PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Telling district Collectors andSuperintendents of Police thatthey are his strength and thegovernment recognises theircapabilities, Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy said that hehas full trust and confidence intheir abilities.

Addressing the Collectorsand SPs via videoconference onTuesday, Jagan expressed con-

fidence and lauded their effortsin mitigating the spread ofCoronavirus in the state.

At the field level, the villagevolunteers, village secretariats,Asha workers, doctors, consta-bles, police force and sanitationworkers — all of had done aremarkable job during thispandemic, the Chief Ministersaid, praising their efforts. Inthe video conference with theofficials, Jagan said, "We have

now entered the fourth phase ofthe lockdown. We will nowhave to follow a differentapproach, unlike the previousone. The focus now will be onto restart the economy. Withoutlosing focus on Covid-19 pre-vention measures, we also needto open the economy fully.’’

For this, the Collectors andSPs need to participate andensure that proper measures are

taken in all places except,shopping malls,

movie theatres,religious events,congregationsand every-where, Jagansaid.

PNS n NEW DELHI

LG Polymers India Ltd fromwhose plant at Visakhapatnam,there was a leakage of Styrenegas on May 7, resulting in thedeath of 12 persons and hos-pitalisation of over 500 peoplefaced a major setback in theSupreme Court on Tuesday.

The apex court rejected thepetition of the company seek-ing a stay on the orders ofNational Green Tribunal for aninvestigation into the gas leak-age incident.

The arguments in the casewere posted to June 8.

LG Polymers argued that theNGT had no jurisdiction toprobe into the accident. It saidthe NGT cannot take up a suomotu inquiry into the incident.

However, the SupremeCourt rejected this argument.

It said the apex court wouldtake up the hearing only afterthe

completion of NGT inquiry.It also ruled that all legalissues could be raised onlybefore the NGT.

“Any objections from thecompany should be raisedonly before the NGT,” theSupreme Court ruled.

It may be mentioned thatthe LG Polymers’ lawyers chal-lenged the directions of theNGT and Andhra PradeshHighCourt in the SupremeCourt.

The company challengedthe High Court’s direction todeposit Rs 50 crore till theinvestigation into the gas leak-age incident was completed.

@TheDailyPioneer facebook.com/dailypioneerFollow us on:

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ANALYSIS 7MUCH ADO

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SPORTS 11NEVER DOUBTED MYSELF

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BHUBANESWAR RANCHIDEHRADUN HYDERABAD

Current Weather ConditionsUpdated May 19, 2020 5:00 PM

ALMANACTODAY

Month & Paksham:Paush & Shukla PakshaPanchangamTithi: Trayodashi: 07:41 pmNakshatram: Ashwini: 10:37 pmTime to Avoid: (Bad time to start

any important work)Rahukalam: 12:12 pm – 01:49 pmYamagandam: 07:23 am – 08:59 amVarjyam: 06:10 pm – 07:57 pmGulika: 10:36 am - 12:12 pmGood Time: (to start any important work)

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5

‘Govt to furtherrevise criteria forclassifying mediumenterprises’

8

Fadnavis targetsPawar, asks Mahagovt for economicpackage

4

No consent required from statesto run ShramikSpecial trains

{

PNS n NEW DELHI

A malicious software calledCerberus is stealing financialdata such as credit card detailsby luring people with COVID-19 related information, theCentral Bureau of Investigationhas warned states, Union ter-ritories and agencies afterreceiving Interpol inputs.

"CBI alerts State/UT/CentralAgencies on a malicious soft-ware threat that uses an updaterelated to the Coronaviruspandemic," the investigationagency said in a statement.

The Trojan virus contactssmartphone users via text mes-sages and asks to click on a link

saying it will provide COVID-19 updates. When clicked, thelink installs a malicious appli-cation on their phones, which

extracts sensitive financial data."Based on inputs received

from INTERPOL, the CBI hasissued an alert relating to a

banking Trojan known asCerberus. This malicious soft-ware takes advantage ofCOVID-19 Pandemic toimpersonate and send SMSusing the lure of COVID-19related content to downloadthe embedded malicious link,which deploys its maliciousapp usually spread via phish-ing campaigns to trick usersinto installing it on their

smartphones," agency said."This Trojan primarily focus-es on stealing financial datasuch as credit card numbers. Inaddition, it can use overlayattacks to trick victims intoproviding personal informa-tion and can capture two-fac-tor authentication details," it added.

Cyber virus steals credit card details using Covid info The Trojan virus contacts smartphone users viatext messages and asks to click on a link saying itwill provide COVID-19 updates. When clicked, thelink installs a malicious application on theirphones, which extracts sensitive financial data

PNS n NEW DELHI

India's coronavirus infectionscrossed the 1,00,000 mark andare escalating at the fastest pacein Asia, just as Prime MinisterNarendra Modi further relaxedthe country's nationwide lockdown to boost economicactivities.

Infections inthe country of1.3 billionpeople wereat 101,328,i n c l u d i n gmore than3,000 deaths,as of Tuesday,according todata from JohnsHopkins University.As many as 5,242 newcases were added on Tuesday,according to the health min-istry.

India is now among thenations worst hit by the epidem-ic, with a 28% increase in casessince last week according to

Bloomberg's CoronavirusTracker. Neighbor Pakistan has42,125 cases including 903

deaths. Its cases increased by19% over the same period, thetracker showed.

Since Monday, states havefurther eased restrictions forindustries, shops and officesand reopened public transport,while the lockdown in theworst affected areas of thecountry — including a ban oninterstate and international airtravel — has been extendeduntil May 31. The governmentis hoping to ease the econom-ic impact of the world's biggestlockdown, which has crippledbusiness activity and left mil-lions jobless.

Still, companies are facingdifficulties reopening factories— primarily because of travelrestrictions, conflicting rules,broken supply chains and ashortage of workers. The move-ment of millions of migrantworkers from the cities wherethey had jobs to their homes inrural villages — and their reluc-tance to return — is one of thekey challenges for the economy,which could be heading for itsfirst full-year contraction inmore than four decade.

India’s Covid cases escalatingat the fastest pace in Asia

SC rejects LG Polymerspetition against NGT

India has so far about 0.2 COVID-19deaths per lakh population as against

the global figure of 4.1, the Unionhealth ministry said as the number

of fatalities due to coronavirusinfection in the country rose

to 3,163 on Tuesday and the total cases reached 1,01,139.Also, a record number of 1,08,233 samples were testedfor COVID-19 on Monday in the country. So far a total of24,25,742 samples have been tested, the ministry said.Referring to data from WHO situation report-119, theministry said 3,11,847 COVID-19 mortalities have been

reported till Tuesday worldwide which is about 4.1 deathsper lakh population. Among the countries with high COVID-

19 casualties, the US with 87,180 fatalities has 26.6 deathsper lakh population. The UK has reported 34,636 deaths and

has approximately 52.1 deaths per lakh population, it said. Italy with31,908 instances of coronavirus fatalities so far has around 52.8deaths per lakh population.

Confidence in you paid off,Jagan tells Collectors, SPs

AP schools to reopen from August 3CHINNEM PRADEEP KUMARn VIJAYAWADA

Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy onTuesday announced thatschools in the state wouldreopen from August 3.

Speaking at a reviewmeeting held at the CM’s

Camp Office here, theChief Minister directedofficials to complete thefirst phase of developmentworks in schools underthe Nadu-Nedu initiativeby the end of July and pre-pare for the launch ofJagananna VidyakanukaonAugust 3 when schools

reopen. During theSpandana video confer-ence with collectors of alldistricts, the Chief Ministerinstructed them to take anactive role and evaluatethe daily progress of theworks completed belowthe scheme.

2 die, 57 freshcases reported PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Two Covid-19 related deathswere reported in AP taking thetoll to 52 even as 57 more test-ed positive, pushing the totalnumber of infections in thestate to 2,489, a health bulletinsaid on Tuesday.

Samples of 9,739 peoplewere tested and 69 have beendischarged from various hos-pitals after treatment, takingthe cumulative recoveries to1,596. The number of activepatients are now at 691.

Of the fresh cases in the past24 hours ending 9 am onTuesday, six were linked to theKoyambedu market inChennai. Kurnool andChittoor districts reported onedeath each. The cumulativepositive cases from other statesstood at 150.

Rs 31,000 bill shocksKanna, electrifies BJPPNS n VIJAYAWADA

BJP state unit president KannaLakshminarayana hascharged the YSRCPgovernment withhiking the powerbills in the stateby altering theslabs. He backedhis accusation bysaying that he him-self has been slappedwith power bills of Rs31,500 for two months.

Kanna and BJP rank and filestaged protest at their respec-

tive homes to lodge theirprotest against what theycalled “inflated power bills”

being served to the peopleof the state.

Depending on thepower consumptionof consumers, thegovernment cate-gorised them into A,

B, C and D slabs. On account of the

lockdown, people most-ly stayed at home leading tohigher domestic power con-sumption.

The Andhra Pradesh CID police have registered a case against a60-year-old woman for allegedly posting in social media

questions pertaining to the recent Styrene gas leak incident inVisakhapatnam in which 12 people lost their lives and hundredsfell ill. The CID is also investigating the role of a man, MalladiRaghunath in the matter. A case has been booked against thewoman, P Ranganayaki, under IPC sections 505 (2) (makingstatements that create or promote enmity),153 (A) (indulging inwanton vilification), 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgatedby public servant) and 120-B r/w 34 (criminal conspiracy), apress release from the CID said on Tuesday. When contacted P VSunil Kumar, additional DGP (CID) said that a notice under section41 (A) of the CrPC (notice of appearance before police officer)was also served on her. The woman in her social media accountraised 20 questions such as why there were no arrests in theVizag gas leak case and why the government allowed the leftoverStyrene to be sent back to South Korea. A senior police officialclaimed the woman was a TDP sympathiser.

AP police book 60-year-oldwoman for post on gas leak

Meat shops booked foradding beef in muttonPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Officials of Legal Metrologydepartment and GreaterVisakhapatnam MunicipalCorporation raided meatshops at various places inAnakapalle Town and regis-tered a total of eight cases afterthey found that the tradersmanipulated the weighingmachines and were cheatingthe customers.

The officials also sealed onemeat shop at Mallaveedhi forallegedly selling mutton bymixing beef with it.

Assistant controller of thelegal metrology department,PV Ranga Reddy, who led theraid after receiving complaints,said the raids were conducted

on meat shops located inNehru Chowk, Woodpeta,V i j a y a r a m a r a j u p e t a ,Mallaveedhi, Park Centre,Santhabayalu and other areasin Anakapalle.

He said some meat sellershad converted the weighingmachines from kg to litremode thereby short weighingof 100 to 120 gm per kg to cus-tomers.

16 IASofficerstransferredPNS n VIJAYAWADA

C h i e fSecretaryN i l a mSawhneyo nTues daya f f e c t e dtransfers of 16IAS officers.

Among the IAS officerstransferred are K PraveenKumar, working as SpecialChief Secretar y toGovernment, YAT&CDepartment who has beentransferred and posted asSpecial Chief Secretary toGovernment, BC WelfareDepartment.

We have now entered the fourth phase of the lockdown. Wewill now have to follow a different approach, unlike the

previous one. The focus now will be on to restart the economy.Without losing focus on Covid-19 prevention measures, wealso need to open the economy fully

— YS JAGANMOHAN REDDY, Chief Minister

India records 0.2 Covid-19deaths per lakh population

MAMATA CONFIRMS PARTICIPATION INOPPN MEETING ON CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

CONG CALLS MEET ON MIGRANTS'PLIGHT, CHANGES IN LABOUR LAWSThe Congress has called a meeting of like-minded opposition parties on Friday

to discuss the plight of migrant workers and the changes in labour laws bysome states, sources said. Congress president Sonia Gandhi will chair themeeting of leaders of opposition parties, the sources said on Tuesday. Around17 opposition parties have agreed to participate in the meeting whichwill be held via videoconferencing. The SP and the BSP have ot yetconfirmed their participation, they said. Rendered jobless due to thecoronavirus-induced lockdown, which began on March 25, anddesperate to get home, thousands of migrant workers across thecountry are undertaking long and arduous journeys to theirnative places on foot, on bicycles or packed into trucks.

In partial relief to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, theSupreme Court Tuesday quashed all criminal investigations related tothe news show on Palghar mob-lynching except the initial one that is

being probed by the Mumbai police, but refused his plea fortransfer of probe to the CBI. Observing that journalisticfreedom lies at the core of freedom of speech andexpression, a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and MR Shah granted protection to Goswami from anycoercive action for three more weeks from today andsaid that he can approach the competent court forquashing of the FIR.

SC REFUSES TO TRANSFER CASES TO CBI,GRANTS PROTECTION TO ARNAB GOSWAMI

CHINESE LAB BELIEVES NEW DRUG CAN‘STOP COVID WITHOUT VACCINE’

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Tuesday confirmed herparticipation in the opposition parties' virtual meet convened by the

Congress to discuss the COVID-19 situation and the impact of the lockdown.The Congress has called a meeting of like-minded parties on Friday to discussthe plight of migrant workers and the changes in labour laws."Yes, there will be a meeting of opposition parties on Fridayevening through videoconferencing to discuss the presentCOVID situation and the lockdown impact. I will be there," she told reporters here. Various opposition-ruled states have criticised the Centre over its handling of the migrant crisis.

AChinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power tobring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt. The outbreak first emerged in China

late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international raceto find treatments and vaccines. A drug being tested by scientists at China'sprestigious Peking University could not onlyshorten the recovery time for those infected, buteven offer short-term immunity from the virus,researchers say. Sunney Xie, director of theuniversity's Beijing Advanced Innovation Centerfor Genomics, told AFP that the drug has beensuccessful at the animal testing stage.

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Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that information given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for anydamage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only. Readers are advised and requested to verify and seek appropriate advice to satisfy themselves about the veracity of any kind of advertisement beforeresponding to any contents published in this newspaper. The printer, publisher, editor and any employee of the Pioneer Group's will not be held responsible for any kind of claim made by the advertisers of the products & services and shall not be made responsible for any kind of loss, consequences and further product-related damages on such advertisements.

VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020 vijayawada 02

While there mayappear to bes t a n d o f f

between AP ChiefMinister YS JaganmohanReddy and his Telanganacounterpart KChandrasekhar Rao overthe former’s decision to goahead with the plans of con-structing a lift irrigationscheme Pothireddipadu acrossthe River Krishna to draw 3tmc ft water for the parchedRayalaseema region, the ulti-mate political beneficiarieswould be the two ChiefMinisters.

Earlier, leaders in undivid-ed AP had fought againstKarnataka against its attemptsto tap the Krishna waters.After bifurcation, tensionbetween the two states overAP’s plans for Pothireddipaduhave come as a surprise formany.

While there are many rea-sons behind the bonhomiebetween the two ChiefMinisters, the most obvious

one is their com-mon hatred for TDPsupremo NChandrababu Naidu.

The second commoncause is “freeing”

both the states of the TDP.While KCR has almost

completed this self-imposedtask, Jagan is struggling tomarginalise TDP in AP sincethe party is the principal oppo-sition party there.

The sudden surfacing ofthe Pothireddipadu issue hasspurred political activity,which had taken a backseat inboth the states due to thelockdown. While Jagan’sdetractors are unable to criti-cise his move since the deci-sion is clearly aimed at provid-ing drinking and irrigationwater to Rayalaseema, KCR isfacing the heat from theCongress and the BJP in hisstate.

Jagan has cornered the TDPby issuing GO 203 for con-struction of Rayalaseema liftirrigation scheme to enhance

the drawing capacity to 80,000cusecs from 44,000 cusecs at acost of Rs 6,800 crores.

It may be mentioned herethat the project is not a newconcept; the late YS RajasekharReddy had enhanced thecapacity of Pothireddipaduhead regulator to 44,000 cusecsand had expected the TDP,headed by Naidu not tooppose the plan.

Naidu did oppose YSR’smoves, and was left red-facedafter the plan was supported bysome TDP leaders fromRayalaseema. However, YSRfaced stiff opposition from

some in his own party, theCongress.

Former CLP leader P.Janardhan Reddy and seniorMLA Marri SasidharReddyraised their voice againstPothireddipadu.

PJR and Sasidhar becameknown as ‘HyderabadBrothers’ for their tiradeagainst Pothireddipadu andYSR.

YSR had his way and no onefrom within the Congresscould stop him from goingahead with the Pothireddipaduproject.

Despite their unsuccessful

efforts to stop the project, the‘Hyderabad Brothers’ man-aged to keep the issue alive bylinking it to the Telanganacause.

Now that much water hasflown down the Krishna since,Jagan is again moving aheadwith his plans onPothireddipadu.

While Jagan knows that hewill face no resistance in AP, hebelieves that ultimately, KCRwill give in and allow the

work to go on atPothireddipadu unhindered.

This is because of the pastcordial relations between Jaganand KCR — they had amica-bly worked out several con-tentious issues earlier.

Jagan transferred the prop-erty rights of the valuable APSecretariat building inHyderabad to the Telanganagovernment, when they shouldhave been in the custody of APgovernment till 2024 as per theAP Reorganisation Act, 2014.These buildings are worthhundreds of crores of rupees,but Jagan is accused of lettinggo of them for only for a fewdate fruits. (The issue wassettled at a Iftar party hostedby the then Governor ESLNarasimhan).

The AP government hasalso been mum on the thou-sands of crores of arrears inpower sector.

The cordiality on displaymay have led one to believethat KCR sees a true friend inJagan.

It will be happy moment forKCR if his one time boss isdecimated in Andhra with theblow delivered by Jagan in theform of Pothireddipadu.

Both the states intend todraw water at 800 feet level inSrisailam reservoir whose FRLis 885 feet. AP governmentbelieves that its nothing wrongin following Telangana anddrawing water till 800 ft.

While they may be at oddsover drawing Krishna water, itmay be mentioned here thatleaders of undivided AP hadfought against Karnataka overthe same reason.

PJR, CLP leader during1995-99 Naidu regime, hadbrought the construction ofAlamatti dam to light in 1997.He went to the site inKarnataka along with a groupof media persons fromHyderabad and inspected theproject site by ignoring theprohibitory orders there.

The outside world came toknow about Alamatti dam dueto this move of PJR and it cre-

ated a sensation in AP politi-cal circles. With just 26 MLAs,PJR successfully ran the showin Naidu's rule.

Naidu had to face criticismfor not protecting the rights ofAP over Krishna water, espe-cially since he had played a keyrole in making Deve Gowdathe Prime Minister.

Now, the AP governmenthas clearly told the KrishnaRiver Management Board thatit plans to utilise the water allo-cated to it. On the other side,KCR is also confident of get-ting his state's due share ofKrishna water and clearly stat-ed that he would protect therights of Telangana.

Pressure is mounting onKCR to to draw more waterfrom Krishna even before APcan begin work on the project.

The share of Krishna waterto undivided AP is 811 tmc ftand after bifurcation, AP is toget 512 tmc ft and Telangana299 tmc ft. This arrangementwould continue till furtherre-allocation by Tribunal.

M D RATNA KUMAR Senior Journalist

The sudden surfacing of thePothireddipadu issue has spurredpolitical activity. While Jagan’sdetractors are unable to criticise hismove since the decision is clearlyaimed at providing drinking andirrigation water to Rayalaseema, KCRis facing the heat from Cong and BJP

PINPOINT

Tempest over Krishna waters may be a seasonal storm

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Endowments MinisterVelampalli Srinivas on Tuesdaysaid that the state governmentwas taking all measures toensure food and other facilitiesreach migrant workers strand-ed in the state. He took part ina food distribution programmeto the migrants atKanakadurga Varadhi onTuesday.

Through Shramik trains andbuses, migrant workers arebeing sent back to their nativeplaces and Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy hasinstructed the officials to pro-vide all facilities to themigrants, the Minister said. Headded that however, opposi-tion parties are on a spree tocriticise the YSRCP govern-ment’s efforts for politicalmileage.

He recalled that BJP leaderKanna Lakshminarayanawrote to CM and was flingingmud on the government while

TDP supremo N ChandrababuNaidu sitting in Hyderabadand taking part in tele-confer-ences while pretending as if heis doing something. “The Leftparties are trying to gainmileage during these crucialtimes of lockdown by provok-ing the West Bengal workers,”Srinivas said.

He said that Jana Sena Partychief Pawan Kalyan was con-

fined to tweets as there is nocadre to organise a video con-ference after losing both theplaces he contested for elec-tions. The minister said thatthey wrote to the West BengalCM Mamata Banerjee toaccord permission to sendback migrant workers from herstate and were awaiting reply.

He criticised the APCCleaders for taking out protestfor one hour and not provid-ing any relief to the migrantworkers.

Speaking on the power billsthe minister said that the gov-ernment did not hike powertariff as claimed by oppositionparties. As two months billscame together people feel theburden, he said. He alleged thatthe protest was being orches-trated by Chandrababu Naidu.

Srinivas said that the stategovernment has released RythuBarosa amounts to the farmersto the tune of Rs 5,500 crore tosupport and build confidenceamong the farming sector.

State doing all possible formigrant workers: Minister

Velampalli Srinivas

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy on Tuesday discussedwith District Collectors andSPs wide-ranging issues duringthe Spandana videoconferenceand gave them the schedule ofprogrammes to be taken up.

Implementation of welfareschemes, Covid-19 Mana Badi,drinking water preparednessfor kharif seasons, distributionof house sites, curbing illegaltransportation of sand andliquor were among the majorissues that were discussed dur-ing the conference here onTuesday.

Giving a nod for the schools

to reopen from Aug 3, heasked the officials complete thescheduled work by July end sothat Jagananna Vidyakanukacan be launched.

Describing the officials as hismain strength, the Chief

Minister asked them to go theextra mile to get the desiredresults.

Restoration of transport,opening up of shops, establish-ments, factories and work-places within the Centre'

guidelines and containingCovid-19 spread and at thesame time increasing aware-ness on the pandemic by eras-ing the stigma factor are to bedone, Jagan said.

