RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20

VOL.16, ISSUE 258 | Friday, 17 September, 2021 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

No Half Truths

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Hours after noted social and human rights activist, columnist and NGO worker Harsh Mander (66), who is also a retired IAS officer, left for a fellowship he had secured in Germany, sleuths from the Enforcement Directorate here on Thursday descended upon premises linked to him, including his Delhi home and offices of his NGOs in Vasant Kunj, Adh-chini, and Mehrauli areas.

Sources here said that the ED had initiated a money-laundering probe against Mander and his NGO, which runs children’s shelter homes in the city, based on an FIR registered by the Delhi Police’s EOW — which in turn was based on a complaint from the Centre-run National Com-mission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).

Even as the raids con-tinued on Thursday, several activists, civil society mem-bers and intellectuals signed an open statement condemn-ing the action against the social worker, who had taken one of the central roles in organising anti-CAA protests in the Capital in late 2019 and early 2020.

In the statement, signed by 29 activists and intellectuals, including the likes of activ-ist Aruna Roy, DU professor Apoorvanand, Economist Jean Dreze, and senior advo-cate Indira Jaising, among others, the action against Mander was described as part of a “continuing chain of abuse of state institutions” to silence dissidents.

Sources in the ED have said the raids were intended to recover the financial and banking documents of the two NGOs linked to Mander.

Civil society members, in their statement, added: “We condemn these raids to harass and intimidate a lead-ing human rights and peace activist who has done nothing

but work for peace and har-mony, consistently upholding the highest moral standards of honesty and probity. Over the past year, Harsh Mander and the CES have been subjected to continued harassment by multiple state agencies.”

Crucially, the state-ment also calls into question the allegations made by the NCPCR, which forms the basis of two criminal com-plaints with the Delhi Police and now one with the ED.

Continued on P4

As festivals approach, Centre calls for vaccination, Covid-appropriate behaviour

India reports 30,570 fresh cases, 431 deaths; active cases come down

PMLA case: ED raids NGOs linked to Mander

Case originates from NCPCR allegations, which the DCPCR has already rubbished in the Delhi HC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As the festival season approaches, the govern-ment on Thursday cautioned against a spike in Coronavi-rus infections, and stressed that the call of the hour is vac-cine acceptance, maintenance of COVID-19-appropriate behaviour, responsible travel and responsible festivities.

“Overall there is stabi-lisation in COVID-19 cases and Kerala has also reported drop in cases.... In the com-ing two-three months, we need to be cautious that there is no upsurge.... It is also the period of festivities and also when flu cases rise... we request everyone to be careful and retain the gain that we have achieved (in the pandemic management),” an official said at a press briefing.

Referring to the coming fes-tivals, ICMR DG Balram Bhar-gava said: “...sudden increase in population density creates a very conducive environ-ment for viral spread. If there

is sudden increase in popu-lation density then the virus finds it very useful to spread, so the call of the hour is vac-cine acceptance, maintenance of Covid-appropriate behav-iour, responsible travel and responsible festivities.”

With 30,570 more people

testing positive for COVID-19, India’s overall infection tally has risen to 3,33,47,325, while the count of active cases has dipped to 3,42,923, according to the Union Health ministry on Thursday.

The death toll due to the disease has climbed to 4,43,928

with 431 daily fatalities being recorded, according to data updated by the ministry at 8 am.

The number of active cases has dropped to 3,42,923, which comprises 1.03 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery

rate was recorded at 97.64 per cent, the ministry said.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country exceeded 77 crore on Thursday, the ministry said. Over 57 lakh (57,11,488) vac-cine doses were administered till 7 pm on Thursday.

The daily vaccination tally is expected to increase with the compilation of the final reports for the day by late night, the ministry said.

According to a 7 pm pro-visional report by the minis-try, 58,21,13,634 beneficiaries have been vaccinated for the first dose and 18,96,22,772 ben-eficiaries for the second dose.

The government said 20 per cent of India’s adult population have received both doses of COVID-19 vaccine and 62 per cent have got at least one dose.

Thirty-four districts in the country are reporting a weekly positivity rate of over 10 per cent and the figure is anything between five and 10 per cent in 32 districts.

It said Kerala reported 67.79 per cent of India’s total COVID-19 cases last week and that it is the only state with more than 1 lakh active cases.

“Overall there is stabi-lisation and Kerala has also reported a drop in cases.

Continued on P4

OVER 77 CR VACCINES DOSES ADMINISTERED SO FAR: GOVT

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GANDHINAGAR: The BJP on Thursday inducted 24 members, including 21 who debuted as minis-ters, into the four-day-old Bhupen-dra Patel-led ministry, discarding all ministers in the previous Vijay Rupani-led regime in Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi’s home state, a year ahead of the Assembly polls.

There is no Deputy Chief Minis-ter in the new ministry. The post was held by Nitin Patel in the Rupani-led ministry.

Political observers say the BJP expects to make a significant impact ahead of the 2022 state polls with this new-look ministry. The party expects to face the voters with a clean slate, they added.

With the fresh inductions, which include two women, the strength of the ministry led by Patel, a first-term MLA and minister, has gone up to 25.

Modi congratulated the new ministers.

Congratulations to all Party col-leagues who have taken oath as Min-isters in the Gujarat Government. These are outstanding Karyakar-tas who have devoted their lives to public service and spreading our Party’s development agenda. Best wishes for a fruitful tenure ahead, Modi tweeted.

Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath to 10 Cabinet ministers and 14 ministers of state, including five Ministers of State with Independent charge.

Those sworn in at the 1.30 pm

Raj Bhavan ceremony include for-mer Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi and former state BJP presi-dent Jitu Vaghani.

The ministry formation exer-cise shows that the party has tried to balance caste and regional representation.

After picking Patel, a Patidar community leader as the CM, the BJP has given berth to six Patidars and OBCs each, four from Sched-uled Tribes, three from Scheduled Castes, two each from among Brah-mins and Kshatriyas and one mem-ber from the Jain community.

Like the CM, who is considered close to Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, the new Cabinet minister Rishikesh Patel and Minis-ter of State with Independent charge Jagdish Panchal, are also considered close to the former Gujarat CM.

Continued on P4

NEW DELHI: In a bid to address the problem of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) resulting in bad loans in public sector banks, Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that the Cabi-net cleared the formation of the country’s first-ever ‘bad bank’.

The minister announced a government guarantee of up to Rs 30,600 crore for security receipts issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) as part of the res-olution of bad loans.

“The Cabinet has yester-day approved Central Govern-ment guarantee up to Rs 30,600 crore to back Security Receipts to be issued by National Asset Reconstruction Company Lim-

ited (NARCL),” she said. Sitharaman added that Bud-

get 2021 had announced the government’s intention to set up an Asset Reconstruction Com-pany (ARC) along with Asset Management Company to con-solidate and take over existing stressed debt and thereafter manage and dispose them off to buyers for value realisation.

Addressing the media, she said that banks’ asset quality review had happened in 2015, for cleaning up and fully pro-visioning bank balance sheets, this revealed a very high inci-dence of NPAs, and added that the government came up with a four-R strategy of Recognition, Resolution, Recapitalisation and Reforms. Continued on P4

24 ministers sworn in; not a single induction from Rupani Cabinet

Sitharaman announces Rs 30,600 cr govt

guarantee for ‘bad bank’

Highlights » Referring to the coming festivals, ICMR DG Balram Bhargava said: “...sudden increase in population density creates a very conducive environment for viral spread. If there is sudden increase in population density then the virus finds it very useful to spread, so the call of the hour is vaccine acceptance, maintenance of Covid-appropriate behaviour, responsible travel and responsible festivities”

» The government said 20 per cent of India’s adult population have received both doses of COVID-19 vaccine and 62 per cent have got at least one dose

City: Pg 3Asthana appointed as top cop in public interest: Centre to HC

Nation: Pg 6Centre concedes in SC, permits Justice Cheema to stay till Sept 20

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NAINITAL: The Utta-rakhand High Court on Thursday vacated its stay on the Chard-ham Yatra and directed the state government to conduct the pilgrimage with strict adherence to COVID-19 norms.

Lifting the ban on the yatra, a Division Bench of the court compris-ing Chief Justice RS Chauhan and Justice Alok Kumar Verma said the pilgrimage will start with restrictions like a daily limit on the number of devotees visiting the temples.

Carrying a negative Covid test report and a vaccination certificate will also be mandatory for the visitors, the court said.

Putting a daily cap on the number of devo-tees visiting the famous Himalayan temples also known as the Chardham, the high court said 800 pilgrims will be allowed in Kedarnath Dham, 1200 in Badrinath Dham, 600 in Gangotri and 400 in Yamunotri every day.

Pilgrims will not be allowed to take a bath in any of the springs around the temples, it said.

The police force will be deployed as per requirements during the Char Dham Yatra in Chamoli, Rudraprayag and Uttarkashi districts.

The court order comes as a big relief to the state government which was under pressure from var-ious quarters to start the pilgrimage with which the livelihoods of lakhs of people including travel agents and pilgrimage priests are linked.

With the Covid situation being uncertain, the court had on June 28 put a stay on the state Cabi-net’s decision to start the Chardham Yatra in a limited way for the residents of Chamoli, Rudra-prayag and Uttarkashi districts where the temples are located.

It had plans to open up the yatra in a phased manner for pilgrims from outside the state depending on the Covid situation.

The state government then approached the Supreme Court to vacate the high court’s stay on the yatra. Continued on P4

Uttarakhand HC allows Chardham Yatra, sets daily

limit on no. of devotees

A medic wearing a PPE kit prepares to collect samples for Covid tests File photo

GUJARAT

Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel with newly sworn-in Cabinet ministers at their oath ceremony in Gandhinagar, on Thursday PTI

Takeaways » Sources here said that the ED had initiated a money-laundering probe against Mander and his NGO, which runs children’s shelter homes in the city, based on an FIR registered by the Delhi Police’s EOW — which in turn was based on a com-plaint from the Centre-run National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) » In the statement, signed by 29 activists and intellectuals, includ-ing the likes of activist Aruna Roy, DU professor Apoorvanand, Economist Jean Dreze, and senior advocate Indira Jaising, among others, the action against Mander was described as part of a “continuing chain of abuse of state institu-tions” to silence dissidents

DUBAI: Virat Kohli on Thurs-day announced he will step down as India’s T20 skipper after the T20 World Cup in UAE but will con-tinue to lead the side in ODIs and Test cricket, a decision that paves the way for Rohit Sharma to captain in the shortest format.

“I’ve decided to step down as the T20 captain after this T20 World Cup in Dubai in October,” the 32-year-old Kohli, who is here to compete in the IPL that resumes on Sunday, said in a statement posted on his Twitter page.

“Understanding workload is a very important thing and consider-ing my immense workload over the

last 8-9 years playing all three for-mats and captaining regularly for last five to six years, I feel I need to give myself space to be fully ready to lead Indian team in Test and ODI cricket,” Kohli explained.

For some time, there has been speculation surrounding Kohli’s future as white-ball captain espe-cially in the backdrop of Rohit’s bril-liant track record of winning five IPL titles for Mumbai Indians.

The 34-year-old Rohit is Kohli’s deputy in the white-ball formats and is most likely to take up the leader-ship role when India clashes with New Zealand in a home series in

November that will feature three T20 Internationals along with two Test matches.

BCCI Secretary Jay Shah, in a statement issued by the Board after Kohli’s announce-ment, said the body has been in dis-cussion with Kohli for a while now.

Virat Kohli to quit nat’l T20 captaincy after World T20, Rohit set to take overKohli cited ‘immense workload’ he has been managing for most of the last decade, as an all-format player & as captain, as the reason for his decision

Delhi records highest rainfall this monsoon since 1964

‘CENTRE TRYING TO BRING PETROL, DIESEL UNDER GST’

MUMBAI: Amid state gov-ernments’ apprehensions over a possible move by the Cen-tre to bring petrol and diesel under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, Maharash-tra Deputy Chief Minister and Finance minister Ajit Pawar has said any attempt by the Union government to alter tax structures that adversely impact states’ revenue genera-tion will be opposed.

“Although nobody is speak-ing in public, there is a serious move on part of the Centre to

bring petrol and diesel under GST citing one nation, one tax regime. While the centre has the right to evolve its own

rules, any policy decision that adversely affects state revenue is not acceptable. In the name of the uniform tax regime, if states’ right to taxation are curbed it will be opposed tooth and nail,” said Pawar ahead of the GST Council meeting scheduled to be held in Luc-know on Friday.

“We wanted the GST Coun-cil meeting in Delhi. It would have been more convenient. Why are they holding it in Luc-know?” We also urged them to hold the meeting through

video conferencing given the Covid-19 restrictions,” he added.

On July 1, 2017, when GST was introduced amalgamat-ing over a dozen central and state levies, five commodities namely — petrol, diesel, crude oil, natural gas ad aviation tur-bine fuel — were kept out of the GST ambit. The decision was carefully taken keeping in view these five products gener-ated higher revenue on which both centre and state depended heavily. AGENCIES

Will oppose any move to curb states’ right to taxation, says Ajit Pawar

As heavy rains pounded the national Capital, Delhi recorded the highest rainfall since 1964, with 1,159.4 mm till Thursday afternoon. Delhi’s September rainfall has breached the 400 mm mark, the IMD revealed. At 403 mm till Thursday afternoon, it is the maximum rainfall recorded in the month since 417.3 mm in September 1944 PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA P3

Film: Pg 12Kate, Scarlett feature in ‘Time 100’ list of most influential people

Harsh Mander

ACTIVISTS, INTELLECTUALS CONDEMN ACTION

Continued on P4

RISE ABOVE HATE

Afghan nationals in Delhi hold placards during a protest against Pakistan’s alleged support to the Taliban in Afghanistan, on Thursday PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

Charges framed against 5 accused for shooting man & burning body

Prosecution using ‘diversionary tactics’, Gulfisha argues for bail

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: UAPA and Delhi riots accused Gulfisha Fatima on Thursday told a Delhi court that her bail appli-cation should not be dismissed merely due to some technical mistakes and that the prose-cution was involved in “diver-sionary tactics” by way of challenging the maintainabil-ity of her bail plea.

The issue was raised by Advocate Mehmood Pracha, on behalf of Fatima, before Addi-tional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, after the prosecution objected to the bail plea being filed under Section 439 CrPC instead of Section 437 that should have been moved since as per prosecution, the court of ASJ Rawat, which is hear-ing the plea, is a special court designated under UAPA Act and hence exercises all pow-ers that are before the Court of Magistrate within the rigours of Section 437 CrPC. Hence, Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad stated that the present plea should be withdrawn and a fresh one should be filed.

Several other accused in the UAPA case have withdrawn the bail plea filed under Section 439 and replaced it with that of Section 437. Co-accused Umar Khalid too had withdrawn his bail plea and filed a fresh one after calling the same as pros-ecution’s “dilatory tactics”.

During the course of pro-ceedings on Thursday, Advo-cate Mehmood Pracha, argued that the court has power to take cognizance as a special court as well as powers of ses-

sions court. “Section 16(3) of NIA Act has the power under Section 439 CrPC as well as other powers under CrPC,” he submitted.

“The issue is still pend-ing. How are they approach-ing your lordship? Where is the chargesheet as the special judge,” Pracha submitted to ASJ Rawat.

Pracha further argued that the chargesheet in the “larger conspiracy” case, where Fatima is an accused with other stu-dent activists, was filed before the court while exercising power as a Sessions Judge and not a special judge and there-fore the prosecution cannot approach the court at this stage by questioning the maintain-

ability of the application.During the hearing, after

ASJ Rawat brought up the issue of prosecution’s chal-lenge to Fatima’s bail plea, Pra-cha argued: “When personal liberty is involved, nomencla-ture is not important...this is a diversionary tactic, you should take this seriously. Are you a session judge or a special judge for them...if they go into tech-nicalities they will land in a big soup. How are they remember-ing that you are a special judge now?”

“You have exemplary pow-ers, constitutional powers and powers under UAPA,” Pracha told the court. However, the matter has now been adjourned to September 18.

FATHER-SON DUO MURDERED IN GZB GHAZIABAD: A 35-year-old man and his son were found dead in their house in Tronica City area of Ghaziabad on Thursday morning. Police have sus-pected enmity to be a reason behind the incident as no forced entry was noticed in the house. As per cops, the deceased were identified as Naimul Hasan and his son Ubesh (7). Hasan had been living in the area for past nearly a decade along with his wife Saeema (30), two daughters and two sons.

FIRE BEAKS OUT AT W DELHI FACTORYNEW DELHI: A major fire broke out inside two godowns of a factory in west Delhi’’s Mayapuri on Thursday morning, officials said. The godowns were situated at the ground floor of the factory, they said. A senior fire department official said informa-tion about the blaze was received around 9.30 am. The building has three floors, ground as well as two floors above it. Car accessories were stored in one of the godowns and cold drinks were stored in the other, officials said. Around 23 fire tenders were rushed to the spot to douse the fire. It was brought under control by 12.20 pm. No casualty was re-ported, they added.

MALL SEALED IN 2012 ON PAPER, STILL BEING RUN, ALLEGES AAPNEW DELHI: North MCD Leader of Opposition, AAP councillor, Vikas Goel on Thursday said that the BJP-ruled administration of the civic body had been hit by yet another “scandal”, alleging that a mall - sup-posed to have been sealed in 2012, was still up and running. Goel was referring to the New Diamond Mall on Ajmal Khan Road of the Karol Bagh area. He alleged that this was being allowed due to the purported corruption in the North MCD administra-tion.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Taking note of the fact that the deceased’s brother has given a “blow-by-blow account of the incident” and also identified one of the accused in the case, a Delhi court has framed charges against five men for alleg-edly killing a man and sub-sequently burning his body during last year’s north-east Delhi riots.

In his order, Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav framed charges against the five men, namely Lakhpat Rajora, Lalit, Yogesh and two men named Kuldeep under section

302 which pertains to mur-der, IPC sections under riot-ing, Arms Act, among others, for the murder of one Mohd

Anwar, who was killed on Feb-ruary 25 last year.

As per the statement of his brother in the case, a riot-

ous mob allegedly entered the house of the deceased after breaking open the lock and subsequently looted and van-dalised it. Thereafter, they killed him with a gunshot and then set his body on fire.

In his order, ASJ Yadav noted that Anwar’s brother saw him being killed by the riot-ers and his body being subse-quently burnt. “...he has not only given a blow-by-blow account of the incident, but has also categorically identi-fied accused Lakhpat Rajora,” the court order read.

The court also noted that his brother Saleem Kassar’s statement, along with those of

other protected witnesses can-not be brushed aside at this stage merely because there was a delay in the initial com-plaint or that it didn’t name the accused persons.

“...at this stage, this Court cannot loose sight of the fact that on account of prevail-ing communal tension in the area, it was very difficult for the investigating agency to trace the eye/public witnesses promptly, because the people were so shocked and trauma-tized that it took several days for them to muster courage to come out and report the mat-ter to the police,” the order fur-ther read.

NORTH-EAST DELHI RIOTS

City Briefs

Highlights » The prosecution objected to the bail plea being filed under Section 439 CrPC instead of Section 437 » Several other accused in the UAPA case have withdrawn the bail plea filed under Section 439 and replaced it with that of Section 437 » Co-accused Umar Khalid too had withdrawn his bail plea and filed a fresh one after calling the same as prosecution’s ‘dilatory tactics’

Highlights » Police is yet to make any breakthrough in the case » Villagers and family members first blocked a stretch of NH-91demanding quick actions » No ransom call has been made yet, police said

2 millenniumpostCitympFRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021 | NEW DELHI

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Printed and Published by Jaiyendra Kumar Sharma on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at The Indian Express Pvt. Ltd., A-8, Sector-7, Noida-201 301 (U.P.) and published from First Floor, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002. Editor: Durbar Ganguly. Email: editor@millenniumpost.in, Tel. No. 011-47777500

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Najafgarh-Dhansa Bus Stand extension of the Delhi Metro’s Grey Line is slated to be inaugurated on September 18, after a delay of over one month due to approach road-related issues.

Passenger services on this section will commence at 5 pm on the same day, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) offi-cials said on Thursday.

The DMRC also tweeted about the new scheduled day of the opening of the corridor.

This extension of the over 4.2-km Grey Line (Dwarka-Najaf-garh corridor) will immensely benefit residents of interior areas around Najafgarh.

Union Minister for Hous-ing and Urban Affairs Hard-eep Singh Puri and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will jointly inaugurate the corridor via video-conference link on

September 18, the DMRC said in a statement.

Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishore and Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot will also be present, it said.

The nearly one-kilometre-long (891 m) Najafgarh-Dhansa Bus Stand section will take the metro further into interior areas of Najafgarh, the statement said.

This segment was earlier scheduled to be inaugurated on August 6, but it was postponed, two days before the slated date due to issues with an approach road to the station.

Sources in the Delhi trans-port department had earlier said the condition of the approach road to the Dhansa Bus Stand metro station was “not even accessible to the public” let alone being motorable, a factor that led to the delay.

Najafgarh-Dhansa bus stand corridor to open on Sept 18, says DMRC

Woman kidnapped during morning walk with siblings, family members stage protest

RAHUL SINGH

GREATER NOIDA: A girl aged around 20 years was kidnapped by some unidentified people in a car while she was out on a morning walk along with her three siblings in Badalpur area of Greater Noida on early Thurs-day morning.

While police is yet to make any breakthrough in the case till late night, the aggrieved vil-lagers and family members first blocked the national highway by staging a sit-in protest and later gheraoed the police sta-tion demanding quick actions in the case.

Around 6 am on Thursday,

the girl, a resident of village Badalpur was out on morning walk along with her two broth-ers and a sister. The girl’s siblings told police that near Achheja vil-lage, a group of men travelling in

a white van stopped near them and tried to pull the younger girl into the car. However, she somehow managed to escape but the criminals caught hold of her elder sister who was trying to save her and they abducted her in car and fled.

They further said that the criminals molested both the girls as there were very few people around at that point. Following the incident, police was informed and the locals and victim’s fam-ily blocked a stretch of NH-91 demanding early and safe recov-ery of the girl.

