RNI No. APENG/2018/764698

VIJAYAWADA, SATURDAY MAY 30, 2020; PAGES 12 `3

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SATURDAY | MAY 30, 2020 02

Nuzvid mangoes to tickletaste buds of foreignersPNS n VIJAYAWADA

Mango lovers will vouch formouth-watering Banganapalliand it is tickling the taste budsof people not only from acrossthe nation but also foreignerswith fibre-free smooth pulp.

As many as 12 tonnes ofmouth-watering Banganpallimango variety from Nuzvidwill be exported to Londonfrom Visakhapatnam port onMay 31. Sri Sada Siva AgriTechin association with the StateHorticulture Department wasexporting Banganapalli man-goes and the container carry-ing mangoes has already start-ed from Nuzvid on May 29.The ship will start from Vizagport to London on May 31.

Sea transport is highly chal-lenging as the mangoes have to

be harvested at the right stage,packed appropriately besidesmaintaining the cold chain toensure freshness of fruits forabout 35-40 days in transit andfor marketing.

Horticulture CommissionerChiranjeevi Chowdary said,"This success will boost furtherexports from the State. Theexporter started exports byship this year on a pilot basis.If it is successful, he will export

huge quantities from next yearbecause transport cost is less. Itwill take 29 days for the ship toreach London. After that it willtake five to six days for market-ing mangoes."

In spite of the lockdown, sofar 49 tonnes of mangoes havebeen exported to the MiddleEast, Europe, New Zealandand other destinations fromTirupati and Nuzvid during thecurrent season.

The HorticultureDepartment is promotingexports by registering thefarmers in HortiNet website ofAgriculture & Processed FoodProducts Export DevelopmentAuthority (APEDA) of theCentral government and pro-viding support from produc-tion to marketing. So far 9,686farmers have registered theirnames in the HortiNet web-site.

n So far 49 tonnes ofmangoes have been

exported to theMiddle East, Europe,

New Zealand andother destinationsfrom Tirupati andNuzvid during the

current season

n The Horticulture Department ispromoting exports by registering thefarmers in HortiNet website of Agriculture& Processed Food Products ExportDevelopment Authority (APEDA) of theCentral government and providingsupport from production to marketing. Sofar 9,686 farmers have registered theirnames in the HortiNet website

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

In a major reshuffle, the gov-ernment has transferred asmany as 34 Deputy Collectorsand given postings as per theGO RT No 904 issued byPraveen Prakash, PrincipalSecretary to government, hereon Friday.

G Srinivasulu was promotedas the Deputy Collector andposted as Special DeputyCollector, SRBC, Muddanur.On promotion as the DeputyCollector, the services of AKumar are placed at the dispos-al of Consumer Affairs, Food& Civil Supplies Departmentfor posting him as the SpecialDeputy Collector (Vigilance),Civil Supplies, Guntur-I.

On promotion as DeputyCollector M Ravi Joseph wasposted as Special DeputyCollector, Naval Alternate

Operating Base,Visakhapatnam vice GSuryanarayana Reddy, DeputyCollector was transferred. Ontransfer, G SuryanarayanaReddy, SDC, NAOB,Visakhapatnam, was posted asSpecial Deputy Collector (LA),PIPRMC Unit-II, Eluru.

On promotion as the DeputyCollector, the services of AChandra Mohan are placed atthe disposal of Social WelfareDepartment for posting him asthe Executive Director, SCCorporation, Nellore. On pro-motion as the DeputyCollector, the services of SRama are placed at the dispos-al of Social Welfare (TW)Department for posting her asDistrict Tribal Welfare Officer,Kurnool.

On promotion as the DeputyCollector, A MahalakshmiDevi was posted as the

Assistant Secretary to theGovernment, RevenueDepartment, AP Secretariatvice G Vijaya Lakshmi, DeputyCollector was transferred. Ontransfer, the services of GVijaya Lakshmi, DeputyCollector, are placed at the dis-posal of Industries &Commerce Department forposting her as the ZonalManager, APIIC, Kurnool.

On promotion as the DeputyCollector, the services of C HariPrasad are placed at the dispos-al of Skill DevelopmentDepartment for posting him as

the Chief Executive Officer,ANCET, Anantapur. On pro-motion as the DeputyCollector, K Venkata Reddywas posted as the SpecialDeputy Collector (LA), TGPUnit-II, Kadapa.

On promotion as the DeputyCollector, K Anuradha is post-ed as PA to Special Collector,SSP, Kurnool On promotion asDeputy Collector, P Bhavani isposted as Deputy Collector,Legal Cell, Tirupati. On pro-motion as Deputy Collector theservices of U Rangaswamy areplaced at the disposal of

Minorities Welfare Departmentfor posting him as DistrictMinorities Welfare Officer,Chittoor. On promotion asDeputy Collector the servicesof M Surendra are placed at thedisposal of Revenue(Endowments) Department forposting him as Special DeputyCollector (Land ProtectionCell), Endowments, Tirupati.

On promotion as theDeputy Collector, K RaviShankar was posted as theSpecial Deputy Collector,KRRC, Eluru. On promotionas the Deputy Collector, NNarasimha Murthy was post-ed as PA to Special Collector(LA), PIP,Rajahmahendravaram.

On promotion as the DeputyCollector, the services of VMurali Krishna are placed at thedisposal of Industries &Commerce Department for

posting him as the ZonalManager, APIIC, Krishna.

On promotion as the DeputyCollector, the services of K SriRamani are placed at the dispos-al of Municipal Administration& Urban DevelopmentDepartment for posting her asProject Director, MEPMA, EastGodavari district. On promo-tion as the Deputy Collector, VSubba Rao was posted as theSpecial Deputy Collector &Competent Authority, GodavariGas Private Limited,Rajahmahendravaram.

On promotion as the DeputyCollector, the services of TRajagopal are placed at the dis-posal of BC Welfare Departmentfor posting him as the ExecutiveDirector, BC Corporation,Nellore. A Nishanth Reddy,Deputy Collector, was posted asthe Forest Settlement Officer,Anantapur.

34 DEPUTY COLLECTORS TRANSFERRED

PNS n TIRUPATI

Henceforth, denizens ofTirupati who are suffering fromphysical ailments can get phys-iotherapy massages and treat-ments done, not by humans butby Robots at the TTD-runBalaji Institute of Surgery,Research and Rehabilitationfor the Disabled (BIRRD) hos-pital. It may sound different buttrue!

TTD is all set to introducethe first ever Robotherapy in itsortho care Hospital of BIRRD,which is indeed first of its kindin entire South Asia.

This hi-fi therapy is aimed atproviding sophisticated treat-ment to patients by the 21st-century model robots in allTTD hospitals, initially to startwith BIRRD Hospital.

The BIRRD trust committeemeeting was held on Friday atthe Sri Padmavati Rest Housein Tirupati under theChairmanship of TTD BoardChief YV Subba Reddy, whichalso approved the proposal tocall for tenders and purchase aRobot-Assisted Gait TrainingTherapy Equipment costing Rs

5.5 crore. Apart from thisunique therapy, other impor-tant decisions pertaining toBIRRD hospital were alsotaken. The TTD trust has alsodecided that the employeesand pensioners could availcashless services and also getmedical reimbursements fromthe TTD as per their eligibili-ty. The committee approved thepurchase of 2D colour Dopplerequipment to test the blood cir-culation in the body. It alsoadvised officials to opt fordonors who could providethose equipments.

The BIRRD trust meeting

approved a proposal to appointauditors to look into IncomeTax affairs of the institution. Inyet another resolution, the trustalso approved a proposal toutilise the free services of spe-cialist doctors Dr Vidyasagar(Tirupati), Prof Krishna Reddy(Nellore), Dr Guruva Reddy(Hyderabad) on a voluntarybasis. BIRRD Committeemembers Dr M Nischita, SriShivasankaran, BIRRD directorMadan Mohan participated viavideo conferencing while TTDEO Anil Kumar Singhal andJEO P Basant Kumar attendedthe meeting.

TTD Chairman YV Subba Reddy addresses a meeting in Tirupati on Friday

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Suspended government doctorSudhakar Rao's mother KaveriBai on Friday alleged that thereis a threat to his life inGovernment Hospital forMental Health and demandedthat he be shifted to anotherhospital.

Kaveri Bai, along with otherfamily members, called on herson at the hospital, later toldreporters that he has soundhealth but by admitting him toa mental hospital, the govern-ment is trying to show that hehas lost mental balance.

They recorded an audio state-ment of Sudhakar and played itbefore the media. Stating thatwrong medicines are being pre-scribed for him, he said hefeared for his life in the hospi-tal. She said the governmentacted with vengeance to firstsuspend and then ill-treat andhumiliate his son for raising theissue of lack of PersonalProtection Equipments (PPEs)for doctors treating Covid-19patients.

Kaveri Bai said they had no

trust in the government anddemanded that Sudhakarshould not be administeredmedicines till the High Courtdecides on his petition. She feelsthat her son's life is in great dan-ger. She slammed JaganmohanReddy government for brand-ing her son a Telugu DesamParty (TDP) man for raising theissue of PPEs and suspendinghim.

Sudhakar had filed a petitionin the High Court on Thursday,seeking direction to the govern-

ment to shift him to anotherhospital. He also alleged thatwrong medicines were beingadministered to him leading toserious side-effects.

He said he was forced to takeantipsychotic medicationsdespite having no illness. Hesought directions to shift him toprivate hospital and requestedthat he be treated under thesupervision of the High Court.

The High Court on May 22had ordered probe by theCentral Bureau of Investigation

into Dr Sudhakar's arrest andalleged manhandling by policein Visakhapatnam on May 16.

The court asked the CBI toprobe and filed the investigationreport within eight weeks andbook cases againstVisakhapatnam police officers,who allegedly used excessiveforce while taking Dr Sudhakarinto custody.

Earlier, on the direction of theHigh Court, Visakhapatnamsessions judge had personallyvisited the GovernmentHospital for Mental Health andrecorded the doctor's state-ment.

Sudhakar Rao, civil assistantsurgeon, Area Hospital,Narsipatnam, was suspendedtwo months ago after he pub-licly criticised the governmentfor failing to provide PPEs,N95 masks to the doctors treat-ing Covid-19 patients.

He was arrested by the policein Visakhapatnam on May 16for allegedly creating nuisanceon the road at Akkayapalem.

The policemen allegedlymanhandled the doctor, whowas seen shirtless to the waist,

dragged him and bundled himinto an auto-rickshaw. He wasshifted to King GeorgeHospital, where doctors foundhim in an inebriated condition.He was subsequently referredto Government Hospital forMental Health, where he wasunder treatment for acute andtransient psychosis.

The police booked the doc-tor under the Indian PenalCode Sections 353 (assault orcriminal force to deter publicservant from discharge of hisduty) and 427 (mischief caus-ing damage to the amount ofRs 50).

Police claimed that as thedoctor could have endangeredhis own life, he was taken intocustody and since he was in aninebriated condition, he wasshifted to KGH for an alcoholtest.

The video clips of policetying the doctor's hands behindhim, dragging and manhan-dling him triggered outragewith the opposition parties,doctors' associations and Dalitgroups condemning the policeaction.

Dr Sudhakar's mother sees threat to his life

Kaveri Bai,mother of Dr Sudhakar, addresses the media in Vizag on Friday

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

For the first time in almost twoweeks, the State reported a sig-nificant dip in daily tally ofnew Coronavirus cases onFriday with 33 more patientsin the last 24 hours. It is farlower than 54 new casesreported in the preceding 24-hour cycle.

In fact, the last time the Statehas reported a single-day tallylower than Friday's figure was25 cases reported on May 17.

The number of active caseshas now fallen to 777. Withdeath of one Coronaviruspatient in Kurnool district,the death toll touched 60 onFriday morning.

Friday's tally included sixpersons that had travel histo-ry to the Koyambedu marketin Chennai. While Chittoordistrict reported four new

cases, Nellore district report-ed two.

The Nodal Officer reportedthat the State's total now standsat 2,874 as of 10 am on Friday.Andhra Pradesh's tally ofpatients among foreignreturnees remains unchangedat 111 since Wednesday.

As many as 79 patients weredischarged from hospitals onFriday, taking the tally of curedpatients to 2,037 in the State.

The officer reported that11,638 samples were testedduring the past 24 hours asagainst 9,858 tested duringthe preceding cycle.

As per data available tillThursday, the State's average interms of tests conducted permillion population stands at6,409, below Delhi's 9,454,and Jammu and Kashmir's10,753. However, in terms oftests conducted, AndhraPradesh with 34,22,236 tests tillThursday lags behindRajasthan's 3,46,427 tests,Maharashtra's 4,05,020 tests,and Tamil Nadu's 4,42,320. Atotal of 33,62,136 tests haebeen conducted across India.

On Thursday, AndhraPradesh's mortality rate of1.82 per cent ranked 12thamong all the states.

Meanwhile, coronaviruscases among returnees fromother states climbed to 345from 293. However, the tally ofactive cases fell to 156, as 22persons were discharged onFriday.

Dip in daily tally of newCorona cases in State

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Assistant food controllerPoornachandra Rao warnedthe shopkeepers of sternaction if they sell expiredfood to consumers.

Officials of the Food SafetyAuthority inspected variousice cream shops in the city onFriday and found stale icecreams, which are being soldafter the expiry date.

Food officers inspectedCream & Stone, Temptationice creams parlours in the cityand found the expired icecreams. The managementswere told to throw away thestale ice creams. He warnedthe management of bakeries,sweet shops, shopping mallsand ice cream shops of sternaction if they sell the foodafter the expiry date.

Expired icecream foundin shops

MinisterdistributesvehiclesPNS n VIJAYAWADA

Home Minister MekathotiSucharita urged the beneficia-ries to avail units given onconcession to create self-employment and benefit. Shedistributed Innova and EtiosLiva cars to the beneficiariesthrough SC Corporation at aprogramme at theCollectorate here on Friday.

Speaking on the occasion,she urged the beneficiaries torepay the loans within thestipulated time. "After YSRCPcame to power, they are giv-ing Rs 8.5-lakh worth cargovehicle to the drivers." Sheurged the beneficiaries toavail the opportunity provid-ed by the government.

Minister for AgricultureMarketing Mopidevi VenkataRamana Rao said that thegovernment is giving Innova,Etios vehicles on subsidy tolet the drivers own vehicles.They distributed eightInnova,15 Etios Liva vehiclesto the beneficiaries.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The government will launchLiquor and Drug De-addictionCentres across the State inorder to bring back those whoare addicted to alcohol anddrugs. In this regard, ChiefMinister YS JaganmohanReddy launched digital plat-form centres at the camp officehere on Friday.

On the occasion, KritikaShukla, Director, WomenDevelopment, Child Welfareand Senior Citizens WelfareDepartment, has announcedthe details of the De-addictionCentres. While the ChiefMinister has conducted areview of the medical andhealth department as part of‘Mana Palana-Mee Suchana’programme.

Chief Secretary NeelamSawhney, Women

Development, Child Welfare,Differently abled, SeniorCitizens Welfare DepartmentSecretary Damayanthi, SpecialChief Secretary Health andFamily Welfare KS JawaharReddy and Health Director KBhaskar were also present.

The establishment andmaintenance of these centreshave become a priority in thewake of the CM's decision to

implement the liquor ban in aphased manner. Speaking onthe occasion, Kritika Shuklasaid: "We are setting up Liquorand

Drug De-addiction Centres

in 15 government hospitalsand will spend Rs 4.98 croreper year to manage them".

The de-addiction centreswill be set up at GovernmentGeneral Teaching Hospital -Srikakulam, District Hospital- Vizianagaram, King GeorgeHospital - Visakhapatnam,District Hospital - Paderu,District Hospital -Rajahmundry, GovernmentGeneral Hospital - Kakinada,District Hospital - Eluru,Government General Hospital– Vijayawada, GovernmentGeneral Hospital - Guntur,Government General Hospital- Ongole, DSR GovernmentGeneral Hospital – Nellore,Government General Hospital– Kadapa, GovernmentGeneral Hospital - Kurnool,Government General Hospital- Ananthapur, GovernmentGeneral Hospital - Tirupati.

De-addiction centres to come upn The establishment and

maintenance of thesecentres have become apriority in the wake of theCM's decision toimplement the liquor banin a phased manner

n Director, WomenDevelopment, ChildWelfare and SeniorCitizens WelfareDepartment Kritika Shuklasaid: "We will spend Rs4.98 crore per year tomanage De-addictioncentres"

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Minister for Women andChild welfare Taneti Vanithasang paeans to Chief MinisterYS Jaganmohan Reddy forinducting three women intothe Cabinet and giving achance to a Dalit woman asthe Home Minister and aTribal woman as the DeputyChief Minister.

Speaking on the occasion,she said that the ChiefMinister has given nominat-ed posts to women. To sup-port the women, Disha Actwas brought and liquor banwill be imposed in a phasedmanner, and in the first phase20 per cent liquor shops wereremoved.

During the lockdown, zero-interest loans were providedto Dwcra groups as per thepromise given by the ChiefMinister, she said and addedthat house sites for the poorwill be distributed in thename of women.

She recalled that the TDPgovernment had promisedloan waiver to Dwcra womenand deceived them and alsosent notices from the banks.While the YSRCP govern-ment was implementing wel-fare schemes to benefit thepeople, but the Oppositionparties are criticising andspreading false informationabout the schemes and con-fusing people, she alleged.

The YSRCP governmenthas fulfilled about 90 percent promises in the firstyear only, she said andexpressed her happiness towork under his governance.Schemes are implemented tobenefit pregnant women, lac-tating mothers and childrenby providing nutritious food.She thanked the ChiefMinister on behalf of womenin the State on the occasion.

Minister forWomen and Childwelfare TanetiVanitha recalledthat the TDPgovernment hadpromised loanwaiver to Dwcrawomen anddeceived them

In a major reshuffle, the governmenthas transferred as many as 34 DeputyCollectors and given postings as per theGO RT No 904 issued by PraveenPrakash, Principal Secretary to govt

Current Weather ConditionsUpdated May 29, 2020 5:00 PM

ALMANAC TODAY

Month & Paksham:Jyeshtha & Shukla PakshaPanchangamTithi : Ashtami: 07:56 pmNakshatram: Magha: 06:02 am,Purva Phalguni: 04:42 am (Next Day)Time to Avoid: (Bad time to start

any important work)Rahukalam: 08:59 am – 10:36 amYamagandam: 01:51 pm – 03:28 pmVarjyam: 01:36 pm – 03:06 pmGulika: 05:44 am - 07:22 amGood Time: (to start any important work)Amritakalam: 10:40 am – 12:10 amAbhijit Muhurtham: 11:47 am – 12:39 pm

VIJAYAWADAWEATHERFFoorreeccaasstt:: SunnyTemp: 42/30Humidity: 62%Sunrise: 05.41Sunset: 06.46

Amway, ITClaunch B NaturalbeveragesPNS n VIJAYAWADA

In a unique partnership, ITCand Amway India have collab-orated to launch the first of itskind B Natural beverages rangefor their consumers.