Speeding up of land acqui-sition for house site pattas, dis-couraging liquor consump-tion, preparedness for thekharif season with supply ofquality seeds, fertilizer pesti-cides and setting up of RythuBharosa kendras (RBKs) bymonth-end to give rural econ-omy a fillip, were among theissues that came up for discus-sion. The Chief Minister alsoset a timeline for rolling out thewelfare measures.

Collectors, SPs given schedulefor programmes to be taken up

Describing theofficials as hismain strength,the Chief Ministerasked them to gothe extra mile toget the desiredresults

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Pulivendula Town will nowcome under the Green Zonecategory from Tuesday.

The time limit for theContainment Zone restric-tions to be in place ended onMonday, as per a statementissued by the YSR KadapaDistrict Collector C Hari Kiranon Monday.

Four Covid-19 positive caseswere registered in Pulivendulaand strict restrictions were inplace as it was turned into acontainment zone, he said.

“The last case was registeredon April 6, and the lastCoronavirus patient in thearea was also discharged onApril 20, following medicalreports that he was negative,''

the Collector said. "Since 28days, no positive cases havebeen registered here," he said.

The four persons whorecovered from Covid-19 weredischarged from Tirupati StateCovid Hospital, SWIMS. All ofthem hailed from Kadapa. Ofthe four coronavirus patients,

two are men aged 51 and 60,and two women aged 45 and69, the Collector said.

The neighbouring Kurnooldistrict which had emerged asthe largest Covid-19 hotbed inthe state, has completely gainedcontrol over the coronaviruspandemic.

On Monday, 28 people werecured and discharged fromhospitals in Kurnool district.With this, a total of 403 peo-ple have recovered and weredischarged from hospitals inKurnool district till date.

Kurnool, which continuedto maintain worrisome trendwith highest reporting cases forthe past few weeks, has wit-nessed a dip in a number ofpositive Covid-19 cases report-ing on a daily basis.

Pulivendula town now in Green Zone

C Hari Kiran

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Mallikarjuna Rao R, ChiefExecutive Officer of AndhraPradesh State Creativity andCulture Commission has pro-duced a painting showcasinga number of aspects related tothe Visakhapatnam GasLeakage tragedy that tookplace on May 7.

Styrene gas had leaked froma chemical plant owned by theSouth Korean company LGPolymers India Pvt. Ltd inG o p a l a p a t n a m ,Visakhapatnam and claimedthe lives of 12 people.

The painting was unveiledon Tuesday by the DistrictCollector A Md Imtiaz.

Mallikarjuna Rao says thatthere are three distinct parts inthe painting. The blue colourin the background indicatesthe city on the sea shore. In thefirst part, the greatest riskposed by the gas leakage posesto animals, plants and humansis shown. The second partshows the evacuation of per-sonnel who are affected of gasleakage to the hospital and inthe third part shows ChiefMinister YS JaganmohanReddy comforting the people.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Deputy Chief MinisterPamula Pushpa Srivani onTuesday said that the govern-ment has decided to paysalaries even on holidays tocontract residential teachersworking in tribal welfareschools across the state.

In a statement released tothe media, Pushpa Srivanisaid, "The ContractualResidential Teachers (CRTs)working in tribal institutionsare being paid salaries for the

period they areworking".

She saidthat thel a s tworkingday for

CRTs wasApril 23,

and till June12 school reopening theywere not paid salaries.However, the governmenthas accepted the requestmade by the CRTs to paythem during the vacationperiod. From now, the CRTswill be paid salaries for theentire period except for tendays as per their terms of ser-vice. Pushpa Srivani said thatthe government has issuedorders to this extent.

CRTs to getpaid even on holidays

PNS n ANANTAPUR

The first ever intra-cardiacdefibrillator (ICD) has beensuccessfully fixed in the heartof a 58-year-old cardiacpatient at KIMS SaveeraHospital here, giving a freshlease of life to the man.

It is the first-ever ICD im-plantation case to be report-ed from Rayalaseema region.

The patient was identifiedas Kumar. He has been suffer-ing from ventricular arrhyth-mia and was facing the risk ofcardiac arrest any time.

Invasive cardiologist Dr VRakesh Naik and consultantInterventional cardiologistDr Kiran Kumar Reddyimplanted the ICD in thepatient’s heart.

Kumar was diagnosed withthe problem after he reachedthe hospital complaining ofdizziness. The heart was find-ing it difficult to pump bloodas the muscles in his heartwalls had thickened.

PAINTING ON VISAKHAPATNAMGAS LEAK TRAGEDY UNVEILED

First ICDimplantation atKIMS Saveera

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The Andhra Pradesh NonGazetted Officers Association(APNGOs) on Tuesday askedthe State Government to payemployees their full salary forthe month of May in June andalso release the 50 per cent bal-ance of payment for themonths of March and April.

In a press release on Tuesday,APNGOs Association leaders

A Vidya Sagar and Md Iqbalsaid that the employees couldnot get their full salary for twoconsecutive months as thegovernment had paid only 50percent of the gross salary.

They reminded the govern-ment that the employees havepaid Income Tax for the monthof February and could not getfull salary in March, 2020 andwere facing financial prob-lems. They said the state gov-

ernment has increased thehealth scheme contributionfrom Rs 90- Rs 125 to Rs 225- Rs 300 and asked the employ-ees to pay the revised contribu-tion from December 2019.

They requested the govern-ment to implement the orderson payment of health schemecontribution from the monthof its implementation.

The APNGOs leadersunderlined the need to provide

all medical facilities to theemployees in the hospitals andimplementation of cashlesstreatment in view of increasingthe contribution for healthscheme from Rs 90- Rs 125 toRs 225-Rs 300. They request-ed the government to takemeasures that employees ofAndhra Pradesh get treatmentand medical facilities in otherstates of Telangana, TamilNadu and Karnataka.

APNGOs seek full salary this month

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Joining the national fightagainst Covid-19, NTPC-Simhadri has been working ona war footing to support thestate government and the dis-trict administration providerelief to the people during thepandemic.

In addition to distributingessential grocery items amongmigrant laborers, NTPC con-tributed Rs 30 lakhs toVisakhapatnam DistrictAdministration towardsprocuring ventilators and Rs.22.50 lakhs to GVMC

Commissioner for Covid-19migrant contract workers ofVisakhapatnam.

And, V Sudharshan Babu-CGM of NTPC, Simhadri per-sonally contributed Rs 5 lakh tothe AP CM relief fund.

Role of power utilities hasassumed greater significance aselectricity is critical to ensurethe smooth functioning of theeconomy. National ThermalPower Corporation is com-mitted to provide continuouspower to the country whileabiding with all the guidelinesset by the Government of Indiaas well as the State

Governments regarding lock-down and social distancing.

Even as NTPCians are at thefrontline and ensuring roundthe clock power supply, allplants are strictly adhering tothe guidelines regarding lock-down and social distancing.

Beyond power output,NTPC is making rich contribu-tion to the social welfare activ-ities for underprivileged sectionand migrant workers by pro-viding ration and medical aid.The management of NTPC ismonitoring the developmentsclosely so that every corner ofthe country remains adequate-

ly powered in its fight againstCovid-19.

Among its fleet of power sta-tions NTPC Simhadri with theinstalled capacity of 2000 MWsituated near Visakhapatnam in

Andhra Pradesh has beenensuring uninterrupted powersupply and the well-being of itsemployees, all other workforceand CISF personnel who arerendering a selfless service to

the nation.The power station is operat-

ing with the requisite numberof employees adhering to thelockdown guidelines issued bythe Central and StateGovernments. Employees andcontract workers’ deploymenthas been streamlined as perguidelines.

According utmost priority tothe health and safety of theworkforce masks have beenprovided to frontline workers,all employees and CISF person-nel and sanitisers are placed atmany places. Thermal screen-ing has started for those who

are entering the plant andadministrative offices as well asthose entering the townshiparea. Meetings were conduct-ed through web enabled videoconferencing facilities.

The NTPC Hospital hastaken foreign and domestictravel history of all the employ-ees and their wards. It haslaunched an awareness cam-paign using pamphlets, posters,videos to educate the employ-ees and their family membersto take necessary precautionsfor maintaining hygiene andsocial distancing both at theirwork places and also in the

township. Social distancing isbeing adhered to both at town-ship and plant areas. Socialgatherings , meetings, clubs andgyms were completely prohib-ited. Stepping up its vigilagainst the global pandemic,NTPC-Simhadri has created anisolation ward 24 beds to meetany future exigencies. NTPC -Simhadri hospital has also pro-cured the requisite equipmentto handle such emergency sit-uations. . A Covid task forcehas been formed and is work-ing 24x7 to implement theguidelines of the Centre andstate government.

NTPC- Simhadri empowers Corona warriors with 24x7 power supply

Kia Motorsresumes workat Anantapur PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Kia Motors India hasresumed production onTuesday at its Anantapur-based plant after putting acomprehensive system ofsafety measures in place.

Minister for IndustriesMekapati Goutham Reddysaid that very soon, the carmanufacturing companywould prove its mark in theworld markets.

While speaking to themedia on Tuesday, theMinister said that the stategovernment has alreadygiven guidelines about thesafety of workers and theprecautions to be takenwhile they perform duties inthe company, he said.

Kia Motors Plant atAnantapur currently has aproduction capacity ofaround 3 lakh units perannum, to cater to bothdomestic and internationalmarkets.

The Minister while talk-ing about the support to begiven to the families affect-ed by the LG Polymers gasleak, he said that a SpecialTask Force was set up with200 people to help thesefamilies.

He said that the govern-ment is taking all measuresto support the victim andthat the clearing and ship-ment of the Styrene gasfrom the plant to SouthKorea was completed. Hefurther assured that the gov-ernment would support allthe families' living in the fivevillages in the vicinity of theplant, he said.

Kanna leads BJP protest againstsale of government landsPNS n VIJAYAWADA

BJP state president KannaLakshminarayana and otherparty leaders wore blackbadges and remained con-fined in their houses onTuesday in protest against thestate government over the APGovernment to auction state-owned lands

The BJP leaders demandedcancelation of GO regardingthe e-auction and alsodemanded roll back of the hikein power tariffs. After theprotest at his residence, Kannatold media persons that it wasunfortunate that the govern-ment resorted to a steep hikein power tariff at a time whenthe people are suffering due toCovid-19 lockdown.

He condemned the way bywhich the state governmentdivided power consumers intofour groups – A, B, C and D onthe basis of their power con-

sumption during the last oneyear. Stating that even middle-class people consume 225 unitsper month, Kanna said thisslab system was disastrous forthe middle and poorer sectionsof people.

Kanna said that govern-ment’s new slabs leading to twoto three times increase inpower bills. For example, hesaid he had paid Rs 11,541 in

the month of March. But hisbill has now crossed Rs 20,000during the current month, hesaid.

He said that after coming topower, the YSRCP hasincreased the prices of allessential commodities andnow the government was plan-ning to sell state-owned prop-erty at prime locations. Sellingthe plot of market area inGuntur for Build AP Missionis a hasty move as hundreds ofpeople depend on the marketfor their livelihood.

Kanna recalled that casewas filed against a senior citi-zen for a post on social mediaagainst the government andquestioned how many peoplewill be arrested in this way.

Former minister RavellaKishore Babu, S Aruna, JupudiRangababu, R Lakshmipathi, TVenkatesh Yadavm PNagabushanam, TV Rao andothers were present.

VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020 vijayawada 03

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

There is a need for the State’seconomy to open up duringthis 4.0 lockdown, which wasin a dormant state for over thepast 55 days for the contain-ment of Covid-19 pandemic,said Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy, whileaddressing the Spandanareview meeting through avideo conference here onTuesday.

The Chief Minister was allpraise for the Collectors, policepersonnel and the frontlineworkers who strove for enforc-ing the lockdown strictly. Hesaid it was the bounden duty ofthe frontline warriors to bring-ing back the economy on therails right from small shops,public transport and other facil-ities and the same time creatingawareness among the people onthe precautions to be taken, likemaintaining physical distanceand wearing the mask.

Except for shopping malls,theatres and religious activities,all other activities will have tobe restarted by the collectors bytaking all precautionary mea-sures. “Though we have tolive with Covid-19, one shouldnot show any discrimination tothe Covid-9 patients. Effortsshould be made to make the

people voluntarily get them-selves tested in case of doubt.The collectors will have totake the lead in the setting upof the proposed YSR Villageand Ward Clinics,” the ChiefMinister said.

Jagan has enunciated a cal-endar for the revitalisationand rejuvenation of the econ-omy for which he said the col-lectors and the joint collectorshave to take the lead.

As per the calendar, half ofthe incentive arrears withheldby the previous government tothe MSMEs of Rs 905 crorewould be cleared by May 22and the remaining cleared byJune.

The MSMEs are employingat least 10 lakh people who

have to become self-reliant. AGO has also been issued waiv-ing the electricity charges tothem for three months, Jagansaid.

By May 26, all the archakas,pastors and imams would geta one-time help of Rs 5,000each. Rythu Bharosa centreswould be opened by May 30 torejuvenate the farmers and tocater to their needs a J-C hasbeen appointed. The RBKswould revolutionise the admin-istration, he said.

YSR Vahana Mitra incentiveof Rs 10,000 each would bedelivered to auto and cab dri-vers on June 4 and by June 10,barbers, washermen, tailorsand petty shop owners wouldbe given an incentive of Rs

10,000 each. By June 17,weavers would be given incen-tives as part of YSR ChenethaNestham and all the arrears tothe Apco kept pending by theprevious government wouldbe cleared by this date. Clothhas been acquired from Apcofor making safety masks andthat amount would also becleared, said the Chief Minister.

YSR Kapu Nestham wouldbe implemented from June 24to cover all the women in the

age-group of 45-60 and the sec-ond instalment incentive of Rs450 crore would be released tothe MSMEs by June 29 and onJuly 1, 1060, new 104 and 108ambulances would belaunched.

An amount of Rs 18,750each would be given to allwomen belonging to BC, SC,ST and Minorities in the agegroup of 45-60 on August 12 aspart of YSR Cheyuta, the ChiefMinister said.

Jagan releases schedulefor welfare sop release

KCR jumps on the bandwagon, Jagan adopts a different stanceL VENKAT RAM REDDYn HYDERABAD

The 'conditional' hike in FiscalResponsibility and BudgetManagement (FRBM) limit,announced as part of the Centre'sRs 20 lakh crore stimulus pack-age, has had the unintended con-sequence of bringing togetherChief Ministers of states ruled bynon-BJP parties. These CMs arenow rising as one to take up cud-gels against the Centre for under-mining the federal spirit of theConstitution.

Telangana Chief Minister KChandrasekhar Rao is the latestone to join the bandwagon forraising a banner of revolt againstthe Centre's stimulus packageand untenable FRBM condi-tions.

Tamil Nadu, West Bengal andKerala governments are alreadyon the warpath against theCentre over these issues.

Surprisingly, neighbouringAndhra Pradesh, a non-BJP

ruled state, has taken a complete-ly different stand, with its ChiefMinister YS Jaganmohan Reddywelcoming the PM's package andappointing a CS-led committeeto study ways of utilizing the ben-efits that would accrue to APfrom the Centre's package.

The committee, headed by

chief secretary Neelam Sawhney,has on board several senior offi-cials of key departments, besidesJagan's close aides - V Vijay SaiReddy, P Mithun Reddy andAnantapur MP Talari Rangaiah.

The committee will work outa plan and prepare guidelines foreffective utilisation of the pack-

age. The committee has direct-ed all the departments con-cerned to come out with actionplans to make the most of PM'spackage.

KCR on Monday lashed out atPrime Minister Narendra Modifor the conditions imposed toavail of the hike in FRBM limitand said the Union governmentwas treating states like beggars.He said it was unfortunate thatthe Centre had tried to rule overthe states taking advantage of thefinancial crisis facing states. Hesaid that the central packageclearly showed that Modi's talkof cooperative federalism was justbogus. "We are also constitution-ally elected governments and notsubordinates of the Centre. By

offering such a package, theModi government has lost itsimage in the eyes of the people,"KCR said.

However, KCR's confrontationwith the Centre on powerreforms is expected to cost heav-ily for TS discoms in securingloans from Power FinanceCorporation and RegionalElectrification Corporations aswell as state government insecuring additional loans byavailing of FRBM hike.

The Centre has offered Rs90,000 crore loans to discomsacross the country to tide overfinancial crisis. However, it hastied the offer to state govern-ments approving power reformsproposed by the Centre.

n TS JOINS TN, WBAND KERALA IN

OPPOSING CENTREFOR UNDERMINING

FEDERAL SPIRIT

n JAGAN WELCOMESPACKAGE,APPOINTS CS-LEDPANEL TO AVAIL OFTHE PACKAGE

'STIMULUS' BINDS NON-BJP CMS

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Under ‘Vande Bharath’ Phase 2,as many as 13 flights fromabroad will land directly in AP,said Venkat S Medapati, Advisorto the Government of AndhraPradesh on NRT Affairs here onTuesday.

He said that with the initiationtaken by Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy and MEA SJaishankar, stranded people invarious countries would reachAP through direct flights fromMay 19 onwards.

Medapati said 13 flights fromthe Philippines, UAE, UK, SaudiArabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Malaysia,Ireland and Kazakhstan will bereaching AP directly from May19 to June 1 under VandeBharath Phase 2. A total of2,000+ NRT’s will be arriving bythese flights to Visakhapatnam,Vijayawada and Tirupati. Apartfrom these returnees, 200+ pas-sengers from AP will be landingat Hyderabad, Bangalore andDelhi airports.

He said that a flight fromPhilippines, AI 1317 carrying

166 passengers, will arrive atVisakhapatnam airport at 8.30pm on May 19, flight from UAE,AI 1902 carrying 166 passengers,will arrive at Visakhapatnam air-port 8.45 pm May 19 and theflight from UK AI 1641 carry-ing 100 passengers will arrive atVijayawada 6.45 am on May 20.

Medapati said that all the pas-sengers, after completion ofimmigration formalities, willbe received by a team appoint-ed by the Joint Collector of thedistrict concerned.

The reception team at the air-port consists of members fromProtocol, Medical and Health,Police and APNRTS depart-ments. All passengers will bescreened and initially, only theasymptomatic one will beallowed to board the specialAPSRTC busses arranged by theGovernment. Any sympto-matic passengers will be shiftedto Covid-19 hospital in a sepa-rate ambulance. Asymptomaticpassengers will be taken to therespective district headquartersfor mandatory institutionalquarantine for 14 days.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy has set an agenda to thecollectors to complete formal-ities of land acquisition to pro-vide house sites for the poor byMay.

Addressing a video confer-ence with the collectors aspart of Spandana review meet-ing here on Tuesday, the ChiefMinister said while 99 percent of land acquisition wascompleted, 90.8 per cent ofwork on layouts, 80.09 per cent

of marking and lottery to select12,66,253 beneficiaries hasbeen completed so far.

The Chief Minister directedthe officials to complete the for-malities by May 30. The finallist of beneficiaries has to beannounced by June 7 and alsocomplete the formalities forincluding the additional appli-cations received by June 30. Sofar an amount of Rs 4,436,47crore has been released for theacquisition of house sites. Hesaid efforts should be made tosee that nobody is left out.

Complete land acquisitionformalities, collectors told

India records 0.2Covid-19 deaths...

Continued from Page 1

France has so far reported28,059 casualties which is about41.9 deaths per lakh populationwhile Spain with 27, 650 fatalitieshas about 59.2 deaths per lakh.Germany, Iran, Canada, Nether-lands and Mexico with 7,935deaths, 6,988 deaths, 5,702 deaths,5,680 deaths and 5,045 fatalitieshave a mortality of around 9.6, 8.5,15.4, 33.0 and 4.0 per lakh pop-ulation respectively. China, whichso far has recorded 4,645 casual-ties due to COVID-19 so far hasapproximately 0.3 deaths perlakh population. "The relativelylow death figures represent time-ly case identification and clinicalmanagement of the cases," theministry said. On testing, it said

from one laboratory conductingCOVID-19 test in January, Indiahas very rapidly increased itscapacity by adding over 385 gov-ernment laboratories and 158 pri-vate laboratories. "Duly forgingpartnerships with all central gov-ernment labs, state medical col-leges, private medical colleges andprivate sector, the testing capac-ity in the country has beenexpanded," the ministry said.Other testing machines likeTrueNAT and CBNAAT havealso been mobilised to ramp uptesting. Through 14 AIIMS-likementor institutions, handholdingof labs across the country isundertaken to ensure adequatebio-safety standards and accred-itation of the laboratories, theministry said.

Meat shopsbooked foradding beef inmutton

Continued from Page 1

A local RTI activist,Kandregula Venkataramana,was also present during theraids. He said the quality andweight of the meat has beenaffected by high demand.Venkataramana said that sometraders were selling the meatwithout obtaining a licensefrom the GVMC. He appealedto the officials to display thephone numbers of the GVMCand Legal Meteorology infront of the meat shops so thatconsumers will be able toalert them if any illegal prac-tices are noticed..

AP police book 60-yr-old womanfor post on gas leak

Continued from Page 1

Talking to reporters at her residence,Ranganayaki said she did not have any badintentions and merely shared a post putby her friend. "I took permission from myfriend and copy pasted it.I dont have anybad intentions.

I do not know if my post is so offensive,"she said.

TDP chief and former chief ministerN Chandrababu Naidu condemned thecase against the elderly woman and saidshe has been served notice by the CIDfor speaking out against the govern-ment.

Meanwhile, police warned people notto indulge in false propaganda against thegovernment or its machinery leading tolaw and order problems.

Bonda accuses government ofhiking power tariff ten-foldPNS n VIJAYAWADA

Former TDP MLA BondaUmamaheswara Rao on Tuesdaycame down heavily on the stategovernments, accusing it ofincreasing power tariff ten-fold.

