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Ateenager fired from a pistolat anti-CAA protesters at

Jamia, injuring a Jamia MilliaIslamia student, before walkingaway while brandishing thefirearm aloft and shouting “Yehlo aazadi” amid heavy policepresence in the area onThursday afternoon. The boywas overpowered by police andtaken into custody.

Though normalcyreturned to Jamia and itsadjoining area by night,Opposition parties cashed inon the opportunity to cornerthe BJP, accusing its divisivepolitics for the shooting. Theincident has raised politicalfever in poll-bound Delhi.

The incident took placewhen the students were head-ing from Jamia to Rajghat.The march was stopped at theHoly Family Hospital near theuniversity as the police said theprotesters didn’t have permis-sion for the march. Suddenly ateenaged boy popped up witha pistol in hand and startedshouting slogans against theanti-CAA protesters. He con-fronted the protesters andopened fire, injuring a studentin the hand. The incident tookplace in full media glare in thepresence of police. The shoot-ing video went viral withinminutes.

The gun-toting youth wasoverpowered by police andtaken into custody. A caseunder section 307 IPC & 25/27Arms Act has been registeredat New Friends Colony policestation, said police.

According to the shootingvideo which went viral withinminutes, dozens of policemenin riot gear are seen behind theshooter, but none of them isseen trying to stop him.However, police said the shoot-ing incident happened for asplit second. “By the timepolice could react, the personhad already fired the shot.Everything happened in sec-

onds. The investigation is on.The case has been transferredto the Crime Branch. We arealso probing whether he is ajuvenile or not,” SpecialCommissioner of Police(Intelligence) Praveer Ranjan.

Massive protests erupted inthe area after the firing withhundreds of agitated peoplegathering near the university,breaking barricades which leadto minor clashes with policepersonnel. Many sang thenational anthem.

The gunman went live onFacebook before the brandish-ing the gun. Before the attack,the man also put out messageson Facebook stating “ShaheenBagh Khel Khatam” (ShaheenBagh game is over). Anothermessage stated, “Please wrapme in saffron in my last jour-ney with slogans of Jai ShriRam.” His Facebook profilewas deleted after screenshots ofhis posts were circulated wide-ly on social media platforms.

The man’s Facebook profilename is “Rambhakt Gopal”(actual name withheld in casehe is proved to be a minor),

which has now been deleted,also said he is taking revengefor “Chandan Bhai”, referring toa Chandan Gupta, who died ofgunshot during a motorcyclerally taken out to celebrate theRepublic Day in 2018.

"Chandan bhai ye badlaaapke liye hai (this revenge isfor you)," he had posted.

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India on Thursday confirmedthe first case of deadly novel

coronavirus infection in thecountry. The Union HealthMinistry said the patient, awoman, is a student at WuhanUniversity and the NationalInstitute of Virology in Punehas confirmed about her pos-itive status.

“She is in isolation in thehospital. She is stable and isbeing closely monitored,” saidthe Ministry.

One of 20 samples has test-ed positive for coronavirus,said Kerala Health MinisterKK Shailaja. The results ofthree more samples are yet to bereleased. “The patient hadreturned from Wuhan and isnow kept in isolation at GeneralHospital in Thrissur. She is sta-ble,” she said, urging peopletravelling from China to reportto the health department.

Three more suspectedcases are in isolation wards inThrissur.

Over 800 people are undersurveillance at their homes inKerala for possible exposure tothe virus. “We are well preparedwith multi-level surveillance,support systems on the ground. A 28-day home quar-antine is crucial,” the KeralaMinister added.

Meanwhile, a 23-year-oldman from Tripura has died ofthe Wuhan coronavirus in ahospital in Malaysia, his fami-ly has claimed. “My 23-year-oldgrandson had gone to Malaysiaaround two years ago,” ManirHossain’s grandfather AbdulRahim told an agency onThursday. “We got a phone callfrom the Malaysian authoritieson Wednesday morning,informing us of Hossain’s deathdue to coronavirus.”

The family is from the vil-lage of Purathal Rajnagar in

Madhupur police station area.Hossain reportedly used towork in a restaurant. Rahimurged the Government tomake arrangements for bring-ing back his grandson’s body.

The Government also saidthat it has reached out to over600 Indians living in China’sHubei province, the epicentreof coronavirus, to ascertaintheir willingness to be broughtback to India.

“We have established con-tact with over 600 Indiansacross the province and areindividually ascertaining theirwillingness to be repatriated.Our mission in Beijing is work-ing round-the-clock on theground to work out the neces-sary logistics,” External AffairsMinistry SpokespersonRaveesh Kumar said at a mediabriefing.

“We have made a formalrequest to the Government ofChina for bringing back Indiannationals from the Hubeiprovince in two flights. We areawaiting the necessaryapproval from the Chineseside. We hope this will begranted soon,” Kumar said.

Kumar said arrangementsare being put in place for people to travel to the airportin Wuhan.

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ADelhi court on Thursdaysentenced two men to 20

years of rigorous imprison-ment for brutally raping a five-year-old girl and abandoningher in a house believing she wasdead in Gandhi Nagar in 2013,just four months after theNirbhaya incident.

The court said it took intoconsideration the young ageand economic background ofthe convicts — Manoj Shah, 30,and Pradeep Kumar, 25 — but,in the interest of justice, itdeemed it appropriate to sen-tence them to 20 years rigorousimprisonment for theoffence punishable underSection 6 (aggravatedpenetrative sexualassault) of the POCSOAct.

On April 15, 2013,the convicts had shovedobjects in the victim’s private

parts and leaving her in ahouse believing she was dead.The child was rescued 40 hourslater on April 17 and had toundergo multiple surgeries atAIIMS hospital in Delhi.

Coming after the Nirbhayacase — another gruesome gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student — it hadtriggered a massive outrage asoutraged students and womenstaged demonstrations at theIndia Gate, police headquartersand near the residences of thenPrime Minister ManmohanSingh and Congress presidentSonia Gandhi.

Additional Sessions JudgeNaresh Kumar Malhotra

granted a compensationof Rs 11 lakh to the vic-tim, to be paid by theDelhi Legal Services

Authority, out of whichRs 2 lakh is to be released to her immedi-

ately.

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The DMK, struggling towrest the control of Tamil

Nadu administration which itlost in the 2011 Assembly elec-tion to the AIADMK got a shotin the arm on Thursday withone of the most powerful per-sons from the Sasikala clanendorsing MK Stalin as the nextChief Minister of the State.

TTV Dhivakaran, nephewof VK Sasikala, the close aideto late J Jayalalithaa, who is alsoa convict in the dispropor-tionate assets case, declared at

Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu dur-ing a marriage ceremony thatthere was only one personwho could regain the lost sta-tus of the Dravidians.“Thalapathy MK Stalin is theleader who could do that. Onlyhe could do it,” saidDhivakaran, popularly knownas the Boss in AIADMK.Mannargudi-based Dhivakaranwas reportedly the “kingmak-er” because of the influence hewielded in the Governmentduring the days of Sasikala andJayalalithaa.

He chose the marriage cer-emony of a close relation of SSPalanimanickam, the MP ofThanjavur to make theannouncement. Though boththe DMK and the Dhivakarancamps were tight-lipped about

the future plans, it has becomeclear that they have succeededin building a f lyover between them and the possi-bilities of political alliancehave brightened.

But what Dhivakaran leftunsaid was the impact filma c t or- t u r n e d - p o l i t i c i a nRajinikanth would create in theState. “Decades ago EVRamasamy Naicker, aKannadiga, came to TamilNadu and launched theDravida movement. But today,can we imagine a Tamil leaderwould be able to do the samein Karnataka? But more andmore outsiders are coming toTamil Nadu to launch theirpolitical dreams,” saidDhivakaran indirectly hintingat Rajinikanth.

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In the season of hate speech-es, a lone shooter fired at

anti-CAA protesters, hurting aJamia student on Thursday,and raising the fear of com-munal polarisation ahead ofthe Delhi Assembly election. Italso gave ammunition to theOpposition parties to holdthe BJP responsible for theshooting incident which took

place on a road at Jamia MilliaIslamia.

Soon after the firing, DelhiBJP chief Manoj Tiwari toldnews agency ANI, “The shoot-ing incident proves that thepeople at the heart of theprotest are violent in nature.They believe in bullets andbombs.” He linked it (shoot-ing) with alleged plans toassassinate Prime MinisterNarendra Modi.

However, Home MinisterAmit Shah was quick to tweetout an assurance that the “cul-prit will not be spared”.

“I have spoken to theDelhi Police Commissioneron the incident of firing inDelhi and have directed him to

take stringent action,” Shahsaid in a tweet message.

The Home Minister alsosaid the Central Governmentwill not tolerate such incidents.

Delhi Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal asked theHome Minister to take careof the “deteriorating” law andorder situation in the nation-al Capital, “What is happen-ing in Delhi? The law andorder is deteriorating. Pleasetake care of Delhi’s law andorder,” Kejriwal said in atweet.

The Opposition partieslatched on to the provocationspeech by Union MinisterAnurag Thakur to accuse theBJP of creating a situation that

led to the shooting.The last week saw an all

out attempt by the BJP toplace Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA protest as its main pollplank. Led by Shah, the BJPleaders have unleashed mas-sive outreach to convince thevoters that the supporters ofthe anti-CAA protest, espe-cially the Shaheen Baghcrowd, represented the so-called ‘tukde tukde gang”.

In the process, Thakurseemed to have crossed the“line” when he allegedlyegged on the crowd to “shoot”the protesters. Thakur chant-ed “ esh ke gaddaro ko.” Towhich the crowd chanted “Goli maro salo ko.”

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Soon after the firing incidentin Jamia area, the Election

Commission (EC) on Thursdayimposed a 72-hour campaign-ing ban on Union Minister ofState for Finance AnuragThakur and 96-hour ban onBJP MP Parvesh Verma fortheir provocative hate speech-es against anti-CAA protesters.

In its order, the EC has stat-ed that the ban is effective from5 pm on January 30. The ECissued the orders after it stud-ied their responses to the show-cause notices issued on January28.

The EC refused to consider their requests for per-sonal hearing on the matter.

Both leaders have beenbarred from holding any pub-lic meetings, processions, ral-lies, and interviews, publicutterances in media (electron-ic, print, social media).

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Prime Minister NarendraModi will hold two election

rallies in Delhi on February 3and Feb 4 ahead of theAssembly polls, Union MinisterHarsh Vardhan said onThursday.

Considering that severalBJP leaders have raised ShaheenBagh women sit-in during theirpoll campaigning, politicalobservers in Delhi are askingwhether Modi will speak on theprotest which has been goingon since December 15?

The first public meetingwill be held at CBD Ground inKarkardooma around 2.30 pmon February 3. Modi’s nextpublic meeting will be held atRamleela Ground in Dwarka

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February 4, Vardhan said.Campaigning for the polls willconclude at 5 pm on February6 and voting for the 70-mem-ber Assembly will take place onFebruary 8.

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Farrukhabad (UP): A mur-der accused on Thursday held20 children hostage at a housein a village here.

Subhash Batham, who hadinvited the children for abirthday party, fired frominside the house on those whotried to speak to him, theysaid. Chief Minister YogiAdityanath is monitoring thesituation in Farrukhabad’sKasaria village, 200 km fromLucknow.

“We are ensuring the saferescue of the children, and ifneeded, the NSG will also becalled for the operation,” saidDirector General of Police(DGP) OP Singh.

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New Delhi: The SupremeCourt Thursday dismissed thecurative petition of one of thefour death row convicts in theNirbhaya gangrape and murdercase saying “no case is madeout”. The top court also reject-ed convict Akshay KumarSingh’s plea seeking stay of hisexecution.

“The application for oralhearing is rejected. The appli-cation for stay of execution ofdeath sentence is also rejected,”said the 5-judge bench whichheard the plea in-chamber.“We have gone through theCurative Petitions and the rel-evant documents.

In our opinion, no case ismade out within the parame-ters indicated in the decision ofthis Court in Rupa AshokHurra vs. Ashok Hurra &Another, reported in 2002 (4)SCC 388.

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Chief Minister BhupeshBaghel has written a letter

to Prime Minister NarendraModi requesting repeal of theCitizenship (Amendment) Act,2019 (CAA).

Chief Minister in his letterstated that on the one hand,this Act is appearing to be dis-criminatory towards illegalimmigrants based on their reli-gious beliefs, contradictory toArticle-14 of the IndianConstitution, on the other ithas no provision for migrantsfrom neighbouring countriessuch as Sri Lanka, Myanmar,Nepal, and Bhutan living inIndia.

Chief Minister stated in theletter that number of demon-strations has been staged inChhattisgarh in protest againstthis Act. These were all peace-ful demonstrations.

“However, it has been

noted that people from varioussections of the state are partic-ipating in these peaceful protestdemonstrations,” he added.

Chhattisgarh is basically astate of people belonging toScheduled Castes, ScheduledTribes and Other BackwardClasses (SC, ST and OBC), andmost of these people are poor, illiterate andunequipped, which will makeit extremely difficult for themto complete the formalitiesunder this Act, the CM said.

Chief Minister further

wrote that every community isequal for the Constitution, butCAA 2019 enacted by theparliament appears to be dam-aging the core spirit of theConstitution i.e. secularism.To uphold equality for peopleof all the communities in thecountry and to protect thisright to equality underArticle-14 of the IndianConstitution, it is importantthat no Act should be made incontradiction to the core valueof the Constitution, Baghelsaid.

“Keeping in view theprotest being staged by thecommon people, and to savepoor and illiterate people fromthe trouble, to maintain peacein the country, and to protectthe core values of theConstitution, I request you onbehalf of the people ofChhattisgarh to repeal theAct,” he said.

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To fulfill another promise made in theVachan patra of Congress party, Kamal Nath

Government in Madhya Pradesh has started theprocess to withdraw cases registered againstaround 100 farmers in Mandsaur during 2017massive unrest.

These cases were filed by Madhya Pradeshpolice against the farmers during the previousBJP Government in the State, led by ShivrajSingh Chouhan.

"Kamal Nath Government fulfills itspromise, cases filed against Mandsaur farmerswill be taken back. Fulfilling its promise, theKamal Nath government has begun the processof taking back cases filed against farmers

during the Mandsaur movement," read a tweetby the official handle of the Madhya PradeshCongress on Wednesday.

Mandsaur Superintendent of Police HiteshChaudhary told the media persons that FIRswere lodged against 100 farmers in year 2017and a process has been initiated to withdrawthese cases.

He added that these cases lodged in vari-ous police stations of Mandsaur are being with-drawn.

Chaudhary added that in cases where thepolice probe found no concrete evidencesagainst the farmers, the police has filed closurereport in the court and the judiciary woulddecide further course of action.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Thursday asserted

his Government is open to dis-cuss all matters in Parliament’sBudget Session beginning onFriday after the Oppositionparties raised concerns over“worsening” economic situa-tion and accused his dispensa-tion of “arrogance” and notreaching out to the anti-CAAprotesters.

While the Oppositionmembers raised a host of issues

including the nationwideprotests against the CAA,“worsening” economic situa-tion and “rising” unemploy-ment at the all-party meetingahead of the Budget Session,the Prime Minister called for a“greater focus” on economicissues in the session. Politicalsources said the Oppositionleaders also demanded therelease of detained politicalfigures in Jammu and Kashmir.

Taking to media after themeeting, Congress leaderGhulam Nabi Azad said thatopposition parties soughtimmediate release of formerstate chief minister FarooqAbdullah so that he couldattend the session from Friday.

Parliamentary AffairsMinister Pralhad Joshi toldreporters after the meeting,attended by 26 parties, that theprime minister conveyed to theleaders that parties should notconfine themselves to mere“charcha” (debate) but shouldhave rich and structured dis-cussion on every issue.

In his concluding remarks,Modi welcomed the sugges-tions of most members that thesession should focus on theprevailing economic situationin the country, an official state-ment later said.

“Most of the members haveasked for discussion on the eco-nomic situation concerning thecountry. I welcome this and weneed to discuss the economicissues as suggested by you all.We should focus on how we canturn the global scenario infavour of India and how Indiacan gain in the prevailing glob-al situation,” said Joshi.

“In this budget session andin the beginning of the newyear, if we can give a properdirection to the country’s econ-omy, it would be in the bestinterest of the country,” hesaid, according to the state-ment. The budget session willconclude on April 3 with arecess in between. The budgetwill be presented on Saturday.

Referring to various otherissues raised by oppositionparties, Modi said there shouldbe an open discussion on all.He asked the leaders at themeeting to see to it that theycontribute to increasing theproductivity of the session andParliament.

“This is about the produc-tivity of the session and theParliament. In the last twosessions, we saw the increasedproductivity and the great pub-lic response in favour of it. Aspeople’s representatives, it is ourresponsibility to increase theproductivity of the House,while we discuss all issues withan open mind,” he said.

Asked about the opposi-tion’s charge that the govern-ment is being arrogant in notreaching out to anti-CAA pro-testors, Joshi noted that the billwas passed by Parliament fol-lowing a long discussion andasked rival parties to introspecttheir role in these protests.

The BJP has accused theCongress and other oppositionparties of inciting protests andviolence against the law which,the ruling party has asserted,does not affect the citizenshipof any Indian. In his remarks,Azad said Parliament’s ses-sions have been shortenedgradually by the Government.

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Aday after the EuropeanParliament deferred voting

on a resolution on theCitizenship AmendmentAct(CAA), India on Thursdaysaid it has noted the decisionnot to vote and said it will con-tinue to engage with theEuropean Union on the issue.New Delhi also expressed con-cern over anti-India protestsoutside its embassy in Londonand urged the UK to take suit-able action to prevent a repeatof such demonstrations.

Asserting that the CAA isan internal matter of Indiaand it has noted the defermentof voting, External AffairsMinistry spokesperson RaveeshKumar said it also noted Indiahas noted EuropeanCommission’s clarification thatthe EU Parliament’s views don’treflect the official position ofthe grouping. Voting was totake place on Thursday.

“As I have mentioned ear-lier, CAA is an internal matter

of India. It has been adoptedthough due process and demo-cratic means,” Kumar said.“We will continue to engagewith the MEPs, the EuropeanParliament and other stake-holders in this matter,” he said.

Kumar also said India hastaken up with the BritishGovernment the issue of anti-India protests in connectionwith the CAA outside theIndian High Commission inLondon on Sunday. These

incidents create difficulties infunctioning of our HighCommission in London, hesaid adding that India hopesanti-India protests in Londonare not repeated in future.

Meanwhile, the European

Parliament met on Wednesdayin Brussels to debate the tworesolutions including a sharplyworded condemnation of theCAA but decided too postponevoting on them till March.The European Parliament willnow take up voting during theplenary session between March30 and April 2.

The voting, if it takes placethen, will come after the India-European Union summitscheduled on March 13, whichis likely to be attended byPrime Minister NarendraModi. A resolution slammingthe Indian government onCAA could have jeopardisedthe summit, sources said.

Indian diplomats inBrussels led by the country’senvoy to Belgium, Gaitri IssarKumar, were for the last fewdays reaching out to the groupsof Members of EuropeanParliament (MEPs).

Sources in the Indian gov-ernment termed the post-ponement of voting as a“diplomatic victory” for Indiaadding “Friends of India pre-

vailed over the Friends ofPakistan in the EuropeanParliament today.”

They said efforts of outgo-ing British MEP, ShaffaqMohammad, to have a resolu-tion passed by the EuropeanParliament against India on thepenultimate day before Brexitwere defeated.

Shaffaq Ahmed, aPakistan-origin British MEP,was considered one of thearchitects of the resolutions,although it had the support of559 MEPs in the 751-memberEuropean Parliament.