Commenting on this uniquepartnership, Hemant Malik,Divisional Chief Executive -Foods Division, ITC Limited,said: “We are committed todeveloping world class Indianproducts that address the needsof the Indian consumers.Given the current health crisis,immunity of the entire familyhas emerged as a key consumerpriority and B Natural proac-tively spearheaded the endeav-our of providing an effectivefruit beverage range this sum-mer.”

Robotic physiotherapy at TTD Hospital

Jagan striving for womenempowerment, says minister

VIJAYAWADA, SATURDAY MAY 30, 2020; PAGES 12 `3

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Established 1864

Jagan mulls new Ordinance as HC reinstates Ramesh Kumar PNS n HYDERABAD

Hyderabad: The AndhraPradesh Government is learntto be looking at the possibiliytof re-issuing an Ordinancemaking an amendment to APPanchayat Raj Act reducing thetenure of the State ElectionCommissioner from five tothree years and appointing ahigh court official of the rankof judicial officer as SEC inplace of bureaucrats.

The is believed to be a fall-out of the AP High Courtstriking down theOrdinance promul-gated by the AP gov-ernment last monthto remove SECN i m m a g a d d a

Ramesh Kumar by reducinghis tenure.

According to highly placedsources, Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy held con-sultations with legal experts onFriday to review the HighCourt judgment and decide onthe future course of action.

It is reliably learntthat Jagan askedofficials toexplore the pos-sibility of re-issuing theOrdinance by

addressing the loopholes in theone issued on April 10.

It was felt in the meeting thatthe issue of financial compen-sation was not addressed in theearlier Ordinance while reduc-ing the tenure of SEC from fiveyears to three years. In the newOrdinance to be issued a clauseextending financial compensa-tion to the SEC in lieu of lossof two-year tenure would beincorporated.

Legal experts felt that caus-ing financial loss to peopleserving government or consti-tutional bodies by tweakingservice rules in the middle ofthe tenure would land in legaltangles and it should be recti-fied in the new Ordinance.

PG med rules a boonfor reserved categoryPNS n VIJAYAWADA

The PG medical admissionrules introduced in the formof a GO on Friday by the APGovernment are being seen asa major boon for BC, SC andST students. According to thenew rules, in case meritoriousreserved candidates, who gotseat in PG medical course inthe merit list, leaves the seatand takes up admission inanother course or college, theseat vacated would be filledwith the same reserved catego-ry instead of being allotted tothe next rank holder.

Principal Secretary Medicaland Health Dr KS JawaharReddy on Thursday issued aGO in this regard. The deci-sion was taken in the light ofthe civil appeal No. 157 and158 decided by the SC in2018.

In case reserved categorycandidates who get seats inmedical PG courses underopen category desire to switchto another broad speciality, theseat vacated by the meritoriousreserved candidate would befilled with the candidate of thesame category.

Shah discussesextension oflockdown with CMPNS n VIJAYAWADA

Union Home Minister AmitShah on Friday interactedwith Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy on thetelephone in the wake of‘Lockdown 4.0’ coming to anend on Sunday, May 31. Thetwo are said to have discussedthe issue of lockdown and itsextension besides Covid-19preventive measures.

The CM is said to havebriefed Shah on the relentlessinitiatives being taken up bythe state government for con-taining Covid-19 in AP.

Rs 10,000allowance to barbers,

tailors and dhobis whohave shops

MSMEs secondinstalment of

Rs 450 cr release

YSRVahanaMitra

English Medium schools

YSRRythu Bharosa

YSR NethannaNestham

Gems ofJagan

Legal options explored to keep Nimmagadda away

WILL COVID DERAILTHE WELFAREAGENDA, AND THENINE GEMS

COMMON ENEMY, GOALS KEEP YSRCP-BJP BONHOMIE ALIVE

A CRIME-FREE YEAR

4

44

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

For the YSRCP government,the first year of its five-yearterm has been nothing but arollercoaster ride, with moreups than downs.

It literally swept to power,winning a massive marginand leaving the decades-oldTDP reeling, on the back ofits promise of Navaratnalu, orthe nine gems. Once in power,he wasted no time in imple-menting the promises hemade to the people during hismarathon padayatra.

YSRCP leaders repeatedlyclaim that the party has ful-filled 90 per cent of thepromises mentioned in itsmanifesto, and these claimsmay well be true.

However, it was the drive tokeep the promis-es, some-thing fewpoliticiansdo, especial-ly after theystorm topower, that has earned Jaganmassive goodwill.

Combined with this good-will is the fact that he is beingseen as someone who notonly announces schemes butmakes efforts to ensure thatthe benefits percolate to theintended beneficiaries.

This perception has somebasis, according to YSRCPbigwigs. The village secretari-at and village volunteer sys-tems have not only ensuredpensions reach the peopleon time, but also convey the

message to the beneficiariesthat the administration iswithin their reach. Thismessage is amplified bythe Spandana pro-gramme.

While theNavaratnalu covermost of the popu-lace, the relativelylow crime rate inthe state in the lastone year — instark contrast tothe claims beforethe election thatthe YSRCP wouldbring ‘faction pol-itics’ to all cornersof the state — havealso earned brown-ie points for Jagan.

Suffice to say, theJ a g a ng ov e r n -ment hasbeen onthe markwhen it

comes to law andorder. The crowningglory for the govern-ment has been theDisha Act that hasearned it appreciationfrom all quarters, and theDisha police stations.Also, it has remaineduntainted by allegations ofa scam.

All things considered, thefirst one year can be describedas a success on a number ofcounts, and the YSRCP gov-ernment appears to be look-ing at the next four very pos-itively.

CM OF THE HAVE-NOTS!

REPORTSON

PAGE 12

Amma VodiVidya

Deevenaand Vasathi

Deevena

SATURDAY | MAY 30, 2020 04

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The State government hasaccorded administrative sanc-tion for calling the tenders forthe proposed development ofthe state highways and majordistrict roads in the Phase-1works to be undertaken in 12districts throughout the Statewith an assistance of Rs2,978.51 crore from the NewDevelopment Bank.

The invited tenders weresent for scrutiny to JudicialPreview by Justice Dr BSivasankar Rao ,Nayeemullah, chief engineerof the R&B, said in a state-ment here on Friday.

It may be recalled that theState government appointedJudicial Preview to scrutiniseall the works that cost morethan Rs 100 crore in anattempt to achieve trans-parency in the tender process.

The tenders were placed inthe official website of theJudicial Preview www.judi-cialpreview.ap.gov.in seekingsuggestions and objectionsfrom the contractors and thegeneral public. The tenderswould be on the websitefrom May 28 to June 5 for theconvenience of the publicwho may forward their sug-gestions on the website.

Highway tenderssent to JudicialPreview

PNS n SRIKALAHASTI

Venkataramana, a barber livingin the Project Street of the tem-ple town, committed suicide byhanging himself unable to finda way to wriggle himself out ofthe family debts, reports said onFriday. On account of the lock-down, his livelihood had beenaffected and he could not con-fine himself to his home.Therefore, he is said to havetaken the extreme step.

Srikalahasti recorded thehighest number of Coronaviruscases in Chittoor district andthere was a spike in the numberof cases because of the migrantworkers who returned to thetemple town from Koyambedu

market in Tamil Nadu. Manyemployees drafted for Coronaprevention duty also tested pos-itive for the virus.

The officials declared the tem-ple town as containment zone asdaily tens of cases are beingreported. For the past 66 days,severe curbs have been placed onthe temple town.

The possibility of shops get-ting reopened is very slim.Venkataramana managed tillnow by borrowing money fromfriends and relatives.

Unable to generate new loansand not able to pay interest onborrowings, Venkataramanafound it difficult to sustain fur-ther and took the extreme step.

CH PRADEEP KUMARn VIJAYAWADA

Reminding that anyone whoseincome is below Rs 5 lakh perannum can avail Arogyasriservices, Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy on Fridaysaid that 1.42 crore peoplehave been brought under thepurview of the scheme.

Jagan was addressing abrainstorming session on themedical and healthcare infra-structure in the state as part of‘Mana Paalana-Mee Suchana’(Our Governance-YourSuggestions) here where hesaid that the State governmenthas gone the extra mile to bringquality medicare within thereach of poor and has builtinfrastructure from rural levelupwards.

The Chief Minister said thatthe State has been doing excep-tionally well in containingCovid-19 vis-à-vis nationalaverage.

He said that the servicesunder Aarogyasri can also beavailed at super specialty hos-pitals in Chennai, Bengaluru,and Hyderabad. "We have alsoincluded cancer and speech

therapy in the list of Arogyasriservices,” Jagan said.

The Chief Minister saidgrades had been given to net-work hospitals and all the B-graded network hospitalsshould improve their serviceswithin six months. “The pen-sions to the patients, who aresuffering from nine chronicdiseases, have been increasedfrom Rs 3,000 to Rs 10,000.The number of types of med-icines, which match the WorldHealth Organisation (WHO)standards and sold at govern-ment hospitals, has been

increased from 230 to 500. Asof now, we have conductedeye tests on 70 lakh studentsin the state and distributedspectacles to 1.29 lakh stu-dents. Also, eye tests will beconducted for the elderly peo-ple across the state in twophases under the ‘YSR KantiVelugu’ scheme,” Jagan said.

He said that under ‘Nadu-Nedu’ (Then and Now) pro-gramme, to boost health infra-structure in the state, 16 moreteaching hospitals and sevensuper-specialty hospitals underITDA will be set up across the

state in the next three years."At the village level, YSR

Village clinics will be set upacross the state at one clinic forevery 2,000 people. About 3,000YSR village and ward clinicswill be ready for operation byMarch 2021 and also works areunder progress to improvefacilities at 1,138 existing PHCs.This apart, 52 regional hospi-tals will also be set up. A totalof Rs 14,000 crore will beexpended under the ‘NaduNedu’ program. Also, 1,060brand-new 104 and 108 ambu-lances will be flagged off on July1," he added.

He also said that the notifi-cation for the recruitment of9,712 doctors, nurses, andparamedical staff will be issuedin a week.

As part of measures to con-tain the spread of coronavirusin the state, "We have set up 13laboratories in the state in aperiod of 70 days. AndhraPradesh stood first in thecountry in conducting Covid-19 tests. Tests were conductedon 6,627 samples per millionand we have set up five Covid-19 hospitals in the state,” theChief Minister said.

Debt-ridden barber intemple town ends life PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Expressing displeasure over thefee structure for medical anddental courses approved by thegovernment, the AndhraPradesh Private Medical andDental Colleges Management'sAssociation (APPMDCMA) onFriday decided to withdraw fromDr NTR University of HealthSciences counselling process foradmission to PG Medical andDental Courses and not to admitstudents to PG Courses for theacademic year 2020- 2021.

In a letter to the Special ChiefSecretary ( Health and FamilyWelfare Department) AndhraPradesh, Secretary of APPMD-CMA, Ganni Kasimbi, men-tioned that the fee structure forpost graduates students ofMedical and Dental courses is

almost 40 per cent and 60 percent respectively below the fee invogue for the past four years.

Kasimbi mentioned that thegovernment has also not takeninto the account, the expenditureincurred on various servicesprovided to the students, depre-ciation values on equipment,infrastructure, horticulture andother maintenance cost of theinstitution.

He further said that the totalannual fee per student does notamount to even 20 per cent of thestipend paid to the student inpre-clinical subjects and 40 per-cent in para clinical subjects.

The private Unaided Non-Minority Medical and DentalColleges in the State are goingthrough a very difficult perioddue to COVID-19 pandemic.The hospitals of private institu-

tions are taken over by the gov-ernment for providing services tothe COVID-19 patients. Thenon- COVID-19 patients are notadmitted and no revenue is get-ting generated from the hospitals,he added. The Andhra Pradeshgovernment on Friday fixed thefee structure for PG MedicalCourses of all specialties in pri-vate Unaided Non- Minorityand Minority colleges for theblock period 2020-21 to 2022- 23Details

FOR CLINICAL DEGREE,the fee is Rs 4.32 lakh ( Category- A Convener Quota) while it isRs 8.64 lakh ( Category- BManagement Quota) and Rs 50lakh ( Category- C NRI/Institutional Quota)

FOR PARA CLINICALDEGREE AND DIPLOMA, the

fee is Rs 1.35 lakh ( Category- A)while it is Rs 2.7 lakh ( Category-B) and Rs15 lakh ( Category- C)

FOR PRE CLINICALDEGREE, the fee is Rs61, 200 (Category- A), Rs 1, 22, 400 (Category- B) and Rs 8 lakh(Category-C)

The Andhra Pradesh gov-ernment is also fixed the feestructure for the PG DentalCourses in Private Un-aidedNon- Minority Colleges for theblock period 2020-21 to 2022-23.

FOR CLINICAL DEGREE,the fee is Rs 2.97 lakh forCategory- A while it is Rs 5.94lakh for Category-B and Rs 12lakh for Category-C

FOR PARA CLINICALDEGREE, the fee is Rs 2.67 lakhfor Category A while it is Rs4.34lakh for Category- B and Rs 7lakh for Category-C.

Arogyasri now covers 1.42crore people, says Jagan

Fee structure irks Pvt Medical Colleges Assn

PNS n AMARAVATI

BJP Rajya Sabha MemberSatyanarayana Chowdary onFriday said that the High Courtjudgment reinstatingNimmagadda Ramesh Kumaras the State ElectionCommissioner has lowered theimage of the government in theeyes of the public.

A series of High Court ver-dicts that went against the gov-ernment proved that there wasno administration in the State,he said. Ignoring the verdicts,Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy was conducting like adictator, he remarked.

He advised the CM to realisethe fact there are some limita-tions imposed even for the CMin a democratic setup.

The Indian Constitution does

not allow the CM to conducthimself as he liked on thegrounds that the ruling partyhas 151 MLAs, he said.

There is enough time for

Jagan to play politics, he saidexhorting him to focus ondevelopment of the State, hesaid. The government decisionon curtailing term of SECabruptly was unilateral, he saidadding that anyone should ruleapolitically as per the tenets ofthe Indian Constitution.

It was high-time forJaganmohan Reddy to stop pol-iticking and set the derailedeconomy back on the rails, hesuggested. Development of theState has been affected andindustries are turning away fromthe State, he said advising thebureaucrats to think twice beforeendorsing important decisions.

‘HC verdict on SEC lowered govt's image’

Govt willapproach SC,says AmbatiPNS n VIJAYAWADA

YSRCP MLA AmbatiRambabu said that the gov-ernment will approach theSupreme Court on the HighCourt’s order directing thegovernment to reinstateRamesh Kumar as the StateElection Commissioner.

He said, "We will respectthe court's orders and alsoappeal to the High Court, ifthere were any objections inthe orders."

Speaking to media personshere on Friday, he said JusticeKanakaraju was appointedas the SEC in place ofNimmagadda Prasadthrough the ordinance ofreducing the tenure of SECfrom five years to three years.But in some cases, justice maynot be served and there is apossibility of moving to theapex court and they havebeen consulting judicialexperts in this regard, hesaid.

He also questioned thatwhy should one resign if thecourt's verdicts are against thegovernment. He remindedthat the court had given ver-dicts against N ChandrababuNaidu when he was at thehelm as the Chief Minister.

TDP welcomes HCdecision on SECPNS n VIJAYAWADA

Terming the High Court verdictas a big blow to ruling YSRCP,the TDP stated that govern-ment should learn lessons fromthe court's judgments and stopcrippling the independent insti-tutions like ElectionCommission and others.

Revoking the government'sordinance of removing StateElection Commissioner NRamesh Kumar as a big victo-ry for democracy, said Leaderof Opposition in LegislativeCouncil YanamalaRamakrishnudu, in a state-ment on Friday.

He asserted that ChiefMinister YS JaganmohanReddy and his governmentshould duly respect the court'sorder and allow Ramesh Kumarto discharge his duties withoutfurther hurdles. This ordergave a big blow to the anti-peo-ple and anti-democratic policiesof YSRCP, he said and addedthat Jagan rule has initiatedundemocratic programmes likethe forcible imposition ofEnglish medium in schools,cancellation of mother tongue,YSRCP flag colours to govern-ment buildings, non-paymentof NREGS bills, intimidation of

solar power companies, unilat-eral suspension of officials andso on.

Salaries were not paid formonths, assigned lands wereforcibly snatched, social mediaactivists were harassed andrestrictions were placed on themedia. TTD lands were pro-posed to be sold away.

He said that almost all vic-tims of Jagan policies wereapproaching the courts, whichwere coming to their rescuefinally. Former minister KSJawahar suggested to theYSRCP that it should no longerdrag on the legal issue by goingto the Supreme Court andfocus on correcting its mistakesin the best interests of the peo-ple.

Jagan should realise that hewas insulting the Constitutionand Ambedkar by trying to per-manently remove a constitu-tionally appointed SEC.

TDP Politburo MemberVarla Ramaiah suggested to thegovernment advisors to advisethe Chief Minister to step downfollowing the court's disap-proval of his action. He said thatthe High Court saved democ-racy in the State and renewedpeople's faith in theConstitution.

71 Shramik Special trains divertedbetween May 21-24: ChairmanPNS n NEW DELHI

Facing criticism over divertingthe Shramik Special trainsthrough longer routes withoutintimating the passengers,Chairman Railway Board V.K.Yadav on Friday refuted theclaims that the trains "lost" theirways and said that 71 trains werediverted out of the total 3,840Shramik Specials run so far.

He said only four trainswere delayed by over 72 hoursto reach their destinationssince railways started operat-ing on May 1. Addressing apress conference here, Yadavalso said that 90 per cent ofthese migrant trains ran withan average speed higher thanregular mail express trains.

"From 20-24 May, 71 trainswere diverted because of highdemand for trains to UP, Bihar,where 90 per cent trains weregoing from across the country,"Yadav said, adding that out ofwhich only four were delayedmore than 72 hours to reachtheir destination. He said thatamong the destination-statesfor which the trains werediverted were Bihar (51), UttarPradesh (16), Jharkhand (2),Assam and Manipur (1 each).

He said among the originat-ing-states for which trains

were diverted includedMaharashtra, Gujarat,Karnataka, Rajasthan. Theclarifications came amid crit-icism over delays that themigrant trains were getting"lost" before reaching theirdestinations and passengerstaking to social media criticis-ing the national transporter fordelays in their journey.

The Chairman said that tillMay 28, 3,840 ShramikSpecials have been operatedthat ferried a total of 52 lakhpassengers. He further saidthat 1,524 Shramik trains oper-ated in last one week and over20 lakh passengers were fer-ried. "Railways has accommo-dated almost all requestsreceived from the sendingstates and we are ready to meetall demand of Shramik move-

ments," he said, adding "as ofnow we have demand foraround 492 trains".

