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T he letter "bomb" dropped by senior Congress leaders on the party leadership saw Congress president (interim) Sonia Gandhi on Sunday mak- ing it clear she would not con- tinue as the head of the grand old party and the party should now look for an alternate lead- ership. Sonia took over as an “interim” president of the party a year ago after Rahul Gandhi relinquished the post following the Congress rout in the Lok Sabha polls. Dozens of Congress leaders have written to Sonia to bring in a full-time "active" and "visible" president and go for a complete overhaul of the party and hold a fair elec- tion to the Congress Working Committee (CWC). The Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled States of Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have rallied behind Sonia and Rahul. Congress sources said senior leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal, both Rajya Sabha members had taken the main initiative in drafting the letter. Twenty-three senior Congress leaders, including Chief Ministers, sitting MPs and former Union Ministers had written to Sonia calling for sweeping changes in the organ- isation. During the Rajasthan political crisis several leaders had expressed their anguish over the state of affairs in the party and the way it is being handled. Sonia, who is likely to announce her decision to step down at the CWC meeting on Monday, has clearly mentioned that party members should get together and find a new chief as she did not want to carry out the responsibilities any fur- ther.The letter was signed by Members of Parliament (MP), former Ministers and Chief Ministers and members of the CWC. The senior party leaders have said they are unhappy with "uncertainty" and "drift" in the party, along with demand- ing "honest introspection", "col- lective leadership", and stress- ing that the "youth are losing confidence" in the party. Though Congress sources have confirmed that Sonia would step down on Monday, the Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala, said, "Sonia has not spoken to any leader, nor written a letter to anyone, we completely deny this." Soon after the words went around that Sonia would step down, party workers across the country called for Rahul Gandhi's election. If Rahul didn't agree then senior leaders like Manmohan Singh or AK Antony may be brought in as interim chief before an election is held to the post. AICC sources said a strat- egy to counter the letter that has indirectly questioned the present leadership is already on the cards. Various State units of the Congress, including Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his Chhattisgarh counterpart Rupesh Bhagleh, have already reposed their faith in the leadership of the Gandhi family. Other State-level leaders have started gathering signa- tures to condemn the signature campaign of the veterans. The most vocal in the sup- port of the Gandhi family was Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. A mid an ongoing war of words between NDA allies in the poll-bound Bihar, BJP president JP Nadda said on Sunday that all three NDA constituents the JD(U), the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and his party, will fight the coming Assembly elections in the State together with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the face of the alliance. "We will fight together and emerge victorious as well,” said the BJP president while addressing the concluding ses- sion of the party's two-day State executive committee vir- tual meeting. Nadda's assertion comes even as LJP president Chirag Paswan has been attacking Bihar Chief Minister and his Government on several issues, giving rise to speculation that "all is not well within the NDA". Paswan was earlier for postponing the Assembly polls saying "life is more impor- tant". The BJP President claimed that Bihar Government has done well in checking Covid-19 in the State saying recovery rate in the state is 73 per cent. "Bihar has done a good job on door-to-door testing and now one lakh testing per day is being done in the State,” Nadda said giving thumbs up to the work carried out by the Bihar Government in containing the spread of the virus as against the charges of "rampant mis- management" in hospitals. "There are immense chal- lenges during this pandemic time but we could reach out to people for their welfare and it has become an example for everyone," said Ndda. The BJP is to carry out a party campaign programme of reaching out to people in the State from August 25 to October 2. B ihar Assembly polls are expected to be held on schedule. After announcing a set of guidelines for political parties campaigning, voters and election process, for holding elections during the coronavirus pan- demic, the Election Commission (EC) is in the process to hold Bihar Assembly polls on schedule. Sources in the EC indicated that the polls could be held sometime in October- November amid demands by some political parties for post- poning polls due to pandemic. A s part of an exercise to put together the jigsaw puzzle of the events preceding and succeeding Sushant Singh Rajput's death, the CBI sleuths on Sunday grilled once again the late actor's flatmate-friend Siddharath Pithani and cook Neeraj Singh, only to find inconsistencies in their state- ments about what happened on the previous night and follow- ing morning of the incident. Even on a Sunday, it was business as usual for the CBI officials — who are camping at the guest house of Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at Santa Cruz's Kalina area in north-west Mumbai — on the third day of their inves- tigations into actor Sushant's sensational death, which has caught the imagination of the entire country. A day after re-creating the crime scene at duplex-flat in Mount Blanc at Bandra's Carter Road in north-west Mumbai, the investigators once again delved deep into the roles of key witnesses in the case Siddharath and Neeraj. The investigators believe that these two witnesses know more than they have revealed so far to the Mumbai Police in the case. They also questioned Sushant's manager Samulel Miranda, his associate Dipesh Sawant and a few others, dur- ing the day. In an anticipation to land vital clues to crack Sushant's death case — in which his girl- friend Rhea Chakroborty has been accused of abetting the actor's alleged suicide, the investigators grilled Siddharth and Neeraj together and sepa- rately — once at the DRDO guest house and another time at the late actor's flat in the afternoon. Informed sources said Siddharth and Neeraj were questioned repeatedly on the circumstances leading to the discovery of Sushant's body in his room on the morning of June 14, only to find inconsis- tencies in their statements about what happened on the previous night and following morning of the incident. During the grilling that took place on Saturday and Sunday, Siddharth and Neeraj