The TDP MLA alleged thatthe inefficiency of the YSRCPgovernment had led poor peo-ple to suffer due to an abnormalincrease in power tariffs. Heappealed to the people in thestate not to pay power bills.

Speaking to the media personsat his residence on Tuesday,Bonda Uma alleged that theYSRCP government has affect-ed the sharpest-ever increase inpower tariff in the history of theelectricity department sending

shockwaves among consumers.He asked the government howcan the poor people pay theincreased power charges as theyhave suffered economically dueto the prolonged lockdown.Bonda Uma pointed out that theYSRCP, Ministers and MLAsdeny that the government hasincreased the power tariffs.

The TDP MLA said that thepeople are not ready to pay thehiked power charges and that hisparty will support the people. Hefurther found fault with the rul-ing party leaders saying that dur-ing March, April and May powerbills would be high as con-sumption will be more duringthese months.

Meanwhile, The Pioneer

spoke to K Koteswara Rao,Deputy Executive Engineer,APSPDCL, on the Bonda Umacharges.

Koteswara Rao said that forcustomers consuming more than500 units per month, there is anincrease of Rs 0.90 per unit, pre-viously it was Rs 9.05 and fromApril 1, it is Rs 9.95 per unit forbilling above 500 units permonth.

He said that bill is generatedas per the consumption of powerby the customers. He said thatthey would visit Bonda Uma'sresidence and clarify the differ-ence and stressed that bill will begenerated only as per the con-sumption of power by the cus-tomers.

AP schools toreopen fromAugust 3

Continued from Page 1

Additionally, he asked offi-cials to make sure there is noshortage of supply for sand andcement for the works. In thefirst phase, nearly 15,715schools will get a makeover witha revolving budget of Rs 456crore. Under the Nadu-Neduscheme, a total of nine develop-ment works, including theschool infrastructure and basicfacilities, are to be taken up. Asthe schools reopen on August3, the Chief Minister is prepar-ing to launch YSR VidhyaKanuka the same day, where allthe school going students willbe provided with uniforms,books, belt, shoes and socks.

Rs 31,000 billshocks Kanna,electrifies BJP

Continued from Page 1

Therefore, even middle classes had to consumeat least 225 units in a month.

“The YSRCP government is smartly saying thatit has hiked power bills, but change of slabs hasled to middle class and the poor consumers inclu-sion under slab C, and therefore higher powerbills,” the BJP leaders said.

As a result, power bills increased two or threetimes compared to earlier times, they said.

Wanna said that he paid electricity bill of Rs11,541 in March. However, this month thepower bill crossed Rs 20,000. Therefore, he saidthat he had to pay over Rs 31,000 in twomonths. “How can the government deny that ithad not hiked power tariffs? Kanna asked the gov-ernment, citing his own power bills as evidence.

Continued from Page 1

The stolen data could beused to make unauthorizedtransactions from the compro-mised credit cards. On April 7,the CBI's Interpol division hadsent an advisory to policedepartments across the country,alerting about a cyber attack onhospitals and health installations.

"Cyber criminals are usingransomware to hold hospitalsand medical services digitallyhostage; preventing them fromaccessing vital files and systemsuntil a ransom is paid," it said.

The agency had asked thepolice to remain vigilant.

Last month, the central gov-ernment had warned the users

of the Zoom video conferenceapplication, saying it was not asafe platform. The application isbeing widely used for personaland official interactions as peo-ple have been asked to stay atand work from home because ofthe coronavirus pandemic.

"Zoom is not a safe platformeven for usage of individuals adetailed advisory has alreadybeen issued by CERT-India," thehome ministry had said in anadvisory.

The guidelines, the govern-ment had said, would preventunauthorised entry in the con-ference room and even mali-cious activity by authorised par-ticipants on terminals of theother participants.

Cyber virus stealscredit card details...

16 IAS officers transferredContinued from Page 1

Rajat Bhargava, dischargingservices as Special ChiefSecretary to Government(Excise&CT) RevenueDepartment is placed in fulladditional charge of the post ofSpecial Chief Secretary toGovernment (Tourism, Culture,Archaeology & Museums),YAT&C Department till furtherorders.

K Ram Gopal, working asPrincipal Secretary toGovernment who is waiting forposting is posted as PrincipalSecretary to Government(Sports and Youth Welfare),YAT & C Department. KantilalDande, awaiting posting wasposted as Secretary toGovernment, Tribal WelfareDepartment.

Siddharth Jain, serving thestate government asCommissioner and InspectorGeneral, Registrations andStamps was placed in full addi-tional charge of the post ofDirector, Survey, Settlementsand Land Records, until furtherorders.

Kanna Babu, working asSpecial Commissioner, DisasterManagement and Ex-OfficioAdditional Secretary toGovernment, Revenue (DM)was given full additional chargeof the post of Commissioner,Fisheries, until further orders.

The services of G Srinivasulu,(UP: 2005), awaiting posting,were placed at the disposal ofSocial Welfare Department asMD, SC Corporation.

A Siri, who is waiting for post-ing is posted as Jt. Collector

(VS/WS & Development),Anantapur, S Dhilli Rao, who iswaiting for posting is posted asDirector, Civil Supplies, B RamaRao, Director, BC Welfare, wereplaced in full additional chargeof the post of Managing Director,Sports Authority of AndhraPradesh until further orders.

P Arjuna Rao, Joint Secretaryto Governor was transferredand posted as Spl. Commissio-ner, Endowments.

Sridhar Chamakuri, Sub-Collector, Kavali is transferredand posted as PO, ITDA,Seethampeta, SrikakulamDistrict.

Swapnil Dinakar Pundkar,Sub-Collector, Nuzivid is trans-ferred and his services areplaced at the disposal ofMunicipal Administration andUrban Development

Department for posting him asCommissioner, MunicipalCorporation, Nellore.

B Sunil Kumar Reddy, work-ing as DFO, Chittoor (West) istransferred and his services areplaced at the disposal ofMunicipal Administration andUrban DevelopmentDepartment for posting his asCommissioner, MunicipalCorporation, Kakinada.

The services of MMadhusudhan Reddy, IRAS,MD, APMDC were withdrawnfrom the Industries andCommerce Department andhe is posted as ManagingDirector, AP State FibernetLimited and VG VenkataReddy, Director, Mines is keptas in charge to the post ofManaging Director, A.P.M.D.C,until further orders.

13 flights to bring APnatives back to state

Confidence inyou paid off,Jagan tellsCollectors, SPs

Continued from Page 1

“With public transport,autos, taxis and private vehi-cles to resume in the next twoto three days, people shouldensure taking proper carelike wearing face masks,washing hands, sanitisationand follow social distancingnorms. Since everything willbe open now, we will have tolive with Covid-19.Discrimination, fear in thepeople should be eliminatedand awareness should bespread among the peopleabout the virus,'' the ChiefMinister stated.

People in the state shouldcome forward voluntarilyand get themselves tested,Information about these testsetc., should be made availableto the people. “YSR Villageand Ward Clinics will be setin the coming days. The con-struction of these clinicsshould be now be givenprime importance,” he said inhis directions to theCollectors. People who aresuspected to have the coron-avirus should go there, getthemselves tested, and takethe medication and this entireprocess should happen verysmoothly. We also have toensure that the scope of con-tainment clusters should bereduced gradually, headvised.

VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020 nation 04SHORT READS

11 SRA buildings to turn intoquarantine centresMUMBAI: Considering the dailyrise in COVID-19 cases inMumbai, the SlumRehabilitation Authority (SRA)has handed over 11 building tothe Brihanmumbai MunicipalCorporation for setting upquarantine centres, an officialsaid on Tuesday. At least 11SRA buildings, with 2080rooms, will be used asquarantine facilities, the SRAofficial said. These building arelocated in both western andeastern wards of the BMC, headded. The SRA was workingon a war-footing for the last 20days in coordination withvarious developers to hand overthese buildings to the civic body,chief executive officer of SRADeepak Kapoor said. "The SRAhas so far handed over 11 newbuildings in various suburbanareas to the BMC," the officialsaid, adding that more suchstructures will also be madeavailable as and when the needarises during the pandemic.

Railway police sub-inspector shotdead in Haryana

2 Hizbul Mujahideenmilitants killed inencounter in J-KSRINAGAR: Two HibzulMujahideen militants werekilled while a CRPF jawan and aJammu and Kashmir policemansuffered injuries during anencounter in the city'sNawakadal area on Tuesday,police said. While policeofficials did not identify theslain militants, sources saidone the ultras killed in theoperation was a topcommander of the HizbulMujahideen hailing fromSrinagar. The other militant isbelieved to be a foreignnational, they said. “Twomilitants have been killed in theoperation at Nawakadal inSrinagar,” a police official said,adding that weapons andammunition were seized fromthe spot. Two securitypersonnel — a CRPP jawanand a Jammu and Kashmirpoliceman — were injured inthe gubbattle with the militants,the officials said.

HISAR: A 36-year-old RailwayProtection Force (RPF) sub-inspector was allegedly shotdead by a man when the officerwas on patrol duty in Uklanahere, police said on Tuesday.Munish Sharma, the in-chargeof Uklana Railway StationPolice post, which is locatedbetween Hisar and Jakhalrailway stations, was shot deadMonday night near railwaytracks at Uklana, about 45 kmfrom here. Railway policepersonnel and locals rushedSharma to a private hospitalfrom where he was being takento the Hisar Civil Hospital in aprivate car, but he died midway,they said. Sharma, who hailedfrom Jaipur's village Bassi, hadjoined the force's unit hereabout a year ago. The policehave started investigations intothe case based on thestatements of eyewitnesses.Police said according towitnesses, Sharma noticed thatthree youths were sitting on therailway line and caught one ofthem, while the two othersmanaged to run away.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Indian Railways has oper-ated 1,565 'Shramik Special'trains since May 1 and ferriedover 20 lakh migrants backhome, the national transportersaid on Tuesday.

While Uttar Pradesh hasallowed 837 trains, Bihar haspermitted 428 and MadhyaPradesh more than 100,Railway Minister Piyush Goyalsaid in a tweet.

As of Monday night, 162trains were in transit and 1,252had reached their destinations.Around 116 more are cur-rently in the pipeline, it said.

"Under the leadership ofPM @NarendraModi, morethan 20 lakh workers havebeen sent to their homes by theRailways on 1,565 ShramikSpecial trains," the ministersaid.

According to data tillMonday night, more than 496trains have originated fromGujarat and 17 more are in the

pipeline, while over 266 trainshave already started fromMaharashtra, with 37 more inthe pipeline.

Among other originatingstates, 188 trains have startedfrom Punjab, 89 fromKarnataka, 61 from TamilNadu, 58 from Telangana, 54from Rajasthan, 41 fromHaryana and 38 from UttarPradesh.

Out of the trains that haveterminated so far, the maxi-mum has been in UttarPradesh at 641, while 73 moreare in transit, followed byBihar with 310 and 53 more onthe way.

The operation of these trainshas, however, led to a politicalmud-slinging, with the oppo-sition accusing the Centre ofcharging fares from migrants

and then the Centre accusingsome states having non-BJPgovernments of not providingpermission for the migranttrains to run.

Goyal, in a series of tweetson Monday, said he had spo-ken to the Odisha, Bihar andthe Uttar Pradesh govern-ments, and they assured him ofpermitting more trains.

A 'Shramik Special' traincarries around 1,700 passen-gers, instead of the earlier1,200, to ferry as many work-ers home as possible.

Ran 1,565 ‘Shramik Spl' trains,ferried 20 lakh migrants: Rlys

AMPHAN

BSF moves ships, patrol boatsto safe anchor in SunderbansPNS n NEW DELHI

The Border Security Force(BSF) has moved its threefloating border posts or shipsand 45 other patrol boatsdeployed to guard the India-Bangladesh riverine front inthe Sunderbans and Icchamatiriver in West Bengal to safeanchorage in view of thecyclonic storm 'Amphan', offi-cials said.

These vessels are used by thesouth Bengal frontier of theborder force to guard about350 kms of the riverine borderin this area.

The BSF protects over 930kms of the International Borderunder this frontier that includes110 kms of the Sunderbans,Estuary Point, Icchamati riverand Panitar, where the land andriverine borders of the twocountries meet.

The three floating borderposts or ships, 45 other patroland mechanised boats havebeen moved for safe anchorage

in view of cyclone 'Amphan'.BSF Deputy Inspector

General (south Bengal frontier)S S Guleria told PTI that thetroops who man these vesselswill move to land border poststill the activity of the cyclone.

A team of experts like elec-tricians, masons and engi-neering personnel have alsobeen sent to the riverine bor-der fronts so that they can helpin reviving the damaged infra-

structure as soon as possible,Guleria, who has earlier servedin the NDRF, said.

He said satellite phones havealso been provided to theriverine border posts so thatcommunication links are on,he added. A control room hasbeen established for thecyclone related operations atHasnabad that will be super-vised by a senior officer fromground, he added.

Autorickshaw, car numbers in Cong listof buses for migrant workers: UP govtPNS n LUCKNOW

The Uttar Pradesh govern-ment on Tuesday said the listof 1,000 buses offered by theCongress to ferry migrantscontained registration numbersof two-wheelers and cars, acharge denied by the party.

The UP claim reignited therow over the offer made onMay 16 by Congress generalsecretary Priyanka GandhiVadra to provide 1,000 buses atthe UP border for migrantworkers heading to theirhomes in the state.

The Congress initiallyclaimed that the state's BJPgovernment was ignoring theoffer with Chief Minister YogiAdityanath even refusing togive an appointment to a party

delegation seeking a meeting.Even while accusing the

Congress of playing politicsover the plight of workersheading home after the coro-navirus lockdown, the UP gov-

ernment on Monday formallyaccepted the offer.

It asked the Congress tosubmit a list of the buses, andits drivers and conductors.

But that was not the end of

the row. In an email received byPriyanka Gandhi's private sec-retary at 11.40 pm Monday, theUttar Pradesh governmentasked the opposition party tosend the buses to Lucknow by

10 am on Tuesday, according tothe Congress.

The aide wrote back to theUP government saying thatsending empty buses toLucknow was “inhuman” andthe “product of an anti-poormindset” when thousands ofworkers are gathered at UP'sborders.

"This demand of your gov-ernment seems politicallymotivated. It does not appearthat your government wants tohelp our labourer brothers andsisters who are facing a disas-ter," the letter in Hindi said.

UP's Additional ChiefSecretary (Home &Information) Awanish Awasthiresponded to the Congress let-ter, agreeing to take charge ofthe buses at the border itself.

Fadnavis targets Pawar, asksMaha govt for economic packagePNS n MUMBAI

Senior BJP leader DevendraFadnavis on Tuesday took a digat NCP chief Sharad Pawar onhis recent letter to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi on theeconomic stimulus package, anddemanded a similar measurefrom the Shiv Sena-ledMaharashtra government.

However, the Congress hitback asking why did MLAs ofthe Opposition party donatedtheir local area developmentfund to the PM Cares Fundinstead of to the CM Relief Fundif they are so concerned aboutMaharashtra, which has report-ed the highest number ofCOVID-19 cases in the country.

The NCP and the Congressare the constituents in the Sena-

led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)government. "UddhavThackeray-led MVA govern-ment should announce a pack-age on the lines of the Centre.Sharad Pawar has written sever-al letters to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi. He should writeone such letter to CM UddhavThackeray as well," Fadnavis

said, after meeting state GovernorBhagat Singh Koshyari alongwith other BJP leaders. In hisrecent letter to the PM, Pawarstated that the Centre's econom-ic stimulus package lacked pro-visions to compensate the lossesincurred by farmers during thelockdown period, which has leftno cash in their hands.

PNS n AHMEDABAD

Gujarat Congress MLAGyasuddin Shaikh on Tuesdayalleged that negligence andim-proper treatment of COVID-19patients in Ahmedabad civilhospital is leading to high num-ber of deaths, and sought theintervention of the NationalHuman Rights Commission inthe matter.

In a letter sent to the NationalHuman Rights Commission(NHRC), Shaikh claimed a sim-ilar scenario was there in othergovernment-run hospitals alsowhere senior doctors are "shy-ing away from treating COVID-19 patients and handing over the

responsibility to junior doctorsand para medical staff".

Till Monday, Ahmedabadreported 555 COVID-19 deathsin various government-run hos-pitals, including civil hospital.

"The high mortality rate ofcoronavirus patients inAhmedabad is due to improp-er treatment and negligence ofdoctors and authorities," theopposition MLA said.

"It has come to my noticethat doctors are not awareabout the death of a patienteven after three hours. Relativesare also not informed about thetreatment or progress in healthof the patients," Shaikh said ina video message.

Congress MLA writes toNHRC over COVID-19deaths in Ahmedabad

2 former Major Generalsbooked for corruptionPNS n NEW DELHI

The CBI has booked two for-mer Major Generals foralleged corruption in con-ducting Group C and D exam-inations in the Survey of Indiain 2002, resulting in wrongselection of 44 candidates asthose who had succeeded weremade to fail, officials said onTuesday.

The FIR has been registeredagainst the then Brigadier MV Bhat, Director, SurveyTraining Institute (STI), andthe then Brigadier K R M KBabaji Rao, Deputy SurveyorGeneral, STI. Both of themretired as Major Generals,they said.

Other names include J KRath and R Rama Singh, thethen officials of STI.

The agency has registeredthe FIR after a two-year-longpreliminary inquiry based ona complaint from a vigilanceofficer in the Ministry ofScience and Technology whoalleged malpractices in com-pilation of marks in the answersheets of the LimitedDepartmental CompetitiveExamination for Group D toC Topo Trades held duringOctober 2002 in the Survey ofIndia.

It was alleged that candi-dates who had passed weremade to fail and vice versa,resulting in wrong selection of44 candidates.

The agency had alleged thatanswer sheets were deliberate-ly manipulated by accusedofficers to favour selected can-didates, they said.

PNS n NEW DELHI

A high-powered committeeheaded by a Delhi High Courtjudge has been informed byDG (Prisons) that 15 inmatesand a staff found COVID-19positive in Rohini jail are quar-antined and undergoing treat-ment, while the process oftracing other prisoners whocame in contact with them isstill underway.

The Director General(Prisons) told the committeeheaded by Justice Hima Kohlithat a Special Task Force (STF)has been formed for 'contacttracing' of suspected cases in allthe jails here, including Rohinijail, and if necessary coron-avirus test will be done onother inmates who had comein contact with the COIVD-19positive prisoners. It has beenreported by DG (Prisons) thatall the 15 inmates as well as thestaff are asymptomatic, thecommittee recorded in its min-utes of meeting held onMonday evening.

A total of 16 inmates andone jail staff tested COVID-19positive last week. The first

positive case was reported afteran inmate had undergone asurgery in DDU Hospital onMay 11. After being found pos-itive, he was shifted to LNJPHospital, dedicated forCOVID-19 treatment, wherehe is recuperating.

The committee, set up onSupreme Court's order to lookinto decongesting prisons andprevent spread of COVID-19there, decided that new entrantsin jail should be kept in isolationwards to prevent their intermin-gling with other inmates.

It said precautions be takenby jail staff, medical staff,maintenance staff and others

entering the premises for deliv-ery of essentials so that they donot come in direct contactwith the prisoners.

“Feeling concerned” aboutthe issue, the committee chair-person asked the DG (Prisons)regarding availability of indi-vidual cells in any prison whichcan be converted into isolationcells for keeping the newentrants at least for an initialperiod of 14 days to preventthem from coming in contactwith other inmates.

Minutes of the meetingrecorded that the DG (Prisons)informed that jail no.15 ofMandoli prison has an overall

capacity of 280 prisoners andit has 248 individual cells withattached toilets and currentlyit houses 178 inmates, who are'high risk prisoners'.

It has been decided by thecommittee to shift the 160 ofthese 178 high risk prisoners todifferent jails in Tihar whichalso has high risk wards toaccommodate them. The other18 who are working as'sahayak' will remain inMandoli jail. The committeewas satisfied with the stepsbeing taken by jail authoritiesto prevent the spread of coro-navirus in prison premises.

It was informed that tillMonday, a total of 3,678 pris-oners, including undertrialsand convicts, have beenreleased on interim bail, paroleor remission of sentence as partof the programme to de-con-gest jails here to contain thespread of COVID-19.

The committee also made itclear that no prisoner in what-soever category/ class he fallsand whatever nature of offencehe is facing trial, can seek orclaim to be released fromprison as a matter of right.

PNS n CHENNAI

With the near two-monthlockdown taking a toll ontheir meagre revenue, manysmall temples in Tamil Naduare seeking a waiver of powerbills, as demands are also beingmade for enhanced compensa-tion for village priests andworkers allegedly not paidsalaries during this period.

Over 8,000 temples wherethe "oru kala puja" (singlepuja a day) is performed andalso temples with low earningsacross the state have sought thegovernment to waive thepower bills.

Shrines are not mere placesof worship but support manydependent on them for a liveli-hood, including flower sellers,according to the Tamil NaduVillage Temple PriestsAssociation.

"Though they may not hogthe attention just as the indus-tries and hospitality sectorswhich have reported losses,temples nevertheless not only

keep up the faith of the devoutbut also promote sustainableincome generation activitiesaround them," said P Vasu,state president of Tamil NaduVillage Temple PriestsAssociation. Temples play amajor role in drawing the reli-gious and heritage tourists tothe state, he said.

Not just the temple priestsand staff but also flower ven-dors or archana plate sellersdependent on the shrines fortheir livelihood are experi-encing the worst economiccrisis as a fallout of the lock-down, enforced by the govern-

ment to prevent the spread ofcoronavirus, he said.

Shrines across Tamil Naduhave been closed for darshansince March 24 after the gov-ernment clamped the lock-down to prevent the spread ofcoronavirus.

Only priests have been per-forming pujas and other relat-ed services during the lock-down.