When asked about the totalnumber of deaths of passen-gers while travelling in theShramik Special trains, he saidthat the national transporterwas compiling a list of peoplewho died on the trains as heurged everyone with pre-exist-ing health conditions, pregnantwomen and the aged to avoidunnecessary travel.

The railways has faced crit-icism after a video of toddlertrying to wake his dead moth-er at Bihar's Muzaffarpur rail-way station on May 25. Thewoman was travelling toKatihar from a ShramikSpecial train that has started itsjourney from Gujarat'sAhmedabad.

Jagan mulls newOrdinance as HCreinstates Ramesh Kumar

Continued from Page 1

Legal experts have also point-ed out some more "legal flaws"in the old Ordinance which willbe rectified and a freshOrdinance will be re-issuedvery soon.

It may be recalled that APgovernment on April 10 makingan amendment to AP PanchayatRaj Act reducing the tenure ofthe SEC from five to three yearsand appointing a High Courtofficial of judicial officer rank asSEC in place of bureaucrats.

Within a day of the issuanceof the ordinance, the govern-ment appointed Madras HighCourt retired judge, Justice VKanagaraj, as the SEC and hetook charge immediately.

The position of Kanagaraj inthe wake of the latest High Courtjudgment is not immediatelyknown.

The High Court delivered thejudgment after prolonged hear-ing of a batch of petitions,including those of RameshKumar who challenged hisremoval and that of TeluguDesam Party leader VarlaRamaiah, BJP leader KamineniSrinivas and former minister

Vadde Sobhanadreeshwar Rao.The High Court ruled that the

state government had no pow-ers to promulgate the Ordinanceunder Article 213 of theConstitution in the given cir-cumstances.

The Jagan government choseto remove Kumar through ordi-nance route, after the officialissued a notification on March15 for the postponement oflocal body elections scheduledto be held in the last week of thatmonth citing the Coronaviruspandemic as the reason.

Jagan accused Kumar of col-luding with the Telugu DesamParty since the official belongedto the same caste as TDP pres-ident N Chandrababu Naidu.

PG med rules aboon for...

Continued from Page 1

For example, when a BC can-didate who got seat in generalmedicine opted for radiologycourse, the seat vacated by thiscandidate was used to be filledwith next rank holder. As perthe latest decision, the seat willbe filled with another BC can-didate. The government deci-sion benefits the reserved cate-gory students most. Earlier,when BC candidates who gotsets in open category sought toseek admission in another spe-ciality, it went to the next rankholder, who may or may not bea BC candidate. The Governme-nt asked the NTR Health Uni-versity to adopt the new rules infilling the PG medical seats tobe held soon. The orders indi-cated that the rule of reservationshould be adhered to strictly.

Continued from Page 1

Jagan is also believed tohave highlighted the stategovernment’s approach inconducting the Covid-19tests on a massive scale in thestate.

Amit Shah is said to haveelicited the opinion of Jaganon the issue of extension oflockdown in view of manyother Chief Ministersfavouring the lockdown tobe in place for another two

weeks. Later in the day, theUnion Home Minister alsoheld a crucial meeting withPrime Minister NarendraModi on the issue and thetwo are said to have arrivedat an in-principle decision onthe way forward for tacklingthe dreaded virus in thecountry.

The two are said to havetaken into consideration thevaried opinions expressed byChief Ministers of variousstates.

There is speculation thatthe Centre may opt forextension of the shutdown inthe name of ‘Lockdown 5.0,for two more weeks whileannouncing more relax-ations to a few other sectorsto keep the wheel of theeconomy running.

According to sources,Modi is likely to announceLockdown 5.0 in his MannKi Baat radio address onSunday, the last day ofLockdown 4.0.

Shah discusses extensionof lockdown with CM

The HC ruled thatthe state govern-ment had nopowers to promu-lgate the Ordina-nce under Article213 of the Consti-tution in the givencircumstances

HC scraps Ordinance, reinstatesRamesh Kumar as SECPNS n VIJAYAWADA

In a blow to the YS JaganmohanReddy government, the AndhraPradesh High Court on Fridaystruck down an Ordinancepromulgated on April 10 cur-tailing the tenure of the StateElection Commissioner fromfive to three years.

A division bench of theHigh Court comprising ChiefJustice JK Maheshwari andJustice M SatyanarayanaMurthy also quashed aGovernment Order appointingretired judge V Kanagaraj asthe new State ElectionCommissioner and reinstatedas SEC Nimmagadda RameshKumar, who had come underattack from the Chief Ministerafter the bureaucrat postponedlocal body elections citingCovid-19 pandemic.

Justice V Kanagaraj, a retiredjudge of the Madras HighCourt, had assumed charge asthe SEC on April 11, replacingRamesh Kumar, who wasappointed during the previousTDP rule.

The High Court deliveredthe judgment on a batch of writpetitions, including the one bythe aggrieved Ramesh Kumar,challenging the Ordinance andthe appointment of a new SEC.

Former Ministers Vadde

Sobhanadreswara Rao andKamineni Srinivas were amongthe 12 others who had also filedwrit petitions against the cur-tailing the tenure of the SEC.

Pronouncing its verdict on13 petitions challengingRamesh Kumar's removal, thedivision bench ruled that theState government did not havethe power to issue an ordinanceunder Section 213 of theConstitution.

“The court ruled that thestate government did not havethe authority to curtail thetenure of the SEC. It also setaside the appointment of thenew SEC. The court consideredall our arguments in thisregard,” senior advocateJandhyala Ravi Shankar, whoappeared on behalf of one ofthe petitioners, said.

The YSR Congress Party gov-

ernment on April 10 abruptlyremoved Ramesh Kumar fromthe post by promulgating theOrdinance, amending the APPanchayat Raj Act, 1994, curtail-ing the tenure of the SEC tothree years from five.

The developments came inthe backdrop of a feud theChief Minister picked up withthe SEC after the latter post-poned the elections to ruraland urban local bodies onMarch 15 in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jagan attacked RameshKumar in the name of caste andcomplained against him to theGovernor. The state govern-ment subsequently filed a peti-tion in the Supreme Courtchallenging the SECs decisionbut the apex court endorsed thedeferment of polls.

The HC deliveredthe judgment on abatch of writpetitions, includingthe one by theaggrieved RameshKumar, challengingthe Ordinance andthe appointment ofa new SEC

Hyd sizzles at43oC, no respitedespite rainsPNS n HYDERABAD

Hyderabad sizzled with heat at 43degrees Centigrade on Friday andsame temperature will continue onSaturday. Even though there possi-bility of rain or thundershower theday temperature remain 41-43degrees Centigrade over the nextthree days. In Telangana, Heat Wavelike conditions have been observedat a few places over North TelanganaDistricts. Highest Maximum tem-perature of 46.0 degrees Centigraderecorded at Jannaram (Mancherial)on Friday.

SATURDAY | MAY 30, 2020 nation 05SHORT READS

Recovery rate afterCOVID-19 highest inTN, says CMCHENNAI: Averring that therate of recovery aftersuccessful treatment forCOVID-19 in Tamil Nadu stoodat 54.4 per cent, the highest inIndia, Chief Minister KPalaniswami on Fridayslammed opposition partiesfor faulting his government oncontaining the lethal virus. Hesaid that ever since the firstCoronavirus case wasdetected (in early March), hisgovernment swung into actionand launched appropriatemeasures to contain thespread of the virus, besidestaking up screening andtreatment on a war footing. "Itis wrong to say that ourgovernment has failed tocontain the virus. From dayone we stepped up our vigiland took prompt measures tominimise the loss of lives,"Palaniswami said.

No govt approvalneeded for COVID-19tests: Gujarat HC

Lockdown: Jain monksseek easing of travelnorms for ChaturmasTHANE: Jain monks, who haveset out on foot for the annualChaturmas festival, which isheld in July, have approachedChief Minister UddhavThackeray seeking easing oftravel restrictions amid theCOVID-19 lockdown. In amemorandum to the ChiefMinister, general secretary ofthe state Congress Committeepresident Suman Agarwal putforth the requirements ofhundreds of sadhus andsadhvis who walk barefoot todifferent states for the annualfestival, a release stated. In therelease, Agarwal said she hassought proper arrangementsfor sadhus and sadhvis duringtheir travel, which starts onemonth before the start of theChaturmas fast. In fact, severalof them had already startedwalking along on the highwaysin the state and would becovering the distance toGujarat, Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh, Uttar Pradesh,Karnataka, among other stateson foot, she said.

AHMEDABAD: In a relief toprivate doctors and people,the Gujarat High Court onFriday said that there was noneed to take approval of thegovernment for carrying outcoronavirus tests if doctorsrecommend it. TheAhmedabad MedicalAssociation (AMA) hadapproached the high courtagainst a Gujarat governmentorder, which prohibits privatedoctors and hospitals fromconducting COVID-19 testswithout getting approval fromdesignated health officials. Inits plea, the AMA arguedagainst this directive sayingthat doctors' opinion shouldbe treated as final because anydelay would adversely affectthe health of both the patientand the doctor.

Chaos and jams at entry points aftersatellite cities seal borders with DelhiPNS n NEW DELHI

The tightening of traffic restric-tions put in place to contain thespread of the coronavirus byGurgaon and Ghaziabad admin-istrations on their borders withDelhi led to chaos and trafficcongestion on Friday. This comesa day after the Haryana govern-ment issued fresh orders to sealthe inter-state border to containthe spread of the coronavirus.Earlier this week, the Ghaziabaddistrict administration too madethe inter-city movement stricterafter it reported a spike in coro-navirus cases.

Although Ghaziabad, Nodia,Gurgaon fall under differentstates, a large number of peoplestay in these two cities, but workin Delhi or vice versa.

"There was a massive chaosthis morning with traffic jams asthe police were not allowing peo-ple to cross the border from

either sides, Ruchir Sharma,who stays in Uttam Nagar in westDelhi but works with a diagnos-tics laboratory in Gurgaon, said.

The new directive (of tighten-ing the restrictions) came latenight, so no one had clarity andinstructions were not issued tothe police. I am not sure if theyare allowing essential servicespeople or not but to get to thecheck post after clearing thewhole queue was a long wait so

I decided to come back, Sharmaadded. Those travelling to andfrom Ghaziabad said the check-ing had become very strict.

Rajendra Singh Yadav, whoworks in a medical store inGhaziabad and resides inShahadra in east Delhi, said thechecking by police in Ghaziabadled to traffic congestion on theborder. Assistant Superintendentof Ghaziabad Police KeshavKumar told PTI that they are

conducting checks on the border.Entry will be allowed for onlythose involved in essential ser-vices. He also acknowledged thatthere was heavy traffic on theborers due to checking by thepolice.

Haryana's Home MinisterAnil Vij on Friday justified strict-ness on the state's borders withthe national capital, saying if thestate does not take such measuresits coronavirus cases would be atpar with Delhi. Citing a sharpincrease in coronavirus casesduring the past one week in the

Haryana districts adjoiningDelhi, Vij had on Thursdayissued fresh orders for sealingborders with the national capital.

I regularly monitor and keepa close watch on the situation.Here we are trying to save eachlife, if we do not maintain strict-ness on the borders and allowfree movement of people, then Ican say undoubtedly our caseswould be at par with Delhi. I haveto stop free movement of people,said Vij while justifying the strictmeasures, a day after he issuedthe fresh orders.

Ajit Jogi: quintessentialpolitician who never gave upPNS n RAIPUR

Ajit Pramod Kumar Jogi, thefirst chief minister ofChhattisgarh, wasknown inthe political circles as someonewho never gave up despitedefeats, controversies anddebilitating health issues.

Jogi, 74, who died at a pri-vate hospital here on Friday,was the quintessential politi-cian who enjoyed supportamong tribal and scheduledcaste communities because ofhis easy accessibility.

Born into a family of mod-est means in Pendra Roadarea of the then Bilaspur dis-trict, Jogi earned his engi-neering degree with a goldmedal from a university inUjjain in 1964.

After that he qualified firstfor the Indian Police Serviceand then the IndianAdministrative Service.

After serving as collector for12 years in various districtsincludingIndore and Raipur,Jogi resigned in 1986 and joined

the Congress. The party senthim to the Rajya Sabha for twoterms — 1986-92 and 1992-98.

His rise in politics was mete-oric, and he became chiefminister of the newly formedChhattisgarh state inNovember 2000, trumpingrivals such as Congress stal-wart Vidyacharan Shukla.

As chief minister, he wascredited with setting up astate-of-the-art heart hospitalin Raipur under the Public-Private-Partnership mode.

Jogi focused on improvinghealth infrastructure in thetribal-dominated backward

state and also laid the founda-tion stone of the new capital citynear Abhanpur area of Raipur.

His ambitious `Jogi Dabrischeme' to develop small watersources won praise, but waslater marred by corruptionallegations.

He was accused for splittingthe opposition BJP after 12 ofits MLAs joined the rulingCongress in 2002.

Jogi succeeded in sideliningVidyacharan Shukla, who wasseeking to become Rajya SabhaMP in 2002. Shukla thenjoined Sharad Pawar'sNationalist Congress Party.

In January 2003, Jogi faced amajor political setback when heand his son Amit were namedas suspects in the murder ofRam Avtar Jaggi, then treasur-er of the state NCP. Amit Jogiwas also arrested but was lateracquitted by the trial court.

The BJP cashed in on theissue during the Assemblyelections held towards the endof 2003, in which the Congresssuffered a humiliating defeat.

COVID-19 PATIENTS:

Lack of communication b/w AIIMS,Delhi govt over hospitalisation: HCPNS n NEW DELHI

The Delhi High Court has saidthere appeared to be a lack ofcommunication between theAAP government and AIIMSwhich led to several patientswho tested positive for COVID-19 being shifted to other hospi-tals instead of the dedicatedCOVID-19 facility at AIIMS.

The high court noted thatthese were out-station patientswho had come to AIIMS fortreatment of non-COVID ail-ments and later tested positivefor coronavirus while residingin the night shelter within thehospital campus.

A bench of Justices VipinSanghi and Rajnish Bhatnagardirected both All India Instituteof Medical Sciences (AIIMS)and Delhi government toappoint their respective nodalofficers and any communicationbetween the two related toCOVID-19 patients beaddressed to the nodal officer ofthe other party.

"It appears to us that there islack of communication proto-col between AIIMS and Delhigovernment," the bench said.

The direction was issuedafter 20 patients, being treatedat AIIMS for non-COVID ail-ments, were transferred to Delhigovernment hospitals after theytested positive for coronavirus.

On this aspect, Delhi govern-ment standing counsel RahulMehra alleged in the high courtthat AIIMS was not accessible forcommon man and that the hos-pital was turning away COVID-19 patients, unless they were well

connected and influential.Delhi government, in its affi-

davit, said that the persons whowere found COVID positivewere admitted to its hospitals andnot at AIIMS, for the reason thatthe decision to shift them to ahospital had been taken in thenight, and at that hour, theauthorities at AIIMS were notavailable. The contentions weredisputed by AIIMS which saidthat it admits any person whoreports at the emergency, and isfound COVID positive andrequires hospitalisation insteadof home quarantine.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Farmers are being asked to makeas much of a racket as possible,using drums, tin containers,utensils and even hiring mobiledisc jockeys, in an attempt toscare away locust swarms that areattacking the country.

Millions of locusts are invad-ing several states and there areconcerns they might reach Delhi.Some farmers have been playingloud music through speakers fit-ted on vehicles in a bid to fright-en the insects, said RahulSrivastava, a superintendent ofpolice in in UP's Jhansi district,describing the mobile disc jock-ey systems normally used at wed-dings. Citizens have been keepingdoors and windows closed to stoplocusts entering into their homes.

"In the event of a locust attack,farmers are advised to collective-ly beat loud drums, tin contain-ers, utensils and use loudspeak-ers to prevent locusts from

descending on farms and dam-aging crops," Suhas LY, districtmagistrate of Gautam BuddhaNagar district, said on Twitter.The government is planning tospray pesticides during the nightwhen locusts rest on trees, he said.

Authorities have clearedlocusts from about 50,468hectares (1,24,709 acres) in sev-eral states, including Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat,

Punjab and Maharashtra,according to the UnionAgriculture Ministry.

A massive locust attack on thecountry's farms adds anotherchallenge for PM NarendraModi's administration, which istrying to contain the spread of thecoronavirus and limit its impacton the economy. It cannot riskfood crops getting destroyed bythe insects at a time when millions

have been pushed into povertyafter losing their livelihoodsbecause of the world's most strin-gent stay-at-home rules.

Some summer pulses, early-sown cotton, vegetables and fruitplantations run the risk ofdestruction from the wingedinvaders. The silver lining is thatthe harvesting of winter crops isover and sowing for the mon-soon season is yet to begin.

CBI starts preliminary enquiryinto foreign donations of TJPNS n NEW DELHI

The CBI has registered a pre-liminary enquiry against theorganisers of Tablighi Jamaatfor alleged dubious cash trans-actions and hiding of foreigndonations from authorities,officials said on Friday.

The agency has not namedany specific individual in theenquiry, they added.

The enquiry is registered ona complaint that the organis-ers of the Jamaat are indulgingin dubious cash transactionsthrough illegal and unfairmeans, the officials said.

It is alleged that the organ-isers had not disclosed foreigndonations to the authoritiesmandated under the ForeignContributions (Regulations)Act for the purpose, they said.

With the registration of theenquiry, the agency has start-ed a probe into the financialmatters of the Tablighi Jamaat,

which had attracted headlinesafter its members who congre-gated at its Nizamuddin-basedheadquarters here in March,were found to be infected withthe coronavirus.

A preliminary enquiry is thefirst step towards decidingwhether there exists prima

facie material to proceed witha full-fledged investigationwith an FIR, the officials said.

The agency has started col-lecting records of the Jamaatfrom various authorities,including the Delhi Police, andhas dispatched letters regardingthe same, they added.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Union Food Minister RamVilas Paswan on Friday saidDelhi and West Bengal govern-ments have not yet distributedthe May month quota of 5 kgfree foodgrains under thePradhan Mantri Garib AnnaYojana (PMGAY) to rationcard holders, while other statesand Union territories havecompleted the distribution,fully or partially.

Many beneficiaries are stillwaiting for the May monthquota in states such as MadhyaPradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra,Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat,Kerala and Manipur where upto 80 per cent distribution hasbeen done, according to the

official data.On distribution of one kg free

pulses per household under thePMGAY, Paswan said states havelifted 1.68 lakh tonnes of pulsesand are yet to provide month-

wise distribution of the same.The progress report is awaited.

To ensure no poor goeshungry, the Centre has allocat-ed 5 kg rice or wheat per ben-eficiary and 1 kg pulses per

family for free under thePMGAY for April-June as partof the Rs 20-lakh crore eco-nomic package announced tohelp those affected due to thelockdown imposed to preventthe spread of COVID-19.