are understood to have con- tradicted each other on sever- al occasions. While Neeraj was questioned for the third con- secutive day, Siddharth was grilled for the second day. Sushant (34) is alleged to have committed suicide on the intervening night of June 13 and 14 using a piece of cloth. After registering an Accidental Death Report (ADR), the Bandra police had investigated for nearly eight weeks but had failed to regis- ter an FIR, before the Supreme Court handed over the inves- tigations in the case to the CBI on Wednesday last. I ndia has now started report- ing one-fourth of the total cases recorded across the world on a daily basis. The country has emerged as the biggest global hotspot and its daily average is turning out to be higher than the combined daily total of more than 140 nations of Europe, Africa, Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Pacific. While both the USA and Brazil have started showing sign of stabilising at around 45,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths every day, it is only India which is touching new heights daily.On Saturday, 2.61 lakh cases were reported glob- ally, out of which India alone accounted for 70,068, cases, which is more than 25 per cent of the total cases. On the same day, entire Europe (44 countries) added 37,000 new cases, Africa (54 nations) totaled 7,626 new cases, Eastern Mediterranean nations (22) contributed 12,847 cases and Western Pacific countries chipped in with 6,647 new cases. Similarly, minus India, the entire South East Asia record- ed just around 5,000 cases. Put together these countries recorded around the same number of cases on Saturday as India.India is now also close to recording the biggest single- day spike in the world. The USA recorded this dubious honour when it listed 74,325 cases on July 26. Since then the USA has recorded a lesser number of cases on a daily basis. On Saturday, it logged in 44,000 cases, the same as Brazil, which also seemed to have plateaued out. India, the USA and Brazil put together now account for nearly 60 per cent of the daily addition of new cases. The way India is seeing a daily surge, it should take not more than 20 days before it can replace Brazil from the second spot behind the USA. Brazil is ahead of India by nearly 5 lakh cases, and India is recording nearly 25,000 cases more than Brazil every day. Despite signs of a resur- gence of new cases in Europe the facts remains that coron- avirus is now majority con- fined to the USA and South American countries including Brazil, which put together have around 1.35 lakh cases daily. Together with India, they account for more than 2 lakh cases on daily basis, or closes to 75 percent of the global cases. I ndia's first vaccine against the novel coronavirus could be available by end of 2020, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday, adding that three Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including two indigenous ones, are in dif- ferent phases of development in the country. "One of our Covid-19 vac- cine candidates is in the third phase of the clinical trial. We are very confident that a vac- cine will be developed by end of this year," Dr Harsh Vardhan said while inaugurating an NDRF 10-bedded makeshift hospital here. The phase-one human clinical trials of the two indige- nous Covid-19 vaccine candi- dates, one developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the, the apex health research body ICMR and the other by Zydus Cadila Ltd, have been completed and the trials have moved to phase-two. The Serum Institute of India (SII), which has part- nered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford has been permitted for conducting its phase two and three human clinical trials in India. It is likely to start the tri- als next week. In a tweet in Hindi, Vardhan had said on Saturday, "I hope that if every- thing goes well, India will get a coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year." Meanwhile, the ICMR, is in the process of developing an online vaccine portal which will provide information relat- ed to Covid-19 vaccine devel- opment in India and abroad, with the majority of the updates in several regional languages in addition to English. The aim of creating the website is to provide all infor- mation and updates relating to the Covid-19 vaccine develop- ment on one platform as all the information in this regard is scattered as of now, Samiran Panda, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR. The idea behind making the updates available in region- al languages is to make sure that every citizen is able to access the information. O ne more Minister in the Hemant Soren Government was tested positive on Sunday. State Agriculture Minister Badal Patralekh test- ed positive for Covid-19 today. The Minister himself con- firmed the news from his offi- cial account on Twitter on Sunday and urged all his close contacts to get them tested for the virus. “I got tested for coronavirus yesterday and my report came last night. I request all those who came into close contact with me in the past few days to get themselves tested for the virus. You are requested to stay safe at home,” Patralekh tweeted. With Badal testing corona positive, presently two Ministers in Hemant Soren Cabinet have corona infection. Few days back Health Minister Banna Gupta was tested posi- tive. Earlier, drinking water and sanitation minister Mithilesh Thakur was tested positive, however, he has recov- ered from infection. Novel Coronavirus has infected members of the polit- ical fraternity across India, and Jharkhand was no different. Rajya Sabha MP and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) patriarch, Shibu Soren and his wife Rupi Soren have tested positive for Covid-19 in a first instance of the virus infecting members of the Soren family here, health officials said on Saturday. Earlier this month, AJSU Party chief and former deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahto, and Congress party’s Mahagama MLA Deepika Singh tested positive for Covid- 19. AJSU Party’s Gomia MLA Lambodar Mahto and Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Ranchi MLA CP Singh were also found infected by the virus. Meanwhile, corona cases crossed 30,000 marks on Sunday with the state witness- ing 967 fresh cases. With today's cases the total cases have gone up to 30178, how- ever 20136 persons have recov- ered from infection. On Sunday, 754 people recovered from infection. At the same time on Sunday seven persons lost their lives battling infection. The total number of casualties has gone up to 318. Out of seven deaths, five deaths were report- ed from East Singhbhum dis- trict which has emerged as the epicenter of infection. The total death toll in East Singhbhum has gone up to 129, while the number of cases is 5088. Ranchi is still at the top with maximum corona cases as the total number of corona cases is 5680, while the num- ber of deaths in Ranchi is 49.