The said priests' body haspetitioned the government toprovide enhanced relief tothem and temple staff, besidespressing it to waive the powerbills of low income temples.

LOCKDOWN IMPACT:

Small temples in TNseek power bill waiver

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Delhi High CourtTuesday sought response ofthe Centre on a plea seekingdirections to it to ensuresocial media platforms likeFacebook and Instagramremove illegal groups such as'Bois Locker Room', "for thesafety and security of chil-dren" in cyberspace.

A bench of Justices RajivSahai Endlaw and SangitaDhingra Sehgal issued noticeto the ministries of homeaffairs, InformationTechnology and finance asalso Facebook, Google andTwitter asking them to indicatetheir stand on affidavit by thenext date of hearing on July 14.

The order came on theapplication moved by former

RSS ideologue K NGovindacharya "highlightingthe unlawful nature of illegalgroups" like 'Bois LockerRoom'.

"Due to the negativity, fakenews and illegal content manyyoung lives are destroyed. Suchgroups are criminal in natureand do not deserve any protec-tion of free or creative speech,"

said the petition filed throughadvocate Virag Gupta.

It further contended that"the incident of 'bois lockerroom' on Instagram showsone of the vilest forms ofsocial media".

Central government stand-ing counsel Anurag Ahluwaliaaccepted notice on behalf ofthe ministries.

Plea to remove groups like Boislocker room from social media

Inmates, staff in Rohini jail quarantined,contact tracing on: HC judge headed panel told

"Under the leadershipof PM @NarendraModi,more than 20 lakhworkers have beensent to their homesby the Railways on1,565 ShramikSpecial trains," theminister said

The Congressinitially claimedthat the state's BJPgovernment wasignoring the offerwith CM YogiAdityanath evenrefusing to give anappointment to aparty delegationseeking a meeting

VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020 nation 05SHORT READS

No consent requiredfrom states to runShramik Special trainsNEW DELHI: The railways onTuesday said the consent of thedestination states is notrequired to operate ShramikSpecial trains, hours after theHome Ministry issued astandard operating procedurefor the national transporter torun these trains to ferrymigrants to their native places."Consent of terminating statenot necessary to run ShramikSpecial trains," railwayspokesperson Rajesh Bajpaisaid. "After the new SoP, theimplication is that no consentof receiving state is mandatory,"he said. Earlier, a political stormhad broken out when RailwayMinister Piyush Goyal said thatWest Bengal, Jharkhand andChhattisgarh were beinglaggard in approving thesetrains. Since May 1, therailways has run 1,565 migranttrains and ferried over 20 lakhmigrants.

Hardline separatist'sson among two terroristkilled in encounter

55,960 migrants leftThane so far in trains,buses: OfficialTHANE: Nearly 55,960 migrantlabourers have so far been sentto their native places fromMaharashtra's Thane districtamid the coronavirus-inducedlockdown, Collector RajeshNarvekar said on Tuesday. Ofthese, as many as 21,475 havebeen sent in 17 trains and34,485 have been ferried in1,553 buses to their nativeplaces in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,Orissa and Jharkhand, he said.The Thane district administra-tion in coordination with thestate government arranged fortheir travel, he said. Thenumber of those sent by trainsto various states is as follows:Uttar Pradesh-2,833, Bihar-10,632, Madhya Pradesh-1,652, Rajasthan-3,494,Odisha-1,364 and Jharkhand-1,500. Till date, more than65,000 migrant laborers haveregistered their names with thedistrict administration to getclearance to travel to theirnative places by trains, thecollector said. So far, 21,475labourers have been sent bytrains, he said, adding that thestates concerned are beingcontacted for permission tosend the other labourers also.Following arrangements madefor the transportation ofthe labourers, the districtadministration said.

SRINAGAR: Junaid Sehrai, sonof separatist conglomerateTehreek-e-Hurriyat's chairmanAshraf Sehrai, was among thetwo terrorists killed in anencounter with security forces indowntown Srinagar, police said.Junaid Sehrai went missing inMarch 2018 and later hispicture, brandishing an AK-47,went viral on social media. Thejoining of Sehrai, who comple-ted his MBA degree from theKashmir University, was the firstsuch case where a son of aseparatist leader of Jammu andKashmir had joined a terrorgroup.

PNS n NEW DELHI

As a nationwide lockdown con-tinues to fight the coronaviruspandemic, COVID-19 hasaccounted for up to 42.2 per centof mainstream news headlinesduring this period while a resul-tant migrant labour crisis hasemerged as the most-trendingnews, a new study showed onTuesday.

Prime Minister NarendraModi has emerged as the biggestnewsmaker among all Indianpolitical leaders, showed thestudy that used artificial intelli-gence to analyse 75,000 headlinesacross 15 mainstream newssources between March 1 andMay 10.

Modi is followed by Congressleader Rahul Gandhi, HomeMinister Amit Shah, FinanceMinister Nirmala Sitharamanand Congress leader P

Chidambaram in the top-fivenewsmakers among nationalleaders, as per the study done byboutique brand-building firmDharma Media Consultants, inpartnership with technologycompany PRM Fincon, on howCOVID-19 has primarily occu-pied news space.

Among state-level politicians,

Jyotiraditya Scindia was most inthe news with his shift fromCongress to BJP. He was followedby Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal, Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath, formerMadhya Pradesh Chief MinisterKamal Nath, Maharashtra ChiefMinister Uddhav Thackeray andWest Bengal Chief Minister

Mamata Banerjee. The studyfound that out of the total 75,000headlines, 24.5 per cent of head-lines were related to COVID-19pre-lockdown (from March 1),but it rose to 42.2 per cent dur-ing the first two phases of thelockdown and then dropped to32 per cent in the first week of thethird phase (till May 10).

The third phase of the lock-down continued for two weekstill May 17 with considerable

relaxations as compared to theearlier two phases, while the lock-down has now been extended tothe fourth phase till May 31 withfurther relaxations to help reviveeconomic activities.

Dharma Media Consultants'Founder Shutapa Paul said thestudy was carried out with an aimto find who and what were thenewsmakers before and duringlockdown induced by the dead-ly coronavirus.

COVID-19 dominates headlines; Migrantlabour crisis most-trending news: Study

Our families need us in thistough time, migrant workers sayPNS n NEW DELHI

Babban Mahto's wait to see histwo-month-old girl for thefirst time only seems to be get-ting longer.

The 27-year-old from Biharworked as a 'beldar' (dailywager) in Seelampur inNortheast Delhi until the lock-down hit businesses, renderinghim and his co-workers jobless.

"I am the only one earningin the family. First, the riots inNortheast Delhi impactedbusiness, and now the lock-down brought the people totheir knees," he says.

Babban says he was to takea train to home, in Siwan dis-trict, on May 2, which got can-celled.

On May 5, he and his co-workers from Bihar registeredfor free travel on 'ShramikSpecial' train. Two weeks later,

they have no clue which trainwill take them home.

"We also registered on thelink provided by the Delhi gov-ernment two days ago. It saysthe application has been suc-cessfully submitted, but how dowe know which train will takeus home and when?" asksJitendra Mahto, 35, who workedin a T-shirt printing unit.

"I have only Rs 200 left withme. I have not even got therefund for the cancelled tick-et. We don't have agriculturalland back home. I know it willbe hard there, but I will be withmy family. I am happy having'roti and chutney' with them,"Jitendra says.

Salendra Kumar, 30, fromBihar's Chapra district, says he

just finished watching newsabout the Delhi governmentarranging 16 special trains onTuesday to ferry migrant work-ers to their native states.

"We have been waiting herefor our turn," he says.

Kumar says he and his room-mates, including Babban andJitendra, left their rented accom-modation at 6 am on Tuesday.

Public transport resumes inDelhi after nearly 2 monthsPNS n NEW DELHI

Public transport resumed inDelhi on Tuesday with buses,auto-rickshaws and taxis plyingon roads, albeit with a limitednumber of passengers, after a gapof nearly two months due to thecoronavirus-induced lockdown.

Delhi Transport MinisterKailash Gahlot said the depart-ment is taking all necessary pre-cautions with regard to theresumption of public transportand urged people to wear masksand ensure social distancing.

"At some terminals and busstands, we have started conduct-ing thermal screening of passen-gers before boarding. We will tryto implement this at all busy busstands. Under the leadership ofArvind Kejriwal, the governmentis taking all necessary steps toensure safe transport for people,"he tweeted.

The Delhi TransportCorporation (DTC) and cluster

buses resumed services withsocial distancing norms andsafety measures like use of sani-tisers and masks in place to checkthe spread of the deadly coron-avirus.

"We are trying to run as manybuses as possible. But, manybuses are under special hire andalso some of our drivers and con-ductors living in the NCR citiesare finding it difficult to join theduty. The situation will improve

in the coming days," a seniortransport officer said.

He said no major issues havebeen reported since the bus ser-vices resumed in the morning,except in some areas wherepeople had to wait a bit longer.

Sources said some clusterbuses in rural areas did not plyas drivers stayed away fromwork claiming their wages forthe lockdown period had notbeen paid.

Screening area to be set up atAIIMS before OPD services start

Hundreds of migrants gathernear Bandra station in Mumbai

PNS n NEW DELHI

A screening area will be set upat the AIIMS here to identifyand segregate patients havingsymptoms of influenza-like ill-ness and COVID-19 beforethey are referred to the OPD asthe hospital gears up to resumeout-patient department ser-vices in a phased manner, offi-cials said.

According to the AIIMSChief Spokesperson Dr AartiVij, the premier hospital is inthe process of modifying OPDsin view of COVID-19.

Preparations are in full-swing for setting up a screen-ing OPD to identify and seg-regate patients having influen-za-like-illness and COVID-19 suspects before they are sentto the main OPD, she said.

"This is being done from thepoint of view of taking all pos-sible infection control mea-

sures to prevent any spread ofinfection to non-COVIDpatients and healthcare work-ers. Steps are also being takentowards ensuring good air cir-culation. Since we are modify-ing the OPDs, it will requirefew more days," Dr Vij said.

It has been close to a monththat the AIIMS has shut downits OPD services and cur-

tailed all elective surgeries aspart of its effort towards redi-recting its resources to controlthe COVID-19 outbreak.

The hospital has also consti-tuted a committee to devise astrategy for restoring health-care services in a phased man-ner, Dr Vij said.

A large proportion of man-power and patient care facili-

ties are being dedicated formanaging COVID-19 patients.Besides the AIIMS TraumaCentre has been convertedinto a dedicated COVID-19hospital and the NCI Jhajjaralso is treating coronavirusinfected patients.

"Doctors at AIIMS are cur-rently providing tele-consulta-tion to all follow-up patients inan effort to reduce the need forthem to visit the facility duringthe lockdown. Around 1000tele-consultations are beingprovided per day in differentdepartments in total and thesefigures are going up," Dr Vijsaid.

The COVID-19 NationalTele-consultation Centre(CoNTeC) at AIIMS, NewDelhi has handled over 4,500calls that includes calls forCOVID-19 related queries, tele-consultation calls by doctorsand calls for appointments.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Centre on Tuesday issueda Standard Operating Protocol(SOP) for transportation ofstranded migrant workersbetween states, which will des-ignate nodal authorities andmake necessary arrangementsfor receiving and sendingthem, amid the novel coron-avirus-induced lockdown.

While issuing the revisedSOP, Union Home SecretaryAjay Bhalla said for running'Shramik' special trains, permis-sion will be given by the Ministryof Railways (MOR) in consulta-tion with the Ministry of HomeAffairs (MHA).

States and union territoriesshould designate nodal author-ities and make necessaryarrangements for receiving andsending such stranded people,the home ministry SOP said.

However, the guidelines issuedby the Ministry of Railways onMay 2 for 'Shramik' specialtrains said: "The consent of

receiving state shall be obtainedby originating state, and a copyprovided to Railways beforedeparture of train".

According to the fresh SOP,the train schedule, includingstoppages and destination, shallbe finalised by the MOR basedon the requirements of states andUTs, and shall be communicat-ed by the MOR to states and UTsfor making suitable arrange-ments for sending and receivingsuch stranded workers.

Officials explained that theMOR will ensure more halts of

the special trains for the conve-nience of migrant workers.

The SOP said the trainschedule, protocols for entryand movement of passengers,services to be provided incoaches, and arrangementswith states and UTs for book-ing of tickets shall be publi-cised by the MOR.

Sending states and UTs, andthe MOR will ensure that pas-sengers are compulsorilyscreened, and only asympto-matic passengers are allowed toboard the trains, it said.

Non-COVID-19 patientssubject to long waitsPNS n MUMBAI

Even as hospitals in Mumbaigrapple with the rising numberof coronavirus cases, out- patientdepartments at civic and state-run facilities witness long queuesof non-COVID-19 patientswaiting to seek treatment.

Mumbai has witnessed asharp increase in COVID-19cases since the first week of May.

This has not only increasedthe pressure on staff at state andcivic-run hospitals, but it has alsoled to the neglect of non-COVID-19 patients, especiallypregnant women.

The state-run KEM Hospitaland its neighbouring NairHospital, which is run by theBrihanmumbai MunicipalCorporation, can become a casestudy for how hospitalsresources are stretched to thelimit because of the rising num-ber of COVID-19 cases.

While Nair Hospital, whichhas been dedicated for COVID-19 treatment, is swamped andfilled to its maximum capacity,

the government has reserved400 beds at KEM for patientsinfected with the novel coron-avirus. This has had a cascadingimpact on non-COVID-19patients, who visit the hospital'sOPD, where they are subjectedto a long wait.

"We cannot turn patientsaway. However, availability ofbeds is a real challenge. Severalpeople wait till late in the nighthoping to get a bed for their ail-ing relative," dean of KEMHospital Dr Hemant Deshmukhsaid. The state administrationwas also under a lot of pressureto create more medical facilitiesfor COVID-19 patients, an offi-cial said.

PNS n MUMBAI

Hundreds of migrant labourersgathered on an approach road toBandra Terminus here onTuesday before the departure ofa Shramik Special train, leadingto chaos in the area for sometime. The crowd was later dis-persed by police, a WesternRailway official said.

The incident comes over amonth after hundreds of migrantworkers had assembled nearthe Bandra station over theirdemand that arrangements bemade for them to return to theirnative places in the wake of thecoronavirus-enforced lockdown.

In a video clip of Tuesday'sincident that went viral on socialmedia, a large number ofmigrants were seen carryingtheir luggages and runningtowards the gate of the BandraTerminus.

The crowd started gathering

in the area around 11 am,sources said.

The Western Railway in astatement later said a ShramikSpecial train was scheduled forPurnia from the BandraTerminus in which passengersregistered with the state author-ities were to travel.

However, many people, whowere not registered and notcalled by the state authorities,

gathered on a road and a bridgenear the station, it said.

"The bonafide passengerswere checked and allowed toenter the station by the statemachinery. The train left theBandra Terminus around 12noon with 1,700 labourers andtheir families who were entitledto travel," Western Railway'sChief Public Relations OfficerRavinder Bhakar said.

Haryana govt allows 50-100% Group C, D staffPNS n CHANDIGARH

The Haryana government hasallowed 50 per cent staff fromGroup C and D categories toattend offices which can go upto 100 per cent if there is suffi-cient space for complete obser-vance of social distancing norms,according to an order issued bythe government.

The state government hadreopened its offices in the stateand those located in its capitalChandigarh with certain condi-tions during the third phase ofthe COVID-19-induced lock-down. In the third phase of thelockdown itself, that lasted tillMay 17 following which thefourth phase began with lessrestrictions, government officeswere re-opened with 100 percent staff of Groups A and B and33 per cent staff strength at thelevel of Groups C and D.

In view of the amendedguidelines issued by the Ministryof Home Affairs on May 17, thematter of attendance in govern-ment offices has been reconsid-

ered, as per an order from ChiefSecretary to all the administra-tive secretaries, heads of depart-ments and Commissioners andDeputy Commissioners of allDivisions, all MDs of Boards andCorporations and Registrars ofuniversities.

"While attendance percentagefor Groups A and B shall be 100per cent, for Groups C and D itshall be 50 per cent. In case anyoffice has sufficient space toensure 100 per cent attendancewith complete observance ofsocial distancing norms for AllGroups — A, B, C and D, theymay do so,” as per the orderdated May 18.

PNS n AHMEDABAD

With the conditional relaxationsduring the lockdown kicking inin non-containment zones ofGujarat on Tuesday, people cameout to buy non- essentials,including items like paan masala,and to get their mobile phonesand vehicles repaired in westernAhmedabad and other cities.

In a major relief to peopleaffected due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, the stategovernment had on Mondayannounced several relaxations,including opening of marketsand shops only in non-contain-ment zones, from Tuesday.

The government has allowedshops and other commercialestablishments in non-contain-ment zones to remain openbetween 8 am and 4 pm.

While no shops, except thoseselling essentials, are allowed to

open in the 11 containmentzones in Ahmedabad coveringabout 12.68 lakh people, sever-al shops reopened in westernpart of the city.

Ahmedabad, Vadodara andSurat account for the maximumcoronavirus case load in Gujarat,which reported 11,746 casesand 694 deaths as on Monday.

The overall case count in

Ahmedabad district stands at8,683 with 555 deaths, the totalnumber of cases in Surat andVadodara stands at 1,127 and682, respectively, a govern-ment official had said onMonday.

On Tuesday, citizens inVadodara, Surat and Rajkotamong other cities visitedmarkets.

On 1st day of relaxed lockdownpeople buy non-essentials

On May 5, he andhis co-workersfrom Biharregistered for freetravel on 'ShramikSpecial' train.Two weeks later,they have no cluewhich train willtake them home

The study found that out of the total75,000 headlines, 24.5 per cent ofheadlines were related to COVID-19pre-lockdown (from March 1), but itrose to 42.2 per cent during the firsttwo phases of the lockdown and thendropped to 32 per cent in the firstweek of the third phase (till May 10)

Centre issues SOP fortrain travel of migrants

Already riding high, China hasused the Corona pandemic toextend its political influence inNepal. Chinese President XiJinping spoke to Nepalese

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari andinquired about the COVID-19 situation,despatched flight loads of succour andstaved off the collapse of the Governmentover there. Then on May 9, Union DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh inaugurated a newIndian road to the disputed Lipulekh, trig-gering off a political storm in Nepal. Thiswas accompanied by protests and the cus-tomary exchange of diplomatic notes.Indian Army Chief Gen MM Naravane,who is the honorary General of Nepal Army,in response to a question on the protestssaid, “Nepal’s protest over India’s road inLipulekh might be at the behest of some-one else”, alluding to China, though it couldalso have been Pakistan. Last year inNovember, there was a tsunami of protestswhen India reproduced a map depictingnew political boundaries in Jammu &Kashmir, including Kalapani, an areaclaimed by Nepal in its territory.

In the lull before a second spike in theterritorial issue, a week-long political cha-rade around May Day, to dethrone NepalesePrime Minister KP Oli, fizzled out as his betenoire, the Nepal Communist Party (NCP)executive chairman, Pushpa Kamal Dahal‘Prachanda,’ switched sides and let Oli claimvictory. In turn, Oli promised to make hispolitical foe and party vice-chairman BamDev Gautam a lawmaker.

It was China and not the traditionalplayer in Nepal, India, which came to therescue of an embattled Oli. Sensing inter-nal crisis within the ruling NCP and the OliGovernment, Beijing’s popular envoy inKathmandu, Hou Yanqi, followed upon Xi’s45-minute-long conversation on April 27with his Nepalese counterpart Bhandari.What followed next were mediations for thenext two days, meeting with Bhandari, Oli,Dahal, former Prime Minister MadhavKumar Nepal and according to one report,even with Sher Bahadur Deuba, the leaderof the Nepali Congress Opposition party.By May 2 evening, at the fateful Central sec-retariat meeting of the NCP where Dahalhas a majority, surprisingly, he declared atruce. He called for party unity when it washe who had asked Oli to step down nam-ing Madhav Nepal as his replacementthree days earlier at the same forum.Friends of India saw the rescinding ofMadhav Nepal’s (sometimes jokingly calledMadhav India) name as the Prime Ministeras a defeat for us.

Kathmandu fears China’s new politicalmantra of compliance, which was recentlydemonstrated in the admonition of the edi-tor of the Kathmandu Post by the ChineseEmbassy. This was not so in mid-2016 whenChina valiantly tried to prevent Dahal frombreaking away from the Oli-led coalition

Government but very brieflymonths later, India succeeded inorchestrating his exit with thelure of premiership in a Deuba-Dahal Government. It is anoth-er matter that even as part ofthis Government, Dahal surrep-titiously entered the Beijing-inspired Left alliance, which wasexpected to sweep the federal,provincial and local polls thatfollowed. In this new “GreatGame” in Nepal between Indiaand China, Beijing demonstra-bly has an upper hand.

It is worth recalling thatduring the pre-2006 people’srevolution and civil war periods,Chinese diplomats inKathmandu, while alluding toNew Delhi, would claim thatBeijing does not interfere in anycountry’s internal affairs. Theywould describe Dahal-Maoistsas “anti-state rebels”, “miscre-ants” and “hijackers” of Mao’sfair name. After the Maoistscame to power in 2008, Beijingconveniently discovered ideo-logical identity and congruitywith them, saying all was fair inlove and war.

In contrast, India has had amonopoly in making andunseating Prime Ministers aswell as preventing their appoint-ments. Like in 2009, after PrimeMinister Dahal was removedfrom office, he was neverallowed to become the premieragain till 2016, when he was

thought to have been tamed.During the decade ofConstitution-writing, MadhavNepal and Baburam Bhattarai,both considered to be friends ofIndia, became the PrimeMinister and so did Jhala NathKhanal. But Khanal, who’s neverpassionate about India, was notinvited to New Delhi on a Statevisit.