The blockade was cleared after the locals and the girl’s family members were assured by

the Gautam Budh Nagar Police that they would find the college student by evening. However, when they didn’t find any clue till late evening, scores of vil-lagers gheraoed the Badalpur police station and staged protest.

A senior police officer said five teams of Gautam Buddh Nagar police are working to find the girl. “We have forwarded the girl’s photo to all police stations in the district and alerted all neighbouring states and border-ing districts. We have got some leads and expect a breakthrough soon,” said Harish Chander, DCP, Central Noida.

Police said no ransom call has been made yet.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Indian Railway Catering and Tour-ism Corporation (IRCTC) is all set to open a new world class Executive Lounge at New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS) for offering an enhanced travel experience to the rail passengers.

The lounge has been set up on first floor of platform no.1 of NDLS towards Paharganj side. It aims to provide all ser-vices and facilities required for comfortable wait for the pas-sengers during pre-departures and post arrivals.

A new capsule elevator has

been installed for facilitating the entry of the passengers to the lounge.

Passengers will be able to access to this facility with nominal entry charges of Rs 150 plus taxes for an hour and Rs 99 for each extra hour of stay.

The lounge will be offering the visitors with a wide range of complimentary and paid ser-vices such as channel music, Wi-Fi, TV, beverages, buffet, recliners, luggage racks, rest-rooms, newspapers and mag-azines on display and a fully operational business centre with computer, printer, photo-stat and fax facility.

NEW DELHI: In the recent past, several illegal firearms syn-dicates have been identified for being indulging in the supply of firearms and ammunition to the gangsters and hardened crimi-nals of Delhi-NCR and adjoining states after procuring firearms from manufacturers, especially of Madhya Pradesh. During the wee hours of Wednesday, the special cell of Delhi Police arrested 2 arms suppliers from the capital city.

With the arrest, the police have recovered 15 illegal weapons and 40 live cartridges from their possession. The arms suppliers have been identified as Shivam Sharma and Krishan Kumar. Cops arrested both from ISBT Anand Vihar here.

DCP special cell Pramod

Kushwah said, “These two (arrested arms supplier) have procured the firearms and ammunition from a notorious arms manufacturer cum supplier of Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh...and further supplying the same to gangsters, hardened criminals, and small arms peddlers in Delhi NCR and adjoining states of UP, Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan for the past four years.”

Cops further confirmed that 8 semi-automatic pistols of .32 bore and its 20 live cartridges were recovered from the bag of accused Shivam, whereas 2 semi-automatic pistols of .32 bore along with 5 single-shot pistols of .315 bore with 20 live cartridges of .315 were recov-ered from the bag of Krishan at the spot. MPOST

IRCTC opens executive lounge facility at NDLS

2 arms suppliers held from Anand Vihar

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Twenty years after he was released on bail, the Delhi High Court has dis-missed the appeal of an Assis-tant Sub-Inspector (ASI), who was convicted in April 2001 in a corruption case.

Single-judge Justice Anu Malhotra upheld a 2001 order of Tiz Hazari court which had convicted ASI Ram Naresh Tiwari for offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and sentenced him to three years imprisonment besides fine.

The bail granted on May 23, 2001 by the High Court was also withdrawn.

“There is no infirmity in the impugned judgment con-

victing the appellant for the commission of the offences punishable under Sections 7 &13(2) r/w Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and for the commis-sion of the offences punishable under Section 186, 201 read with Section 511 read with Section 224, 332 & 353 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 as has been rightly held by the learned Special Judge,” the Court ordered.

By way of a background, the present appeal was filed by Tiwari challenging an order passed by a special judge, Tis Hazari court on April 26, 1996 by which he was convicted for offences under Sections 7 and 13(2) read with Sections 13 (1)(d) of the Prevention of Cor-

ruption Act, 1988.The case against Tiwari was

that he had asked for a bribe of Rs 10,000 from a man who was suspected of kidnapping a woman’s father. The woman had filed a complaint against the man but had withdrawn it later.

Despite this, the police officer kept on pressing for the bribe.

Finally, a complaint was

filed with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by that man and Tiwari was caught red handed accepting bribe in an elaborately laid ambush.

He had undergone 16 days of detention as an undertrial in 1996.

The trial court’s decision was challenged before the Delhi High Court in 2001 lead-ing to suspension of sentence and bail.

The Court on Wednesday upheld the trial court order.

The Court also took cog-nizance of the fact that the convict had undergone 16 days of detention as an under-trial at Tihar Jail in 199. The said period was, therefore, directed to be set off against the sentence.

Graft: ASI out on bail for 20 years sent back to jail as court dismisses appeal

NEW DELHI: The national capital registered 906 cases of crime against senior citizens last year, the highest among 19 metropolitan cities in the country, according to the lat-est National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.

However, crimes against senior citizens in Delhi dropped in 2020 as against 2019 when 1,076 such cases were registered in the city, the data showed.

Mumbai registered 844 cases of crime against senior

citizens last year, Ahmedabad 709, Chennai 321, Bengaluru 210, Hyderabad 170 and Jaipur 157, it stated.

No such case was regis-tered in Ghaziabad, Kanpur and Patna, it said.

The NCRB, which func-tions under the Union home ministry, classified 19 cities with a population of over 20 lakh as metropolitan cities. These are Ahmedabad, Ben-galuru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi,

Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune and Surat.

Out of the 906 cases reg-istered in Delhi, seven were related to murder, two were of culpable homicide not amount-

ing to murder and one was of attempt to murder, the data showed.

At 15, Chennai reported the highest number of murder cases last year among all metro-politan cities, followed by 12 in Mumbai and 10 in Bengaluru, according to the data.

Delhi registered 37 cases of simple hurt (section 323 and 324 of the Indian Penal Code) and six cases of grievous hurt (sections 325, 326, 326A and 326B of the IPC) last year, the data stated.

Indore registered the high-est number of simple hurt cases at 71, followed by 64 in Chen-nai and 42 in Hyderabad, it said.

Delhi is the only metropoli-tan city where cases of rape of senior citizens were registered. Four such cases were registered in the city, it added.

The national capital reported eight cases of assault on women with intent to out-rage modesty (section 354 of the IPC), followed by six in Mumbai, five in Bengaluru

and four in Ahmedabad, the data showed.

A total of 405 cases of theft (section 379 of the IPC), one of extortion (sections 384, 385 and 389 of the IPC) and 31 of robbery (sections 392 to 394, 397 and 398 of the IPC) in which senior citizens were tar-geted were registered in Delhi, it said. Five cases of criminal trespass (section 447 to 452 of the IPC) and 80 cases of cheat-ing (section 420 of the IPC) were also registered in the city, it said. PTI

906 CASES WERE REGISTERED IN 2020

Delhi accounts for most crimes against senior citizens: NCRB data

REPRESENTATIVE PIC

REPRESENTATIVE PIC

FILE PIC/PTI

3millenniumpost City mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021

PLEA IN DELHI HC AGAINST GRANT OF TEMPORARY FIREWORKS LICENCENEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday asked the licensing authority to respond on a plea challenging a September 10 notification inviting applications for the grant of Temporary Fireworks and Crackers Licence to permanent establishments. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Amit Bansal issued notice to the Delhi Police Commissioner on the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Prachi Goel, a lawyer, but refused to pass any order of interim stay on the notification. Delhi govern-ment counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi, appearing for the respondent authority, said the petition was misconceived.

INERT WASTE TO BE USED FOR ROAD CONSTRUCTION: SOUTH DELHI CIVIC BODYNEW DELHI: Setting a target to stop dumping of waste at the Okhla landfill by June 2022, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation on Thursday said it is exploring the possibility of using inert material, produced during biomining of legacy waste at the site, in construction of roads. SDMC commissioner Gyanesh Bharti said the civic body had numerous “successful meetings” with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in connec-tion with use of inert material in road construction. “We have had meetings with NHAI officials regarding use of inert materials in construction of roads and highways. This time we are very positive and hopeful that they will use inert materials for road construction. They are studying how it can be used and also checking its dura-bility,” Bharti said during a media interaction.

HAJ HOUSE: KHAP PANCHAYAT MEMBERS LED BY DELHI BJP CHIEF MEET PURINEW DELHI: A delegation of Khap Panchayat of Palam led by Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta met Union Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri, demanding the cancellation of land allocated for a Haj House in Dwarka. A Delhi BJP statement said the delegation handed over a memorandum to the minister during the meeting. There was no imme-diate reaction from the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government. Gupta said it is rather ironical that while there is a shortage of land for schools, colleges and hospitals in the city, the Delhi government has decided to allocate land in Dwarka sector 22 to a particular community much against the wishes of locals. Earlier, The Delhi BJP had organised a protest against the allotment of land.

TRAFFIC HIT IN PARTS OF CAPITAL

AFTER SPIKE IN PANDEMIC YEAR

City Briefs

Thursday rains take September showers to highest in 77 yearsOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As Thursday’s incessant showers choked Del-hi’s roads once again with traf-fic crawling at a snail’s pace, the most-delayed monsoon season in 19 years, broke sev-eral records, including that of recording the highest Septem-ber rainfall in the last 77 years, in addition to recording the high-est rainfall in a monsoon season since 1964.

Delhi’s September rain-fall has breached the 400 mm mark. At 403 mm till Thursday afternoon, it is the maximum rainfall recorded in the month since 417.3 mm in September 1944. To put things into per-spective, Delhi had received 404 mm rainfall in the entire 2019 monsoon period.

The September rainfall this year has been in marked con-trast to last year, when the city got a meagre 20.9 mm precipi-tation in the month against a normal of 129.8 mm.

Delhi recorded more than 100 mm of rainfall on two con-secutive days at the start of the month — 112.1 mm on Sep-tember 1 and 117.7 mm on September 2. On Saturday (Sep-tember 11), it recorded 94.7 mm precipitation.

However, the IMD has pre-dicted more rain this unusu-ally extreme monsoon season,

which will result in the figures going further up. Experts say that it is on course to become the second-wettest monsoon ever in Delhi by the time it withdraws.

Normally, Delhi records 653.6 mm of rainfall during the monsoon season. Last year, the capital gauged 648.9 mm of precipitation.

According to the IMD, the Safdarjung Observatory, which is considered the official marker for the city, has received 1159.4 mm of rainfall this season till Thursday afternoon. It had gauged 1,155.6 mm of rainfall in 1975 and 1190.9mm in 1964. The all-time record is 1,420.3

mm rainfall in 1933.And even as the IMD had

issued an orange alert for Thurs-day, they have predicted light rain for today.

Mahesh Palawat, vice pres-ident, Skymet Weather, a pri-vate forecasting agency, said: On and off rains will continue till September 23-24 due to the expected late withdrawal of monsoon.

What has marked the unusual weather pattern this season is shorter spells of more intense rains concentrated on very few days - compared to previous years.

Delhi has also witnessed

seven heavy rain events (64.5 mm to 115.5mm) this mon-soon season so far, the highest ever, and these spells account for around 60 per cent of the rainfall recorded in the city. Normally, Delhi records just one or two such events during the entire season, said senior IMD scien-tist R K Jenamani.

Meanwhile, the rains on Thursday led to several areas being waterlogged and traffic snarls at various locations.

According to the Public Works Department (PWD), areas that witnessed waterlog-ging included Pul Prahladpur underpass, Mehrauli-Badarpur

road, Anand Parbat, Zakhira underpass, Nangloi, Mundka, Uttam Nagar, Rohtak Road, Sangam Vihar, Dabri, Sitapuri, Krishna Nagar, Madhu Vihar, Chhattarpur, Badli, and Kirari.

The traffic police had to shut Pul Prahladpur underpass on Mehrauli-Badarpur Road in south Delhi due to waterlogging.

PWD officials said the ground staff was dealing with the waterlogging complaints. “Very few waterlogging-related complaints have been received today (Thursday) so far and they were dealt with on prior-ity basis,” a senior PWD offi-cial said.

Asthana appointed as top cop in public interest considering recent law & order troubles: Govt to HCOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Centre has told the Delhi High Court that the appointment of Guja-rat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as the Delhi Police Commissioner was done in public interest, in light of the recent diverse law and order challenges, which not only have national security implications but also international/cross bor-der implications.

Defending Asthana’s appointment, the Centre in an affidavit, said that it felt a “com-pelling need” to appoint a per-son as the head of the police force of Delhi, who had diverse and vast experience of heading a large police force in a large State having diverse political as well as public order problem/ experi-ence of working and supervising Central Investigating Agency(s) as well as paramilitary forces.

The prime consideration for the same was that Delhi being the capital of the coun-try has been witnessing diverse and extremely challenging situ-ations of public order/law and order situation/policing issues which not only had national security implications but also international/cross border implications, said the affidavit filed by the Secretary, Union Home Ministry.

In the affidavit filed through

lawyer Amit Mahajan, the Cen-tre said no fault can be found in the appointment of Ast-hana as Delhi Police Commis-sioner, which has been done in accordance with and after scrupulously following all the applicable rules and regulations.

The affidavit was filed in response to a public interest litigation which has sought quashing of MHA’s July 27 order appointing Asthana as the top cop here and the order approv-ing his inter-cadre transfer four days before his superannuation.

The Centre has contended that the plea is an abuse of process of law and manifestly an outcome of some personal vendetta while submitting that a PIL in service matter is not maintainable.

It said that the PIL, as well as the intervention of NGO Cen-tre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) which has challenged Asthana’s appointment before the Supreme Court, deserves to be dismissed with exemplary costs.

The Centre argued that the

petitioner and intervener had never considered challenging the appointment of eight other IPS officers as Police chiefs - appointed in the same manner.

The petition has contended that the appointment of Asthana is in clear and blatant breach of the directions passed by the Supreme Court in Prakash Singh case as the officer does not have a minimum residual tenure of six months and no UPSC panel was formed for his appointment of Delhi Police Commissioner.

It also contended that as Ast-hana was dropped from the CBI chief ’s post by the Chief Jus-tice of India, citing the Prakash Singh judgement, the same prin-ciple should be applicable in this case as well.

And while the CPIL’s plea in the SC is set to be heard on September 20, the top court had earlier directed the Delhi High Court to decide the PIL before it within two weeks.

On August 25, the Supreme Court had asked the high court to decide within two weeks the plea pending before it against the appointment of the senior IPS officer as Delhi Police Commissioner.

The matter was listed for hearing on Thursday but the concerned bench was not avail-able and now it will be heard on September 20.

Experts recommend muted festivities at DDMA meet amid 3rd Covid wave fears

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Amid the appre-hension of a third Covid wave in Delhi, experts suggested to avoid mass gatherings and cel-ebrate the festivals in a scaled down manner, according to the minutes of a DDMA meeting last month.

Though the Covid situation in Delhi has improved signifi-cantly in the national capital, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) prohibited public celebrations of Ganesh Chaturthi last week.

Niti Aayog member Dr VK Paul has emphasised that a nar-rative for celebrating festivals in a “simple manner” should be started as these events can eas-ily reverse all the gains made in the fight against the Covid pan-demic, according to the min-utes of the DDMA meeting held last month.

He mentioned that citizens must be prepared to celebrate the coming festivals in a simple way. “A third wave of Covid, most of the experts believe, could be in October-Novem-ber, which falls during the fes-tival season,” he said.

Recently, several organis-ing committees in a meeting decided to hold Ramleelas in public grounds. They, however, said that a final decision in this regard has to be made by the DDMA.

In its order on Wednes-day, regarding prohibited and allowed activities in Delhi till September 30 in view of Covid, the DDMA did not mention any relaxation for organising Ramleelas.

Several festivals includ-ing Dusshera, Diwali and Chhath puja fall in the coming months. According to experts, the festival season coincides

loosely with a possible third wave of Covid.

The Delhi government has directed that all senior nursing officers, who were posted in private hospitals for monitoring COVID-19 patients, be sent back to their parent hospitals.

“The competent author-ity is pleased to repatriate all senior Nursing Officers... who were posted as Nodal Officer in various private health care facilities from Delhi Govt. Hos-pitals to monitor management of COVID-19 patients along with monitoring the Covid vac-cination... to their parent hospi-tals,” the order that was issued last week said.

On Thursday, Delhi reported 28 fresh Covid cases and one death from the virus. Active cases in the city have now reached 409 and the death toll is at 25,084.

ACTIVE CASES

409DEATH TOLL

25,084

DELHI COUNT

COVID-19

‘Open all gates of Metro stns to spread crowds’

NEW DELHI: Experts have suggested opening all the gates of the Delhi Metro stations to reduce congestion for commut-ers during a recent meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), officials said. The suggestion was made by National Centre for Dis-ease Control (NCDC) Direc-tor Dr Sujit Kumar Singh at the meeting held under the chair-manship of Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.

According to the minutes of the meeting held on August 27, Singh observed that only some gates of the Delhi Metro stations are opened and advised open-ing of all the gates at the earli-est as this would lead to lesser congestion.

The DDMA, though, is yet to decide on the suggestion.

The Delhi Metro Rail Cor-poration (DMRC) is facilitating passenger entry at all its stations through 276 gates.

An official of the DMRC said, “We are following the guidelines of the DDMA and some gates are closed at metro stations. Opening of more gates would lead to more people inside the station. We will follow the guidelines of the DDMA.”

Currently, Delhi Metro is operating at 100 per cent seat-ing capacity with no standing passengers allowed.

Delhi Metro services were fully suspended since May 10 in view of the COVID-induced lockdown, which was first imposed on April 19 and then successively extended by the city government. AGENCIES

LNJP’s Rogi Kalyan Samiti

focuses on preparedness for third wave

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The prepared-ness for the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic is cur-rently the key focus of Rogi Kalyan Samiti at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital here, Samiti chairperson Raghav Chadha said on Thursday.

According to a statement by the Delhi government, Chadha discussed proper patient man-agement and streamlining of operations at a meeting with all HoDs of the hospital.

Preparedness for COVID third wave, bed availability, machinery procurement, infra-structure development status and RWH implementation are the key focus of the Rogi Kalyan Samiti.

The Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital administration will ensure best facilities in the pediatric ward with stellar doctors, infrastruc-ture and intensive care units, and ramp up the in-house oxygen production capacity, he said.

Chadha, AAP MLA from Rajinder Nagar, said the hospi-tal is expediting the process of hiring doctors and paramedi-cal staff via walk-ins against the sanctioned strength, and that the timelines for purchase of CT scanner and digital radi-ology will be laid out urgently.

‘Cost of rehabilitating wastewater-carrying barrels in Delhi cut by 90%, to save Rs 600 cr’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The cost of reha-bilitating outdated barrels that carry 115 million gallons of wastewater a day from south and central Delhi to the Okhla sewage treatment plant has been cut by over 90 percent, thereby saving nearly Rs 600 crore, offi-cials said on Thursday.

These barrels run parallel to each other for 15 kilometers and carry wastewater from five sew-age pumping stations Kilokari, Ring Road, Andrew Ganj, East of Kailash and Pragati Vihar and four major sewer lines Modi Mill, Tuglakabad, Kalkaji Trunk and Batla House, they said

Leakages lead to reduction in their carrying capacity.

“The Delhi government had earlier approved Rs 662 crore for rehabilitating the barrels as these have exhausted their usual

life,” a statement said.After the intervention of

Water Minister Satyendar Jain, the cost of this project has been reduced by more than 90 per-cent. Now, the work will be completed within Rs 60 crore in two years, it said. One of the existing conduits was made by the British in 1938, while two other barrels were constructed in 1956 and 1985. Jain directed officials to lay down a new pipe-line of 2,200 mm diameter made of high-density polyethylene material parallel to the existing conduits on priority to provide immediate relief to the area.

It will be followed by reha-bilitation of the oldest barrel within four months. The reha-bilitation of the second barrel (constructed in 1956) and the cleaning of the third conduit (made in 1985) will be com-pleted within two years.

Govt submits audit report on Pusa bio-decomposer

NEW DELHI: The Delhi gov-ernment on Thursday submit-ted an audit report of Pusa bio-decomposer, a microbial solution that can reportedly turn stubble into manure, to the Cen-tre’s Commission for Air Qual-ity Management (CAQM), and urged it to implement the mea-sure in states surrounding the capital, officials said.

They also said Chief Minis-ter Arvind Kejriwal and Envi-ronment Minister Gopal Rai are likely to meet Union Environ-ment Minister Bhupender Yadav next week to discuss measures to be taken to reduce pollution in the capital.

The Delhi government had

experimented with the solu-tion, prepared by scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute here last year, and had also got a survey done by the Development Department to ascertain its effectiveness.

Thereafter, the city gov-ernment had approached the CAQM with the survey report so that the solution can also be used in other states as well.

The commission had asked it to get an audit conducted by a third party.

The Delhi government engaged WAPCOS, a consul-tancy firm of the Union Min-istry of Jal Shakti, to conduct the audit. MPOST

Ggm to run campaign against underage drivingPIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: After the pan-demic year saw an unusual rise in the number of underage driv-ing cases amid the nationwide Covid lockdown, the Gurugram Police is now all set to start a campaign against juvenile driv-ing in the city just as several educational institutes for sec-ondary and higher secondary students reopen.

With parents still reluctant to use school buses, most of these students who have vol-unteered to come to schools are using independent modes of transport.

As a precautionary measure,

the Gurugram Police has hence started this campaign. The fine for underage driving is at Rs 5,000 and if an accident occurs with a minor at the wheel, their parents can also be acted upon.

Underage driving is one of the major law and order chal-lenges. The dangers of underage driving were witnessed last year when a senior Multinational Company professional who was out cycling was mowed down by a high speeding car driven by a juvenile. There have been several other incidents in Gurugram where private buses, autos have also been driven by juveniles.

In 2020, 165 cases of under-age driving were reported in

Gurugram, up from 30 last year. This year too, the number is on the higher side, with 40 such cases registered till the end of

August.Besides underage driving,

Gurugram also faces a lot of challenges in terms of wrong side driving over speeding and reckless driving.

