary Abhisekh Banerjee during his re-joining of TMC party, in the presence of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata. —PHOTO BY PTI

‘HAJ COMMITTEES, WAQF BOARD TO BE ROPED IN TO REMOVE JAB HESITANCY’New Delhi: To clear hesitancy and miscon-ception against COVID vaccination, social and educational organisations like Haj com-mittees, Waqf board, Central Waqf Council and self-help groups would be roped in the “Jaan Hai To Jahaan Hai” campaign, said Mi-nority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

US FDA declines nod for Covaxin use

SC REJECTS PETITION ASKING FOR FRESH LOAN MORATORIUMNew Delhi: The Supreme Court rejected PIL demand-ing fresh moratorium on loan repayments in view of the second wave of Covid-19. SC declined to pass an order on fresh loan moratorium and said issues raised in the petition are in the realm of policy decisions.

GOVT MULLING PLEA FOR `4 LAKH TO COVID VICTIMS, SC TOLDNew Delhi: The Centre informed Supreme Court that it was considering a plea to provide compensation of Rs 4 lakh to kin of those who died due to Covid. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government is contem-plating a policy, and sought two weeks to file its reply.

INDIA

91,702new cases

3,403new fatalities

CORONA CATASTROPHE

PM Modi appreciates Yogi’s performance but also does a ‘plain speak’ and gives a bit of his mind to Yogi

A ‘reluctant’ CM agrees to execute high command’s agenda on cabinet reshuffle including AK Sharma, Jitin Prasada and the likely division of

UP in two or three states!

$43 BILLION JUMP IN ADANI’S FORTUNE

z A rally in the stocks of companies controlled by bil-

lionaire Gautam Adani has added almost $43 billion to his wealth this year, catapult-ing him to the spot of the

2nd-richest person in Asia. Some analysts say the gains are fraught with risk.

z Adani’s net worth of $76.7 billion got a boost from a

330% jump in Adani Total Gas Ltd., a 235% rise

in his conglomer-ate’s flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd. and a 263% increase in Adani Transmis-sion Ltd this year.

WHAT MADE ROY TO RETURN

NOT JOINING TMC, SAYS PRANAB SON

Kolkata: Mukul Roy has been disillusioned with the BJP leadership for a while – it began even before the assembly elec-tion. TMC sources said that Roy was not in favour of fighting the assembly elections for the BJP, but was asked to fight the Krishnanagar seat, which he won. Roy also wanted to be part of union government, but PM Modi was apprehensive due to corruption charges levied against him in Bengal.

Kolkata: A Dispelling ru-mours, late former Presi-dent Pranab Mukherjee’s son, Abhijit Mukherjee, on Friday made it clear that he is not leaving the Congress unlike his friend Jitin Prasada. Televi-sion channels and a few newspapers had reported he would be joining the Trinamool Congress on Friday afternoon.

Aditi Nagar

New Delhi: PM Naren-dra Modi held delibera-tions with Home Minis-ter Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda amid speculation about a re-shuffle in the Union cab-inet around June 20. Jy-otiraditya Scindia, Chi-rag Paswan, Sarbananda, Trivendra Rawat, Jayant Sinha, Anupriya Patel, Sushil Modi, Meenakshi Lekhi, Mahesh Jethma-lani, Rajiv Ranjan and Lallan Singh can be made ministers at the Center, says sources.

Union cabinet reshuffle: PM meets Shah

Ahmedabad: Fuel prices continue to rise in Gujarat, even as the Congress on Friday protested across the state against the price hikes and inflation. With an increase of 28 paise, petrol in the state now costs `92.80 per litre. Diesel, which continues to remain more expensive than petrol, now costs `93.41 per litre, after prices were hiked another 30 paise per litre.

ONWARDS AND EVER UPWARDS

GUJARAT

481new cases

09new fatalities

NEWSAHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021

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Bhavesh Barot

Himmatnagar: The Sa-barkantha District Milk Producers Co-operative Union Limited better known as Sabar Dairy has announced a 11.60% price differential amounting to over Rs360 crore for its dairy farm-ers. The price differen-tial will be paid to over 4 lakh milk producing farmers of Aravalli and Sabarkantha districts

who produce over 26 lakh litres of milk per village-level milk socie-ties.

“The differential will be paid to milk produc-ers of both districts through local milk soci-eties by June 20 this year,” announced Sabar Dairy chairman Sha-malbhai Patel, while ad-dressing a board of di-rectors meeting held at Himmatnagar on Thurs-day.

Patel, who coinciden-tally also the chairman of the Gujarat Co-opera-tive Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GC-MMFL), further stated, “The milk producers of Aravalli and Sabarkan-tha districts were paid Rs292 crore as price dif-ferential last year. The amount to be paid for the current year is Rs68 crore more than the pre-vious year, despite pre-vailing COVID-19 pan-

demic situation. Sabar Dairy has maintained its growth in procure-ment of milk and is clocking 26 lakh litres per day, which is also higher than last year’s milk procurement by the dairy. Due to higher procurement and subse-quent push to turnover, Sabar dairy paid Rs812 per kilo fat to milk pro-ducers, which in itself, is Rs42 more than what was paid in 2020.”

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: More than 100 Congress work-ers, MLAs and leaders were detained in differ-ent parts of Gujarat on Friday for staging with-out police permission protests against the Central government over the rise in fuel pric-es, an official said.

Leaders and workers of the Gujarat Con-gress staged demon-strations in Ahmedabad, Gandhi-nagar, Rajkot, Bharuch, Palanpur and Vadodara as part of a nationwide call given by the party high command to pro-test against the high petrol and diesel prices.

While the party’s state president Amit Chavda led the agitation in Gan-dhinagar, former state unit chief Bharatsinh Solanki took part in the party’s protest in Va-dodara, where workers pulled a car using ropes.

In Ahmedabad, sen-

ior MLA and deputy Leader of Opposition Shailesh Parmar led the agitation.

According to the po-lice, more than 100 Con-gress workers in differ-ent cities have been de-tained for staging pro-tests without permis-sion.

Chavda and 40 other agitators were detained from their protest ven-ue near Satyagrah Chhavni ground in Gan-

dhinagar, deputy super-intendent of police, Gandhinagar, MK Rana said.

“We have detained around 40 Congress workers, including Amit Chavda and Gan-dhinagar legislator CJ Chavda, for organising the programme without police permission and that too amid the COV-ID-19 pandemic,” Rana said, adding that a deci-sion to release the work-

ers will be taken soon by senior officials.

In Vadodara, the po-lice detained Solanki and 20 other Congress workers for a brief pe-riod, and similar deten-tions took place in other parts of the state, an of-ficial s aid, adding that 20 workers were de-tained in Rajkot city.

Talking to reporters before his detention, MLA Parmar said that petrol and diesel prices had been increasing constantly after the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014.

“On the one hand, the fuel prices are increas-ing, on the other hand, people are losing jobs and there is high infla-tion. The BJP govern-ment isn’t doing any-thing to give respite to people. We want the gov-ernment to either re-duce the excise duty on fuel or bring it under the GST, so that the pric-es come down,” Parmar said.

First India Bureau

New Delhi: The Nation-al Green Tribunal (NGT) has constituted a three-member committee to evaluate the risk associ-ated with the expansion of oil refinery of Nayara Energy Ltd--owned by Russian giant Rosneft--at Vadinar in Devbhoomi Dwarka, and suggest re-medial measures.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Jus-tice Adarsh Kumar Goel, while refusing to inter-fere with the grant of Environmental Clear-ance (EC), directed the

project proponent Na-yara Energy to ensure that all necessary safe-guards are adopted and EC conditions duly com-plied. “Invoking the pre-cautionary principle, we constitute a three-mem-ber committee of Chief Wildlife Warden, Guja-rat; Director, Marine Na-tional Park; and State PCB (pollution control board) to evaluate the risk associated with the activities of expansion of the project and sug-gest remedial measures to be taken,” said the bench, also comprising Justice M

Sathyanarayanan.“The committee may recom-mend safety measures to prevent accidents on ac-count of operations by ensuring proper on-site and off-site emergency

plans and hospital back-up and awareness in the local residents,” the bench added.

The tribunal said the issue of requisite audits on maintenance of flora

and fauna and coastal management may also be looked into.

“Further issue of reg-ular dissemination of environmental benefits may also be looked into. Such study may be un-dertaken within three months. The report may be submitted to the Chairman State PCB. Recommendation in the report is treated as addi-tional conditions for the EC, subject to any chal-lenge of such conditions, before an appropriate fo-rum in accordance with the law,” the bench said.

The tribunal was hear-

ing a plea filed by one Sanghar Zuber Ismail against the EC to Nayara Energy for expansion of refinery capacity from 20 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) to 46 MMTPA with a petro-chemical complex, at the small coastal town of Va-dinar.

During the hearing, Nayara assured the bench that the EC condi-tions will be duly com-plied with and all due mitigation measures will be taken to ensure the safety of the mangroves and marine environment in the region.

Gujarat BJP incharge Bhupender Yadav.

BJP organization & govt must work together: Yadav

First India Bureau

Gandhinagar: The Bharatiya Janata Par-ty (BJP) state organi-zation and the govern-ment must work to-gether and use tech-nology to serve the people of the state, were the sage words of advice that Gujarat BJP state incharge Bhupender Yadav dis-pensed at a coordina-tion committee meet-ing with party office-bearers and member council of ministers on Friday.

Yadav is on a three-day visit to Gujarat in order to review the on-ground situation, and resolve any groupism or internal fights that have reached new heights over the past few months. Addressing party leaders at the meet, the newly ap-pointed state incharge has ordered warring groups within the party to work togeth-er and warned them that the party will not tolerate infighting.

Sources from the party, who were pre-sent at the meeting, said that Yadav also asked the BJP state unit as well as the gov-ernment to prepare for the third wave of the COVID-19 pan-demic.

Even BJP state unit president CR Patil is said to have told Ya-dav that the party unit and the state gov-ernment have been working together to combat novel corona-virus.

Patil also said that the organization and state will work togeth-er even for the Gan-dhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC). However, Yadav was more interested in learning how the or-ganization was pre-paring for the upcom-ing 2022 state assem-bly elections. He is happy with the party’s performance in the civic bodies, district/taluka panchayats and municipalities’ polls, confirmed sources.

Reshuffle in Congress likely to be delayed

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) may reshuf-fle its state organiza-tion in the next week or two. According to party sources, party leaders have been closely following the developments of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders for the past three days, headed by new state incharge Bhu-pender Yadav.

The Congress par-ty plans to appoint its new state president only after the BJP co-ordination meeting is over and take any changes made in the ruling party organi-zation under consid-eration. With the state assembly elec-tions looming, both political parties do not want to leave any stone unturned to woo the voters.

The Congress has

so far failed to win the people over with its anti-incumbency stance on the BJP. There is constant in-fighting within the party and the names of three leaders have been doing the rounds for the state president’s post -- Ar-jun Modhwadia, Bharatsinh Solanki and Shaktisinh Go-hil. But there is a sec-tion of people in the party, who want a general caste leader to be appointed in the top position.