"Delhi and West Bengal havedistributed April month quota offoodgrains under the PMGAY.Delhi achieved 96 per cent dis-tribution in April, while WestBengal 93 per cent. However inthe month of May, the two stateshave achieved zero," Paswansaid via digital press conference.

Barring Delhi and WestBengal, other states and unionterritories have distributedfully or partially the Maymonth quota of free grainsunder the PMGAY, he said.

SC to hear on June 2 plea seekingreplacement of word India with ‘Bharat'PNS n NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court will hearon June 2 a plea which hassought a direction to theCentre to amend theConstitution and replace theword India with 'Bharat' or'Hindustan', claiming it will"instill a sense of pride in ourown nationality."

The plea has sought a direc-tion to the government to takeappropriate steps to bringamendment in Article 1 of theConstitution, which deals withname and territory of theUnion, to the effect that "thesame refers to the country asBharat/Hindustan, to theexclusion of India".

The petition was listed forhearing on Friday before the

apex court but it got deletedfrom the list as Chief Justice ofIndia (CJI) S A Bobde was notavailable.

As per a notice uploaded onthe top court website, thismatter would be listed forhearing on June 2 before abench headed by the CJI.

The plea, filed by a Delhi-

based man, has claimed thatsuch an amendment will"ensure the citizens of thiscountry to get over the colonialpast".

"The removal of the Englishname though appears symbol-ic, will instill a sense of pridein our own nationality, espe-cially for the future generationsto come. Infact, the word Indiabeing replaced with Bharatwould justify the hard foughtfreedom by our ancestors,"the plea claimed.

Referring to the 1948Constituent assembly debateon Article 1 of the then draftconstitution, the plea said evenat that time there was a "strongwave" in favour of naming thecountry as 'Bharat' or'Hindustan'.

CRPF men donateblood to Naxal injured inencounter in Jharkhand

Govt 'shrinking' savings,income of common man

PNS n NEW DELHI

Two Central Reserve PoliceForce (CRPF) personneldeployed in Jharkhand havedonated blood to save the lifeof a Maoist, apprehended in aninjured condition after anencounter with the force, on"humanitarian" grounds, offi-cials said on Friday.

A team led by the paramili-tary forces' 60th battalion andstate police killed three Naxalsand apprehended two onThursday after a gunbattle inthe forests of the Manmaru-Tebo area in Jharkhand's WestSinghbhum district. No securi-ty forces personnel was injured.

CRPF constables OmPrakash Yadav and SandeepKumar volunteered to donateblood on Thursday evening toone of the injured Maoists,Manoj Hessa, after the doctorsat a Tatanagar hospitalinformed their commandersthat the injured person whom

they had got admitted had losta lot of blood.

"I know they train guns atus...we also undertake combatmissions against them...butabove everything else is human-ity. I just did my part as a humanbeing," Yadav told PTI over thephone from Jharkhand.

The 36-year-old jawan, whojoined the country's largestparamilitary force, which hasabout 3.25 lakh personnel in itsranks, in 2006, said he haddonated blood in the past aswell as he believes it is the mostprecious life-saving gift onecan give to another person.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Congress has alleged that theeconomy is "sinking" but the gov-ernment is consistently "shrink-ing" the savings and income ofthe common man by reducingthe savings bank deposit andfixed deposit rates of public sec-tor banks. Congress chiefspokesperson RandeepSurjewala said in a statement that"The impact of interest rate cutdecision on March 31 amountsto loss of Rs 19,000 crore incomeper year for the depositors".

Middle class and lower mid-dle class is in "economic grief".The decision to reduce interestrates and discontinue RBI Bondsduring lockdown is "brainless,heartless and shameless". Due tothe already existing economiccrisis worsened by COVID-19the income of the people isdown, added the Congressspokesperson. The interest ratecuts in PPF, KVP, NSC and othersaving instruments further hitthe already shrinking savings ofapproximately 30 crore deposi-

tors, who have deposited Rs 14lakh crore in various savingsschemes, he said.

The latest blow for middlesclass, farmers, pensioners andwomen is discontinuation of7.75 per cent RBI bonds and fur-ther reduction of interest rates bySBI, said Surjewala. In the lasttwo months, the total combinedreduction in income of 30 croredepositors in saving schemes(PPF, NSC, KVP etc) and 44.51crore account holders of StateBank of India (SBI) depositors isRs 44,670 crore annually (fromreduction in interest rates on sav-ings scheme and reduction inSBI savings, fixed deposit inter-est rates), he claimed.

Authorities havecleared locusts fromabout 50,468hectares in severalstates, includingRajasthan, MP,Gujarat, Punjab andMaharashtra, accord-ing to the UnionAgriculture Ministry

"There was a massive chaos thismorning with traffic jams as the policewere not allowing people to cross theborder from either sides, Ruchir Sharma,who stays in Uttam Nagar in west Delhibut works with a diagnostics laboratoryin Gurgaon, said

Millions of locusts invade,Delhi on high alert

Delhi, West Bengal not distributed Mayquota of PMGAY free foodgrains: Paswan

Watching the public’s andthe Union and StateGovernments’ responseto the COVID-19 pan-demic and the devastat-

ing progress of the cyclone Amphan, Iwas reminded of Charles Dickens’famous sentence in A Tale of Two Cities,“It was the best of times, it was the worstof times, it was the age of wisdom, it wasthe age of foolishness, it was the epochof belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,it was the season of Light, it was the sea-son of Darkness, it was the spring ofhope, it was the winter of despair, we hadeverything before us, we had nothingbefore us, we were all going direct toHeaven, we were all going direct the otherway — in short, the period was so far likethe present period, that some of its nois-iest authorities insisted on its beingreceived, for good or for evil, in thesuperlative degree of comparison only.”

There are parts of the sentence thatare generally relevant to the times we livein India but not to the specific context weare talking about. Some parts do apply.For example, it is “the best of times” interms of the courage, compassion andgenerosity shown by a number of peopleto help migrant workers, rendered unem-ployed by the lockdown. One of them isPappan Singh Gehlot, a mushroomfarmer in Delhi’s Tigipur village, who hasbought air tickets worth `68,000 toenable his migrant workers to return totheir village in Bihar. He has also giveneach of them a cash advance of ̀ 3,000 sothat they do not face any hardship onreturn, besides getting them medical cer-tificates needed to fly. According toreports, Gehlot, who has been taking careof their food and accommodation sincethe lockdown began on March 25, did notwant them to walk home given the risks,including those of accidents, involved.Interestingly, one of the reports hasquoted him as saying that he had madeseveral attempts to send them back totheir home States by a Shramik Specialtrain but could not manage to do so.

Another shining example is that ofAkshay Kothawale, a 30-year-old autodriver in Pune, who is spending the`200,000 he had saved for his weddingto feed migrant workers and those in dis-tress in the streets. With the help of hisfriends who have chipped in, he is feed-ing 400 people every day besides ferry-ing senior citizens and pregnant womento clinics.

Another example is that of thealumni association of the Bengaluru-based National Law School raising fundsto charter an Air Asia Boeing A-320 air-craft to send 169 migrant workers andfive children home from Mumbai toRanchi in Jharkhand. According toSheyl Trehan, one of those involved in the

venture, it was carried out incooperation with Priya Sharmaof the Department ofHumanities and Social Sciencesof IIT, Mumbai.

There are many other exam-ples of individuals and NGOsgoing out of their ways to helpmigrant labourers and urbanpoor. They, however, constitutea small slice of the population.The overwhelming majoritycould not care less or are hostile.The indifference is manifesteven in the case of the havocwrought by the super-cycloneAmphan, which has devastatedhuge tracts in West Bengal andparts of Odisha. West Bengalbore the brunt of it. There werenot more than 86 deaths thanksto the State Government’s excel-lent work in evacuating people.The physical damage has beencrippling. The Sunderbans, theworld’s largest mangrove forestand a wildlife sanctuary, has vir-tually been destroyed. Hundredsand thousands of people havebeen rendered homeless. Cropsover thousands of square kilo-metres have been lost.According to the KolkataMunicipal Corporation, over5,000 trees have been uprootedin the city — the figure may havebeen as high as 10,000 if theadjacent areas are included.Hundreds of lamp posts havebeen destroyed. Yet, having sat-isfied their voyeuristic instincts

in front of television sets, theoverwhelming majority outsideWest Bengal and Odisha is nowobsessed with COVID-19 andthe threat the pandemic poses tothem.

And this despite the factthat COVID-19, the first case ofwhich was reported in India onJanuary 30, 2020, has beenkilling far fewer people com-pared to road accidents andother causes. Thus, according tothe latest figures, there havebeen over 166,000 cases, 71,196cures and 4,706 deaths. Thismeans, on a rough average,over 36 deaths per day sinceJanuary 30. In sharp contrast,there are on an average 1,214traffic accidents and 377 deathsfrom such mishaps, every day.There were 5.45 crore cases of,and 28 lakh cases of deaths fromcardiovascular diseases in Indiain 2016.

It is this hysteria worked upover the COVID-19 pandemicwhich is one of the main reasonsmaking this “the worst of times”in terms of the cruelty arisingtherefrom, and also thehypocrisy laid bare by the mis-match between official expres-sions of concern for migrantworkers and their inhumantreatment on the ground. It isnot just the fiasco of the effortsto take them home by specialtrains earmarked exclusivelyfor them. It is also the widely

manifested attitude of not beingsympathetic to the terrible suf-fering of migrant workers onhighways, roads, airports, rail-way stations and inter-Stateborders — and regarding themas untouchables to be con-signed to the peripheries of theirvillages or neighbourhood bylocals fearing them spreadinginfection. And this despite widedissemination through media ofthe fact that COVID-19 infectsone only through close person-al contact and home quarantineis good enough. Even singlewomen and children are notspared!

The basic reason is fear and,in its fundamental sub-stra-tum, that of death. This isunderstandable. There is neithercure nor as yet a vaccine forCOVID-19. Exaggerated fear, inthe teeth of the availability ofinformation, which shows itslack of basis, is, however, irra-tional and unwarranted. Like allfears, it should have been coun-tered by an application of will.This has not happened. Instead,the majority of people in thiscountry has been enveloped bya wild terror that has had thebetter of their humane instinctsand rationality.

This leads to two other seg-ments of Dickens’ observation,“It was the age of wisdom, it wasthe age of foolishness,” and “itwas the spring of hope, it was the

winter of despair.” It is the age ofwisdom in the sense that thepeople are beginning to realisethat what many had taken forgranted — that humans are themasters of the universe — is nottrue and that rationality is a frag-ile attribute. It is the age of fool-ishness in that the majoritycannot still apply reason in atime of crisis. The hope lies inthe shining conduct of a minor-ity and the compassion andcourage shown by even peoplefrom the most disprivilegedsections, the despair from theselfishness and worse of themajority and the attitude of theUnion and most of the StateGovernments to the plight ofmigrant workers.

It is a remarkable com-mentary on the state of affairsthat the Supreme Court, onThursday, had to forbid the rail-ways and the StateGovernments from extractingtrain or bus fares from strand-ed migrant waiting to returnhome. The railways had to pro-vide them with food and waterduring train journeys, whilethe States from which theywere boarding would have totake care of their meals andwater during bus journeys. Oneonly wishes the order came ear-lier.

(The writer is ConsultantEditor, The Pioneer, and an author)

The word “quarantine centre” has become thecolonial equivalent of “kaala paani” or con-finement in the dreaded prison on the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where our freedomfighters were condemned to die in pitiable condi-tions. Now we are condemning COVID-19patients as untouchables and leaving them to theirfate if the horror stories of conditions at isolationzones are anything to go by. According to theGovernment’s guidelines, each quarantine centremust have rooms/dormitories separated from oneanother with water, food, telephone, laundry and

sanitation services. But the reality is so different that the Allahabad High Court actu-ally took suo motu cognisance of the unhygienic and inhuman conditions at vari-ous quarantine centres in Uttar Pradesh after an engineer succumbed to the infec-tion there but not before apprising his wife of his plight. More lives could have beensaved had the conditions enabled recovery than worsening the health of patients.This is not an isolated case. There are reports coming in from across the countryof unhygienic conditions, soiled sheets, a few dirty toilets for scores of people, nosocial distancing, no privacy, shortage of food leading to people fighting over it, flies,mosquitoes, snakebites, staff behaving in a rude manner, treating people like untouch-ables and throwing food packets at them, lack of medicines for those who have dis-eases like diabetes and heart ailments and disinterested doctors ignoring their duty.No wonder then that there have been reports of people trying to flee quarantine cen-tres, not reporting their conditions and committing suicide. Even doctors have beenup in arms about the sorry state of affairs. With the Government exiting the lock-down in a graded manner and the country seeing a surge in cases coupled withincreasing testing, the pressure on these centres is bound to increase. How thenwill it deal with the situation?

The Government should increasingly consider home quarantining people as thepublic healthcare infrastructure is obviously overwhelmed. Plus, it can also think ofroping in the private sector healthcare providers or hotels, which can be turned intoquarantine centres for those who can afford to pay. There can be different budgetsto suit different pockets. This will free up Government facilities and money for themillions who cannot afford to pay. Desperate times call for desperate measures andit is time we began looking for out-of-the-box solutions to deal with this unprece-dented situation. Corporates can be asked to foot some of the bills of the centresand make it part of their CSR. The Government should have created the infrastruc-ture during the lockdown period. The fact that it could not reflects poorly on it.

India finds itself in a peculiar situation, caughtbetween the US and China over border tensionsin Ladakh. While its strategic proximity to the

first is a source of deep discontent for a hegemon-ic Asian power, the maverick support from USPresident Donald Trump, who offered to mediatein the crisis, has meant double trouble. Trump hasmade many mediation efforts on India’s behalf atinternational fora before but the timing of this onein a post-pandemic world is different. More thanIndia, it is a message to China. The US, which hasmade no bones about China fudging the scale and

potency of the Wuhan contagion and is in a punishing mood, threatening to boy-cott it economically, is building an international coalition of opinion against the MiddleKingdom. It is, therefore, drawing India to be a part of this anti-China narrative, know-ing full well that we could end up being among the top worst-hit nations and wouldhave much to be suspicious about our eastern neighbour. In that sense, the US isfeeding off India’s weakened position, courtesy its plunging economy and a soar-ing public health crisis, as much as China is. The heightened tension at Ladakh isChina’s way of reminding India that it could light up the Himalayan border easily ifwe fell into the US trap of building a global campaign against it or block trade andinvestment here. In fact, given that we cannot end our import dependence on Chinaovernight considering its manufacturing edge over ours, particularly when the pan-demic has paralysed our economy, we just have to engage with China one on one.India, therefore, has rightly distanced itself, maintaining that it would solve issueswith its neighbours through dialogue and diplomatic mechanisms rather than exter-nal intervention. China, too, which is used to speaking in a forked tongue, has alreadyindicated diplomacy as a way around the impasse. India is well familiar with thisblow-hot-blow-cold intimidatory tactic though the escalation this time is in sync withChinese depredations in the region against neighbours. Clearly, Xi Jinping wants tojustify the need for his muscular leadership by positing the world as an enemy outto finish China as he faces a fall in GDP, about 25 per cent unemployment, a plung-ing economy and the suppressed rage of a people, who will never know the dam-age the virus has done to them.

So what should India do? As Doklam has taught us, standing down is not alwaysthe way. Indian troops are now favourably placed in many positions and border infra-structure has been fairly ramped up over the last decade. Improved road corridorsmean that we can now service requirements and replenish supplies even better. Thisis what has been exasperating the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which realisesthat its edge in the region is gradually being blunted and thinks that India might haveambitions in the Aksai Chin. So India should remain firm on legitimate positions. Atthe same time, it must step up diplomacy and keep at it rather than diverting itselfto scaled up military conflicts as China is still a powerful neighbour. In fact, diplo-macy, though requiring high-level intervention, may just work as the tussle this timeis over areas that are not really disputed since 1962 and quite distant from the Lineof Actual Control (LAC). Of course, this doesn’t mean that China won’t attempt trans-gressions and territorial intimidation to armtwist us during crises. At the same time,if China rakes up the long Himalayan boundaries, we should also pose a counter-weight by tying up with Southeast Asian nations and build a pressure against Chineseexpansionism in the South China Sea. We should discuss shared threats in the IndianOcean region with Vietnam, Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia.Diplomatically, we could circle China by galvanising the threat perception from it inthe region and strengthening a security alliance. One can do this with increased diplo-matic engagement without appearing too aggressive and risking a Chinese hitback.In fact, we must be prepared for more hostilities as India builds self-sufficiencies.India has stalled it from ambushing our economy by amending its foreign direct invest-ment (FDI) rules to mandate government approval for all investments from “bor-der” countries and prevent hostile takeovers. We have already cancelled orders forChinese test kits as they were faulty and have switched to South Korea and othernations. We are supporting a global impartial probe into the Wuhan contagion andthough “vocal for local” may not have any scale now, China will not sit easy withthe discomfort over 5G trials and a future shrinkage of its market in India.

Reforms in PDS

Sir — This refers to the article,“Pandemic and PDS” (May 28) bySantosh Biswal and UttamChakraborty. It needs to be clari-fied that the exercise of State-wisecoverage within the overall nation-al coverage of the National FoodSecurity Act (NFSA) was done bythe erstwhile PlanningCommission using 68th round ofNSSO Household ConsumptionExpenditure Survey (2011-12).

The estimation took intoaccount the monthly per capitaexpenditure of States and the inter-State price differentials to arrive atthe consumption cut-offs for ruraland urban areas for each State/UT.This was thereafter used to arriveat the percentage of persons fallingbelow that cut-off level of expen-diture separately for rural andurban areas. These percentageswere then applied on the 2011 pop-ulation Census to arrive at thenumber of persons in eachState/UT both in rural and urbanareas. This yielded the eligiblepopulation in the rural and urbanareas in each State/UT.

The Planning Commissionmethodology is such that the cov-erage under NFSA is higher forthose States/UTs, where the size of

the population below the cut-offlevel of expenditure is relativelylarge in proportion to their totalpopulation vis-à-vis those Stateswhere the proportion was smaller.Thus, while the all-India coverageis up to 75 per cent of the rural andup to 50 per cent of the urban pop-ulation, this percentage is muchhigher for the less developedStates/UTs. For instance, in Assam84.17 per cent of the rural popu-lation and 60.35 per cent of theurban population is covered under

NFSA. Further, as per Section 10of the Act, most States have evolvedtheir own exclusion/inclusion cri-terion under targetted PublicDistribution System (PDS).