Taking cognizance of the ris-ing number of road accidents, plans are now being made to increase, improve and enhance pedestrian networks and cycling tracks in urban Gurugram — spread over an area of 338 square kilometers.

In the coming years, Guru-gram authorities plan to develop 1,083 kilometers of pedestrian networks and 797 kilometers of cycling tracks.

There are plans to improve

designing systems of several roads, enhance signal sys-tems and improve street light-ing systems to prevent deadly mishaps. Officials are also work-ing towards reducing the time taken for an accident victim to be taken to the nearest hospital from an average time of 16 min-utes as of now to 10 minutes.

“We will now be focussing our attention on traffic and reducing the number of acci-dents in Gurugram. Underage driving is one of the biggest challenges and we will soon be launching a campaign to reduce incidents of underage driving,” said a senior official of Guru-gram traffic police.

Sr nursing officers deputed in private

health facilities for COVID-19 to be repatriated

PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

NEW DELHI: The Delhi gov-ernment’s transport department has decided to give an option for correction in driving licence-related details, including name of licence holders and their date of birth, on furnishing required documents. Delhi Transport minister Kailash Gahlot, in a tweet, said soon the driving licence holders will be able to apply for corrections in their name and date of birth.

An order issued by the trans-port department on Septem-ber 14 stated that documents, including AADHAR, 10th/ 12th certificates fixate/school leaving certificate with date of birth, passport (if available) and birth certificate issued by municipal authority, will be accepted for correction in the date of birth. MPOST

Govt provides option for correcting DL details

‘Completion of disengagement could pave way for de-escalation’

INDIA ON BORDER ROW WITH CHINA

4 millenniumpostNationmpFRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021 | NEW DELHI

AHMEDABAD: There will be no deputy chief minister in the Bhupendra Patel-led BJP gov-ernment in Gujarat, a post that existed in the previous Vijay Rupani-headed cabinet.

The post was held by Nitin Patel during the Rupani government.

Since its formation in 1960, Gujarat has seen five deputy chief ministers, three of them during the Congress-led dis-pensations. Nitin Patel has been the longest-serving dep-uty chief minister in the state, who was appointed to the post in August 2016.

At the cabinet swearing-in and portfolio allocations on Thursday, nobody was named deputy chief minister.

"Last time, Nitin Patel was made deputy CM as it was the requirement of that time," party sources said.

In 2016, when the BJP replaced Anandiben Patel, she had insisted on appoint-

ing Nitin Patel as her succes-sor. However, the party wanted Vijay Rupani to occupy the top post. Therefore, Nitin Patel was made the deputy CM as a com-promise, they said.

This time, deputy CM was not required, so nobody was given the responsibility, the sources said.

Chimanbhai Patel, Kan-tilal Ghia and Narhari Amin were deputy CMs in the state during the Congress govern-ments at different points, while late BJP leader Keshubhai Patel had occupied the post for a few months in 1990 during the coalition government.

The BJP on Thursday inducted 24 members, includ-ing 21 who debuted as min-isters, into the four-day-old Bhupendra Patel-led minis-try, discarding all ministers in the previous Vijay Rupani-led regime in PM Narendra Modi's home state, a year ahead of the Assembly polls. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US next week, India on Thursday expressed concern over reports of growing anti-India activities by Pakistan-backed Khalistani separatist groups from American soil.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bag-chi said ensuring the security of the prime minister and his delegation was an important issue when asked about reports that a banned Khalistani group is planning to hold protests in Washington and New York dur-ing Modi’s visit to the two cities.

Referring to a report by leading American think-tank Hudson Institute about the Kha-listani groups, he said it reflected how Pakistan was continuing efforts to undertake activities against India from the US.

“I do not know about the specific call given by the banned outfit. I am not going to com-ment on that. But we certainly take a lot of interest in ensuring the security of the prime minis-

ter and his delegation,” Bagchi said at a media briefing.

“We convey and share (this) with the host country, in this case, the US. If the organisa-tion is banned, it should not be undertaking these kinds of activities,” he said. The external affairs ministry spokesperson said the issue is not about pro-test. “This issue is about security and these are organisations that have had problems in the past in terms of terrorist activities etc. I would not like to go into details,” he added.

On the report by the Hudson Institute, Bagchi said it makes it clear how Pakistan has yet again continued its efforts in trying to undertake activities against India including terrorism.

“It was very focused about activities they are taking in American soil. I do hope that authorities in the US will see that and understand the risks that this kind of activities pose for countries that have a shared vision against terrorism and vio-lence,” Bagchi said. MPOST

NEW DELHI: Fake COVID-19 vaccination certificates and fake test results of 29 differ-ent countries, including India, are being sold on Telegram, a report by Check Point Research said on Thursday.

According to the report, a fake vaccination certificate for India is available at a price of about USD 75 (Rs 5,520) each.

Oded Vanunu, head (prod-ucts vulnerability research) at Check Point Software Technol-ogies, said there are people who don't want to take the vaccine but still want the freedoms that come with being vaccinated such as access to places.

"These people are turning to the Darknet and Telegram. Since March 2021, prices for fake vaccination cards have dropped by half and online groups for these fraudulent coronavirus services boast fol-lowings of hundreds of thou-sands of people.

"I strongly recommend people to not engage these sell-ers for anything as these ven-

dors are after more than just selling you fake vaccination cards," Vanunu said.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, in India, various state governments have man-dated certain regulations for those undertaking inter-state travel by road or air to mitigate the further spread of the virus.

Travellers are required to have a negative COVID-19 test result (RT-PCR report) or a vaccination certificate to visit some states that see large influx of tourists.

The Check Point Research (CPR) report said movement regulation may have resulted in

the demand for and availability of fake test results and vaccine certificates in the black market from those who do not wish to be vaccinated.

"In March 2021, the major-ity of the fake coronavirus cer-tificates were advertised on the Darknet. Now, CPR sees a majority of black market activ-ity centered around Telegram. CPR suspects the shift to Tele-gram has helped sellers scale their distribution efforts, reach-ing more consumers, faster," the report said.

The advertisements spot-ted by CPR are specifically designed for people "who do

not want to take the vaccine"."Since March, CPR has

spotted over 5,000 Telegram groups selling fake documents, making Telegram the primary selling platform. Globally, Tele-gram has been downloaded more than 1 billion times, and with India being the largest market," the report said.

No immediate comments were received from Telegram.

One advertisement dis-played "we are here to save the world from this poisonous vac-cine". The advertisements high-light the ability to travel and work freely as a benefit of their product, the report said.

"Sellers mostly accept pay-ments through PayPal and cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Monero, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and others). In some cases, Steam, Amazon, and eBay gift cards are accepted," the report said.

It added that sellers list their method of contact as Telegram, WhatsApp, email, Wickr, and Jabber. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India on Thurs-day asserted that the comple-tion of disengagement in the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh could pave the way for the Indian and Chinese sides to consider de-escalation of forces and ensure full resto-ration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

According to a joint state-ment released by the Indian Army after the 12th round of military talks held in late July, the two sides had a "candid and in-depth exchange" of views relating to disengagement and the meeting further enhanced the mutual understanding.

Asked about the develop-ments on the border standoff at a media briefing, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesper-son Arindam Bagchi said, "Let me reiterate our position that completion of disengagement in the remaining areas can pave

the way forward for the two sides to consider de-escalation of forces and ensure full resto-ration of peace and tranquillity

and enable progress in bilateral relations."

On whether External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar

could have a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during his ongoing Tajikistan visit to attend a key

meeting of the Shanghai Coop-eration Organisation (SCO) on the situation in Afghanistan, Bagchi said he cannot rule in or rule out any meetings.

Let's wait to see what meet-ings take place, he added.

The border standoff between the Indian and Chi-nese militaries erupted on May 5 last year following a violent clash in the Pangong lake area and both sides gradually enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry. Each side currently has around 50,000 to 60,000 troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the sensitive sector.

As a result of a series of mil-itary and diplomatic talks, the two sides completed the with-drawal of troops and weap-ons from the north and south banks of the Pangong lake in February, in line with an agree-ment on disengagement.

The border standoff between the Indian and Chinese militaries erupted on May 5 last year following a violent clash in the Pangong lake area and both sides gradually enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry

No Deputy CM in Bhupendra Patel-led

Gujarat govt

‘Fake vaccination certificates of India available on Telegram for Rs 5.5K each’

As festivals near, govt calls for Covid-appropriate behaviour

Mizoram is a state of concern but we hope con-dition will improve there by fast vaccination and pandemic response is effective,” Niti Aayog member (Health) V K Paul said.

“In the coming two-three months, we need to be cautious that there is no upsurge and it can be reduced when detected. When people estimate when vulnerability will rise then they indicate October and November as the months and it is also the period of festivities and also when flu cases rise so in the com-ing quarter we request everyone to be careful and retain the gain that we have achieved,” he added.

PMLA case: ED raids NGOs linked to Mander

While the NCPCR had last year conducted “sur-prise checks” at children’s homes run by the Cen-tre for Equity Studies (one of Mander’s NGOs) and published a report, which was then forwarded to the Delhi Police.

Based on the allegations in this report, which include alleged abuse of children and officials encour-aging children to attend anti-CAA protests among others, the Delhi Police had registered two cases — one with district police and the other with the EOW.

Significantly, the Delhi Commission for the Pro-tection of Child Rights, which has been at the fore-front of seeking reforms in the Juvenile Justice Act and other laws dealing with rights of children, has completely rubbished the NCPCR’s findings in an affi-davit filed in the Delhi High Court.

Countering the NCPCR’s allegations that funds were allegedly being misused by Mander-linked chil-dren’s homes, the DCPCR on the one hand concluded that the NCPCR does not fully understand how NGOs and their funding works.

And on the other hand, the DCPCR also noted

that encouraging children to protest against the gov-ernment or even holding poor or incorrect opin-ions about the government can in no way be termed “illegal”.

The NCPCR’s main allegations were against alleged irregularities in Umeed Aman Ghar and Khushi Rainbow Homes, both run by the CES. When these homes were raided by the NCPCR and the alle-gations surfaced, Mander had said: “I think it is com-pletely unjustified. We created a very strong system, like we had elder women (caretakers) sleeping with smaller children and we have counselling. It is just an allegation and a rumour.”

Sitharaman announces Rs 30,600 cr govt guarantee for ‘bad bank’

After recognition, quantification of NPAs started in a planned manner and recovery too started, Sith-araman said adding that in the last six financial years, the 4Rs were executed meticulously, banks have recovered Rs 5,01,479 crore.

Out of Rs 5,01,479 Crore recovered by banks dur-ing the last six years, Rs 3.1 lakh crore has been recov-ered since March 2018, the finance minister said adding that a record Rs 1.2 lakh crore has been recov-ered in 2018-19 alone.

Out of the amount of Rs 5,01,479 lakh crore recovered by banks during the last six years, Rs 99,996 crore comprises the amount recovered from written-off assets, she said.

Speaking about the recent banking reforms intro-duced over the past few years, Sitharaman spoke of the managerial reforms, bringing of coopera-tive banks under the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), a supervisory framework for primary co-op banks, Bank Board Bureau, ARCs, strengthening risk man-agement practices and debarring of willful defaulters from capital markets.

Explaining one of the reasons for the level of NPAs, Sitharaman said that large frauds of Rs 100 crore or more have an average lag time of 57 months for fraud detection.

Speaking of the health of the public sector lend-ers, the Finance minister said that in 2018, just two of the 21 public sector banks (PSBs) were profitable and added “I am happy to say that in 2020-21, only 2 reported loss for the year.”

She further said PSBs are now not only mak-ing profits, but they are also raising money from the

markets, a total of Rs 58,697 crore has been raised by PSBs as debt and equity.

Sitharaman maintained that NARCL will aggre-gate the NPAs in banks’ balance sheets (for which full provisioning has been done) and manage and dispose of them professionally, this will thus clean up banks’ balance sheets.

24 ministers sworn in; not a single induction from Rupani Cabinet

Cabinet ministers Rajendra Trivedi and Kiritsinh Rana are old-timers and considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while Minister of State Harsh Sanghvi is known to be close to state BJP presi-dent C R Paatil.

Bhupendra Patel chaired the first meeting of the Council of Ministers, soon after the swearing-in ceremony.

A party source said there is widespread dissatisfac-tion over the dropping of senior ministers, who held key posts in the Rupani ministry.

Uttarakhand HC allows Chardham Yatra

As the matter was pending in the Apex Court, the high court was not in a position to hear the state gov-ernment’s plea seeking lifting of the ban.

However, it recently withdrew its SLP in the Supreme Court paving the way for the high court to hear its plea.

Advocate General SN Babulkar and Chief Stand-ing Advocate CS Rawat, appearing for the govern-ment, demanded that the ban be removed to restore the livelihood of the local people.

The Advocate General said there is an earn-ing period of the Chardham Yatra and if the season passes, many families will suffer huge losses.

The advocate general further pleaded that the initial worry of the Court while imposing the ban has been addressed and there has been a significant improvement in health services.

The government also assured the Court that there will be strict adherence to the COVID-19 SOP for the Yatra.

Virat Kohli to quit nat’l T20 captaincy after World T20

“We have a clear roadmap for Team India. Con-sidering the workloads and ensuring that we have smooth transition, Mr Virat Kohli has decided to step down as T20I Captain after the upcoming World Cup,” Shah said.

“I have been in discussions with Virat and the leadership team for the last six months and the deci-sion has been thought through.

“Virat will continue to contribute as a player and as a senior member of the side in shaping the future course of Indian cricket,” he added.

Kohli took over India’s limited-overs captaincy in 2017, succeeding Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

“I have given my everything to the Team during my time as T20 captain and I will continue to do so for the T20 captain and will continue to do so for the T20 team as a batsman moving forward,” he further added.

The decision, Kohli said, was taken after consult-ing head coach Ravi Shastri, his heir apparent Rohit, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah.

The T20 World Cup starts on October 17 and Kohli will be under intense pressure to deliver the trophy.

“Of course, arriving at this decision took a lot of time. After a lot of contemplation and discussions with my close people, Ravi bhai and also Rohit, who have been an essential part of the leadership group...,” Kohli stated.

“I have also spoken to the secretary Mr Jay Shah and president of BCCI Mr Sourav Ganguly along with the selectors about the same. I will continue to serve Indian cricket and Indian cricket team to the best of my ability,” Kohli said.

Kohli has played 90 T20 Internationals scoring 3159 runs with 28 fifties and captained India in 45 of those games winning 27 and losing 14. He has a winning percentage of 65.11.

“I have been fortunate enough to not only rep-resent India but also lead the Indian cricket team to my utmost capability,” the flamboyant star batsman said.

“I thank everyone who has supported me in my journey as the captain of the Indian cricket team.

“I could not have done it without them — the boys, the support staff, the selection committee, my coaches and each and every Indian who prayed for us to win,” Kohli said. AGENCIES

From Page 1

Study: Covid may infect a higher proportion of pregnant women

NEW DELHI: The novel coronavirus may infect a higher proportion of preg-nant women and they can develop moderate-to-severe diseases, an ICMR study has said, underlining the need for them to seek immediate medi-cal attention.

According to the study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, the most common complication were a pre-term delivery and hyper-tensive disorders in pregnancy.

Comorbidities such as anaemia, tuberculosis and diabetes mellitus were asso-ciated with an increased risk of maternal death in pregnant and post-partum women with COVID-19, the study said.

It analysed clinical char-acteristics and pregnancy outcomes of women with COVID-19 enrolled during the first wave of the pandemic in Maharashtra.

The analysis was based on the data from the PregCovid registry, a study of pregnant

women and women in post-partum period with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19.

The PregCovid registry collected information on near-real time basis on pregnant and post-partum women with a laboratory-confirmed corona-virus infection from 19 medical colleges across Maharashtra.

The data of 4,203 pregnant women collected during the first wave (March 2020-Janu-ary 2021) was analysed.

"There were 3213 live births, 77 miscarriages and 834 undelivered pregnancies. The proportion of pregnancy/foetal loss including stillbirths was six per cent. Five hundred and thirty-four women (13%) were symptomatic, of which 382 (72%) had mild, 112 (21%) had moderate, and 40 (7.5 %) had severe disease.

The most common com-plication was preterm delivery (528, 16.3%) and hypertensive disorders in pregnancy (328, 10.1%). A total of 158 (3.8%) pregnant and post-partum

women required intensive care, of which 152 (96%) were due to COVID-19 related complica-tions," the findings of the study stated.

The overall case fatality rate (CFR) in was 0.8 per cent. Higher CFR was observed in Pune (9/853, 1.1%), Marath-wada (4/351, 1.1%) regions as compared to Vidarbha (9/1155, 0.8%), Mumbai Metropolitan (11/1684, 0.7%), and Khandesh (1/160, 0.6%) regions.

"Thus, our analysis suggests that SARS-CoV-2 may infect a higher proportion of preg-nant women, and when symp-tomatic, a large proportion can develop moderate-to-severe diseases. Therefore, pregnant women with COVID-19 need immediate medical attention from the healthcare system in India, said the study. The find-ing of tuberculosis as a risk fac-tor is important as India has one of the highest burden of TB in the general population as well as in pregnant women, the study stated. MPOST

ICMR study has underlined the need for them to seek immediate medical attention

India expresses concern over activities by Khalistani

separatist groups in US

NEW DELHI: For the first time after the abrogation of Article 370, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will be on a three-day visit to Jammu from October 1, a senior Sangh functionary said on Thursday.

This is Bhagwat's first visit to Jammu and Kashmir since August 5, 2019, when the erst-while state's special status was ended and it was bifurcated into union territories -- J-K and Ladakh.

Describing the tour as a 'routine visit', the functionary said it is part of the RSS chief 's itinerary to meet and interact with Sangh workers across the country.

During his three-day visit, Bhagwat will hold several meetings with workers of the outfit and its affiliates to discuss organisational issues.

He is also scheduled to address a meeting of eminent personalities from Jammu as part of the Sangh's outreach programme, the functionary said.

In March this year, Bhag-wat was scheduled to virtually address the members of the Kashmiri pandit community, but could not do so as he got sick. On Thursday, Bhagwat arrived in Udaipur, Rajasthan as part of his four-day tour to the state.

During the stay, the RSS sarsanghchalak will discuss the efforts being made by the vol-unteers for expansion of work for the development of villages and betterment of the environ-ment, a statement said. AGENCIES

Bhagwat to visit Jammu

on Oct 1, first time since

August 2019

5millenniumpost Nation mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021

PM Modi slams critics of Central Vista project

Madras HC stays certain sub-clauses

of new IT Rules

POLICE BUST NARCOTICS LAB IN B’LURU, RS 2 CR WORTH DRUGS SEIZEDBENGALURU: Police have busted a narcotics labora-tory here allegedly being run by an African national and seized synthetic drugs valued at about Rs two crore. The Nigerian residing at Bettadasanapura in Electronic City here, who had reportedly come into the country on a student visa, was arrested by sleuths of the Central Crime Branch’s Anti Narcotics Wing. “Narco Lab detected by CCB...some putting their chemistry knowledge to misuse!!CCB arrest African drug peddler manufacturing MDMA drugs..supplied it by concealing in shoe sole..4 Kgs MDMA worth Rs 2 cr seized..also apparatus, chemicals,reqd for MDMA synthesis seized,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil tweeted.

T’GANA LEGISLATURE TO MEET HYDERABAD: The monsoon session of the Telangana Legislature would commence from September 24. “The state Legislative Assembly and Council sessions will start from September 24,” a CMO release said on Thursday. The last session of the state legislature was held in March this year. Meanwhile, the state Cabinet held a meeting today and decided to allocate 15 per cent of liquor shops to Goud community and 10 and five per cent respectively to SCs and STs from next year, the release said.

9 INJURED IN UNEXPLAINED BLAST IN RESIDENTIAL HOUSE IN KUPWARA SRINAGAR: At least nine people were injured in a blast in a residential house in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, with officials saying the exact nature of the explosion was not immediately clear. The explosion took place in the house of Ghulam Ahmad Wani at Taratpora in Handwara area of the district around 8.45 pm, the officials said. They said nine people, believed to be the family members of the house-owner, sustained injuries.

INAUGURATES NEW DEFENCE OFFICE COMPLEXES

Nation Briefs

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday hit out at the critics of the ambi-tious Central Vista project, saying they conveniently kept silent on defence office com-plexes being part of the ven-ture as it would have exposed their spreading of "lies" and "misinformation".

He also asserted that ease of living and ease of doing busi-ness were behind the spirit of the work being done under the Central Vista project.

Modi made the remarks after inaugurating two new multi-storey swanky office complexes at Kasturba Gan-dhi Marg and Africa Avenue for over 7,000 employees of the Defence Ministry and the armed forces.

The PM also said he was confident that the work on the new Parliament building will be completed on time.

The Opposition, including the Congress, has been attack-ing the government over the ambitious Central Vista proj-ect, calling it a "criminal wast-age" of resources and had urged the government to divert

money to battling the Covid pandemic.

In his remarks at the event, Modi said, "Today, in the 75th year of Independence, we are taking another step towards developing the capital of our country according to the needs and aspirations of new India."

"These new defence office complexes are going to fur-ther strengthen our efforts to make the working of our forces more convenient and effective," he said.

The prime minister said

that till now defence-related work was being carried out from hutments made during the Second World War and these were made according to the needs of barracks and horse stables.

Modi said the modern offices will go a long way in effectively carrying out all the work related to the security of the nation by the three forces.

"This is a big step towards the creation of a modern defence enclave in the capital," he said.

Hitting out at the critics of the Central Vista project, Modi said, "Those people who were after the Central Vista project were very conveniently silent on this aspect that construction of a place for 7,000 employ-ees of the Defence Ministry and armed forces is part of the project because they knew that their idea of spreading misin-formation and lies would be exposed when this comes to the fore."

"But the country is seeing today what we are doing under Central Vista. These modern offices constructed at K G Marg and Africa Avenue will help in getting the work related to defence done effectively," he asserted.

Criticising those opposed to the Central Vista project, Modi said they never both-ered to find out how the armed forces personnel were working from hutments.