“The Congress high command is closely watching the current develop-ments in the state. The party performed well in the 2017 elec-tions and if it gears up early, chances are that it will perform fairly in the upcom-ing election as well. However, top leaders in the state have al-ready accepted de-feat,” said a source.

GPCC office. —FILE PHOTO

ENVIRONMENTAL CLEARANCE

NGT FORMS 3-MEMBER COMMITTEE TO EVALUATE RISK OVER NAYARA EXPANSION

National Green Tribunal. —FILE PHOTO

Sabar Dairy to pay `360 cr to 4L milk famers

100+ Cong leaders, workers held over fuel price protestsDemonstrations were staged in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Bharuch, Palanpur & Vadodara

Congress activists stage a symbolic protest against frequent hikes in the prices of petrol and diesel, in front of a fuel station in Ahmedabad, on Friday. —PHOTOS BY HANIF SINDHI

Sabar Dairy. —FILE PHOTO

Guj Cong Chief Amit Chavda, Gandhinagar president Suryasinh Dabhi and others being detained by G’Nagar police on Friday.

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: With the Southwest Monsoon slowly advancing to-wards the districts of Central and North Gu-jarat, the India Mete-orological Depart-ment has forecast light to moderate rains in some districts of the state until June 16.

South Gujarat and parts of Saurashtra have already been re-ceiving rains for the past few days, ever since the monsoon en-tered the state. Since then, the southwesterly winds have been getting stronger, due to contin-uous change in the weather and climate day by day.

According to the

weather bulletin, sev-eral districts in Gujarat are likely to experience rain in the June 12-16 period. While Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Tapi, Narmada, Dang of the South Gujarat region and Amreli, Bhavnagar,

Gir Somnath districts of the Saurashtra re-gion are likely to re-ceive light to moderate rains during these five days, it is also likely to rain in districts such as Junagadh, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Anand.

The monsoon will continue across the state from June 20 and is expected to drench South Gujarat districts such as Valsad, Navsari and Dang, as well as the Dadra and Nagar Have-li area by then.

GUJARATAHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021

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First India Bureau

Gandhinagar: The Ahmedabad District Collector has issued a notification making it mandatory for trad-ers, hawkers and rick-shaw pullers outside the limits of Ahmedabad city po-lice commissioner to be vaccinated. Those who have not been ful-ly vaccinated will have to show a negative RT-PCR report.

“The RT-PCR report should be no more than 10 days old,” Ahmedabad District Collector Sand-eep Sangle clarified.

“Many people have lost their lives in the sec-ond wave of COVID-19. Now, experts have pre-

dicted a third wave. We are trying to ensure that infections do not in-crease again in this pe-

riod of transition,” he said.

The notification, in ef-fect from June 12 to July

11, covers superspread-ers such as shopkeepers, traders, hawkers, lor-ries, rickshaw and taxi drivers, salons and beau-ty parlours, private secu-rity guards, shopping complex traders and re-tail workers.

Those violating this notification will be pros-ecuted against the Epi-demic Diseases Act and the Disaster Manage-ment Act, Sangle added.

He has also set aside 100 beds in Sola Civil Hospital and 250 beds in rural hospitals for chil-dren to ensure proper availability of beds dur-ing the next wave.

Vaccination mandatory for traders, hawkers in A’bad districtPREPPING FOR WAVE 3

People register for their jabs at the Town Hall in Ahmedabad on Friday. —PHOTO BY HANIF SINDHI

COVID-19 UPDATE

TOTAL CASES

8,20,376CASES IN A DAY

481TOTAL DEATHS

9,985DEATHS IN A DAY

09

ACTIVE CASES

11,657

RECOVERED TOTAL

7,97,734RECOVERED

IN A DAY

1,526

V’DARA 88

SURAT 85

A’BAD 72RAJKOT 34

JUNAGADH 29JAMNAGAR 19

GIR SOMNATH 15

GETTING BACK TO BUSINESS AS USUAL?

Amdavadis were out and about on Friday, as gyms, restaurants and parks reopened after being shut due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in April and May. However, the dearth of masks raises concerns that the third wave could come sooner rather than later. —PHOTOS BY HANIF SINDHI

2 held for rape after victim commits suicide Her boyfriend and his friend allegedly raped her while inebriated First India Bureau

Vadodara: Local po-lice arrested two men in a rape case on Fri-day, a day after the victim, a state-level kabaddi player, com-mitted suicide. She left behind a video re-cording in which she has accused her boy-friend and his friend of raping her on Tuesday night, police officials said.

Sheetal (name changed) was rushed to the GMERS Hospital in Vadodara’s Gotri area, but was declared brought dead. Sheetal’s friend informed the doctors that this was a gang rape case and not a suicide.

The primary investi-gation has revealed that Sheetal had been living away from her family in a rented accommoda-tion, where she, the two accused and one of her female friends had a party on Tuesday night.

According to the vid-eo Sheetal left behind, her boyfriend Dishant Kahar and his friend raped her under the in-fluence of alcohol dur-ing the party. She had also been inebriated and only discovered that she had been raped the next morning. When she confronted her friends about it, all three fled. In shock, she called another friend and told her about the incident. This friend ad-vised her to file a com-plaint.

Junagadh rural police jawan booked for raping colleague First India Bureau

Junagadh: Juna-gadh rural police have booked police constable Jaydeep Parmar, who has been accused of raping his Gram Rakshak Dal col-league three to four times in the last few days.

The incident came to light after the fe-male jawan attempted to commit suicide by jumping from the ter-race of the Bhesan Police station, where she serves, on Thurs-day evening.

Other cops rushed her to the hospital, where narrated her ordeal after receiving

treatment. Police personnel

who were present at the hospital immedi-ately informed their superior officers, and field a complaint.

According to her statement, Grishma (name changed) and Parmar had come in contact two to three

years back and had become friends. They moved in together since the last week of May. However, in the first week of June, he took her to a guest house after a heated argument and raped her. He then raped her again at a farmhouse a few days later.

A’bad police nab 4 women for smuggling IMFL from Mumbai

Monsoon to intensify over Guj, bring more rain over next 5 days

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: City po-lice on Friday appre-hended four women who had travelled from Mumbai to Ahmedabad’s Naroda area to deliver a con-signment of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL).

Krushnanagar police inspector A J Chauhan told the media, “We had received information that four women from Maharashtra were go-ing to deliver IMFL in Naroda. Officials kept a watch on the area and when the women ar-

rived, officials found 214 beer cans in their luggage. The accused have been identified as Lakshmi Machhre, Purnima Bhat, Puja Tu-

mauchikar and Sunita Tidege.”

These women board-ed a train from Mumbai separately and, on reaching Ahmedabad,

had planned to take an autorickshaw to hand off the booze to Kuber-nagar bootlegger Tejas Tamchene, he added.

During initial ques-tioning, all four accused told the cops that they took the job to make a quick buck. Officials will also look into other deliveries the women may have made to city suppliers/bootleggers in the past. Prior to their arrest, police sus-pected that they may have conducted busi-ness in Ahmedabad in the past based on how familiar they seemed to be with the city’s roads.

Police have arrested Dishant Kahar and Nizam under various sections of IPC, including those for rape and abetment to suicide.

The women said they’d just wanted to make a quick buck

While Ahmedabad has not seen much rain yet, the city experienced a massive dust storm on Thursday evening, during which visibility dropped to almost zero. —PHOTO BY HANIF SINDHI

PERSPECTIVEAHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021

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l Vol 2 l Issue No. 196 l RNI NO. GUJENG/2019/16208. Printed and published by Anita Hada Sangwan on behalf of First Express Publish-

ers. Printed at Bhaskar Printing Planet Survey No.148P, Changodar-

Bavla Highway, Tal. Sanand, Dist. Ahmedabad. Published at D/302 3rd Floor Plot No. 35 Titanium Square, Scheme No. 2, Thaltej Taluka, Ghat-lodiya, Ahmedabad. Editor-In-Chief: Jagdeesh Chandra. Editor: Anita Hada Sangwan responsible for

selection of news under the PRB Act

Prakash Javadekar @PrakashJavdekar

Mr. @ArvindKejriwal First you couldn’t give oxygen, then you

couldn’t store oxygen You said will vaccinate Delhi in 3 months, couldn’t procure one dose. Now, you want to deliver ration at doorstep. Implement #OneNationOneRationCard in Delhi,

then feel free to advertise.

Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank @DrRPNishank

#ProsperousFarmers The new farm laws make it compulsory for buyers to pay farmers within three days of a transaction. These new laws have

empowered small and medium farmers to sell to the highest buyer anywhere in

India. #7YearsofSeva

SPIRITUAL SPEAK

Reshape yourself through the power of your will;

never let yourself be degraded by self-will.

—Ved Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita

IN-DEPTH

VACCINATING THE WORLD

he science and health-care communities have mobilized on a scale never before seen in our lifetime,

taking the fight to a deadly virus that is still sweeping the world and leaving a trail of personal loss and economic devastation in its wake. This unprecedented global response has led to the de-velopment of multiple highly ef-fective vaccines in record time, allowing for more than 2 billion doses to have been administered globally as of this writing. Astra-Zeneca has contributed 500 mil-lion doses to this global effort.

The vaccination effort has been nothing short of extraordi-nary. Thousands of lives are be-ing saved every day as a result of urgent and committed global collaboration.

Death rates remain unaccept-ably high, and the continued spread of the virus threatens the progress we have made. Our goal must be to eradicate COVID-19. That means reducing its inci-dence to zero everywhere, not just within the borders of specific countries. In the face of an evolv-ing virus that will continue to acquire new mutations, a rise in cases anywhere threatens us all.

TOP TWEET

T

n West Bengal there has been a ghar wapsi of Tri-namool Con-gress’s prodigal

son, Mukul Roy, four years after he left the party. Roy was among the first Mamata Banerjee’s loyalists to cross over to the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2017, soon after his name surfaced in the Sarad-ha scam. It was said that he joined the BJP to save his skin from the CBI and En-forcement Directorate. Re-cently when the CBI arrested some TMC MLAs for their alleged involvement in the scam it was pointed out that Roy was not being investi-gated because he was with

the BJP. Now that he is back with the TMC, will the CBI reframe its charge-sheet?

Roy’s return to the TMC fold is but a minor setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party which, only a day ago, was gloating over the defec-tion of Congress leader Jitin Prasada. The BJP, interest-ingly, is being paid back in the same coin. If there are

some more Congress leaders waiting in queue for entry into the BJP, it is expected that more TMC leaders will follow in Roy’s footsteps. Roy, a BJP vice-president, was clearly miffed at being sidelined during the state elections.

The exit of Roy, and a few others, will not affect the BJP which has grown from zilch to 77 seats wiping out the Congress and Left. Had Roy left the BJP before or during the assembly elections it would have had a greater im-pact. However, the message that has gone out with the defectors’ homecoming is that the BJP is no longer at-tractive enough.

RETURN OF TMC’S PRODIGAL SON

The exit of Roy, and a few others, will not

affect the BJP which has grown from zilch to 77 seats wiping out the

Congress and Left

I

PAKISTAN’S TALIBAN MONSTER

he late head of Pakistan’s pow-erful Inter-Services Intelli-gence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, was fond of boasting that when Afghan-istan’s history came to be writ-ten, it would record that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated the Soviet Union. And next, he would slyly add, historians would state that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.