The CAA is a matter inter-nal to India and has been adopt-ed through a due processthrough democratic means. NewDelhi expects that our perspec-tives in this matter will be under-stood by all objective and fair-minded MEPs” sources said.

Distancing itself from theMEPs’ move, the EU had onMonday stated that opinionsexpressed by the EuropeanParliament and its members donot represent the official posi-tion of the EU.

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Sri Lanka’s Prime MinisterMahinda Rajapaksa will visit

India from February 7-11 andwill hold talks with the leader-ship here on all bilateral issues.After his official engagement inDelhi, Rajapaksa will travel toVaranasi, Sarnath, Bodh Gayaand Tirupati.

Announcing the scheduleof the Sri Lankan PrimeMinister, External AffairsMinistry spokesperson RaveeshKumar said here on ThursdayRajapaksa will be on a state visitto India from February 8 to 11.

He will arrive on February7 and next day will see the mainengagement day where he willhold delegation-level talks withModi. After his official engage-ment in Delhi, the Sri LankanPrime Minister will travel toVaranasi, Sarnath, Bodhgaya,and Tirupati, he added.

In his first overseas tourafter taking over the reins of SriLanka, President GotabayaRajapaksa travelled to India ona three-day visit and held talkswith Prime Minister Modi.Modi had announced financial

assistance of $450 million to SriLanka including $50 million tofight terrorism after holding“fruitful” talks with the islandnation’s President.

New Delhi: Providing relief tomining company Sarda MinesPvt Ltd., the Supreme Court onThursday allowed it to resumeits mining operations in Odishasubject to deposit of �933 croretowards environmental com-pensation by February 29.

A Bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices BR Gavaiand Surya Kant also allowedthe Naveen Jindal-led JSPL totransport high-quality iron orelying in the Thakurani blockmines is SMPL. The top court,however, made it clear thatJSPL can transport the iron-oreonly after SMPL pays �933crore towards compensationfor the environment.

While reserving its verdictin the case on January 16, SChad said it was “not averse” toallowing Jindal Steel and PowerLtd (JSPL) to transport thehigh-quality iron ore lyingstacked at the non-functionalSarda Mines for its pellet plantin Odisha. The top court hadtaken on record an undertak-ing from SMPL for payment of�933 crore towards environ-mental compensation. PTI

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The BJP on Thursday accusedthe JMM-led Government

in Jharkhand of trying to coverup the killings of seven villagersin West Singhbhum district forallegedly opposing ‘Pathalgarhi’,a self-rule movement anddefending the perpetrators ofthe crime.

Those supporting themovement had allegedly kid-napped seven villagers ofBurugulikera in Guddi block onJanuary 21 and killed them foropposing their stir. The muti-lated bodies were recoveredfrom a forest around 4 kilome-tres from the village the nextday.

The killings that took placedays after the Jharkhand MuktiMorcha-Congress-RashtriyaJanata Dal coalition governmentassumed power in the state onDecember 29, triggered wide-spread outrage and CM Sorenordered an investigation by aspecial investigation team (SIT).

Sixteen people have beenarrested in connection with thekillings, according to the police.

After the alleged killings,BJP president JP Nadda formeda party delegation to visit theWest Singhbhum district. Thedelegation comprised JaswantSingh Bhabhor (MP fromGujarat), Samir Oraon (MPfrom Jharkhand), Bharati Pawar(parliamentarian fromMaharashtra), Gomti Saai(Chhattisgarh Lok Sabha mem-ber), Joan Barla (LS memberfrom West Bengal) and formerJharkhand minister and MLANilkanth Singh Munda.

The delegation onWednesday met Nadda andHome Minister Amit Shah andsubmitted the report on theincident. Talking to newsper-sons at the BJP headquartershere, Oraon said the JMM-ledJharkhand government, ofwhich the Congress is a part, “istrying to cover up the incident.”

“The state government gotinto action two days after the

incident and is now trying tocover up the incident to safe-guard the perpetrators of thisheinous crime in which inno-cent tribals were killed,” hesaid.

Oraon said the incidenttook place after Jharkhand ChiefMinister Hemant Sorenannounced that all cases against‘Pathalgarhi’ activists will betaken back.

The Pathalgarhi move-ment is a name given to a trib-al protest for autonomy toGramsabha (village council).Its proponents want no laws ofthe land be applicable to thetribal people in the area andrefuse to accept government’srights over forests and rivers.

Its supporters carve theirdiktat on rocks in their areas ofinfluence. The name‘Pathalgarhi’ is derived from thepractice of carving the edicts ofthe leaders of the movement onlarge stones called ‘pathal’ inlocal language, while garhimeans carving.

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The Agriculture Ministry hassought �60,000 crore for the

Pradhan Mantri Kisan SammanNidhi Yojana ( PM KISAN ) forthe next fiscal year, a 20 per centless than the previous yearallocation of �75,000 crore.The Ministry has been able todisburse only �44,000 crore sofar this fiscal under the scheme.

The Centre had allocated�75,000 crore in the BudgetEstimate (BE) for 2019-20 toimplement the PM-KISANscheme, under which �6,000 isbeing provided to farmers peryear in three equal instalments.

Sources said the alloca-tion is estimated to have comedown to �61,000 crore in theRevised Estimate (RE) for thecurrent fiscal as some States,including West Bengal, havenot rolled out this scheme andmany others do not have prop-er data of the farmers.

The projection of the num-ber of beneficiary farmers hasalso been pegged lower at 14crore from the earlier 14.5crore.

“The Government is

expected to allocate around�61,000 crore for 2020-21 fis-cal, almost same amount thatwas provided in the revisedestimate for the 2019-20 fiscal,”source added.

The allocation in revisedbudget estimate has been low-ered as the CentralGovernment has so far dis-tributed funds under the PM-KISAN scheme to 8.35 crorefarmers, source added.

In the interim Budget pre-sented in February 2019, thegovernment had launched the

PM-KISAN. That apart, theGovernment may increasefarm credit target by 10 percent from �13.5 lakh croretargeted for this fiscal, sourcesaid. The target for agriculturecredit for this fiscal has alreadybeen achieved.

Source also said the gov-ernment may allocate �15,000crore for farm insurancescheme, up from �14,000 crorein the current year. Already, thegovernment has disbursed�12,135 crore towards premi-um till December 2019.

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As 1,615 cadres of threeNDFB factions laid down

arms in Guwahati beforeAssam Chief MinisterSarbananda Sonowal and StateFinance Minister HimantaBiswa Sarma, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Thursdaypointed to the five-decade-oldissue finding resolution on thedeath anniversary of MahatmaGandhi and said the accordbetween Bodo groups and theGovernment will strengthenthe unity and integrity of theAssam.

“I welcome decision of myBodo friends for leaving vio-lence and reposing faith indemocracy and Constitution,”Modi said in a series of tweets.He said that “Bodo friendsjoining us on path of peace”sends a clear message that

solution to issues is possiblewhen the path of violence is leftand faith is reposed in democ-racy and Constitution. I wel-come my Bodo friends to themainstream. We are committedto ensure development of Bodoareas,” the Prime Minister said.

“This is a victory for all, it’svictory for humanity. It isinspired by the mantra of‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas &Sabka Vishwas’, and by thespirit of ‘Ek Bharat-ShresthBharat’,” Modi said.

As India remembers Bapuon his death anniversary,Assam is witnessing a historicchapter for peace and devel-opment, the Prime Ministersaid. “After a wait of 50 years,agreement with our Bodofriends heralds a new begin-ning. It will strengthen Assam’sunity, bring development andusher in a bright future,” hesaid.

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Noting that efforts to end leprosyhas remained wanting in India,

WHO’s goodwill ambassador againstthe crippling disease Yohei Sasakawaon Thursday pitched in for inclusionof leprosy eradication programme inthe school curriculum to ensurewidespread awareness about thestigmatic disease. India has 60 percent of the total global cases.

“India has a huge population andI recognise that its efforts to reachsome population groups, like those inthe mountains or say the tribal pop-ulation, are probably not sufficient.

“A leprosy eradication pro-gramme should be included in theschool curriculum to ensure wide-

spread awareness about the stigmaticdisease,” said Sasakawa, recipient ofthe Gandhi Peace Prize 2019 for hisfight against leprosy, especially inIndia.

“But relatively speaking I thinkthe measures India is taking againstthe disease today are the mostadvanced in the world,” saidSasakawa who is on India visit toattend an event to mark the anti-lep-rosy Day on Thursday. The event wasorganised by the Sasakawa-IndiaLeprosy Foundation(S-ILF), anorganisation engaged in social andeconomic upliftment of personsaffected by leprosy and their families.

Sasakawa, Chairman, NipponFoundation, said that his organisa-tion, Sasakawa India LeprosyFoundation, is working hard to

meet the government’’s target ofmaking India leprosy-free by 2030.

Dr Harsh Vardhan, UnionHealth Minister too expressed hisconcerns that the disease continueto exist despite so many years. “Ihave already written to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi for theabolishment of more than 100 dis-criminatory laws and I assure thepatients and the foundation thatthese laws will be completely erad-icated in the very near future,” theminister added.

According to the World HealthOrganisation, India has the highestnumber of new cases of leprosy in theworld annually, followed by Braziland Indonesia. Though India offi-cially eliminated leprosy in 2005 bybringing the prevalence rate below

1/10,000 at the national level, it hasnot been able to eradicate the diseasedespite having it as a national target.

New cases have been reportedfrom several parts of India, especiallythe rural belts of Bihar,Lakshadweep, Dadra and NagarHaveli. All the cases were attributedto late diagnosis.

With an aim to sensitise theIndia Inc towards people affected byleprosy and their families, S-ILF onThursday joined hands withConfederation of Indian Industry(CII). “CII, in partnership with S-ILF,will drive proactive initiativestowards awareness, advocacy, andeconomic integration of the leprosyaffected community,” said TarunDas, Chairman, S-ILF and formedhead of the CII.

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Senior BJP leader Vijay Jollyon Thursday served a legal

notice to former Congress chiefRahul Gandhi for a defamato-ry video tweet titled “speakingtruth to power” on December13 last year.

Jolly alleged that throughits official twitter handle, theIndian National Congress mes-saged a false, incorrect, untrue,malicious anddefamatory videopublication of anold news clippingdated February23, 2017 titled “Former DelhiBJP MLA Vijay Jolly bookedfor rape after victim alleges hedrugged her drink”.

Jolly stated that this wasdone by Congress led by RahulGandhi with the ulteriormotive to tarnish the publicimage of BJP and its leadersincluding Jolly. “This defama-tory publication was done will-fully & without checking thefacts, with the sole intent to tar-nish my reputation and gener-ate negative publicity againstme,” Jolly said in legal notice.

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The external affairs Ministryalso said talks are on to

firm up the dates of likely visitof US President Donald Trumpto India. Trump is likely to tourIndia in the last part ofFebruary and India and US arelikely to ink pacts on trade anddefence then.

External Affairs ministryspokesperson Raveesh Kumarsaid, “We are in talks with US.”Besides holding summit talkswith Prime Minister NarendraModi, Trump is likely to visitAgra and Ahmedabad andsecurity liaison meets were onhave a public event to honourthe visiting President, reports said. PNS

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RAIPUR | FRIDAY | JANUARY 31, 2020chhattisgarh 03

STAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

State cabinet on Thursdaygave nod for allowing coop-

erative bodies in the state to tieup with government under-taking or even private enter-prises for a particular business,including investment, finan-cial assistance or marketingand management expertise.

A decision in this regardwas made at its meeting heldat chief ministers’ residenceon Thursday.

Official sources informedthat to make avail the coopera-tive bodies collaborate with gov-ernment undertaking or privateenterprise the cabinet gave nodto the draft of ChhattisgarhCooperative Society(Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.

“Any cooperative society,with the simple majority ofmembers present and votingin the general body meeting,can render support via resolu-tion passed in its general body.It is mandatory for the coop-erative society to get priorpermission of the state gov-ernment in each case before

making such cooperation”, theamendment, however, says.

Meanwhile, the cabinetalso ratified the formation ofits subcommittee to recom-mend about the way the farm-ers of the state are to be paidRs 2500 per quintal of paddyfor which their crop has beenprocured under minimumsupport price.

It also gave nod for forma-tion of Irrigation DevelopmentCorporation in place of StateInfrastructure DevelopmentCorporation. All the deputedstaff in the later would bemerged in the former, the cab-inet decided. The IrrigationDevelopment Corporation willcome into existence from thedate it would be notified in thestate gazette.

The cabinet also decidedto request the Union govern-ment to repeal the Citizenship(Amendment) Act (CAA),2019 after which the ChiefMinister Bhupesh Baghel onbehalf of the governmentwrote a letter to the PrimeMinister Narendra Modi seek-ing scrapping of the CAA.

Co-op bodies can now tieup with private enterprise

Cabinet Decisions


In a major decision,Chhattisgarh High court

Bilaspur on Thursday directedCBI to file an FIR againstUnion Minister of StateRenuka Singh and 15 officers,including seven IAS officers,for their alleged involvementin a `10-billion financial scam.

The PIL (public interestlitigation) was initially filedas a writ petition by KundanSingh Thakur from Raipurand was heard by the benchof Justice Prashant Mishraand Parth Prateem Sahu. Thebench had reserved the deci-sion and announced it onThursday.

The court has orderedthe CBI to file the FIR againstformer Chief SecretariesVivek Dhand and Sunil

Kujur, former ACS M.K.Raut, Alok Shukla, B.L.Agrawal, Satish Pandey, P.Soti, Shri Rajesh Tiwari,Ashok Tiwari, HermanKhalkho, M.L. Pandey andPankaj Verma.

The bench observed thataccused persons had formeda society by the name StateResource Center based inMana and Physical ReferralRehabilitation Centre(PRRC) for the welfare of dis-abled individuals, but actual-ly it existed only on papers.

“Despite the BankAccounts of the employeesthroughout the State havingbeen linked through theirrespective Aadhar Cards,such fake employees areshown to be paid in cash,only on papers in a plannedand organized manner just to

siphon hundreds of crores ofrupees,” the court said.

The court further statedthat the CBI shall register anFIR within a period of oneweek from Thursday andshall seize the relevant origi-nal records from the con-cerned department, organisa-tion, and offices throughoutthe state within 15 days fromthe date of registration of FIR.

“CBI Investigationdirected for alleged misap-propriation and siphoning ofmore than Rs.1,000/-(Rupees One ThousandCrores) in State ResourceCentre (SRC) and thePhysical ReferralRehabilitation Centre (forbrevity ‘the PRRC’) of theState Government for the lastabout 10 years,” the courtobserved.

Union Minster, formerofficers to face CBIprobe in graft caseHigh Court directs CBI to file FIR against UnionMinister of State Renuka Singh, former ChiefSecretaries Vivek Dhand, Sunil Kujur and othersfor allegedly siphoning `10 billion


To mark the 'Shahid Diwas'of Mahatma Gandhi,

Chhattisgarh State AssemblySpeaker Dr CharandasMahant and PrincipalSecretary ChandrashekharGangrade along with officersand employees of the assemblysecretariat observed two min-utes silence to pay tribute tothe Father of the Nation atGandhi’s statue on Thursday.

Speaker also paid floraltributes to Mahatma Gandhibefore his portrait at thecentral hall of the assembly.

In his message, he said

Mahatma Gandhi was theepitome of truth andnonviolence.

His thoughts are stillrelevant today, he said, addingGandhiji dedicated his wholelife towards freedommovement and for unity anddiversity along with communalharmony.

Mahant further said, “Weare proud that a great manwalked in the world is from ourcountry.” He said following hisfootsteps, “we can make ourcountry developed andprosperous.”

Martyrdom Day of Gandhiji observedSTAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

Raipur police onThursday arrested

three persons for forcibleentry into counting cen-tre number 99 of villageSonpairi under Arangblock and creating nui-sance, tearing ballots anddamaging chairs andtables. The incident tookplace during the firstphase of Panchayat pollheld on January 28.

The incident tookplace when counting ofvotes was in progress forpanch and sarpanch post.Some villagers arrived andattacked the countingteam of presiding officerand polling team presentat the centre. They werekept hostage for hoursafter which an FIR wasfiled at Mandir Hasaudpolice station under sec-tion 147, 148, 342, 427,186, 353, 506 and

Chhattisgarh LocalAuthority (ElectionCrime) Act 1964 section11(1) (d). The chargeswere investigated andaccordingly the arrestswere made.

Station House OfficerMandir Hasaud intimatedthe returning officer thatarrested persons areChhagan Lal Mahilang,Kamal Mahilang andNamdas Mahilang, allresidents of Sonpairi.

Three arrested for causinghindrance in election works

STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

Chief Minister BhupeshBaghel on Thursday

chaired the first meeting ofChhattisgarh SportsDevelopment Authority'sgoverning body, at his resi-dence office. Several impor-tant decisions were taken inthis meeting.

As per the decisionstaken in the meeting, sportsacademies with ultramodernamenities and advancedtraining facilities will beestablished in the state.

Executive Committeechaired by Chief Secretary

has been entrusted with theresponsibility to select stadi-ums for these academies.Chief Minister has giveninstructions to select stadi-

ums to set up sports acade-mies as soon as possible.

It was also decided in themeeting that MukhyamantriKhiladi Protsahan Yojana

will be launched to providefinancial aid to sportsper-sons. Traditional games ofChhattisgarh such as gendi,bhaunra, fugdi will also bepromoted.

According to the deci-sions taken in today's meet-ing, all the important stadi-ums will now be in com-mand of Chhattisgarh SportsDevelopment Authority.Sports Academy will befunded from CSR funds.

Chief Minister hasdirected the ExecutiveCommittee chaired by ChiefSecretary to prepare actionplan for the aforementionedworks.

Baghel has been author-ized to nominate two MPs,five MLAs and two excellentsportspersons in theChhattisgarh SportsDevelopment Authority.Decision to open academiesfor sports such as hockey,archery, athletics, cricket,swimming, indoor games(martial arts), football, bas-ketball, table tennis, kabaddiand kho-kho was also takenin the meeting.

Health Minister TSSinghdeo, Home MinisterTamradhwaj Sahu,Agriculture and WaterResource MinisterRavindra Choubey, Forest

Minister MohammadAkbar, School EducationMinister Dr Premsai Singh,Food Minister AmarjeetBhagat, UrbanDevelopment Minister DrShiv Daharia, Women andChild DevelopmentMinister Anila Bhendiya,Revenue Minister JaisinghAgrawal, PHE MinisterGuru Rudra Kumar, Sportsand Youth Welfare MinisterUmesh Patel, AdditionalChief Secretary AmitabhJain, Principal Secretary toChief Minister GauravDwivedi, and other seniorofficials were present in themeeting.

Ultramodern sports academiesto be set up from CSR funds


Chhattisgarh Leader ofOpposition Dharamlal

Kaushik has sought clarifica-tion from the state governmentover proposal to hike thecement prices by `25 to `50,alleging that the government isconniving with cementcompanies.

BJP leader said as perreports the cement companiesare putting pressure on the stategovernment to hike priceswhile the state government issitting quite raising doubt aboutits intention.

He alleged “the silence ofthe state government is bafflingas to why it is feeling the heat.Or is it a mode to receive

election fund by hitting thepocket of common man.”

He questioned as to why

without any valid reason theprices are being hiked as it willdirectly affect common man'sdream to build house as hisbudget will overshoot. It willalso badly hit the real estateindustry.

The real estate industryfeels that when cement compa-nies are not at loss then whysuch a hike is proposed isbeyond comprehension.Additional to it the steel andiron industries have not record-ed any growth nor have anyadditional fees imposed on thelimestone for the cement indus-try, he said. “Then why suchrise is being initiated raises sev-eral doubts which state govern-ment should clarify,” the BJPleader demanded.


To provide education to thestudents of 9th, 10th and

12th standards in schools inremote areas of the state, ascheme of distant learning hasbeen launched.