The officers and other staff-ers of the Defence Ministry and the armed forces are moving into the new office complexes from their existing workplaces in pre-Independence era hut-ments in and around the Raisina Hills.

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Thursday stayed the operation of certain sub-clauses of the recently intro-duced Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, passing orders similar to the one by the Bom-bay High Court on the matter last month.

The sub-clauses –(1) and (3) of Rule 9, which were stayed today, stipulated the adherence to the Code of Ethics. They were inserted to the original IT Rules in February this year.

Incidentally, the Bombay High Court had on August 14, granted an interim stay to the operation of parts of the Infor-mation Technology Rules, 2021 which require that all online publishers follow the "code of ethics".

On Thursday, the first bench of Chief Justice San-jib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu of the Madras High Court granted the stay while passing interim orders on a batch of PILs from carnatic musician T M Krishna and Digital News Publishers Asso-ciation, consisting of 13 media outlets and another individual, challenging the constitutional validity of the new rules.

Prima facie, there is sub-

stance in the contention of the petitioners that the mechanism to control the media by govern-ment may rob the media, both print and electronic, of their independence and the dem-ocratic principles, the bench said. The court adjourned the matter to the last week of Octo-ber, when it was informed that similar cases pending before the Supreme Court are sched-uled to come up for hearing in the first week of next month.

The Bombay HIgh Court, while granting the interim stay in August, had held that "dis-sent" was vital for democracy.

Sub-clauses 1 and 3 of clause 9 of the new Rules were, on the face of it, "manifestly unreason-able", and "the indeterminate and wide terms of the Rules bring about a chilling effect qua (regarding) the right of free-dom of speech and expression of writers/editors/publishers" as they can be hauled up for any-thing if the authorities so wish, it had then said. AGENCIES

SUSHIL MANAV

CHANDIGARH: Union Min-ister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said that 15 projects for construction of roads and bridges have been approved for Delhi-NCR at a cost of Rs 53,000 crore. Out of these 14 projects are in progress. With the completion of these proj-ects, pollution will reduce in Delhi-NCR and people will not have to waste their time in long traffic jams.

After inspecting the con-struction work of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway along with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Gadkari addressed a programme orga-nized at Lohtki village of Sohna sub-division of Gurugram dis-trict. He was accompanied by Union Minister of State for Sta-tistics Programme Implemen-tation, Rao Inderjit Singh and Sohna MLA, Sanjay Singh.

In a programme organised at Lohtki village of Gurugram,

Union Minister Gadkari said that Delhi-Mumbai Express Highway of about 1380 km length is the longest express-way in India which will be ready by March-2023. About Rs 95,000 crore will be spent on this. The part of this express-way from Delhi to Dausa in Rajasthan and from Vadodara to Ankleshwar will be built by March-2022.

This expressway is being developed as an 8-lane access control green field express-way, which can be expanded

to 12 lanes by adding 4 more lanes in future. A median of 21 meters width is being built on this expressway, which can be reduced in future to widen the expressway. Gadkari said that about 160 km length of this expressway falls in the state of Haryana on which Rs 10,400 crore is being spent. Out of this, work has also been allotted for the construction of an express-way of 130 km length.

This expressway will pass through Gurugram, Palwal and Nuh districts of Haryana.

Way-side facilities will be built at 6 places in the part falling in Haryana. This also includes various facilities for passen-gers like resorts, restaurants, dormitories, hospitals, food courts, fuel stations etc, besides parking garages for trucks etc. Not only this, there will also be commercial space of logis-tic park.

Gadkari said that helicopter ambulance service would also be available on this express-way to take the accident vic-tims to the nearest hospital at the earliest.

Accepting Khattar’s demands, the Union minis-ter informed that three proj-ects including villages Bilaspur, Manesar and Kapriwas have been approved on the Delhi-Jaipur highway at a cost of about Rs 250 crore.

Gadkari further said that the work of making inter-change on Palwal-Aligarh National Highway and Eastern Peripheral Express Highway (KGP) has also been approved.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar look at model of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway in Gurugram on Thursday

‘Rs 53,000 cr projects for Delhi-NCR’‘Delhi-Mumbai Expressway of 1380 km length is longest E-Way in India’

MPOST BUREAU

CHANDIGARH: The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Thursday said that the 77th Round survey of NSO on the Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households (data of 2019) clearly shows that despite the tall claims and promises of doubling farmers' incomes by Modi government, the income of farmers is not much better than labourers.

In a press release issued by farm leaders Balbir Singh Rajewal, Dr Darshan Pal, Gur-nam Singh Charuni and oth-ers, the SKM said that the income from farming (crop production and livestock farming) on an average at Rs 5380 per month is not signif-icantly higher than income for an agricultural household from other sources like wages and non-farm business (at Rs. 4838 per month).

“This, despite the fact that 92.7% of the agricultural households are engaged in

crop production during the Kharif season. Net receipts from crop production at Rs. 3798/month are in fact lower than wage income at Rs. 4063/month, for these agricultural households on an average at all-India level in 2019,” they said.

Way back in 2013, as per the NSSO 70th Round sur-vey, the net receipts from cul-tivation were Rs. 3081/month, whereas wages were Rs 2071 per month. In fifteen states of the country, the net receipts from crop production are

lesser than the national aver-age of Rs 3798/month, which in itself works out to a mea-gre income of around Rs 125 per agricultural household per day. It is clear that farmers of this country are being made into agricultural labourers when it comes to their main source of income.

Surprisingly, Meghalaya has the highest crop produc-tion income for agricultural households followed by Pun-jab and Haryana.

The SKM leaders alleged that the Haryana BJP State President OP Dhankar has made a ridiculous and highly condemnable allegation against the protesting farm-ers, saying that drug menace in Haryana has increased owing to the farmers' protests.

“This is reprehensible and shows once again the anti-farmer attitude of BJP. We condemn this statement of the Haryana BJP leader and ask him to take back the same", said SKM leaders.

Farmers’ income no better than farm labourers: SKM

CHANDIGARH: Hary-ana Government has decided to open govern-ment and private schools for the students study-ing in classes I to III from September 20, 2021. The classes would be held while strictly adhering to SOPs issued by the Educa-tion Department.

Sharing information in this regard, an official spokesperson said that the schools across the State were closed in compli-ance with the lockdown guidelines issued due to the Pandemic.

Students studying from classes VI to XII were started on July 23, 2021, while classes IV to V were opened on August 1, 2021. Now classes I to III will start on September 20, 2021. MPOST

MPOST BUREAU

CHANDIGARH: Chief Min-ister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday met Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi, at the Prime Minister's residence, in New Delhi. On this occa-sion, Khattar also extended his warm wishes to Modi for his birthday.

Later addressing the media persons, Khattar said that Prime Minister Modi has been invited to visit Haryana to lay the foundation stone of the Haryana Orbital Rail Corridor to be constructed at a cost of Rs 5600 crore.

The Chief Minister said that the foundation stone lay-ing programme would be orga-nized at Manesar or Palwal or

any other place on the Orbital Rail Corridor route in Hary-ana. The CM also apprised the Prime Minister about the status of farmers' agitation

in Haryana, the Karnal inci-dent and several actions being taken to reopen the highways blocked due to the ongoing farmers' agitation.

CM Khattar meets PM Modi

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: Amid magical fog and monsoon drizzles, Presi-dent Ram Nath Kovind arrived in Shimla on a four-day tour as the state government rolled out a red carpet welcome for him at Annandale helipad, where his choppers landed in the afternoon to a rousing welcome.

Kovind will address a spe-cial session of the state assem-bly called in connection with Golden Jubilee celebrations of the state, which has com-pleted 50 years of its statehood

since January 25, 1971. He will address the session on Friday at 11 am amidst tight security, restricted public movements and restrict compliance of the Covid protocols.

Immediately after arrival, the President drove straight to Hotel Cecil–a luxury and pre-Independence era property of the Oberois group, which this world hotel chain had rebuilt and refurbished in 1994.

Earlier, the President was scheduled to stay at The Retreat–a summer holiday resort of the Rashtrapati Bha-wan at Chharabra, 15 km from

Shimla, a heritage property known for its architecture and the finest environment of the deodar forests.

However after three staff members of the Rashtra-pati Bhawan, deployed at the Retreat were tested positive

and rest 53 were quarantined, the venue of the President’s stay was shifted to Shimla town and Oberoi Cecil was chosen for his comfortable stay keep-ing in view his age and Shim-la’s weather.

The President had a plan to take a stroll on the Ridge and Mall road, to revive his memo-ries of his earlier visits, but the plan was dropped later.

“We have been told to keep the arrangements in place as the Hon'ble President may decide on it any moment even tomorrow or day afternoon.They will give us an hour or

two hours time before he pro-poses to go on the Mall,” said a top government official here.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur visited Kovind at the hotel later in the day and briefed him about Friday’s function, apart from other briefings on the state, Shimla and also the weather probabili-ties in the next three days dur-ing his visit.

The President will also be the chief guest at the valedic-tory ceremony of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service at the National Academy of Audit and Accounts at Shimla.

Prez to address Himachal Assembly’s spl session todayPresident Ram Nath Kovind arrives in Shimla on a four-day tour

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday announced that if it is voted to power in the upcoming Assembly elections in UP, each family will get 300 units of free electricity.

AAP’s senior leader Manish Sisodia announced that within 24 hours of the formation of the AAP Government in UP, peo-ple will get 300 units of electric-ity for free and all small and big farmers will be given free elec-tricity for agricultural work. Sisodia also announced that all outstanding bills of the public will be waived off and 24 hours electricity will be available in every house in the state.

“We did it in Delhi, will do it in UP as well,” he said. The Deputy CM said that electric-ity is being generated in UP, yet the government is not able to provide electricity and the consumers who are unable to pay the dues are not criminals but the government is busy in arbitrary recovery.

“The farmers are sad that the price of their crops have not been increased, but the electricity bills have increased. Electricity has become so expensive in Uttar Pradesh that people are getting 1-1.5 lakh bills in their homes and

their monthly income is only 10 thousand rupees. The gov-ernment is declaring them criminals for not paying the bills. Many people committed suicide due to expensive elec-tricity bills,” Sisodia said.

The AAP in a statement said that the Yogi Government has sent expensive electricity bills to 38 lakh families in UP and is declaring them crimi-nals. “The Yogi Government, which declared the public a criminal by making electricity expensive, is the real culprit,” the Minister said.

Referring to the Delhi Model of Governance, Siso-dia said that his party-led gov-ernment not only provide free electricity to the people but also got rid of long power cuts and blackouts. Before 2015, the households in the Capital and markets were full of inverters and generators.

“Today, there is a 24x7 electricity supply in Delhi. We guarantee that like Delhi, all the houses in Uttar Pradesh will be illuminated 24 hours a day. Delhi has no electricity produc-tion of its own. The Delhi Gov-ernment buys electricity from Uttar Pradesh and other states, despite that the people of Delhi get electricity for 24 hours, so why can’t it be possible in Uttar Pradesh,” he added.

AAP woos UP voters, promises 300 units

of free electricity

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration of the Defence Offices Complex, in New Delhi

NEW DELHI: To celebrate the 71st birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will kick off its 20-day mega 'Seva aur Samarpan Abhiyan' cam-paign on Friday. From lighting 71,000 diyas to the mega vac-cination drive, the party will undertake variously welfare and awareness programmes and host 'Nava Bharat Mela' across the country to mark his two decades in public service.

This apart, the Yuva Mor-cha of the saffron party is planning to distribute 14 crore ration bags with "Thank-you

Modiji" print on them. 5 crore postcards with PM Modi’s photo will be mailed from post offices across the country, along with blood-donation campaigns, clean-up drives for rivers, etc.

The campaign is to com-mence on September 17 and end on October 7. The mega campaign further aims to cel-ebrate 13 years as chief min-ister of Gujarat and 7 years as the Prime Minister of the country of Modi.

The state units have also been directed to set up stalls to facilitate registration for all citizens who wish to enroll or

various central government welfare schemes. A party source said, "Special stalls will be set up to encourage people to download the NaMo app, which will help them com-municate with the prime min-ister directly and also enable them to know about the vari-ous schemes and welfare mea-sures being undertaken by the BJP government."

Union Health Minis-ter Mansukh Mandaviya has called for a major push to the Covid vaccination drive on PM Modi's birthday, saying it would be the perfect gift for the PM. MPOST

BJP to start mega campaign to celebrate PM’s 71st birthday

Way back in 2013, as per the NSSO 70th Round survey, the net receipts from cultivation were Rs. 3081/month, whereas wages were Rs.2071 per month

Hry to open schools for class 1 to 3

from Sept 20

PUNJAB: MOTORCYCLIST HURT IN FUEL TANK BLAST DIES CHANDIGARH: A 22-year-old man injured after the fuel tank of his motorcycle exploded in Punjab’s Fazilka has died, police said Thursday. A forensic team collected samples from the site and is expected to give a report within a week, a senior police official said Thursday evening. He said the police could make any further comment only after the report is received. The incident took place around 8 pm Wednesday when Balwinder Singh, a resident of Ferozepur, was going towards bank road from Old Sabzi Mandi in Jalalabad to meet a relative, police said. When he reached near a bank, the fuel tank of the motor-cycle exploded, leaving him injured, they had said Wednesday. He was referred to Faridkot Medical College and Hospital where he succumbed to injuries Thursday, they said.

SECURITY FORCES APPREHEND ONE MILITANT IN MANIPUR IMPHAL: Security forces apprehended an active cadre of proscribed militant outfit ZUF, J group from Manipur’s Imphal West district, an Assam Rifles release said on Thursday. Acting on a tip-off, a combined team of Assam Rifles and Manipur police apprehended the militant from Tarung village on Wednesday, a press release issued by the office of the Inspector General of Assam Rifles said. The ap-prehended insurgent was handed over to Lamphel police station of the same district for further investiga-tion and legal action, the release added.

RAINS IN UP

MINOR GIRL'S RAPE, MURDER

RAIDS ON NORTH INDIA HAWALA OPERATORS

Nation Briefs

6 millenniumpostNationmpFRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021 | NEW DELHI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The row over premature retirement of for-mer NCLAT Chairperson Jus-tice Ashok Iqbal Singh Cheema ended in the Supreme Court on Thursday as the Centre con-ceded and permitted him to continue in office till Septem-ber 20 to pronounce verdicts, following the warning that the new law on tribunals would be stayed suo motu.

The hearing over the pre-mature superannuation of Jus-tice Cheema once reached a point when the bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana warned the Centre that the it would exercise its suo motu power to stay the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, which was referred to by Attorney General K K Venugopal as empower-ing statute to retire the NCLAT head.

Justice Cheema, the former Chairperson of National Com-pany Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), was to superannu-ate on September 20, but Justice M Venugopal was appointed as the acting head of the tribu-nal with effect from September 11, creating a peculiar situation

where the former approached the top court.

However, later K K Venu-gopal, on instruction from the Centre, apprised the bench, also comprising justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, of the changed stand of the govern-ment leading to the closure of the row. I have taken instruc-tions. It was said he (Cheema) took leave to write judgments. So we have decided that he will be allowed to go to office and pronounce judgments, the cur-rent chairperson Justice Venu-gopal will be sent on leave, he told the bench.

In its order, the top court noted the concession made by the Centre and said, Attor-ney General fairly states that respondent No.1 Union of India has no objection in accepting the prayer `C' made by the petitioner in the present writ petition and to allow the petitioner to work up to Sep-tember 20, 2021 as the Offi-ciating Chairperson, NCLAT, New Delhi to enable him to pronounce the judgments pre-pared by him.

The order recorded the prayer sought by Justice Cheema that he be allowed to

remain in continuous service from September 11 to 20 as the Officiating Chairperson of NCLAT and be paid all service benefits accordingly.

Attorney General further submitted that after acceptance of prayer of Justice Cheema, consequential order will be passed by the Centre forthwith and the incumbent NCLAT chairperson (Justice Venugo-pal) will proceed on leave up to September 20, the order noted.

Taking note of the submis-sions advanced by the learned Attorney General for India, the writ petition stands disposed of in the above terms. We make it clear that the instant order has been passed taking into con-sideration the peculiar facts

and circumstances of the pres-ent facts and this shall not be treated as a precedent. Con-sequent upon disposal of the writ petition, pending inter-locutory application also stands disposed of, the bench said.

At the outset, the bench was informed by the top most law officer that the government wants him to concede on the retirement of Justice Cheema.

Then we will record it and close the case, the CJI observed.

However, the bench got irked after the Attorney Gen-eral made further submis-sions that the reinstatement of Cheema from September 11 to 20 would be notional only to enable him to get retiral ben-efits sans actual powers of the office as it will be very awkward to remove the incumbent Jus-tice Venugopal from the post.

Mr Attorney, tell us, how fair is it? He has some judg-ments to pronounce. If you retire him, there will be a prob-lem of rehearing those cases. The way these orders were passed was also awkward. If your government thinks they want to stick to that then it's okay, the irked bench observed.

Moreover, the government

has the power under the Tribu-nals Reforms Act to terminate the services, K K Venugopal said, adding that the termi-nation letter was on the new law which overrides the apex court's judgement in the Roger Mathew case.

Then we will have to stay your (Centre's) legislation (The Tribunal Reforms Act), the CJI said. Let me take the instruc-tions. It will be very awkward for us to remove a person. I am prepared to argue the stay peti-tion also. The government has certain powers, the Attorney General said, and sought 30 minutes to get instructions.

When the matter was taken up again, the top most law officer informed about the changed stand of the gov-ernment and said that Justice Cheema would be reinstated with all the powers as head of the NCLAT to pronounce pending judgements till Sep-tember 20 and his predecessor would be asked to proceed on leave till then.

The top court recorded this in the order and closed the case and said, the Attorney General solved the problem. We thank you for this."

LUCKNOW (UP): Twelve people were killed in incidents of house and wall collapse in Fatehpur, Pratapgarh, Kaush-ambi, Jaunpur and Barabanki districts of Uttar Pradesh due to heavy rains, police said on Thursday.

The heavy downpour resulted in waterlogging at several places and caused inconvenience to people. In Fatehpur district, 2 people were buried under the rubble of their ‘kutcha’ house after it collapsed in Mohammadpur Gaunti late on Wednesday night, police said.

Tiya (18) and her sis-ter Muskaan (3), daughters of Rakesh Lodhi, died on the spot, SHO of Sultanpur Ghosh Police Station Arvind Kumar Gautam said.

In another incident in the district, a couple and their daughter Komal (2) were sleeping when their ‘kutcha’ house collapsed in Mardaha village on Wednesday night, SHO Kalyanpur Police Sta-tion, Amit Kumar Mishra said.

The neighbours rushed to their rescue, but could not save the girl, the SHO said.

In Pratapgarh district’s Gode village under Kotwali Police Station area, one per-son was killed when the wall of a house collapsed while they were sleeping.

Inspector-in-charge of the police station, Ravindra Rai said Ramzan (18) died in the incident. In a simi-lar incident in Gahrichak vil-lage under Kandhai Police Station area, Urmila Misra (55) died when her ‘kutcha’ house collapsed due to rains, Inspector said.

In Kaushambi, a woman was killed and her husband injured when their house in Birner village in Sarai Akeel area collapsed due to heavy rains on Wednesday evening.

While Murdi Devi died during treatment, condi-tion of her husband stable, police said.

In Barabanki, a father-son duo were killed on Wednes-day night after wall of their house in Bayasagpur in Asan-dra area fell on them, police said.

Deceased identified as Arvind (40) and son Arvind (8), they said. In Jaun-pur, 4 people, including 3 of family, were killed in sep-arate incidents of house collapse.

In Sujanganj area, where Bharat Lal Jaiswal (38), his wife Gulaba Devi (34), daughter Sakshi (10) were killed house collapsed. Similarly, in Sikar-ara area on Wednesday, Urmila Devi was killed. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Enforce-ment Directorate (ED) on Thursday said it seized over Rs 4 crore worth of Indian and foreign currency and bullion in recent multi-city raids against Hawala operators based in north India.

The searches were carried out under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Manage-ment Act against directors and

associates of Paul Merchants Ltd, Quick Forex Ltd, Supama Forex Pvt Ltd and Curo India Pvt Ltd in Chandigarh, Panch-kula, Mohali, Jalandhar and Delhi, the agency said in a statement.

These “entities sent out-ward remittances of over Rs 475 crore to Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE on behalf of shell or dummy entities like Triple Streak Dream Holidays, Wangester

Travels Pvt Ltd, Perip-atizo Travels Pvt Ltd, Himalaya Tourism, Ezax Holidays, and Great Journey Tours etc”, it said

These shell entities, the ED alleged, used “fake IDs of various persons for making outward remit-tances in guise of purported travel transactions which resulted into generation of unauthorised (Hawala) money”.

It claimed that this “illegal money has been invested in real estate and other businesses of their associated companies/entities”.

The action resulted in the seizure of Rs 3.88 crore worth Indian and foreign currency and bullion of Rs 24.2 lakh.

“The ED has also seized incriminating documents, lap-tops, mobile phones and prop-erty documents,” it said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday sought CBI's reply on a plea by its official Abhishek Tiwari, seeking bail in connection with alleged leak of the probe agency's prelimi-nary inquiry report in a cor-ruption case against former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.

Justice Yogesh Khanna issued notice on the bail plea and listed the matter for further hearing on September 27, along with a similar petition of the co-accused and Deshmukh's lawyer Anand Daga. The CBI had registered a case against its sub-inspector Tiwari, Nag-pur-based advocate Daga and others on various allegations, including illegal gratification.

Daga was arrested for allegedly trying to subvert the Bombay High Court-directed preliminary enquiry against Deshmukh. According to the plea, Tiwari was detained on August 30, arrested on Septem-ber 1 and is in judicial custody since September 6.

Tiwari has challenged a special CBI court's September 8 order which had rejected his bail application.

The petitioner is a victim of

circumstances in as much as he has been made scapegoat and victimised by his senior in the CBI in order to put undue pres-sure for reason best known to them whereas in the facts and circumstances of the case, the petitioner is not involved in the alleged offence as put forth in the present Crime case, said the plea, filed through advocates Meenesh Dubey and Abdhesh Chaudhary.