Gul’s boast was not the sort of empty rodomontade that military men are notorious for once they hang up their uni-forms and recall their past as being more glorious than the details might warrant. He was right to argue that it was the ISI’s tactic of sponsoring mili-tants and terrorists – amply armed, supplied, and financed by the United States – against the Red Army in Afghanistan that forced the Kremlin to withdraw ignominiously.

Subsequently, using the same approach and initially many of the same personnel and methods, Pakistan creat-ed and sponsored a mujahi-deen group calling themselves the Taliban, or “students” of Islam, who swiftly took over Afghanistan and ruled it as a wholly owned ISI subsidiary. Things were rosy for Gul and his ilk until Osama bin Laden, a former mujahideen fighter who enjoyed the hospitality of the Taliban’s new “Islamic Emirate,” ordered the Sep-tember 11, 2001, terrorist at-tacks against the US from his Afghan hideout.

America’s furious response resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban and the exile of bin Laden, under ISI protec-

tion, to refuge in a Pakistani military redoubt. The ISI had even less to crow about when the US tracked down bin Lad-en to a secure compound in Abbottabad and special forces killed him there in 2011.

But as America wearied of being bogged down intermi-nably in Afghanistan, and the ISI helped its Taliban cli-ents to rearm, reorganize, and resume their operations against the US-backed re-gime in Kabul, the tide turned in the ISI’s favor. Pres-ident Joe Biden has an-nounced that US forces will withdraw completely from Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The date that long symbolized Ameri-ca’s determination to strike at the root of the terrorist at-tacks against it now signifies its lack of will to continue.

Whatever face-saving suc-cessor arrangements the US may put in place to mask its capitulation, its withdrawal from Afghanistan, with none of its long-term objectives achieved, is a defeat. With the Taliban more powerful than ever and poised to reclaim power in Kabul, the only exter-nal victor will be the ISI. As Gul foresaw, it will have de-feated America with Ameri-ca’s help. Pakistan has now received two decades’ worth of US military assistance, to-taling an estimated $11 billion.

The ISI has long been ob-sessed with the idea that con-trolling Afghanistan would give Pakistan the “strategic depth” needed to challenge its main adversary, India. A Taliban regime (or even a Taliban-dominated coalition government) in Kabul is the best guarantee of that. The Taliban factions are so be-holden to their Pakistani benefactors that, as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ac-idly remarked, their deci-sion-making bodies – Quetta

Shura, Miramshah Shura, and Peshawar Shura – are named after the Pakistani towns where they are based.

But Gul’s successors would be wise to tone down their celebrations. First, the US withdrawal from Afghani-stan removes a vital source of leverage for Pakistan in Washington. It may not be good news for Pakistan if the Americans need it less.

Furthermore, as the ISI knows, the problem with cre-ating and sponsoring militant groups is that they do not al-ways remain under your con-trol. The lesson of Mary Shel-ley’s Frankenstein – that the creatures we give life to can develop minds and needs of their own – has been apparent elsewhere as well, not least in Israel’s role in building up Hamas as a rival to the Pales-tine Liberation Organization.

The same thing has hap-pened in Pakistan, where the period of sullen cooperation between the Pakistani author-ities and the US during the post-9/11 American crack-down in Afghanistan spawned the rebellion of the “Pakistani Taliban.” While the Afghan Taliban needed Pakistani ref-uge, ISI safe houses, funding, and arms to mount the insur-gency that has brought the US to the point of withdrawal, the Pakistani Taliban have at-tacked their own erstwhile godfathers for insufficient fe-

alty to militant Islam.The ISI no doubt hopes

that once US forces are gone and the Afghan Taliban is se-curely entrenched in Kabul, it can persuade the Pakistani Taliban to forgive and forget the agency’s previous trans-gressions. If that happens, the thinking goes, peace will be restored, the ISI will con-trol Afghanistan, and the Pa-kistani mujahideen will stop targeting Pakistani army installations and convoys, and join the ISI in intensify-ing attacks on the “real ene-my,” India.

But a nightmarish alterna-tive scenario for the ISI is also possible. Pakistani militant groups, emboldened by the success of their brethren in Afghanistan, might no longer be prey to the military’s blan-dishments. Instead, they could launch terror attacks with the aim of emulating in Pakistan what the Taliban have achieved in Afghani-stan. If Afghanistan can be run as an Islamic emirate, they may ask, why can’t we do the same in Pakistan? Why dance to the ISI’s tune when we can call our own?

In such a scenario, the ISI’s heady moment of triumph on 9/11 this year could seem in-creasingly hollow, as the vi-pers it has nurtured strike at its own breast. True, the Pa-kistani Taliban – without a state sponsor of their own – has less chance of success than their Afghan counter-parts. But they can still do considerable damage, in the process intensifying the Pa-kistani public’s disenchant-ment with the military’s domination of their country.

Should that happen, we will need to extend Gul’s ac-count and say that the ISI, as the agent of the Pakistani military, helped to “defeat” or at least discredit itself.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY

THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

T

SHASHI THAROOR The author is a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and Minister of State for

Human Resource Development, is an MP for the Indian National Congress

Whatever face-saving successor arrangements the

US may put in place to mask its capitulation, its

withdrawal from Afghanistan, with none of

its long-term objectives achieved, is a defeat. With the Taliban more powerful

than ever and poised to reclaim power in Kabul,

the only external victor will be the ISI

The ISI no doubt hopes that once US forces are

gone and the Afghan Taliban is securely

entrenched in Kabul, it can persuade the

Pakistani Taliban to forgive and forget the

agency’s previous transgressions

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Mumbai: A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substanc-es (NDPS) court in Mumbai on Friday asked NCB to file a re-ply by June 16 on the bail application filed by actor Sushant Singh Ra-jput's flatmate Sid-dharth Pithani in con-nection with the drug case linked to the ac-tor's death.

Pithani is arrested by

NCB for procuring and consuming contraband in a case related to Sush-ant's death. Pithani has sought bail on the grounds of parity as ear-lier accused arrested in this case on same charg-es are given bail by the court. Earlier on June 4, Pithani was sent14-day judicial custody in con-nection with the drug case linked to the ac-tor's death. —PTI

NDPS court asks NCB on Pithani’s bail plea

New Delhi: A Delhi Court on Friday extend-ed the judicial custody of wrestler Sushil Ku-mar till June 25 in con-nection with the Chhatrasal Stadium brawl matter leading to the death of 23-year-old wrestler Sagar Dhankar. Earlier on June 2, he was remand-ed to judicial custody till June 11.

He was earlier re-manded to six days of police custody which was later extended to four days in connection with 23-year-old wres-tler Sagar Dhankar murder case.The 38-year-old wrestler, Su-shil Kumar, a prime suspect in the murder case and his associate Ajay Bakkarwala were arrested by a team of Special Cell, Delhi Po-lice on May 23 in the Mundka area of the na-tional capital.

A non-bailable war-rant was issued against Kumar and others in the case relating to the alleged killing of Sagar Dhankar at Chhatrasal Stadium on May 4.Ear-lier, a Delhi Court dis-missed an anticipatory bail application filed by Sushil Kumar in con-

nection with the case.According to Delhi

Police, Kumar had been on the run trying to evade his arrest. He had crossed the borders of as many as seven states and union territories in the past 18 days. He also constantly changed his SIM cards in an effort to avoid arrest, informed the Delhi Police.Sagar, died during treatment.

Delhi court extends judicial custody of Sushil till June 25

SAGAR DHANKAR MURDER CASE

Mumbai: Taking suo motu cognizance of the Malad Building col-lapse, which claimed the lives of 12 people, the Bombay High Court on Friday said politics on the matter is not fair and courts cannot be blamed for this. The court will hear the mat-ter on Friday after-noon. Bombay High Court's observation comes after Brihan-mumbai Municipal

Corporation (BMC) of-ficials on Thursday said the evacuation of dilapidated buildings could not be done due to the Covid pandemic and the court's restric-tions on that.

The high court said it categorically said in its order in April to continue with evacua-tion drive of dilapidat-ed buildings.

The High Court said that in April 2021, it

made clear that action (demolition or vacat-ing the structure) re-garding dilapidated

structures can be tak-en. So the corporation or any other govern-ment body cannot put

the blame for not being able to take the action on the court.

Notably, the Bombay High Court last year put a temporary stop on demolitions because of the lockdown. However, the order as per the court was lifted by April 2021. HC said it was sur-prising that despite be-ing order in place, the government body is putting the blame on the court. —ANI

Court can’t be blamed; politics not fair: HC

SITHARAMAN TO CHAIR 44TH GST COUNCIL MEETING ON SATURDAY New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Si-tharaman will chair the 44th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Saturday which is ex-pected to take a deci-sion on relief in respect of COVID-19 related individual items based on the report of Group of Ministers. Minister

of State for Finance Anurag Thakur along senior officials will participate.

Road accidents are like silent pandemic: Rajnath SinghNew Delhi: BRO on Friday launched four new software for works management, road in-frastructure digitisa-tion, human resource management and re-cruitment manage-ment. Voicing his con-cerns over rising road accidents, Union De-fence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said India accounts for near-ly 11 per cent of the to-tal road accidents in the world and it is no less than a silent pandemic. Addressing the ‘Kar-mayogis’ of Border Road Organisation (BRO) via video confer-encing, the Union De-fence Minister said, “Accidents on the roads are a cause of great con-cern for us today.”

New Delhi: The Su-preme Court on Friday ordered the postpone-ment of the National Importance Combined Entrance Test (INI CET) 2021 examination for admission to post-graduate medical courses in AIIMS, JIP-MER, PGIMER and NIMHANS, scheduled

for June 16, by at least one month in view of the Covid-19 situation.

A Bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice MR Shah di-rected the All India In-stitute Of Medical Sci-ence (AIIMS) to post-pone the exam by atleast a month observ-ing that the fixation of

the exam date on June 16 is "arbitrary". The Bench said, "Consider-ing that the candidates have been rendering Covid duties far away from Centres chosen and inadequate time for preparation, we are of the view that fixation of the date on June 16 is arbitrary.

SC orders postponement of INI-CETMORE ARRESTS

A Residential building in Mumbai’s Malad area collapsed recently.

Sushil Kumar

MUMBAI BUILDING COLLAPSE

Siddharth Pithani

Nirmala Sitharaman

Sushant Singh

Rajnath Singh

Delhi govt controled by “ration mafia”: BJPNew Delhi: The BJP, on Friday, al-leged that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government is un-der the control of “ration mafia” and claimed that its proposal of home delivery of subsi-dised grains is merely a show to promote a “scam”. Addressing a press conference, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Kejriwal government cannot violate the Food Se-curity Act, and fair price ration shops are at its core for the supply of subsi-dised grains to the poor as they are covered under the law’s provisions.