Oli, once an Indian blue-eyed boy, has risen to becomethe most powerful PrimeMinister and party chairman ofNepal on a wicket of national-ism and anti-India sentimentfollowing the economic block-ade of 2015. China’s help inforging first the Left alliance andthen the merger of the two Leftparties ensured Oli’s sputnikrise. Lord John Dalberg-Acton’sdictum that power tends to cor-rupt and absolute power cor-rupts absolutely fits the Olistory well as he sits in Baluwatar(the Prime Minister’s red-stoneresidence) on a gilded chairunder his own towering portraitat the back. In designer clothes,he appears to be in the pink ofhealth even after a second kid-ney transplant.

Dahal and Oli joined thebattle early following a gentle-man’s power-sharing agree-ment, whose existence Olidenied. Mutual sniping washalted when Bhandari brokeredan agreement last year, which

nominally elevated Dahal as theexecutive chairman of the NCPeven as Oli became its co-chairman but remained a spokein Dahal’s wheel. What fol-lowed next were widespreadreports of disillusionment andfrustration with Oli’s autocrat-ic style and shenanigans cappedwith misgovernance and cor-ruption. This, even during thepurchase of medical equipmentin the midst of the pandemic,passage of two controversialpolitical ordinances, which hewithdrew and in transactingdue to which Bhandari becamecomplicit. Through such high-handedness, Oli sought to gar-ner more power: Secure two-thirds majority in Parliamentand make Constitutionalappointments with simplemajority.

That is when on April 24,the proverbial straw broke thecamel’s back and Dahal trig-gered off plan Alpha — leader-ship change — which has beenin the works for some time now.It envisages replacing Oli withMadhav Nepal as the PrimeMinister, appointing Dahal asthe undisputed party executivechairman and Khanal in time asthe President of Nepal. WhileOli kept clutching at the strawsat the party central secretariatmeetings and divulged his ownleadership reshuffle plan, hesent a May Day call to Yanqi.

During the crucial secretariatmeeting on May 2, Dahal did asomersault, declaring theimportance of party unity andletting Oli stay as the PrimeMinister as the latter promisedto make Gautam a law-makersoon. That was a demotion forGautam as earlier, Oli hadoffered him premiership towriggle out of the crisis.

Dahal has pressed the pausebutton on plan Alpha, surpris-ing its key players. Undoubtedly,there will be rewards for Dahalfrom Oli and Beijing. The rul-ing political class has shadow-boxed what Nepalese are callinga political Corona instead ofseriously combating theCOVID-19 pandemic, thusproving that power is the ulti-mate aphrodisiac.

Kalapani and Lipulekh arepart of a disputed packagerevived in 2015 after a tradeagreement was signed betweenChina and India. The newpolitical map and a road toLipulekh have sown fresh seedsof discord, whose principalbeneficiary is Beijing.Nimbleness was needed fromNew Delhi in defusing the cri-sis.

(The writer, a retired MajorGeneral, was Commander IPKFSouth, Sri Lanka and foundermember of the Defence PlanningStaff, currently the IntegratedDefence Staff.)

Do we open salons or not? As a haircutclosely follows liquor as the most soughtafter service, both the Centre and State

Governments are wondering whether to list bar-ber services as an essential category or not.Unfortunately what was once essential hasnow been pushed to being non-essential asgrooming and care involve close proximity andtouch therapy that are anathema in times ofthe pandemic. In fact, barber and salon ser-vices were the reason that cases spread in NewYork. With the nation entering the fourth phase

of the lockdown, the southern States of Tamil Nadu and Kerala have decided toallow barbers with mandatory riders like all-time use of masks and sanitisers,sterilisation of tools, maybe protective suits of some sort and maintaining socialdistancing. While in Kerala, barber shops are now allowed to open on a rota-tional basis without air conditioning, so that the enclosed air filters out, in TamilNadu, they have been allowed to operate in rural areas, too. The PalaniswamyGovernment has even gone a step ahead by announcing a ̀ 2,000 dole for unreg-istered barbers. Those registered with the Tamil Nadu Hair Dressers Welfare Boardhave already been compensated. Much as we may laugh about the need for ahaircut or trim, fact is livelihoods have been lost. At the same time, this meansthat it is mandatory for establishments to ensure that staff at such outlets shouldbe COVID-free to inspire confidence. Clients walking in need to be screened, too,lest they infect staff. Besides, a cap has to be put on the number of clients thatcan be attended to in a day. At the moment, they should run in green zones only.

One may argue that in times when the world is facing a pandemic, we shouldnot fuss about the vanity of appearances. More than anything, those not accus-tomed to having long hair or beard, especially men, are bound to feel itchy andsome sort of irritation and allergies during the high heat of summer. There areskin hygiene issues involved, too. True, people are now managing with trimmersand razors and experimenting with tools at home but that is a temporary com-promise. A clear protocol for beauty and grooming services has to be evolvedthat may need additional costs in terms of safety gear and inputs. And manyplayers may not have the resource depth to continue. But at least a conversa-tion for reopening services has started.

Months into the pandemic, humanity stillseems to be in a tailspin. Given thisgloom and doom scenario, it is but

natural that mankind should look towards thescientific community to find a vaccine or drugto cure/combat the deadly virus at the earli-est. Till now, there is no formal vaccine butthere are many positive developments. For thefirst time, a multi-lateral and cooperative ini-tiative is on across the world to find an anti-dote. Clinical trials are under way in manycountries and some have reported positive

progress. Normally drug trials take years but researchers around the world areworking overtime to beat the clock. Not only that, in a first, they are sharing updatesand expertise. India is part of several collaborative projects. In the UK, pharma-ceutical giant AstraZeneca is on track to manufacture 100 million doses of vac-cine for the entire world. The vaccine developed at Oxford University is under-going testing right now and if successful, its large-scale production can beginand be available as early as September. Pharmaceutical firms Johnson & Johnson,Sanofi and Pfizer are at it, too. Scientists are also pushing to develop treatmentsto slow down the virus and some of the earliest will most likely be drugs alreadyapproved for other conditions, or those which have been tested on other virus-es. We already know about chloroquine and remdesivir. The US, Israel and Germanyare working on antibody drugs and China itself is now claiming a drug to curethe disease and even get short-term immunity. There is also talk of “human chal-lenge trial” that scientists say could speed up the vaccine clinical trials and giveus hope earlier than ever. The encouraging part is that even though there are noplans for this kind of study in the US as yet, over 16,000 people in over 100nations have volunteered to participate in trials. The WHO has already releasedethical guidelines to help scientists navigate rights issues. There’s history:Unscrupulous human trials have unsuspectingly been tried in countries wherelives are cheap, Africa being the prime target of pharma majors over the years.So this should not become a new bio war.

However, the worrying part is that once a successful anti-Corona vaccineor drug is found, the politics of marketing it for economic gains and dominationof nations that don’t have it will begin. Already stocks of pharma majors involvedin vaccine development have almost tripled in value. As usual, the powerful andrich nations will put their interests over those of developing nations where accessto vital drugs and vaccines is a perennial issue. How real the fear is of coun-tries putting their economic and social interests ahead of global unity can begauged from the fact that the WHO, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and FrenchPresident Emmanuel Macron recently called for fair distribution of vaccines. TheCoalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an Oslo-based groupthat’s funding numerous Coronavirus vaccines, sees a way out of this throughadvance market commitments where donors promise funds to guarantee theprice of vaccines once they have been developed. CEPI is talking with other organ-isations, including the World Bank, which is exploring how to set up such agree-ments. While a vaccine is a crucial part of the exit strategy, the world lacks aglobal system for managing its distribution in a crisis. It is time we set that upalso along with our efforts to look for a cure. For politics is the reason why dis-eases such as HIV and ebola persist because of unequal access to therapiesand drugs, something which activists are still fighting for. Some world leadersof developing countries have signed a petition demanding that all vaccines, treat-ments and tests be made patent-free, distributed fairly and made available to allpeople, in all countries, free of charge. They even called for mandatory world-wide sharing of all COVID-19 related knowledge, data and technologies with apool of COVID-19 licences freely available to all countries. Even assuming thatprivileged nations with a solution become big-hearted enough overnight, massproduction will still be a challenge as building capacities for a rollout such asthis is a humongous task for poorer nations. Of course, India has a distinct advan-tage here producing as it does 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines and account-ing for 60-80 per cent of the United Nations’ annual vaccine procurement. Ourhome-grown companies have also helped over the years to distribute vaccinesto the world. So it could become the hub of a production line and claim its placeat the forefront of providing an antidote to COVID-19.

Signs of a cure

Extension of lockdown

Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Moving out of lockdown” (May18). With the country entering thefourth phase of the lockdown, bynow people must have becomeaccustomed to following basichygiene habits like wearing masksand washing hands. And if main-taining social distancing and allsafety protocols have not becomepart of our daily routine in the lasttwo months, we have only our-selves to blame. So, lockdown 4.0was actually not warranted now.If the Central Government has leftit on the States’ sole discretion ofdeciding the zones, then it sure-ly should have left the extensionas well to the States.

Even a day of extended lock-down has a huge economic cost,which despite the huge reliefpackage cannot be completelycompensated. So, all focus shouldnow be on reviving the economy.Coming to individual companies,they know better whether theycan manage work effectively byallowing employees to work fromhome or getting them back to theoffice.

Bal GovindNoida

Open public transport

Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Moving out of lockdown”(May 18). The DelhiGovernment’s decision to resumethe public transport system is astep in the right direction. Given

the halt in all economic activitiesthat have led to unemploymentbesides causing massive damageto India’s economic prospects,other States must take a cuefrom Delhi and gradually openthe transport system so that com-muters do not face problems inreaching their place of work.

Of course, this should bedone keeping in mind the safetyof the travellers and those involvedin transportation activities. It willbe difficult to enforce social dis-tancing. This is why State admin-istrations must take adequatemeasures to ensure strict compli-ance. With the number of passen-

gers remaining low initially, it maynot be difficult for the authorities.Of utmost importance will betheir ability to track and monitorthe impact of mobility relax-ations. Until a vaccine or a cure tothe Coronavirus is found, suchmeasures are essential.

Devendra KhuranaBhopal

Care for the elderly

Sir — From the beginning of thepandemic, a lot of discussion hasbeen going on co-morbidities andthe elderly. The average age ofdeath due to Corona in India is 75years and 83 per cent of thedeaths are of those already suffer-ing from co-morbidities.Protecting and taking care of theold and sick who are most vulner-able is our moral duty. We need toadopt social, behavioural changes.Elders in our houses should not beallowed to go out unless there’s amedical emergency. Even for med-ical requirements, a person mustaccompany them.

Ravi Teja KathuripalliHyderabad

P A P E R W I T H P A S S I O N

www.dailypioneer.comfacebook.com/dailypioneer | @TheDailyPioneer | instagram.com/dailypioneer/

op nionVIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020

06

Power games in Nepal

ASHOK K MEHTA

The new political map and a road to Lipulekh have sown fresh seeds of discord whose principalbeneficiary is Beijing. Nimbleness was needed from New Delhi in defusing the crisis

I changed because I want-ed to score all over theground. The static positionwas limiting my shotmak-ing options. I had to tweakit to suit my game.

Cricketer—Virat Kohli

The beauty of prayers is youpray for your loved ones, thosewho are less fortunate than youare, who are in bad health, youhave to pray for everyone to beokay for you to be okay.

Actor—Gauhar Khan

Repeated missteps by the WHOin responding to the pandemichave been extremely costly forthe world. The only way forward is if it demonstratesindependence from China.

US President—Donald Trump

S O U N D B I T E

L E T T E R S T O TT H E E D I T O R

Open the skies for air travel

With the Centre allowing inter-State passenger trav-el with the flagging of railway services from Delhito 15 destinations across the country, it was hoped

that the floodgates for air travel, too, would be openedduring the fourth stage of the lockdown. The railways aredoing a stupendous job in ferrying thousands of strand-ed migrant workers, tourists and students to their homeStates. The day is not too far when it would be undertak-ing full-fledged journeys. Coming to air travel, a gradualopening of the aviation sector should not be a tough callfor the authorities considering that among its peers likethe Railways or roadways, it is the most regulated. It isalso the safest way to travel long distances, especially inCorona times. Since international oil prices have comedown, air travel may even become cheaper. People arelikely to switch from road and rail to air once operationsresume. Demand will be slow but it will pace up.

Of course, the dangers of travelling at a higher alti-tude will be many when compared to a closed compart-ment train bogey. It’s good that a blueprint encompass-ing all safety protocols that need to be followed by thepassengers is ready with the Government. Those whowant to fly must be allowed to do so. While the mad-

dening queue at airport counters and restless faces atboarding point are set to be fewer, nonchalant passen-gers may get along the new routine with customary ease.Others may find fresh regulations to be troublesome yetinevitable. It is, perhaps, time to lift the ban on flying.According to the International Air Transport Association(IATA), the Corona pandemic is expected to impact morethan 29 lakh jobs in the Indian aviation and dependentindustries. All the more reason why the Government mustre-open this sector.

Ganapathi BhatAkola

Send yyour ffeedback tto:letterstopioneer@gmail.com

Haircut or not?This is not the time to dopolitics. It is a challengingtime for the Centre and theStates to bury their differ-ences and work together totackle the present crisis.

Minister of State for Home—G Kishan Reddy

As producer of 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines, Indiacould become the production hub for an antidote to the virus

Beauty and grooming services need a detailed andcareful protocol before being allowed to open up

Much ado about nothing

THE WORLD IS CURRENTLY INFECTED BY SUCH A BIGDISEASE. BUT THE BIGGER DISEASE IS IN MODI’S MIND.HE HAS DEPLOYED SEVEN LAKH SOLDIERS IN KASHMIR.

—EX-PAKISTAN CRICKET CAPTAINSHAHID AFRIDI

HE IS TALKING ILL ABOUT OUR COUNTRY. AFRIDI HASNO RIGHT TO SPEAK ILL AGAINST OUR COUNTRY ANDHE SHOULD STAY IN HIS COUNTRY AND LIMITS—INDIAN CRICKETERHARBHAJAN SINGH

POINTCOUNTERPOINT

After a long wait of about seven weeks, sincethe nationwide lockdown began on March25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi

announced the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, aspecial package of `20,00,000 crore, about 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), torevive the economy. Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman unveiled the details in five tranches dur-ing press conferences held between May 13 and 17.The package aims at giving relief to all strata of soci-ety impacted by the sudden stoppage of econom-ic activities viz. farmers, workers, migrant labour-ers, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs),vendors, small merchants, self-employed people,the middle class and so on. Given its mega size, animmediate question that comes to mind is whetherall the components add up to `20,00,000 crore?

The PM Garib Kalyan Yojna (PM-GKY)unveiled on March 26, that focussed mostly on foodand other bare minimum needs, offered supportof ̀ 1,70,000 crore. Besides, the announcements bythe Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor,Shaktikanta Das on March 27 and April 17, togeth-er provide a liquidity injection of about `8,00,000crore. These add up to `9,70,000 crore and areincluded in the mega package total of about`21,00,000 crore (as informed by the FM in herpress conference on May 17).

The balance `11,30,000 crore focusses most-ly on MSMEs, NBFCs, power distribution compa-nies, migrant labour, agricultural credit and lowermiddle class, agriculture infrastructure and farmreforms, structural reforms in coal, minerals, civilaviation, defence and MGNREGA, health and StateGovernments’ resources and public sector reforms.

Taking the total of about 40 crore workers inthe informal sector, ̀ 21,00,000 crore works out to`52,500 per worker or about `17,500 per month(assuming a three-month lockdown). The amountis nearly four times the national minimum wagefor an informal worker, which is ̀ 4,550 per month(`175 per day and 26 working days).

This back of the envelope calculation isintended to show what a mega package such as thiscan do; provided the money is actually made avail-able to the beneficiaries. But where is it? For a farmhousehold in which a woman (also head of the fam-ily) is a Jan Dhan (JD) account holder, has a rationcard, gas connection in her name and a job underMGNREGA, the total benefit comes to ̀ 3,055 permonth. This includes the value of 25 kg rice (for afamily of five people at five kg per person) at `35per kg, plus one kg pulse at ̀ 80 per kg or ̀ 955; ̀ 500ex-gratia in JD account; `500 value of subsidisedgas cylinder; `600 hike in wages under MGNRE-GA and ̀ 500 under PM-KISAN (`2,000 being oneof the three lots of four months each in a year, pro-rata monthly amount is taken).

Thus, even for a family blessed with access toall the schemes, the amount is just about two-thirdof the minimum wage of `4,550. Further, consid-ering that the number of beneficiaries under eachscheme varies: 80 crore under the National FoodSecurity Act; 20 crore under JD; 8.3 crore WomenUjjawala beneficiaries; PM-KISAN 8.69 crore andMGNREGA five crore, it is inconceivable that allthose impacted by the lockdown would get any-where near this amount. The workers in the infor-mal sector who can’t avail of PM-KISAN, JD andWomen Ujjawala would get at the most about`1,500.

However, the Government arguesthat the prime focus of its package is toenable the enterprises where workers areemployed or those who are self-employedto resume operations which in turn, willgenerate jobs and increase income. It isarranging fresh loans at lower interest,collateral-free, backed by sovereign guar-antee (either for full amount or partial).It is giving such enterprises relief fromservicing of existing loans, their treatmentas non-performing assets (NPAs) and ini-tiation of proceedings under theInsolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).Additionally, it is giving tax incentives(such as 25 per cent less tax deductionfrom various payments) to leave morecash with people.

None of the above measures can sub-stitute cash in the hands of the millionsof workers whose income source has beencompletely smashed for now. TeamModi is trying to rebuild this verysource by arranging loans at concession-al rates. But in the present highly-excru-ciating circumstances, when COVID–19is not letting factories and businesses toreopen, preventing markets from reopen-ing and blocking consumers’ reach to themarket, neither will there be an increasein supply nor will demand materialise(this won’t happen even if theGovernment puts enough cash in thehands of the people).

In this backdrop, none of the mech-anisms contemplated by the Governmentwill work. To get a sense of this, let us lookat the following: The Centre is goadingbanks to give collateral-free loan worth`3,00,000 crore to MSMEs for three years(borrowers with up to ̀ 25 crore outstand-ing and ̀ 100 crore turnover are eligible)to benefit 45,00,000 units. They also getone year moratorium on repayment.However, considering that these firms

already owe `15,00,000 crore, the banksface huge risk and may not lend. TheGovernment’s promise of indemnifyingthem in the event of default won’t instillconfidence in the banks.

Look at the loan of ̀ 75,000 crore, theGovernment wants to be given to non-bank finance companies (NBFC), hous-ing finance companies (HFCs), microfinance institutions (MFIs). Of this,`30,000 crore is fully covered by sover-eign guarantee and for the remaining`45,000 crore, it has given a guaranteecover only to the extent of 20 per cent.Put simply, for 80 per cent of the amount`36,000 crore, the banks will be left in thelurch from the word go.

Consider the special loan of ̀ 90,000crore it wants Rural ElectrificationCorporation (REC), Power FinanceCorporation (PFC) — both centralundertakings — to give to discoms. It iswell-known that the latter are bankruptand are just not in a position to pay back.Yet, any pressure on REC/PFC to lend todiscoms will be at the cost of creatingNPAs on the former’s books.

Likewise, it is asking the NationalBank for Agriculture and RuralDevelopment (NABARD) to give ̀ 30,000crore additional emergency workingcapital (upfront) for crop loans in addi-tion to ̀ 90,000 crore that is already beinggiven for such financing. Being a direc-tive from the Government, it may haveno other option but to disburse funds, butthe risk of the loan becoming an NPA isreal. The Government also wants to helpstreet vendors by arranging bank creditfacility for initial working capital of upto `10,000 (expected to benefit five mil-lion vendors) and micro-enterprises thatavail loans up to `50,000 under theMUDRA Shishu scheme by giving twoper cent interest subvention for 12

months to the borrower. These crutch-es will work but only if the vendors/enter-prises get a chance to resume their nor-mal activities.

The conditions created by COVID–19 are rendering all efforts to pump morecredit/liquidity into the economy infruc-tuous. This may also be seen from the factthat many businesses/enterprises have gotloan sanctions worth hundreds of thou-sands of crores but are unwilling to actu-ally draw the funds. This has led to ananomalous situation whereby despite theRBI making plenty of liquidity availablewith banks, borrowers are not comingforward to avail the loans. This has forcedbanks to keep money with the RBI underthe so called “reverse repo” window earn-ing 3.75 per cent.

Currently, the amount lying unusedin this window is a gargantuan about`8,50,000 crore. Sitharaman is reportedto have pleaded with banks to release thismoney for spurring economic activity.But, what do you do when the enterpris-es themselves are not coming forward.

Faced with a steep decline in its rev-enue and increase in expenditure com-mitment, the Modi Government hasopted for a package which is dependentpreponderantly on loans. This helps inpreventing immediate fiscal stress. Itcould have done more by increasingdirect cash support beyond what it hasgiven. But, there is no guarantee that thisby itself would have helped in spurringdemand. There is dire need for all stake-holders viz. industries, businesses andmost importantly the public to strictly fol-low “social distancing.” This is the onlyway the virus can be reined in, bypaving the way for revival of the econo-my, restoration of jobs and incomes.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based policy analyst)

Faced with a steep decline in its revenue and increase in expenditure commitment, the Modi Government has opted for a package which is dependent on loans

analysis 07F I R S T C O L U M N

The newnormal

KALYANI SHANKAR

We cannot let our guard down and mustcontinue to follow social distancing norms,

wear masks and avoid crowded places

THE CONDITIONSCREATED BY

COVID-19 ARERENDERING ALL

EFFORTS TO PUMP MORE

CREDIT/LIQUIDITYINTO THE ECONOMYINFRUCTUOUS. THISMAY ALSO BE SEEN

FROM THE FACTTHAT MANY

BUSINESSES ANDENTERPRISES HAVE

GOT LOANSANCTIONS WORTH

HUNDREDS OFTHOUSANDS OF

CRORES BUT AREUNWILLING TO

ACTUALLY DRAWTHE FUNDS. THIS

HAS LED TO ANANOMALOUS

SITUATIONWHEREBY DESPITE

THE RBI MAKINGPLENTY OFLIQUIDITY

AVAILABLE WITHBANKS,

BORROWERS ARENOT COMING

FORWARD TO AVAILTHE LOANS

How will life change for us in the post-lockdown period andwhat have we learnt from the Coronavirus outbreak? Manyexperts in India and abroad have stressed the point that the

world as we know it will change forever and will now be dividedinto the pre and post-Coronavirus period. Union Health MinisterHarsh Vardhan is clear that while there is no need to get paranoid,at the same time it is imperative that Government guidelines befully and completely adhered to by the citizens of the country.