The official said he has a clean and spotless service record and it was because of his integrity and uprightness that he was recommended by his seniors to the ongoing inves-tigation relating to the former home minister of Maharashtra along with other officers.

NEW DELHI: Crimes against Scheduled Castes and Sched-uled Tribes continued to rise in 2020, with maximum cases of offences against the com-munities being registered in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, according to latest government data. Last year, 50,291 cases were registered for crimes committed against Scheduled Castes (SCs), an increase of 9.4 per cent over 2019 (45,961 cases). The crime rate had increased from 22.8 per lakh population to 25 per lakh population in 2020, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) stated.

The NCRB data stated that 16,543 cases of "simple hurt" formed the largest chunk of cases of crimes or atrocities against SCs during 2020. It was followed by cases under the SC/ST Act and cases under criminal intimidation , it said. The data showed that another 3,372 cases were lodged for rape, 3,373 for assault on women with intent to outrage modesty, 855 for murder and 1,119 for attempted murder.

A total of 8,272 cases were

registered for committing crime against Scheduled Tribes (STs), showing an increase of 9.3 per cent over 2019 (7,570 cases). The crime rate regis-tered increased from 7.3 per lakh population in 2019 to 7.9 per lakh population in 2020, the NCRB, which functions under the Union home minis-try, stated. It showed that dur-ing 2020, simple hurt cases (2,247) formed the highest number of cases of crimes or atrocities against STs account-ing for 27.2 per cent of cases, followed by rape with 1,137 cases and assault on women with intent to outrage her mod-esty with 885 cases.

In 2018, the country had recorded 42,793 cases of crimes against SCs and 45,961 in 2019, with Uttar Pradesh topping the charts among states and Union Territories in both the years, the data showed. Among states and UTs, the highest of 12,714 cases of crimes against SCs in 2020 were from Uttar Pradesh followed by 7,368 in Bihar, 7,017 in Rajasthan, 6,899 in MP and 2,569 in Maharashtra, it showed. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

FIROZABAD: The Uttar Pradesh government on Thurs-day sent a team of 15 doctors to Firozabad district to inves-tigate the reasons behind the rise in cases of dengue and viral fever, which have claimed 60 lives since mid-August.

Though no deaths have been reported in the last few days, the flow of patients into the govern-ment medical college and the community health centres here has continued unabated. The team, comprising 10 doctors and five specialists, took charge on Thursday, on the instruc-tions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Additional Direc-tor (Medical and Health), Agra Division, Dr A K Singh, said.

Led by Dr G S Vajpayee, a specialist in communicable diseases, the team will investi-gate the causes behind patients not getting proper treatment before they reach the govern-ment medical college and other primary health centres in the district, he said.

It will also investigate the reasons behind the increasing cases, despite efforts to stem them since last month, Singh said, adding that the team will suggest measures to control the spread of dengue and viral fever.

Singh also said that a sec-tion of the media is reporting

an inflated death toll, and main-tained that fatalities stood at 60. Deaths due to other diseases are also being attributed to den-gue and viral fever, he said. In another development, a team of women doctors has arrived here and it is monitoring the treat-ment of patients in at the gov-ernment medical college. They are trying to work out ways for better treatment of patients and are continuously visiting wards, principal of the medical col-lege Dr SangeetaAneja said. The team includes Dr Jaimini and Dr Ayushi from Saifai and Dr Pragati from Kanpur, she said.

Countering complaints of shortage of beds, Aneja said that all patients arriving at the hospital are first given primary treatment at the Trauma Cen-tre and then shifted to different wards after proper testing. This is being interpreted as shortage of beds, she said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday sought response from the Centre on a petition challenging its power to prohibit strikes in essential defence services and the impo-sition of stringent criminal con-sequences under the Essential Defence Services Act, 2021.

A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Amit Bansal issued notice to Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Law an Justice on the petition which has challenged the validity of several provisions of the Act on the ground that it gives unbri-dled power to the authorities to declare any establishment as essential defence services and to prohibit any kind of partici-pation and support of strikes.

The petition by All India Defence Employees Federa-tion, a national federation of more than 400 registered trade unions, has challenged the constitutional validity of sev-eral provisions of the Essen-

tial Defence Services Act, 2021 which came into effect from June 30, 2021, saying that they are in violation of Articles 14, 19(1)(a), 19(1)(c), 21 and 311 of the Constitution of India and International Covenants which have been accepted and ratified by India and are a part of the human rights.

Senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, representing the peti-tioner, argued that strike was a weapon in the hands of the workmen and any prohibition on the same would be contrary to the established law and labour

practices.The court, however,

observed that the petitioner cannot press for the continu-ance of the old concept of strike in essential services in view of a new statute. If the desire of the people is that you don't go on strike, who is the petitioner to say in spite of the desire of the people, of Parliament, I will go on strike even though I am an essential service, said the bench.

People are bound to chal-lenge when you bring a change. You (Centre) file your reply. We will decide, the bench said and

posted the matter for hearing on November 16.

The plea said that the new Act not only provides for a pro-hibition on strikes by workers under its ambit but also strin-gent criminal consequences and jail terms, without the generally available constitutional pro-cedural safeguards, by mak-ing the offences cognizable and non-bailable and mandating a summary trial for offences com-mitted under the law.

In criminalizing peaceful strikes such as "sit-ins", "pen down" and "token strikes", pro-tests and innocent acts such as "mass casual leave" and "refusal to do overtime", the impugned Sections infringe upon the right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, the petition said.

Under the Act, essential defence services include any service or undertaking dealing with production of goods or equipment required for any pur-pose connected with defence.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

RAJGARH: Five people were killed and two others injured after their speeding auto-rick-shaw overturned and was hit by a jeep in Madhya Pradesh's Rajgarh district on Thursday, police said.

The accident took place at Kishangarh village under Kotwali police station area on National Highway No. 52, about two km from the district headquarters, they said.

As per an initial investi-gation into the incident, the auto-rickshaw driver lost con-trol over the wheels while try-

ing to save a stray dog.As a result, the vehicle

overturned and was hit by a jeep coming from the oppo-site direction, Superintendent of Police Pradeep Sharma said.

Five occupants of the auto-rickshaw died on the spot. They were identified as Parvatibai-Tanwar (60), Santra Bai (45), Mohar Singh (50), Prabhulal-Tanwar (45) and Pannalal (65), the official said, adding that the bodies were sent to a hospital for postmortem.

Two other injured persons were admitted to a hospital, he said. All the victims hailed from Rajgarh, he added.

HYDERABAD: A man wanted in the case of rape and murder of a six-year old girl here alleg-edly committed suicide with his body being found on a rail-way track in Jangaon district on Thursday morning, police said. The incident happened two days after Telangana Labour Minister ChMalla Reddy had said that the accused in the case would be caught and that there should be an "encounter" against him.

"It (the incident) is terri-ble. There should be an inci-dent against him (accused). He will definitely be caught. (We) will do encounter. There is no question of leaving him, Malla Reddy had told reporters on Tuesday. The girl was allegedly raped and murdered in a neigh-bouring house at Saidabad here on the evening of September 9.

Based on preliminary inves-tigation, the accused P Raju, aged around 30, was found walking on the track by gang-men, who asked him to move aside from the track, but he did not and was hit by a passen-ger train at around 8.45 AM, a senior police official said. MPOST

INDORE: Police have regis-tered an offence against the young woman, whose video of dancing on a zebra crossing at a busy square in Indore went viral on social media, an official said on Thursday. The woman, Shreya Kalra, was booked under IPC section 290 (punishment for public nuisance), the police official said.

The 30-second-long video shows that the woman, dressed in black and also wearing a mask and a cap of that colour, starts dancing to the tune of 'Let me be your woman', an English song, s soon as vehi-cles stop for the red signal at Rasoma square in the city.

Taking serious cognisance

of the issue, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra had on Wednesday directed the police to take appropriate action against her.

"A case under IPC sec-tion 290 was registered against Shreya Kalra, who danced at the traffic signal at Rasoma Square in the city recently," Vijay Nagar police station in-charge Tehzee-bQazi said. Under this section, a fine of up to Rs 200 is imposed on the offender, he said.

She had posted another video on social media clarifying that her intention was to spread awareness of the importance of traffic rules, like stopping at the red light so that pedestrians can cross safely. MPOST

12 killed in separate

incidents of house, wall

collapse

Centre concedes in SC, permits Justice Cheema to stay till Sept 20

Docs’ team sent to probe rising dengue cases in Firozabad

Though no deaths have been reported in the last few days, the flow of patients into the government medical college and the community health centres here has continued unabated

Justice Cheema, former Chairperson of NCLAT, was to superannuate on Sept 20, but Justice Venugopal was appointed as acting head of tribunal with effect from Sept 11

ED seizes cash, bullion worth Rs 4 croreHC seeks CBI reply

on bail plea of official in corruption case

‘Accused found dead; suspected

suicide’

Crimes against SCs, STs rose in ’20; UP,

MP top charts: NCRB

MP: Auto-rickshaw overturns, 5 killed

Woman whose dance at crossing went viral booked

HC seeks Centre's stand on plea against prohibition on strikes in essential servicesThe court observed that the petitioner cannot press for the continuance of the old concept of strike in essential services in view of a new statute

Justice Yogesh Khanna issued notice on the bail plea and listed the matter for further hearing on September 27, along with a similar petition of the co-accused and Deshmukh's lawyer AnandDaga

7millenniumpost Editorial mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021

Vindictive sentiments

Chalking out a new plan

The revenge instinct underlying the wounded Afghan-Pak realm reminds of Lord Mayo’s assassination at the hands of a Pashtun — Sher Ali Afridi

The opposition needs to think out an alternate agenda — keeping masses at the centre — if BJP is to be outperformed in the 2024 elections

Unbeknownst to many, during the British Raj, a Vice-roy of India was

assassinated by a disgruntled native. The fourth Viceroy of India, Richard Southwell Bourke (Earl of Mayo) or sim-ply ‘Lord Mayo’ (founder of the famous ‘Mayo College’ in Ajmer), was stabbed to death by Sher Ali Afridi, at Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in 1872. The Pashtun from Tirah valley in Khyber Agency, had served in the East India Company’s Presidency Armies, Punjab Mounted Police and later as a cavalry-man and mounted orderly for Maj General Reynell Taylor, who had awarded Sher Ali with a citation, pistol and horse for his soldering conduct.

About the fierce Pashtuns, no less than Alexander the Great had said, as early as the fourth century BC: ‘May God keep you away from the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger, and the revenge of the Afghans’. However, within the comity of warlike Pashtuns, the ‘martial’ instincts of the Afridis from Tirah valley, is legend-ary. Controlling the gateway of Khyber Pass, Mughal Emperor Babar tried subdu-ing their irascible behaviour, but the implacably hostile Afri-dis defied repeated attempts, even by subsequent armies of Mughal Emperors like Akbar, Jahangir, and Aurangzeb. Their notoriety continued during the British Raj, with the colonists first attempting to co-opt the Afridis with subsidies, con-tracts and even raising a ded-icated regiment made up of Afridi tribesmen i.e., Khyber Rifles – but the easily provoked Afridis mutinied (which also led to the Battle of Saragarhi). Later, the consummate fight-ers were also misused by the newly independent Pakistan to foment trouble in Kashmir as raiders. Ironically, the Teh-reek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),

which is now at the forefront of attacking the Pakistan state, had leaders like Tariq Afridi from the same Tirah valley. To such a bilious lot, was Sher Ali Afridi, a Pashtun who would invoke the inviolable and time-less code of Pashtunwali i.e., Badal (revenge), be born.

Sher Ali Afridi, as is the won’t of quarrelsome tribes-men of the region, was involved in a bloody private feud, pursuant to which he was supposed to have killed a rela-tive in broad daylight. In his tribal mind, he was innocent and even though his initial sen-tence of death-by-hanging was

reduced to life imprisonment, he remained unconvinced and instinctively sought revenge on ‘some high British official’. Such nescience was natural to Sher Ali, as was noted by a man who would later play a signifi-cant role for the British Crown, Winston Churchill, who said about Pashtuns: ‘Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan, its feud…Nothing is ever forgotten and very few debts are left paid’. Sher Ali Afridi lived up to that fearsome description.

Sher Ali was soon deported to the penal colony or the infa-mous Kala Pani outpost at the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands, to serve out his life imprison-ment. Whilst the former sol-dier remained inconspicuous and relatively well-behaved during his sentence term, his tribal-feudal-religious beliefs harboured the irrepressible urge of revenge, and the oppor-tunity knocked with a chance visit of the Viceroy of India to the Islands. Sher Ali knew of the vicegeral visit and planned his chance, accordingly – he wanted to kill both the vice-roy and the superintendent of the jail. A serendipitous oppor-tunity came for Sher Ali who was hiding in the dark, and he immediately pounced upon Lord Mayo and stabbed him repeatedly. The Viceroy soon bled to death and the unrepen-tant and radical Sher Ali was immediately apprehended. He defiantly attributed the act to instructions of God, as in his mind, he had only avenged his sense of having been person-ally wronged and settled his score.

Reportage of his final moments posits a rather detached and self-assured person: ‘The police officer who came down to investigate the affair, as he ascended the steps leading up to the scaf-fold, asked him a question. He shook his head with a smile, as he said Nahin Sahib. As soon as he got up, he asked the hang-man to turn his face towards Mecca and then began to pray very loudly and quickly’. There were some unproven insinuations of a jihadi-plot (the word jihad was used even then), given that there were some other prisoners jailed for jihadist plots – but no linkages were proven and it turns out that Sher Ali Afridi acted on his own volition and sense of duty.

The murder was conve-niently played down by all con-cerned and therefore history bears very little mention of this incident. Local authorities did

not want to look in bad light owing to an obvious security failure, the ‘Crown’ itself did not want to embolden others to do such an act, violent sec-tarism was at risk, the other prisoners did not glorify the act fearing unnecessary ret-ribution, the Indian freedom fighters saw no mention of a nationalistic impulse, and finally there was nothing to suggest anything other than personal revenge, albeit, on the Viceroy of India. It was held in a moment of time when the imagination of an indepen-dent sovereign was still in its infancy, the interlinkages with other anti-imperialist agents were minimal, and the impact of the ‘news’ could be con-trolled by the British Raj, to a very large extent.

There were some attempts to creatively frame Sher Ali’s act and contextualise the same as the ‘first’ prominent jihad-inspired terror or conversely, as a ‘freedom fighter’ who symbolically killed the high-est-authority of an oppres-sive coloniser – however more likely than not, his inspira-tional construct was not as sophisticated and nuanced as sought to be reconstructed, but more basic and personal to the individual. Spin-doctors with partisan agenda could attribute linear motive and relevance either way, as history is a favou-rite tool to build a vested narra-tive. But, perhaps in the overall disinterest of the story, lies the open-and-shut elements of an individual seeking a lim-ited objective of his personal redemption. Today, Sher Ali’s ilk continue their revisionist and tribalistic instincts in the wounded Afghanistan-Pak realm, and history reminds the price of wronging a Pash-tun, individually.

The writer is the former Lt Governor of Andaman

and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry. Views

expressed are personal

BHOPINDER SINGH

G PALANITHURAI

Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to letter2editor.mp@gmail.com. You can also send your comments to The Editor,

Millennium Post, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002

DearEditor

According to the ‘Crime in India’ report for 2020 released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Wednesday, offences against women, children and senior citizens, theft, burglary and dacoity went down last year. At the same time, crimes against the State saw a sharp 27 per cent fall as compared to 2019. Of the 5,613 reported offences against the State, over 80 per cent were registered under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act. The dip in the number of criminal cases in the country is a welcome sign, though much of it could have been due to strict movement curbs enforced during lockdowns. Numbers are still high and all stakeholders should ensure to reduce them considerably. However, the statistics compiled by the NCRB on disposal of cases by police and courts paint a very dismal picture on the rate of conviction which are indicative of either faulty investigation or Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections wrongly imposed on an accused. In case of offences against State, at times, the courts observed that several cases didn’t deserve to be slapped. For instance, in 2020, the total rioting related cases taken up for investigation by police was 81,846 and chargesheets were filed in 43,063 cases while total conviction came in only 4,613 cases. Similarly at 39 per cent and 41 per cent respectively, heinous crimes such as rape and murder see poor conviction rate.

A few weeks ago, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee gave a

clarion call to opposition par-ties to unite and act quickly. She also appealed to the judi-ciary to take steps to safeguard democracy. Sonia Gandhi, the interim President of the Indian National Congress, is also attempting to bring unity among the opposition par-ties in India. A few days ago, Rahul Gandhi also endeav-oured in this regard. Opposi-tion leaders, since 2019, have lamented the way the present government has been pursu-ing its course of action which is detrimental to the nation and its ethos. The government is being fervently opposed by the opposition parties that very often submit petitions collectively to the President of India. The opposition, how-ever, fails to work collectively along a common perspective. Every political party is strug-gling to bring order in its own organization. All the opposi-tion parties, of course, have a common agenda to defeat the Prime Minister in the ensu-ing elections. Why Narendra Modi has to be removed from power has to be explained convincingly to the people of India in the language of the masses. That is not happen-ing. When Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister, the agita-tion organized by Anna Haz-are was effectively used by the Narendra Modi-led BJP through organizing meetings in different parts of the coun-try; Narendra Modi addressed most of these rallies. Through his effective communication skill, he reached out to the masses and a new perception was created among the peo-ple against corruption. With this argument in the back-drop, Modi pushed the devel-opment ideas as his agenda

for action. Perfectly, he put it in a development politics framework and, as a result, he reached out to the masses and eventually won the elec-tion. The perception against corruption has been kept alive to date. His continuous and virulent attacks on the oppo-sition parties, on the plank of corruption, continue to tar-nish the image of opposition parties. The narrative of devel-opment and corruption, cou-pled with the security of the nation on account of Pakistani interference, helped him to come to power again in 2019. The opposition parties relied on attacking Narendra Modi whereas Modi-Shah clearly assessed the weaknesses of all the political parties and acted accordingly. To some extent, they stuck to the promises in their manifesto. Hence, the opinion created among the masses about opposition parties by the BJP, and their evolved strategies to expand the party, coupled with sys-tematic political actions, have weakened the opposition par-ties. In this context, bringing

opposition to unity is a huge strategic task. It needs more strategic actions instead of accusing Narendra Modi. Bringing opposition unity should not be aimed at remov-ing Modi. Modi is not so big as the nation. Nation and the people are more impor-tant than the leaders and the parties. Narendra Modi could not be dismantled by mere joining together of the opposition parties. Hence, by merely attacking Modi, oppo-sition parties cannot win over Modi. They have to win the heart of the masses by bring-ing an alternative agenda and implementing attractive pro-grammes. The same has to be taken to the people through a trustworthy leader who can keep the opposition parties together. By aiming for the Prime Minister post or push-ing the party from the state to Centre and merely attack-ing Modi will not yield any result. The globalization era has corrupted the leaders and parties, and coming out from that syndrome is a big chal-lenge for many of the parties

that had been in power during the era of globalization.

There is yet another dan-ger the parties are facing on account of political marketing agents like Prasanth Kishore. The moment the parties invite political marketers, virtually, it gives a sense that the parties have lost the values of leader ideology and the strength of the cadres. Electioneering is being done in a market mode by market agencies pushing the parties’ works to the back-ground. It really undermines the value of democracy. It also undermines the primacy of the political parties. The lead-ers have to stand on their own and their ideas, ideologies and programmes instead of adver-tisement companies. Bringing opposition unity can be done by a leader, not by a company and its CEO. It is a danger-ous trend in democracy. The opposition leaders have to meet and chalk out an alterna-tive agenda on development and give a fitting reply to the question on corruption. This is the need of the hour.

Each and every political

party in the opposition camp should introspect its journey and reposition itself in the new context in terms of politi-cal ideology and programmes. It has to be understood that the opposition unity without the Indian National Congress will be mere paperwork and not a realistic idea to win the elections in 2024. In the same way, the Indian National Con-gress cannot remove Modi without the support of the major regional political par-ties. Coming together of the Indian National Congress and regional political par-ties is possible only through dialogue as differences are vast among the parties. All the political parties have moved away from their ideological framework in the process of economic globaliza-tion. They have not contex-tualized themselves to face globalization.

To help the nation and the people, opposition parties have to initiate a dialogue to come together through a new ideological framework and chalk out new programmes. This ideological framework has to be taken to the people as Modi did in 2014 through an effective communication strategy. Their efforts should give a sense that the opposi-tion is not to oppose Modi but to help the nation through an alternative path. If all speak in one voice on issues related to development, corruption and leadership, people will believe that opposition par-ties are for the nation and the people. Otherwise, it will be a non-productive exercise and will not bring any substantial change in the course of poli-tics in India at present.