He attacked the Delhi government for not implement-ing the “One nation one ration card” scheme. —ANI

Ravi Shankar Prasad

Tirumala: Chief Justice of India NV Ramana offered prayers at Lord Balaji temple on Thursday night. He will visit the temple again on Friday. The CJI along with his wife reached Tirumala earlier.

CJI RAMANA OFFERS PRAYERS AT LORD BALAJI TEMPLE

—FILE PHOTO

From Pg 1...

party came to power, the proposal was kept on the back burner. But now the situation is dif-ferent and the Chief Minister, after having a 2/3 rd majority in as-sembly, can easily get through the move, which may be subse-quently cleared by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha also, where BJP’s ‘Chanakya’ Amit Shah has masterminded the art of sailing through any critical proposal in the Parliament.

According to sources close to Yogi, his meet-ing with the Prime Min-ister, which lasted for about more than 100 minutes, the ‘atmos-phere and sentiment’ was not very conducive and Yogi was reported-ly clearly told about 250 BJP MLAs’ ‘dissatisfac-tion’ over the style and functioning of Yogi gov-ernment in general and the chief minister in particular. This fact has been revealed in a pow-erful BJP-RSS leader, Gen Sec (Organisation)

BL Santhosh’s confi-dential report to the Prime Minister after having a one on one feedback from these MLAs during his two day long stay at Luc-know recently.

With a view to con-clude and to take for-ward Central leader-ship’s UP agenda, after Yogi’s departure to Luc-know, a high level meet-ing was convened be-tween Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah and party Presi-dent JP Nadda at the residence of the Prime Minister. According to sources, drawing a tough line, the Prime Minister made it very clear that the leadership will not bow down to any pressure, come what may, and it will get implemented its ‘decid-ed agenda’ in Uttar Pradesh and every step will be taken which will be deemed fit in the in-terest of the party. It means cabinet reshuffle will take place, AK Shar-ma will be inducted as deputy CM or as a pow-

erful cabinet minister, Jitin Prasada as a cabi-net colleague and the likely division of Uttar Pradesh in two or three states, as and when it is deemed fit by the central leadership. However, the top RSS leadership will also be taken into confi-dence or kept in loop in all major UP matters be-cause all said and done, Yogi still continues to be RSS’s poster boy and the face of the saffron party

in the volatile state of Uttar Pradesh.

In response to PM’s ‘concern or displeas-ure’, Yogi turned the tables on the state BJP leaders specially the disgruntled group, by saying that unfortu-nately his own party is trying to play as a vil-lain to defame and dis-credit him and also cre-ating a narrative of the failure of the Yogi gov-ernment on various

fronts including Corona management. Yogi’s viewpoint was that Co-rona is not confined to only UP, it is all over the nation including West Bengal, Bihar, MP, Pun-jab and so on. Rather his government has ex-celled in the area of co-rona management across the state.

Subsequently, Yogi met with BJP President JP Nadda for about an hour or so and briefed

him on the highlights of his discussions with the Union Home Minis-ter Amit Shah on Thursday and with the Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi on Friday noon. A seasoned politi-cian Nadda, who is try-ing to play the role of a bridge between Yogi and the Central leader-ship, also persuaded Yogi not to insist or go beyond a point to ‘ex-press’ his hard stand on certain sensitive issues like cabinet reshuffle and the likely division of UP, the idea which has already been en-dorsed by the top lead-ership of RSS, which feels that a further divi-sion of Uttar Pradesh, on the lines of Uttara-khand will certainly speed up the develop-ment process and ad-ministratively also, it will be easier to manage the new states.

Prior to his meetings with Narendra Modi and JP Nadda, Yogi ex-pressed a similar ‘dis-contentment’ to Amit Shah also about the role of some negative forces

in UP BJP to project him as a flop chief minister. At this point Yogi report-edly blamed media and a section of BJP leaders for underplaying his government’s achieve-ments. But in response to Yogi’s viewpoint, a ‘knowledgeable’ Home Minister Amit Shah ad-vised Yogi to properly take care of his media management (though Yogi had already recent-ly assigned his govern-ment’s media manage-ment job to a highly ex-perienced and capable officer Navneet Sehgal).

At one point, Yogi also expressed his disap-pointment saying that when he was extremely busy in finalising the Chairmen of District Panchayat boards, after a phone from B L San-thosh, he had to come to Delhi and stayed for two days. He was also of the view that the Chief Min-ister of a state like UP must have the liberty to come and meet the Un-ion Home Minister or the Prime Minister at any time, as and when required.

CABINET RESHUFFLE SOON IN UTTAR PRADESH

CM Yogi Adityanath interacting with President Ram Nath Kovind during a courtesy visit at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Friday.

ED NOTICE TO WAZIRX, FOR RS 2,790 CR TRANSACTIONNew Delhi: WazirX is a cryptocurrency exchange based in India that allows users to trade a variety of digital currencies. Un-der the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 1999, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) issued a show-cause notice to cryptocurrency exchange WazirX and its directors Nischal Shetty and Sa-

meer Mhatre on June 11 for transactions involving cryptocurrencies valued Rs 2,790.74 crore. The FEMA inquiry was launched by the ED as part of an ongoing mon-ey laundering investiga-tion into Chinese-owned “illegal” online betting applications, according to a statement from the agency.

I SHOULD BE REMOVED AS PCC CHIEF: SUNIL JAKHARMohali (Punjab): Punjab Congress Chief Sunil Jakhar on Friday said that he should be removed from his post if someone else can strengthen the party. Interacting with media persons, Jakhar said, “Congress will fi ght the assembly elections in Punjab with full strength. I have been saying since day one that if appointing someone else as the Punjab Congress Chief strengthens the Con-gress party, then, it should be done and I should be removed.” According to sources. Sources say Navjot Singh Sidhu can be given an imp post.

ED CONDUCTS SEARCHES AT NAGESWARA RAO’S OFFICESNew Delhi: Enforcement Directorate offi cials on Friday conducted searches at some of the of-fi ces of Madhucon Group belonging to TRS MP and its Lok Sabha fl oor leader Nama Nageswara Rao, sources said. The searches are related to alleged fund diversion of Ranchi Expressway Limited, a Madhucon Group company, they said. The searches were conducted at Madhucon offi ces in Jubilee Hills, sources said. The CBI, in March 2020, booked the promoters of the Ranchi Expressway Ltd.

PREZ KOVIND, PM MODI CONDOLE DEATH OF PROF RADHA MOHANBhubaneswar: Padma Shri awardee environ-mentalist and Odisha’s former information commissioner Professor Radha Mohan died while undergoing treatment at a private hospital here on Friday, family sources said. He was 78 and is survived by three daughters. The Gandhian was in the ICU for the

last few days after being diagnosed with pneu-monia, hospital sources said. President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik were among those who condoled his death. Radha Mohan and his daughter Sabarmatee were conferred the Padma Shri last year.

INDIAAHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021

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Apex Court refuses to hear Param Bir Singh’s pleaNew Delhi: The Su-preme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea of former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh seek-ing transfer of all in-quiries against him to an independent agency outside Maharashtra.

A Bench of Justice Hemant Gupta and Jus-tice V Ramasubrama-nian refused to enter-tain the plea of Singh for transfer of probe from state police to an-other agency, saying

“You have been in the police force for 30 years. You can’t now say you want your inquiries outside the state.”

“You served the state for more than 30 years

and you are now saying that you have no confi-dence in the state po-lice. You can’t have doubts over your own force. You are part of a Maharashtra cadre and now you don’t trust the functioning of your own State? This is a shocking allegation,” the Bench remarked to-day.

It told Singh that “A person who lives in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones on oth-ers.” —ANI

RAJIV ASSASSINATION: PMK PLEA TO MK STALIN

BJP has become ‘Bharatiya Jhagda Party’: Sisodia

Chennai: PMK found-er- president S Rama-doss has urged Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin to write to the Governor for the release of the Rajiv Gandhi assassina-tion case convicts. He said that the state gov-ernment must petition the Governor to imme-diately take action on the request made by the earlier Palaniswami government.

In a letter written to the CM on June 11, he said that the state gov-ernment must request Raj Bhavan and not

Rashtrapati Bhavan for the release of 7 convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi as-sassination case.

The PMK leader said that June 11 marks the 30th year of the arrest of the seven convicts and alleged that Raj Bhavan is playing a game of hide and seek on the release of the convicts.

In reference to CM MK Stalin’s letter to the President in May re-questing his interven-tion for the release of the seven convicts, Ramadoss said. —IANS

New Delhi: Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Fri-day hit out at the BJP calling it “Bharatiya Jhagda Party” and ac-cused it of constantly “abusing” state govern-ments and chief minis-ters including Arvind Kejriwal.

Addressing a virtual press conference, Siso-dia made veiled refer-ences to remarks made by Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“A very senior minis-ter of the Central gov-ernment held a press

conference right now. I saw it too. He abused Arvind Kejriwal on ra-tion, vaccines and many other things. These days, central govern-ment ministers have only one job – to abuse Kejriwal.”

Manish Sisodia

Nusrat case has no link with politics, says TMCKolkata: Nusrat Jahan’s public statement regard-ing her relationship with Nikhil Jain has no connection with the party and politics, Trinamool general secretary Kunal Ghosh has said. The party is busy working for people, the TMC leader said adding that BJP’s Amit Malviya should not comment on this ei-ther as it would not be good for the BJP too if a debate starts now. On Thursday, BJP leader Amit Malviya questioned Nusrat Jahan’s statement on her marriage with Nikh-il Jain. —AGENCY

Pak’s House passes Bill to give right of appeal to Jadhav

Cong slams Assam CM for population control remarks

Islamabad: Pakistan’s National Assembly has passed a government-backed bill that will provide the right of ap-peal to Indian death-row prisoner Kulbhush-an Jadhav, according to a media report.

The National Assem-bly passed the ICJ (Re-view and Re-considera-tion) Bill, 2020 on Thursday aimed at al-lowing alleged Indian spy Jadhav to have con-sular access in line with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Jadhav, the 51-year-old retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charg-es of espionage and ter-rorism in April 2017.

India approached the

ICJ against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must under-take an “effective re-view and reconsidera-tion” of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consu-lar access to India with-out further delay.

The ICJ, in its 2019 verdict, had asked Paki-stan to provide a proper forum for appeal against the sentence given to Jadhav.

Guwahati: While ad-dressing the media on Thursday, Biswa Sarma said that the immigrant Muslim population must adopt decent fam-ily planning norms as land and resources are limited.

“If the population is not controlled then var-ious problems and crimes would come up jeopardising the future of the new genera-tions,” he added.

In response, Assam Congress’ Media De-partment Chairperson Bobbeeta Sharma said that the Chief Minis-

ter’s statement in the context about popula-tion ‘explosion’ in As-sam is “misinformed and misleading”.

She said that as per the latest National Fam-ily Health Survey (NFHS) undertaken by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Wel-fare and released in De-

cember 2020, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) across most Indian states have declined in the last five years.