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Page 1: ˇ *$% # ˘ ˜ + ˝˝ · 2020. 8. 23. · the guest house of Research ... guest house and another time at the late actor's flat in the afternoon. Informed sources said Siddharth and

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The letter "bomb" droppedby senior Congress leaders

on the party leadership sawCongress president (interim)Sonia Gandhi on Sunday mak-ing it clear she would not con-tinue as the head of the grandold party and the party shouldnow look for an alternate lead-ership.

Sonia took over as an“interim” president of the partya year ago after Rahul Gandhirelinquished the post followingthe Congress rout in the LokSabha polls. Dozens ofCongress leaders have writtento Sonia to bring in a full-time"active" and "visible" presidentand go for a complete overhaulof the party and hold a fair elec-tion to the Congress WorkingCommittee (CWC).

The Chief Ministers ofCongress-ruled States ofPunjab, Rajasthan and

Chhattisgarh have ralliedbehind Sonia and Rahul.

Congress sources saidsenior leaders like GhulamNabi Azad and Kapil Sibal,both Rajya Sabha membershad taken the main initiative indrafting the letter.

Twenty-three seniorCongress leaders, includingChief Ministers, sitting MPsand former Union Ministershad written to Sonia calling forsweeping changes in the organ-isation. During the Rajasthanpolitical crisis several leadershad expressed their anguishover the state of affairs in theparty and the way it is beinghandled.

Sonia, who is likely toannounce her decision to stepdown at the CWC meeting onMonday, has clearly mentionedthat party members should gettogether and find a new chiefas she did not want to carry outthe responsibilities any fur-

ther.The letter was signed byMembers of Parliament (MP),former Ministers and ChiefMinisters and members of theCWC.