The writer is a former Profes-sor and Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayati Raj Studies,

Gandhigram Rural Institute. Views expressed are personal

Sher Ali, convinced that he was wronged by the Britishers, killed Lord Mayo while he was at Kala Pani

— KHOKAN DAS, KOLKATA via email

Dialogue among national and regional opposition parties is the key to devise a strategy for the 2024 elections

EDITORIALIn the right direction

The Union Cabinet approved a Rs 26,058-crore pro-duction linked incentive (PLI) scheme for auto, auto-components and drone industries to promote domestic production and boost employment. The

scheme is also aimed at facilitating a transition from a fos-sil fuel-based automotive sector to a renewable-based energy sector. In the auto sector, the scheme aims to attract invest-ments of around Rs 42,500 crore in the next five years with an incremental production of over Rs 2.3-lakh crore, creat-ing 7.6 lakh employment opportunities at the same time. The scheme also allocates Rs 120 crore spread over the next three years for drone technologies. The allocation is expected to earn Rs 5,000 crore and facilitate incremental production of Rs 1,500 crore. Given the magnitude of the problems it aims to solve, the set objectives of the scheme offer a daunt-ing task to be achieved in the future. It is in this context that the slashed amount of the PLI scheme — from the previously announced Rs 57,043 crores to Rs 26,058 crore — is a little surprising. The production linked incentives for the auto sec-tor are a continuum of the PLI schemes launched during the 2021-22 budget session across 13 sectors with a total outlay of Rs 1.97 lakh crore over five years. The sectors were selected on the basis of their growth potential, ability to generate employment and value to the exports of the country. Produc-tion linked incentive schemes simply offer subsidies within the selected sectors on the parameters of increase in produc-tion, thus incentivizing the producers to ramp up their oper-ations. In general, the problem with the PLI schemes is that incentive is just one factor that drives production figures. It has to be complemented with an environment that is suitable for the production units to operate within; this could simply be read as ease of doing business. Additionally, an increase in production is possible only after there is an adequate sup-ply of factors of production including labour and capital. To fully capitalize on the potential of the PLI schemes, the government must undertake parallel policy initiatives to ensure an adequate supply of these factors. In case the sup-ply of factors of production is not up to the mark, the listed sectors may end up appropriating the share of other sectors. This disparity could rather lead to a negative fallout. It has to be mentioned here that the government is already working on various employment and skill development schemes that could potentially turn the labour challenge into an employ-ment opportunity. One of the main focuses of the scheme is to head the country towards greener fuels swiftly. India has already two PLI schemes — Scheme for Advanced Chem-istry Cell worth Rs 18,000 crore and Adaption of Manufac-turing of Electric Vehicles worth Rs 10,000 crore — in this domain. However, India’s ambition to compete at the global stage in this sector is still a faraway destination. India not just lies far behind countries like China but also depends heavily on the import of components essential for the production of electric vehicles. The government had earlier made a call to manufacturers to avoid imports from China but that is highly unlikely until there is some alternate provisioning to fill the gap. One of the major roadblocks for India has been its heavy dependence on China for Advanced Chemistry Cell which is elemental in the production of EVs. The 18,000-crore Scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell has been a useful step but it will take at least a few years to make some significant mark in this sector. The steps taken by the government are in the right direction but it should go a step further to lay out a detailed financial breakdown of the programme — includ-ing aligned activities for increasing capital and labour flow to make the PLI scheme a success in a true sense. India, at this point, could also refrain from being in direct competition from leading countries in the Electric Vehicle space. This is only to suggest that the country should focus on strengthen-ing the fundamentals at this juncture. Being in the race with comparatively incompetent fundamentals could prove detri-mental in the long run. To emerge stronger, India should go along with its stated principle of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Tweet of the day

HARSHA BHOGLE@Bhogleharsha

Virat's intensity was insane. I had thought he would give up the captaincy of #RCB which would give him two months off as leader. Hopefully this can give his mind the rest it needs and who knows, find him another peak as a T20 batsman.

Alexander the Great had said in the fourth century BC: ‘May God keep you away from the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger, and the revenge of the Afghans’

Electioneering is being done in a market mode by market agencies, pushing parties’ works to the background; it undermines the value of democracy and the primacy of the political parties

millenniumpost.in

POOR CONVICTION RATE

GOVERNMENT OF JAMMU AND KASHMIROFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEER, WATER SUPPLY MASTER PLAN DIVISION, SRINAGAR

NOTICE INVITING TENDER E-N.I.T NO:- 17/WSMP OF 09/2021 DT:- 15-09-2021

Executive Engineer Water Supply Master Plan Division Srinagar on behalf of Lt. Governor of J&K, invites tenders by e-tendering mode from approved Registered firms eligible(As Per Qualification Criteria Mentioned in Tender Document).

Sr.No

Name of Work Name of Division

Estimated Cost(in Rs.)

Cost ofdocument(in Rs.)

Head of Account

Class Of Contract

1 Design (Including Geo- Technical Analysis Soil Investigation) construc-tion, successful test-ing and commissioning including trial run for 06 months of 5.5MGD (25MLD) rapid sand Water Treatment Plant comprising of intake chamber, 02 no Clarifloc-culator with flash mixers, filter house, Raw water main, Delivery main, clear water sumps, back-wash tank with all electro Mechanical, instruments installation as a compos-ite unit to be constructed at Alusteng.

Water Supply Master Plan Divi-sion Srinagar

Rs.725.35 Lacs

Rs.5000/-Pledged to Executive Engineer Water Sup-ply Mas-ter Plan Division. Srinagar

Under State Sector(Capex)Major Head4215Water Supply&Sanitation

(As Per Qualifica-tion Criteria Mentioned in Tender Document)

1 Date of Issue of Tender Notice 15-09-20212 Date of Publication of E-tender:- 16-09-2021 3 Document Download/Sale Start date:- 16-09-2021 4 Bid submission Start Date 16-09-2021 5 Pre Bid Meeting Date 22-09-2021 at 2.00 PM6 Bid Submission Close Date 29-09-2021 at 04:00 PM7 Date and Time for Opening Of

Technical Bid01-10-2021 at 11:00 AM

8 Place of opening bids:- Office of the Chief Engineer Jal Shakti Kashmir PHE Department Raj Bagh Srinagar.

9 Period of bid validity:- 180 Days

10 Officer inviting Bid:- Executive Engineer Water Supply Master Plan Division Srinagar.

Administrative Approval No: CE/PHE/DB/111 of 02/2021 dated 13/02/2021Note: - For details, bidders are requested download the Tender Document published on website: http/www.jktenders.gov.inNo: WSMP/CC/4020-31 Sd/- Executive EngineerDate: -15-09-2021 Water Supply Master Plan DivisionDIPK/8713/21 Srinagar

8 millenniumpostWorldmpFRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021 | NEW DELHI

US, UK and Australia launch new trilateral Indo-Pacific alliance

TO COUNTER CHINA

WASHINGTON DC/LONDON: The US, Britain and Australia have announced a new trilateral security alliance for the Indo-Pacific to take on the threats of the 21st century and allow for greater sharing of defence capabilities, including help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, in a bid to counter China's growing power in the stra-tegically vital region.

Unveiling the ambitious secu-rity initiative, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Australian coun-terpart Scott Morrison in a joint statement said their move will pro-mote stability in the Indo-Pacific and support of their shared val-ues and interests. "We are taking another historic step to deepen and formalise cooperation among all three of our nations because we all recognise the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the

Indo-Pacific over the long term," President Biden said at the virtual launch of the new alliance known as AUKUS on Wednesday.

Speaking from the East Room of the White House, Biden said that

the three countries will update and enhance their shared ability to take on the threats of the 21st century, just as they did in the 20th century, together. The United States, Aus-tralia, United Kingdom have long

been faithful and capable partners and we're even closer today. Today, we're taking another historic step to deepen and formalise coopera-tion among all three of our nations because we all recognise the imper-ative of ensuring peace stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term, he said.

Interestingly, the announce-ment of AUKUS has come a week before a meeting of Quad leaders to be hosted by US President Biden in Washington on September 24.

The meeting will also be attended by Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi, Prime Minister of Australia Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

Under the AUKUS alliance, the three nations have agreed to enhance the development of joint capabilities and technology shar-ing, foster deeper integration of security and defence-related sci-

ence, technology, industrial bases and supply chains.

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday sharply crit-icised the trilateral military part-nership, saying it would closely monitor the pact that will gravely undermine regional stability and aggravate the arms race and hurt international non-proliferation efforts. Under the first major ini-tiative of AUKUS, Australia would build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the US and the UK, a capability aimed at promoting stability in the Indo-Pacific region. The UK, Australia and US are natural allies while we may be separated geographically, our interests and values are shared, said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who joined from Down-ing Street in London for the virtual address before a joint statement was released. AGENCIES

Under the first major initiative of AUKUS, Australia would build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the US and the UK

President Joe Biden, listens as he is joined virtually by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, not seen, as he speaks about a national security initiative from the East Room of the White House in Washington DC PTI

France calls killing of Islamic State leader big victory

PARIS: France killed the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara because the group attacked French aid work-ers, African civilians and U.S. troops, French officials said Thursday, calling him enemy No. 1 in protracted anti-terror-ism efforts in the Sahel.

French President Emman-uel Macron announced the death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi overnight.

According to Macron's office, al-Sahrawi person-ally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerien colleagues last year, and his group was behind a 2017 attack that killed U.S. and Niger military personnel.

He was killed in a strike by France's Barkhane mili-tary operation a few weeks ago, but authorities waited to

be sure of his identity before making the announcement, French Defense Minister Florence Parly told RFI radio Thursday.

She did not disclose details of the operation or where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the Islamic State group is active along the border between Mali and Niger.

He was at the origin of mas-sacres and terror, French For-eign Minister Jean-Yves Le

Drian said Thursday on France-Info radio. He urged African governments to fill the void and seize back ground taken by the Islamic State extremists.

Rumors of the militant leader's death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not immediately possible to inde-pendently verify the claim or to know how the remains had been identified. AGENCIES

According to Macron's office, al-Sahrawi personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerien colleagues last year, and his group was behind a 2017 attack that killed US and Niger military personnel

China to host virtual meeting on AfghanistanBEIJING: China says it will host a virtual meeting of Cen-tral and South Asian state leaders to discuss the situa-tion in Afghanistan.

The meeting of members of the China and Russia dom-inated Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is scheduled for Thursday.

Afghanistan is an observer member of the grouping, but it wasn't clear if any represen-tatives from the Taliban lead-ership would be attending.

China hasn't said whether it will recognise the new Afghan authorities who have excluded outside par-ties and women, although it has courted its leader-ship and kept its Kabul Embassy open. AGENCIES

3 killed, 60 hurt as quake hits China's Sichuan

BEIJING: A 6.0-magni-tude earthquake jolted Chi-na's southwestern Sichuan province early on Thursday morning, killing at least three persons and injuring 60 others.

Sichuan's earthquake relief headquarters activated a level-II response, the second highest in China's four-tier earthquake emergency response system.

The earthquake measur-ing 6.0-magnitude struck at 4:33 AM (local time) in Luxian county at a depth of 10 kilome-tres, according to the China Earthquake Networks Centre.

Three persons were killed and 60 others injured in the quake, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The injured people were rushed to nearby hospitals where the condition of three

of them is stated to be critical.More than 6,900 affected

residents have been relocated and over 10,000 people shifted to temporary shelters as of early Thursday morning after the quake, the local govern-ment said.

Over 730 houses have col-lapsed while 7,290 damaged due to the intensity of the quake, the report said.

The earthquake admin-istration has dispatched a team to guide on-site disaster relief work. AGENCIES

N Korea tests rail-launched

ballistic missiles

SEOUL: North Korea said Thursday it successfully launched ballistic missiles from a train for the first time and was continuing to bolster its defenses, after the two Koreas test-fired missiles hours apart in dueling displays of military might.

Wednesday's launches underscored a return of the ten-sions between the rivals amid a prolonged stalemate in U.S.-led talks aimed at stripping North Korea of its nuclear weapons programme. Korean Central News Agency said the mis-siles were launched during a drill of a railway-borne missile regiment" that transported the weapons system along rail tracks in the country's mountainous central region. AGENCIES

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALNOTICE INVITING e- TENDER

NIeT EOI No. 09/EE(E)/NKDA/2021-22Online Expression of Interest [EOI] are invited by the Executive Engineer [E] New Town Kolkata Development Authority vide memo no 9220/EE(E)/NKDA/2021-22 dated 13/09/2021 for the work: - “Engagement of Manpower for Day to Day Operation of internal & External Electrical items with cleaning of Electrical Equipment & Observation Measuring Units at NKDA Administrative Building at AA-ID, Newtown, Kolkata.”. Having tender amount- Agency has to be quote only. Bid submission closing date 01.10.2021 up to 6.55 P.M. For other details please visit our website at https://wbtenders.gov.in & www.nkdamar.org and the office notice board 3. MAR. Newtown, Kolkata -700156

Sd/- Executive Engineer (E)Newtown Kolkata Development Authority

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALNOTICE INVITING e- TENDER

NIeT EOI No. 08/EE(E)/NKDA/2021-22Online Expression of Interest [EOI] are invited by the Executive Engineer [E] New Town Kolkata Development Authority vide memo no 9219/EE(E)/NKDA/2021-22 dated 13/09/2021 for the work: - “Engagement of Manpower for Day to Day Operation of internal & External Electrical items with cleaning of Electrical Equipment & Observation Measuring Units at AA-III, Newtown, Kolkata.”. Having tender amount- Agency has to be quote only. Bid submission closing date 01.10.2021 up to 6.55 P.M. For other details please visit our website at https://wbtenders.gov.in & www.nkdamar.org and the office notice board 3. MAR. Newtown, Kolkata -700156

Sd/- Executive Engineer (E)Newtown Kolkata Development Authority

KMDA TENDER NOTICE e-NIT No: 03/EE/DIV-III/W&S/

KMDA of 2021-2022 e-Tenders are invited by the Executive Engineer, DIV-III, GRWW, Ph-II, W&S Sector, KMDA, Bidhangarh, Kolkata-700066, from eligible and resourceful contactors with financial capability, for the work, Name of Work, Estimated Amount, Earnest Money, Time of completion, Supply of high strength concentrated calcium based compound in granules form and using mechanical stirring system making solution of water and calcium based granule chlorination chemical including direct online injection by mechanical regulated dosing pumps during supply hours to achieve residual chlorine up to 0.50 ppm throughout supply from UGR of Budge Budge Municipality for 3 years., Rate to be quoted, Rs.38,997/-, 3 years, Last date & time of Online Bid submission: 01.10.2021 upto 18.50 hrs. For details contact the above office or visit both websites. (KMDA-366) www.kmdaonline.org www.wbtenders.gov.in

ICA- T11734(3)/2021

ICA- T11737(4)/2021

ICA- T11742(4)/2021

ICA- T11744(2)/2021

ICA- T11750(3)/2021

ICA- T11753(3)/2021

ICA- T11763(4)/2021

ICA- T11766(2)/2021

ICA- T11769(3)/2021

ICA- T11781(3)/2021

ICA- T11784(2)/2021

ICA- T11788(4)/2021

ICA- T11791(4)/2021

ICA- T11797(2)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad TenderAdditional Executive Officer, North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad invites online tender as follows – (1) NIT NO N - 65 / 20 - 21 (Eng) (Online) 2nd Call dt: 15/09/2021 (2) NIT NO N - 66 / 20 - 21 (Eng) (Online) 2nd Call dt: 15/09/2021 .Details may be obtained from the website https://wbtenders.gov.in .

Sd/- Additional Executive Officer,North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad.

1803(3)/DICO/N24Pgs, dt. 16.09.2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad TenderAdditional Executive Officer, North 24

Parganas Zilla Parishad invites online

tender as follows – (1) NIT NO N - 08 /

21 - 22 (Eng) (Online) dt: 15/09/2021 (2)

NIT NO N - 09 / 21 - 22 (Eng) (Online)

dt: 15/09/2021 . Details may be obtained

from the website https://wbtenders.gov.in .

Sd/- Additional Executive Officer,North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad.

1804(3)/DICO/N24Pgs, dt. 16.09.2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL Notice

E-Tender is being invited from the bonafied contractors vide N.I.T. No.:- 05/BDO/Phd/MGNREGS/2021-22, Dated :- 15/09/2021, Memo No:- 1296/BDO/Phd/ MGNREGS/2021-22 Date:-15/09/2021 Last date for Submission of Bids — 22/09/2021 up to 05.00PM, Other details can be seen from the Notice Board of the undersigned in any working days. Sd /- Block Development Officer, Phansidewa Development Block

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

N.I.T No.62 of AGM(Engg)-IV of 2021-2022 Sealed tenders are invited from bonafied, resourceful, experienced outsiders having experience in exe-cution of similar nature of works from any Organization for the work- “i)Engagement of House Keeping Agency for Misti Hub near Eco Park Gate No-3 in New Town, Kolkata. [For 6 (Six) months] (ii)Engagement of House Keeping Agency for Coffee House in New Town Kolkata. [For 6 (Six) months (iii)Arboriculture and beautification work from Biswa Bangla Gate to Jatragachi Bridge of Main Median and two side sepa-rator at MAR (Street no-1111) in New Town, Kolkata. [For 6 (Six) months] (iv)Arboriculture and beautifi-cation work from Jatragachi Bridge to Eco Park Gate No-2 of Main Median and two side separator at MAR (Street no-1111) in New Town, Kolkata. [For 6 (Six) months] (v)Arboriculture and beautification work from Eco Park Gate No-2 to Eco Park Gate No-4 of Main Median and two side separator at MAR (Street no-1111) in New Town, Kolkata. [For 6 (Six) months]” Last date of receiving application 22.09.2021 upto 12.00 P.M in the office of Additional General Manager (Engg)-IV, WB HIDCO

Additional General Manager (Engg)-IV WB HIDCO

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

N.I.T No.63 of AGM(Engg)-IV of 2021-2022 Sealed tenders are invited from bonafied, resourceful, experienced outsiders having experience in execution of similar nature of works from any Organization for the work- “Carriage, fitting and fixing of a Trump on stamp concrete pavement for making a Restaurant of Café Ekante infront of Finance Centre New Town, Kolkata.” Last date of receiving application 22.09.2021 upto 12.00 P.M in the office of Additional General Manager (Engg)-IV, WB HIDCO

Additional General Manager (Engg)-IV WB HIDCO

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALNotice

E-Tender is being invited from the bonafied contractors vide ( i ) N.I.T. No.:- 01/PBG 1BRD & 15th. F. C. Un-Tied /PBKGP/2021-22, Dated :- 14/09/2021 , Memo No:- 277/PBG IBRD & 15th. F. C. Un-Tied /PBKGP/2021- 22, Dated:-14/09/2021 Last date for Submission of Bids — 29/09/2021 up to 12.00PM, (ii )N.I.T. No.:- 02 / 15th. F. C. Un-Tied /PBKGP/2021-22, Dated :- 14/09/2021 , Memo No:- 278/ 15th. F. C. Un-Tied /PBKGP/2021-22, Dated:-14/09/2021 Last date for Submission of Bids — 29/09/2021 up to 12.00PM, (iii )N.I.T. No.:- 03/PBG IBRD /PBKGP/2021-22, Dated :- 14/09/2021 , Memo No:- 279/PBG IBRD & 15th. F. C. Un-Tied /PBKGP/2021-22, Dated:-14/09/2021 Last date for Submission of Bids — 29/09/2021 up to 12.00PM, Other details can be seen from the Notice Board of the undersigned in any working days.

Sd /- BDO & Custodian, Phansidewa Bansgaon Kismat GP.

9millenniumpost Business mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021

NEW DELHI: Telecom oper-ator Bharti Airtel will opt for payment moratorium, offered in telecom relief package, and redirect the cash flow to aggressively build networks, its Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said on Thursday.

Telecom reforms will spur growth, and have paved the way for all players to come together and work as a team to unleash India’s telecom dream, Mittal said.

He hoped that regulator Trai will look into the indus-try’s demands for a reason-able reserve price for 5G spectrum.

Tariffs need to go up, and more needs to be done on GST, licence fee, high levies

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The GST Coun-cil, chaired by Finance Minis-ter Nirmala Sitharaman, will meet on Friday, which among other things may review tax rate of over four-dozen items and extend till December 31, tax concessions on 11 COVID drugs.

Also, taxing petrol and die-sel under the single national GST tax and a proposal to treat food delivery apps such as Zomato and Swiggy as res-taurants and levy a 5 per cent GST tax on supplies made by them would be taken up by the Council at its meeting in Luc-know on September 17.

“Finance Minister Smt @nsitharaman will chair the 45th GST Council meeting at 11 AM in Lucknow tomorrow. The meeting will be attended by MOS Shri @mppchaudhary besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and Senior offi-cers from Union Government & States,” the Finance Minis-try tweeted.

The Council, comprising central and state finance minis-ters, will deliberate on the pro-posal of extending the existing concessional tax rate structure on Amphotericin B, Tocili-zumab, Remdesivir and anti-

coagulants like Heparin, till December 31, 2021, from the present September 30.

Tax rate on Amphotericin B, Tocilizumab was cut to ‘Nil’, while Remdesivir and Hepa-rin was reduced to 5 per cent in June 2021.

The Council on Friday may also discuss the proposal of reducing GST from 12 per cent to 5 per cent to seven more drugs till December 31, 2021.

These are Itolizumab, Posaconazole, Infliximab,

Bamlanivimab & Etesevimab, Casirivimab & Imdevimab, 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose and Favipiravir.

To curb tax evasion, the pro-posal to make the food deliv-ery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato liable to pay the Goods and Services Tax on restaurant services supplied through them would also be considered by the GST Council.

Once approved by the GST Council, food delivery apps will have to collect and deposit GST with the government, in place

of restaurants, for deliveries made by them. There would be no extra tax burden on the end consumer.

As per estimates, tax loss to exchequer due to alleged under-reporting by food deliv-ery aggregators is Rs 2,000 over the past two years.

In light of the Kerala High Court order, the Council will also discuss taxing petrol and diesel under the GST, a move that may require huge compro-mises by both central and state governments on the revenues

they collect from taxing these products.

In June, the Kerala High Court, based on a writ petition, had asked the GST Council to decide on bringing petrol and diesel within the GST ambit.

The Council will also dis-cuss the interim report of a state-ministerial panel on capacity based taxation on pan masala and composition scheme for brick kilns and stone crushers.

The Panel has recom-mended a Special Composi-tion Scheme in the Brick Kiln sector with effect from April 1, 2022, prescribing a GST rate of 6 per cent, without ITC, similar to the rate in the services sector.

It has also suggested hik-ing the GST rate on supply of bricks from 5 per cent to 12 per cent (with ITC), with effect from April 1.

The council will review and also clarify regarding GST rates 32 goods and 29 services.

The items under review are Zolgensma and Viltepso med-icines for personal use, solar PV modules, copper concen-trate, carbonated beverage with fruit juice, coconut oil, scented sweet supari, oncology medicine, and diesel-electric locomotives.

AURANGABAD: The Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity has proved to be a game-changer and helped in reach-ing out to the citizens living in the farthest corners of the country, during the Corona-virus pandemic, Finance Min-ister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.