It is an innovative approach,under which six schools havebeen selected initially. Based onthe results, the scheme will beimplemented across the state.

Principal Secretary SchoolEducation Dr Alok Shuklachaired a meeting of subjectexperts, principals of variousschools of the state at SCERTand had a discussion regardingimplementation of distant learn-ing programme.

Dr Alok Shukla informedthe principals that the study

material will be recorded asshort videos by subject expertsand these videos will be utilizedfor providing education tostudents in remote areas.

He further told thatstudents' doubts and queries onthe subject will be cleared bysubject experts via zoom appimmediately. Timely evaluationwill also be done.

In the meeting, subjectexperts of physics, biology,chemistry, mathematics, Englishlanguage discusses the difficultchapters of their subjects. Themeeting was attended by SCERTDirector P Dayanand, DirectorPublic Instructions S Prakash,Joint Director PublicInstructions Dr YogeshShivhare, subject experts andofficials of the SCERT.

Distant learning educationlaunched for remote areas

STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

Urban Administrationand Labour minister Dr

Shiv Dahariya launched the‘Mayor Cleanliness HelplineNumber’ at RaipurMunicipal Corporation’sMayor office on Wednesday.The number is installed atthe room of Mayor-in-Council member SunderJogi.

Through the helplinenumber 9301953294, citi-zens of Raipur MunicipalCorporation can call seekingservices like cleaning thedrains, roads along withother related problem andregister the complaint. Cityresidents can also forwardsuggestions.

After the commence-ment of the helpline, the

calls started pouring in.Kalibadi resident RituVerma registered a com-plaint of irregularity incleaning streets. Minister

picked the phone to hear thecomplaint and directed theofficials to resolve the mat-ter.

Baijnathpara Maulana

Abdul Rauf Ward residentNaim Raza Nammo thankedMayor and urban adminis-tration minister for startingthe helpline. Suggestion was

given for holding regularcleaning activity.

Manshi of Civil Linesand Abhishek of Danganiaregistered complaint regard-ing lack of cleaning of drainsin their areas. Ministerassured to resolve theirissues soon.

The main aim of thehelpline is to receive thecomplaints and hear aboutproblems from the residentsdirectly along with regularmonitoring and resolvingthe issues faced by the resi-dents. Additional to it, theproblems can be also solvedin time-bound manner.Raipur Rural MLASatyanarayan Sharma,Raipur North MLA KuldeepJuneja, Mayor and otherswere present on theoccasion.

BJP seeks clarificationover cement price hike

Minister launches ‘Mayor Cleanliness Helpline Number’

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In a bid to equip the motoristswith road safety tips, the

Chandigarh Administration isall set to launch a road safetymanual in the city.

The road safety manualwill be given to the applicantsof learner’s license at the UTRegistering and LicensingAuthority here.

Prepared to promote roadsafety, the 200-page manual willequip the readers with neces-sary information on the trafficrules and regulations, penaltyfor offenders, magnitude ofpedestrian death and injury inthe country, how to handleemergencies situations like tyreburst, post crash managementand key risk factors like speed,alcohol, mobile among others.

Apart from this, the man-ual with illustrations also stress-es on road safety rules whenapproaching a roundabout,controlled or uncontrolledintersections, significance ofroad signs and markings, rulesfor parking, highway drivingand procedure to get the dri-ving license.

The manual has beendesigned by Harman SinghSidhu, president of Chandigarhbased NGO-ArriveSAFE incoordination with ChandigarhTransport Department andTraffic Police and would beavailable in three languagesincluding Hindi, English andPunjabi.Sidhu is also the mem-ber of Road Safety Council,Chandigarh.

Notably, as many as 96people including 27 pedestriansdied due in road accidents inChandigarh last year while in2018, 98 people including 35pedestrians were killed due toroad accidents in the city. “Theroad safety manual would be anofficial handbook which con-tains the do’s and don’ts guid-ing people how to use publicroads safely.

It is a first of its kind in thecountry,” said Harman SinghSidhu said while talking to ThePioneer.

Elaborating on the manu-al, he said that it would be givento the applicants of learner’slicense alongwith the applica-tion. It would be mandatory tobuy the manual, which wouldserve as one stop source infor-mation and soft skills requiredfor safe road-use.

It has been developed as asource that allows novice roadusers to gain knowledge, hesaid.For instance, the rules of‘Right of Way’ i.e. who has theright to go first in any situationis not explained to the roadusers. Such rules have alsobeen included in it, he furthersaid.

“A picture is worth a thou-

sand words” and the handbookhas been drafted in such a wayso that even a less educatedperson can understand it eas-ily, Sidhu added.

Besides introducing a roadsafety manual, theAdministration has also decid-ed to include road safety edu-cation in the school curriculumfrom next academic session inthe city.

As per the data with UTTraffic Police, a total of 316road accidents were reported in2018, out of which 294 weredue to rash driving, 12 werecaused due to drunken drivingand 10 due to red light jump-ing. In 2017, 342 road acci-dents and 107 fatalities werereported while the number ofaccidents was 428 and fatalitieswere 151 in 2016.

The UT Traffic Police hadidentified 11 black spots inview of maximum road acci-dents in the city. Some of thesespots included Airport Lightpoint to CRPF campusHallomajra, Poultry FarmChowk to BSNL turn onDakshin Marg, Sector 29Tribune roundabout onDakshin Marg, Kalagram lightpoint on Madhya Marg.

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Shimla: Major tourist hotspotsof Himachal Pradesh – Manali,Kufri, Dalhousie and Shimla –recorded sub-zero temperatureson Thursday as precipitationand snowfall occurred at a fewplaces, the MeteorologicalDepartment said.As per data recorded at 8.30 am,Kasauli, Kalpa and Khadralawitnessed 3 cm snowfall eachsince Wednesday, ShimlaMeteorological Centre DirectorManmohan Singh said.Bhoranj received 26 mm rainfall,followed by Baldwara 23 mm,Sangrah and Bilaspur 8 mmeach, Sujanpur Tira 6 mm,Pandoh 4 mm and Rampur 3mm, he added.The minimumtemperatures decreased by 2 to3 degrees since Wednesday,Singh said.Kalpa in Kinnaurdistrict registered a low of minus9.7 degrees Celsius, while Manali,Kufri, Dalhousie and Shimlashivered at minus 5.4, minus 5,minus 1.9 and minus 0.4 degreesCelsius respectively, he said. Maximum tempera-tures were recorded 3 to 4degrees below the normal. Thehighest temperature in the statewas recorded in Una at 19.7degrees Celsius. PNS

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In view of the scare of the coro-navirus and the alert sound-

ed by the state health depart-ment on the dreaded disease,the All India Institute MedicalScience (AIIMS), Rishikesh hasgeared itself to tackle the disease.

The director, Ravi Kantsaid that proper arrangementswill be made in the institute toprotect people from the coronavirus. He however added thatpeople need to be cautiousrather than panic.

On Wednesday, a meetingchaired by Dean AcademicProfessor Manoj Gupta washeld in the institute on the issue.In the meeting it was decidedthat separate OPD and IPDwards would be set up in theinstitute for the suspectedpatients of the disease.

It was decided that a special

team of the institute will coor-dinate with the nodal officer ofthe state government to test thepatients suffering from thevirus. The AIIMS has alsodecided to organise, publicawareness programmes aboutthe disease.

On the symptoms and pre-vention measures of the diseasein a patient with corona virus,Dr Prasan Kumar Panda of theDepartment of GeneralMedicine said that the coronavirus infects both animals andhumans.

Symptoms usually developwhen a cold occurs. The feel-ing of being unwell like arunny nose, headache, cough,sore throat, and fever are someof its symptoms. For peoplewith a weakened immune sys-tem, such as the elderly andadolescents, the virus can bemore serious. It pertinent to

mention here that theUttarakhand government is onan alert more on theCoronavirus. The state healthdepartment of Uttarakhand iskeeping strict vigil along theIndo- Nepal border. The teamsof health department atdeployed at nine transit pointson Uttarakhand Nepal border.

These teams have beendirected to keep a close vigil onthose coming from Nepal andquarantine the suspectedpatients of fever and flu.

Apart from these transitpoints, the authorities are alsoscanning the visitors atDehradun airport Jolly grant,Pantnagar airport andPithoragarh airport. Specialteams of the health depart-ment are also deployed atHaridwar railway station. Theseteams are keeping an eye onpassengers suffering from fever.

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United Forum of BankUnions (UFBU) decided

to escalate their agitation bygoing on an indefinite strikefrom April 1 after IndianBank’s Association (IBA)

turned down their demands.According to state secretary ofAll India Bank Officers'Confederation (AIBOC)Pramod Ranjan Kukreti, “IBAcalled UFBU and increased theoffer to 15 per cent on ourwages but did not have the

same opinion on workloadand other issues therefore theiroffer was not accepted byUFBU. Consequently, we willcontinue with our agitationprograms nationwide. Our twodays strike will be on Jan 31and Feb 1.

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Glowing tributes were paidto the Father of Nation,

Mahatma Gandhi on his deathanniversary on Thursday. Theday was celebrated as ‘ EktaDiwas’ by the Congress party.

Addressing a programmeorganised by the party at thestate headquarters of theCongress party, the PradeshCongress Committee (PCC)president, Pritam Singh saidthat the ideas of MahatmaGandhi on peace and non vio-lence should be spread andevery Indian should be madeaware about them.

He said that it is unfortu-nate that people who support-ed the polices of Nathuram

Godse, the murderer ofGandhi, sitting in power andare now murdering the ideas ofthe father of the nation. Singhsaid that the Congress party hasalways supported the ideas ofMahatma Gandhi and havebelieved in the progress ofevery section of the society.

He said that MahatmaGandhi resolved to throw theEnglish out of the countryand gave the slogan of ‘ QuitIndia’. Lakhs of men andwomen followed Gandhi andchanted the slogan of QuitIndia which filled the Britishrulers with fear and they start-ed suppressing the freedomstruggle with brute force.

“The freedom fighterswere cane-charged and evenbullets were sprayed over them,many were imprisoned but allthis failed to deter the freedomfighters from their path. Theirsteely resolve paved the way forthe liberation of the country,’’he said.

The PCC president thatthe thoughts and ideas of theMahatma Gandhi are still rel-evant today and the whole

world wants to follow the pathshown by him. He said that weshould always remember therole played by the freedomfighters in achieving the free-dom and all the members ofthe Congress party pay tributeto them.

Singh said that the all theCongressmen take pride inbeing the flag bearers of the

tradition of Gandhi and hisideas. He said that inspirationfrom life and ideas of MahatmaGandhi should be used innation building and this wouldbe the biggest tribute to thefather of nation. The PCCpresident felicitated seniormembers of the party on theoccasion. Former ministersDinesh Agarwal, Matbar Singh

Kandari, Vice President SuryaKant Dhasmana, SanjayPaliwal, former MLA VijayPal Sajwan, Aryendra Sharma,B S Negi, Mahanagar PresidentLal Chand Sharma, NavinPayal, Pranita Badoni, R PRaturi, Garima Dasauni andlarge number of party leadersand workers were present onthe occasion.

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In view of the Kumbh Melaslated to be held at Haridwar

next year, the Uttarakhandgovernment has created 31special posts at various levels ingovernment. A decision in thisregard was taken at the meet-ing of the state cabinet held onThursday.

The cabinet minister and

government spokesperson,Madan Kaushik said that postsof one assistant Mela Officer,one information officer, oneaccountant, senior assistant,two junior assistants, four dataentry operators, two peons,one Chowidar, one mate, tenlabourers, two revenue inspec-tors and five assistant revenueinspectors have been created.

In another important deci-sion, the state cabinet also

cleared all obstacles from thepath of handing over the landof Indian Drugs andPharmaceuticals Limited(IDPL) to the tourism depart-ment. The lease of the 830 acreland in ending in March thisyear. It was decided that theunion government would

return the land to the state gov-ernment. The land would firstof all be transferred to the for-est department which will handover it to the tourism depart-ment.

The All India Institute ofMedical Sciences (AIIMS),Rishikesh would get 200 acresof the land for its expansion.Kaushik said that a total of 18issues were put before the cab-inet on the day out of whichtwo were sent to cabinet sub-committee while it was decid-ed to bring one proposal innext cabinet.

The meeting was chairedby chief minister TrivendraSingh Rawat. A silence of twominutes was observed by thecabinet as a mark of respect to

father of nation MahatmaGandhi on his death anniver-sary.

The cabinet also decided toincrease the upper age limitfrom 35 years to 42 years for

the subordinate services oftransport department. It wasdecided to extend the time ofhearing of old cases of VATfrom January 2020 to March2020.

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Beijing: The deadly coronavirushas hit all provinces in China,including the remote region ofTibet, mostly due to travellersfrom Wuhan city, the groundzero of the epidemic, as the virusclaimed 170 lives, infected 7,736others and spread to 20 coun-tries, including India.

Chinese health officials onThursday announced 38 morefatalities mainly from the worst-affected central Hubei province,taking the death toll to 170.

Tibet, which till nowremained the only Chineseprovince untouched by the virus,reported its first case onThursday, with a resident fromWuhan who travelled to theHimalayan region reportingsick.

As the spread of the virusintensified, many countries,including India, started prepa-ration to evacuate their citizensfrom Wuhan and other cities inHubei province.

The virus is causing concernall over the world as the num-ber of cases abroad has gone upto 75, with India and thePhilippines reporting their firstcases. The condition of theIndian patient, a woman med-

ical student from Wuhan uni-versity, was “stable” and shewas kept in an isolation ward ata hospital in Thrissur.

In a big relief for Indians -mostly students and profes-sionals - stranded in Wuhan, theIndian Embassy in Beijing in anote circulated through socialmedia on Thursday said thatpreparations are on to evacuatethem from the virus-hit regionon Friday.

“We are preparing for airevacuation from Wuhan tomor-row in the evening. This flightwill carry those Indian nation-als who are in and around

Wuhan and have conveyed con-sent for their evacuation,” thenote said. “There will be anoth-er flight subsequently whichwill carry those who are fromother parts of Hubei province.”

Besides India, several othercountries including the US,France, Japan, South Korea, areairlifting their nationals fromWuhan.

A large number of peoplefrom Pakistan, Sri Lanka,Bangladesh from the neigh-bourhood besides African coun-tries were also reportedly strand-ed in Hubei province.

So far, four Pakistani

nationals and two Australianswere reported to have beenundergoing treatment for thevirus in China.

Meanwhile, the WorldHealth Organisation (WHO)will meet in Geneva onThursday to again considerwhether the virus constitutes aglobal health emergency.

“In the last few days theprogress of the virus, especiallyin some countries, especiallyhuman-to-human transmission,worries us,” WHO Director-General Tedros AdhanomGhebreyesus said onWednesday.

He named Germany,Vietnam and Japan, where therehave been cases of people catch-ing the virus from others whoreturned from China.

“Although the numbers out-side China are still relativelysmall, they hold the potential fora much larger outbreak,” BBCquoted the WHO chief as say-ing.

Michael Ryan, head of theWHO Health EmergenciesProgramme, told the media that“the whole world needs to be onalert now. The whole worldneeds to take action.”

Chinese President XiJinping, who on Tuesday calledthe virus a “demon” whichshould be brought under con-trol, has ordered the military tothrow open army hospitals totreat the coronavirus cases.

It is important for the mil-itary to step up its organisingand leadership functions, enablecloser coordination with local

authorities, adhere to the prin-ciples of scientific treatmentand ensure self-protection, Xiwas quoted as saying by state-run China Daily.

“Military hospitals mustmake all-out efforts to acceptand treat patients, and researchinstitutions should press aheadwith their research and devel-opment to contribute to victo-ry against the outbreak,” hesaid.

Also as it battled to stem thespiralling coronavirus which iscausing devastating impact,China on Thursday allocatednearly USD four billion fundingto support efforts to contain thedreaded disease across the coun-try.

Separately, Alibaba’s JackMa Foundation and Bill &

Melinda Gates Foundation haveannounced grants for theresearch to develop a vaccine tocounter the deadly virus.

As the virus brought thecountry to a standstill, con-cerns are also being raised aboutits impact on the economy.

China is still in an emer-gency control mode dealingwith the virus threat and not yetstarted counting the costs andthe impact it would have on itsalready slowing down economy.

The world’s second largest

economy grew by 6.1 per centlast year, the lowest annualgrowth rate in 29 years, amid thebruising 18-month long tradewar with the US. The govern-ment is hoping to halt the slow-down this year after reaching thephase one trade deal withWashington.

But with coronavirus caus-ing devastating impact by vir-tually bringing the country tohalt, analysts say it may havesubstantial impact on the econ-omy this year. PTI

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Paris: The daughter of aChinese tourist who is seriouslyill in a Paris hospital hasbecome the fifth person inFrance to be confirmed withthe coronavirus, officials havesaid.

Her 80-year-old father wasthe fourth confirmed case inFrance of the new coronavirusthat has killed more than 100people since it emerged in theChinese city of Wuhan inDecember.

“A fifth case has beendetected,” Health MinisterAgnes Buzyn told a news brief-

ing on Wednesday.“It’s the daughter of the

Chinese tourist who was hos-pitalised recently in intensivecare in a serious condition,”Buzyn added.

The woman in her thirties,“whose condition has wors-ened, who needs oxygen,” hasalso been placed in intensivecare, Buzyn said.

The minister said a firstplane was due to fly Wednesdayevening to Wuhan, the epi-centre in China, to repatriate200 French people strandedthere. AFP

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Moscow: Russia said onThursday it was closing its bor-der with China to prevent thespread of the new coronavirusand would stop issuing elec-tronic visas to Chinese nation-als.

Prime Minister MikhailMishustin told a governmentmeeting that the order hadbeen signed “to take measures

to close the border (withChina) in the Far East”.

“We have to do every-thing to protect our people,” hesaid.

The Russian foreign min-istry said that as of Thursdayit would stop issuing Chinesecitizens with electronic visas,which can be used to cross intoparts of the Far East and west-

ern Russia. The foreign min-istry also advised Russians torefrain from travelling toChina and for those in Chinato get in touch with theRussian embassy. Russia doesnot have any confirmed casesof the new virus but theRussian government has set upa task force to prevent itspossible spread. AFP

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Islamabad: PakistanGovernment has decided notto evacuate its citizens from thecoronavirus-hit Wuhan cityto show “solidarity” with its all-weather ally, a senior officialannounced on Thursdaythough four Pakistani nation-als have contracted the dead-ly disease in China.

There were up to 800Pakistanis studying in variousuniversities in Wuhan — acity of 11 million peoplewhich has been quarantinedby the Chinese authorities inan effort to stem the spread ofthe deadly virus that has

killed 170 people and infect-ed nearly 8,000 others.

Pakistan has decided notto evacuate its nationals fromChina in accordance with therecommendations of theWorld Health Organisation(WHO), Special Assistant toPrime Minister on Health DrZafar Mirza said.

“We believe that rightnow, it is in the interest of ourloved ones in China (to staythere). It is in the largest inter-est of the region, world, coun-try that we don’t evacuatethem now,” he was quoted assaying by Dawn News. PTI

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Beijing: While bats may be theoriginal hosts of the novelChinese coronavirus, an animalsold at a seafood market inWuhan may be spreading thedeadly virus to humans, astudy published in The Lancetjournal suggests.

The analysis of 10 genesequences of the novel coron-avirus (2019-nCoV) from ninepatients in the central Chinesecity of Wuhan found that thevirus is most closely related totwo bat-derived SARS-likecoronaviruses.

The researchers, includ-ing those from the ShandongAcademy of Medical Sciencesin China, said that their analy-sis suggests that bats might bethe original host of the virus.

However, an animal sold atthe Huanan seafood marketmight represent an intermedi-ate host that enables the emer-gence of the virus in humans,they said.