“The total fertility rate is defined as the av-erage number of chil-dren that would be born to a woman by the time she ends childbearing. A TFR of 2.1 is known as the replacement rate. Fertility rate of less than 2.1 implies that the total population will be less than the existing population which is also called the negative growth rate,” Sharma said. —ANI

Kulbhushan Jadhav

Biswa Sarma

Tokyo Olympics: Sports Min not to send delegationNew Delhi: The Sports Ministry said on Friday that it has decided not to send its delegation to the Tokyo Olympics to accommodate “maxi-mum” support staff, including coaches and physios, for ath-letes participating in the Summer Games. A total of 100 In-dian athletes have qualified so far and another 25 to 35 are likely to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics to be held from July 23 to August 8. “The ministry has decided

to depute maximum additional support staff like coaches, doctors, physiothera-pists, to optimise the performance,” the ministry said.

It said, “Visit of any person other than the athletes, coaches and support staff shall be taken only if there is a pro-tocol required.”

Sedition case against Aisha Sultana lodgedT h i r u v a n a n -thapuram: Lakshad-weep police registered a case against filmmaker Aisha Sultana with charges of sedition and hate speech on Thurs-day.

The FIR was regis-tered against the film-maker on the complaint of BJP Lashadweep wing president C Abdul Khader Haji.

According to the complaint, Aisha Sul-tana during a news de-bate on a Malayalam channel alleged that the Centre had used COV-ID-19 as a “bio-weapon” against the people of Lakshadweep.

The case has been registered in the Ka-

varatti police station under Section 124A, 153B of IPC.

The FIR against Sul-tana comes at a time when there is an uproar against Lakshadweep administrator Praful Khoda Patel over the new reforms intro-duced by him, which people allege are against the interest of the islanders.People are protesting against the draft legislations like Lakshadweep Preven-tion of Anti-Social Ac-tivities Regulation (Goonda Act), Lakshad-weep Animal Preserva-tion Regulation and Lakshadweep Panchayat Regulation, 2021 among others. —ANI

Aisha Sultana

SRINAGAR:The PDP on Friday said it cannot participate in the ongo-ing delimitation pro-cess in Jammu and Kashmir as only elected representatives can take part in it and the party has none at pre-sent. Addressing a press conference here, chief PDP spokesper-son Suhail Bukhari said the delimitation commission has been designed in a way that only elected representa-tives can be part of the exercise.

Not to participate in J&K delimitation process: PDP

New Delhi : The Cen-tral government on Fri-day told the Supreme Court that it has depos-ited Rs 10 crore with the top court paid by the Republic of Italy as compensation to the families of the two Ker-ala fishermen who were shot dead in 2012 by two Italian Marines aboard the Enrica Lexie ship, in lieu of closure of criminal cases against the two navy personnel in India.

Justice Indira Baner-jee and Justice MR Shah after taking note the submissions made by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that com-pensation of Rs 10 crore has been deposited with the court for disburse-ment to the victims, re-served the order for June 15.

The Central govern-ment and Italy asked

the Bench that the court can close all proceed-ings and can formalise the aspect of disburse-ment in its final order.

The Bench said it will pass the final order on Tuesday.

The Bench was hear-ing an application filed by the Centre seeking to close the criminal cases against the two Italian Marines in India, after accepting the compen-sation of Rs 10 crores

offered by Italy to the victims of the 2012 sea-firing incident at inter-national waters of Ker-ala.

“We have deposited the amount. There was an award by Interna-

tional Tribunal, which as a Nation we have ac-cepted. The agreement is between Italy, the Government of India and Kerala,” Mehta says. Advocate appear-ing for the Republic of Italy said that criminal proceedings pending before a Delhi court must also be dropped in terms of the award by the International Arbi-tral Award.Mehta sub-mitted that Kerala is saying those who didn’t suffer injury but were on Board should also be compensated. “We don’t have an objection that can be looked into by Kerala on how the mon-ey has to be appor-tioned,” Mehta said.Senior advocate KN Balagopal appearing for Kerala contended that the victims were identi-fied so compensation could be paid. —ANI

CENTRE DEPOSITS ̀ 10-CR RECEIVED BY ITALY IN SCCompensation to Kerala fishermen who were shot dead by Italian Marines in 2012

Italian Marines who shot dead two Kerala fishermen.

HC slams govt...issue of non-compli-ance of rules regarding fire NOCs and BU. The matter has been kept for hearing on July 09.

“Enough is enough. It is time for action. You need to come up with a concrete action plan with a time schedule,” said the bench, while hearing a set of peti-tions, including a PIL, regarding fire safety scenarios in state cities.

While Advocate Gen-eral (AG) Kamal Trivedi urged the bench to take

up only the fire NOC is-sue at the moment and not to touch the “larger” matter of BU permis-sion, the bench insisted on addressing both is-sues simultaneously, as the judges felt they are interconnected and can-not be separated.

“Why no action was taken against concerned officers, with whose connivance or blessings these illegal construc-tions went on and such buildings continue to be occupied without a fire NOC?” asked the bench.

It has also called out the state government for its decision to ex-empt factories 15 me-tres in height from the fire NOC issue was in violation of the Nation-al Building Code.

When the AG said no-tices were issued to those who do not have fire NOCs for their buildings, the bench noted that the govern-ment “wakes up and starts taking action” only after the court in-tervenes.

“For years together,

no action was taken against wrongdoers or officers who did not take action against wrongdoers. Nothing happens. Every time you come up with such excuses and nothing is happening,” said Jus-tice Trivedi.

The court asked the state to take stern action against building users and owners who have not obtained BU certifi-cates. “Action should be taken against all those who take the law for granted,” it observed.

OH ROY!...He joined the BJP in No-vember that year. In September 2020, Roy was made national vice-president of the BJP. Roy’s son Subhrangshu too joined the BJP in May 2019. Subhrang-shu, also a former TMC MLA, lost from the Bi-jpur seat in this year’s Assembly polls.

Speculation about Roy’s return to the TMC began after his son Sub-harangshu wrote on Fa-cebook that “self-criti-cism was more neces-

sary than criticising a government elected by people.”

Also, Abhishek Ba-nerjee — TMC MP and nephew of Mamata Ba-nerjee — had last month visited Roy at the hospi-tal where his wife was admitted. The next day, Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi personally had a conversation with Roy on phone.

PK lunch...“It was a private lunch meet. Don’t read too much politics in it,” Sule

said later on Friday. The three-hour-long meeting was held at Pawar’s Sil-ver Oak residence.

Kishor, too, described the meeting as a “good will” tour and a part of a “thanksgiving visit” to all those leaders who had expressed solidari-ty with the Trinamool Congress and West Ben-gal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dur-ing the Assembly elec-tions in that state.

US FDA...information and data”,

and Ocugen is in discus-sions with the regulator to understand what ad-ditional information is required for a BLA sub-mission. It expects that data from an additional clinical trial will be re-quired.

The development is a major setback, as Ocugen will now have to work harder for a licence to provide Cov-axin in the US. It is ex-pected to take much longer to receive a BLA as compared with an EUA.

FROM PG 1

TALKING POINTAHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021

07www.firstindia.co.in I www.firstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefirstindia I facebook.com/thefirstindia I instagram.com/thefirstindia

A few weeks ago, a mes-sage popped up in the corner of my screen.

“What do you think about peo-ple who have recently had COV-ID–19 getting the vaccine?” A friend of mine was eligible for a COVID–19 vaccine, but she had recently gotten over an in-fection with SARS–CoV–2. More people

are becoming eligible for vaccines each week – including millions of people who have already recovered from a coronavirus infection. Many are wondering whether they need the vaccine, especial-ly people who have already been infected.

I study immune responses to respiratory infections, so I get a lot of these types of questions. A person can develop immunity – the ability to resist infection – from being infected with a vi-rus or from getting a vaccine. However, immune protection isn’t always equal. The strength of the immune response, the length of time that the protec-tion lasts and the variation of the immune response across people is very different between vaccine immunity and natural immunity for SARS–CoV–2. COVID–19 vaccines offer safer and more reliable immunity than natural infection.

IMMUNITY AFTER INFECTION IS UNPREDICTABLEImmunity comes from the im-mune system’s ability to re-member an infection. Using this immune memory, the body will know to fight if it encounters the disease again. Antibodies are proteins that can bind to a virus and pre-vent infection. T cells are cells that direct the removal of in-fected cells and viruses al-ready bound by antibodies. These two are some of the main players that contribute to immunity.

After a SARS-CoV-2 infec-tion, a person’s antibody and T cell responses may be strong enough to provide protection against reinfection. Research shows that 91% of people who develop antibodies against the coronavirus are unlikely to be infected again for six months, even after a mild infection. People who had no symptoms during the infection are also likely to develop immunity, though they tend to make few-er antibodies than those who felt ill. So for some people, nat-ural immunity may be strong and long-lasting.

The problem is that not eve-ryone will develop immunity after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. As many as 9% of infected people do not have detectable antibodies, and up to 7% of people don’t have T cells that recognize the virus 30 days af-ter infection.

For people who do develop immunity, the strength and du-ration of the protection can vary a lot. Up to 5% of people may lose their immune protec-tion within a few months. Without a strong immune de-fense, these people are suscep-

tible to reinfection by the coro-navirus. Some have had sec-ond bouts of COVID–19 as soon as one month after their first infection; and, though rare, some people have been hospitalized or even died.

A person who is reinfected may also be able to transmit the coronavirus even without feel-ing sick. This could put the per-son’s loved ones at risk.

And what about the variants? So far, there isn’t any hard data about the new coronavirus var-iants and natural immunity or reinfection, but it is certainly

possible that immu-

nity from one infection won’t be as

strong against infection with a different variant.

VACCINATION LEADS TO RELIABLE PROTECTIONCOVID–19 vaccines generate both antibody and T cell re-sponses – but this is much stronger and more consistent than immunity from natural infection. One study found that four months after receiv-ing their first dose of the Moderna vaccine, 100% of

people tested had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. This is the longest period that has been studied so far. In a study looking at the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, antibody levels were also much higher in vaccinated people than in those who had recovered from infection.

Even better, a study in Israel showed that the Pfizer vaccine blocked 90% of infections after both doses – even with a variant present in the population. And a decrease in infections means people are less likely to trans-mit the virus to the people around them.

The COVID–19 vaccines aren’t perfect, but they produce strong antibody and T cell re-sponses that offer a safer and more reliable means of protec-tion than natural immunity.

INFECTION AND VACCINATION TOGETHERTo my friend’s message, I in-stantly replied that she should absolutely get the vaccine. Af-ter getting vaccinated, my friend could be comfortable

knowing that she has long-last-ing, effective immunity and less of a chance of spreading the coronavirus to her friends and family.

But more good news has emerged since I sent that mes-sage. A new study showed that vaccination after infection pro-duces six times more antibodies than a vaccine by itself. This isn’t to say that anyone should try to get infected before they get vaccinated – vaccine immu-

nity alone is more than strong enough to pro-vide protection and the dangers of a fight with COVID-19 far outweigh the benefits. But when my friend and the many others who were already infected get their vaccines, they’ll be well protected.

Natural immunity from in-fection is simply far too unreli-able in the face of such a devas-tating virus. Current COVID-19 vaccines offer incredibly strong, consistent protection to the great majority of people. So, for anyone eligible, even those who have already had a SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19 vac-cines offer immense benefits.