She was addressing the Rashtriya Bank Parishad-organised ‘Manthan’, a one-day meeting in Aurangabad, which she inaugurated virtually.

“The JAM trinity concept of the Narendra Modi govern-ment helped to reach the far-thest person in the country. There were questions in the mind of people when the Jan Dhan scheme was launched.

“The inclusion of people in Jan Dhan stood by us in the COVID-19 pandemic, and we could help the people directly so that they can live their lives,” she said.

Sitharaman also said the Aadhaar linkage also helped in getting KYC-verified accounts.

“It also helped us to

get a credible robust struc-ture through which bank-ing, financing facilities could reach people. The last of the trinity, that is mobile, where every information about the deposit, benefits of govern-ment schemes (MNREGA) or the subsidies in the account, was sent...even in regional lan-guages,” Sitharaman added.

Still, there are parts in the country that need an extra and special push, she said.

The minister said the Rash-triya Bank Parishad would prove to be beneficial for this region of Maharashtra.

Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad, who chaired the conclave, said the focus henceforth would be on opening Jan Dhan accounts of those who have reached the age of 18.

The focus will also be on opening accounts in 111 aspi-rational districts across the country. The agenda of discus-sion in Aurangabad included difficulties in availing Mudra loans and the agriculture sec-tor, he said.

Punjab National Bank CEO and MD S S Mallikarjun Rao said, “The government has taken timely and impactful measures to bring the econ-omy on track. It helped those who lost their jobs, entrepre-neurs, industry and agriculture segment of the country.”

Rao added that the contri-bution of Maharashtra in the country’s economy is “lion’s share” in terms of industriali-sation and developing entre-preneur skills in the state, and it has a healthy deposit ratio. PTI

SOHNA: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said people need to pay if they want a better road infrastruc-ture in the country and men-tioned how expressways help in reducing travel time and fuel costs.

While reviewing the progress of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway (DME) in Sohna, Road Transport Minister Gad-kari said the farmers who have their land near the expressway should not sell it to develop-

ers, instead they should part-ner with developers and build road-side amenities.

Drawing an inference with regard to rise in travel costs due to toll charges, the min-ister said, “If you want to use an air-conditioned hall, you have to pay for it. Otherwise, you can arrange a marriage on a field as well.”

Gadkari pointed out that the expressway will decrease travel time significantly, which will result in reduction

in cost of fuel.“The Delhi-Mumbai

Expressway will decrease travel time to 12 hours. A truck takes 48 hours to reach Mumbai from Delhi. But on the expressway, it will take only 18 hours.

“So, a truck will be able to undertake more trips, which would in turn mean more business,” Gadkari said.

The minister said the expressways would also facil-itate air ambulances. PTI

GST Council to meet today, rebate to Covid drugs on cardsAlso, taxing petrol, diesel under GST & a proposal to treat food delivery

apps as restaurants and levy a 5% GST on supplies will be taken up

Highlights » The council will deliberate on the proposal of extending the existing concessional tax rate on Amphotericin B, Tocilizumab, Remdesivir and anti-coagulants like Heparin, till December 31, 2021, from the present September 30 » Council may also discuss the proposal of reducing GST from 12 per cent to 5 per cent to seven more drugs till December 31, 2021

As per estimates, tax loss to exchequer due to alleged under-reporting by food delivery aggregators is Rs 2,000 over the past two years

JAM trinity proved to be game-changer: Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

People need to pay for good roads: Gadkari on toll charges

WASHINGTON: The World Bank Group said on Thursday it has decided to discontinue publication of its “Doing Busi-ness” rankings of country busi-ness climates after a review of data irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 reports, Reuters reported .

In a statement, the World Bank said that after the irregu-larities raised ethical matters involving former bank staff and board officials, the devel-opment lender will work on a new approach to assessing countries’ business and invest-ment climates. AGENCIES

World Bank discontinues ‘Doing biz’

report “but that’s a separate chapter”, Mittal added.

Airtel could take a lead in tariff hikes in some packs, he pointed out.

Airtel will opt for the mora-torium to redirect cash flow to

build network, he said.With regard to interest on

payment moratorium, Mit-tal said that Airtel will weigh when the offer comes from the government on whether to go for equity conversion

Moratorium under IBC applies only on

corporate debtor: SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has held that moratorium under provisions of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) which restrains initiation of any fresh proceedings or discontin-uance of existing ones applies only to the Corporate Debtor but does not protect the pro-moters of the stressed company.

The top court observation came in an order related to builder-home buyers’ dispute arising out of non-completion of the housing project.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and Hima Kohli allowed the home buyers to move against the promoters of the first respon-dent Corporate Debtor (Today Homes and Infrastructure Pvt Ltd), even though a moratorium has been declared under Section 14 of the IBC.

The bench while referring to a verdict given earlier this year said that this court had held that proceedings under Nego-tiable Instruments Act against the Corporate Debtor would be covered by the moratorium provision under Section 14 of the IBC.

However, it (earlier verdict) clarified that the moratorium was only in relation to the Cor-porate Debtor and not in respect of the directors/ management of the Corporate Debtor, against

whom proceedings could con-tinue , it said in its order passed recently.

The bench said, We thus clarify that the petitioners (home buyers) would not be prevented by the moratorium under Section 14 of the IBC from initiating proceedings against the promoters of the first respondent Corporate Debtor in relation to honouring the settlements reached before this Court .

It added that since the mor-atorium declared in respect of the Corporate Debtor continues to operate under Section 14 of the IBC, no new proceedings can be undertaken or pending ones continued against the Cor-porate Debtor. PTI

Airtel will opt for moratorium to redirect cash flow to build network, says Sunil Mittal

mechanism or pay cash. PTI

Observation came in an order related to builder-home buyers’ dispute over non-completion of a housing project

10 millenniumpostBusinessmpFRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021 | NEW DELHI

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) continued to remain net buyer of the US dollar in July 2021, after it net purchased $7.205 billion from the spot market, according to the latest data from the RBI.

In the reporting month, the central bank purchased $16.16 billion while sold $8.955 bil-lion in the spot market, the monthly RBI bulletin for Sep-tember 2021, released on Thurs-day, showed.

In June 2021, the RBI net purchased $18.633 billion. It had bought $21.923 billion and sold $3.29 billion during the month. In July last year, the central bank had net bought $15.973 billion.

During 2020-21, the RBI had net purchased $68.315 bil-lion from the spot market. It had bought $162.479 billion from the spot market and sold $94.164 billion during the fis-cal 2020-21, the data showed.

In the forward dollar mar-ket, the outstanding net pur-chase at the end of July 2021 was $49.01 billion, compared with a net purchase of $49.573 billion in June 2021, the data showed. PTI

NEW DELHI: The Defence Ministry on Thursday issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) that induces clarity in the steps a buyer has to take to ver-ify bank guarantees (BGs) that are given by international banks during an acquisition process.

“This (SOP) will facilitate timely conclusion of contracts in procurement cases involv-ing BGs from foreign banks,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 provides right to the buyer to seek con-firmation of the foreign bank’s

BG from an Indian bank, where required, at the bidder’s cost.

On Thursday, the SOP was issued on the steps to be fol-lowed by the buyer for seeking advice of SBI, Parliament Street

Branch, New Delhi with regard to the requirement of confirma-tion of such BGs, the ministry mentioned. “If required, the confirmation of foreign bank’s BG will be through a counter-

guarantee by an Indian public or private scheduled commer-cial bank at the bidder’s cost,” it added.

The DAP 2020 allows bid-ders to submit various types of BGs such as advance pay-ment bank guarantee (APBG) and performance cum warranty bank guarantee (PWBG) for discharge of various contractual obligations, it said. “These BGs can be from any Indian public or private scheduled commer-cial bank (as notified by RBI) or first class banks of international repute,” it mentioned. PTI

MUMBAI: Prospects are brightening for the Indian econ-omy achieving “escape velocity” from the pandemic as the sec-ond wave of COVID-19 wanes and preparedness for future remains on war-alert status, according to an RBI bulletin published on Thursday.

An article on the state of the economy, published in the September bulletin, said aggre-gate demand is gaining firmer ground, while on the supply side, IIP and core industries mirror improvement in indus-trial activity and services sec-tor indicators point towards sustained recovery.

“In August, we believe that India passed a turning point which consolidates and thrives come September,” said the arti-

cle authored by a team lead by RBI Deputy Governor Michael Debabrata Patra. It further said the trajectory of inflation is shifting down more favour-ably than anticipated. “As pan-demic scars heal and supply conditions are restored with productivity gains, a sustained easing of core inflation can be expected, which will reinforce the growth-supportive stance of monetary policy,” it said.

The central bank, however, said the opinions expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessar-ily represent the views of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The article further said domestic economic condi-tions rounded a turning point in August as growth impulses

gathered momentum with the progressive opening up of the economy and scaling up of the vaccination drive.

“Prospects are brighten-ing for the economy achieving escape velocity from the pan-demic as the second wave wanes and preparedness for future remains on war-alert status,” it said. On aggregate demand, it said e-way bills remained above pre-pandemic levels of February 2020, signalling higher GST col-lections going forward.

Besides, retail sales of motor vehicles registered growth over a low base in August last year; railways freight continued to be impressive; and fast-moving consumer goods sector surged, among others. Also, merchan-dise exports continued with

their stellar performance.“In the August issue, we

wrote about the music of autumn drowning out the songs of spring. We did so because we believe that at the current juncture, the Indian economy is evenly poised for that gravitational slingshot that will launch it on its aspirational growth trajectory. “As the ener-vating effects of the pandemic recede, giving way to dormant growth impulses, the choice of

strategy becomes critical,” the authors said.

Talking about the price situ-ation, the article said the trajec-tory of inflation is shifting down more favourably than antici-pated. The inflation outcome for August has vindicated the RBI Governor-headed six-member Monetary Policy Committee’s call for treating the May price shock as transitory and looking through it, it said.

The softening of prices of various food items is likely to extend into third quarter of the fiscal and contain the upside price pressures stemming from fuel and core prices on headline inflation. The task now is to con-solidate these gains and carry them forward into Q4 as well. India is a price taker in respect

of fuel prices, which have been broadly aligned over time with international prices, it pointed out. It further said the outlook for core inflation is tied to the fortunes of the Indian economy going forward.

Moreover, the uptick in the credit growth in the recent months notwithstanding the second COVID-19 wave augurs well for the economy, said an article published in the RBI’s latest bulletin.

Bank credit growth has wit-nessed significant fluctuations in the past one and a half decades.

The period between 2007-08 and 2013-14 could be char-acterised as a bank credit boom period in the Indian economy, as non-food credit registered double-digit growth, primarily

driven by robust credit growth to the industrial sector, the arti-cle said. “Both dominant-group and other-group of banks lent aggressively to the industrial as well as other sectors,” it said adding that within industries, infrastructure, and basic metal and metal product industries accounted for a major portion of credit offtake from both the bank groups during the credit boom period.

Thereafter, however, the credit cycle reversed along with a shift in the sectoral deploy-ment of bank credit.

The article said that dur-ing 2014-15 to 2020-21, over-all credit growth decelerated, primarily driven down by a reversal in credit growth to the industrial sector. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

UNITED NATIONS: India is expected to grow at 7.2 per cent in 2021 but economic growth could decelerate next year, according to a United Nations report which said the recovery in the country is constrained by the ongoing human and economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic and the negative impact of food price inflation on private consumption.

The UNCTAD Trade and Development Report 2021, released here on Wednesday, sounded a cautiously optimistic note to say that the global econ-omy is set for a strong recov-ery in 2021, albeit with a good deal of uncertainty clouding the details at the regional and country levels over the second half of the year.

After a 3.5 per cent fall in 2020, the United Nations Con-ference on Trade and Develop-ment (UNCTAD) expects world output to grow 5.3 per cent this year, partially recovering the ground lost in 2020.

The report said that India suffered a contraction of 7 per cent in 2020 and is expected to grow 7.2 per cent in 2021.

The recovery in India is con-strained by the ongoing human and economic cost of COVID-19, and the negative impact of food price inflation on private

consumption, the UNCTAD report said. The report projects that India will clock an eco-nomic growth of 6.7 per cent in 2022, slower than the coun-try’s expected 2021 growth rate.

However, even with a slower growth rate of 6.7 per cent, India will still be the fastest-growing major economy in the world next year. India, which experi-enced a contraction of 7.0 per cent in 2020, showed a strong quarterly growth of 1.9 per cent growth in the first quarter 2021, on the back of the momentum of the second half of 2020 and sup-ported by government spend-ing in goods and services,” the report said.

“Meanwhile, a severe and broadly unanticipated second wave of the pandemic, com-pounded by bottlenecks in the vaccine roll out, hit the coun-

try in the second quarter, on top of rising food and general price inflation, forcing wide-spread lockdowns and drastic consumption and investment adjustments, it said.

It noted that income and wealth inequalities in the coun-try have widened, and social unrest has increased.

The Central Bank esti-mates another sharp contrac-tion (quarter-on-quarter) in the second quarter followed by a rebound afterwards.

Given the inherent fragilities in coping with the pandemic and restoring employment and incomes, growth in 2021 as a whole is estimated at 7.2 per cent, insufficient to regain the pre-COVID-19 income level,” the report said.

“Going forward, assuming away a resurgence of the pan-

demic to the degree experienced in the second wave, a revitali-sation of private sector activity, subject still to a slow recovery of jobs, is likely to be matched with a more adverse policy envi-ronment, especially on the fis-cal front, and with continuing pressures on the trade balance. On these conditions, the econ-omy is expected to decelerate to 6.7 per cent growth in 2022, the report said.

Further, it said that in India, consumer inflation was already at 6 per cent before the pan-demic. The COVID-19 shock caused a temporary dip in prices, but as the economy recovered and food prices accel-erated, the country returned to a 6 per cent inflation rate in mid-2021.

The UNCTAD said that global growth is expected to hit 5.3 per cent this year, the fastest in almost half a century, with some countries restoring - or even surpassing - their output level of 2019 by the end of 2021.

“The global picture beyond 2021, however, remains shrouded in uncertainty, it said, adding that looking ahead, the UNCTAD expects world output to grow 3.6 per cent in 2022.

South Asia suffered a sharp contraction of 5.6 per cent in 2020, with the region’s economic activity brought to a halt thanks to widespread restrictions.

Deficient public healthcare systems and high levels of infor-mality magnified the impact of the pandemic in terms of both health and economic outcomes, which was reflected in a stark rise in poverty rates, the report said. The UNCTAD expects the region to expand by 5.8 per cent in 2021, with the more vigorous recovery signalled at the begin-ning of the year muted by a rapid surge in infections during the second quarter of 2021.

Moreover, the limited prog-ress made in terms of vaccine rollouts continues to leave the countries of the region suscep-tible to future outbreaks. For 2022, the UNCTAD expects the region’s growth rate to moderate to 5.7 per cent. The US is pro-jected to grow at 5.7 per cent in 2021 followed by a three per cent GDP growth next year.

In the Americas, the fast recovery in the United States recovery is expected to raise GDP to 2 per cent above its pre-COVID-19 level, it said.

China, estimated to grow at 8.3 per cent this year, will see its growth slow down to 5.7 per cent in 2022. The report said that the world needs more effec-tive multilateral coordination, without which recovery efforts in advanced countries will dam-age development prospects in the South and amplify existing inequalities.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Market benchmark Sensex scaled the 59,000-mark for the first time on Thursday as investors remained in risk-on mode following the govern-ment’s policy support measures for various sectors.

Investors have become richer by over Rs 4.46 lakh crore in three days of market rally where the benchmark Sensex scaled the 59,000-mark for the first time, driven by various reform measures.

Advancing for the third con-secutive session, the 30-share BSE index climbed 417.96 points or 0.71 per cent to its new closing peak of 59,141.16. It touched an intra-day record of 59,204.29. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty surged 110.05 points or 0.63 per cent to finish at its fresh lifetime high of 17,629.50. During the session, it scaled an all-time peak of 17,644.60.

IndusInd Bank was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, spurt-ing 7.34 per cent, followed by ITC, SBI, Reliance Industries, Kotak Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank. In contrast, TCS, Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, HCL Tech and Dr Reddy’s were among the laggards, slipping up to 1.32 per cent.

“Driven by reforms, the Indian market kept raising its bar and traded to new record highs. Today’s market rally was driven by strong buying in Banking stocks especially in PSBs. The banking sector is expected to perform well in the

coming days as the sector which failed to fairly participate in the ongoing rally due to fear over asset quality is gaining traction.

“Asian markets traded with cuts as the fall in Chinese prop-erty stocks pushed Asian stocks down while European mar-kets traded with positive senti-ments,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

S Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP Securities, said, “Ahead of the operation-alisation of the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL), banks provided the much needed ammunition to the bulls to notch up record highs of 59K on the Sensex. The charge of the energised bulls took India’s market capitalisa-tion ahead of France as PSU banks lent the firepower.”

BSE bankex was the biggest sectoral gainer, jumping 2.12 per cent, followed by energy, finance, FMCG and oil & gas

indices. Metal, teck, IT and basic materials were among the losers.

In the broader market, the BSE midcap and smallcap gauges rose up to 0.48 per cent.

Asian equities sank after liquidity crisis at Chinese real estate major Evergrande Group fanned fears of a broader con-tagion. Bourses in Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong ended with significant losses.

However, equities in Europe were trading with robust gains in mid-session deals. Mean-while, international oil bench-mark Brent crude rose 0.16 per cent to $75.58 per barrel.

The rupee slipped 2 paise to close at 73.52 against the US currency on Thursday, track-ing a strengthening greenback in the overseas markets.

Foreign institutional inves-tors (FIIs) were net buyers in the capital markets as they pur-chased shares worth Rs 232.84 crore on Wednesday, as per pro-visional exchange data.

India expected to grow at 7.2% in current year, says UN report The report projects that India will clock an economic growth of 6.7 per

cent in 2022, slower than the country’s expected 2021 growth rate

Riding on bullish mkt trend, Sensex touches 59K for 1st time

Rupee slips two paise to close at 73.52 against dollar

Stock Market Scales Fresh Peak

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep

2021KBK graphicsInfoSources: BSE and NSE

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Reserve Bank buys $7.205

billion in JulyNEW DELHI: Around 52 com-panies have applied for availing production-linked incentives (PLIs) for white goods mak-ers, proposing an investment of around Rs 6,000 crore in the manufacturing of components for air conditioners and LED lights.

Most of the investments are expected to happen in the next two-three years; and after that, local production for compo-nents for AC and LED light is expected to start, said FICCI Electronics Manufacturing Committee Chairperson Man-ish Sharma.

This will not only help in saving the foreign currency,

as the majority of the compo-nents in AC and LED lights are imported from countries as China and Taiwan, but also create job opportunities in the country. Wednesday was the deadline for the industry to submit applications for the PLI scheme for white goods (air conditioners and LED lights).

“It is encouraging to see the

industry response to the PLI scheme for component manu-facturing in AC and LED.

“From the applications received, it seems that the indus-try stands to get an investment of nearly Rs 6,000 crore of which nearly Rs 5,000 crore is towards AC and Rs 1,000 crore towards LED,” Sharma, who is president and CEO of Panasonic India & South Asia, said.

Sharma was involved in the process as part of his role in the industry body FICCI.

Fifty-two companies have applied in these two categories so far, in which 32 are for manu-facturing of components and the rest 20 are for LED light compo-

nents, he added. “Participation of 52 companies, in this exercise matters a lot, which means that execution of this investment will diversify the components industry for both across high, medium and small intermedi-aries,” said Sharma.

The timelines are such that the majority of the investments will happen in the next two to three years. “This means that average domestic value addition for AC, which is around 20-25 per cent with local components of the product, will go up to 75 per cent in the next five years,” he said. This would save the cost and time of the industry from sourcing the components. PTI

52 firms apply with `6,000 cr investment proposals for PLI scheme for AC, LED lights

NEW DELHI: The Indian drone industry will have a total turnover of up to Rs 15,000 crore by 2026 as the govern-ment has given a major boost to the sector with the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme announced on Wednesday and liberalised rules implemented last month, Civil Aviation Min-ister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Thursday.

The Civil Aviation Ministry on Wednesday approved a PLI scheme for drones and drone components with an allocation of Rs 120 crore spread over three financial years.

The PLI scheme comes as a follow-through of the liberalised

Drone Rules, 2021, released by the Centre on August 25.

In the press briefing, Scindia said on Thursday, “With Drone Policy (Rules) and Drone PLI scheme, we have an aim that drone manufacturing compa-nies in India should reach a turnover of Rs 900 crore in the coming three years.”

Currently, Indian drone manufacturing companies have a turnover of approximately Rs 80 crore, he mentioned.

He said the three parts of the entire value chain in the drone sector are hardware (drone manufacturer), software and service delivery.

“If you combine turnover

of all three parts of the drone sector, it is our estimate that by 2026, it will stand at USD 1.8 billion. This means that this industry will have a turnover of approximately Rs 12,000-Rs 15,000 crore by then,” he stated.

Under the PLI scheme, the incentive for a manufacturer of drones and drone components will be 20 per cent of the value addition made by the company during the next three years.

The value addition should be calculated as the annual sales revenue from drones and drone components (net of GST) minus the purchase cost (net of GST) of drone and drone compo-nents, it stated. PTI

‘Indian drone industry will have a turnover of up to `15K cr by 2026’

NEW DELHI: Walmart-owned Flipkart on Thursday said it has onboarded around 75,000 sell-ers on its platform in the past few months, and is on track to have over 4.2 lakh sellers and MSMEs by the end of this year.

Currently, the Flipkart mar-ketplace supports digital com-merce for 3.75 lakh sellers and is steadily working towards taking this number to 4.2 lakh sellers on its platform by the year-end, a statement said.

Since the pandemic, the Flipkart marketplace has seen an encouraging response from

MSMEs who want to take their business online with e-com-merce, it added.