For this reason, theresearchers noted, future evo-lution, adaptation and spread ofthis virus requires urgent inves-tigation.

Cell and secretion sam-ples were taken from thelungs of the patients whowere diagnosed with viralpneumonia of unidentifiedcause.

The harvested samples ofthe 2019-nCoV virus werethen analysed to determinethe origin of the virus, and howit enters human cells. PTI

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Washington: The White Housetold former national securityadvisor John Bolton that abook reportedly containingdamaging evidence forPresident Donald Trump can-not be published because itbreaks secrecy laws.

The warning was made ina letter to Bolton’s lawyer datedJanuary 23 but only made pub-lic on Wednesday as Trump’simpeachment trial intensifiedin the Senate.

The National SecurityCouncil said after preliminaryreview of the manuscript — avetting process applied to anyWhite House employees writ-ing books — that it contained

“significant amounts of classi-fied information.”

“Some of this informationis at the TOP SECRET level,” theNSC said in a letter to Bolton’slawyer Charles Cooper, addingthat “the manuscript may not bepublished or otherwise dis-closed without the deletion ofthis classified information.”

Democrats are pressing forthe Senate to subpoena Boltonafter reports that his WhiteHouse memoir “The RoomWhere it Happened” corrobo-rates the abuse-of-powerimpeachment charge againstTrump. Bolton reportedlywrites that the president per-sonally told him in August a

freeze in military aid toUkraine was directly linked toTrump’s demand that Kievannounce investigations intoJoe Biden, the frontrunner forthe Democratic presidentialnomination.

Several hours before theNSC letter went public, Trumplashed out at Bolton on Twitter,saying he had written a “nasty& untrue book. All ClassifiedNational Security.”

Despite the formal reviewprocess of Bolton’s book, draftshave already circulated aroundWashington, where the pas-sages describing Trump’s rela-tionship with Ukraine causeda sensation. AFP

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Moscow : Israel i PrimeMinister BenjaminNetanyahu on Thursdayhailed US President DonaldTrump’s Middle East peaceplan as a new opportunityafter flying to Moscow todiscuss it with PresidentVladimir Putin.

“I think there’s a new andperhaps unique opportunityhere,” said the Israeli premier,who stood alongside Trumpat the White House when theplan was announced Tuesdayand called it a victory forIsrael.

Trump’s plan angeredPalestinians by proposingIsrael retain control overJerusalem as its “undividedcapital” and giving the greenlight to annex Jewish settle-ments in the West Bank.

“I’d like to speak to youand hear your insights and seehow we can combine all ourforces for security and peace,”Netanyahu told Putin at thestart of their Kremlin meeting.

“You’re actually the firstleader I’m speaking with after

my visit to Washington aboutPresident Trump’s Deal ofthe Century,” he added.

The Russian leader didnot mention the peace plan inhis public remarks.Netanyahu, facing graftcharges, is contesting Marchelections and hoping the pro-posal will boost his re-elec-tion chances.

The March 2 vote isIsrael’s third in less than a year,with polls suggesting thePrime Minister’s rightwingLikud is again neck-and-neckwith the centrist Blue andWhite party led by ex-militarychief Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu was visitingRussia on the same day that itreleased a young US-Israeliwoman jailed for drug traf-ficking over a small amount ofcannabis found in her luggageas she transited a Moscow air-port.

Her case caused an outcryin Israel and her release cameafter Netanyahu pleaded hercase with Putin, who issued apardon. AFP

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Lahore: An anti-terrorism courtin Pakistan has acquitted over 80Christians after the complainantentered into a compromise withthe accused who were allegedlyinvolved in lynching of twoMuslim men and vandalism fol-lowing a suicide attack on twinchurches in Lahore in 2015.

On March 15, 2015, twoblasts occurred at RomanCatholic Church and ChristChurch during Sunday servicein Youhanabad, Lahore, killing15 Christians and leaving 70wounded. The attack was fol-lowed by mob violence killingtwo men mistaken as militants.The bombings occurred duringprayers at two churches in thick-ly-populated Youhanabad that ishome to more than 100,000Christians. Anti-TerrorismCourt Lahore Judge ArshadHussain Bhutta announced theverdict on Wednesday after legalheir of the deceased pardoned 41suspects. PTI

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Sydney: Australia was bracingfor a heatwave to sweep acrossthe country’s fire-ravagedsoutheast in the coming days,with the forecast stoking fearsthe soaring temperatures couldinflame bushfires.

Temperatures reachedabove 40 degrees Celsius (104degrees Fahrenheit) onThursday in South Australiastate, where dangerous fireweather warnings were issuedin several bushfire-prone areas.

The heatwave is thenexpected to hit Melbourne andCanberra on Friday beforeparts of Sydney reach 45degrees Celsius on the week-end.

Authorities say the searingheat, accompanied by drywinds, would bring severebushfire conditions to parts ofNew South Wales and Victoria-- where more than 80 fires arestill burning across the twostates.

“We’ve had the benefit ofsome suppressed, benign con-ditions over the last few days.However, as we’ve heard, it’sgoing to be hot and dry,”Victoria Emergency ServicesCommissioner Andrew Crispsaid, urging residents to be pre-pared for bushfires to flare.

“If you’re gonna wait untilyou see the smoke or the fire atyour doorstep, it’s far too late.

You’ve gotta get out early,” hesaid.

Storms are forecast to fol-low the heatwave, bringingrain that could help dampenfires but also the potential forwild weather, including flashflooding.

Extreme weather has bat-tered parts of Australia inrecent weeks, bringing gianthail, floods and landslides.

The renewed fire threatcame as worst-hit New SouthWales announced an inquiryinto the catastrophic bushfireseason, which has left at least32 people dead and devastatedvast swathes of the countrysince September. AFP

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Undoubtedly, internal securityalong with law and order areintegral to our domestic affairs.But sometimes, their handlingby various State police forces

leaves much to be desired. Several picturesof police handling of the students in the recentanti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) agi-tation have not only stained the uniform butalso the reputation of the police as a well-trained unit. Reports of women protesting atnight in the open, being forcibly deprived oftheir blankets by policemen, hardly give themany credit. Senior officers being in a denialmode, even as the death toll in firings con-tinued to rise — which appeared to be quitedisproportionate to the level of protest,besides, usage of a particular phraseology —all point towards an unprofessional conduct.Similarly, the alleged police action inside thelibrary of a university and inaction at anoth-er university remain inexplicable.

In the context of the agitation againstCAA-NRC-NPR, section 144 of the Code ofCriminal procedure and its prohibitory pow-ers with the executive have been much in thenews. In fact, this law is a legacy of the pre-independence days. There is a historybehind this provision, which goes back to theadministration of one of the Princely States,way back in the 1860s. When the Code ofCriminal Procedure was being finalisedbefore its publication in 1898, the utility ofthis law was recognised and it was incorpo-rated as section 144. In the Code, the colo-nial masters had used the provisions of thislaw as unbridled executive power over thefreedom fighters. After the Britishers left, theGovernment of India has retained the Codeas inherited, along with Section 144. The dif-ference is that after independence, in theConstitution of India, in the chapter on fun-damental rights, we have Article 19, whichprotects the rights of an individual for free-dom of speech and expression along withright to assemble peacefully and withoutarms, besides other similar rights.

Immediately after the promulgation ofthe Constitution in 1950, there arose a needto balance the provisions of Article 19. At thattime, the Constituent Assembly had convert-ed itself into a provisional Parliament as theGeneral Elections for the first Lok Sabha werestill quite far in the future. Also, at that timethere was no Rajya Sabha. On the questionof amending the Constitution, it was accept-ed that the provisional Parliament was fullyempowered for amending the Constitution.The need for the 1st Amendment in 1951 bythe provisional Parliament had arisen becausethe right to freedom of speech and expres-sion guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) was inter-preted to be so liberal that “it would not ren-der a person culpable even if he directly incit-ed violence and abused his freedom.” In thebackground is the case of Romesh Thappar(1950), where a view was taken by theSupreme Court that local breaches of pub-lic order were no grounds for restricting the

freedom of speech. Later, this wasrevised after Dr Ram ManoharLohia’s case (1966), where itwas held that an activity whichaffects “law and order” may notnecessarily affect “public order”and an activity prejudicial to“public order” may not necessar-ily affect “security of the State.”At the same time an act whichmerely affects the security of oth-ers may not constitute a breachof “public order.”

Over the years, there havebeen several celebrated caseswhere the applicability of Section144 has been adjudicated at var-ious levels. An order under 144CrPC restricts the fundamentalrights of the citizen and canadversely affect the interest ofparties but is subject to judicialreview. It has been held that theorder must be in writing, statingthe reasons for imposition ofrestrictions. In Dr Praveen BhaiTogadia’s case, the SupremeCourt had taken the view that “itwould interfere only if the orderwas patently illegal or withoutjurisdiction or with ulteriormotive and on extraneous con-sideration of political victimisa-tion by those in power. Normally,interference should be the excep-tion and not the rule.”

In Baba Ramdev’s case, atRamlila Maidan (June, 2011), theSupreme Court had observedcertain contradictions in theaffidavits of Union HomeSecretary and the Police

Commissioner. It was also men-tioned that most of the gather-ing was asleep around 1.30 amand as such could not haveposed any imminent threat. Thejustification for use of force atthat hour of the night was alsofound inadequate. The impact ofSection 144 is remedial and of apreventive nature, which mustadhere to the test of proportion-ality. Further, freedom of expres-sion being integral to democra-cy, the Supreme Court has heldthat in case those, who holdelected offices, felt that it wastheir duty to criticise any law pro-mulgated as unconstitutionaland against public interest anddiscuss that in public, it was pro-tected by Article 19(1) (a) of theConstitution. Laying down thebasic conditions for use ofSection 144, it has been held thatdisturbances of public tranquil-ity, riots and affray lead to sub-version of public order and theyneed to be prevented in time. Atthe same time nuisances danger-ous to human life, health andsafety have to be abated and pre-vented, keeping in mind alwaysthat orders have to be in writingand are justiciable.

Even if on paper, adequatejustification for promulgation of144 CrPC exists, the core of theproblem lies at the use of forcewhile dispersing an unlawfulassembly. One of the centralitiesof police training throughout thecountry is minimal use of force.

In case its use becomes essential,then it has to be appropriatelymoderated and calibrated. Acertain extent of sensitivity whilefacing a crowd of women andchildren, or students, needs to beobserved. Unfortunately, attimes, in the heat of the momentand in a developing situation,one loses patience and all the“mantras” learnt during trainingand refresher courses are lostsight of.

The situation can, however,be rectified by separation of lawand order from investigation andhaving dedicated police person-nel to handle such situations. Thepolice forces, while dispersing thecrowds or unlawful assemblies,have to bear in mind that theircharter is limited to restorationof normalcy in the area by use offorce or otherwise. Becomingviolent and trying to teach thecrowd a lesson by unbridled useof force should not even bethought of. To maintain a degreeof restraint in spite of provoca-tions requires a very tough men-tal training, which may be pos-sible only if there are specialisedunits for handling such situa-tions. This takes us back to sep-aration of forces dealing withenforcement of law and orderfrom crime-related police func-tions.

(The writer is a formerGovernor and a Senior Advisor atthe Pranab MukherjeeFoundation)

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�� Sir — This refers to the news report“JD(U) expels Kishor, Pavan”(January 30). The action againstPrashant Kishor and Pawan Varmadid not come as a surprise as therehave been numerous spats betweenthe JD(U) chief Nitish Kumarand the two now-expelled leadersover the party’s support to theCitizenship Amendment Act(CAA) and its tie-up with the BJPfor Delhi elections. While Kishorand Pawan have taken a firmstand against the CAA, Kumar hasbeen irresolute about the law, atbest.

While the party has gone withthe line that the two leadersbrought the expulsions uponthemselves due to their anti-partyactivities, the fact remains thatinner-party democracy is beingheld hostage by an autocraticleader who is willing to go to anylengths to cling on to power.Incidentally, Kumar, who swears bysecularism, cannot be ignorant ofthe fact that the CAA is discrimi-natory in nature but still he has chosen to support it as he nodoubt needs the BJP as an ally inBihar.

To add insult to injury, Kumar“revealed” that he had inducted

Kishor into the party at the behestof BJP strongman Amit Shah. Sohow does Nitish do Shah’s bidding

at all times? And did he really notneed the brilliant strategist by hisside? These are questions that are

best answered by time. Ashmit Aaron

Jammu

��Sir — This refers to the report“Super Overs aren’t our friends:Kane” (January 30). The Indiancricket team must be commendedfor an enthralling win in the ThirdT20 International match and forregistering a maiden T20I seriesvictory in New Zealand as wellafter beating the Kiwis in a nail-bit-ing match played at the SeddonPark, Hamilton.

After taking an unassailable 3-0 lead in the T20I series, theIndian team has exhibited anabsolute dominance over theKiwis. Keeping in view the ICCT20 World Cup, which is sched-uled to be conducted in Australiathis year, the ongoing series in NewZealand can be considered vital forthe Indian team as the pitch con-ditions of both the nations are quitesimilar in terms of bounce.Although the Men in Blue haveclinched the T20I series, the finaljudgement must be made after theremaining ODI and Test series.There’s a long way to go for theWorld Cup.

Tushar AnandPatna

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The sobering fact that India does not rank highin the Global Illicit Trade Environment Index(GITEI), an annual study brought out by The

Economist Intelligence Unit, and needs to take cor-rective action to bring down the risks of illicit traderaise troubling concerns for policymakers. Accordingto the index based on four parameters —Government policy; supply and demand; customsenvironment and transparency and trade — Indiaranks 49 globally and nine, in the Asia Pacific-rank-ings which we can most certainly improve.

In the context of the growing menace of illicittrade worldwide, the World Economic Forum(WEF) estimates the global market of illicit tradeto be about $3 trillion by 2022. It has been pointedout by the WEF that while everybody does expressconcern, the response to this problem has been dis-organised and leaves a lot to be desired.

The need of the hour today, as brought out atthe sixth edition of MASCRADE (MovementAgainst Smuggled and Counterfeit Trade), conduct-ed under the aegis of FICCI’s Committee AgainstSmuggling and Counterfeiting Activities Destroyingthe Economy (CASCADE), is to proactively and con-scientiously address the many issues exacerbatingthe state of the global problem of illicit trade andunderstand its visible outcome and measurableimpacts. There is also an immediate need for har-nessing the potential of multilateralism throughinter-governmental actions and of an effective mon-itoring and inspection of Free Trade Zones (FTZs)to ensure legitimate trade flows so that FTZs do notbecome “hotspots”’ for illicit trade and organisedcrime.

Countering the beast of illicit trade not onlyrequires an understanding of and cooperationbetween institutions globally but also the designingof effective global strategies and improving the reg-ulatory framework. Unfortunately, no country canclaim to have eliminated the problem. Everybodyhas had varying degrees of success and all countrieshave paid a price. Trade in smuggling, contraband,counterfeit and pirated goods has risen steadily inthe last few years and now stands at 3.3 per cent ofglobal business. Hence, its existence and operationare broad in scope and large in value, impacting notonly the global economy, causing losses to the indus-try, Government and society but also adverselyaffecting the health and safety of consumers.Additionally, it is facilitating an underground econ-omy and organised crime. Tragically, illicit opera-tors display greater cooperation between eachother across nations than what governmental insti-tutions do, both within a country and across bor-ders. It is imperative for countries to share experi-ences in order to understand the global dimensionsof the illicit trade challenge so that a possible frame-work may be set up to tackle it.

Highlighting the challenges of tackling the prob-lem of tobacco smuggling, Tim Sheppard,Counsellor (Australian Border Force), AustralianHigh Commission, emphasises that if the risks areminimised upfront there will be less work for lawenforcement officers to do. According to him, hightax rates on tobacco have actually incentivised tobac-co smuggling. On a moderate investment, import-ing a container of illicit cigarettes could provide a5,000 per cent return on investment without thesame kind of fines or penal provision such as in nar-cotics. The Australian Government was cognisantof the problem and consequently increased the fines

and prison terms for tobacco smugglingto 10 years of imprisonment and penaltyto the tune of five times of duty avoided.Also, the close cooperation between theAustralian Border Force and Departmentof Home Affairs, the Australian CriminalIntelligence Commission, the AustralianTransaction Reports and Analysis Centre,the Commonwealth Director of PublicProsecutions and the Australian TaxationOffice has led to good results. More than600 tonnes of illicit tobacco, estimated tobe about AUD 600 million in evaded duty,has been seized in the last one year.

Vincenzo Tuzi, Guardia di FinanzaAttaché, Embassy of Italy says that thenumber of unusual products seized inrecent times indicate the presence of largecriminal organisations who have kept a tabon markets and economics before start-ing production of market-specific coun-terfeit goods. To tackle such a scenario,Tuzi emphasises the need for every coun-try to have the same penalties for certainkinds of fraud. This would facilitatecooperation in investigation.

Italy has an anti-counterfeiting MISin place which at an operational levelallows Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)holders to work actively with the law-enforcement agencies by sharing informa-tion about their products that could be atarget for fraud. The system providesreports for the IPR holders on fraud andother information useful for the protec-tion of their rights. This database also pro-vides useful feedback through data andrisk analysis for various statistical purpos-es and has proven to be a starting pointfor further investigation projects on a tac-tical and strategic level.

In their report, Huw Watkins, Headof Asia Policy, IPR, UK and Julian

Saldanha, First Secretary, Revenue andCustoms, British High Commission, saythat 2.5 per cent of exports worldwidewere counterfeit goods as were 6.5 per centitems used in IT and communication.India ranked sixth in the world in coun-terfeit production. Given this background,enforcement agencies need to look at theentire chain in the life cycle of counter-feit goods —from the placing of orders,to manufacturing, to shipping, to impor-tation, to retail sale to wholesale andreworking and transportation. This needsto be followed by an identification of areasin the chain where disruption of the ille-gal activity could be done. As per Watkins,while FTZs have been beneficial fortrade, they have also been very vulnera-ble to exploitation by criminals.

Outlining some of the challenges thatthe US faces while dealing with theSAARC countries and with India, ShilpiJha, Senior Legal Counsel for IntellectualProperty-South Asia, Embassy of theUSA, says there is a major lack of aware-ness, right from the consumers up to theGovernment level, on not just IPR issuesbut also on industry and Government ini-tiatives in this area. There is also a lack ofcoordination among agencies especiallygiven India’s federal polity, the fear of los-ing/lack of trust as industries always fearthat sharing too much data withcustom/police will cause information toleak out and counter-wise the enforcementmachinery feels that by doing too muchwork on behalf of the industry, the latter’sresponsibility will diminish.

Such insights on stemming andaddressing the challenges of illicit trade arevery instructive for India in its fight againstthis debilitating malaise. The Australianexperience in tackling tobacco smuggling

could be useful for the country as it is fac-ing a similar challenge today. The possi-bility of developing an anti-counterfeitinginformation system in India on the linesof the Italian experience could be definite-ly explored. The strategy of examiningeach link in the counterfeit chain and tack-ling the weaker link to disrupt the chain,an approach adopted by the UKIPO couldalso be usefully examined by the author-ities. These authorities could also exam-ine the role of SEZs and find out whetherthere exist similar instances of such mis-use in the country. India could also con-sider MOUs with online trading platformsto educate them about the possibility oftheir being misused for the sale of coun-terfeit goods. The authorities could relookat the present efforts at publicising the ill-effects of buying smuggled and counter-feit goods and develop a more robust pub-licity strategy to this effect. Finally, issuessuch as a lack of trust, lack of cooperationamong agencies and lack of appreciationof the nefarious impact of counterfeitingare common to India. An institutionalmechanism to address these challengescould also be explored.