Why you should get a

COVID-19VACCINE

JENNIFER T. GRIER

Clinical Assistant Professor of Immunology, University of South Carolina

SOUR

CE:

THEC

ONVE

RSAT

ION.

COM

The immune system will usually generate an immune response to a SARS-CoV-2

infection, but not always. —NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY

AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, CC BYCOVID–19 vaccines produce a strong immune response in terms of both antibodies and T cells.

AHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021www.fi rstindia.co.in I www.fi rstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefi rstindia I facebook.com/thefi rstindia I instagram.com/thefi rstindia082NDFRONT

HOBSON’S CHOICE? SC says not rightto seal hospitals amid Covid-19 crisisApex court protects Ahmedabad hospitals from “coercive action,” but asks Gujarat to ensure fire safety for patientsFirst India Bureau

New Delhi: With the Gujarat Government caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, the Supreme Court on Friday al-lowed, as an interim measure, that build-ings devoid of a build-ing use certificate and a fire NOC may continue to be used by hospitals and nursing homes, but asked the State Government to find a middle path.

This follows submis-sions from Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta and the counsel for peti-tioner hospitals that it was not practical to seal health facilities with-out these permits, amid

the pandemic, accompa-nied by fears of a third wave.

Agreeing to Mehta’s submission to grant the

State a month to find a “workable solution” where patients don’t face paucity of beds, while they are also not

at the risk of a fire, the apex court listed the matter after eight weeks.

The court directed

that “no coercive steps” be initiated against an-yone, and not just the petitioners. The vaca-tion bench of Justices

Hemant Gupta and V. Ramasubramanian was hearing a special leave petition (SLP) against the June 5 decision of the Gujarat High Court dismissing the plea challenging notices is-sued by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) for sealing of hospitals run by the pe-titioners for lack of fire NOC and/or Building Use permission.

The genesis of the no-tices lies in a fire which broke out in Shrey Hos-pital, Ahmedabad, that left 8 persons dead. While a PIL was pending in the Gujarat High Court, the AMC issued a Public No-tice on February 22, 2021, stating that premises without Building Use

permission and fire NOC would be sealed.

When the petitioners’ lawyer Maninder Singh appealed to the court, “Your Lordships’ com-passion and judicial statesmanship is re-quired in this matter”, Justice Ramasubrama-nian replied, “The hos-pitals are now seeking our mercy. We hope they only show the same mer-cy to the patients when they get discharged.”

While allowing the interim relief, the court observed, “We can’t permit the hos-pitals to be run with-out requisite per-mits. It is atrocious that people are dying in hospitals because of fire.”

—REPRESENTATIONAL PICTURE

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: The Cen-tral Bureau of Investi-gation on Friday regis-tered a case against a Gujarat-based firm and its directors for alleg-edly causing a loss of Rs 134.43 crore to the Un-ion Bank of India through misappropria-tion and diversion of loans.

The central agency conducted searches at six places in Mumbai, which led to the recov-ery of incriminating documents, it said in a release here.

An FIR has been reg-istered against Associ-ate High Pressure Tech-nologies Pvt Ltd, a com-pany based in Gandhid-ham, Kutch, it said, adding that it names Ramchand K Issrani, Mohammad Farouk Suleman Darvesh, Srichand Satramadas Agicha, Ebrahim Sule-man Darvesh and un-known public servants and others.

According to the complaint filed by the public sector bank, the company misappropri-ated the funds and di-verted them through other banking channels in violation of the terms and conditions of the loans sanctioned by the Union Bank.

First India Bureau

Surat: The Standing Committee of the SMC on Thursday rejected a proposal by Municipal Commissioner Banch-hanidhi Pani to empow-er deputy commission-ers heading various zones to spend up to Rs 15 lakh for urgent works without prior approval.

As of now, most pro-posals have to be routed

through the Standing Committee and this takes time.

Rejecting the propos-al, Standing Committee Chairman Paresh Patel said this might enable officials to misuse their power and could lead to corruption. He advo-cated sticking to the ex-isting norms.

SMC sources claimed the proposal was reject-ed as a result of a long-

standing cold war be-tween the Municipal

Commissioner and the committee chairman.

The Limbayat zone had proposed that the zonal chief should be empowered to spend Rs 15 lakh for cleaning the creek during the monsoons. But reject-ing this, Patel ob-served that regular works of basic neces-sity should be carried out according to estab-lished norms and could not be consid-ered a special case.

CBI books Gujarat firm for loan fraud of ` 134 crore

STANDING COMMITTEE REJECTS SMC CHIEF’S PROPOSAL

Surat Municipal Corporation. —FILE PHOTO

Rajkot women police station goes onlineMasuma Bharmal Jariwala

Rajkot: In a new ini-tiative, the Rajkot Women Police Station has embraced modern communication tech-nology to resolve cases when it is difficult for people to travel or stir out of home.

“Majority of the prob-lems received at the po-lice station are related to social issues, espe-cially about relation-ship between a husband and a wife. So far, in case of a complaint, couples had to remain physical-ly present at the police station,” Rajkot women police station police in-spector Sejal Patel told First India.

She says, “The cur-rent pandemic situa-tion may not be favora-ble for all to physically travel. In most cases, the women are from Rajkot and their spouse lives outside, making it difficult for them to travel as and when required.”

Patel said to ensure that family related is-sues were not delayed they started online counseling from Thursday where es-tranged couples were being connected through Zoom app and counselling done in presence of counsel-lors and police staff.

“The idea is to en-sure that couples unite, their family life sur-vives and do not end up filing cases against each other. We are sure this new way of coun-selling will not only save a lot of time, but spare people the anxi-ety of visiting the po-lice station frequently,” Patel added.

—FILE PHOTO

—FILE PHOTO

To ensure that family issues are not delayed Rajkot

women police station started online

counseling where estranged couples

are connected through Zoom app

SEEKING BIRTHDAY BLESSINGSMinister of State for Home Pradeepsinh Jadeja performing puja of Lord Jagannath with the help of Head priest of Jagannathji Temple Dilip Dasji on his birthday on Friday. He also attended a meeting about the upcoming annual Rath Yatra at Jamalpur area in Ahmedabad.

—PHOTOS BY HANIF SINDHI

Keep faith in your heart and science and logic in your brains. During crisis- give ‘brain’ the prominence,

while the ‘heart’ holds you steady.—Jagdeesh Chandra, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, First India

The rules of law have to be complied

with and all permis-sions have to be tak-en and given. But at this time, it will be hazardous to give up hundreds and thou-sands of beds. The bed capacity cannot be compromised right now.

—Tushar Mehta, Solicitor-General of India

appearing for Gujarat

First India Bureau

Jaipur: Renowned neu-rologist and Padma Shri recipient Dr Ashok Pa-nagariya, 71, died of post covid complications here on Friday. His cremation was done at Shri Jain Shwetam-bar Nirwan Sthal in Adarsh Nagar where his son Arihant lit the funeral pyre. Dr P a -na-

gariya was battling for life and was on ventila-tor support for the last several days. After his condition worsened, he was shifted from EHCC

hospital to his home in afternoon and

he was declared dead at the resi-dence.

P r e s i d e n t Ram Nath Ko-vind, PM Nar-

endra Modi, Lok Sab-

h a

Speaker Om Birla, Gov-ernor Kalraj Mishra, CM Ashok Gehlot and other leaders condoled his demise.

About 10 days ago, his health deteriorated after taking the second dose of the Covid vaccine. Sources close to him said that his lungs were dam-aged due to corona infec-tion. He lost the battle after suffering for 48 days.

A team of specialist doctors from India and abroad, including top nephrologists, pulmo-nologists and physi-cians, were engaged for his treatment. Chief

Minister Ashok Gehlot was also getting constant updates on his health.

Dr Panagariya started feeling the symptoms of

covid on April 24 follow-ing which he went to a private lab at JLN Marg and got HRCT done. His score was 17 in the HRCT

report. He then got ad-mitted to RUHS Hospital on 25 April. After his health deteriorated there, he was shifted to EHCC Hospital located near Jawahar Circle.

Sources said he had restrained his move-ment in the last one year. Even during his son’s wedding function in July last year, only 15 people were invited. He had also stopped seeing patients due to the co-rona pandemic and was giving online consulta-tion.

Dr Panagariya re-ceived the Merit Award from the Government

of Rajasthan in 1992. He was the Principal of the medical college from 2006 to 2010.In 2002, the Medical Council of India hon-oured him with the Dr. BC Roy Award. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2014.

Dr Panagariya was the first doctor from Ra-jasthan to get a Doctor-ate in Medicine (DM) degree in Neurolo-gy. According to his close friends, he had turned down an offer of Rs 12 crore per annum from a major private hospital in the country in order to serve his pa-

tients. The condition of the hospital was that he would not see patients anywhere other than the hospital, but did not accept this for his patients.

Dr Dinesh Swaroop Mathur, who was the professor of Dr Pana-gariya in SMS Medical College, said that he was the smartest stu-dent of his batch.

He was also a re-nowned astrologer and a political advisor. Po-litical leaders from all parties would seek his advice on both fronts- astrology and politcal analytical acumen.

Padma Shri Dr Ashok Panagariya: a man for all seasons

here on Friday. His cremation was done at Shri Jain Shwetam-bar Nirwan Sthal in Adarsh Nagar where his son Arihant lit the funeral pyre. Dr

in afternoon and he was declared dead at the resi-dence.

P r e s i d e n t Ram Nath Ko-vind, PM Nar-

endra Modi, Lok Sab-

h a

taking the second dose of the Covid vaccine. Sources close to him said that his lungs were dam-aged due to corona infec-tion. He lost the battle after suffering for 48 days.

doctors from India and abroad, including top nephrologists, pulmo-nologists and physi-cians, were engaged for his treatment. Chief

Dr. Ashok Panagariya is bid a tearful farewell by his son Arihant, family members & close friends in Jaipur on Friday.

nindita Chandra is a 21-year-old girl who was born and brought up in Durgapur, West Bengal. She is a

model and also a student of anaesthesia technology. Not

only this, she is a state-level badminton player, trained in classical music and has

learnt 6 different forms of dance. When asked about how she thought of enter-

ing into the modelling indus-

t r y, the

eternal beauty replied, “As a kid, I always wanted to become a super-model because of the uncondition-al love I had for the profession. I was very skinny, tall & dusky and was always bullied for my appear-ance. Also, my family used to say that it is not easy for a middle-class family like ours to make a career in the glamour industry. But I be-lieved in myself and my dreams.”

The beauty queen achieved her first victory at the age of 12 years when she won a fashion show which boosted her confidence. In 2017, she participated in Miss South Bengal and then she decid-ed to get trained in pageantry. She got the pageant training from Ri-tika Ramtri at the Tiara pageant Training Studio, Pune. After that, she got a wonderful opportunity to participate in Miss Ocean India 2020 which she won and further to represent India at Miss Ocean World. She said, “Under the men-torship of international director Yogesh Mishra and national direc-tor Nimisha Mishra, I won the title of Miss Ocean World Asia 2020 (2nd Runner-up) and Miss Ocean World Ramp walk. I cannot thank them enough for training me so beautifully and giving me

this wonderful opportunity which I will cherish throughout my life.” Anin-dita believes in following

her passion with full dedica-tion and this is the mes-

sage she wants to give to the young girls. She is

currently living in Mumbai and

chasing her d r e a m s

with a vi-sion to be-

come a suc-c e s s f u l

super-mod-

el.