We cannot afford to let our guard down and must continueto follow guidelines like social distancing, wearing a mask whenoutside the house, avoiding crowded places and sanitising our handsrepeatedly, among other things. Social distancing is the backboneof the current strategy that the Government has adopted to slowthe spread of the virus. Telemedicine is the new doctor-patient rela-tionship. Globetrotters will have to find a new way to amuse them-selves as travel is to be strictly avoided in the immediate future.Going to the movie hall and shopping in the mall is taboo for now.Big fat weddings are forbidden. Handshakes are out and the goodold “namaste” is in. Working from home wherever possible is thenew norm. Webinars will continue and in short a new lifestyle shouldbe devised individually/collectively and followed scrupulously. Thisis the new normal that we have to get used to.

So what does the oft-repeated phrase, learn to live with theCoronavirus, mean? Harsh Vardhan says that it means that theCoronavirus is not going away anytime soon. Though other dis-eases like small pox had been eradicated, this virus will be aroundlike the Ebola and SARS. It is imperative to follow the hygiene guide-lines that have been given by experts until a vaccine/drug is found.Many scientists in India and abroad are working round-the-clockon a vaccine/drug, but it will take time.

While the pandemic is highly-infectious and deadly, some goodthings have emerged in the last few weeks due to the panic trig-gered by the COVID-19. For the first time Prime Minister NarendraModi has shown that he wants to take everybody along in the fightagainst the virus, including the Opposition, Chief Ministers of allStates and not just the BJP-ruled ones, the media and the public.Both, the Centre and State Governments have shown that they canrise to the occasion and work together, putting aside their differ-ences and political agenda. Cooperative and competitive federal-ism have come into play for the first time. The States have com-peted with each other in their enterprise and performance and evenegoistic regional satraps like Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaikand Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan earned praise from thePrime Minister for their enterprise. The fear of the unknown hasdone the trick.

Second, what the Supreme Court and the State Governmentscould not do in decades to ensure clean air, clear blue skies, reju-venated water bodies, restoration of wildlife and so on, the COVID–19 has achieved in just a few months, as it forced nations to gointo lockdown and put all economic activity on hold.

Another plus is that the citizens of India have shown that theycan fight the pandemic unitedly and be disciplined when they wantto. Despite many difficulties, by and large people have obeyed theGovernment’s guidelines, observed social distancing norms andobeyed the lockdown rules.

Significantly, due to the combined efforts of the Union HealthMinistry and the States, the death toll in India is much less thanmany other countries including the US and Italy. For a country ofa whopping 1.3 billion people, the number of Coronavirus casesis 1,01,139 and the death toll is 3,163. Rural India has played avery significant role in keeping the numbers down till now. Villagershave saved the country by maintaining strict vigil and by keepingstrangers out. They have by and large behaved responsibility andkept returnees outside the villages, in quarantine.

However, nothing is all rosy and, of course, there have beenfailings on the part of the Government and other stakeholders inhandling the human tragedy and suffering brought on by the out-break. Employers, the Centre and State Governments are respon-sible for the plight of the migrant labourers who continue to suf-fer even today, over 50 days after the lockdown was announcedsuddenly by the Centre. Things could have been handled muchbetter and a humane approach was lacking. Neither the migrantlabourers, their families nor the country will ever forget the waythe less-fortunate were treated with apathy and callousness.

As the virus throws up new challenges each day, we as a coun-try are still learning to cope with it. However, the most importantlesson that the pandemic has taught us is that health is wealth,not only for individuals but also for the nation and the healthcaresector should get priority funding. A healthy nation can meet anychallenge that life throws at it.

(The writer is a senior journalist)

Suman Devi is a member of a self-help group (SHG) in HasanpurGram Panchayat, Barabanki, Uttar

Pradesh (UP). Ever since she heard thenews on the television about theCOVID-19 pandemic and the need formasks, she has been stitching the facecovers for women in her own group,their children and the elderly in hercommunity. Kajal, who belongs to theNari Shakti Samuh in Bijnore, has beenworking to raise community awarenessabout the disease through her rango-lis. She believes that it is a very effec-tive way to make her community seethe importance of frequent handwashing, adhering to the lockdownand social distancing norms. Like

Suman and Kajal, today, all across UP,women in SHG groups have becomean important part of the Uttar PradeshState Rural Livelihood Mission’s(UPSRLM’s) COVID-19 responsestrategy. Further, their involvement hasnot been on a small-scale. This means,it is not limited to a few individualmembers of SHGs or a few SHGs andthis movement has now rapidly spreadacross districts. The SHGs are nowdeeply involved with several aspects ofthe UP Government’s COVID-19strategy. Take the production of masksfor example. As the news of the pan-demic broke, some members of SHGs,like Suman, began production to pro-tect their own communities. But todaywe have thousands of SHGs across theState involved in mass production ofmasks. What began with just fiveSHGs, in one district, producing 2,000masks daily, has now swelled to 12,683SHG members of 52 districts, produc-ing around 50,000 masks daily and thenumbers are only growing each day.

While the SHGs are producingmasks at scale, the district administra-tion has been working to keep the sup-ply chains of raw material going. In

fact, the use of Khadi as a raw mater-ial for making of masks is now under-way. Uttar Pradesh’s Khadi and VillageIndustries Board has pledged to givesix lakh metres of fabric to SHGs todeliver 50 lakh Khadi masks, to bemade and sold for ̀ 13.60 each to var-ious Government departments.

In another case, the Indian Armyhas placed an order to procure 2,000PPE kits which are also being manu-factured by SHGs. Estimates suggestthat till date, more than 50 lakhmasks, 25,000 PPEs and 7,700 litres ofsanitisers have been produced through4,000 SHGs. Meanwhile, theGovernment has been ensuring that itsprocurement is under due process.This has also meant an additionalsource of income for SHGs.

The involvement of SHGs is notlimited to making COVID-mitigationitems only. They have been mobilisedto roll out several awareness-buildingcommunication campaigns and facil-itate the implementation of food dis-tribution and delivery efforts duringthis crisis.

On the awareness-building front,a radio message was created to educate

SHG didis (sisters) about precaution-ary measures against the virus, whichalso urges the women to furtherspread awareness regarding this intheir communities. Further, existing‘Prerna Canteens’ managed by SHGs— which were set up a couple of yearsago by UPSRLM to ensure nutrition-al self-sufficiency in households —have been transformed into commu-nity kitchens and are working hard toensure continuous cooked food sup-ply to vulnerable households, quaran-tined people and front-line healthworkers.

This quick re-orientation of‘Prerna Canteens’ to communitykitchens during this crisis has takenplace across 54 Village Organisations(VOs) which are a set of 12-15 SHGs.Further, a Samuh Sakhi selected fromthe SHGs is coordinating these effortsbetween SHGs and VOs. In certainareas where SHGs work closely withthe local administration, members areproviding meals to panchayat-runhospitals. There is now even a plan inplace for a partnership of SHGs withprivate and other development agen-cies to ensure delivery of essentials and

post-harvest procurement of agricul-ture commodities.

This very early success of theSHGs as partners in UP’s COVIDresponse has been widely acknowl-edged by all stakeholders. In a radioaddress, UP’s Rural DevelopmentMinister Rajendra Pratap Singhthanked and urged the Samuh Sakhisto continue building on their efforts.

Over the years, UPSRLM hasbeen focussed on investing in andbuilding this community institution asa mechanism to help them achieve sev-eral mission objectives, includingenabling rural poor to augment theirhousehold income via sustainablelivelihood enhancements andimproved access to financial and pub-lic services.

SHGs have received book-keep-ing, financial literacy and even lead-ership training.They form the base ofa three-tier organisational structureenvisioned by the UPSRLM whichorganises SHGs into VOs and Cluster-Level federations. The mission has theambition to mobilise more than 10million women in the next 10-15 yearsin a phased manner.

Like other States, post the lock-down, the challenges UP faces are notlikely to recede quickly. While thesesteps were necessary, it has also meantthat economic activities around thecountry have come to a grinding haltand livelihoods of millions continue tobe under stress. UP is no exception.Here, we are confronted by severalchallenges. These include: Assuringrations for an extremely large propor-tion of vulnerable rural households fac-ing food shortages; providing forreturning and stranded migrantlabourers; and alleviating the impactof severe shock to agricultural, live-stock, fisheries, and other supplychains — all of which have hit house-hold incomes hard.

Estimates already suggest thatover and above the residents — vul-nerable populations, returning migrantlabour, whose number is expected tobe around 2.6 to three million — willneed food and finances to help themre-establish their livelihoods. Thismeans that the Government’s humanresources capacity will be over-stretched for the foreseeable future.

Over the years, there has been

growing evidence coming in from var-ious States of how SHGs can functionas an important mechanism which canbe leveraged to implementGovernment schemes, build localcommunity capacity and roll out pol-icy interventions. Further, in manycases, we have seen that their involve-ment has led to better health outcomesand successful financial inclusionefforts. They have been especiallyeffective in driving behaviour changecampaigns, often acting as role mod-els and galvanising other communitymembers.

In UP we have seen how the SHGplatforms have acted as effectiveresponders to the pandemic. This hasalso shown us the importance oflocalised and community-drivenresponse. In the case of COVID-19, weare seeing SHGs drive behaviourchange communication as well asquickly set up last mile delivery mech-anisms to provide essential items thatare needed to mitigate this socio-eco-nomic hardship, hand in hand with theState Government.

(The writer is an IAS officer andMission Director, UPSRLM)

Helping others to help themselvesSHG platforms have acted as effective responders to the pandemic in UP, showing the importance of localised and community-driven response

SUJEET KUMAR

VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020

www.dailypioneer.com

UTTAM GUPTA

VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020 money 08

CAPSULE

SBI employeescommit Rs 8 croretowards PM Cares

New Delhi: Drug firm NatcoPharma on Tuesday said it hasdonated chloroquinephosphate tablets through itsmarketing partner in the US tosupport a global clinical trialconducted by CROWNCollaborative in the wake ofcoronavirus pandemic. Thetrial will examine whether theanti-malarial drug can protectessential healthcare workersfrom COVID-19 virus. Thecompany has donated thetablets through RisingPharmaceuticals.

COVID-19: NatcoPharma donateschloroquine tabletsfor global trials

New Delhi: Employees ofState Bank of India (SBI) havedecided to contribute anadditional amount of Rs 7.95crore to the Prime Minister'sCitizen Assistance and Reliefin Emergency Situations (PM-CARES) Fund as part of theireffort to fight the COVID-19crisis. The donation made bySBI employees by letting go ofone day's salary and a day'sleave encashment totals at Rs107.95 crore, the country'slargest lender said in astatement. In March, around2,56,000 employees of SBIdonated Rs 100 crore to thePM-CARES Fund that iscreated to fight thecoronavirus pandemic, it said.SBI has also committed 0.25per cent of its annual profit of2019-20 towards CSR(corporate socialresponsibility) activities tofight the COVID-19 pandemic,it said. Public sectorcompanies and theiremployees have been at theforefront in the fight againstCOVID-19 and they havegenerously contributed to thePM-CARES Fund. At this timeof crisis, SBI is taking allefforts to provide bestpossible banking services toits customers, it said.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The COVID-19 outbreak hasseverely impacted Indianstartup space with nine out of10 startups facing a decline inrevenues, according to amonth-long survey conduct-ed by IT trade body Nasscom.The survey also showed that30 to 40 percent of the totalparticipant startups in Indiahave halted their operationstemporarily or permanently— and along with 70 percentof them have reserves forless than three months.Nasscom has also highlight-ed through its report basedon the survey that more thanhalf of the startups respond-ed are looking to move onwith new business opportuni-ties.

As per the Nasscom reportbased on the survey con-ducted with over 250 startupsin India that have diverse pro-

files and include a large shareof mid-age startups alongsidemature and early-stage star-tups, around 62 percent aresuffering revenue decline ofover 40 percent, while 34percent are facing revenue

decline of over whopping 80percent — all due to thecoronavirus pandemic in thecountry. The survey alsofound that nearly 63 percentof startups in metro cities arefacing over 40 percent decline

in revenue.The major decline in rev-

enues was reported by traveland transport startups. Asidefrom that, fintech, supply-chain management (SCM),and logistics startups are alsoseeing a significant drop inrevenues.

Nevertheless, the Nasscomreport highlights that 14 per-cent of edtech, fintech, andhealthtech startups areexpected to grow their rev-enues. Business-to-business(B2B) startups also did farebetter, with revenue reducedup to 40 percent.

“Out of the blue, this flour-ishing growth saga has sud-denly been hit by a road-block… the COVID road-block,” said Debjani Ghosh,President, Nasscom, in thereport. “There is no country,business or living being thathas not been affected by theCOVID pandemic.”

9 out of 10 startups bleeding in India, says Nasscom survey

The month-long survey also foundthat nearly 63 percent of startups inmetro cities are facing over 40percent decline in revenue

PNS n NEW DELHI

Days after changing the defi-nition of MSMEs, the govern-ment has decided to furtherrevise the criteria for mediumunits by enhancing the invest-ment and turnover limits to upto Rs 50 crore and Rs 200 crorerespectively, Union MinisterNitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.

Unveiling the contours ofthe Rs 20 lakh crore stimuluspackage, Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman had lastlast week announced a changein the definition of micro,small and medium enterpris-es (MSMEs).

As per the revised defini-tion, any firm with investmentup to Rs 1 crore and turnoverunder Rs 5 crore will be clas-sified as "micro".

A company with invest-ment up to Rs 10 crore andturnover up to Rs 50 crore willbe classified as "small" and afirm with investment up to Rs20 crore and turnover underRs 100 crore will be classifiedas "medium".

The previous criteria forclassifying enterprises in the"medium" category was invest-ment up to Rs 10 crore andturnover of up to Rs 5 crore.

"We have taken a decisionto raise the up to Rs 20crore investment (cri-teria) to up to 50 croreand turnover (limit)to up to Rs 200 crore.So we will issue anorder for that,"Gadkari said.

The minis-ter forMSMEa n d

Road Transport andHighways, Gadkari said hefeels the criteria should bebased on investment "or"turnover instead of invest-ment and turnover both asannounced, adding that thegovernment "will rectify thesame".

The minister said he wasalso open to considering sug-gestions regarding enhancingthe turnover limit to up to Rs250 crore for medium enter-prises, and will take up thematter with the MSME secre-tary.

Gadkari said the govern-ment plans to raise MSMEscontribution to India's exportsto 60 per cent from 48 per centat present and also boost thesector's contribution to thecountry's GDP from 29 percent currently to 50 per cent.

"We are planning to cre-ate 5 crore new jobs.

Until now, wehave created 11crore jobs," saidthe minister,adding that he waskeen on develop-ing Indian MSMEs

of internation-al stan-

dards.

Gadkari said hefeels the criteriashould be basedon investment "or"turnover instead ofinvestment andturnover both asannounced

‘Govt to further revisecriteria for classifyingmedium enterprises’

Godfrey Phillips'arm resumesproduction atGhaziabad plantPNS n NEW DELHI

Cigarettes and tobaccoproducts major GodfreyPhillips India on Tuesdaysaid its wholly-owned armInternational Tobacco CoLtd has partially resumedmanufacturing operationsat Ghaziabad plant afterrelaxation in lockdownguidelines.

International Tobacco CoLtd, which does contractmanufacturing exclusivelyfor the company, resumedpartial operations withrestricted capacity andmanpower at its Ghaziabadfactory, Godfrey PhillipsIndia (GPI) said in a regu-latory filing.

"However, the company'sown cigarette factory inMaharashtra and panmasala factory in UttarPradesh still remain closed,"GPI added.

COVID-19: Eight most affectedstates account for 60 pc of GDPPNS n MUMBAI

Eight states most affected bythe COVID-19 pandemicaccount for over 60 per cent ofthe GDP and the extendedrestrictions will slam the econ-omy harder, a report said onTuesday.

The eight states, whichinclude Maharashtra, Gujaratand Tamil Nadu, among oth-ers also account for 58 per centof the employment, domesticrating agency Crisil's researchwing said in the report.

The lockdown has beenextended till May 31 by theCentre for the third time witha liberty to states to decide thegrading of the zones. Many ofthe affected states likeMaharashtra have decided tocontinue with the restrictions.

Analysts are estimating acontraction of up to 5 per centin GDP despite the govern-ment's efforts of pumpingstimulus.

“With states continuing tosee a rise in cases, the restric-tions have been extended. Thisis bound to slam the overalleconomy harder,” the reportsaid.

It noted that the top eightstates have been selected as perthe districts affected as of theend of the third lockdown onSunday.

PNS n MUMBAI

Equity benchmark Sensex roseover 167 points on Tuesday ledby gains in Bharti Airtel,HDFC and ITC amid positivecues from other Asian markets.

After rallying over 700points in a volatile session, the30-share index finished 167.19points or 0.56 per cent higherat 30,196.17.

Similarly, the NSE Niftyadvanced 55.85 points or 0.63per cent to end at 8,879.10.

Bharti Airtel was the topgainer in the Sensex pack, ral-lying around 11 per cent, fol-lowed by ONGC, UltraTechCement, ITC, PowerGrid andNTPC.

On the other hand,IndusInd Bank, RelianceIndustries, L&T and SBI wereamong the laggards.

Analysts said the averagerevenue per user (ARPU)increase speaks of BhartiAirtel's ability to command aprice premium in the market,

given that competition in themid/high-end subscriber basehas now moved to networkquality.

According to traders, hopesof a vaccine for COVID-19enthused global investor sen-timent.

In a significant develop-ment towards developing avaccine for the coronavirus, anAmerican biotechnology com-pany Moderna has said its

initial vaccine tests in peoplehave shown promising resultsand can stimulate an immuneresponse against the virus.

However, the rising numberof cases in the country keptmarket participants on edge,traders said.

The number of COVID-19cases in India spiked to1,01,139, while the death tollrose to 3,163, according to thehealth ministry.

Former CIL chief asks govt not to do away with coal washingPNS n NEW DELHI

Former Coal Indiachairman Partha SBhattacharyya hasasked the Centre towithdraw a proposalto do away withmandatory coal washingas it would be a "retrograde"step.

He flagged that the inabili-ty of the PSU to implement itspromise of supplying washed

coal has led to the erosion ofaround Rs 1.25 lakh crore in

market valuation in 10years to 2019-20.

The Centre is plan-ning to do away withthe mandatory require-

ment of washing of coalbefore it is transported to

thermal power stations.In 2014, as part of its climate

change commitments, the gov-ernment had made coal wash-ing mandatory for supply to all

thermal units beyond 500 kmfrom the coal mine.

This was done in line withthe country's stand in climatechange negotiations - not toreduce coal consumption andrather focus on emission con-trol. "The government is con-sidering a proposal to do awaywith earlier restrictions of coalwashing for dry fuel moving by500 km or more or for the fuelconsumed in and around anycity," Bhattacharyya said.

Recession, job losses and protectionism top worriesPNS n NEW DELHI

A prolonged global recessiondue to COVID-19 pandemic,high unemployment, anotheroutbreak of an infectious dis-ease and increased protection-ism are among the biggestnear-term worries for compa-nies around the world, a newstudy showed on Tuesday.

The study conducted by theWorld Economic Forum(WEF) also flagged that theworld is not ready for theknock-on effect of far-reachingenvironmental, societal andtechnological risks, but a "greenrecovery" and more resilient,cohesive, inclusive and equalsocieties can emerge if leadersact now.

"Economic distress and

social discontent will rise overthe next 18 months unlessworld leaders, businesses andpolicy-makers work together to

manage the fallout of the pan-demic," according to the report.

As economies restart, thereis an opportunity to embed

greater societal equality andsustainability into the recovery,which would unleash a new eraof prosperity, said Geneva-based WEF, which describesitself as an international organ-isation for public-private coop-eration.

The study, titled 'COVID-19Risks Outlook: A PreliminaryMapping and Its Implications',has been conducted in partner-ship with Marsh & McLennanand Zurich Insurance Group.It taps into views of nearly 350senior risk professionals who

were asked to look at the next18 months and rank theirbiggest concerns in terms oflikelihood and impact for theworld and for business.

The immediate economicfallout from COVID-19 dom-inates companies' risks percep-tions and these range from aprolonged recession to theweakening fiscal position ofmajor economies, tighterrestrictions on the cross-bordermovement of goods and peo-ple, and the collapse of a majoremerging market.

These longer-term risks will have far-reaching implications for societies,the environment and the governanceof breakthrough technologies

NBFCs' liquidity stress to increase further: Moody'sPNS n MUMBAI

The COVID-19 related disrup-tions would worsen the assetquality of non-banking finan-cial companies (NBFCs) andfurther aggravate their liquid-ity stress, according to a report.

The weakening of NBFCs'solvency will increase risks forbanks that have large directexposures to the sector, glob-al rating agency Moody's saidin a report.

The sector has been facingliquidity challenges asinvestors became risk averseafter a series of defaults byIL&FS Group in September2018.

"Asset quality at non-bank-ing financial institutions(NBFIs) will significantly dete-riorate as economic disrup-tions from the coronavirusoutbreak deepen an econom-ic slowdown that has been

underway in the past fewyears," Moody's said in areport.