The senior party leadershave said they are unhappywith "uncertainty" and "drift" inthe party, along with demand-ing "honest introspection", "col-lective leadership", and stress-ing that the "youth are losing

confidence" in the party.Though Congress sources

have confirmed that Soniawould step down on Monday,the Congress chief spokesmanRandeep Singh Surjewala, said,"Sonia has not spoken to anyleader, nor written a letter toanyone, we completely denythis." Soon after the wordswent around that Sonia wouldstep down, party workers

across the country called forRahul Gandhi's election. IfRahul didn't agree then seniorleaders like Manmohan Singhor AK Antony may be broughtin as interim chief before anelection is held to the post.

AICC sources said a strat-egy to counter the letter thathas indirectly questioned thepresent leadership is already onthe cards.

Various State units of theCongress, including PunjabChief Minister AmarinderSingh and his Chhattisgarhcounterpart Rupesh Bhagleh,have already reposed their faithin the leadership of the Gandhifamily.

Other State-level leadershave started gathering signa-tures to condemn the signaturecampaign of the veterans.

The most vocal in the sup-port of the Gandhi family wasRajasthan Chief MinisterAshok Gehlot.

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Amid an ongoing war ofwords between NDA allies

in the poll-bound Bihar, BJPpresident JP Nadda said onSunday that all three NDAconstituents the JD(U), theLok Janshakti Party (LJP) andhis party, will fight the comingAssembly elections in the Statetogether with Chief MinisterNitish Kumar as the face of thealliance.

"We will fight together andemerge victorious as well,” saidthe BJP president whileaddressing the concluding ses-sion of the party's two-dayState executive committee vir-tual meeting.

Nadda's assertion comeseven as LJP president ChiragPaswan has been attackingBihar Chief Minister and hisGovernment on several issues,giving rise to speculation that"all is not well within theNDA". Paswan was earlier forpostponing the Assembly polls

saying "life is more impor-tant". The BJP Presidentclaimed that BiharGovernment has done well inchecking Covid-19 in the Statesaying recovery rate in thestate is 73 per cent.

"Bihar has done a good jobon door-to-door testing andnow one lakh testing per day isbeing done in the State,” Naddasaid giving thumbs up to thework carried out by the BiharGovernment in containing the

spread of the virus as againstthe charges of "rampant mis-management" in hospitals.

"There are immense chal-lenges during this pandemictime but we could reach out topeople for their welfare and ithas become an example foreveryone," said Ndda.

The BJP is to carry out aparty campaign programmeof reaching out to people in theState from August 25 toOctober 2.

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Bihar Assembly polls areexpected to be held on

schedule. After announcing a set of

guidelines for political partiescampaigning, voters and electionprocess, for holding electionsduring the coronavirus pan-

demic, the ElectionCommission (EC) is inthe process to hold BiharAssembly polls on schedule.Sources in the EC indicatedthat the polls could be heldsometime in October-November amid demands bysome political parties for post-poning polls due to pandemic.

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As part of an exercise to puttogether the jigsaw puzzle

of the events preceding andsucceeding Sushant SinghRajput's death, the CBI sleuthson Sunday grilled once againthe late actor's flatmate-friendSiddharath Pithani and cookNeeraj Singh, only to findinconsistencies in their state-ments about what happened onthe previous night and follow-ing morning of the incident.

Even on a Sunday, it wasbusiness as usual for the CBIofficials — who are camping atthe guest house of Researchand Development Organisation(DRDO) at Santa Cruz's Kalinaarea in north-west Mumbai —on the third day of their inves-tigations into actor Sushant'ssensational death, which hascaught the imagination of theentire country.

A day after re-creating thecrime scene at duplex-flat inMount Blanc at Bandra's CarterRoad in north-west Mumbai,the investigators once againdelved deep into the roles ofkey witnesses in the caseSiddharath and Neeraj.

The investigators believethat these two witnesses knowmore than they have revealedso far to the Mumbai Police inthe case.

They also questionedSushant's manager SamulelMiranda, his associate DipeshSawant and a few others, dur-ing the day.

In an anticipation to land

vital clues to crack Sushant'sdeath case — in which his girl-friend Rhea Chakroborty hasbeen accused of abetting theactor's alleged suicide, theinvestigators grilled Siddharthand Neeraj together and sepa-rately — once at the DRDOguest house and another timeat the late actor's flat in theafternoon.