If India develops a greater communi-cation flow between nations and betweenvarious enforcement agencies in thecountry, modifies the many best practicesaccording to the needs and situationsprevalent here and equips enforcementagencies with the latest technologicaltools that keep them ahead of the curve,then we will be able to weaken this adver-sary, which has been damaging economiesand societies and compromising the safe-ty and security of nations the world over.

(The writer is former Chairman,Central Board of Indirect Taxes andCustoms, Member, FICCI CASCADE)

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India’s demographic dividend —theaverage age of the population is 46years in the US, 42 years in Europe,

48 years in Japan and 27 years in India— is a mammoth opportunity for thecountry. With the right education andskills, the country can harness its truepotential and bring massive improve-ments to the economy.

The Union Budget is an importantmilestone to set the pathway and takethe right steps in that direction. Thenew national education policy pro-posed by the Government has raisedhopes of all stakeholders but theBudget needs to send the right signalsand make provisions for the policy tobloom.

Increase allocation for educa-

tion: A spending of three to 3.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) on education does not augurwell for a country like India. Mostdeveloped nations (and several of thedeveloping ones) have already movedtheir education budgets closer to thesix per cent mark.

India should also provision forsuch improvements as this shall helpbridge some part of the inequality andpoverty in the country and pave theway for inter-generational social andeconomic mobility.

India will need to aggressivelyinvest in improving the physical infra-structure in primary schools, take rad-ical steps to improve student retention,make provisions for the specially-abled, spend higher amounts on teach-ers’ training and improve the pay struc-ture for the educators so as to attractthe best talents to the profession andbring better governance and perfor-mance management by inculcating ahope of rising and a fear of falling.

GST exemption for five years foreducation and education serviceproviders: The Union Government’starget to double the Gross Enrollment

Ratio (GER) from the current 25 percent to 50 per cent shall require a con-solidated and comprehensive effort bythe Government, the institutions, theservice providers and all other stake-holders, who will have to play theirrespective roles in governance, prod-ucts, infrastructure (both physicaland technology) and service delivery.

Exempting the input servicesfrom the Goods and Service Tax(GST) shall help reduce the fee chargedby the institutions and make thecourses more affordable. The countrywill also benefit from the entry of manymore education providers who wouldbe able to provide several modular,multi-modal, technology-enabled andrelevant skill training programmes tothe learners. They will also helpimprove the overall skills in emergingareas. Hence, making these coursesexempt from GST would bring downtheir prices and make them moreaffordable.

Recognition for online pro-grammes: In today’s online world, e-learning and online courses comple-ment the education already providedby the traditional classrooms and

help personalise learning through theuse of various machine learning tech-nologies. The Government must nowgo aggressive with online learningcourses and make provisions forrecognising and legitimising them. TheGovernment should allow many moreuniversities to launch their onlineofferings. This will enable institutionsto innovate on their product and offermodular, contemporary and multi-modal education to the learners in allthe three areas, namely preparation,repair and upgradation. This shall goa long way in improving the GER forthe country, fill the skill gap and cre-ate a resilient and productive work-force.

Subsidy for apprenticeships:Learning-by-doing and earning-while-learning are powerful tools to makeeducation more engaging, purposefuland employable. The huge dropoutrate of students — of the about 23 mil-lion students taking the Class 10Board examinations in India, only 80lakh reach the altar of universities —primarily due to financial constraintsand archaic pedagogy, can be partial-ly arrested by degree-linked appren-

ticeships that combine the benefits ofa modular degree (diploma in the firstyear, advanced diploma in the secondthat can roll up to a degree in the thirdyear) with employability skills.

The Government must create aseparate provision to provide higherincentives to the employers for hiringtrainees and apprentices. This shallhelp improve the industry-academiaconnect and help create more employ-able students.

RUSA funds for providing skilltraining to students: So as to attracta larger section of the students to theinnovative formats of learning andmaking them employable, the coun-try would benefit from higher alloca-tion in student scholarships and free-ships. The Union Budget should cre-ate provisions to use RashtriyaUchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA)funds by the higher educational insti-tutes for subsidising the upskilling costsof the students to make them employ-able. This shall help institutions takenew steps, partner with the industryand organise outcome-linked trainingprogrammes for their students.

Education loan availability:

Categorising the lending to the edu-cation sector as a “priority sector lend-ing” shall improve the uptake of loansby the students and improve affordabil-ity for many middle-class scholars.Granting infrastructure-class status toeducational institutions shall reducethe rate of interest for the educationsector, promote innovation and makeeducation affordable and accessible tomany more.

The Government must make pro-visions to subsidise the educationloans availed by students (currently,education loans are more expensivethan car loans). This shall help in mak-ing education affordable and improvethe return on investment for thescholars and their parents.

Use of technology to improvegovernance and learning outcomes:The Budget must make provisions toincentivise the use of technology toimprove the equity and quality of edu-cation. Special incentives must be givenby the Government for investment intechnology in the sector.

The industry shall benefit from taxincentives in capital purchases; GSTexemptions in purchase of software

and services by educational institutionsand provisioning of smart devices forteachers and students. Subsidies forinvestment in emerging technologieslike big-data, data analytics, machinelearning and Artificial Intelligence shallset the momentum for many institu-tions to become role models.

Skill gaps and looming unemploy-ment pose a great risk and challengefor the Indian economy. As it is, thefuture of jobs is uncertain as disrup-tive technologies are playing havocwith it. Hence, with the objective ofcreating an employable and resilientworkforce, the country will need tolook at investing in University 4.0 —keep the students at the centre, rebal-ance the trinity of cost, quality andscale and think harder about the pur-pose of learning. The Budget mustmake provisions that encourage mod-ularity with multiple pathways of ver-tical and horizontal connectivitybetween various formats of certifica-tion and help create a future-proofworkforce.

( The writer is founder and CEOof an online learning services organisa-tion)

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Aligarh (UP): Protests atAligarh Muslim University’swomen college against the newcitizenship law intensified onThursday with hundreds ofstudents blocking its entrypoints, as the exam boycott atthe AMU’s engineering collegecontinued for the fourth suc-cessive day.

The protesters, includingschoolgirls, locked the gatesfrom inside and formed ahuman chain to prevent teach-ing staff from entering thecampus on Marris Road.

A university official saidpolice had been posted at thecollege gates as a precautionarymeasure. He added, “While asection of the girls are ready toend the deadlock and resumeattending classes, some othersare still refusing.”

Later Thursday, Vice-Chancellor Tariq Mansoortried to reassure students in avideo appeal that all their issues

from now on will be dealtwithout involving any “externalagency”. Students had beenconcerned that the universitycould once again call the policeforce into the campus to quelltheir protest against theamended citizenship law, asdone on December 15.

The students wanted theVC to assure them that all “falsecases” registered against theircolleagues during the past sixweeks would be withdrawnand there will be “no furtherpolice action or harassment”against them for protestingpeacefully.

In the video message, thevice chancellor said he “deeplyregretted” the incidents onDecember 15 and the bookingof students by police. “I want toassure students I will take upthese matters with police andno innocent student will beframed.”

The VC said peaceful dis-

sent “is the right of every stu-dent” and every educationalinstitution can debate any issuewhich disturbs the studentcommunity. He said the uni-versity administration wasempowering the proctorialteam, members of the teachingcommunity and pro-proctorsto tackle all situations per-taining to law and order issueswithin the campus.

However, the boycott ofexaminations at the varsity’sZakir Husain College ofEngineering and Technologycontinued for the fourth con-secutive day.

AMU spokesman OmarPeerzada said some classeswere held for the first time toend the impasse after ProfSufiyan Beg, principal of theengineering college, assuredthe students that their demandsraised during Wednesday’smeeting with the VC would beconsidered favourably. PTI

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Thursdayendorsed Union Home Minister AmitShah’s view that alleged inflammatorystatements made by Sharjeel Imam, ananti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act(CAA) activist, were dangerous.

No politics should be done on theissue, and such ‘pest’ afflicting the country should be finished off, it said.

Imam was arrested on Tuesday inconnection with his speeches at JamiaMillia Islamia University in Delhi andin Aligarh during anti-CAA protests.

He has been booked for sedition,among other offences.

In an editorial published in itsmouthpiece ̀ Saamana’, the Sena, a for-mer ally of the BJP, said, “We agree withunion home minister’s comments thatSharjeel Imam’s alleged words of sepa-ration are more dangerous than that ofKanhaiya Kumar.”

Kumar, former student leader fromJawaharlal Nehru University, had beenarrested over alleged separatist slogansshouted during a protest on varsitycampus.

The Sena, which has formedalliance with the Congress and NCP to

come to power in Maharashtra, isoften seen walking a tightrope to pre-serve its credentials as a pro-Hindutvaparty.

“The Union Home Ministry, whileinitiating action against Imam, shouldnot indulge in politics and try to fin-ish off this pest that is afflicting ourcountry,” the editorial said.

“One must find out why such lan-guage of breaking up this country intopieces is being used by the educatedyouth of this country more and morefrequently. Who is spewing such venominto the mind of Sharjeel who did hisgraduation from IIT-B and now pur-suing PhD from JNU?” the Sena asked.

“Even people involved in ElgarParishad at Pune are facing seditioncharges and these people have beenknown as intellectuals and are well-known personalities,” said the party.

“A conspiracy to bring about a con-flict between Hindus and Muslimsand ensure continuance of anarchy andcivil war as in Iraq and Afghanistanexists. The boost for such activities iscoming from a ‘political laboratory’,” theeditorial said. PTI

Thiruvananthapuram: Thousands of peoplecame together to form human maps of India,organised by the Congress-led UDF, acrossKerala as a mark of protest against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Acton Thursday.

Intensifying its protest against the CAA, theCongress- led UDF organised the formationof human map in 12 of the 14 districts barringWayanad and Kozhikode.

The programme was cancelled inKozhikode due to the demise of veteranCongress leader M Kamalam this morning.

At Wayanad, MP and CongressleaderRahul Gandhi took out a protest rally againstthe CAA.

The Congress in Kerala has been organ-ising protest marches under the leadership ofMPs and MLAs and local leaders since the pastfew days.

Senior Congress leader AK Antony par-ticipated in the human map in the state capi-tal, while UDF leaders including Leader ofOpposition Ramesh Chennithala, KPCCPresident Mullappally Ramachandran andothers participated in the protest at variousplaces. PTI

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In a rare occurrence thatindicated the deteriorating

chemistry between the BengalGovernment and GovernorJagdeep Dhankhar, the latter onThursday publicly reprimand-ed a senior IPS officer of therank of a Commissioner ofPolice for reading newspaperwhile sitting in the front rowduring a programme organisedto offer tribute to MahatmaGandhi.

Not only the Governorchided Manoj Verma the CPbut also reminded him aboutthe deteriorating law and ordersituation of the State.

Sources said while theGovernor was on the stage at

Gandhi Ghat at Barrackporewhere he was attending a pro-gramme in memory of theFather of the Nation on hisdeath anniversary the seniorpolice officer was readingnewspaper sitting on the firstrow.

At the end of the pro-gramme Dhankhar not onlyrebuked the senior officer butalso told him how the law andsituation in the State was dete-riorating by the day.

Later he said that “on thesolemn occasion of payingtribute to Father of the Nationat Barrackpore,” he was“appalled” seeing how “amidstchanting of religious mantrassenior police personnel in uni-form in front row kept on

casually and freely readingnewspapers.”

He wondered as to how“this indecorous act” could beperpetrated by men in uni-form.”

The incident comes closeon the heels of the Governorbeing blockaded by theCalcutta University studentswho refused to let him attendthe convocation programme ofthe university.

The Governor who wasinvited in the programme andwas scheduled to give awayawards including the D’Littdegree to Nobel LaureateAbhijeet Vinayak Banerjee wasfinally forced to leave thevenue.

Reacting to the Thursday’s

incident State Minister andTrinamool Congress leaderPartho Chatterjee said “he isacting out of frustration,”adding “even if a senior IPSofficer has to be reminded ofhis duty there are proceduresfor that and he should not behumiliated in public.

If such things are done bythe Governor then how theofficer will be able to mind thelaw and order situation in thedistrict.”

Another senior leader andMinister Subroto Mukhjerjeesaid “if I were to get suchindecorous behaviour from aperson of that stature I would return the same treat-ment only four times stronger.”

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Bengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee has come out in support

of Aam Aadmi Party for the comingAssembly elections in Delhi. HerTrinamool Congress will back the AAPparty’s national spokespers on DerekO’ Brien has said uploading a video.The TMC will not only support DelhiChief Minister but all the AAP can-didates.

“Vote for Arvind Kejriwal and allAAP candidates... “Vote for AamAadmi Party, Vote for the candidatefrom Rajendra Nagar constituencyRaghav Chadha,” O’ Brien tweeted.

While Bengal BJP president pooh-pooed the TMC for throwing itsweight behind the AAP, even as he said“Delhi is not Bengal and the TMC isnot even known in the nationalCapital.”

Reacting to his statement TMCleader Partho Chatterjee said “if TMCreally has no presence in Delhi thenwhy Dilip Ghosh has to react. He mayeasily ignore TMC’s appeal... It seemsthat he is nervous about TMC’s sup-port to AAP because Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee has huge fan fol-lowing in other parts of the countryincluding Delhi.”

Chatterjee would not howeversay whether Banerjee would person-ally go down to Delhi for campaign-ing. Apparently the TMC target ofappeal are the sizeable number ofBengali-speaking population in thenational capital.

Banerjee and Kejriwal have shareda good relationship over the years, withthe Delhi Chief Minister openly back-ing her in 2019 general elections. Heeven joined the 19-party meet inKolkata.

Aligarh (UP): Women protest-ing against the new citizenshiplaw have sat on an indefinitedharna at Eidgah in Aligarhwith the police booking 250 ofthem for unlawful Assembly onThursday.

The police have namednine women in the FIR, leaving others unidentified.

The women have beencharged under IPC sections145, 147 and 188, SP City

Abhishek Kumar said. Section145 relates to unlawful assem-bly, 147 to rioting and 188 todisobedience to order issued bya public servant.

The protest began lateWednesday afternoon and byevening a large number ofpeople joined it, despite thepolice administration tryingto deter them from violatingSection 144 of the CrPC thatprohibits public

gatherings.The protestors spent the

night at Eidgah and Thursdaymorning they were joined byother women from neigh-bouring localities.

Last week, hundreds ofwomen held a similar protest atthe same place after the districtauthorities gave permission fora two-day dharna.

The protest ended aftertwo days. PTI

Gorakhpur (UP): Continuinghis attack on anti-CAA pro-testers, Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath onThursday accused them of“speaking the language ofPakistan” and said such actswon’t be tolerated.

“Those staging protests atseveral places are directly orindirectly speaking in the lan-guage of Pakistan. The countryis being cheated in the name ofprotests. Such acts won’t be tol-erated or accepted,” the CMsaid during the convocation ofa nursing college here.

Addressing students, theCM without taking names criticised the “distinguishedpersonalities” who haveextended support to theprotests.

“Some self-proclaimedintellectuals are misleadingpeople about the CitizenAmendment Act and theNational Register of Citizens tocreate unrest in the country,”Yogi, who earlier in the daytook a dip in the Sangam inAllahabad said.

The Chief Minister said alarge number of protesters did-n’t know against whom theywere protesting.

“When reporters at theIndia Gate asked them thereason behind the protest orabout the law they wereprotesting against, surprising-ly they didn’t know anythingabout it. This proves that theyare misled and we all need tocome forward to stop them assuch people are a hindrance todevelopment,” he said.

Drawing a comparisonbetween minorities in Indiaand Pakistan, CM Yogi said,”“Muslims in India becamepresidents of the country andjudges of the Supreme Courtwhile in Pakistan, it is difficultto find any Hindu, Sikh,Christian or Jain holding topposts,” he said.

CM Yogi advised the stu-dents to always treat patientswith compassion andhumanity. PTI

Kanpur (UP): In a bizarre precaution-ary measure, the local administrationhere has asked 66 men to sign suretybonds of � 2 lakh each promising tomaintain peace at the Mohammad Alipark, the site of women’s protest againstthe CAA and the NRC.

Police said though none was admit-ting that men were instigating protest-ers, several of those who received noticesadmitted that women from their fami-lies were taking part in the stir.

“The issue pertains to theChamanganj police station area wherewomen are staging a protest at theMohammad Ali park,” said AdditionalCity Magistrate Anil Agnihotri who hasissued notices under Section 107/116 ofthe CrPC.

“Men can instigate protesting womento indulge in sloganeering or disturbpeace. Notice have been issued as a pre-cautionary measure,” Agnihotri said.

The protest at the park are goingsince early this month. PTI

Panaji: A local NGO has lodged a complaintwith the Goa police about the “presence ofchildren” at an anti-CAA rally held by organ-isations affliated with the Goa Church lastweek.

Organisations affiliated with the GoaChurch had held a rally at Lohia Maidan inMargao on January 24 to protest against theCitizenship (Amendment) Act.

Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) onWednesday lodged a formal complaint withthe director general of police about the pres-ence of children at the rally.

In the complaint, SCAN director EmidioPinho stated that “having impressionablechildren at such gatherings, places them ina vulnerable situation”.

“Children are exposed to political ide-ology, aggressive and often derogatory lan-guage and this can leave a lasting memory,”the complaint States.

SCAN said participating in such ralliescan be detrimental to sensitive minds of chil-dren.

When contacted, a senior police officersaid the complaint is being probed into. PTI

Lucknow: The Lucknow ChildWelfare Committee (CWC) hasissued notice to parents who areprotesting with their children at theClock Tower here against CAA,ordering them to send the kids homeimmediately or face action.

The notice that was issued onWednesday said several childrenwere at the dharna site and not inschool which had disturbed theirmeals.

“Therefore, in the best interestof children and to ensure that thereis no mental stress on them, it is nec-essary that they are immediatelyremoved from the dharna site or elseaction will be taken under Section75 of the Juvenile Justice Act,” it said.

The notice said that anyoneunder 18 years of age was a child asper the Juvenile Justice (Care andProtection of Children) Act, 2015and the CWC has to work to ensure

that their childhood, education andhealth are taken care of.

“In view of this, the CWCorders all such families protestingwith their children near the ClockTower to immediately send themhome so that their normal routinecan be restored,” it said.

The statement issued by CWC(Lucknow) Chairman KuldeepRanjan and four of the panels mem-bers warned of action under the sec-tion which deals with crime, cruel-ty to children and offences punish-able with imprisonment for a termwhich may extend to three years, orwith fine of Rs 1 lakh or with both.

The stir against the amendedcitizenship act is on since January 17at the site. It is on the lines of Delhi’sShaheen Bagh protest against theamended citizenship act and theNational Register of Citizens. PTI

Amethi /Pratapgarh (UP):Union Minister and AmethiMP Smriti Irani on Thursdayclaimed that the political par-ties which failed to win the2019 Lok Sabha elections aresupporting protests like Delhi’sShaheen Bagh, where ‘anti-national slogans’ are beingraised.

She also alleged that theintention of the Congress wasto ‘break the country’.

“There is anger in theentire country that in ShaheenBagh, AAP and other politicalparties which had failed towin the 2019 Lok Sabha elec-tions are supporting the talk ofdividing the country,” theUnion Minister said here.

She alleged that “anti-national slogans are beingraised at Shaheen Bagh”, whereprotests are going on againstthe Citizenship AmendmentAct since the law was passed inParliament last month.

“Today, on the deathanniversary of Bapu, I willonly say that even MahatmaGandhi is being cursed fromthe platform of Shaheen Bagh.

AAP leader Manish Sisodia hasgiven his support to the pro-testers of Shaheen Bagh,” sheclaimed.

The Union Minister saidshe would ask political leadershas their ‘standard of politicstouched so low’ that after thedefeat in the Lok Sabha polls,they are not able to accept itand “speaking of dividing thecountry from these platforms”.