Asset quality deteriorationat NBFCs on average will bemore severe than at banksbecause the former focusesmore on riskier segments,

according to the report.The Reserve Bank of India's

(RBI) three-month moratori-um on repayments of loanswould create a significantdrain on near-term liquidity atNBFCs, the report said.

Most NBFCs do not have

substantial on-balance sheetliquidity because they primar-ily manage liquidity by match-ing cash inflows from loanrepayments by customers withcash outflows to repay theirown liabilities, it said.

"Moratoriums on loanrepayments will result in sub-stantial declines in cashinflows over the next fewmonths,” the rating agencysaid.

The extent of liquidity stresswill depend on the number ofcustomers seeking moratori-ums and the degree of the eco-nomic shock, the report said.

The longer the restrictionson economic activity remain,the longer it will take for loanrepayments to return to nor-mal levels even after morato-rium periods end, it said

The agency expects loanrepayments to drop 50 per centduring moratorium periods.

The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) three-month moratorium on repayments ofloans would create a significant drainon near-term liquidity at NBFCs

Unemploymentclaims in UKsurge 69% asvirus takes holdPNS n LONDON

Unemployment claims inBritain jumped 69 per cent inApril, as the COVID-19 pan-demic took hold and hit thelabor market, UK authoritiessaid Tuesday.

The Office of NationalStatistics says jobless claimssurged by 856,000 to 2.1 mil-lion in April as compared tothe month before. The figurescovered only the first weeksof the lockdown, saidJonathan Athow, deputynational statistician for eco-nomic statistics at the ONS.

“In March, employmentheld up well, as furloughedworkers still count asemployed, but hours workedfell sharply in late March,especially in sectors such ashospitality and construction,''he said.

Work and PensionsSecretary Therese Coffey toldthe BBC that the governmentwas focused on those claim-ing benefits under UniversalCredit, a welfare paymentfor those who need help,including the unemployed.

“I think so far the employ-ment stats really are indica-tive to the end of March andwe won't have a more detailedunderstanding for aboutanother month,'' she said.

Rupee settles25 paise higherat 75.66against US $ PNS nMUMBAI

The rupee appreciated 25 paiseto settle at 75.66 (provisional)against the US dollar onTuesday as reports of initialsuccess in COVID-19 vaccinetrial boosted investor senti-ment world over.

Forex traders said besidesthe encouraging results inCOVID-19 vaccine trial, high-er opening of domestic equi-ties and a weak greenback inoverseas market supported thelocal unit. At the interbank for-eign exchange, the rupeeopened at 75.71, then gainedfurther ground to finally settleat 75.66 against the Americancurrency, registering a rise of25 paise over its previous close.

On Monday, the rupee hadsettled at 75.91 against the USdollar.

During the trading session,the domestic unit saw an intra-day high of 75.63 and a low of75.79 against the greenback.

In a significant develop-ment towards developing avaccine for the coronavirus, anAmerican biotechnology com-pany on Monday said its ini-tial vaccine tests in peoplehave shown promising resultsand can stimulate an immuneresponse against the virus.

Sebi scraps registrationof share transfer agentMennen Financials PNS n NEW DELHI

Capital markets regulator Sebihas cancelled the registrationof Mennen Financial ServicesLtd as registrar to an issue andshare transfer agent for notpaying registration fees.

In an order, Sebi said thefirm violated RTA (Registrarsto an Issue and Share TransferAgents) Regulations onaccount of non-payment ofnecessary fee for keeping itsregistration in force forOctober, 2016 to September,2019 period.

The agent also failed tosubmit periodic reports asrequired by Sebi.

The regulator, in its probe,found that the firm did notsubmit reports for half-yearended March, 2016 andSeptember, 2016despite administra-tive warning.

It was furtherrevealed that thevalidity of the regis-tration of the firm asRTA was tillSeptember 30, 2013.Subsequent to it,

Mennen Financial Serviceswas granted permanent regis-tration with effect fromOctober 01, 2013.

This block of three years ofregistration (starting fromOctober, 2013) ended onSeptember, 2016.

As per RTA provisions, thefirm was required to pay thefees for the next block of reg-

istration, that is October01, 2016 to September

30, 2019, three monthsbefore expiry of theblock for which feewas paid, Sebi said inits order. But no pay-ment of fee was made

by the firm in a timelymanner, the regulatorsaid.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Hospitality firm OYO onTuesday said it is taking sev-eral measures to minimisethe impact of COVID-19, andinnovating to meet new stan-dards of good quality hospital-ity experience at its hotels.

These steps include cus-tomer, asset partners andemployee-centric initiativesto identify challenges andoperate in the post-lockdownhospitality sector, OYO said ina statement. In the first phase,OYO plans to implement mea-sures such as sanitised stayswith minimal touch and book-ing platforms will feature a

'Sanitised Stays' tag to show-case properties that clear back-ground checks for sanitisation,hygiene, and protective equip-ment, it added. The companyplans to implement these mea-sures in 1,000 hotels within thenext 10 days and as the lock-down relaxes, and aims toimplement the measures in all18,000 hotels in the country,OYO said.

The regulator, inits probe, foundthat the firm didnot submit reportsfor half-year endedMarch, 2016 andSeptember, 2016

Sensex rises 167 pts; Bharti Airtel soars 11 pc

OYO takes measuresto mitigate virus impact

he nationwidelockdown calledas a result of theCOVID-19 pan-demic has result-ed in various sec-

tions of the society suffering.One such often ignoredgroup is children who’remissing out on school.According to experts,schools are unlikely to re-open until a vaccine or cureto the Coronavirus is foundand that looks like it’s goingto take a while.

This change has left par-ents asking several questions— ‘Will my child’s academicyear go waste? Will theschool be able to completethe syllabus in a short span,how will my child cope withexams in such a time asthis?’ and so on. While someschools have begun onlineclasses, others are mullingover doing the same. In themeantime, some parentshave begun to do the nextbest thing — homeschool-ing.

Sheetal Reddy, a motherto 10-year-old Nathan,decided to go back to home-schooling her son for thetime being. “My son washomeschooled until his 5thgrade. He was almost donewith his examinations thisyear before the lockdownwas announced. Since itdoesn’t seem like my son’sschool will reopen for anoth-er few months, I’m back to

homeschooling him and heenjoys it,” the IT professionaltells us. “Another reason whyI’d prefer homeschooling myson this year is schoolscharging the exact same feeseven though we don’tneed/are using their infra-structure,” she adds.

Bhagyashree Dandu, anIncident Manager and amother of 3rd-graderMeghna, has taken to appssuch as Byjus and Vedantuto train her child during thislockdown. “My daughter’sschool has begun onlineclasses, but there’s only somuch attention each kid canget via virtual classrooms.These apps ensure my childhas fully grasped a particularconcept,” she opines.

But is this effective orsomething the teaching fra-ternity encourages? “Whynot?” says George Samuel,Vice Principal of a privateschool. “Online classes seemto be the best bet right now.

A combination of regularonline and rare offline class-es can soon be a reality. Ifnot for long, it’s the mosteffective option right now,given the uncertainty aroundthis academic year. Thelessons online are beingmade as realistic and inter-esting as possible,” heinforms.

Worried that the lock-down was announced evenbefore his sister could finishher academic year, JoelEmmanuel, a working pro-fessional, began home-schooling 9-year-old Jennyvery early on in March. “I’vebegun slow with finishinglanguages and words, thenmoved to math and othersubjects,” Joel informs. “Nowthat her school has begunonline classes, we’re ensuringher learning and grasping issmooth, just like it wasbefore,” he adds. Onlineclasses include worksheets,homework, and other activi-

ties too, but will rightfullyrequire parent’s involvementin the process too.

Then there are othermoms, who are trying totheir best to keep their kidsaway from phones and lap-tops. Mainaz Fatima, motherto a 3-year-old and an 18-month-old baby, has beenkeeping her kids busy, byindulging them in variousfun activities. “I looked formaterial and syllabus forhomeschooling and madethe best plan that suits myson. I make stencils andother activities that keepthem both busy and think-ing. I make them out ofchart paper to help himlearn numerals, alphabets,words, etc.,” shares this psy-chology graduate.

The mother makes learn-ing simple and fun by askingher son what colour T-shirthe wants to wear the nextday, converses with him inEnglish once a while, askinghim what h’'s doing, or whatshe’s doing so he’d under-stand little things like cook-ing, sewing, bathing and alsotheir methods. “I’m enjoyinghomeschooling my kid. Iknow and understand hisspeed and plan my teachingaccordingly. I never comparehis progress with other kidshis age, but I must say he is afast learner,” says the proudmother.

So how long will this last?Only time will tell. Untilthen, parents are ensuring anacademic year of their childdoesn’t go down the drain.

ith the aim to get into films froma very young age, NareshAgastya started his career in act-ing through short films, thatcaught the attention of a fewdirectors from the television

industry. After proving his skills onthe small screen with a couple of seri-als, he decided to get into films. Afterworking on a script for almost twoyears, he bagged his first role in thefilm with Mathu Vadalara starringRajamouli’s nephew Sri Simha. He tellsus about his journey to films fromshort films in an exclusive conversa-tion.JOURNEY TO THE SMALLSCREEN...

I initially started off with shortfilms. Around 2011 and 2012, ZeeTelugu reached out to me after watch-ing those short films. They wanted meto audition for Gorantha Deepam seri-al. I was a little hesitant then because Ialways wanted to work for films. So Iasked them to give me a role that lastsonly for 2 or 3 months. I didn’t want alead role. Eventually, I didn’t take it up.Later, Praja Prabhu called me up foranother serial Pasupu Kunkuma. Hesaid, although it’s an important charac-ter, it will last only 2 or 3 months, so Isigned the serial. But over time, thecharacter was a huge hit and the mak-ers made me the second lead. I wasstill pursuing my engineering then.Since I started earning good money, Itook up another serial SwathiChinukuklu on ETV. That serial gaveme the biggest hit. I had to forcefullyleave the serial in 2016 to get intofilms.BAGGING FIRST MOVIE...

Mathu Vadalara director Ritesh andmy team were doing short films earli-er. Serials were the main root tobag a role in Mathu Vadalara film.My co-actor Suresh from one ofthe serials helped me reach out toMythri movie productions. In2016, Ritesh and our teampitched the story of MathuVadalara to Mythri Movieproductions, but themovie took off only in2018 and finished theshoot in 2019 May.Mathu Vadalara con-nects well with thecurrent generation.Although I got a hitwith MathuVadalara, I haven’treceivedroles thatimpressedme per-sonally.But I didhear someexcellentscriptsfrom bud-ding film-makers.

TV OR CINEMA, ALL ACTORSARE THE SAME...

There is a lot of difference betweenserials and films in terms of technicalaspects. Many people do not takeserials seriously. Especially young-sters, they take serials in a funny way.But there is a lot of hard work, chal-lenges a TV artist undergoes duringthe shoot. We would reach the setarea early in the morning and returnhome only late in the night. The lifeof a TV artist is tougher than a cine-ma actor. There is no time for yourselfin serials, but in cinema, you have abreak after a film for yourself. I stilldon’t understand why TV actors aretreated in a different way. For me TVor cinema, all actors are the same.HOLLYWOOD MOVIESINSPIRED ME...

I used to watch a lot of Hollywoodfilms from a very young age alongwith my cousin. I used to love thosefilms and would question myself, whywouldn’t our guys make such qualityfilms in terms of technicality. I decidedto act for films at the age of 7.THE IMMENSE SUPPORT FROMFATHER...

My dad supported me a lot. When Iwas working for short films too, dur-ing my Engineering days, he was therefor me. One thing he was upset about,was my decision to quit serials. I wasearning well then. When I took abreak from serials and entered films,my flow of income reduced. So he wasa little scared about my future thenand he would ask me to get back toserials because there was a constantflow of money. He felt one’s life span infilms is unpredictable or rather shortwhen compared to serials. I mightmake a comeback in serials if I don’t

make a good career in films. When Itook the decision to enter films too,many people questioned my decisionas to why I’m taking this step and feltit wasn’t right until my first filmreleased.WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR OTT PLATFORMS...

I want to do something for OTTplatforms. The present trend is OTT. Iwant to do at least one web series. Ihave no clue how many people willwatch films in theatres now. But atpresent, OTT is ruling the roost. So itwill make us reach a larger audiencemore, giving the current situation. Idon’t have any character obligations. Iwon’t hesitate even playing a dailywage labour as long as the characterhas depth. For me, I want to work forfilms that are relatable to all sections ofpeople in the society.SHOOTING FOR MATHUVADALARA...

I never felt like I was working withRajamouli sir’s family while makingMathu Vadalara. They were all veryfriendly. They are all down to earth.They never gave me the feeling thatthey belong to a star family. It was all avery chill environment during theshoot.

At the age of seven, Naresh Agastyaknew that acting is what he wanted to

do. Starting off his career with shortfilms, it took him a couple of years to getinto feature films after proving his mettle

on small screen. The Mathu Vadalaraactor speaks to K RAMYA SREE abouthis journey to acting, working for serials

and films, and more....

‘TV or cinema, allactors are the same'‘TV or cinema, allactors are the same'

Many people do nottake serials seriously.Especially youngsters,they take serials in afunny way. But there isa lot of hard work,challenges a TV artistundergoes during theshoot. We would reachthe set area early in themorning and returnhome only late in thenight. The life of a TVartist is tougher than acinema actor.

— NARESH AGASTYA

out of the

BOXW

PARADIGM SHIFT INEDUCATION SYSTEMWith no hope in

sight forschools to

reopen any timesoon, parents

fear thatchildren will

either miss outon an academicyear or have an

incompletesyllabus. This

had led to mostparents

consideringhomeschooling

their kids, forthe time being,finds RACHEL

DAMMALA

T

My daughter’s schoolhas begun onlineclasses, but there’s onlyso much attention eachkid can get via virtualclassrooms. These appsensure my child hasfully grasped a particularconcept.

— BHAGYASHREE DANDU, AN INCIDENT MANAGER

AND A MOTHER OF A 3RDGRADER

I’ve begun slow withfinishing languages andwords, then moved tomath and other subjects.Now that her school hasbegun online classes,we’re ensuring herlearning and grasping issmooth, just like it wasbefore.

— JOEL EMMANUEL,WORKING PROFESSIONAL

I looked for material andsyllabus for homeschoolingand made the best plan thatsuits my son. I makestencils and other activitiesthat keep them both busyand thinking. I make themout of chart paper to helphim learn numerals,alphabets, words, etc.

— MAINAZ FATIMA, MOTHER OF A 3-YEAR-OLD

Online classes seemto be the best bet rightnow. A combination ofregular online and rare

offline classes can soon be areality. If not for long, it’s themost effective option rightnow, given the uncertaintyaround this academic year.

GEORGE SAMUEL, VICE PRINCIPAL AT A PVT SCHOOL

WednesdayMay 20, 2020

Follow us on@TheDailyPioneerfacebook.com/dailypioneer

10

Vijayawada Wednesday May 20 2020 what’s brewing?

FUN

Rules

ARCHIE

GARFIELD

SUDOKU

REALITY CHECK SPEED BUMP CROSSWORD

GINGER MEGGS

NANCY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

l Each row and column cancontain each number (1 to 9)exactly once.

l The sum of all numbers inany row or column mustequal 45.

Yesterday’s solution

nurag Kashyap’sChoked: Paisa BoltaHai, which starsSaiyami Kher andRoshan Mathew,will release on June

5.“Choked: Paisa Bolta Hai

is very close to my heart. Itis the story of a strong-willed middle-class house-wife, who finds cash flow-ing out of her kitchen sinkevery night, and how thischanges her life. It is aboutrelationships — and theprecarious balancebetween truth, power andmoney,” Anurag said.

On Tuesday, Netflixreleased the first look andrelease date of the suspensedrama.

In the film, Saiyami starsas Sarita Pillai andRoshan will be seenas Sushant Pillai.

Talking abouther character,Saiyami said,“Sarita is a 30-year-old middle-class woman. Sheis the sole bread-

winner, she is overworkedand frustrated, yet tena-cious and always schemingto build ‘that dream’. Atone level Sarita is thatevery-woman. Nihit Bhave,our writer, has beautifullyweaved the complexities ofthis middle class family.And I thank Anurag fortrusting me with Sarita andletting me bring her to life.Working on the film hasbeen a life changing expe-rience for me.”

Roshan feels his charac-ter is “defeated, disgrun-tled, insecure, and suspi-cious”.

“These things made himvery exciting to play. Hewas written beautifully byNihit, and Anurag sir

brought to him aunique kind of

sensitivitythat only hecould. I’mlucky andproud tohavebeen partof thisfilm,” he

added.

Anurag Kashyap'sChoked: Paisa BoltaHai gets release date

A

awazuddinSiddiqui’s wifeAaliya has sent theactor a legal noticedemanding adivorce and main-

tenance from him overissues related to theirmarried life.

In a recent interview,Aaliya’s lawyer AbhaySahay said that the legalnotice was sent toNawazuddin on May 7through email andWhatsApp, but he is yetto respond, reported apopular media house.

Nawazuddin andAaliya got married in2009.

“I would not like to getinto the details of the

notice regarding what arethe contents and what arethe allegations, but let metell you that the allega-tions are quite seriousand those are very sensi-tive to Mr Siddiqui aswell as his family mem-bers,” Aaliya’s lawyer saidin a video message.

Meanwhile,Nawazuddin and his fam-ily have been quarantinedin his house in Budhanain Muzaffarnagar district.

“Due to the recent lossof my younger sister, mymother, who is 71 yearsold, got anxiety attacktwice. We have followedall the guidelines issuedby the state government.We are home

Quarantined at ourhometown Budhana.Please #StaySafe#StayHome,” he tweetedon Monday.

The actor and his fami-ly underwent medicalscreening and have testednegative for coronavirus.

The actor reached hishome on May 15 aftertaking a travel pass. Heand his family have beenasked to remain in homequarantine till May 25.

His mother,brother and sis-ter-in-law alsomade the journeywith him in hisprivate vehicle.

The actor toldreporters that he

underwent medicalscreening at 25 pointsduring his journey.

Kushalpal Singh,Station House Officer(SHO), Budhana policecircle, said that healthofficials had visited theactor's house and toldthem to be under homequarantine for 14 days.

N

Nawazuddin Siddiqui'swife files for divorce

TWILIGHT ACTORBOYCE, GIRLFRIENDFOUND DEAD

ctor GregoryTyree Boyce,best knownfor playingTyler Crowleyin the first

Twilight film, was founddead in Las Vegas. Hewas 30.

According to the Las

Vegas MedicalExaminer’s office, Boyceand his girlfriend NatalieAdepoju were pro-nounced dead on May13. The cause of deathfor either has not yetbeen disclosed.

Boyce and his 27-year-old girlfriend were founddead in their Las Vegascondo, reportseonline.com.

“Greg’s cousin wokeup and noticed thatGreg’s car was still at thehouse. He was worriedbecause Greg was to bein LA. His cousin wentto check on him andfound them,” the source

said. The source addedthat prior to his deathBoyce was “reallyfocused and handling alot of business”.

He has moved to LasVegas to help his mother,the source said that theactor “would commuteto LA for acting jobs andto see his daughter”.

Another source said,“Greg was definitely aperson who loved lifeand (was) super posi-tive... super animated,really witty, he was thelife of the party. I willdefinitely miss him. Hewas one of my funniestfriends in LA and made

my experience there real-ly memorable.”

Boyce turned 30 inDecember. In anInstagram post, he wrote,“At one point I didn’tthink I would make it tosee 30 years old. Overthe years like everyoneelse I have made mis-takes along the way, buttoday is one of thosedays I only reflect on thegreat ones. What a timeto be alive. Happy Dirty30 self! Let’s make therest of these years yourbest!!”

He is survived by his10-year-old daughterAlaya.

ATHE CAUSE OF THEDEATH OF BOYCEAND HISGIRLFRIEND AREYET TO BE KNOWN

sport 11VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2020

PTI n BENAGLURU

He earned his India debutafter waiting for far too

long and Mayank Agarwal saysbatting great Rahul Dravid’smotivating words helped himkeep negative thoughts at bayand continue with his quest.

His big moment camewhen he made his Test debutagainst Australia at theMelbourne Cricket Ground(MCG) during the 2018/19series.

“I was getting runs youknow. I got massive runs thatRanji Trophy season and forIndia A. I did have a word withRahul bhai. I told him I wasgetting thoughts of sometimesnot getting picked,” Agarwaltold Sanjay Manjrekar in avideocast onESPNcricinfo.

Agarwal gothis interna-t i o n a lcareer offto a finestart witha fighting 76against a high-qualityAustralian bowlingattack.

In 17 innings sofar, he has scored 974runs at an average of57.29 with three cen-

turies at the top of the order.But he had to endure a long

wait to get there having per-formed consistently in thedomestic circuit for Karnataka.That’s when former India cap-tain Dravid, doing duty as theA team coach, helped Agarwalwith his wisdom.

“I very clearly rememberhim telling me ‘Mayank theseare the things that are in yourhands. You have worked hard,you have gotten here. You areas close as you can get.Selection is not in your hands’.

“And I totally agreed withhim. Theoretically you under-stand that but practically it’s noteasy.

“But he put forth fewthings — ‘What is to say thatthe coming October and

November is not going to bedifferent from September. Ifyou think otherwise youwill get into a negative mind

frame it’s you who is going tolose out and nobody

else’. So I remem-bered that talk

and that keptme going,”M a y a n kadded. “When

I got the call Iwas elated and I

called him upand thanked him.”

AFP n BREMEN

Kai Havertz scoredtwice as Bayer

Leverkusen endedthe first round ofBundesliga matchesin over two monthswith a 4-1 win atWerder Bremen onMonday which movedthem within a point ofthe top four.

Attacking midfielderHavertz, reportedly atransfer target for some

of Europe’s biggest clubs,was the star of the showat an emptyWeserstadion.