“The new sellers and MSME base predominantly come from tier-II and -III markets such as Agra, Indore, Jaipur, Panipat, Rajkot, Surat, and many oth-ers. The Flipkart marketplace platform has also witnessed the rise in categories such as general merchandise, home and kitchen, and personal care,” it said.

Flipkart Group Chief Cor-porate Affairs Officer Rajneesh Kumar said the value of digital commerce and the potential it

has to enable small businesses to grow rapidly is well-known and accepted. It is encouraging to see that small businesses continue to put their trust in the Flipkart e-commerce marketplace and are seeing accelerated growth, he added. “This festive season, MSMEs and seller ecosystems across the country have come forth even more resilient and rejuvenated and we are excited to support their learning, finan-cial, operational and business needs as they offer a wide selec-tion of products on our plat-form,” he said. PTI

Prospects brightening for economy as 2nd Covid wave wanes: RBIThe RBI bulletin further said trajectory of inflation is shifting down more favourably than anticipated

NEW DELHI: JSW Steel on Thursday said it has raised $1 billion through issuance of Sustainability Linked Bonds (SLBs) in the overseas market.

In a statement, JSW Steel said it has become the first company in the steel sec-tor globally to issue a USD-denominated Sustainability Linked Bonds (SLBs).

“The company raised a total of $1 billion in the $bond mar-kets through a RegS/144A issu-ance which was subscribed by high quality institutional inves-tors across Asia, Middle East, Europe and the US,” it said.

At the current exchange rates, $1 billion is more than Rs 7,300 crore. The issuance com-prised two tranches of bonds having tenures of 5.5 years and 10.5 years, each for an amount of $500 million. PTI

JSW Steel raises $1 bn

through bonds

On track to onboard 4.2 lakh sellers, MSMEs by Dec: Flipkart

Defence Min issues SOP for faster verification of bank guarantees during acquisition process

11millenniumpost Sport mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021

Shastri, Arun, Sridhar await ‘fit to fly’ certificate to return home: BCCI

NEW DELHI: India's head coach Ravi Shastri, along with bowling and fielding coaches Bharath Arun and R Sridhar, respectively, would need to undergo a "fit to fly" test post recovery from COVID-19, which led to the cancellation of the fifth Test against England in Manchester last week.

The trio have completed a 10-day isolation as per the UK Health Protocols but, to return home, they also need to pass a "fit to fly" test, apart from nega-tive RT-PCR reports.

"Shastri, Arun and Srid-har are all doing well physi-cally having recovered from COVID-19. They are out of isolation.

"However, as per health protocols they need to have a CT score of 38 plus which will ensure a fit to fly certificate for them. We expect them to fly out in next two days if all goes

well with CT score," a senior BCCI official told PTI on the condition of anonymity.

The CT (CT scan) score tells about the presence of viral

load in a COVID-19 affected person and how much his lungs have been infected. A higher CT score indicates recovery and it is believed that to take

long flights, one needs to have a CT score of 40.

None of the three Indian coaches currently have any symptoms and are completely

fit but can only avail the return flight once they get the certificate.

Shastri tested positive on the third day of the fourth Test at Oval and Arun and Sridhar, deemed as close contacts, had to be isolated. The duo also later tested positive and all of them finished their 10-day iso-lation on Wednesday.

However, the fifth Test at Old Trafford had to be can-celled after Indian players led by skipper Virat Kohli refused to play with junior physio Yogesh Parmar also testing positive. Parmar was the only physio treating the players since head physio Nitin Patel also had to isolate being a close contact of the coaching staff.

It is believed that Shastri's book launch where around 150 unmasked guests mingled freely was the source of the infection. AGENCIES

None of 3 Indian coaches currently have any symptoms and are completely fit but can only avail the return flight once they get the certificate

Dhoni named in 15-member defence ministry panel on NCCNEW DELHI: Cricket icon Mahendra Singh Dhoni and industrialist Anand Mahin-dra were on Thursday named in a 15-member panel consti-tuted by the defence ministry to carry out a comprehensive review of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) in order to make it more relevant.

The committed headed by former lawmaker Bai-jayant Panda includes Col. (Retd) Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Rajya Sabha member Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Prin-cipal Economic Advisor in the Finance Ministry Sanjeev Sanyal and Jamia Millia Isla-mia Vice Chancellor Najma Akhtar.

Former vice-chancellor of the SNDT Women's Univer-sity Vasudha Kamat, National Organising Secretary of Bhar-tiya Shikshan Mandal Mukul Kanitkar, Maj Gen (retd) Alok Raj, Managing Director of SIS India Ltd Rituraj Sinha and CEO of Databook Anand Shah are also members of the panel.

Dhoni's inclusion in the high-level panel came days after he was appointed mentor

for India's T20 cricket world cup team.

The former India captain is a Lieutenant Colonel (Honor-ary) in the Indian Army.

The defence ministry said the committee has been con-stituted for a comprehensive review of the NCC in order to make it more relevant in changing times.

"The terms of reference of the committee, inter-alia, broadly provide for suggesting measures which can empower NCC cadets to contrib-ute more effectively towards nation-building and national developmental efforts in vari-ous sectors," it said.

Officials said the commit-tee will propose measures for gainful engagement of the NCC cadets for the better-ment of the organisation as a whole and to recommend best practices of similar inter-national youth organisations for inclusion in the NCC curriculum.

The NCC is the largest organisation in uniform that aims at developing character, discipline, a secular outlook and ideals of selfless service among young citizens, the ministry said in a statement.

It also aims to create a pool of organised, trained and motivated youth with lead-ership qualities in all walks of life. AGENCIES

Delhi Capitals retain Pant

as captain for remainder of

IPL 2021DUBAI: Delhi Capitals on Thursday announced that flamboyant wicketkeeper-bats-man Rishabh Pant will con-tinue to lead the side in the remainder of the IPL begin-ning September 19.

It was one of the most pre-dictable decisions considering that Delhi Capitals did well under Pant despite the fact that Shreyas Iyer led them to their first final last year. Delhi Capitals are currently lead-ing the IPL points table with 12 points having won six games under Pant's captaincy earlier this year after he was assigned the role in absence of injured Iyer, who had to undergo a shoulder surgery. "JSW-GMR co-owned Delhi Capitals today announced that Rishabh Pant will continue as captain for the remainder of the IPL2021 season," fran-chise's official handle tweeted. That Pant would be retained as captain was reported by PTI on September 3. AGENCIES

India's ODI tour of New

Zealand postponed

to 2022WELLINGTON: India will not be touring New Zea-land later in the year due to a packed calendar and COVID-19 related restrictions.

India would have had to quarantine for 14 days to play three ODIs as part of the World Cup Super League.

A New Zealand Cricket (NZC) spokesperson con-firmed to Stuff that the India games will be played after the T20 World Cup in Australia next year. New Zealand anyway are scheduled to tour India in November for two Tests and three T20s. New Zealand will be hosting Bangladesh, The Netherlands and South Africa in the summer besides the seven teams in Women's World Cup in March-April.

The Tests against Ban-gladesh and South Africa are part of the World Test Championship.

"We've got to be mindful of players coming back from a long winter and we've got to give them time at home as well, NZC chief executive David White said. The Black Caps will undergo 14 days of managed isolation and quar-antine (MIQ) after returning from India just before Christ-mas. That won't allow NZC to host the Boxing Day Test on December 26 and the opener against Bangladesh could begin on December 28 or later. AGENCIES

Messi and PSG held by Brugge; Manchester City,

Liverpool, Madrid winGENEVA: Lionel Messi, Kyl-ian Mbapp and Neymar lined up together in the near-per-fect attack for Paris Saint-Ger-main and still could not score or deliver a win in the Cham-pions League.

Instead, it was low-key mid-fielder Ander Herrera who got PSG's goal in a 1-1 draw at underrated Belgian champion Club Brugge.

Though Messi saw a first-half shot strike the crossbar, he was later shown a yellow card for a foul and Mbapp went off because of an injured left ankle.

French forwards flour-ished elsewhere with Sébastien Haller scoring four for Ajax in a 5-1 rout at Sporting Lisbon and Christopher Nkunku netting all of Leipzig's goals in a 6-3 loss to Manchester City.

The English clubs in action combined for two wins in matches involving 14 goals as Liverpool beat AC Milan 3-2 in the Italians' return to the competition after a seven-sea-son gap.

There was just one goal in the games involving the Madrid clubs, and Rodrygo's 89th-minute strike won it for Real Madrid at Inter Milan. Atl tico Madrid was held 0-0 at home to Porto.

Debutant Sheriff Tiraspol from the Moldovan league won 2-0 against Shakhtar Donetsk from neighboring Ukraine.

Three-time European champion Messi was added to PSG's already stellar squad last month to drive the Qatar-owned club's quest to win soc-

cer's most coveted club prize.The Jan Breydel Stadium in

Belgium was a modest venue for the Messi-Mbapp-Neymar forward line to be unveiled for the first time. They lasted just 50 minutes together, though Mbapp did create Herrera's opening goal from a sharp first-time shot in the 15th minute.

Club Brugge rose to the moment and captain Hans Vanaken leveled in the 27th.

City leads Group A after beating Leipzig 6-3 with six dif-ferent scorers including record signing Jack Grealish. Leipzig defender Angeli o was sent off on his return to his former club.

PSG hosts City on Sept. 28 in a rematch of last season's semifinals. The English cham-pion advanced after winning the first leg 2-1 in Paris.

Liverpool and AC Milan traded titles facing each other in the 2005 and 2007 Champi-ons League finals yet had never met at any other stage of the competition.

Their first match at Anfield was a typically rousing affair in the storied venue that thrives on European nights. AGENCIES

FIFA intensifies push to stage men's WC every 2 yearsGENEVA: FIFA intensified its push for hosting the men's World Cup every two years on Thursday by garnering sup-port from soccer fans around the world to help combat resis-tance from Europe and South America.

The latest public relations tactic came in the form on an online survey commissioned by FIFA. The Associated Press does not routinely report the claims of opinion polls conducted over the internet.

The FIFA statement did not

provide data, details of the poll-ing methodology or questions asked, but claimed its findings showed "considerable differ-ences between the so-called traditional markets and the developing football markets."

European soccer body UEFA and South American counterpart CONMEBOL oppose FIFA's plan and have threatened to boycott additional World Cups. Europe and South America combine for 65 of the 211 FIFA members fewer than the one-third total likely needed

to block any proposal.The governing bodies of the

six continental soccer federa-tions all stage their own cham-pionships, with Europe hosting

its tournament every four years halfway between the World Cups. Adding an extra World Cup in every four-year cycle would likely cut into the Euro-pean event's revenue stream.

The women already have two major world tournaments in every four-year cycle because the top teams and best players compete at the Olympics as well as the Women's World Cup.

FIFA's latest survey follows one week after it hosted about 80 former international players, including several World Cup

winners, for a two-day meet-ing in Qatar the 2022 World Cup host country.

The players reported they all agreed it was a good idea to double the number of men's World Cups in each four-year period.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino believes staging more tournaments would increase opportunities and enthusi-asm in most of the 211 mem-ber countries, many of which never qualify to play at the World Cup. AGENCIES

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Dhoni’s inclusion in the high-level panel came days after he was appointed mentor for India’s T20 cricket world cup team

European soccer body UEFA and South American counterpart CONMEBOL oppose FIFA's plan

DELHI JAL BOARD GOVT OF NCT OF DELHI EXECUTIVE ENGINEER (NORTH EAST) -I

2142 JANTA FLATS G.T.B.ENCLAVE DELHI-110093

STOP CORONA-WEAR MASK, FOLLOW PHYSICAL DISTANCING, MAINTAIN HAND HYGIENE PRESS NIT NO. 37 (2021-22)

Further details in this regard can be seen at https://govtprocurement.delhi.gov.in

ISSUED BY P.R.O. (WATER) Sd/- Advt. No. J.S.V./2021-22/393 Executive Engineer(North East) -I

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2021 | NEW DELHI

Sunny Kushal said he has realised the impor-tance of shedding inhi-

bitions to approach people for work as until one is ‘out there’ they would not be noticed by filmmakers.

The actor began his career as an assistant director on films like ‘My Friend Pinto’ (2011) and the 2014 actioner ‘Gun-day’. He made his acting

debut in 2016 with ‘Sunshine Music Tours and Travels’.

Sunny, son of veteran action direc-tor Sham Kaushal

and brother of Vicky Kaushal, then earned

acclaim in filmmaker Reema Kagti’s period sports drama ‘Gold’ in 2018. He also starred in Amazon Prime Video’s period drama miniseries ‘The Forgotten Army - Azaadi Ke Liye’, directed by Kabir Khan.

Kaushal said he realised it is not enough to just mani-fest good work in the indus-

try but to also actively chase it.

“The key learning for me from the indus-

try so far has been that you should not be scared to let people know that you want work. Somewhere, we do feel the apprehension of how to approach someone and ask them to audition you. But it does not matter. Until you go out there and say, ‘I am here’, people will not know or notice you,” he said.

Kaushal said the under-standing to be on the lookout for work is also new to him, as earlier he was extremely ‘shy’ to approach people.

“But over the period, I have developed the confidence to approach people and tell them that I have heard they are working on something, so if they could test me for the same.

I do not mind doing that today at all,” he added.

It was through this approach that got him his lat-est feature, ‘Shiddat’. Also star-ring Radhika Madan, Diana Penty and Mohit Raina, the film is scheduled to be released on ‘Disney+ Hotstar’ on Octo-ber 1.

The actor’s journey with ‘Shiddat’ began in 2019, right after the release of ‘Gold’ when he met the film’s pro-ducer Dinesh Vijan and asked if he had anything in store for him. Vijan asked him to meet ‘Shiddat’ director Kunal Deshmukh, best known for films like ‘Jannat’ and ‘Tum Mile’.

“I met him, did a series of auditions for the role and the wavelength matched. When I heard the film’s narration, I was blown away. It had an extremely pure love story to tell. I told Kunal that you can do a few auditions for this with me, I do not mind, but I must do this film. I just could not let it go,” he shared.

In the film, Kaushal plays Jaggi, a state-level hockey player who falls in love with Kartika (Madan), a state-level swimmer. PTI

Gabrielle Union recently appeared on ‘Good Morning America’,

where she opened about one of her most popular roles in ‘Bring It On’.

Speaking about her iconic character in the film, Union said, “I do think it was a mis-take. I was given full range to do whatever I wanted with Isis in ‘Bring It On’ and I chose respectability and to be classy and take the high road because I felt like that would make her appropriate, the right kind of Black girl. Black girls are not allowed to be angry. Certainly not demonstratively angry and I muzzled her,” she shared.

While looking back at the iconic character, Gabri-elle added that if she could, she would have ‘allowed her full humanity and part of being a full human is the abil-

ity to express rage when harmed’.

Explaining further, Union said, “When you do not allow yourself your full range of emotion and you muzzle your own emotions, it allows people to think, ‘Maybe what I did was not that bad’. I would have given her all the anger. I had muzzled her and made her this gracious, decent leader and I was still a villain in that movie. I did all that shapeshifting for a char-acter and then I realised I was doing that to myself too. I was not allowing myself the full range of my humanity.” AGENCIES

American network ‘CBS’ announced that it is chang-ing the format of ‘The Activist’

competition series to a one-time docu-mentary after the show was met with widespread backlash.

Actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas, American singer-songwriter Usher and ‘Dancing with the Stars’ star Julianne Hough were cast as judges in the reality show, which was announced last week and set for premiere on October 22.

Produced by ‘CBS’ and ‘Global Cit-izen’, the series pitted activists against each other before a panel of celebrity judges. Their success would have been judged based on their social media campaigns.

After the show was unveiled, there was an instant backlash on social media with many people labelling the series as insensitive and tone-deaf. Some called the show’s concept a ‘dystopian’ celebra-tion of ‘Insta-activism’.

In a statement recently, ‘CBS’ and producing partners ‘Global Citizen’ and ‘Live Nation’ said that they are retooling ‘The Activist’ as a one-time doc-umentary special instead of a five-episode competition series.

“‘The Activist’ was designed to show a wide audience the passion, long hours and inge-nuity that activists put into changing the world, hopefully inspir-ing others to

do the same. However, it has become apparent the format of the show as announced distracts from the vital work these incredible activists do in their communities every day. The push for global change is not a competition and requires a global effort,” they said.

The three organisations said that competitive elements have been removed and a new release date will be announced in the coming days.

“It will showcase the tireless work of six activists and the impact they have advocating for causes they deeply believe in. Each activist will be awarded a cash grant for the organisation of their choice, as was planned for the original show,” they mentioned.

The statement further stated, “We hope that by showcasing their work, we will inspire more people to become

more involved in addressing the world’s most pressing issues. We look forward to highlighting the mission and lives of each of these incred-

ible people.”According to ‘Variety’, the foot-

age for the original incarnation of the series had already been shot. However, considering the changes, filming is expected to

begin from scratch for ‘The Activist’.

‘Global Citizen’ also released a statement and

apologised for getting the show’s format ‘wrong’.

“Global activism centres on collabora-tion and cooperation, not competition. We apologise to the activ-ists, hosts and the larger activist community we got it wrong,” the organ-isation said.

It added, “It is our responsibility to use this platform in the most effective way to realise change and elevate the incredible activists dedicating their lives to progress all around the world.” PTI

Netflix’ revealed an all-star line-up for its inaugu-ral ‘TUDUM: A Netflix

Global Fan Event’, which will be attended by more than 145 stars and creators from around the world, including Madhuri Dixit,

Jennifer Aniston, Idris Elba, Jung Hae-in and Zack Snyder.

The event, which was announced in August, will be held on September 25 in a virtual format.

The offi-cial trailer of ‘TUDUM’ was also released on September 15, along with the list of the par-ticipating talent,

‘Netflix’ said in a press release.

Over 70 series, films and specials will

be featured through-out the showcase, which

borrows its name from the streaming service’s signa-ture tune.

The viewers will also get an insight into ‘Find-ing Anamika’, which marks

the digital debut of Bolly-wood star Dixit; director San-jay Leela Bhansali’s lavishly mounted web debut series

‘Heeramandi’ and Korean series ‘My Name’. Also taking part in the event will be Jonathan Bailey, Jason Bateman, Zazie Beetz, Halle Berry, Millie Bobby Brown, Manolo Car-dona and many others.

For three hours, the streamer will provide exclusive first looks, appearances from some of the big-gest stars, never-before-seen foot-age, including new trailers, from new blockbusters and returning favourite shows such as ‘Stranger Things’, ‘Bridgert

The virtual event will be broad-cast across Netflix’s ‘YouTube’ chan-nels worldwide, in addition to ‘Twitter’ and ‘Twitch’ at 9:30 pm. PTI

Black Widow’ star Scarlett Johansson, singer-song-writer Britney Spears and

actor Kate Winslet are among the celebrities who made it to the ‘Time 100’, a list of most influen-tial people of the year as per ‘Time’ magazine.

The annual list awards space to people from different fields who changed the world in some way.

Also on the list are celebrities ‘Ted Lasso’ headliner Jason Sudei-kis, rapper Lil Nas X, Oscar-win-ning director Chloe Zhao, ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ fame Dan-iel Kaluuya, Minari’s Steven Yeun along with many others.

The presence of Johansson is the result of her ongoing lawsuit with ‘Disney’, whose subsidiary ‘Marvel Studios’ has employed her in the role of Natasha Romanoff or Black Widow since 2008’s ‘Iron Man’. The bone of contention is her standalone movie’s hybrid release that she claims cost her 50 mil-lion in bonuses. Jamie Lee Cur-tis explained the reason behind Johansson’s inclusion.

“I recently watched her own the screen as the Black Widow, who exacts revenge on a powerful figure who manipulates (empha-sis on man) women to fight for him. Then I saw her brilliant response to a real-life manipula-tion (same emphasis), when she filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit

against the studio, alleging its deci-sion to release the film simultane-ously in theaters and on streaming cost her substantial losses in pay,” she wrote.

Britney Spears, who has been engaged in a legal battle of her own to end her conservatorship, also

made it to the list. Her father, Jamie Spears, has been in control of her life and finances since 2008 due to a court order in the wake of her hospitalisation and concerns about her mental health. She recently got engaged to boyfriend Sam Asghari.

Paris Hilton wrote about her, “Despite the darkness that has sur-rounded her life, Britney embod-ies joy and shares the light of her beautiful heart, forever the super-star. So, we stand by her and root for her as she turns pain into pur-pose, her unwavering spirit stron-ger than ever.” AGENCIES

Kate, Scarlett feature in ‘Time 100’ list of most

influential peopleThe annual list features people from different

fields who changed the world in some way

Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Usher and Julianne Hough were cast as judges in the reality show

‘CBS’ announces changes in the format

of ‘The Activist’

GABRIELLE UNION ON HER ROLE IN ‘BRING IT ON’

‘I do think it was a mistake’

I have developed the confidence to approach people: SunnyThe actor was part of films like ‘My Friend Pinto’ and ‘Gunday’

Madhuri, Idris and others to join ‘Netflix’ global fan event

For the second consecu-tive day, the Income Tax Department continued

its ‘survey’ operations at the home of Bollywood actor Sonu Sood, official sources said here on September 16.

A team of IT sleuths swooped on the 48-year-old’s Juhu home to carry out search operations to detect certain alleged financial irregularities.

The IT department is exam-ining bank statements, books of accounts, documents and details of financial or other business transactions during the ‘survey’, for suspected tax evasion, though no details are being shared officially.

In the operations of Sep-tember15, the IT had searched around half-a-dozen premises linked to the Bollywood actor, including offices and other properties in Mumbai and cer-tain locations in Lucknow.

Sonu Sood shot into lime-light in 2020 for arranging

free flights or luxury buses for stranded migrants during the lockdown due to Coronavirus pandemic and sent them to dif-ferent parts of India. AGENCIES

Survey operations continue at Sonu’s home

A team of IT sleuths carried out search operations to detect certain alleged financial irregularities

Also on the list are celebrities Jason Sudeikis, Lil Nas X, Chloe Zhao, Daniel Kaluuya, along with many others

The official trailer of the event was released on September 15, along with the list of the participating talent, ‘Netflix’ said in a press release