“They are talking about‘Jinnah wali azadi’.Countrymen are looking atthese things,” she added.

To a question on the ongo-ing ‘Ganga Yatra’ in the state,she said, “It will be my fortunethat I will be taking part in itin Rae Bareli and Pratapgarh.”

She, however, evaded ques-tions on the visit of Congresspresident Sonia Gandhi andgeneral secretary PriyankaGandhi to the state earlier this

month.Addressing a gathering in

Bhetua block after laying foun-dation stones of 20 projectsworth over Rs 5 crore, Iraniclaimed said now commonpeople too will have access tosolar lights like political lead-ers.

She also visited Bhareta vil-lage to meet families of thosekilled in a road accident onJanuary 20.

During their visit here,Sonia Gandhi and PriyankaGandhi had also met thebereaved families on January23.

In Pratapgarh, Irani said itcannot be the character of atrue Indian to sit in ShaheenBagh and talk of “breaking thecountry”.

Attacking the Congress,Smriti Irani said, “The inten-tion of the Congress is to breakthe nation. Do not expect any-thing from them.”

“I will pray Ganga Maiyafor letting better sense prevailupon people who depend onthis land for survival but praiseother,” she said. PTI

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Kolkata: West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghoshcourted yet another controversy on Thursday whenhe said one cannot become a political leader unlesshe visits jail.

Asking party cadres to “actively” counter theruling TMC, Ghosh said sitting back at homewould not make one a good political activist.

“Don’t expect to be a good political activist justby sitting back at home. You all have to work. Youhave to be active, so that police is forced to arrestyou. Don’t get cowed down by threats from TMCgoons.

“Unless you visit the jail, you can’t be a goodleader,” the BJP leader claimed.

Reacting to his comment, TMC ministerSovandeb Chattopadhyay, said Ghosh, being aleader of a political party, should be more cautiousabout the statements he makes. PTI

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Jammu: In a major decision aiming to rationalisethe existing reservation policy and give repre-sentation to Pahari speaking people, theAdministrative Council which met under thechairmanship of Lieutenant Governor, G.CMurmu on Thursday approved several amend-ments in the Jammu & Kashmir ReservationRules, 2005.

According to the press statement issued bythe Jammu & Kashmir Government, there willnow be reservation of 8 percent to SCs, 10 per-cent to STs, 4 percent to Social Caste, 4 percentto Residents of ALC/IB, 10 percent to RBA, 4percent to PSP and 10 percent to EWSs in directrecruitment. A horizontal reservation of 6 per-cent will be available to Ex-Servicemen and 4percent to PHCs.

For admission in Professional Institutions,the reservation percentages will now be 8% toSCs, 10% to STs, 4% to Social Caste, 4% to ALC,10% to RBA, 4% to PSP and 10% to EWSs. Ahorizontal reservation of 4% will be available toPHCs, the press statement added.

For post graduate courses inMD/MS/M.Tech., Engineering and AgriculturalSciences and similar other postgraduate cours-es, the revised distribution of seats will be 8 per-cent to SCs, 10 percent to STs, 10 percent to RBA,4 percent to ALC/IB, 4 percent to Social Caste,4 percent to PSP, 2 percent to Children ofDefence Personnel/Para-military forces andJ&K Police Personnel, 1 percent to candidatespossessing outstanding proficiency in sports and

10 percent to EWSs. According to the government spokesman,

“there are around 9.6 lakh Pahari speaking peo-ple across Jammu and Kashmir spread overmainly in Rajouri, Poonch, Baramulla (Uri andBoniyar), Kupwara (Karna and Keran) and pock-ets of Anantnag, Budgam, Bandipora,Ganderbal, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian”.

Following the reorganization of the erst-while state of Jammu and Kashmir into theUnion Territories of Jammu and Kashmir andLadakh and enactment of the Jammu andKashmir Reservation (Amendment) Act, 2004,it had become imperative to rationalize the exist-ing reservation percentages to give representa-tion to the Pahari speaking people in the mat-ters thereto. For this purpose, necessaryamendments have been approved in the Jammuand Kashmir Reservation Rules, 2005 to includePSP in the category of socially and education-ally backward classes.

As per the extant reservation rules, the per-centage of reservation in direct recruitments is8 percent to Scheduled Castes (SCs), 10 percentto Scheduled Tribes (STs), 2 percent to Weakerand under privileged Classes (Social Caste), 3percent to Residents of areas adjoining Line ofActual Control (ALC)/International Border(IB), 20 percent to Residents of backward areas(RBA). There is also a horizontal reservationof 6 percent available to Ex-Servicemen and 3percent to Physically Challenged Persons(PHC). PNS

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ABJP corporator caused aflutter in the Kolhapur

Municipal Corporation (KMC)in western Maharashtra, by kiss-ing a fellow male Congress cor-porator sitting next to him on hischeek at a special general meet-ing held on Thursday.

Amid a special generalmeeting of the KMC called toconsider Mayor SurmanjariLatkar’s resignation, the Housewas taken aback to see BJP cor-porator Kamalkar Bhople plant-ing a deep kiss on one of thecheeks of Congress corporatorSharangadhar Deshmukh of theruling Congress-NCP alliance,sitting next to him.

Before long, a video clip ofthe incident went viral in themedia. As could be seen fromthe video clip, the members ofboth the treasury andOpposition benches broke intopeals of laughter, as a straight-faced Bhople all of a suddenpulled Deshmukh closer to himwith both of his hands andplanted a kiss. Deshmukh tookBhople’s act in his stride and was

all smiles.Incidentally, Deshmukh is

the leader of the House andchairman of the civic standingcommittee. Though the actualreason behind Bhople’s act wasnot immediately known, onecould gather from the the chainof events that led to the incidentwas that the BJP corporator wasmore comfortable being with theruling Congress-NCP alliancecorporators than with his ownparty corporators. The BJP andTararani Aghadi combine are anOpposition alliance in the KMC.

Soon after the special gen-eral meeting started, Bhoplewalked across from theOpposition benches to the trea-sury benches and sat next toDeshmukh.

An hour and a half later,Bhople planted a kiss onDeshmukh’s check. Before doingso, Bhople was heard saying: “Ido not get as much of respect inmy own party as much as I doin the ruling Congress-NCPalliance. I am very happy beingwith the ruling alliance corpo-rators”.

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Chennai: The Tamil NaduGovernment on Thursdaysaid 78 people who hadarrived from coronavirus-hit China were under“house quarantine” andbeing monitored butasserted no positive case ofthe deadly virus has beendetected in the State sofar.

State Health andFamily Welfare Minister CVijayabaskar also said there wasno need for any panic as pre-ventive measures had been putin place and the Governmentwas paying more attentionafter one person tested positivefor the virus in neighbouringKerala.

As of date, 78 people whohad arrived from China were

under Government monitor-ing, he said.”Public HealthDepartment doctors are intouch with all the 78 on a dailybasis. Nobody is affected, noneof them is in a hospital. Theyare in their homes. They are inhouse quarantine,” the Ministertold reporters here.

“So far there is no positive

case of coronavirus inTamil Nadu,” Vijayabaskarsaid.

He stressed on per-sonal hygiene and advicedpeople to wash their handsmultiple times daily.

Responding to aquestion on the status ofsome Tamil Nadu medicosstudying in China’sWuhan city, the epicentreof the virus, he said the

Chinese Embassy has informedthe State Government that theywere safe. “We are taking all fol-low-up action to ensure theirwellbeing,” he added. The novelcoronavirus epidemic deathtoll in China has touched 170with over 7,000 others beinginfected while it spread to atleast 17 countries. PTI

�)2�"?�!��>�� Panaji: The Goa Government

on Thursday urged UnionHealth Ministry to install ther-mal scanners at the State’s loneairport to detect suspectedcases of the novel coronavirus,whose outbreak has beenreported from China.

Health Minister VishwajitRane said on Thursday he metUnion Health Ministry officialsand requested them to installscanners at the internationalairport in Dabolim, around25km from here, where hun-dreds of domestic and foreigntourists arrive everyday.

At present, screening isbeing done at various airports,including Delhi, Mumbai,Kolkata, Chennai, Cochin,Bengaluru and Hyderabad forpassengers returning fromChina and Hong Kong.

The Minister said passen-gers arriving in Goa by cruiseships at Mormugao Port Trustharbour should also be screened.

Rane said “around four peo-ple” who had travelled to eitherChina or Hong Kong recentlyhave been admitted in the iso-lation ward of the Goa MedicalCollege and Hospital (GMCH)near here.

Earlier this week, the firstsuspected case of the coron-avirus was detected in the State.A foreigner, who had arrived inGoa from China, was kept underobservation at the GMCH’s iso-lation ward after he showedsymptoms similar to the coron-avirus infection.

A thermal scanner checksthe body temperature of a per-son and shows if he/she hassymptoms of viral infections.

The coronavirus is a largefamily of viruses that causes ill-nesses ranging from the com-mon cold to acute respiratorysyndromes, but the virus that haskilled people in China is a novelstrain and not seen before. PTI

Srinagar: A doctors’ body onThursday warned that therewas a potential threat of novelcoronavirus spreading toKashmir as tourists fromaround the world visit the val-ley.

President of the DoctorsAssociation of Kashmir (DAK)Suhail Naik said China is locat-ed near India and there werechances of coronavirus reach-ing the valley as it is a touristdestination.

“Following the recent out-break of coronavirus in China,there is a potential threat of thenovel virus in Kashmir as peo-ple from different parts of theworld come here as tourists,” hesaid in a statement.

“Many countries havedirect air travel with Kashmir.So the coronavirus may cometo Kashmir by that way and wehave to take care before it is too

late,” he said.Naik said although no case

of coronavirus has been report-ed in the valley yet, the gov-ernment particularly the healthdepartment needs to be pre-pared for any emergency.

Novel coronavirus (nCoV)is a large family of viruses thatcauses illnesses ranging fromthe common cold to acute res-piratory syndromes. The virusis a novel strain and not seenbefore, he said.

The chief of DAK said thevirus can be passed betweenhumans through close con-

tact.“It is imperative that the

government and specificallythe health department shouldbe prepared for handling thesituation,” he said.

Naik said the virus doesnot seem to pass easily fromperson to person unless thereis close contact, such as occurswhen providing unprotectedcare to patients.

The common symptomsof the novel coronavirusinclude respiratory symptomssuch as fever, cough, shortnessof breath and breathing diffi-culties.

He said there have beenclusters of cases in healthcarefacilities, where human tohuman transmission appears tohave occurred, especially wheninfection prevention and con-trol practices are inadequate. PTI

Jaipur: The Rajasthan Government on Thursday saidit will identify all travellers arriving in the State fromChina and get them examined in view of the novelcoronavirus outbreak.

Additional Chief Secretary (Medical and Health)Rohit Kumar Singh gave this information during avideo conference with the Union Health Ministry.

Singh said instructions have been given to iden-tify all passengers coming from China to Rajasthanand to get information about those staying in vari-ous hotels with the help of police department.

He said 18 passengers from China arrived inRajasthan in January and two of them with initialcoronavirus-like symptoms were screened and exam-ined.

Out of these, the test report of one patient admit-ted in the isolation ward in Jaipur was negative andblood sample of another suspect have been sent to aPune laboratory. Both the suspected patients arehealthy, he said. PTI

Mumbai: With ten persons quar-antined in three hospitals acrossMaharashtra for possible exposureto novel coronavirus, a centralHealth Ministry team is likely tovisit the State to take a review of pre-paredness for tackling the disease,an official said on Thursday.

State Health Minister RajeshTope assured that no confirmedcase of coronavirus infection hasbeen found in Maharashtra so far.

Twenty-seven persons areunder observation in the State andas a precautionary measure 10 ofthem have been quarantined — sixat Kasturba Hospital in Mumbai,three at Pune’s Naidu Hospital andanother at a hospital in Nanded.

“A team of Centre’s healthdepartment is likely to visit Mumbaiin coming days as more and morecases of suspected novel coron-avirus are surfacing,” a senior stateofficial told PTI. “All the suspectedcoronavirus patients will continueto be kept under observation for atleast 28 days,” the official said,adding that the number is likely togo up.

When asked about the purposeof the central team’s visit, the offi-cial said, “It is aimed at taking areview of the preparedness for pre-vention and management of the dis-ease. The team will also give somecritical inputs.”

Speaking to reporters in

Aurangabad, Health Minister Topesaid 4,790 people had been screenedfor symptoms of the infection at theMumbai airport as of Wednesday.

“There is no confirmed patientof coronavirus in the state. Fourflights land every week from China.We are scanning passengers forsymptoms of coronavirus,” he said.The government had earlierappealed to those who returnedfrom China after January 1 toreport to State-run hospitals if theywere suffering from cough and mildfever. Novel coronavirus belongs tothe coronavirus family that causesillnesses ranging from the commoncold to acute respiratory syn-dromes. PTI

Ahmedadbad: The prelimi-nary health screening of 43 per-sons, who arrived in Gujaratfrom China over the last fewdays, did not show any symp-toms of novel coronavirusinfection, officials said onThursday.

No case of coronavirus hasbeen found in the State so far,they said.

“None of the 43 persons,who arrived in Gujarat fromChina in the last few days, werefound with symptoms of coro-navirus. Our teams are in con-stant touch with them. As aprecautionary measure, wehave asked them to remain

indoors. So far, no positive casehave been reported in the state,”Commissioner of Health, JaiPrakash Shivahare, said.

“Some persons who hadreached Vadodara via roadwere also found to be asymp-tomatic. We are in constanttouch with the central govern-ment for a better coordination,”he said.

According to Shivahare,the state government has tiedup with the National Instituteof Virology (NIV) in Pune tocheck the samples for detectionof possible coronavirus cases.

“But as of now, we have not

sent any samples,” he added.The official added that studentsfrom Gujarat, who are currentlystudying in China, as well astheir parents here can contactthe State Emergency OperationCentre on 079-23251900 toseek Government’s help orshare any other information.

He said the state healthdepartment has put in place around-the-clock screeningfacility, with a thermal scanner,at Ahmedabad airport to detectpossible cases of coronavirusand also set up an isolationward in a civil hospital here totreat patients suspected of con-tracting the infection. PTI

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In a major decision aimed atreducing the influence of

the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)in the crucial co-operative sec-tor, the Shiv Sena-led MahaVikas Agadhi (MVA)Government has removed theadministrators and all thedirectors appointed by the pre-vious BJP Government in 19co-operative sugar factories invarious parts of the State.

The successive Congress(and NCP since 1999)Governments had over theyears derived their politicalclout from the co-operativebodies, including sugar facto-ries and banks. However, afterthe saffron allianceGovernment replaced the pre-vious Congress-led DemocraticFront (DF) Governmnet in thestate in 2014, the BJP hadtaken control of the cooperativesector by appointing its admin-istrators and directors on var-ious co-operative sugar facto-ries.

During its tenure, the BJP-led Government had suffocat-ed several big sugar co-opera-tive societies managed by theNCP and Congress leaders, byreducing quantum of loansextended to them from time totime through co-operativebanks.

With several of these sugarcooperative factories incurringhuge losses, some of the NCPand Congress leaders runningthese sugar cooperative facto-ries had switched over to theBJP in the run up to the LokSabha and State Assembly pollsheld last year.

However, after the adventof the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress grand alliance’s MVAdispensation took over thereins of the State last month,the Uddhav ThackerayGovernment has initiated theprocess to regain the control ofthe co-operative sector onceagain. The NCP, which has overthe years built a strong base inwestern Maharashtra throughsugar-cooperatives, holds thecrucial Cooperation ministryin the Uddhav Thackeray gov-ernment. Its senior leaderBalasaheb Patil is the Co-oper-ation Minister in the MVA gov-ernment.

Official sources said thatthe Uddhav Thackeray,through the Pune-based StateSugar Commissionerate hasissued an order annulling theappointments of administratorsand directors made by the pre-vious BJP government in 19 co-operative sugar factories invarious parts of the State.

The 19 sugar co-operativesugar factories, in which the

state government has removedthe BJP-appointed adminis-trators and directors, includeAjinkyatara Cooperative Sugarfactory, Satara, Dr Patangraoco-op sugar factory, Kadegaon-Sangli, Someshwar coopera-tive sugar factory, Baramati,Purna Co-op sugar factory,Hingoli, Adinath coop sugarfactory, Solapur, ChhatrapatiCo-op sugar factory, Indapur,Raobahadur co-operative sugarfactory, Shirol, Dr BabasahebAmbedkar co-op sugar facto-ry, Osmanabad, AAjara co-opsugar factory, Kolhapur,Vithalrao Shinde co-op sugarfactory, Madha, Rena Co-opsugar factory, Latur and Bhimacoop sugar factory, Phatas-Daund.

Sources said that the stategovernment would soonappoint its nominees as theadministrators and directors inthese 19 sugar co-operativefactories.

In another measure, theMVA Government has initiat-ed steps to show the door to theBJP-appointed directors in dis-trict co-operative banks, mar-ket committees and cooperativesocieties (coming under thepurview of sugar factories)and replace them with thenominees belonging to thethree parties in the currentGovernment in the State.

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The rupee lost 22 paise toclose at a three-week low of

71.49 against the US dollar onThursday tracking heavy sell-off in domestic equities amidrising concerns over the out-break of coronavirus.

Forex traders said mostAsian currencies declined afterthe US Federal Reserve kept its key policy rates steady.

Moreover, market partici-pants are also assessing the eco-nomic implications of thecoronavirus outbreak andawaiting cues from the UnionBudget.

At the interbank foreignexchange market, the domesticcurrency opened weak at 71.39a dollar.

It finally settled for the daylower by 22 paise at 71.49, alevel not seen since January 8.On Wednesday, the local unithad closed at 71.27 against thegreenback.

New Delhi: Petrol and dieselprices may go up by 50 paise toRe 1 per litre beginning Aprilwhen India leapfrogs to usingEuro-VI emission-compliantultra-clean auto fuels.

Currently, BS-IV gradefuel, equivalent to Euro-IVemission-compliant fuel, isbeing supplied in the countryand the government decided toleapfrog to BS-VI grade fuelfrom April 2020 to cut vehic-ular emissions, which are oneamong the many reasons for

rising pollution in the nation-al Capital and other cities.

Sanjiv Singh, chairman ofIndian Oil Corporation (IOC),the country’s largest oil firm,said that all of the company’srefineries have started produc-ing BS-VI grade fuel and thesame will reach depots acrossthe country by next month.“We are very much sticking toApril 1 deadline and 100 percent of petrol and diesel in thecountry will be BS-VI compli-ant from April 1,” he said. PTI

New Delhi: Operations of pub-lic sector banks are expected tobe hit beginning Friday asunions will go on a two-daynationwide strike following thefailure of wage revision talkswith managements.

However, private sectorlenders like ICICI Bank andHDFC Bank would be opera-tional. Many banks, includingSBI, have informed customersthat operations may be impact-ed to some extent due to thestrike. Cash deposit, withdraw-al, cheque clearances, instrumentissuance and loan disbursementoperations would be affected.

With this strike, bankswould be closed for three daysincluding Sunday. Banks willopen only on Monday,February 3. The three-daybreak in banking operationscould also lead to drying up of

ATMs.The strike will coincide

with the beginning of the Budgetsession of parliament and pre-sentation of the union Budget2020-21 (on February 1). Thestrike call has been given by theUnited Forum of Bank Unions(UFBU), an umbrella body ofnine bank unions, includingAll India Bank Officers’Confederation (AIBOC), AllIndia Bank EmployeesAssociation (AIBEA) andNational Organisation of BankWorkers (NOBW).

Earlier this week, a meet-ing with the Chief LabourCommissioner remainedinconclusive, AIBOC PresidentSunil Kumar said.