The 20-year-oldHavertz noddedLeverkusen into a 28th-minute lead, before

Bremen right-backTheodor Gebre Selassielevelled on the half-hourmark.

But Havertz restoredLeverkusen’s advantagethree minutes later withanother header, fromKerem Demirbay’s free-kick.

Peter Bosz’s sidewrapped up a comfort-able victory with sec-ond-half goals fromMitchell Weiser andDemirbay.

AFP n TURIN

Cristiano Ronaldo returned to train-ing with Juventus in Turin on

Tuesday after an absence of overtwo months because of the coro-navirus pandemic.

The 35-year-old arrived atthe Juventus Training Centre ina Jeep with tinted windows around09:20 (0720 GMT), leaving threehours later with a smile andthumbs up for waitingphotographers.

Ronaldo under-went medical andphysical tests beforejoining up with histeammates for thefirst time in 72 daysfor individual train-ing, according tomedia reports.

Coach Maurizio Sarri

has been conducting training in smallgroups since Monday, pending the finalhealth protocol to be agreed with theItalian Government.

Juventus players got back to indi-vidual training on May4, the day Ronaldoreturned to Italy afterspending lockdown in

his native Portugal.For the past twoweeks, he has

been in quar-antine in his villa in Turin.

The five-time Ballond’Or winner is the firstJuventus foreign player,among those who leftItaly during the lock-down, to return tothe team’s Continassatraining centre.

League leadersJuventus are leading Lazio by

one point as they target a ninth consec-utive Scudetto.

AFP n LONDON

Watford captain Troy Deeney will notreturn to training this week over

fears he could pass coronavirus on to hisfive-month-old son.

Deeney has consistently voiced hisconcerns over the speed with which thePremier League hopes to return to play-ing matches despite the United Kingdomhaving the second-highest death toll inthe world. England’s top-flight clubs aredue to return to training in small, social-ly distanced groups on Tuesday.

Training will then be stepped up tofull contact with the aim of resuming theseason by the middle of next month.

“We’re due back in this week. I’ve saidI’m not going in. It’s nothing to do withfinancial gain,” Deeney said on the TalkThe Talk podcast.

“My son is five months and he’s hadbreathing difficulties. I don’t want to comehome and put him in more danger.”

All players and staff will be regular-ly tested, but Deeney highlighted the con-tradiction of contact sport returning at atime when the public are told to contin-ue following social distancing guidelines.The 31-year-old also added he is willingto take a financial hit if not playing resultsin a reduction in wages.

“While we are being tested andwhile we are going to be in a very safeenvironment, it only takes one person inthe group. I don’t want to be bringing thathome,” he added.

“I just said the simplest thing. I can’tget a haircut until mid-July, but I can goand get in a box with 19 people and jumpfor a header.

“I don’t know how that works. “I’ve lost more or less everyone that

I care about. So that, to me, is moreimportant than a few quid in my backpocket.”

LONDON: West Indies captainJason Holder has said hewon’t force his players intotravelling to England for athree-Test series amid theCovid-19 pandemic.

The West Indies wereoriginally scheduled to playthe Test series from June 4but the fixture had to bepostponed due to the coro-navirus outbreak.

However, the ECB hopethey can kickstart the seasonby rescheduling the series forJuly. “Each player has to becomfortable in making thestep. It’s been made clear ifwe are to hop on a plane andgo over to England to play, itmust be safe” Holder toldBBC Radio 5.

“Certainly from my per-spective, I won’t be forcinganyone to go anywhere,”Holder added.

Last week, ECB director

Ashley Giles said they haveto create an environmentwhere West Indies andPakistan both feel safe whiletravelling to the UnitedKingdom. He assured that acomplete risk assessmentwould be done before takingthe plunge.

The 28-year-old reiterat-ed that health and safety will

be the first priority.“The first priority is

everybody’s safety,” saidHolder.

“We’ve been assured thatthe only way the tour canpossibly go ahead is if every-one can be comfortable withthe measures the ECB areputting in place to roll thecricket out,” he added. PTI

AFP n LONDON

ABritish Grand Prix would be“impossible” this year if

elite sport is not exempt from14-day quarantine restrictionswhen entering the UnitedKingdom, Formula One said onTuesday.

Silverstone is planning tohost two races behind closeddoors this summer, subject toGovernment approval, to makeup for some of the lost time inthe 2020 F1 season with 10 racesalready either cancelled or post-poned. However, the UKGovernment’s coronavirusrecovery strategy document set

out an intention to introduce a14-day quarantine rule for inter-national arrivals.

“A 14-day quarantine wouldmake it impossible to have aBritish Grand Prix this year,” anF1 spokesperson said.

“Additionally it has a majorimpact on literally tens of thou-sands of jobs linked to F1 andsupply chains.

“We would be travellingback to the UK on F1-onlyoccupied aircraft and all staffwould be tested making a quar-antine totally unnecessary.

“If all elite sport is to returnto TV then exemptions must beprovided.”

AFP n MADRID

Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and InterMilan will stage a new competition

called the European Solidarity Cup in 2021to raise money for medical facilities in Italyand Spain.

The three clubs will play each other ina round-robin group, with Inter againstBayern held in Milan, Real facing Inter inMadrid and Bayern hosting Real inMunich.

Proceeds from the fixtures will bedonated to medical facilities in Italy andSpain, two of the world’s worst-hit coun-tries by the coronavirus pandemic.

The aim is “to send out a message ofsolidarity and fraternity to the people ofEurope”, said a statement from RealMadrid.

Dates for the tournament have notbeen decided. The timing will “depend onthe match calendar and when football canbe played in front of fans again”, the clubssaid.

Bayern will invite 5,000 nurses, carersand doctors to the Allianz Arena for theirmatch against Real Madrid.

“Nurses, carers and doctors in partic-ular are doing an outstanding job for soci-ety at the moment,” said Bayern chairmanKarl-Heinz Rummenigge.

“We, the three clubs, want to showthese heroes our appreciation, respect andgratitude.”

“The great commitment of all health-care workers has been essential to allowus to look to the future,” said Inter presi-dent Steven Zhang.

AFP n LONDON

Six positive cases for coron-avirus have been detected at

three Premier League clubs afterplayers and staff were testedahead of a return to training, England’s topflight said Tuesday.

“The Premier League can today confirmthat, on Sunday 17 May and Monday 18 May,748 players and club staff were tested forCOVID-19,” the league said in a statement.

“Of these, six have tested positive fromthree clubs.” No details were released overwhich individuals or clubs are affected.

“Players or club staff who have tested pos-itive will now self-isolate for a period of sevendays,” added the league’s statement.

PTI n KARACHI

Babar Azam wants to take a leaf out of Imran Khan’saggressive captaincy and besides cricket, he is also

brushing up his English to become a “completeleader” like the World Cup-winning all-rounder.

Last week, the star batsman took over the reinsof Pakistan’s white-ball cricket after being appoint-ed as the ODI skipper.

“Imran Khan was a very aggressive captain andI want to be like him. It is not an easy job captain-ing the Pakistan team but I am learning from myseniors and I have also had captaincy experience sincemy under-19 days,” Azam said.

He said that to be a complete captain one mustbe able to interact comfortably with the media andexpress oneself properly in front of an audience.

“These days I am also taking English classesbesides focussing on my batting,” he said.

The 25-year-old Babar said he was not satisfiedwith Pakistan’s current standing in international crick-et. “I am not happy with where we stand and I wantto see this team go up in the rankings.”

Babar said captaincy would be a challenge for himbut it would not affect his batting.

“It is an honour to lead one’s national team so itis not a burden for me at all. In fact, after becomingcaptain, I have to lead by example and be moreresponsible in my batting.”

Babar hoped the T20 World Cup is held this yearin Australia as he wanted to lead his team in the ICCevent.

“It would be a disappointment if the event wasnot held or rescheduled because I am looking for-ward to playing in the World Cup and doing well init,” he said.

About plans for Pakistan to fly to England in Julyto play three Tests and three T20 internationals amidthe Covid-19 pandemic, Babar said a lot of hard workand planning would be required to make the play-ers feel comfortable and safe.

“Touring England won’t be easy. Health and safe-ty of players is of great importance and the tour willonly be possible when proper arrangements are inplace,” he said.

“Both England and Pakistan team fans, alongwith the cricketers, are missing cricket because of thepandemic.”

IANS n NEW DELHI

India skipper Virat Kohli hassaid he never doubted his abil-ities during match situations

and as a child went to sleep think-ing he could gun down a total forthe country and win a particulargame he has been watching.

"To be honest, I never doubt-ed myself in game situations.Everyone who is human hasdoubts and weaknesses. Havetheir negatives. So in practiceduring tours, if you haven't had agood session you feel you don'thave that flow," Kohli said duringa Facebook Live session withBangladesh ODI captain TamimIqbal.

"Yes, doubts creep in then andit's at the back of your mind. Keyis to keep going and get into thatzone till you feel that it was justdistraction. If I believe I am goodenough, then I am good enough.

"Best part about match situa-tion is that you don't need to thinkso much. You react to situationsknowing your role. Negative voic-es always come off the field whenyou are not in competition mode,"said the 31-year old prolific bats-man.

Kohli added that when heused to watch India matches, he

would invariably think he had itin him to chase down the total.

"Honestly, when I was a kid,I used to watch India games andsee them lose I would go to sleepthinking I could have won thatmatch. If I am chasing 380, I neverfeel that you can't achieve it.

"In 2011 in Hobart, we had tochase 340 in 40 overs to qualify. Atthe break I told (Suresh) Raina thatwe will approach this match as two20 over games. 40 overs is a bigduration. Let's first play 20 and seehow many runs are scored andthen play another T20 game."

Kohli also lauded throwdownspecialist D. Raghavendra, sayinghis ability to pump in speeds inexcess of 150-155 kmph with thesidearm enormously contributedto Indian batsmen's improvementagainst fast bowling in recentyears.

"I believe the improvementthis team has shown while play-ing fast bowling since 2013 hasbeen because of Raghu. He hasgood concepts about footwork, batmovement of players. He hasimproved his skills so much thatfrom sidearm he can easily hurlthe balls at 155 kmph. After play-ing Raghu in nets, when you gointo the match, you feel there is alot of time."

Kohli also spoke about how hehad to change his approach to bat-ting to suit his requirement.

"I changed because I wantedto hit all around the ground. Thestatic position was making my

options limited. My basic funda ofbatting is that if your hips are inperfect position then you canplay any shot. Static position was-n't working well for me.

"But it works for a lot of play-

ers. Like Sachin Tendulkar had astatic stance all his life and henever had a problem. His tech-nique was far superior with excel-lent hand eye coordination.

"For me I had to change itaccordingly to suit my needs. Itried little, little things in my bat-ting as you would never know ifyou don't try," he said.

AFP nMANCHESTER

Manchester Unitedhave warned fans to

stay away from matchesplayed behind closeddoors at Old Trafford if thePremier League restartsamid the coronavirus cri-sis.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’sside are set to resume

small group training onWednesday as PremierLeague clubs step up theProject Restart plan to fin-ish the season.

But all 92 remainingmatches will have to beplayed in front of empty

stands due to the pandem-ic, leading United to acti-vate a refund or rebate toticket holders for theirremaining home fixtures.

If the Premier Leagueget their wish to play atclubs’ normal stadiums

rather than at neutralvenues, then United willhave four home leaguematches to play.

Aware of the dangerof supporters gatheringin large groups during thehealth crisis, United have

pleaded with their fans tostay away from matchesand watch on television.

“We share your disap-pointment that you willnot be able to watchUnited in person fromwithin the stadium, but wewould encourage you togive your continued loyalsupport from the comfortand safety of your home,”United said in an email tosupporters on Tuesday.

“To help with that, thePremier League and theirmedia partners will workto deliver the very bestbroadcast coverage of ourgames.

PTI n KOLKATA

Some East Bengal play-ers, including foreign

recruits, and physicaltrainer Carlos Nodar, whoare still stuck here amidthe coronavirus-forcednational lockdown, havebeen asked to “vacatetheir flats” provided bysponsors Quess Corp.

Most of East Bengal’sforeign players have lefthome but a few are stillhere along with theSpaniard Nodar who hadpreferred to stay back.

“This is the worstthing to happen. Wherewill we go now especially

when there’s nationwidelockdown in force,” a play-er told PTI, confirmingthe development.

“There is no way wecan vacate at this point oftime but the managementis just ignoring our calls.Let’s wait and watch.”

The Bangalore-basedQuess group, which isexiting the club on May31, had last month activat-ed the Force Majeureclause, citing Covid-19pandemic, to terminate allthe contracts with effectfrom May 1. The players

had approached theFootball Players’Association of India.

The East Bengal play-ers said they have receiveda message from the‘QEBFC admin team’which has circulated themessage.

“As per notificationfrom the owners of theresidential accommoda-tions in Rosedale,Uniworld and other resi-dences, we will be hand-ing over the apartmentsto the respective ownersby 25th May, 2020,” readthe message purportedlysent by Quess manage-ment.

Never doubted myself in game situations: KohliSaliva ban needs alternative tokeep game balanced: GambhirIANS n NEW DELHI

Former Indian cricketerGautam Gambhir feels there

would be apprehensions in theminds of the players once they goback on the field and take part incompetitive sport post the Covid-19 lockdowns.

“It depends from individualto individual (fear in mind ofcricketers). But yes there will belittle apprehensions, when they goout and play. Probably after sometime, it will go in the heat of thegame once players are on the pitchand will ease into the game andwill be excitement to be out andplaying,” Gambhir said.

One of the talking points ofpost-Covid cricket has been theban on the usage of saliva to shinethe ball when the sport resumesin order to stop the transmission

of the virus. In fact, the ICCCricket Committee has also rec-ommended the ban on salivausage and a decision on the samecan be expected next month.

However, Gambhir fears therecommended saliva ban couldfurther take the game — which isalready titled towards the batters— away from the bowlers.

“It will be the hardest thingfor the bowlers. The ICC have tocome out with an alternative.Without shining the ball, I don’tthink it will be an even contestbetween bat and ball,” Gambhirsaid.

“If they don’t allow using sali-va, they will have to come up withan alternative to help the bowlersto shine the ball. It’s going to bevery important otherwise therewould be no fun watching crick-et,” he added.

Ronaldo back for Juve trainingNo Serie A restartbefore June 14MILAN: The Italian Football Federation(FIGC) announced on Monday nightthat all its competitions, includingSerie A, will remain suspended untilJune 14.

The Lega Serie A had hoped fora return on June 13 but the FIGC haspushed back the date in line with aGovernment decree that all sportscompetitions be suspended until nextmonth.

The FIGC said the choice wasmade “pending any further... decisionby the authorities”, suggesting the pos-sibility of a restart on June 13 mightstill exist. AFP

Won’t force players to tour Eng: Holder

I want to be likeImran, says Babar

Watford captain refusesreturn to training

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Vijayawada Wednesday May 20 2020tollywood

he extensive search fora second leading ladyin Sree Vishnu-starrerRaja Raja Chora,directed by debutantHasith Goli, has finally

ended. According to a source, thefilm’s makers have got the con-sent of Megha Akash, who hasfeatured in films like Lie andChal Mohan Ranga in the past, tobe the film’s another female face.Sunaina has already been cast asone female lead and she has evenparticipated in the shoot earlierthis year.

The source tells us exclusively,“The makers initially toyed witha couple of other big names asthe role is a layered one but inthe end collectively preferredMegha. The fact that she is a rel-atively fresh face means thatHasith too can direct her withoutany pressure. The actress noddedto the film in the first narration

itself. Her role apart, she was inlove with the total script, gigglingfor a major part of the narration.She believes the film will put heron the success route in Teluguand will land her many moreopportunities.”

The source, however, is quickto mention that the Chennai girl

couldn’t sign onthe dotted line aslockdown wasannounced by thecentral governmentafter Hasith gave herthe story narration.“She is expected tosign the project offi-cially in a couple ofweeks from now,”added the source.

Raja Raja Chora, ajoint production venturebetween People MediaFactory and AbhishekAgarwal, is a satiricalcomedy.

Hasith has wrapped up 40per cent of the shoot beforethe industry stopped allshooting activities due toCovid-19 outbreak. Ravi Babuand Ajay Ghosh are playingsignificant roles in the film, aVivek Athreya musical.

The makers initiallytoyed with a coupleof other big names

as the role is alayered one but in

the end collectivelypreferred Megha,finds NAGARAJ

GOUD

MEGHA TOROMANCESREE VISHNU

T

e were the first toinform you (on May11) that UmaMaheswara UgraRoopasya (UMUR),directed by C/O

Kancharapalem fame VenkateshMaha, will be dropping directlyon a streaming platform aftercoronavirus pandemic derailedits April release plans. To thisend, the latest we've learnt is that100 per cent first Telugu OTTplatform, Aha, has grabbed therights. An agreement to this endwas signed between Aha man-agement and producers ArkaMedia and Praveen Paruchiriand Venkatesh Maha recently.An announcement about thefilm’s streaming date is aroundthe corner. This is the latesthigh-profile project that Ahabagged of late, as a couple of

months ago they entered into anagreement with Love Story mak-ers to stream their film on theOTT platform after its theatricalrelease.

UMUR — an official remakeof Malayalam hit MaheshintePrathikaaram-tells the story ofan Araku-based studio photog-rapher owner (Satyadev) whopublicly vows that he will notwear his slippers again until hehas avenged the humiliationthat he has been meted out to,by a group. Maha has tailoredthe original to suit Telugunativity. Wrapped up in flat 35days, it was shot in a non-stopstart-to-finish schedule inAraku. Naresh, Kushalini,

Chandana Koppisetti andMeghana Appikonda haveessayed other key roles in thedrama.

Meanwhile, as a part of theirnew offering ahaKids — PillalaRajyam, Aha has added 28 newkids’ movies to its stock, specif-ically catering to the age groupof two-eleven. The streamer hasjoined hands with Rajiv Chilakaof Green Gold Animation, oneof the leading kids’ content cre-ators in India, to bring theglobally popular children’s films— like Chhota Bheem andMighty Raju — to its collection.They will be available to premi-um customers from May 22.

— NG

The makers initially toyed witha couple of other big names asthe role is a layered one but inthe end collectively preferredMegha. The fact that she is arelatively fresh face means thatHasith too can direct herwithout any pressure. Theactress nodded to the film inthe first narration itself.

A SOURCE

UMURgoes to

Aha

n a fresh devel-opment, ThePioneer hasunderstood thata producer whohas the dates of

Bellamkonda Sreenivas hasinitiated talks with SudheerVarma to helm the project.“An action-adventure, theproject is in the buddingstages. Sudheer has likedthe script, penned by a newwriter Srikanth. However,

the remake of MidnightRunners for SureshProductions, Guru Filmsand Kross Pictures has thedirector’s unwaveringattention right now. Afterhe wraps up this film, hemight direct BellamkondaSreenivas,” declared a high-ly-placed source close tothe development.

Sudheer prepared aschedule chart to takeMidnight Runners remake,

starring Regina Cassandraand Nivetha Thomas, infront of the cameras early

last month but thelockdown has put thebrakes on his plans.He is waiting for theindustry to give con-sent to shootings. Onthe other hand,Bellamkonda’s nextwith Santosh Srinivas,Alludu Adhurs, was inthe final leg of filmingwhen Covid-19 out-break hit it.

— NG

BELLAMKONDA IN TALKSWITH SUDHEER VARMAI An action-

adventure, theproject is in thebudding stages.Sudheer has likedthe script, pennedby a new writer

Replying to a fanquestion on a crazy ora weird moment fromher first film, sheposted, “Umm lots,movie budget wassmall so we didn'thave caravans, Irememberchanging insidea productionvan (sic).”

dmitting to missingthe experience offilm shooting,Lavanya Tripathisays that the oneskill set that she is

glad to have possessedduring the lockdown iscooking. “Cook eat repeat(sic),” tweeted the actressto a follower on what shewas up to during the lock-down. She was participat-ing in a #AskLavanya ses-sion on Twitter onMonday evening.

When a follower wantedto know the most difficultpart being an actress, shehad this to say, “Peoplebelieving that everythingthat's been written intabloids about you istrue… (Sic).”

To a question on howdoes she deal with negativ-ity, the actress, who will benext seen in A1 Expressand Chaavu KaburuChallaga, she stated, “Firstthing to do, go off socialmedia cause thats the onlysource these days (sic).”

When asked about theimpact of coronavirus onthe film industry, shewrote, “It’ll take time, buteverything gets better withtime no? (Sic)”

Replying to a fan ques-tion on a crazy or a weirdmoment from her firstfilm, she posted, “Ummlots, movie budget wassmall so we didn't havecaravans, I rememberchanging inside a produc-tion van (sic).”

Social media is theonly source ofnegativity these days:Lavanya Tripathi

A

mid rumours that she is seeing acricketed called Sandeep and thatshe would quit acting post mar-riage, Varalaxmi Sarathkumartook to her Twitter to clear theair, stating that she would scream

from rooftops if and when she decides toenter marital bliss. “Why am i the last toknow that I’m getting married..??Hahahahthe same nonsense rumors.. why is every-body obsessed with me getting married..ifI’m getting married I will shout it off theroof tops.. to all u media ppl writing abtthis..IM NOT GETTING MARRIED. IMNOT QUITTING FILMS (sic),” theactress wrote, replying to a section of amedia in Chennai.

The actress is no stranger to marriagerumours. A couple of instances in the pasttoo, she had to take to her social media pagesto deny rumours about her marriage.

The actress career is going strongright now career-wise. In Tollywood,she has finished her portions for RaviTeja-starrer Krack, while she still hasto shoot some portions for AllariNaresh-starrer Naandhi.

Varalaxmi dismissesmarriage rumours

A

A COUPLE OF INSTANCES INTHE PAST TOO, SHE HAD TOTAKE TO HER SOCIAL MEDIAPAGES TO DENY RUMOURSABOUT HER MARRIAGE.

W