The authors are seeminglyattempting to highlight the prob-lems in PDS but not noticing thetechnology-driven reforms andsolutions already implemented bythe Centre in collaboration with allState/UT Governments. They sur-prisingly miss out on the followingfacts regarding PDS reform:

nCoverage of 67 per cent benefi-ciaries under NFSA is not a distantdream. Around 81 crore people arealready covered under the Act toreceive subsidised food-grainsthrough PDS on a monthly basis.n Ration cards/beneficiaries datain all States/UTs have been com-pletely digitised and available onrespective State/UT portals.Foodgrains are also being distrib-uted through electronic Point ofSale devices in most of theStates/UTs.

n “One nation, one ration card” isalready enabled in 17 States/UTs.nSo far, 146 LMT foodgrains havebeen delivered to NFSA beneficia-ries during April and May 2020under regular NFSA and PradhanMantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana(PM-GKAY). Further, distribu-tion is also under progress.nAlso, the “Atma Nirbhar BharatAbhiyan” is being implemented toreach out to all such people whomay not have NFSA or State rationcardS, including migrants/strand-ed migrants but are in need fortemporary ration.

A proper review of the aboveinitiatives on a factual basis shouldhave been done before namingsome States as “doubly disadvan-taged.” This is a lack of properunderstanding of facts and ongo-ing reforms, which often leads tounsubstantiated criticism of thePDS of having imaginary in-builtinequity. The Government alwayswelcomes further improvementin the system and is open to anyconstructive criticism as it helps inimprovement of the system for thebenefit of the poor.

Ministry of Consumer Affairs,Food and Public Distribution

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

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

op nionSATURDAY | MAY 30, 2020

06

Hysteria in a time of virus

HIRANMAY KARLEKAR

The Corona pandemic has been killing far fewer people compared to road accidents andother causes. It has indeed brought out the best and the worst in humanity

The Government’s silence aboutthe border situation with Chinais fueling massive speculationand uncertainty at a time of cri-sis. It must come clean and tellIndia exactly what’s happening.

Congress leader—Rahul Gandhi

This pandemic has remindedus that not everyone has the luxury to stay at home,and we have to be mindfuland try helping in whateverway possible.

Actor—Huma S Qureshi

Have a big conflict …India andChina. Two countries with 1.4billion people (each). Twonations with very powerful mil-itaries. India is not happy andprobably China is not happy.

US President—Donald Trump

S O U N D B I T E

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

Private hospitals must share the burden

This refers to the editorial, “The cost of care” (May29). The Supreme Court has rightly questioned pri-vate hospitals for not giving free COVID treatment

to affected patients. It is a fact that the growing num-ber of cases has crippled Government hospitals. Thereis a need for private hospitals to coordinate with theGovernment to tide over the crisis. The Bench, head-ed by Chief Justice SA Bobde, has asked theGovernment to identify and prepare a list of hospitalswhere COVID patients can be treated free of cost.

At least the private hospitals can waive consulta-tion, laboratory and ward charges for patients. The costof medicines can be borne by them, too. In Governmenthospitals, too, at least 25 per cent of the cost of treat-ment and medicines should be borne by the patients.Then people will be careful enough to stay away frominfected people. Since the Government has been bear-ing the treatment cost, some people are not following

the guidelines. In many places, COVID warriors havealso been attacked. Also, it is unfair to expect privatehospitals to attend only to COVID patients. Those suf-fering from other diseases should not be neglected. Asthings stand now, other patients have been badlyneglected with some fatalities as well.

KV Seetharamaiah Hassan

Send yyour ffeedback tto:letterstopioneer@gmail.com

Hell before healing

At this stage, we cannot saythat there is communityspread of COVID-19 in Kerala.But, we are on the brink ofcommunity spread as cases have gone up.

Kerala CM—Pinarayi Vijayan

India was quick to brush off US mediation on Ladakh. Besides,we can’t afford to rub China the wrong way in the pandemic era

The dismal conditions at quarantine centres across the countryare more killing than the disease itself

Balancing act

The perfect blend

WE CAN’T ALLOW SOME PLATFORMS TO HAND-PICK THESPEECH THAT AMERICANS MAY ACCESS. THIS WILL BE A

BIG DAY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA AND FAIRNESS. —US PRESIDENT

DONALD TRUMP

THE PRESIDENT IS TRAMPLING THE FIRST AMENDMENTBY THREATENING THE FUNDAMENTAL FREE SPEECHRIGHTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS. —PRESIDENT OF NETCHOICE STEVE DELBIANCO

POINTCOUNTERPOINT

As sustainability becomes mainstream, it isbecoming a well-acknowledged fact that theplanet just does not possess the resources

required for us to maintain our current consump-tion patterns and emulate the aspirational lifestylesof the West. The estimated growth in global pop-ulation to 10 billion in the not too distant futureis an added headwind. This situation has meantthat driving efficiencies in resource usage is fastcoming into public discourse to reduce the car-bon footprint. This is translating into necessaryassets that would need funding. Such examplesabound, like fuel-efficient cars, migration ofpublic transport to e-vehicles, high-speed rail inplace of airlines, urban Mass Rapid Transit trainssubstituting fuel-run vehicles, micro grids for far-flung communities instead of diesel generators andso on.

While these assets, which are typically part oflarge-scale transformational projects, are fundedeither by the Government or by concessional loansfrom development financial institutions, publiccapital is not going to fulfil the need for the tril-lions of dollars of investment the planet requiresto scale up projects that would usher in the desiredsustainability goals.

However, the biggest challenge to bringingprivate capital at scale is the fact that most pro-jects do not offer commercially-viable returns,owing to high upfront costs, long payback,remote location of some projects, nascent tech-nologies and in certain cases, political uncertain-ties, weak institutional frameworks and so on.

This is where blended finance has come upas a solution in this context. It combines publicsector and philanthropic monies as catalytic cap-ital to raise multiples of private sector monies,which help scale up the flow of funding to sus-tainable projects, while yielding substantial eco-nomic benefits to all stakeholders.

The blended finance structure addresses theprojects’ perceived risks, thereby helping increasethe size and number of funding opportunities. Itcomprises funding, which may or may not be con-cessionary, supported with one or more elementslike guarantees, political risk insurance, perfor-mance insurance, outcome-based funding, inter-est subvention, concessional or off-market localcurrency hedging, project preparation grants andso on.

This combination makes the projects’ termsviable for private sector capital and for the pro-ject developer, who otherwise may not have metthe criteria without the assistance these support-ing mechanisms bring in.

Among the emerging markets, India is lead-ing the way by developing successful blendedfinance models. These are worth emulating inother markets that have a similar development pro-file as India in order to bring blended finance toa global scale.

In India, the Government’s Viability GapFunding (VGF) model is one such success-story.Launched in 2004, it supports projects under thePublic Private Partnership (PPP) mechanism.VGF grants were made essentially for infrastruc-ture projects where private sector sponsors wereselected via competitive bidding. The grant wasdisbursed at the construction stage after the pri-vate sector developer made an equity contributiontowards the project. This grant is typically 20 percent of the project’s capital cost and is allocatedfrom the Government’s budget.

The Government then went a step ahead bydefining the norms of how VGF would apply toutility-scale renewable energy projects, specifying

the role of the Solar Energy Corporationof India in terms of evaluation, disburse-ment and monitoring.

Another example is that of cKersFinance and Rockefeller Foundation.Inked in 2018, their partnership involvesan investment by Rockefeller in theDelhi-based sustainable energy Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) tobuild a $50 million asset financing port-folio for scaling up India’s decentralisedrenewable energy segment (DRE).

The Rockefeller investment wouldhelp cKers provide funding access at rea-sonable rates and terms to build the sus-tainable energy portfolio about 10 percent of which would be in mini-grids.While the national grid has reachedalmost all places in India, the quality ofsupply remains erratic and thus DREsolutions like micro and mini-gridshold value.

Then there is the US-India CleanEnergy Finance (USICEF) programme,which supports distributed solar powerprojects through grants specifically forearly-stage project preparation support.Managed by the Climate Policy Initiative,it is a partnership between India’s renew-able energy ministry, the US’ OverseasPrivate Investment Corporation (OPIC)and others. Developers apply to theUSICEF, which maintains an empanelledlist of service providers (legal and pro-fessional services consultancies and soon) and engages them with the grant.

The project preparation supportmakes these developers investment-ready to raise funding from OPIC andother like-minded firms. The averagegrant is only about $0.1 million or so butthis is a significant challenge for thedevelopers given their small scale and thelimitations they face in resources and tal-ent acquisition.

This programme, with a total $3.5million grant committed so far, has sup-ported several rooftop solar, smallground-mounted and solar home systemprojects across more than a dozenIndian States. Last is the “pay for success”outcome funder model. Grameen ImpactInvestment, a Mumbai-based impactNBFC, launched social impact bondsaddressing women’s livelihood and

empowerment, youths’ skill-develop-ment and clean energy. Corporate SocialResponsibility (CSR) spending by organ-isations in India has risen exponential-ly in recent years, mostly towards healthand education. However, India’s HumanDevelopment Index score, whichincludes mostly health and educationindicators, has hardly improved.

While CSR is only one componentof India’s social sector spending, this doesgive some indication that actual achieve-ment of outcomes is perhaps found want-ing at times. The outcome funder modelattempts to close this gap. The pre-defined outcome metrics are indepen-dently verified by third-party evaluatorsfor on-ground achievement, only uponwhich the outcome funder (a philan-thropy or CSR fund) would meet theenterprise’s interest and/or principleobligations — thus “pay for success.”

This ensures that the philanthropicresources are leveraged in a manner thatwill help achieve outcomes far more thanwhat direct spending could possibly do.

Other blended models abound glob-ally, each of which can potentially bereplicated in India. The US-IndiaCatalytic Solar Finance Facility used cat-alytic, first-loss capital to create risk-mit-igation facilities. The Grid Solar Fund,which funds off-grid solar companies,raised $10 million in political risk insur-ance from OPIC to attract investmentsfrom the private sector.

Climate Investor One Fund raisedblended capital at about 1.7 times mul-tiple with a tiered-structure, whichbifurcates capital into first-loss, subor-dinated equity and debt with credit guar-antee to make lenders comfortable.Denmark’s Climate Investment Fundraised blended capital at over 1.7 timesmultiple, by using a preferential modelwhere losses are shared equally by pub-lic and private investors but the latterenjoy a preferential return and a catch-up option.

At the same time, a preferentialmodel based on share classes was lesseffective. The Global Energy Efficiencyand Renewable Energy Fund, which paidprincipal and interest in batches betweenits A and B share classes, could raise

blended capital only at about 0.8 timesmultiple.

Models apart, another merit ofblended finance is that it can cover areastraditionally unserved by conventionalfunding, like US’ Prime Coalition, whichinvests in early-stage clean energy tech-nologies, the Africa Clean EnergyFacility, which focusses on project prepa-ration and expects to raise a multiple ofabout 20 times its grants and IFC-GEF’sChina Utility Energy EfficiencyProgramme, which helped local bankslend for energy efficiency.

Blended finance can also mobilisecommercial bank participation as seenin Dutch bank FMO’s Guarantco thatgrants partial credit guarantees to localbanks, Indonesia’s Sarulla geothermalproject that used a political risk guaran-tee from Japan’s JBIC and a guarantee let-ter from the Indonesian Government tobring in commercial bank funding,German KfW and ResponsAbility’sGlobal Climate Partnership Fund thatrefinances green lending schemes of localbanks or Africa Development Bank’sFacility for Energy Inclusion that com-bines commercial capital for small-scaleenergy access projects.

In the end, compulsions like climatechange, greenhouse gas emissions, sub-stituting the import cost of fossil fuelsand driving economic growth through“green sectors” will necessitate an urgentscale-up in sustainability projects. Toachieve this, innovative mechanisms toraise dedicated green capital will hold thekey, especially as Indian banks cannotalways fund the long maturities that sus-tainability projects entail. While blend-ed finance cannot solve all the issues, itcan certainly address some of the barri-ers. The models discussed in this articlehave already shown demonstrable valuewhich makes them worth emulating.Most of them can be potentially replicat-ed and scaled up further to fund India’smultitude sustainability challenges.Emerging markets with similar chal-lenges to India should also take note.

(Aiyer is Consultant, South AsiaFast Track Sustainability Communicationsand Bhattacharya is India ProjectsManager, Climate Bonds Initiative)

Blended finance combines public sector and philanthropic monies as catalytic capital to raisemultiples of private sector monies, which help scale up the flow of funding to sustainable projects

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

Build cyberresilience

RIPU BAJWA

As cyber attacks soar, a data recovery planmust be fully integrated within the business

and align with its cloud strategy

IN THE END,COMPULSIONS LIKE

CLIMATE CHANGE,GREENHOUSE

GAS EMISSIONS,SUBSTITUTING THE

IMPORT COST OFFOSSIL FUELS AND

DRIVING ECONOMICGROWTH THROUGH

‘GREEN SECTORS’WILL NECESSITATE

AN URGENT SCALE-UP IN

SUSTAINABILITYPROJECTS. TOACHIEVE THIS,

INNOVATIVEMECHANISMS TORAISE DEDICATED

GREEN CAPITALWILL HOLD THE

KEY, ESPECIALLY ASINDIAN BANKS

CANNOT ALWAYSFUND THE LONG

MATURITIES THATSUSTAINABILITY

PROJECTS ENTAIL.WHILE BLENDED

FINANCE CANNOTSOLVE ALL THEISSUES, IT CAN

CERTAINLYADDRESS SOME OF

THE BARRIERS

During these extraordinary times, when the world is fightingagainst the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, other threats likethe danger of catastrophic cyber attacks have fast mush-

roomed alongside. As business leaders come face to face withrising cases across the world and in India, the need to be pre-pared with better data security solutions arises. The World EconomicForum’s Global Risks Report, 2020 ranks cyber attacks as thesecond risk of greatest concern to businesses in the comingdecade. As the tools of the Darknet become more sophisticatedand accessible, cyber attacks are becoming increasingly border-less — taking advantage of jurisdictional constraints of regionalauthorities.

According to an industry research by Frost & Sullivan, 46 percent of Indian organisations that are in the process of digital trans-formation have encountered a security incident in 2019. In fact,as per another industry report released recently, India witnesseda two to three-fold increase in the number of cyber attack inci-dents during the ongoing lockdown that began on March 25.

As it is, cybercrime constitutes a serious problem for Indiaeven outside of crisis periods. India was among the top five mosttargetted countries in the world by cyber criminals in recent years,reflecting the significant amount of work still outstanding in strength-ening the nation’s cyber defences. Though it is a positive devel-opment that more than 550 million Indians have connected to theInternet in recent years, fuelled by rural growth, this comes withits own set of problems. The rapid proliferation of Internet usersand of the Internet of Things (IoT) has also left the country’s pub-lic and private sectors vulnerable. We are seeing more and morelarge-scale data loss and the rise of ransomware attacks — sobusiness resilience planning is key to survival.

Why medium-sized businesses must act now: Reacting inreal time to a cyber attack is already too late. Managing the riskrequires agility, meticulous alignment across the business and test-ing to maintain awareness. It is all about being proactive ratherthan reactive. Cyber resilience is more important than ever as medi-um-sized businesses assess their risk of being attacked,whether at the hands of criminals or as collateral damage in cyberwarfare. Any data loss can put the nails in the coffin for unpre-pared businesses. While today’s business leaders may hope toevade the hit-list, it is a matter of “when” not “if” an attack hap-pens.

Defending against catastrophic data loss: Defending a medi-um-sized business from the worst-case scenario and mission-critical data loss requires cyber security expertise and a holisticapproach to resilience. Awareness needs to be built across thebusiness —this is not just a technical problem. Synergy betweentechnology and business processes is where true resilience isattained. Leaning on cyber experts when it comes to planning andimplementation will help businesses identify key applications, recov-ery times and objectives.

Every arm of the business needs to understand where its mostsensitive data and services are parked and the level of risk aroundthem. To understand the level of risk, an agile approach is need-ed because risk changes along with the business landscape. Forthis reason, regular scans and analysis of the internal landscapeare essential to understand these changes and the impact.

Protecting a huge portfolio of assets is not easy, especiallyas it expands. But every business must understand what its DNAis — that’s the critical 10-15 per cent of data that must be pro-tected at all costs. This is the lifeblood of an organisation and, inthe event of a cyber-attack, is the difference between its life anddeath. It is business-critical and must be decided upon with a holis-tic view. For some organisations, this can often lead to analysisparalysis — the desire to save it all. In the same way that we wouldonly carry our most essential belongings from a burning home,businesses must decide upon their most prized data so that it canbe protected and used to recover the business in the aftermath.

There is a cure: The good news is this process can be sim-plified by data protection and cyber-security services that enableorganisations to establish policy-driven automated workflows tomove business-critical data into an isolated environment and lockit down in less than five steps. This is called a cyber-vault, theultimate protection for a business’ DNA.

In the event of an attack, this data will help businesses to recov-er. When responding to cyber incidents and working to bring crit-ical systems and data back online, accuracy and simplicity mat-ter. A cyber recovery plan must be fully integrated within the busi-ness and align with its cloud strategy.

Businesses are increasingly aware of the dangers of a cyberattack but they need to truly invest in cyber resilience in order toshore up the gaps in the ever-changing work environment. Andcyber security expertise is vital. The clock is ticking, it’s not a mat-ter of “if” but “when” and businesses need to be prepared.

(The writer is Director and General Manager, Data ProtectionSolutions, Dell Technologies)

Human beings respond well toa familiar crisis, especially if itis also imminent. They don’t

do nearly as well when the threat isunfamiliar and still apparently quitedistant. Consider our response to thecurrent Coronavirus threat. Countriesin East Asia with recent experience ofsimilar viruses like SARS and so onimmediately responded with “test,track and isolate” drills, plus instantlockdowns if the virus had already

gained a foothold in the population. Other countries, just as rich and

well-educated, had the same informa-tion but they waited several monthsbefore taking emergency measuresthat upset the comfortable routine oftheir lives. So the US, UK and Franceall ended up with death rates per mil-lion more than 50 times higher thanChina, Korea and Japan.

The same applies to global heat-ing, except that in this case we are allAmericans. None of us has prior expe-rience of a genuine climate crisis andalthough we have known enoughabout what’s going to happen to jus-tify urgent action for 30 years now, wehave done nothing decisive about it.We have lots of “clean” technology buttotal demand for energy has grown sofast that we are still getting a steady80 per cent of our energy from fos-sil fuels. Realistically, this is not goingto change much. We are who we are,

shaped by millions of years of evolu-tion and our ancestors didn’t dolong-term planning; they had to con-centrate on acute short-term prob-lems. A truly serious response to theclimate threat will, therefore, comeonly when it is starting to hurt.Unfortunately, by then it will proba-bly be too late.