Informed sources saidSiddharth and Neeraj werequestioned repeatedly on thecircumstances leading to thediscovery of Sushant's body inhis room on the morning ofJune 14, only to find inconsis-tencies in their statementsabout what happened on theprevious night and followingmorning of the incident.

During the grilling thattook place on Saturday andSunday, Siddharth and Neerajare understood to have con-tradicted each other on sever-al occasions. While Neeraj wasquestioned for the third con-secutive day, Siddharth wasgrilled for the second day.

Sushant (34) is alleged tohave committed suicide onthe intervening night of June13 and 14 using a piece ofcloth.

After registering anAccidental Death Report(ADR), the Bandra police hadinvestigated for nearly eightweeks but had failed to regis-ter an FIR, before the SupremeCourt handed over the inves-tigations in the case to the CBIon Wednesday last.

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India has now started report-ing one-fourth of the total

cases recorded across the worldon a daily basis. The countryhas emerged as the biggestglobal hotspot and its dailyaverage is turning out to behigher than the combineddaily total of more than 140nations of Europe, Africa,Eastern Mediterranean, andWestern Pacific.

While both the USA andBrazil have started showingsign of stabilising at around45,000 new cases and 1,000deaths every day, it is onlyIndia which is touching newheights daily.On Saturday, 2.61lakh cases were reported glob-ally, out of which India aloneaccounted for 70,068, cases,which is more than 25 per centof the total cases.

On the same day, entireEurope (44 countries) added37,000 new cases, Africa (54nations) totaled 7,626 newcases, Eastern Mediterraneannations (22) contributed12,847 cases and WesternPacific countries chipped inwith 6,647 new cases.

Similarly, minus India, theentire South East Asia record-ed just around 5,000 cases. Puttogether these countriesrecorded around the samenumber of cases on Saturday asIndia.India is now also close torecording the biggest single-

day spike in the world. TheUSA recorded this dubioushonour when it listed 74,325cases on July 26. Since then theUSA has recorded a lessernumber of cases on a dailybasis. On Saturday, it logged in44,000 cases, the same as

Brazil, which also seemed tohave plateaued out. India, theUSA and Brazil put togethernow account for nearly 60 percent of the daily addition ofnew cases. The way India isseeing a daily surge, it shouldtake not more than 20 daysbefore it can replace Brazilfrom the second spot behindthe USA. Brazil is ahead ofIndia by nearly 5 lakh cases,

and India is recording nearly25,000 cases more than Brazilevery day.

Despite signs of a resur-gence of new cases in Europethe facts remains that coron-avirus is now majority con-fined to the USA and SouthAmerican countries includingBrazil, which put together havearound 1.35 lakh cases daily.

Together with India, theyaccount for more than 2 lakhcases on daily basis, or closesto 75 percent of the globalcases.

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India's first vaccine against thenovel coronavirus could be

available by end of 2020, Union

Health Minister Dr HarshVardhan said on Sunday,adding that three Covid-19vaccine candidates, includingtwo indigenous ones, are in dif-ferent phases of development inthe country.

"One of our Covid-19 vac-cine candidates is in the thirdphase of the clinical trial. Weare very confident that a vac-cine will be developed by endof this year," Dr Harsh Vardhansaid while inaugurating anNDRF 10-bedded makeshifthospital here.

The phase-one humanclinical trials of the two indige-nous Covid-19 vaccine candi-dates, one developed by BharatBiotech in collaboration withthe, the apex health researchbody ICMR and the other byZydus Cadila Ltd, have beencompleted and the trials havemoved to phase-two.

The Serum Institute ofIndia (SII), which has part-nered with AstraZeneca formanufacturing the Covid-19vaccine candidate developed bythe University of Oxford hasbeen permitted for conducting

its phase two and three humanclinical trials in India.

It is likely to start the tri-als next week. In a tweet inHindi, Vardhan had said onSaturday, "I hope that if every-thing goes well, India will geta coronavirus vaccine by theend of this year."

Meanwhile, the ICMR, isin the process of developing anonline vaccine portal whichwill provide information relat-ed to Covid-19 vaccine devel-opment in India and abroad,with the majority of the updatesin several regional languages inaddition to English.