The wage revision foremployees of public sectorbanks is pending sinceNovember 2017. PTI

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India is among the countries onthe UK Government’s target

list for a new post-Brexit tradecampaign from Saturday, a dayafter the country formally leavesthe European Union, as it seeksto strike new ties with partnersaround the globe at the end of47 years of EU membership.

Mumbai is among 18 citiesacross 13 countries to be part ofthe drive, designed to push themessage that Britain is now freeto do its own new trade dealswith countries around the worldas a non-member of the soon-to-be 27-member economicbloc, after 47 years of UK mem-bership ends on Friday.

“On 1 February, the newGREAT ‘Ready to Trade’ cam-paign will launch in 18 citiesacross 13 countries outside the

EU, as the UK seeks to deepenour relationships with futureglobal partners,” DowningStreet said in a statement on theeve of Brexit.

The campaign will initiallyfeature digital outdoor advertis-ing in signature locations acrossthe chosen cities and laterexpand to other activities.Besides India, the others on thelist include Australia (Perth,Melbourne, Sydney), Brazil (SaoPaulo), Canada (Toronto), China(Shanghai, Hong Kong), Japan(Tokyo), Mexico (Mexico City),Singapore (Singapore), SouthAfrica (Johannesburg), SouthKorea (Seoul), Turkey (Istanbul),UAE (Dubai) and USA (NewYork, Los Angeles, Chicago).

The UK’s Department forInternational Trade, leading thenew drive, says its “GREAT”brand has already proved suc-

cessful around the world, withsurveys indicating those whorecognise it are almost twice aslikely to say they would tradewith the UK in the next threeyears than those who don’t.

British Prime Minister BorisJohnson has pledged a “new andimproved” trading relationshipas part of a “truly special UK-India relationship” on the elec-tion campaign trail last year. Butas a member of the EU, the UKwas not permitted to open upany separate negotiations withother countries. With the EUWithdrawal Agreement, the so-called divorce bill costing the UKaround GBP 30 billion, nowhaving been formally passed bythe European Parliament onWednesday evening 621 votes to49, UK’s exit on Friday at 2300GMT (04:30 IST on Saturday)remains a mere formality.

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Equities resumed their down-ward spiral on Thursday as

concerns over the China coro-navirus outbreak sapped riskappetite amid expiry of Januaryderivatives contracts.

India on Thursday report-ed its first case of the novelcoronavirus, with a studenttesting positive in Kerala.

After swinging over 550points during the day, the 30-share BSE Sensex settled 284.84points, or 0.69 per cent, lowerat 40,913.82. It hit an intra-daylow of 40,829.91 and a high of41,380.14.

Likewise, the broader NSENifty closed 93.70 points, or0.77 per cent, down at12,035.80. Index heavyweightReliance Industries was thebiggest loser in the Sensexpack, falling 2.62 per cent, fol-lowed by Nestle India,IndusInd Bank, UltraTechCement, M&M and SBI.

On the other hand, BajajAuto, PowerGrid, ICICI Bank,Asian Paints, NTPC, HDFC,L&T and Maruti ended withgains. According to analysts,benchmark indices turnedhighly volatile ahead of theexpiry of January futures andoptions (F&O) contracts.

During afternoon session,markets continued to tradelower led by selling in large-capstocks which added to thealready skittish sentimentahead of the Budget, they said.

Further, weakness in otherAsian bourses as rising con-cerns over the impact of China’scoronavirus on the world econ-omy also affected domesticsentiment, traders said.

“Fears of economic slow-down as the coronavirusspreads to other nations hasdampened the mood ofinvestors across the globe. Aslew of results announced so farfailed to provide a picture ofeconomic revival with banks

disappointing due to weakasset quality that triggeredprofit booking.

“With expectations high,the market to stay focused onthe upcoming Budget for fur-ther green shoots in the econ-omy,” said Vinod Nair, Head ofResearch, Geojit FinancialServices.

All BSE sectoral indicesended with losses, with energy,oil and gas, FMCG, healthcare,metal and IT falling up to 2.29per cent. Broader BSE midcapand smallcap indices lost up to1.26 per cent. Bourses in HongKong, Japan and South Koreaended with steep losses.Markets in China remainedclosed. Stock exchanges inEurope too opened on a nega-tive note. Brent crude oilfutures fell 1.63 per cent toUSD 57.97 per barrel.

On the currency front, theIndian rupee depreciated by 23paise to 71.51 per US dollar(intra-day).

New Delhi: Gold prices on Thursday jumped �400 to �41,524per 10 gram in the national capital helped by wedding seasondemand and overall recovery in global prices, according to HDFC Securities.

Silver prices also climbed �737 to �47,392 per kg from �46,655per kg on Wednesday. In the previous trade, gold had closed at�41,124 per 10 gram.

“Spot gold of 24 karat in Delhi was trading higher by �400supported by wedding season demand and overall recovery inglobal gold prices. The busy wedding session in coming monthsmay support spot gold prices to trade up,” HDFC Securities SeniorAnalyst (Commodities) Tapan Patel said. PTI

New Delhi: Telecom infrastruc-ture company Bharti Infratel onThursday posted a 23 per centjump in consolidated net profitat �798.7 crore for the third quar-ter ended December 2019.

Its net profit stood at �648.4crore in the year ago period.Total income slipped 4.2 percent to �1,684.5 crore. However,after incorporating its share ofrevenue from Indus Towers,Bharti Infratel showed 1 percent year-on-year increase insegment revenue to �3,673 crorefor the reported quarter.

It said the telecom indus-try continues to face financialuncertainty due to the recentSupreme Court judgement onstatutory dues, but for whichgrowth of towers and co-loca-tions would have been evenstronger. PTI

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Shares tumbled in Europeand Asia on Thursday as the

impact of the virus outbreak inChina expanded to includeflight cancellations and otherwider precautions to help stopits spread.

Taiwan’s benchmark dived5.8 per cent as its marketreopened after the Lunar NewYear. Shares fell in most othermarkets, with the CAC 40 inParis dropping 1.1 per cent to5,890.00 and Germany’s DAXshedding 1 per cent to 13,215.90.In Britain, the FTSE 100declined 0.9 per cent to 7,415.93.

The declines looked likelyto carry over into US trading.The future contract for the S&P500 lost 0.7 per cent, as did thefuture for the Dow. The deathtoll from the virus rose to 170,with 7,711 people in China andelsewhere confirmed infected,as foreign evacuees from theworst-hit region in centralChina began returning homeunder close observation.

After world health offi-cials have expressed “great con-cern” that the disease is start-ing to spread between peopleoutside of China, Japan’s Nikkei225 index sank 1.7 per cent to22,977.75, while Hong Kong’s

Hang Seng index skidded 2.6per cent to 26,449.13. InAustralia, the S&P ASX/200declined 0.3 per cent to7,008.40. South Korea’s Kospilost 1.7 per cent to 2,148.00.

Shares also retreated inIndia and Southeast Asia.Mainland Chinese marketsremained closed for the LunarNew Year holiday.

“With equity marketspumped to juicy levels by therelentless flow of cheap centralbank money around the world,unexpected Wuhan-like eventsleave them acutely vulnerableto potentially aggressive cor-rections,” Jeffrey Halley of

Oanda said in a commentary.The World Health

Organization was due to meetThursday in Geneva to consid-er whether to issue a global alarmthat might prompt more controlson movement inside and to andfrom China, resulting in greaterdisruptions to businesses andmarkets. In other news, SouthKorea’s Samsung Electronics Co.Said its operating profit for thelast quarter fell 33.7 per centfrom a year earlier.

But it predicted earningswill improve in 2020, driven bya gradually stabilising com-puter chip market and increas-ing 5G smartphone sales.

Samsung, the world’s biggestproducer of smartphones andsemiconductors, has suffered asharp drop in profit over the pastyear with an industry-wide glutforcing chip-makers to slashprices to clear out inventory.

The Bank of England wasexpected to issue a decision oninterest rates later on Thursday.

Overnight, stocks lostmomentum on Wall Street asinvestors tuned in to a newsconference by Federal ReserveChairman Jerome Powell.Speaking to reportersWednesday afternoon, Powellacknowledged that there’s arisk the outbreak could slow

the global economy. But stocksbarely budged after the Fedannounced would leave itsbenchmark interest rateunchanged at a low level. Themove, which was widelyexpected, reflects the centralbank’s mostly positive view ofthe US economy.

Last year, the Fed cut itsbenchmark interest rate threetimes after having raised itfour times in 2018. Powellcredits those rate cuts with revi-talising the housing market,which had stumbled early lastyear, and offsetting some of thedrag from President DonaldTrump’s trade war with China.

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Real Madrid made it 20 gamesunbeaten by thrashing Real

Zaragoza 4-0 on Wednesday toease into the quarter-finals of theCopa del Rey.

Raphael Varane, LucasVazquez, Vinicius Junior andKarim Benzema all scored at LaRomareda, where Madrid wereagain without injured duo GarethBale and Eden Hazard, whileBenzema only came on as a late

substitute.Zinedine Zidane has said his

team’s strong run had been beenbuilt on its defence and this clean

sheet against Zaragoza meansthey have now conceded onlythree goals in nine games.

Their stubbornness shouldstand them in good stead in theChampions League, with a last-16tie against Pep Guardiola’sManchester City to come nextmonth.

Hazard, who has resumedlight training after recoveringfrom an ankle injury, is likely tobe back against City and if theBelgian can add some attackingfinesse to their solidity, Zidane’sside may prove hard to stop.

Meanwhile, holders Valencianeeded penalties to overcomethird-tier side Cultural Leonesa,who knocked out Aletico Madridin the previous round.

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Fourth division Epinalsprang a French Cup

shock on Wednesday, theamateurs from theVosges mountainsknocking out top-flightLille 2-1 to join ParisSaint-Germain, 2-0 win-ners at Pau, in the quar-ter-finals.

The come-from-behind upset matchedfellow fourth-tier ama-teur outfit Belfort’s shockdefeat of Ligue 1Montpellier on penalties24 hours earlier.

Loic Remy put Lilleinto an early lead against

the minnows who hadended Reunion islanders’JS Saint-Pierroise’sdreams of becoming thefirst team from a Frenchoverseas territory to

reach the last 16.And they continued

their adventure by hittingback hard in the secondhalf with a double fromJean-Philippe Krasso.

Meanwhile, Ligue 1leaders PSG ensured theydid not get spellbound bythe magic of the Cup atthird division Pau.

Neymar stayed inParis and Kylian Mbapperemained on the benchbut their services weren’trequired as captainLeandro Paredes andPablo Sarabia scored ineither half for a drama-free 2-0 win.

“It wasn’t easy, it wasour fifth consecutiveaway game,” said PSGcoach Thomas Tuchel.

“We made a lot ofchanges but the lads didreally well.”

�� Pep Guardiola called onManchester City to learn the lessons of a 1-0 home defeat to Manchester United onWednesday despite progressing to a third suc-cessive League Cup final 3-2 on aggregate.

The holders enjoyed the vast majority ofthe chances but could not find a way past theinspired David de Gea and went behind toUnited’s first attempt on goal 10 minutesbefore half-time when Nemanja Matic firedhome.

United’s hopes of completing a miracu-lous comeback were extinguished whenMatic was then sent-off 15 minutes from timeand City held on to face Aston Villa atWembley on March 1.

“In 180 minutes we were better thanUnited,” said Guardiola. “We created chancesto score a lot of goals and didn’t convert. Weneed to learn to be more clinical.”

“For me Manchester United didn’t haveone chance today.”

Meanwhile Utd boss says he’s proud ofhis players, “I’m so proud of these players.They’ve beaten City now twice at theirplace. They’ve given us everything.” AFP

�� New signing Christian Eriksenenjoyed a memorable debut as InterMilan defeated Fiorentina 2-1 onWednesday to reach the Italian Cup

semi-finals.A f t e r

three succes-sive draws inSerie A,A n t o n i oConte’s Interwere far fromtheir best butstill hadenough to setup a last-fourclash againstNapoli.

I n t e redged ahead

just before the break when AntonioCandreva scored from close range after apass from Lautaro Martinez who hadmade the most of a mix-up betweenFiorentina’s Federico Ceccherini andgoalkeeper Pietro Terracciano.

Martin Caceres headed the visitorslevel on the hour before Nicolo Barella set-tled the tie with a blistering volley sevenminutes later.

Danish star Eriksen, signed onTuesday from Tottenham, was brought onas a substitute for Alexis Sanchez justbefore Barella’s strike.

“We did not intend to use Eriksen sosoon, as he only started training with usyesterday, but Matias Vecino and Barellawere the only available midfielders,” saidConte. “Eriksen has character and raisesthe quality level.”

Fellow new recruit Victor Moses,signed on loan from Chelsea, also madesecond half appearance for Inter. AFP

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Jurgen Klopp insistedLiverpool are not motivated by

making history after the run-away leaders took another steptowards the Premier Leaguetitle with a 2-0 win at West Hamon Wednesday.

Klopp’s side have turned thetitle race into a procession andthey moved 19 points clear at thetop with their 23rd victory from24 league games this season.

Mohamed Salah opened thescoring with a first half penaltyat the London Stadium andAlex Oxlade-Chamberlainwrapped up Liverpool’s 15thsuccessive league win after theinterval.

Second placed ManchesterCity are now so far behindLiverpool that the question is notif but when the Reds clinch theirfirst English league title since1990.

The Reds have won 31 oftheir past 32 league fixtures, onlydropping points in a 1-1 draw atManchester United in October.

With 14 games left,Liverpool’s incredible run hasgiven historic overtones to theirimpending title coronation.

But Klopp is only con-cerned about getting Liverpoolover the finish line, with anylandmarks set on the way mere-ly the icing on the cake.

“In a season you have to digin, you don’t breathe pretty

much, then after 38 games youcome out of the water and seehow you did,” Klopp said.

“I’m not too much con-cerned about records. We had arecord at Dortmund and Bayernbeat it the next season.

“I don’t want to be boring.We just don’t feel like that.”

The European andWorld champions are now41 games unbeaten in theleague — just eight awayfrom the 49-matchEnglish top-flight recordset by Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’across 2003 and 2004.

Matching that Arsenalteam’s achievement in going anentire league season withoutdefeat is within Liverpool’s reach,as is Manchester City’s PremierLeague record of 100 points.

Liverpool’s latest success ona chilly night in east London willbe just a footnote when the fullstory of their likely title triumph

is written, but they still managedto record another small piece ofhistory.

They have now beaten all 19of the other teams in the leagueat least once this season — thefirst time the club have achievedthat feat in the top-flight.

West Ham manager DavidMoyes admitted Liverpooldeserve their place amongthe Premier League’s all-time great teams.

But, as a former boss ofLiverpool’s two greatestrivals, he unsurprisingly

stopped short of anointingthem the best English footballhas ever seen.

“They are as good as therehas been at this moment in time.They have so many strings totheir bow. But when you thinkof some of the great ManchesterUnited and Arsenal teams of thepast, it’s difficult to judge them(as the best ever).

�� <.%�:9-�.

Novak Djokovic shattered thehopes of ailing rival RogerFederer on Thursday to sweep

into a record eighth Australian Openfinal and move closer to his 17thGrand Slam crown.

In the 50th instalment of one ofsport’s greatest rivalries, the Serbshrugged off a tentative start to rein-force his recent dominance, showing nomercy to the Swiss maestro in a 7-6(7/1), 6-4, 6-3 win.

He will play either fifth seedDominic Thiem or seventh-rankedGerman Alexander Zverev in Sunday’sfinal, but it will take a monumental

effort to prize another title from the 32-year-old.

Of the seven Melbourne finalsDjokovic has made, he has won themall.

If any extra motivation was need-ed, winning on Sunday will see the Serbreclaim the number one ranking afterRafael Nadal was sent packing in thelast eight.

“Respect to Roger for coming outtonight when he was obviously hurt andnot even close to his best in terms ofmovement,” said defending championDjokovic, who is into his 26th GrandSlam final.

“He started well at the beginningand I was pretty nervous. It was very

important for me to win that first set.Mentally I relaxed after that.”

It was the fourth time Djokovic hadbeaten Federer at the semi-final stagein Melbourne after doing the same in2008, 2011 and 2016.

Federer, the 2018 champion, cameinto the match carrying a groin injurythat he picked up in his five-set, come-from-behind quarter-final win againstTennys Sandgren.

He was seen around MelbournePark before the match with tape on hisupper right leg and there were evenrumours that he might pull out.

But that is not in the 38-year-old’snature — he has only ever given up fourwalkovers in his long career — and theshow was on.

Djokovic was clear favourite afterbeating the third seed in every GrandSlam meeting since Wimbledon 2012,but in their 50th career clash it wasFederer who initially set Rod LaverArena alight.

Federer had three break points tomake it 5-1 in the opening set, but

Djokovic dug deep to fend them off ashe clawed back, breaking again andagain as the Swiss was serving for theset.

It went to a tiebreaker which thesecond seed dominated to pull off aremarkable turnaround in a set thatFederer threw away.

Federer took a medical time at theend of it, apparently for aback issue, and he wasn’tmoving as freely in thesecond set.

But he clung on untilhe fluffed an easy shot at thenet to hand Djokovic set pointat 4-5 and the Serb cracked atop-quality crosscourt volley to gotwo sets to one in front.

Djokovic was pumped andFederer rapidly running out of steam.

When the Swiss star was broken togo 4-2 behind in the third, there wasno way back as his rival extended hiswinning record over him to 27-23.

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Unseeded Garbine Muguruza fought back frombehind in both sets to defeat racquet-smashing

fourth seed Simona Halep on Thursday and set up anAustralian Open final with surprise-package SofiaKenin.

The Spaniard, a two-time Grand Slam champion,reached her first Melbourne final with a tough 7-6(10/8), 7-5 victory at a steamy Rod Laver Arena.

The 26-year-old, who suffered a calamitous dropin form last season, is the first unseeded player to reachthe women’s final since Belgium’s Justine Henin in 2010.

“Very excited to be in the final, it’s a long way togo and I have one more match on Saturday,” saidMuguruza, the former world number one who is nowranked 32.

“I wasn’t thinking that I was down, I was thinkingkeep going and at some stage you’re going to have anopportunity.

“Luckily I have 48 hours now to recover and getready for the last match. We train all of our career tobe able to play on this court and in (front of) this crowd.”

KENIN THE BARTY POOPERKenin, the feisty American 14th seed, earlier

stunned world number one and home hope AshleighBarty 7-6 (8/6), 7-5 to reach her first Grand Slam final.

Moscow-born Kenin, 21, the last American left inMelbourne, was the party pooper once

more.She had already brought the fairy-

tale run of 15-year-old CocoGauff to an end in the fourthround with the aggressivestyle of play that has become

her trademark over thepast fortnight.

Kenin looked shell-shocked in the immedi-ate aftermath of her sur-prise defeat of homehope Barty, saying: “She’ssuch a tough player, she’s

playing really amazing. Iknew I had to really find

a way to win.“I’m just speech-

less, I honestly can’tbelieve this. I’vedreamed about thismoment since I was

five years old.” “I’veworked so hard to get here,”added Kenin. “I really had tofight out here. There’s a reasonshe’s number one.”

�� ./�(.%*��

Mohammed Salim,Bhaichung Bhutia, Sunil

Chhetri, Gurpreet Singh Sandhuare some stellar names whohave played for European clubsin the past. Now, for the firsttime ever, an Indian woman isset to take to the pitches inEurope by storm, and she isnone other than Ngangom BalaDevi.

The 29-year-old Indiannational team forward is now setto become the first womanfrom the country to get a pro-fessional contract with aEuropean club, after RangersWomen FC signed her an 18-month deal on Wednesday.

“I really cannot describehow I feel right now. Playing inEurope has always been a dreamfor me, and now it has cometrue,” a positively glowing Balasaid.