The Earth system — the bios-phere, atmosphere, the oceans, therocks, all the components that governthe climate — plays by its own rules.It will absorb new inputs like warm-ing for a long time while changing aslittle as possible: It is a “homeostatic”system. We are still benefiting fromthis feature now: A full degree Celsiusof warming already and not much toshow for it except hotter summers,shorter winters and bigger storms. Butwhen the pressure on the climate sys-tem gets too great — reaches a tippingpoint — it is liable to charge off in

unpredictable directions at high speed.“Non-linear change”, they call it

and we won’t like it a bit. Hundredsof millions, maybe billions, will startto die. Then we will be ready to makegreat changes to save ourselves but itwill be too late. Human systems willbe collapsing under the impact offamines, wars and endless waves ofrefugees. And besides, once the cli-mate hits non-linear change, it isalmost impossible to bring it back.We’re stuck with wherever it ends up,whether that new state will support alarge human civilisation or not.

How far ahead is this calamity?We probably have at least a decade ortwo. Will we end all our greenhousegas emissions in that time? Probablynot. Cutting our emissions isn’tenough. We have to stop all of ouremissions before we push the climatesystem over the edge and we don’teven know precisely where the edge

is. Every bit of emissions we can cutnow gives us a little more time beforewe reach the edge, but the global pop-ulation will still be going up and peo-ple in the poorer countries will still beincreasing their energy use. (It’s theirturn and you can’t deny them that.)

So, the crisis almost certainly willarrive and then we will finally be will-ing to make radical changes. What wewill desperately need at that point ismore time. That’s why we will needgeo-engineering. This is not a cure; itis a way of temporarily counteractingthe warming caused by our emissionsof greenhouse gases by reflecting asmall part of the incoming sunlight inone way or another. In fact, you couldsay that it is “positive” geo-engineer-ing, as opposed to the large-scale “neg-ative” geo-engineering we have beendoing for the last two centuries bydumping huge amounts of warminggases into the atmosphere.

When we are finally ready to actdecisively on global warming, wewill need a window of time to makethe changes that are required to pre-serve this global civilisation and thebiosphere it now dominates. Only geo-engineering can create that window.We don’t need to start geo-engineer-ing now. It would be wonderful if wenever have to do it but that would takea miracle. We cannot know how longwe would have to go on doing it,either: Long enough to get the carbondioxide in the atmosphere back downto a safe level, certainly, which wouldbe at least a matter of decades. Buteven without knowing the answers tothese questions, we clearly need tospeed up research and testing of thevarious potential techniques for geo-engineering now.

(Gwynne Dyer’s new book is‘Growing Pains: The Future ofDemocracy and Work.’)

Climate change lessons from the Corona crisisWe clearly need to speed up research and testing of the various potential techniques for geo-engineering now

GWYNNE DYER

SATURDAY | MAY 30, 2020

www.dailypioneer.com

SOURAJIT AIYER

SANDEEP BHATTACHARYA

F O R E I G N E Y E

Shops shutting, jobs lost,massive commerciallandlords wiped out. Thefuture of our communityhubs looks bleak. Building areplacement will requiremore public intervention andtax breaks for firms whichemploy and procure supplieslocally. It won’t be easy but itis an opportunity. (The Guardian editorial)

LOW SPIRITS ONTHE HIGH STREET

SATURDAY | MAY 30, 2020 money 08

CAPSULE

NABARDsanctions Rs1,050 crore creditsupport to WB

New Delhi: Amid reports ofGoogle eyeing a 5 per centstake in the company,Vodafone Idea on Friday said itconstantly evaluates variousopportunities but there is noproposal before the board ofthe firm as yet. Theclarification to the BSE byVodafone Idea comes a dayafter reports that AlphabetInc's Google is eyeing about 5per cent stake in the telecomcompany. "As part ofcorporate strategy, thecompany constantly evaluatesvarious opportunities forenhancing the stakeholders'value. As and when suchproposals are considered bythe board of directors of thecompany warrantingdisclosures, the company shallcomply with the disclosureobligations," Vodafone Ideasaid on Friday. Currently, thereis "no proposal" as reportedthat is being considered at theboard, it added. "We wish toreiterate and clarify that thecompany will comply withSebi Listing Regulations andduly keep the stock exchangesinformed of all the price-sensitive information," it said.

Voda keeps evaluatingopportunities, noproposal beforeboard now: VIL

Kolkata: The National Bank forAgriculture and RuralDevelopment (NABARD) hassanctioned credit of Rs 1,050crore in the current fiscal sofar to West Bengal for benefitof farmers and poor people inrural areas, an official said onFriday. The credit supportunder special liquidity facility(SLF) will be extended to statecooperative banks, regionalrural banks and micro-financeinstitutions (MFIs), he said.The NABARD has alreadydisbursed an amount of Rs720 crore to state coperativeand regional rural banks, hesaid, adding thatdisbursements to MFIs willcommence shortly. The lenderhas sanctioned Rs 300 crorefor MFIs, Rs 700 crore forstate cooperative banks andRs 50 crore for regional ruralbanks. The development banksaid the credit flow to the ruralsector of the state is extremeimportant to sustainagricultural operations as theeconomy has been hit byCOVID-19 outbreak. The creditflow will provide relief to thefarmers in the upcomingkharif season, he said.

‘Madras HC issues notices toFranklin Templeton MF, Sebi’PNS n NEW DELHI

Notices have been issued to cri-sis-hit Franklin TempletonMutual Fund and Sebi by theMadras High Court after apetition was filed by aninvestors group to safeguardnearly Rs 28,000 crore ofinvestors' money stuck in sixschemes shut down by the fundhouse, according to a statement.

The investors' group,Chennai Financial Markets andAccountability (CFMA), alsosaid it is separately launching anonline petition to bring togeth-er all affected investors and thesame would be forwarded to thePrime Minister's Office as wellas the US parent of the fundhouse and the US markets reg-ulator SEC. It further saidmutual funds and fund man-agers should be made to answerquestions on their choice ofinvestment, and compliancewith regulatory and prudentialnorms, among others.

Last month, FranklinTempleton had closed six debtfunds, citing redemption pres-sures and lack of liquidity in thebond markets. Since then, cap-ital market regulator Sebi hasasked the fund house on mul-tiple occasions to focus on

repaying the investors at theearliest. According to CFMA,the Madras High Court onissued notices on May 26 toSebi, Franklin Templeton AssetManagement India Pvt Ltd(FTAMC), trustees of the mutu-

al fund, its President SanjaySapre, fixed income CIOSantosh Kamath and other keymanagement personnel after aPublic Interest Litigation wasfiled by it.

The high court took cog-

nizance of the seriousness of thematter wherein the money ofthe common public, amountingto about Rs 28,000 crore, is atrisk of getting wiped off and hasasked Sebi to file a reply alongwith a status report on theactions taken by it, CFMA saidin its statement. As per theinvestors group, FranklinTempleton MF in their ownadmission has stated that therecovery of money across sixschemes will be in the range of5-81 per cent over a period ofover 5 years.

Franklin Templeton MF in their ownadmission has stated that the recoveryof money across six schemes will be inthe range of 5-81 per cent over a periodof over 5 years

Sensex surges 224 pts;Nifty tops 9,550-markPNS n MUMBAI

Extending its rising streak tothe third session, equity bench-mark Sensex jumped 224points on Friday, driven bygains in HDFC, ITC and HULdespite weak cues from glob-al markets.

After gyrating 656.72 pointsduring the day, the 30-shareBSE index rebounded from theday's low to settle 223.51 pointsor 0.69 per cent higher at32,424.10. It hit an intra-dayhigh of 32,480.52 and a low of31,823.80.

The NSE Nifty advanced90.20 points or 0.95 per cent to9,580.30. During the day, ittouched a high of 9,598.85 anda low of 9,376.90.

ONGC was the top gainer inthe Sensex pack, jumping over5 per cent, followed by BajajAuto, ITC, Sun Pharma, NestleIndia, L&T, Maruti, UltraTechCement and HUL.

On the other hand, Infosys,Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, TCSand Titan were among the lag-gards.

Besides stock-specificaction, heavy foreign fundinflows lent buying confidenceto domestic investors, ana-lysts said.

On a net basis, foreign port-folio investors bought equitiesworth Rs 2,354.14 crore onThursday, provisionalexchange data showed.

Further, markets witnessedvolatility as India registered itsbiggest single-day spike of7,466 coronavirus cases.

The number of COVID-19cases in India crossed 1.65 lakhand the death toll climbed to4,706, as per health ministrydata.

Globally, the number ofcases linked to the disease has

crossed 58.10 lakh, with thedeath toll at around 3.60 lakh.

Meanwhile, bourses in HongKong and Tokyo closed on anegative note, while Shanghaiand Seoul finished with gains.

Stock exchanges in Europewere trading in the red in earlydeals. International oil bench-mark Brent crude futuresslipped 2.33 per cent to USD35.19 per barrel.

Rupee spurts by 14 paise to 75.62foreign fund inflows, weak dollarPNS n MUMBAI

The rupee appreciated by 14paise to close at 75.62 againstthe US dollar on Friday as for-eign fund inflows and weakAmerican currency boostedinvestor confidence. Forextraders said investors areawaiting the country's grossdomestic product data forthe January-March quarter,due later in the day, for fur-ther cues. The rupee openedhigher at 75.71 at the inter-bank forex market and latertouched a high of 75.48 in daytrade. The local unit finallysettled at 75.62 to the US dol-lar, showing a gain of 14paise over the last close of75.76.

Indian stocks rose for athird straight session on

Friday on the back of buyingby foreign funds.

The 30-share BSE indexrebounded from the lows tosettle 223.51 points or 0.69 percent higher at 32,424.10. NSENifty advanced 90.20 pointsor 0.95 per cent to 9,580.30.

Foreign institutionalinvestors were net buyers inthe capital market, as theybought equity shares worth Rs2,354.14 crore on Thursday,according to provisionalexchange data.

The dollar index, whichgauges the greenback'sstrength against a basket of sixcurrencies, fell by 0.08 percent to 98.30.

On a weekly basis, thedomestic unit has appreciat-ed by 33 paise. It had settledat 75.95 on May 22.

World shares fall as HK, US-China tensions weighPNS n BANGKOK

Shares fell Friday in Europeand Asia as investors awaiteda news conference about Chinaby President Donald Trumplater in the day.

Benchmarks slipped in Paris,Frankfurt and Tokyo but rosein Shanghai. U.S. and Chineseofficials have been tradingharsh rhetoric recently oneverything from Hong Kong tothe response to the coron-avirus outbreak. One fear isthat further friction could leadto another punishing round ofescalating tariffs between thetwo countries that would hitthe global economy when it'salready in a severe recessiondue to the coronavirus pan-demic. “The world awaitsTrump's news conferencetonight and the market is react-ing, although there is absolute-ly no panic at all and it's aboutpre-positioning," Chris Westonof Pepperstone said in a com-mentary.

China's National People'sCongress on Thursdayapproved a national securitylaw aimed at suppressing seces-

sionist and subversive activityin Hong Kong, overriding anypotential opposition by locallawmakers. U.S. Secretary ofState Mike Pompeo has said thelaw means Washington may nolonger treat the former Britishcolony, already reeling fromanti-government protests andthe pandemic, as autonomousfrom Beijing. That couldundermine the city's status asa major center for trade andfinance.

Germany's DAX lost 1.4% to11,616.15 and the CAC 40 inFrance slipped 1.2% to4,712.27. Britain's FTSE 100gave up 1.1% to 6,149.44. U.S.markets were poised for loss-es, with the future contract forthe S&P 500 0.6% lower andthe future for the Dow indus-trials down 0.7%.

Weak economic data fromJapan also cast a pall, as thegovernment reported thatindustrial production fell more

than 9% in April from themonth before, while retail salesdropped nearly 10%, month-on-month. That was thebiggest fall since a sales tax hikein 1997. Hong Kong's HangSeng index dropped 0.7% to22,961.47, while Japan's Nikkei225 index fell 0.2% to21,877.89. Australia's S&P/ASX200 skidded 1.6% to 5,755.70.

The Kospi in South Koreaadded 0.1% to 2,029.60, whilethe Shanghai edged 0.2% high-

er to 2,852.35.Overnight, the S&P 500

ended the day 0.2% lower at3,029.73. The Dow JonesIndustrial Average lost 0.6% to25,400.64 and the Nasdaq com-posite fell 0.5%, to 9,368.99.

Even with Thursday's loss,the S&P 500 is still on pace forits third weekly gain of at least2.5% in the last four weeks.Following their breathtakingdrop of nearly 34% in Februaryand much of March, stocksbegan recovering after theFederal Reserve and CapitolHill pledged unprecedentedamounts of aid for the econo-my.

Overnight, the S&P500 ended the day0.2% lower at3,029.73. The DowJones IndustrialAverage lost 0.6% to25,400.64 and theNasdaq compositefell 0.5%, to9,368.99.

Singapore top source of FDI in FY20with investments worth USD 14.67 bnPNS n NEW DELHI

Singapore was the top sourceof foreign direct investmentinto India for the second con-secutive financial year,accounting for about 30 percent of FDI inflows in 2019-20.

In the past two financialyears, FDI from Singapore hassurpassed that from Mauritius.

In the last financial year,India attracted USD 14.67 bil-lion in FDI from Singapore,whereas it was USD 8.24 bil-lion from Mauritius, accordingto the data of the Departmentfor Promotion of Industry andInternal Trade (DPIIT).

In 2018-19, Singapore's FDIaggregated at USD 16.22 bil-lion, while that from Mauritiusit was USD 8.08 billion.

According to experts,Singapore has been able to out-pace Mauritius with its ease ofdoing business policies, simpli-fied tax regime and a largenumber of private investors.

"Mauritius was once seen asa tax haven making it the

most favoured nation for rout-ing investments in India. April2017 brought key amendmentsto the bilateral treaties withMauritius and Singaporewhich neutralized the tax ben-efits available in Mauritius.

"Singapore with its ease ofbusiness policies, simplifiedtax regime and large numberof private investors has beenable to outrun Mauritius,"Sandeep Jhunjhunwala,Partner, Nangia Andersen LLPsaid.

He said attractive corporatetax rates, swift response in

combating the COVID-19pandemic, impressive mobileand internet penetration, andtechnology uptake are makingIndia a primary destination toinvest.

"While countries are battlingthe COVID-19 pandemic andthe world economy is headedinto recession, India receiveda mammoth investment fromstake sale of Jio Platforms.Economists and investors arenow closely watching India asit is headed towards becominga digital giant," Jhunjhunwalaadded.

PNS n LUCKNOW

The Uttar Pradesh govern-ment on Friday signed initialagreements with variousindustry bodies to help inproviding 11 lakh jobs tomigrant labourers who havereturned to the state in thewake of the coronavirus pan-demic.

The Federation of IndianChamber of Commerce andIndustry (FICCI) and IndianIndustries Association (IIA)accounted for three lakh jobseach, while NARDECO andLaghu Udyog Bharati account-ed for 2.5 lakh jobs each, UPMSME minister Sidharth NathSingh told PTI.

He said memoranda ofunderstanding (MoUs) weresigned in the presence of ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath,whose promise to provide jobsto migrants returning to thestate was fulfilled by theMSME department of the UP

government."To those who had raised

questions as to how the stategovernment will carry out thegigantic task of providing 11lakh jobs to skilled and semi-skilled labourers, the MSMEdepartment has given theanswer," Singh asserted.

The minister pointed out

that certain states had consid-ered UP labourers as liability,"but, Adityanath convertedthem into assets".

Singh said his departmenthas set up a control room formigrant labourers and has sofar ensured payment of Rs1,700 crore dues to workers in75,000 units.

UP govt inks MOUs with industrybodies for 11 lakh jobs to migrants

Singh said his department has set up acontrol room for migrant labourers andhas so far ensured payment of Rs 1,700crore dues to workers in 75,000 units

PNS n NEW DELHI

State-run Power FinanceCorporation (PFC) on Fridayannounced the appointmentof Ravinder Singh Dhillon asChairman and ManagingDirector from June 1 followingsuperannuation of RajeevSharma this month.

The board of PFC in itsmeeting held on Fridayapproved the appointment ofDhillon as CMD of the compa-ny in pursuance of an order ofthe Power Ministry issued inthis regard on April 7, 2020, the

power sector financier said in astatement.

Dhillon's appointment as

Chairman and ManagingDirector will be with effectfrom the date of assumption of

charge of the post on or afterJune 2020, it said. He wouldhold the post till the date of hissuperannuation (May 31, 2023)or until further orders, thecompany said. IncumbentCMD Rajeev Sharma is attain-ing superannuation on May31, 2020, after a glorious careerspanning close to four decades,the company said. He has beeninstrumental in PFC's transfor-mation as one of India's largestfinancial and lending institu-tions in the power sector andthe fourth largest profit-makingCPSE on a consolidated basis.

PNS n CHENNAI

Sundaram-Clayton Ltd, a lead-ing supplier of aluminium die-cast products has clocked a23.43 per cent rise in its stand-alone profits for the January-March 2020 period at Rs 62.05crore. The city-based TVSGroup company had regis-tered net profits at Rs 50.27crore during correspondingquarter previous year. For thefull year ending March 31,2020, net profits stood at Rs68.70 crore, the company saidin a BSE filing. The net profitsregistered in the correspondingperiod last year stood at Rs119.66 crore.

Total income for the quarterunder review was at Rs 394.77crore as against Rs 455.65 croreregistered in the same periodlast fiscal. For the full year end-ing March 31, 2020 stand-alone total income slipped to Rs1,424.14 crore from Rs 1,932.94crore registered in the corre-sponding period last fiscal.

Sundaram-Claytonposts 23.43% risein fourth quarter

PNS n NEW DELHI

State-owned Coal India's fuelallocation under the exclusivee-auction scheme for thenon-power sector rose overthree-folds to 3.91 milliontonnes (MT) in April.

Coal India Ltd (CIL) hadallocated 1.20 MT of dryfuel to the sector under thescheme in April 2019, as perlatest government data.

This growth comes amidCIL looking to tap the non-power sector to consume itscoal in the wake of a slumpin demand for the dry fuel.

For the entire fiscal (2019-20), the PSU's coal allocationunder the scheme dropped to8.03 MT from 11.36 MT inthe previous year.

No dry fuel was allocatedin March 2020, whereas inthe same month of 2019,1.93 MT of coal was bookedunder the scheme, datashowed.

The scheme was launchedin 2015-16 to make coalavailable to non-power con-sumers, including captivepower plants.

CIL's coalallocationunder e-auction

Sebi bars two formerpromoters of SSL fromcapital mkts for 4 yearsPNS n NEW DELHI

Regulator Sebi has barredtwo ex-promoters of ShrivallisSecurities Ltd (SSL) -- SubratKumar Routray and SnigdhaBiswal -- from the capitalmarkets for four years in anillegal fund raising case.

In October 2018, Sebi hadpassed an interim orderagainst Shrivallis Securitiesand its directors and promot-ers for illegally raising a sumof Rs 4.4 crore, through aredeemable preference sharesissue to at least 421 investorsduring 2011-12 and 2012-13.

The regulator had barredthe company's promoters anddirectors from the capitalmarkets, as per the interimorder.