AHMEDABAD, SATURDAYJUNE 12, 2021

09

MISS OCEAN INDIA 2020, ANINDITA CHANDRA MISS OCEAN INDIA 2020, ANINDITA CHANDRA WHO FOUGHT AGAINST ALL THE ODDS TO WHO FOUGHT AGAINST ALL THE ODDS TO

FOLLOW HER PASSION, SHARED HER LIFE STORY FOLLOW HER PASSION, SHARED HER LIFE STORY WITH CITY FIRST IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!WITH CITY FIRST IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!

MANSI BACHANIcityfirst@firstindia.co.in

A

Beauty with COURAGECOURAGE

www.fi rstindia.co.in I www.fi rstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefi rstindia facebook.com/thefi rstindia I instagram.com/thefi rstindia

SagittariusNOVEMBER 23 - DECEMBER 21

Selective eating will keep you fi t as a fi ddle. Setting out early on a journey will be in your favour. A

property matter, pending for long, will proceed smoothly and get your dream house registered in your name. Excellent academic performance will help you catch up with the lead pack.

CapricornDECEMBER 22 - JANUARY 20

Take up meditation or yoga for achieving a fi t body and mind. You will manage to tie up a lot of loose ends

on the domestic front. Your desire to visit someplace out of town is likely to get fulfi lled. You will manage to book property that you had been wanting to for long.

AquariusJANUARY 21 - FEBRUARY 18

Your depressing thoughts vanish as a special friend or relative arrives to lift up your spirits. Those fed up

of frequent travelling will be able to do something about it. Some major changes may be initiated in a property owned by you. You will need to become profi cient in everything opted.

PiscesFEBRUARY 19 - MARCH 20

Getting nominated for something prestigious cannot be ruled out. A family get together may

fi nd you in your element. Travelling to meet someone close is indicated. A house or an apartment is likely to come in your name. Competition on the academic front may unsettle you.

10ETC

AHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021www.fi rstindia.co.in I www.fi rstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefi rstindia I facebook.com/thefi rstindia I instagram.com/thefi rstindia

YOUR DAYHoroscope by

Saurabbh Sachdeva

AriesMARCH 21 - APRIL 20

Family will be loving and supportive of your ideas. A ride to the countryside will help some unwind.

Property issues are likely to get settled in your favour. Distractions may fi nd your focus wavering on the academic front, so take care. Someone you hate is likely to turn over a new leaf.

TaurusAPRIL 21 - MAY 21

A loan you had applied for will be sanctioned. Remaining regular in workouts is the key to

achieve total health. You may get involved in arranging something on the family front. You get a chance to visit your favourite place. Settling a property deal is on the cards for some.

Gemini MAY 22 - JUNE 21

You enjoy good health by remaining regular in your exercise regimen. A guest arriving at home will prove

quite entertaining and lighten the domestic atmosphere. Gains from rented out property are foreseen. Enjoying extra time on your hands on the academic front may not be possible.

Cancer JUNE 22 - JULY 22

Some of you are likely to get worried about your advancing age. Some of you will have a good time

in the company of friends or cousins. Going on a short vacation in future after lockdown restrictions just for a break is possible. A property is likely to be yours soon.

Leo JULY 23 - AUGUST 22

Not taking adequate rest can tell on your health. A family youngster may need to be dealt with fi rmly in

regards to spending money. You will need to defi ne your career goals clearly before deciding what to pursue on the academic front. Much excitement is in store for you on the romantic front.

Virgo AUGUST 23 - SEPTEMBER 22

A job switch promises to offer better salary and perks. Coming back in shape can prove an uphill

task for some. You will go out of your way to extend a helping hand to a family member. Be careful of property dealers promising you the moon. Doing exceptionally well will add to prestige.

Libra SEPTEMBER 23 - OCTOBER 22

Good news on the professional front can prove highly motivating. Planning something

together with family will be fun. A different mode of conveyance will be better suited to your needs. A good price can be expected for a piece of property being sold.

Scorpio OCTOBER 23 - NOVEMBER 22

Taking up meditation will prove benefi cial for both body and mind. A family youngster may require a

push from your side to gain confi dence in something attempted. Adopting a more convenient route for workplace is possible. Giving a facelift to an ancestral house is on the cards for some.

wanted to try out a new genre for writing my next review - so I picked up a ‘ro-mantic book’ written by Jose-

phine Cox. The raving reviews bowled me over - “Readers will find it im-possible to tear them-selves away”, “Another masterpiece”, “Cox’s tal-ent as a storyteller never lets you escape the spell”, & “The latest emotional-ly-charged story from the mega-selling author won’t disappoint her army of fans”. Ah Well !!! I can’t vouch about join-ing her ‘army of fans’, but yes, no doubt about the ‘emotionally charged story’. Pure melodrama at its best. A typical 3-star masala Bollywood Blockbuster in the mak-ing. Frank Arnold would put any Shakti Kapoor to shame. (I wouldn’t say Pran or Mogambo or Gabbar Singh, simply be-cause even in their nega-tivity they bring about an unsurpassable gran-deur to villainy, by their sheer presence).

Josephine Cox is one of the UK’s most popular authors. As a ‘London Times Bestseller’, she delights her fans with this heartbreaking, en-grossing, electrifyingly exciting, dramatic story of a love triangle gone wrong. In Blood Broth-ers, she’s at her capti-vating best. As she draws readers “deep

into this

tale of two siblings with nothing in common, but a desperate and danger-ous desire for the same woman”.

Blood Brothers is a modernized Cain and Abel tale of 1950s Eng-land, in which two broth-ers Joe and Frank vie for the attention of the young and beautiful Al-ice Jacobs. She is inno-cent, lively, ‘wild as the wind’. She wins hearts with her ‘shy smile’ and ‘kind nature. In the Ar-nold family, she finally finds a home that she has always yearned for. Tom and Nancy Arnold, a most respectable couple, have raised two very d i f -fer-

ent sons- Frank and Joe. Frank is a devious,

manipulating, unscru-pulous, brutal man. He lures Alice to a life of stability, as a homemak-er, which she deeply de-sires. He wants to ‘pos-sess her’ as his ‘prized trophy’, ‘a key to his for-tune’, since she comes from a ‘first-class busi-ness’ background. Joe, on the other hand, is a man of integrity. He knows when to speak his mind and when to keep his silence. He also knew when to walk away, which is exactly what he did when he fell madly in love with Alice on their very first meeting.

He, reluctantly re-turned, only on Frank’s insistence, for the wedding. Passions ignite, logic is forgot-

ten. Joe and Alice are drawn towards each other, unable to resist. Tragedy

follows this for-bidden indul-

gence and all are en-

gulfed in the wildfire. Alice is torn between

her head and heart. The head constantly reminds her that she is betrothed to Frank and is duty-bound to marry him. Her heart craves for Joe. Meekly, succumbing to the circumstances, Alice marries Frank.

Frank’s evil, shrewd mind, sharpens his senses, as he realises, all is not well. He tortures Alice ‘to confess her crime’. Heavily drunk, blinded by raging ha-tred, Frank’s sinister self comes forth. He bru-tally hurts Alice, leaves her half-dead, bound and gagged, and rushes with a shotgun to finish off Joe. His ultimate ret-ribution tears apart the Arnold family and shat-ters every life around him. The tragic violence that follows is bone-chilling to the core.

Josephine Cox is an exceptional writer. She crafts a story that will linger with you. You sim-ply cannot shrug off the lurking sense of danger-

compelling you to read on, page after page.

As a typical vintage era film, the characters are uni-dimensionally black and white. The good guys, like Joe, are without flaws. The bad characters are without any redeeming qualities. Frank is pure unadulter-ated evil. Maureen and

Pauline (Alice’s- cold, calculating, wicked and jealous- mother and sis-ter, continue to be mo-notonously same- throughout her joys and sorrows). Alice is sicken-ingly perfect. The senior Arnold’s - Tom and Nan-cy & Alice’s grandpar-ents- Joshua and Tricia - two very affable cou-ples, are almost identical in their comfortable ro-mantic relationship and mutual bickerings.

Thanks to Cox’s mel-odramatic writing skills, the plot holds the read-er’s attention. Sympa-thies lurch from one character to another. As events reach their dra-matic conclusion, read-ers find it impossible to tear themselves away till the very end. She has rightly co-titled is as “Drama with Heart!”.

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DEEPAK’S CORNER

BLOOD BLOOD BROTHERSBROTHERS

FACE

OF TH

E DAY

SANAYA, MODEL

IJosephine Cox

also adapted the Persian term into “magus.” While defend-ing himself at trial for performing “evil deeds of magic,” the second-century philosopher Apuleius claimed he both was and was not a “magician.” He insisted he was like a high priest or a natural philosopher rather than some-one who uses unsavoury means to get what they want. What’s interesting here is that Apuleius uses one idea of high philosophical magic to combat another idea of crude, self-interested magic.

CHRISTIANITY AND MAGICThe first Christians inherited these varied ideas of magic alongside their Roman neighbours. In their world, people who did “magical” deeds like exor-cisms and healings were common. Such people sometimes explained religious or philosophical texts and ideas, as well.

This presented a problem for early Christian au-thors: If wondrous deeds were fairly common-place, how could a group look to attract followers compete with “magicians”? After all, Jesus and the Apostles did extraordinary deeds, too. So Christian writers made distinctions in order to elevate their heroes.

Take the biblical story of Simon the magician. In Acts 8, Simon’s magical deeds entice the Sa-maritans and convince them to follow him un-til the evangelist Philip performs even more amazing miracles, converting all the Samari-tans and Simon, too. But Simon relapses when he tries to buy the power of the Holy Spirit, prompting the Apostle Peter to rebuke him. This story is where we get the sin of simony: the purchase of religious office.

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, texts like this do not depict real events. They are teaching tools aimed at showing new ad-herents the differences between good Christian miracle workers and evil magi-cians. The earliest converts needed such stories because wonder-workers looked a lot alike.

CHRISTIANITY AND MORALITYTo some ancient people, stories of

Jesus’ miracles probably didn’t seem far removed from the deeds magicians performed for money in the market-place. In fact, the church fathers had to shield Jesus and the Apostles against accusations of practising magic. Celsus argued that the mira-cles of Jesus were no different from the magic performed by market-place sorcerers. Origen agreed the two shared superficial similarities but claimed they were fundamen-tally different because magicians cavorted with demons while Je-sus’ wonders led to moral refor-mation.

Like the story of Simon the magician, Origen’s disagree-ment with Celsus was a means of teaching his audience how to tell the difference between morally suspect magicians who sought personal gain and miracle workers who acted for the benefit of others.