“We all know about thehistory, the heritage, and the cul-ture that a club like Rangers car-ries with its name. I am proudto be associated with a club likethat, and it will further motivateme to press forward andimprove my game,” she said.

“The rate at which women’sfootball is moving forward, Ihope to see more of these younggirls following me to Europe andimproving the national team inthe future,” she continued.

Bala has been on top formfor the past year, earning the top

scorer’s award in both the HeroIndian Women’s League 2018-19 and the 25th Senior Women’sNational FootballChampionship, scoring 26 and21 goals, respectively.

She was given a week-longtrial at Rangers Women FC inNovember last year, after whichshe came back to join thenational team and clinchedGold with them at the 2019South Asian Games, where shealso finished as the top scorer —netting six goals in four games.

The 29-year-old feels thatshe was truly made to feel athome in the Scottish capital,where the coaches studied hergame and helped her easeinto the physical style of foot-ball played in the UnitedKingdom.

“Yes, the style of play ismore physical in Scotland,but the coaches really helpedme adjust to that during mytrial. They gave me some cru-cial tips on how to tweak mygame in order to suit thephysical style and we couldreally see those results on thepitch,” she went on.

“We all have seen Europeanfootball on television or onYoutube, and have dreamt ofourselves playing under suchconditions,” she said. “Now thatI have got this opportunity, Iwant to grab it with both handsand show the country that wecan all do well if we work hardand give it our best.”

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�� The Indian challenge atthe Australian Open ended afterRohan Bopanna and his Ukrainianpartner Nadiia Kichenok wereknocked out in straight sets in thequarterfinal of the mixed doublesevent here on Thursday.

The Indo-Ukrainian pair wentdown 0-6, 2-6 to fifth seed NikolaMektic and Barbora Krejcikova in a47-minute encounter.

Bopanna and Kichenok strug-gled from the beginning and failedto hold their serve. The Croatian-Czech pair completely dominated theproceedings from the word go, eas-ily taking the first set.

In the second set, Bopanna andKichenok managed to hold theirserve in the first game but were eas-ily broken in the second and the sev-enth, meekly handing over a semi-final spot to Mektic and Borbara.

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Shubman Gill’s run-a-ball 83 was theonly high point for India A as New

Zealand A grabbed the opening dayhonours in their first unofficial Teston Thursday.

India A were all out for 216 intheir first innings and New Zealand Aresponded strongly, reaching 105 fortwo at the close of play and reducingthe deficit to 111 runs with plenty ofwickets in hand.

Sent in to bat after the coin land-ed in favour of home team captainHamish Rutherford, India A soonfound themselves in a spot of botherat 34 for three in the 17th over at theHagley Oval.

The 20-year-old Gill, seen as onewith a bright future, found an able allyin skipper Hanuma Vihari (51), andthe duo added 119 runs for the fourthwicket to steady the ship.

However, off-spinner ColeMcConchie (3/33), who was the sec-ond most successful home bowlerbehind medium pacer Michael Rae(4/54), dismissed Vihari in a bizarremanner after the batsman had done allthe hard work.

After Vihari played a sweep shotdirectly into the shin of RachinRavindra at silly mid-on, the ball flewtowards the wicketkeeper and DaneCleaver calmly pouched it.

Vihari’s knock was a 79-ball effortwas studded with eight hits to thefence.

Stumper Kona Bharat seemed tobe settling in nicely when the visitorslost the big wicket of Gill off Rae'sbowling.

From 183 for five, it did not takethe New Zealand A attack to warp upthe India A innings.

The home team lost skipperRutherford for 28 but his openingpartner Will Young (26) was there inthe middle when stumps were pulledout.

Ravindra made 47 off 67 balls withthe help of seven boundaries.

�� India will take onEngland in the women’s triangu-lar series opener here today, hop-ing to put the finishing touches totheir T20 World Cup prepara-tions.

Matches against England andhosts Australia, two of the world’stop teams, will be an ideal oppor-tunity for India to plug the gapsas they continue their search foran ICC tournament silverwaredespite boasting a team full of tal-ented players.

They came close to winningit in the 2017 ODI World Cup,

only to lose by nine runs toEngland in the title clash.

A year later, their campaignended in the semifinals of theWorld T20 in the West Indies,

going down toEngland again.

Chief coachWV Raman, underwhom the team has dished out afearless brand of cricket over thepast one year, feels playing in thetri-series will help his outfitbefore the T20 World Cup.

The mega-event will beplayed in Australia from February21 to March 8.

India are placed alongside thehosts, Bangladesh, New Zealandand Sri Lanka in the group stage.

Bengal’s rookie batter Richa

Ghosh is the onlynew face in thesquad.

Richa has beenrewarded for her exploits in thewomen’s Challenger Trophy,where she smashed 36 off 26 ballsin one of the games with fourboundaries and a six.

The team has no other sur-prises and 15-year-old Haryanaschoolgirl Shafali Verma will alsobe playing her first global meetfollowing some good perfor-mances at the international levelin her first season. PTI

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An unassailable lead has openedup the window for experimen-

tation but there will be no letup inIndia’s intensity when they face aheartbroken New Zealand team inthe fourth T20I here today.

Mohammed Shami and RohitSharma combined to pull off athrilling win via a Super Over in thethird game for a 3-0 lead and a maid-en T20I series win on New Zealandsoil.

There is only a short turnaroundtime for the last two matches, back-to-back in Wellington and MtMaunganui today and on Sunday,respectively.

Both teams spent Thursday trav-elling from Hamilton to Wellington,and with a similar tight schedule forthe final game of the series as well,there seems to be little chance ofnets.

While a five-match T20I series isa rarity, India’s early victory meansboth sides can contemplate variouspermutations in light of the T20World Cup later in the year.

From an Indian perspective,need of the hour is to find a balancebetween experimentation and thewinning desire.

Both skipper Virat Kohli andcoach Ravi Shastri pride themselveson a win-at-all-times mentality, andthey have a rare chance to blank outa 5-0 sweep in this T20I series, thusetching out a slice of history.

Kohli even mentioned the samein the post-match presentation at

Seddon Park on Wednesday night.India wouldn’t need to change

too much to retain a near full-strength playing eleven. There areobvious contenders for certain spotsin both batting and bowling depart-ment should experimentation kickin.

Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pantare waiting for opportunities, withthe former expected to get a look-in.Pant’s call-up would depend onwhich batsman is left out, andwhether KL Rahul will continue to

keep wickets.While the top trio is assured of

places, Shreyas Iyer has been insuperb touch and can claim to pindown a spot on his own as well. BothManish Pandey and Shivam Dubeneed more game time as well.

Any of the top four can be rest-ed over the next two games. Indeedit wouldn’t be a stretch of imagina-

tion if one of Kohli and RohitSharma were alternately rested inWellington and Mt Maunganui. Sucha move would allow the youngstersto keep their spots whilst maintain-ing the experience in the side too.

More changes are to be expect-ed in the bowling department.Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadavand Navdeep Saini are waiting in thewings. All three may not get a look-in immediately. Rest assured though,the team management is sure torotate a spinner and pacer each.

Sundar is part of Kohli’s new-ballstrategy on the big Australiangrounds, so he can expect a run-inover the next two games. Saini couldreplace Shardul Thakur, especially ifSundar adds his batting depth to thelower order.

The final question would beover Jasprit Bumrah’s inclusion.While he had an off night inHamilton, there ought to be thoughtsabout his workload. He is part of boththe ODI and Test squads, and is ashoe-in for the T20 World Cup lateron as well.

While there have been no con-cerns about any injury issues, themanagement needs to be wary ofoverplaying him in non-consequen-tial bilateral matches.

For New Zealand, there is astraightforward change coming up.Colin de Grandhomme is no longerwith the squad, giving up his spot forbatsman Tom Bruce.

This could be an easy swap forthe hosts given that they have beenlight in the middle order during thepast three matches.

There is also a school of thoughtthat Kane Williamson should moveup top. Given his batting master classin the Hamilton T20I, there is poten-tial for him to open the innings withMartin Guptill with Colin Munrosliding down.

Mitchell Santner was promotedon Wednesday night to add moremomentum to the innings, and itremains to be seen if it was a one-offploy or something the Black Capscould consider experimenting with.

�� ./�(.%*�

Just being able to compete again is a biggerrelief for Neeraj Chopra than booking an

Olympic berth and the star javelin thrower sayshis comeback after a lengthy injury lay-off hasgiven him hope that the hard times are welland truly over.

Chopra qualified for the Tokyo Olympicswith a throw of 87.86m at the ACNE Leaguemeeting at Potchefstroom on Tuesday, aftermissing the entire 2019 season following asurgery on his elbow.

“I am feeling good and relieved to havequalified for the Olympics. The best feelingthough is that I am able to come back to com-petition after my injury and subsequentsurgery,” the 22-year-old said from his train-ing base in South Africa.

His throw of 87.86m was his second bestever behind 88.06, achieved during his Goldmedal winning show at 2018 Jakarta AsianGames. Chopra said he is now focussed onwinning a medal in Tokyo where the Olympicswill be held in July-August.

“I will be taking part in national and inter-national competitions without pressure of hav-ing to qualify for Olympics. At the same time,I will focus on my training and on my tech-nique to keep on improving my performancein the competitions leading up to theOlympics.

“I will try my best to win a medal inOlympics and this performance is giving mehope,” he said.

Chopra, who also won a CommonwealthGames Gold in 2018, said the pain in his elbowhas now fully subsided.

“I did not feel any pain on my elbow dur-ing the competition. My training in SouthAfrica is going well. I thought I will begin withsome caution and avoid straining my elbow.

“After the first few throws, I felt good anddid not have any issue with my elbow. So Idecided to put in some effort and it came outwell. It was a big throw after a long time,” hesaid of his performance on Tuesday.

�� * - -.

Heavy rain and bad light in the after-noon frustrated Zimbabwe’s push to

build a match-winning position on thefourth day of the second Test against SriLanka in Harare on Thursday.

A downpour mid-afternoon forcedthe players off the field and, although theyreturned briefly after tea, only 54 overswere bowled in the day, restrictingZimbabwe to 241 for seven at the close,an overall lead of 354.

The Zimbabwe captain Sean Williams,who made a century in the first innings,was 47 not out when bad light forced theplayers off and must now decide whetherto declare overnight to give his bowlers afull day to try and win the match andsquare the two-Test series.

Brendan Taylor set the tone for thehome side during the morning sessionwhen he made his second half-century ofthe match. The 33-year-old struck a rapid67 as the hosts added 117 during anextended morning session.

Taylor had picked up quickly from hisrun-a-ball 62 in the first innings, passing2,000 runs in Test cricket on his way to 67from 75 balls.

His innings, which included eightfours and a six, ended when he was on thewrong end of an lbw shout from Lahru

Kumara, the ball looking certain to slidedown the leg side.

Sikander Raza added 70 with Williamsfor the sixth wicket before also departingleg before, this time to a ball from left-armseamer Vishwa Fernando that appeared topitch outside leg stump.

In the brief 26-ball passage of play inthe evening session TinotendaMutombodzi stepped too far away to offto give himself room and lost his leg stumpto Suranga Lakmal.

Williams played serenely for his 47which came off 76 balls and included sixfours.

�� ./�(.%*�

Chirag Shetty beat SatwiksairajRankireddy in a highly-antici-

pated clash as Pune 7 Aces endedthe winning streak of ChennaiSuperstarz with a 5-2 scoreline inthe first double header of the StarSports Premier Badminton League atthe GMC Balayogi Sats IndoorStadium in Hyderabad on Thursday.

With this third consecutive winPune climb up to the second spotright behind Chennai Superstarz inthe league standings as they accu-mulated 14 points.

The biggest highlight of the daywas the showdown betweenRankireddy and Shetty, who part-nered each other to a historicThailand Open title win last year.With Rankireddy pairing up withSumeeth Reddy for Chennai andShetty appearing with world cham-pion Hendra Setiawan for the Aces,it was a clash that none of the Indianbadminton fans wanted to miss.

What gave the match an extraedge was the fact that it was the

fourth rubber of the tie and hap-pened when the two teams werelocked at 2-2. Playing the Trump forPune was a huge responsibility forShetty and Setiawan and right fromthe first point, they showed theywere up for the challenge.

Shetty showed exceptional alert-ness at the net. Chirag, who had pre-viously admitted that his partner-ship with Setiawan was helpingsharpen his net play, remained awall to take the opener 15-12 for histeam.

The second game witnessed alittle bit more of firepower fromSatwik as the score remained leveltill 6-6. With Pune once moreupping the ante to go up to 10-7Rankireddy briefly raised hopes ofa comeback to make it 10-10.Satwik’s trademark smashes finallymade their appearance as he kept itlevel till 13-13. Under pressure,Sumeeth Reddy took the initiativeto save a match point at 13-14 beforeHendra’s mastery finished the 15-12,15-14 Trump win to seal the tie forPune.

“It was a completely differentexperience for me. We have playedagainst each other many times inpractice but this was the first timewe faced each other in a competi-tive match,” said Shetty on seeing hisregular partner on the opposite side

of the net.In the other matches of the day,

Commonwealth Games Goldmedalists Chris and GabrielleAdcock continue to remain unbeat-en with yet another commendableperformance. The Pune pair beatChennai’s Rankireddy and JessicaPugh 15-10, 15-12.

2019 Thailand Masters champi-on Loh Kean Yew inflicted LakshyaSen his first PBL defeat of the sea-son with a gritty 15-13, 10-15, 15-8 win that tested the nerves andtenacity of both the players. Punealso won the other men’s singlesmatch of the day with KazumasaSakai notching up a 15-10, 15-12win over Sathish KumarKarunakaran, who impressed on hisPBL debut.

The only match that did not goPune’s way was the women’s singles.Chennai’s Trump Kirsty Gilmourproved a tough hurdle for Pune’sformer national championRituparna Das as the World No 30Scot refused to take her foot off thepedal to win 15-12, 15-6.

��The fifth edition ofPBL is all set for the biggestshowdown today as two of theworld’s best shuttlers, PVSindhu and Tai Tzu Ying willface off against each other inthe most-awaited clash betweenthe last two year’s champions,Hyderabad Hunters andBengaluru Raptors. With Taiand Sindhu orchestrating twoof the most enthralling match-es on the BWF World Tour lastyear, excitement for thisencounter was high ever sincethe auction for the fifth editionof the league was held and bothhave termed the encounter asthe toughest match.

“Tai is always fun to playagainst. It’s not going to be easy.But we’ll be playing in front ofour home crowd. Yesterday(Wednesday) we had a fewlosses, but overall we won thetie. It’s going to be a good fighttomorrow (Friday). I am real-ly looking forward to it,” saidthe world champion.

With the defending cham-

pions Raptors suffering a loss ineach of their three ties so far,the former World No 1 knowsthe importance of a win againstthe World No 6. A win againstSindhu would be crucial to helpturn around the fortunes of lastyear’s champions.

“When you comparetomorrow’s (Friday) match withother matches we play on theTour, this is a very different one.Because this is PBL, we have towork along with our teammembers so that the Raptorsmanage to get a win. It’s verycrucial for us to win thismatch,” said Tai. PNS

�� 09�� 0,

Odisha thrashed Assam by an inningsand three runs on the fourth and final

day of a Ranji Trophy Group C match onThursday, after the visitors suffered a dra-matic batting collapse.

Resuming at the overnight score of102 for no loss, Assam crumbled like apack of cards to be bundled out for 195in the space of 24 overs.

The home team picked up sevenpoints for the win and took its tally to 35points from seven games at the top ofGroup C.

Right-arm medium-pacer RajeshMohanty was the wrecker-in-chief, pick-ing up four wickets including that of top-scorer Mandal.

In another Group C match,Maharashtra eased to a five-wicket winover Tripura in Agartala to improve itstally to 21 points.

At the Air Force Complex ground,Palam in New Delhi, Services outplayedJharkhand by 118 runs, thanks to PulkitNarang’s 6 for 58.

KARNATAKA BEAT RAILWAYS�� Medium pacer Ronit More(6/32) recorded career-best figures to fash-ion Karnataka’s 10-wicket bonus-pointwin over Railways in group B match.

The right-arm medium pacer More,who had picked up one wicket in the firstinnings, ran through Railways’ battingline-up to bundle the hosts out for a pal-try 79 in their second essay, settingthemselves a target of 51 runs for an out-right win.

Karnataka openers Rohan Kadan (27not out) and Devdutt Padikkal (24 notout) overhauled the target in 8.2 overs asthe Karun Nair-led team gained sevenpoints from the match.

Meanwhile in Dharamsala, theMumbai-Himachal Pradesh match wascalled off after the fourth and final day’splay was also washed out without a ballbeing bowled.

Also in Kolkata, weather once againplayed spoilsport for Bengal at EdenGardens as the home side had to settle forone point against Delhi in their rain-hitgroup A clash.

Bengal needed three wickets, while forDelhi, who were overnight 217/7, had astiff task to score 101 runs to secure threepoints.

But rain and bad light had the finalsay as only six overs were possible in twointervals on the final day.

�� India pacerUmesh Yadav is eager tomake a comeback in thelimited-overs squad andhas said he is workinghard to become a regularin the team in white-ballcricket.

“Who wants to sitoutside the ground? I amalso human. I am work-ing really hard and amvery eager to play white-ball cricket again,” Umeshtold Timesofindia.com.

“I am thankful to theselectors who gave me the

opportunity to play forthe country. They are thebest judge. I am trying mybest to make a comebackto white-ball cricket. Forthis, whatever I have todo, I will,” he added.

He was left out of theODI and T20Is squads forthe series against NewZealand but feels he willmake his presence felt inthe two-match Test seriesagainst the Kiwis.

“Honestly, I am look-ing forward to this (play-ing Tests in New

Zealand). I am eager toplay red-ball cricket inNew Zealand. I have per-formed well in recenttimes and I’m in goodtouch too. My seriesagainst Bangladesh wasgood too. I am prettypositive about my selec-tion for New ZealandTest series.

“If I am selected, I amgoing to give my 100 percent. I have worked a loton my line and length. Iam hoping for the best,”he signed off. IANS

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Injuries to frontline fastbowlers have forced New

Zealand to opt for freshblood in their pace attack,including the country’s tallestcricketer Kyle Jamieson, forthe upcoming three-matchODI series against India.

The 6’8” tall uncappedJamieson could be in for apotential debut in the seriesstarting February 5 inHamilton, while ScottKuggeleijn and HamishBennett return to the squadafter a long absence.

Injury has meant thelikes of Trent Boult, LockieFerguson and Matt Henry areunavailable for the series.

Nicknamed Killa, thetowering Jamieson has beenusing his height to goodeffect in the domestic circuit,bouncing out batsmen.

The 25-year-od has oflate sparkled for NewZealand A, including againstthe touring India A siderecently.

The Black Caps will relyon Tim Southee’s experi-ence, while Colin deGrandhomme returns to thesquad after being left out forthe last two T20Is.

Jimmy Neesham andMitchell Santner will be theall-round options.

Meanwhile, spinner IshSodhi has been included inthe squad for only the firstODI in Hamilton.

He will be released for

the second unofficial Testbetween India A and NewZealand A in Christchurchon February 7.

Coach Gary Stead saidhis team was aware of thetask at hand and looked upto his batsmen to step up.

“We’ve seen from theTwenty20 series (India) areclearly as strong as ever,”Stead said.

“While the bowling line-up has a fresh look, the bat-ting is very settled and we’lllikely have the same topeight batsmen from theWorld Cup finals.

“Tim Southee has animportant job leading ournew look pace attack, whichhas a huge opportunityagainst some of the very bestbatsmen in the world.

Series sealed, India look for experimentation2��$��+��= ��>,��!�� 8?��

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