Sebi noted that Routrayand Biswal were the promot-ers of SSL when money wasraised through the issue ofredeemable preference shares.

Routray and Biswal con-tended that they were notaware of the redeemable pref-erence shares issue and theytransferred their shares inSSL to the managing director

when they came to knowabout the said fund raising.

But they failed to prove thatthey had given a reasonablepublic notice that theredeemable preference shareswere issued without theirknowledge or consent.

Thus, both of them failed tomake out a case for why theyshould not be held liable forviolation of the public issuenorms, Sebi said in an orderon Thursday.

Consequently, the regulatorhas restrained Routray andBiswal from buying, selling orotherwise dealing in securitiesin any manner whatsoever,directly or indirectly, for aperiod of four years or till thecompletion of refund to theinvestors of SSL, whicheveris late.

PFC clears Dhillon's appointment as CMD

Menstruation matters!

A NEW LEARNING

tudents withoutseat partners,attending schoolin shifts whilewearing masks,and carrying sani-

tisers along with books, com-bining online education withphysical and a focus on keep-ing safe… Is this what schoolsin the recent future, wheneverthey reopen, look like? Sincethe world is all set to changewith new normal in everyindustry be it fashion, travelor education, the question is— what is the way forward?Educationists share thatCOVID-19 is likely to changethe face of education in theforthcoming years and it willpave the way for new learningtrends.

Some of the suggestionsthat have come forth fromeducationists include frequenthealth checks, temperaturescreenings, staggered arrivalsand limiting visitors on cam-pus

But there is also the emo-tional aspect to be lookedafter. The bond that childrenmake in school, while beingaway from their parents, fam-ily or any kind of interven-tion, make them understanddifferent aspects of life whilemaking them emotionallystrong. So social need is onedomain which every schoolcaters as it plays a very impor-tant role in shaping a child’scharacter, believes ShivaniGupta, a primary teacher ofGems Modern Academy,Gurgaon. She says, “Multi-sensory experiences for achild are a very strong force.S/he learns best not in a class,but over time with real lifeexperiences. I feel the focusstill remains the same, just thestrategies have changedbecause of what is happeningin the world. Now these val-ues are being taught usingtechnology.”

Children are being pre-pared to deal with the newnormal. Short videos, PPTsand online discussions arebeing conducted to makethem aware of the current sit-uation. Their inputs are askedon topics like: What do theythink can be done to staysafe? How important is it tomaintain social distancing? Isthere any need to change theway we think? What shouldbe changed — our thinkingor our actions? “Such topicsignite their critical thinkingand give them a chance tointrospect their views. Oncethey believe in what they do,it becomes their habit,”Shivani tells us.

Group learning, which waswidely adopted before thispandemic, should now bereplaced with a more engag-ing approach, shares BeasDev Ralhan, co-founder andCEO of Next Education India

Pvt Ltd. “Schools shouldintroduce individual activitiesand project-based learning sothat students can explore theirinterests and learn at theirown pace. Further, to makebonding among students andteachers, online discussions,debates and extemporesshould be conducted so thatthey can interact, presenttheir views and stay connect-ed. This, in turn, will ensurethat learning and holisticdevelopment doesn’t stop nomatter what,” says he.

What is a crisis worth ifyou don’t learn somethingfrom it? Well, Anju Wal, prin-cipal of Shiv Nadar School,Faridabad, shares that schoolsare re-imagining the teach-ing-learning process. At thismoment, it is more importantto do empathetic teaching

than transact lessons online.She says, “An expression oflove and care is paramount tothe digital learning format inthese unprecedented times.No one in the education sec-tor was certain how to goabout the new norm of teach-ing digitally, but have evolvedconsiderably and bettered theonline experience for ourchildren with regularimprovements made throughfeedback, dialogue, and analy-sis.”

One thing is certain thateducation institutions havemade the most of the situa-tion. With e-learning, schoolshave learned not to put dis-proportionate focus on facts,figures and bookish learning.What Meenal Arora, founder-director of Shemford Groupof Futuristic Schools, feels isthat this chaotic time is teach-ing us that a curriculum must

be grounded in students’ real-ities and cultivate empathy,creative and flexible thinkingin students. “Teachers are try-ing to help children thinkabout their relationship withthe world around themthrough various activities.Parents have important rolesto play and their active partic-ipation is indispensable,” saysshe.

Educational needs of chil-dren are changing at a veryhigh pace. Subjecting them tomathematical tables, muggingup poems and memorisingthe names of colours is notgoing to help anymore. Theyneed to be exposed to ‘experi-ences’ no matter how trivial.But with the current scenarioand online education becom-ing the trend, this isn’t anoption. So how can one focus

on learning through realexperiences in an untouch-able world? Shivani finds theoptimistic viewpoint in a neg-ative situation as well. Shefeels that we can still do a lotmore than what we could dobefore the ‘stay-at-home’orders. “Earlier, we were get-ting away from all the plea-sures of life, from family andhappiness because of our fast-paced lives. Right now, we areactually saving that time andenergy, which can be used invarious other pursuits. Thisuntouchable time has actuallybrought us closer to our fami-lies and has given time tofocus on the real experiences.As a teacher, I ask my stu-dents to connect with theirgrandparents as they can offerendless stories and a hugeamount of patience to answerall those “why?” questionsand help their mothers as

psychology suggests that chil-dren learn and imitate behav-iours by watching and listen-ing, which means they canlearn character traits such asresilience, determination andperseverance from mother,”shares she.

Anju tells us that even inthese lockdown days, whenthey are digitally connectingwith the children, they arelooking at the home as thelaboratory of learning and theparents as their co-partners inthe journey of teaching andlearning. Even agrees withShivani and says, “There hasbeen no option but to deepenconnects with our parentsand orient them seamlesslyand consistently to own ourpedagogy. We partner withthem and use homegrownresources to bring real-time

experiences in this learningfrom home situation.”

The global health crisis hasalso redirected the pedagogi-cal approach towards digitallearning tools and e-learningplatforms that offer learningexperiences close to real expe-riences. “Subject learningmust be reshaped and amal-gamated with short videos,DIY activities, audio-visualcontent and more. Studentsmust be encouraged toexplore and browse subject-related queries online, activelyparticipate in discussions withsubject experts and attendwebinars,” says Ralhan.

Pankaj Kumar Singh,Managing Director of theCambridge Montessoripreschool and day care pvtltd, has a few more waysthrough which children canbe exposed to real experi-ences. He says, “Design activi-

ties that integrate online inter-actions with physical move-ment like going on a scav-enger hunt, group stories,singing or music. Providechildren with a choice ofactivities so that they can beempowered in making deci-sions over the week, whileensuring a balance of activi-ties across curriculum learn-ing areas. For instance, usinga rubric to self-monitorprogress, apply techniques ofthe flipped classroom. It’swhere children engage inlearning experiences by col-lecting information, items,experimenting and then sharethrough online format.”

Once the schools reopen, afew precautionary measureswill be taken and we can stillbe on the path of learning. Sohow can the children betaught about social distancingin schools and no-touch cul-ture? Rohan Parikh, directorof The Green Acres Academy,explains that children are nat-urally curious and are alwayslooking to explore and inter-act with their environment.“The more practical solutionswill be to create a shift systemso we have less children in thebuilding at one time. Keepseparate groups to containany spread. There will be ahuge burden on schools tomanage and keep to thesemeasures. Teachers will haveto look for ways to createexperiences within class-rooms that are meaningfuland impart knowledge. Suchcreativity and working withlimited resources have beenthe way of teachers for manyyears. I trust we will find thesolution,” says he.

Undoubtedly, the processhas its own challenges but “alot of training sessions andworkshops for everyone —teachers, students and evenparents, can help a bit,” sharesMeenal. “Using fun interac-tive activities, children can betaught to maintain social dis-tance. With constant coun-selling, we will be able toachieve a no-touch culture atschool. It can be done byinstilling discipline and mak-ing children understand howthey have to conduct them-selves in the ‘new normal’world. This may impactlearning through real lifeexperiences a bit but we mustremember — difficult timesdon’t last forever. This, too,shall pass soon,” she adds.

The future of education isall set to change. And it’s truethat nothing can replace thephysical touch and its impacton one’s memory. But as theysay, the only constant in life ischange. The ones who do notwant to change will succumband the ones who maintaintheir sanity, stay calm and arewilling to adapt this changewill survive this pandemic.

AYUSHI SHARMA talks to the experts to find out the way forward for schools andeducation as social distancing changes the method of instruction

As the Menstrual Hygiene week aims to breakthe silence around menstruation and challengethe stigma surrounding this natural cycle,SHIKHA DUGGAL speaks to Dr Shehla Jamal, adoctor, better known to have started the PeriodCups movement in India, on how it's still ataboo in 2020, why it is important to overcomethis, and more

enstruationmatters, and it’shigh time weall, irrespectiveof our gender,understand

this. Menstruation is anatural process and must-n’t add to any moretaboos. This MenstrualHygiene week, an awardeewho began the movementof using menstrual cupsin India, Dr Shehla Jamal,pledges to change mind-sets and help spreadawareness through the‘Youth for Seva’ platform.

There are several healthrisks associated with poormenstrual hygiene, shesays.

Poverty: Rural womenresort to using mud, oldrags, cow dung cakes andash to contain menstrualblood. They tend to causea lot of inconvenience andhinder a woman’s day-to-day activities too.

Negative menstrualbeliefs: The saga aroundnot allowing women todry their menstrual cloth-ing in the sun act as abreeding ground forgerms and can causeinfection.

Lack of awareness: Notknowing the importanceof menstrual hygiene con-tinues to lead women touse traditional methodsexposing themselves to

more risks. Mental health hazards:

Bloating, mood swings,and headaches are symp-toms of the pre-menstrualsyndrome.

“Nobody wants to talkabout PMSing. The wordis used very frequentlyand most times, flippantlyused, yet I doubt howmany even know what’sPre-Menstrual Syndrome.It can sometimes causewomen a lot of discomfortand break the state oftheir mental health. Ifmental health isn’taddressed, it leads toshorter menstrual cyclesor irregular periods,”informs Dr Shehla.

Socio-cultural aspects ofmenstruationShe enlightens us on howsociety must view menstrua-tion. From adopting villages,conducting camps, spreadingawareness in colleges andschools, promoting menstru-al hygiene is her only motto.She appreciates the countlesswomen who came forwardto speak about menstrualshame and stigma throughtheir social media handles.“Raise awareness about men-strual products like tamponsand menstrual cups. Thegovernment must providefree sanitary pads and con-sider compulsory periodeducation at a particularage,” she tells us.

So this Menstrual Hygieneweek, remember to embraceand celebrate your biologicalcycle.

How to maintain menstrual hygiene?The gynaecologist suggests some tipsevery woman must follow to maintainmenstrual hygiene.

o Change your pads every few hourso Keep your vaginal area clean o Wear a clean underwearo Don’t use “hygiene products” from the

market as they all are just gimmickso Stick to one method of sanitation

Myth and facts about menstrual bleedingDr Shehla then continues to de-bunksome of the misconceptions surround-ing menstruation.

o Myth: Is menstrual blood just blood?o Reality: Menstrual blood consists of

blood as well as extra tissue from theuterus lining

o Myth: Can women’s period cycle hap-pen in sync?

o Reality: Women’s bodies react to thehormones of other women aroundthem, and it causes a synchronizationof menstruation. Women who livetogether sometimes do get their peri-ods at the same time, but it may just bea coincidence.

o Myth: Should You exercise while men-struating?

o Reality: Unless you have severe cramp-ing or excessive blood flow that inter-feres with your ability to participate inphysical activities, there’s no reason torefrain from exercise when you haveyour period. Exercise during menstrua-tion can relieve you from periodcramping.

M

Nobody wants to talkabout PMSing. Theword is used veryfrequently and mosttimes, flippantly used,yet I doubt how manyeven know what’s Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. Itcan sometimes causewomen a lot of discom-fort and break the stateof their mental health. Ifmental health isn’t add-ressed, it leads to shor-ter menstrual cycles orirregular periods

— DR SHEHLA

S

CHILDREN ARE BEING PREPARED TO DEAL WITH THE NEW NORMAL.SHORT VIDEOS, PPTS AND ONLINE DISCUSSIONS ARE BEING CONDU-CTED TO MAKE THEM AWARE OF THE CURRENT SITUATION. WITH E-LEARNING, SCHOOLS HAVE LEARNED NOT TO PUT DISPROPORTIONATEFOCUS ON FACTS, FIGURES AND BOOKISH LEARNING.

9

Saturday May 30 2020

fter sending numerous migrantworkers to their hometowns across

the nation, actor Sonu Sood has nowairlifted over 170 girls stuck in Kerala

amid the coronavirus lockdown.Rajya Sabha MP Amar Patnaik on

Friday tweeted about Sonu’s initiative of airlift-ing the Odia girls.

“Sonu SoodJi, you are helping the Odiagirls to return safely from Kerala is

commendable. Kudos to yournoble efforts. It’s incredible to

see how you are helping theneedy reach their homes

safely. More strength toyou,” Patnaik tweeted.

Reportedly, a specialaircraft was arranged to

help the girls whowere stuck in

Ernakulam.The girls, who hailfrom Odisha, were

working as stitchingand embroidery

labourers at a localtextile factory there.

On board also were 10migrant labourers whowere working in a ply-

wood factory.A source close to

the actor has pro-vided pictures to

IANS, in which wecan see the girls

standing outsidethe Kochi air-

port. And afterlanding at

Bhubaneswarairport, the

girls happilyposed for the

camera,holding

Sonu’s pic-tures in

their hands.

ushrat Bharucha, fresh from the suc-cess of Dream Girl, is all set to playthe lead in the Hindi remake of the

hit Marathi horror film, Lapachhapi.Titled Chhori, the film is helmed by

Vishal Furia, who directed the origi-nal as well.

Lapachhapi revolved around age-old societalbeliefs and practices that give rise to tales of

pure terror. The work on the script is currentlyunderway and Vishal Kapoor, who also wrote the

original, is writing the remake.Talking about her new project, Nushrat

says, “I am extremely excited to be a partof Chhori. This genre excites me and

the fact that the story is anchoredin practices of our society,

makes it relatable and impact-ful. I have wanted to work

with Vishal Furia and I am soglad we’ve finally collaborated

on Chhori, which is so closeto his heart.”

Director Vishal Furiaadded, “Getting a chance torevisit the film has been anamazing experience. I want

to take the remake a fewsteps further and make a

much more impactful,scary and thrilling film —

more so because I amgrateful for all the love I

still receive for Lapachhapi.Partnering with Vikram and

his team along with JackDavis has been a wonderfulprocess and I am confident

that all of us can take thisfilm to even bigger heights.

Nushrat is a very strong andpromising actor who I believe

is well equipped to essay astrong role all by herself. I have

wanted to collaborate with her fora while now and I am glad that we

finally have a film together.”In a recent interview withPinkvilla, Nushrat’s moth-

er had said the actorwould get married

very soon. She said,“She is going to

get married verysoon, we are

going to push hernow. We have

given her enoughtime and now she

has to listen to us.”Besides Chhori, she

will also be seenopposite Rajkummar

Rao in Chhalaangand in Sunny

Kaushal-starrerHurdang.

10

Saturday May 30 2020 what’s brewing?

16-acre, high-mainte-nance set that wasbuilt for the AjayDevgn-starrerMaidaan has beendismantled owing to

the ongoing COVID-19 lock-down and the upcoming mon-soon season.

“We built a massive outdoorset covering a 16-acre plotaround Mumbai, with all theproduction infrastructure. Justas the shoot was getting under-way, the pandemic hit theworld,” said the film’s producer

Boney Kapoor, adding, “The sethas now been dismantled asrains are due to arrive inMumbai. The rebuild will takeat least two months, which willstart in September at the earli-est, so shooting can commenceonly in November.”

Kapoor added this meant amassive loss for us. "Thankfullyall the indoor and some out-door, training portions wereshot in Lucknow and Kolkata, soare already in the can,” heinformed.

Directed by Badhaai Ho

maker Amit Sharma, Maidaan isa football drama based on thelife of former player, the lateSyed Abdul Rahim, who is alsoregarded as one of the greatestcoaches in the sport that Indiahas seen. He managed theIndian national team from 1950until his death in 1963, and iswidely known as the architect ofmodern Indian football.

Reportedly, sets of the AkshayKumar-starrer historical drama,Prithviraj, will also be disman-tled due to high maintenancecost.

16-acre set of Ajay Devgn-starrerMAIDAAN dismantled

A

A

SONU SOOD airlifts 177Odia girls from Kerala

ctor Arjun Kapoor will be part of aglobal effort to raise funds forthose affected by the COVID-19pandemic. The effort alsoinvolves international stars likeJason Derulo, Dua Lipa,

Maluma, Nicky Jam, Becky G among othersThe live fundraising event is called OHM

Live. It is a multi-platform charity initiativeand will take place on Friday.

“As conscious citizens, every one of us haveto do our bit to help as many people in needdue to the Coronavirus crisis. The pan-demic has affected everyone globally. Theloss of lives and human suffering isunbearable and devastating. Every oneof us living in every corner of theworld has understood that we aredeeply connected to one another,”Arjun said.

The actor added, “It is an honour forme to be a part of this esteemed plat-form that has so many luminaries, fromso many countries, who are joininghands to raise funds to support asmany people as possible. With somany lives affected worldwide,this charity initiative is essen-tially one that sees humanitystand up to protect humanity,”he said.

ProceedsraisedthroughOHM Livewill go tovariousbenefi-ciarieswho aresupport-ing front-line workersfightingagainst theCOVID-19 pandemic.

Arjun Kapoor joins DuaLipa, Jason Derulo toraise COVID-19 funds

FUN

Rules

ARCHIE

GARFIELD

SUDOKU

REALITY CHECK SPEED BUMP CROSSWORD

GINGER MEGGS

NANCY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

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

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

Yesterday’s solution

A

N

Nushrat stepsinto horror genre

aga Shaurya seems to bea man on a mission thesedays. Having alreadygreen-lit projects withSithara Entertainments,Northstar Entertainment

and East Coast Productions, theactor, last seen in the average grosserAswathama, has now agreed to fea-ture in Ala Ela director AnishKrishna’s next, The Pioneer haslearnt.

A well-placed source close to thedevelopment tells us, “Anish pitcheda romantic family drama inter-spersed with a lot of humour toShaurya a couple of months ago. Theactor evinced interest in it pronto.Besides the story, he liked his charac-ter — it’s something which he hither-

to played thus far. Thefact that the role willinduce humour wasan added bonus, ashe hasn’t attemptedcomic roles in therecent past. Withthe script worktoo more or lesscompleted,Shaurya is look-ing to start thefilm in three-four monthstime. Majorityof the film willbe shot inHyderabadwhile a smallschedule requiresthe unit to travelto a green setting.”