Ancient authors invented the idea that the miracles of Christians possessed inher-ent moral superiority over non-Christian magic be-cause ancient audiences were as enticed by magic as modern ones. But in elevating Christianity above magic, these writ-ers created false distinc-tions that linger even today.

agic’ is often defined in the West as evil or separate from “civi-lized” religions like Christianity and also from the scientific observation and

study of the world. But the irony is that magic was integral to the development of Christianity and other religions – and it informed the evolution of the sciences, too.

THE ORIGINS OF MAGICIn Western culture, magic is of-ten defined in opposition to reli-gion and science. This is prob-lematic because all three con-cepts are rooted in colonialism. For centuries, many European scholars based their defini-tions of religion on Christi-anity, while at the same time describing the practices and beliefs of non-Christians as “primitive,” “superstitious” or “magical.”

This sense of superiority helped Europe’s Christian monarchies justify con-quering and exploiting In-digenous peoples around the world in a bid to “civi-lize” them, often through extreme brutality. Imperialist legacies still col-our how some people think about non-Christians as “oth-ers,” and how they label oth-ers’ rituals and religions as “magic.”

But this modern understand-ing of magic doesn’t map neatly onto the world of the first Christians. “Magic” has always had many meanings. From what scholars can gather, the word itself was imported from the Persian word “maguš,” which may have described a class of priests with royal connections. Sometimes, these “magi” were

depicted as performing divination, ritual activi-ties or educating young boys who would take the throne.

Greek texts retained this earlier meaning and also added new ones. The famous ancient Greek historian Herodotus writes that the Persian magi inter-preted dreams, read the skies and per-formed sacrifices. Herodotus uses the Greek word “magos.” Sophocles, a Greek playwright, uses the same term in his tragedy “Oedipus the King,” when

Oedipus berates the seer Tiresias for scheming to

overthrow him. Although these two Greek texts both date from roughly the ear-ly 400s B.C., “magician” has different connota-tions in each.

The seven Harry Pot-

ter fan-tasies are the world’s best-sell-ing book series, with more than 500 million novels sold since the first story was published in 1997. Mike Clarke/AFP via Get-ty Images Starting in the first century B.C., Latin authors

AMERICANS ARE FASCINATED BY MAGIC. TV SHOWS LIKE “WANDAVISION” AND “THE WITCHER,” BOOKS LIKE THE HARRY POTTER SERIES, PLUS COMICS, MOVIES AND GAMES ABOUT PEOPLE WITH POWERS THAT CAN’T BE EXPLAINED BY GOD, SCIENCE OR TECHNOLOGY, HAVE ALL BEEN WILDLY POPULAR FOR YEARS. MODERN POP CULTURE IS A TESTAMENT TO HOW ENCHANTED PEOPLE ARE BY THE THOUGHT OF GAINING SPECIAL CONTROL OVER AN UNCERTAIN WORLD!

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IS MAGIC

IMMORAL?

‘M

Source : https://theconversation.com/us

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AHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021

12AHMEDABAD | SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021www.fi rstindia.co.in I www.fi rstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefi rstindia I facebook.com/thefi rstindia I instagram.com/thefi rstindia

CITY BUZZGET VACCINATED

STAY MASKED

The birthday of Gujarat Minister of State for Home Pradipsinh Jadeja was on Friday, June 11. We wish him all the best!

The models of Elite Miss Rajasthan- Daisy Choudhary, Mannat Singh and Kajal Choudhary took their fi rst jab of the Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, June 11. According to them, getting vaccinated should be the top priority for everyone.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

GET VACCINATED!

Covid relief at MGHCITY FIRST

ahatma Gan-dhi Hospital during the on-going pandem-ic has treated more than 7000 patients.

Dr Vikas Chandra, Chairperson of Mahat-ma Gandhi University said that more than a thousand patients have been taken care of in the ICU, around 800 pa-tients are on a ventila-tor, whereas patients are also being treated by ECMO. The hospital provided home care fa-cilities to around 3000 patients. The hospital has also built a differ-ent section for curing patients who were suf-fering from various diseases post-Corona.

Vice-Chancellor, Dr Sudhir Sachdev said that in order to cope with the third wave of Coronavirus all the staff have been heavily involved to their full extent, such as resi-dent doctors, nurses, etc. Dentists and resi-

dents have been put up as a backup for curing diseases if any sort of emergency occurs.

Dr Sachdev also said that a section for paediatrics as well as adult ventila-tors with paediat-rics mode is also be-ing installed at the hos-pital. The hospital in-corporates 50 beds for critical patients. The hospital will also pro-vide a place for the pa-tients’ parents to stay.

The hospital is being prepped up for the third wave, according to the needs, within a week, 400 ICU beds and

400 non ICU beds will be made ready. New ECMO devic-es will be installed.

Facilities will be made to cure a thou-sand patients who re-quire oxygen. Team will be ready to refill the oxygen require-ments when in need.

cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

M

PRIDE OF RAJASTHANCITY FIRST

The statue of Ma-harana Pratap, a symbol of the pride of Ra-

jasthan, will now be established in Ayod-hya. A 12-and-a-half feet high bronze statue has been prepared by Jaipur sculptors Ma-havir Bharti and Nir-mala Kulhari.

On the occasion of Maharana Pratap’s birth an-niversary on June 13, BJP State Presi-dent Satish Poonia, RSS state campaigner Dr Shailendra Kumar, Jaipur MP Ramcharan Bohra, BJP General Secretary Diya Ku-mari MP Rajsamand, Sanganer MLA Ashok Lahoti, Kailash Megh-wal of BJP SC Mor-cha, BJP State Minis-ter Ashok Saini, For-mer Chairman of

Child Protection Com-mission Manan Chaturvedi, former chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi Ashwin Dalvi National Gener-al Secretary of San-skar Bharti Ravindra Bharti, Ajay Dhandhia from VHP Pratap Bhanu will give a green signal before dispatching the statue.

When established in Ayodhya, it will be unveiled by Ut-tar Pradesh Chief

Minister Yogi Adi-tyanath. The statue has been constructed by the Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Welfare Council. The design of the statue is made by Nirmala Kulhari and the weight of the stat-ue made from the lost wax process is 1500 kg. It took six months for the completion of the statue.

cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

Generous ContributionCITY FIRST

The AAC Min-ing Executors Group is a global rapid

mechanized mining contractor with op-erations around the world and having broad international mining experi-ence in Latin America, Africa and Asia. As part of its corporate so-cial responsibility, AAC donated medical equipment ranging from ICU electric bed, syringe infusion

pumps and Pa-tients monitors to

the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital, Bhilwara. Speaking at the dona-tion ceremony, Mu-kaya Simubali, Exec-utive Director, reiter-

ated the company’s commitment towards improving the well being of the local peo-ple in the community it is operating from. On receiving the do-nation on the same

occasion Shivprasad M Nakate, Bhilwara District Collector, thanked AAC Mining and Mr Simubali for the goodwill gesture shown by the compa-ny. cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

Veteran actor Dilip Kumar has been discharged from the hospital after

undergoing a pleural aspiration procedure.

The actor was admitted to Hinduja hospital in Mumbai

after complaining of breathlessness on

Sunday. He shared the news via a tweet.

DISCHARGED!

INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGSCITY FIRST

The AICTE Train-ing and Learning (ATAL) Academy sponsored five

days Faculty Develop-ment Programme on the ‘Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)’ organ-ised by Swami Kesh-vanand Institute of Technology, Manage-ment & Gramothan (SKIT), Jaipur conclud-

ed on June 11. In this FDP, various

experts from academia and industries of the country discussed the salient features and dimensions of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and its usefulness at the glob-al level. Before the vale-dictory ceremony, in the morning session, Dr Ravi Panwar, IIIT Jabal-pur gave a detailed dis-

cussion on Artificial in-telligence Enabled De-sign and Manufacturing of Advanced Stealth

Structures. A f t e r w a r d s ,

Krishna Pad Das, deliberated on the

topic Stress Manage-ment: Power of Positiv-ity. The session gave a very mesmerizing and spiritual experience to the participants.

cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

Focus on the passion

Achemistry enthusiast turned writer, Nitin Sharma is an inspira-tion to all those who

struggle to find their passion. He worked as a chemistry fac-ulty for 11 years and yet, had fictional and non-fictional suc-cessful books to his credit.

Nitin said, “I started writ-ing in 2004 when I was in class 11. But I published my book Mystery of Atom in 2012 to kickstart an altogether differ-ent journey. Even though I taught chemistry since 2009, I always wanted to make a career in literature. Lock-down due to COVID-19 gave me a break that I needed to be a full-time writ-er. I want to leave my name etched in the literary world. But chemistry offered recogni-tion as a teacher, and it will be immortal.”

Nitin believes in thorough research before writing any-thing. He worked for eight years before penning down his first book, Mystery of Atom. Similar efforts went into his next musical fiction titled Mysterious 4:30 A.M. When It Happened. He shared, “I do a depth of hard work and re-

search on each of my pro-ject. I had also invested my

work on Cosmovation - 2018 - A tribute to Sir Stephen Hawk-ing and KALAM - 2019 - A trib-ute to sir APJ Abdul Kalam that has left a remarkable im-pression on my soul and evolved my personality. I took back-to-back sessions in dif-ferent schools of Jaipur with almost 15000 plus students. I do believe in the philosophy that nothing happens by chance. Hardworking people eventually succeed, and perse-verance is the key to success.”

KARISHMA GWALANIkarishma.gwalani@firstindia.co.in

Short Film ContestCITY FIRST

RIFF Film Club start-ed inviting entries for the ‘Student Smartphone Short

Film Contest’ for all the school as well as college stu-dents. The contest aimed to empower the storyteller in-side the students through filmmaking with smart-phones. There are 2 cat-egories i.e. category A - Juniors (Age up to 18 years) and category B - Seniors (Age 18 & Above).

Top Winner from both the categories will get a direct entry to the official selec-tion in the Student Films Category of the 8th Ra-jasthan International Film Festival (RIFF) 2022. There are also some exciting priz-es. Certificates will be given to all the Participants.

The film duration must

be a minimum of 1 min and maximum of 15

minutes. The film must have been made in either 2020 or 2021. Accepted for-mats are Mp4, MOV. The film must be fully shot on the smartphone. Short films of all genres are accepted. The film must be submitted at info@riffjaipur.org along with a Vertical Poster & Synopsis. The last date to send the entries is August 5 2021. cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

IN R

EMEM

BRAN

CE...

! On the 21st death anniversary of the country’s popular farmer leader Late Rajesh Pilot, a tribute meeting was organised at Rambabu Kasana, Advocate and Social worker, Bani Park, on Friday, June 11. Social workers Budhram Chahad, Behruram Khatana, Jugal Gujjar and Advocate Sunil Vashishtha, Shankar Lal Gujjar, Vivek Sharma, Pawan Jhangir and Mahavir Fauji were present on the occasion and paid a fl oral tribute, kept a two minutes silence and prayed for the departed soul.

GUJ: Devotees were seen praying inside the Swaminarayan Temple, Kalupur area after a long time lockdown was unlocked by the Gujarat Government in Ahmedabad on Friday.

—PHOTO BY HANIF SINDHI

Dr Vikas Chandra

Nitin Sharma

Mahavir Bharti preparing the sculpture