The source furtheradds Shaurya and the director willsit down to decide on the produc-er. “A meeting, in which the tech-nical composition of the film toowill be discussed, is around thecorner between both the parties.One name that is confirmed onthe technical front as of now isthat of much-in demand cine-matographer Sai Sriram,” thesource concludes.

11

N

Saturday May 30 2020tollywood

articipating in a #AskSamsession after a long whileon Friday, actressSamantha said that she istrying intermittent fastingto stay fit during the

quarantine. “I am trying‘Intermittent fasting’ .. also coz I amforced too.. coz I eat biryani forlunch every other day and love spicyfood .. I have finished 3 bottles ofpickle already .. so I assume fastingwill make me a good girl again(sic),” she replied to a fan who askedwhat has she been up to on the fit-ness front of late.

Admitting that she has tried herhands at cooking during the quar-antine, she revealed that sherecently whipped up Shakshouka.

On one thing that she learntduring the last 70 odd days, shenoted, “That you don’t have to runafter a dream .. the dream can beat home also ... with family (sic).”

To a question on what shethinks of her haters, she stated,“Unfortunately for you .. youdon’t realise that you inspire mecompliments make me lazyinsults propel me to give my bestwork .. so Thankyou (sic).”

P

ctor Naga Babuhas come downheavily onBalakrishna forhis remarks onnot being invit-

ed to meetings of notedpersonalities of the indus-try with Cinematographyminister Talasani SrinivasYadav over the past twoweeks. “Balakrishna garushould ask the concernedperson who organised themeetings on why he wasn’t

invited in the firstplace. I believe it is

wrong on theorganiser’s

part tohavenot

invited him. However, hiscomment — on actors try-ing to grab lands and dis-tribute among themselves— left me disappointed. Hecan’t run his mouth; heshould choose words care-fully. The meetings wereorganised for the industryto get back on its feet. EvenI wasn’t invited to them.With his loose talk,Balakrishna garu has notjust insulted the industrybut also the Telangana gov-ernment. He should apolo-gise,” Naga Babu said onhis YouTube channel.

On

Thursday, when a reporterfrom a Telugu news chan-nel quizzed about hisabsence from industry’srecent meetings withTalasani Srinivas Yadav,Balayya had said, “Nobodyhas invited me to the meet-ings. They (the actors) aredoing real estate businesssitting with Srinivas Yadav.I need not fear anyonebecause it’s the truth.”

Speaking on the issue onFriday, filmmakerThammareddy Bharadwajsaid the whole episode hasbeen blown out of propor-tion as there is no contro-

versy in it in the firstplace. “Inviting some-

one to a meetdepends on the

matter at hand.If we comeacross a situa-tion whichneedsBalakrishnagaru’s atten-tion, we willspeak to him

100 per cent,”he said, refut-ing rumoursabout a dividein the story.

Sam is forced to ‘tryintermittent fasting’

Anish pitched aromantic family

dramainterspersed witha lot of humour toShaurya a couple

of months ago.The actor

evinced interestin it pronto.

Besides the storythe actor liked his

character, findsNAGARAJ

GOUD

A

Balakrishna garu shouldapologise: NAGA BABU

ashmika Mandanna, who is one ofthe busiest actors around, hasbeen confined to home for thepast two months and she saysthat she is at peace staying athome. Taking to her Instagram

page, she noted that all that matters toher family is taking care of her. “Duringthis lockdown I have spent more than 2months at home which is super long andthe best part is we don’t talk much aboutwork and all they care about is me. Theygive me the strength to deal with every-thing and this is my happy space... Inever thought I would feel this calm,happy and at peace staying home buttrust me, family is home and you arelucky if you come back home after along day of work and feel soo at peace!”(Sic), the actress wrote, adding: “Iremember the days my mom stayed upwith me through the nights on sets dur-ing shoots, my dad making ends meetto spend some quality time with familyand my lil sis trying to cope up witheverything happening around her(sic).”

She further noted that her life hasbeen a marathon since she was 18and just when she thought it wasover, the race would begin again.“I’m not complaining, this is what Ialways wanted,” she posted.

Last seen opposite Nithiin inBheeshma, the actress will shoot-ing for Pushpa, starring Allu Arjun,up next.

Rashmika is‘calm, happy and at peace'staying at home

R

Dubbed version ofBaahubali 2 is a hiton Russian TV

he Russian Embassyon its verified Twitteraccount has confirmedthat the 2017 block-buster Baahubali 2:

The Conclusion has foundfavour among TV viewers inRussia.

The film has been dubbed inRussian language and telecast

on a channel in that country.“Indian cinema gains popu-

larity in Russia. Look whatRussian TV is broadcastingright now: the Baahubali withRussian voiceover!” tweeted@RusEmbIndia, the officialTwitter account of the Embassyof the Russian Federation in theRepublic of India, along with adubbed clip of the film.

Fans in India were overjoyedwith the news, and the dubbedRussian clip of the film hasgone viral. Fans in India arethanking Russia and Russiansfor receiving the blockbustermythological action drama withsuch warmth.

“Thank you from Telugu filmindustry and from Teluguspeaking people.. Another addi-tion to the list along withPasivadi Pranam (1987) gotdubbed into Russian language,”tweeted a fan.

A fan, commenting on theRussian Embassy’s tweet,quipped: “I wonder how songwill be sung in Russian.. pleaseupload that video having songor background song.”

To this, the embassy replied:“They just put subtitles.”

Many Prabhas fans tweetedpictures of their star, whoplayed the central father-soncharacters of AmarendraBahubali and MahendraBahubali, as a thank-you note.T

SHAURYA, ANISHKRISHNA TEAM-UPFOR A FAMILYENTERTAINER

ONE YEAR OF JUGGERNAUTVIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | MAY 30, 2020

A NEW CHAPTER IN INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENTThe Andhra Pradesh

government, headedby YS Jaganmohan

Reddy, has unleashed a newchapter in inclusive develop-ment during its first year inoffice with the state govern-ment leaving no stone unt-urned in taking public ser-vice delivery to the doorstepsof the people apart fromempowering the poor andthe marginalised through aslew of developmental andwelfare initiatives.

The state government'sinitiatives over the past oneyear reflect on the need tofocus on long-term develop-mental goals while meetingthe immediate needs of thepeople to end their povertyand deprivation.

Governance with a difference:

The flagship programmeof the government Navar-atnalu has been introducedto foster inclusive develop-ment of all sections.

The village secretariat sys-tem together with the volun-teer system helped in takingthe governance to thedoorsteps of the peoplebesides strengthening thelocal administration. Theeffectiveness of these systemsbecame evident during theongoing Covid-19 crisiswhen they functioned as‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ of the govern-ment in curbing the spread ofCovid-19 and delivering theessential services.

Empowering the 'unempowered'

Empowerment withoutgiving agency to the peopleis meaningless and may not

give voice to the voiceless. Inan effort to make theBC,SC,ST and minoritiespartners in governance, theChief Minister has allocatedfive Deputy Chief Ministerposts and more than half ofthe Cabinet berths to thepeople belonging to thesesections. Besides, the govern-ment has decided to give 50per cent reservation to themin all the nominated posts,government nominated con-tracts, state corporations,trusts, societies, boards andagricultural markets.

Further, the state govern-

ment has done a commend-able job in empowering the‘other half ’. Be it the passageof the Disha Act, prohibitionof liquor in a phased manner,registering house sites in thename of women or transfer-ring money in their accountsas part of Amma Vodischeme, welfare of womenhas been placed at the centreof the reform process.

Investing in the futureThe government's plan to

revamp the education andhealth sectors through'Nadu- Nedu' scheme would

bring transformationalchanges in the lives of peo-ple through the eliminationof poverty and facilitation ofsocial mobility.

The various measurestaken in the education sectorinclude the plan to introduce

of English medium in gov-ernment schools, AmmaVodi scheme, setting up reg-ulatory commissions forschool and higher educa-tion among others. In thehealth sector, it is planning toinvest over Rs 16,000 crore torevamp hospitals and med-ical colleges besides settingup about 10,000 YSR clinicsat the village level.

Transparency as touchstone A zero tolerance approach

towards corruption has beenadopted by the state govern-ment. Besides launching ananti- corruptionhelpline(14400) governmenthas set up SpecialEnforcement Bureau (SEB) tocurb sale of illicit liquor andarrest illegal sand mining.

A judicial preview commit-tee headed by a retired High

Court judge has been set upto ensure transparency inawarding contracts worth Rs100 crore and above.

Going forwardThe investments being

made by the state govern-ment in public educationand public health is com-mendable and set the stagefor inclusive and prosperousAndhra Pradesh. The gov-ernment should carry thismomentum forward.

The state should takeeffective steps for timelycompletion of planned irri-gation projects includingPolavaram, UttarandhraSujala Sravanthi andRayalaseema Lift IrrigationScheme.

Further, a new industrialpolicy should be broughtwith a renewed focus on

agro-based, pharmaceutical,biotech and IT industrieswhere the state has inherentstrength. Building on thesuccess of Sri City and APMedtech Zone the stateshould develop similar clus-ters to attract investmentand provide employment.Above all, MSMEs should begiven a renewed push asthey employ about 10 lakhpeople in the state. Anannouncement of over Rs900 crore package to MSMEsis a welcome step.

Going forward, the gov-ernment should win the per-ception battle as it is impor-tant for the government tonot just deliver but also seemto be delivering. For this, itshould strengthen its com-munication channels andpublicise its welfare schemeswidely.

PRUDHVI VEGESNA

The Navaratnalu (nine schemes) areexpected to bring a difference in the livesof the people, especially that of the poorand the marginalised

12

SUMIT ONKA n VISAKHAPATNAM

The world is seeminglysplit in two differenteras— Before Corona

and After Corona— and thechallenges of the AfterCorona era will be the samefor the AP government asfor the rest of the world.

With the state losingabout 14.90 per cent of itsGSDP due to Covid — amammoth Rs 1.49 lakh-crore — continuing with theimplementation slew of wel-fare schemes the YSRCPgovernment launched in thefirst year of its term wouldbe a daunting task indeed.

If one factors in the factthat revenue generation hasalso taken a downwardcurve, the task at handappears even more tough.

A report by SBI Researchteam (SBI Ecowrap), pub-lished in this newspaper ear-lier, also analysed the shareof GSDP loss from differentzones in AP due to theCoronavirus — 49.4 per centin red zone, 45.4 per centfrom Orange zone and 2.1per cent from green zone.The biggest contributing fac-

tor for this loss has been thestifling lockdown.

When it came to power inMay 2019, the YSRCP gov-ernment made it clear thatthe state’s coffers werealmost empty.

However, that did not stopthe Jaganmohan Reddy gov-ernment preferring welfareover wealth creation in itsfirst year.

We may never know if thegovernment had a plan forwealth generation for thesecond year of this term, butwe do know that any suchplans have gone haywire asthe Covid pandemic devas-tated the financial health ofthe world economy andwould surely impact thestate government as well.

The Chief Minister hasrightly said that 90 per centof his poll promised — espe-cially the ones regardingwelfare schemes — havebeen fulfilled in the first yearof YSRCP rule. The govern-ment had allocated a lion’sshare to the welfare schemein its maiden budget.

Everything on the groundsuggests that the govern-ment is determined to con-tinue its welfare schemes,

but the question is whetherthe financial situation maynot allow JaganmohanReddy to float any new wel-fare scheme with a big out-lay.

The AP state debt burdenhad soared to Rs 2,58,928crore by the end of the 2019fiscal. The Finance Minister,while presenting the 2019-20Budget, had said: “TheYSRCP government inherit-ed probably one of the worstfinancial positions everinherited in the history ofour country.”

He reeled off data to sup-port his words — in the2019-20 budget, the revenuedeficit was Rs 1,778.52 croreand the fiscal deficit figuredat Rs 35,260.58 crore.

It may be mentioned herethat AP is the only state thatis demanding SCS for rea-sons beyond its control, asbifurcation has severelydeteriorated the finances ofthe state, and this was reiter-ated by the FinanceMinister.

This apart, the industriesand real estate sectors havealso fallen sick and thatwould hit the revenuesources of the government

down the years.Excise and Commercial

Taxes minister, K NarayanaSwamy has estimated thatthe state lost a revenue of Rs6,000 crore due to the lock-down as the liquor shopswere closed due to Covid.Fuel and liquor are majorrevenue sources for the stategovernment.

The state revenue comesmainly from state taxes andduties, share of CentralTaxes, other non-tax revenue(including grants-in-aid)and interests.

AP’s GSDP is mainly dri-ven by its agriculture sectorbesides industry and servicessector. Agriculture accountsfor around 34 per cent,industry 24 per cent andother services at 43 per cent.The estimated GDP of thestate for 2019-20 was Rs10.81 lakh-crore and hasbeen registering a growth ofclose to 15 per cent in thelast five years going by theGSDP data of states.

Considering all thesefinancial difficulties, imple-menting the welfare schemesappears to be a Herculeantask for the government inthe next four years.

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Before the 2019 generalelections, messages flew fastand this on social media that ifthe YSR Congress Party cameto power in the State, law andorder in Andhra Pradesh wouldgo for a toss. Those messages may have beenpolitically driven, or spread byvested interests, or any otherreason could have been behindthem, but they were picked upby the mainstream press that isstill against the YSRCP.A year after the YSRCP stormedto power, crime rate in the stateis by and large under control.Notably, there have been noreported instance of anyorganised crime. Naturally, the ruling partyleaders claim that this isbecause of the initiatives likeSpandana online complaintregistration platform and APDisha Act that drew wideappreciation from across thecountry. Overall,theState

Government has managed tokeep a clean image so far.Interestingly, political observersare of the opinion that ChiefMinister YS Jaganmohan Reddymight have warned the electedrepresentatives to toe the line.“If the party in power isdetermined to curb crime, it iseasy for the policeadministration to take actionagainst the perpetrators. TheCM had also directed theofficials not to spare anyonefound involved in corruption.We haven’t got to see any newsregarding any misdemeanoursby a MLA or MP in the first yearof YSRCP rule. CM hasmanaged to keep his MLAs andMPs and party cadres in checkso far,” remarked a politicalobserver. Days after the rape and murderof a 26-year-old veterinarian inHyderabad, which sparked off anational outrage, AndhraPradesh became the first Stateto enact a law—AP Disha Act—aimed at awarding capital

punishment to those whoare guilty in

specifiedoffences

against women and to expeditetrial in such cases within 21days of committing the crime.And top of it, Disha policestations were also opened tosolely deal with cases ofharassment of women.Recently, a Special EnforcementBureau was established,absorbing staff from Excise andProhibition department. Also,supporters of the ruling partywere arrested duringenforcement drives.In an exclusive chat with ThePioneer, DGP Goutam Sawangthrew light on how theSpandana programme has notonly checked crimes but alsohelped in redressal of the publicgrievances in all together.“It is very uniqueprogramme thatensuresaccessibility toall. A commonman canwalk up

and meet the official,commissioner of police and alsoSP. The process is transparent,accountable and time-bound.Moreover, the officialsconcerned need to ensure quickredressal in an accountablemanner,” Sawang said.He highlighted that more than50 per cent of complains arefrom women and it speaksvolumes about the result of theprogramme. “Women generallydon’t come forward as theecosystem is not conducive andwoman-friendly. But theSpananda programme hasaddressed this issue,” the DGPadded.

A crime-free year

YSRRYTHU

BHAROSAThe YSRCP promises tooffer Rs 50,000 financial

assistance to farmers. Startingsecond year, each farmer family

would be given Rs 12,500 peryear, in addition to zero-interest

loans and free borewells. Cold storagesand food processing units in every

constituency are among a list of benefitspromised to the farmers.

AROGYASRIThe Arogyasrischeme would beapplicable to allmedical treatmentsof above Rs 1,000.Regardless of thelocation of thehospital, all medicalexpenses would beborne by thegovernment.

BAN ONALCOHOLThe YSRCPpromises to put inplace a ban on saleof alcohol across theState in three stages.

PENSIONLAPEMPUThe eligibility agecriteria of 65 yearsfor the pensionswould be reducedto 60 years. Seniorcitizens aged above60 would be givenRs 2,000 while thephysicallychallenged wouldbe given a pensionof Rs 3,000.

JALAYAGNAMUnder this scheme, lakhs of familieswould be benefited by the irrigationprojects. Completion of Polavaram

project on a war footing is promised.

AMMA VODIWith a view to encourage the families with

school-going children, the YSRCP promisesto provide Rs 15,000 towards assistance to allthe mothers who send their children to school.

YSR ASARAAll loans pertaining to

the women’s co-operative societies would

be waived. In addition, zero-interest loans would be

issued.YSR CheyoothaThroughYSR Cheyootha, the YSRCP intendsto support all women from SC, ST,

BC and minority communities, whoare aged above 45.

PAYDALANDARIKIILLU

In five years, theYSRCP promises to

build 25 lakh homes forthe poor.

FEE REIMBURSEMENTThe party, if elected to power, plans

to provide a comprehensive feereimbursement scheme, in line

with late Chief Minister Dr YSRajasekhara Reddy’s vision. In

addition to complete feereimbursement, an allowance of Rs

20,000 would be given to every student.

9 NAVARATNA

WELFARE SCHEMES

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

The saying ‘an enemy’senemy is a friend’ holdstrue in politics. The bon-homie between YSRCP andBJP-led government at theCentre justifies the saying ifone looks at the ‘enemy’senemy’ here — the TDP.

It’s no secret that both theBJP and YSRCP, especiallythe latter, want to weakenthe TDP in the state. Thisdesire may eventually workin the favour of the BJP.

From the first interviewof YSRCP supremoJaganmohan Reddy to anational TV channel postthe election victory, it was

clear that he would go softon the BJP.

“I was literally prayingfor a hung Parliament sothat whoever forms a gov-ernment at the Centrewould need the support ofthe regional parties,” he hadsaid. “BJP scored a hugemajority and would neednot require support fromany party. It would be anice gesture from the PMif in his magnanimity keepsto the words given in theParliament to accordSpecial Category Status toAndhra Pradesh,” Jagan hadsaid.

The past year of theYSRCP government has

given enough hints to showthat it is warming up to theModi government hopingthat Centre would changeits mind on the SpecialCategory Status demand.

to cite one example,YSRCP voted in the favourof the CitizenshipAmendment Bill in theParliament. It’s anothermatter altogether that Jagandid a U-turn after wide-spread resentment, so clear-ly expressed by DeputyChief Minister AmjadBasha and the minoritycommunity against the Bill.The AP government yield-ed, and announced that it

would not allow NRC inthe state and oppose in theHouse.

It is also seen that YSRCPhas not been overly criticalof the BJP on any issue inthe past year.

On its part, the state unitof the BJP too is not mount-ing any significantoppositionagainstYSRCPgovern-ment.

Common enemy, goals keepYSRCP-BJP bonhomie alive