The aim of creating thewebsite is to provide all infor-mation and updates relating tothe Covid-19 vaccine develop-ment on one platform as all theinformation in this regard isscattered as of now, SamiranPanda, Head of Epidemiologyand Communicable Diseases atICMR.

The idea behind makingthe updates available in region-al languages is to make surethat every citizen is able toaccess the information.

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One more Minister in theHemant Soren

Government was tested positiveon Sunday. State AgricultureMinister Badal Patralekh test-ed positive for Covid-19 today.

The Minister himself con-firmed the news from his offi-cial account on Twitter onSunday and urged all his closecontacts to get them tested forthe virus. “I got tested forcoronavirus yesterday and myreport came last night.

I request all those whocame into close contact withme in the past few days to getthemselves tested for the virus.You are requested to stay safeat home,” Patralekh tweeted.

With Badal testing coronapositive, presently twoMinisters in Hemant SorenCabinet have corona infection.Few days back Health MinisterBanna Gupta was tested posi-tive. Earlier, drinking water

and sanitation ministerMithilesh Thakur was testedpositive, however, he has recov-ered from infection.

Novel Coronavirus hasinfected members of the polit-ical fraternity across India, andJharkhand was no different.Rajya Sabha MP andJharkhand Mukti Morcha(JMM) patriarch, Shibu Sorenand his wife Rupi Soren havetested positive for Covid-19 ina first instance of the virusinfecting members of the Sorenfamily here, health officialssaid on Saturday.

Earlier this month, AJSUParty chief and former deputychief minister Sudesh Mahto,and Congress party’sMahagama MLA DeepikaSingh tested positive for Covid-19. AJSU Party’s Gomia MLALambodar Mahto andBharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)Ranchi MLA CP Singh werealso found infected by thevirus.

Meanwhile, corona casescrossed 30,000 marks onSunday with the state witness-

ing 967 fresh cases. Withtoday's cases the total caseshave gone up to 30178, how-ever 20136 persons have recov-ered from infection. OnSunday, 754 people recoveredfrom infection.

At the same time onSunday seven persons lost theirlives battling infection. Thetotal number of casualties hasgone up to 318. Out of seven

deaths, five deaths were report-ed from East Singhbhum dis-trict which has emerged as theepicenter of infection. The totaldeath toll in East Singhbhumhas gone up to 129, while thenumber of cases is 5088.

Ranchi is still at the topwith maximum corona cases asthe total number of coronacases is 5680, while the num-ber of deaths in Ranchi is 49.

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Despite all efforts by the dis-trict administration to

check the spread of Covid-19virus, Novel Coronavirus con-tinued to spread its reach in thesteel city with the tally crossing5,000 mark during the past 24hours here.

During the past 24 hours266 samples were tested forCoronavirus positive, makingthe total number of Covid-19cases in the district to 5,157 bylate in the Saturday night.

The deadly virus crossed5,000 marks in just 102 dayssince the first time it had hit thedistrict with the arrival of twinCoronavirus cases from theChakulia block on May 12.

With the continuous rise inthe COVID cases, the districtadministration has decided toset up 11 permanent samplecollection centres in the dis-

trict.East Singhbhum deputycommissioner, Suraj Kumarsaid that the administration istaking very effort to curb thespread of the virus.

“We are coming up withcollection centres to increasetests. One of the permanentsample collection centres willbe based at Jamshedpur, and

the remaining 10 centres will beset up in as many blocks in thedistrict. Those who want to getyourself tested for the COVIDcan turn up at the sample col-lection centre and get them-selves tested. These centres willstart functioning soon," saidKumar.

The deputy commissionersaid they are focussing onincreasing the testing facilityfor the Coronavirus as theywant more and more peoplewho suspect to have beeninfected may avail the oppor-tunity of getting themselvestested. He said regular restingwill help in breaking the chainof the virus.

Of the total number ofCoronavirus positive cases2,603 people have recovered bygetting treatment at about half-a-dozen hospitals, includingTata Main Hospital and MGMMedical College Hospital.

As of now 151 people havedied of the Covid.GhaghidihCentral Jail at Karandih inParsudih is slowly emerging asa hot bed of deadly coron-avirus. Several inmates along

with the staff have also startedgetting infected withCoronavirus.

In the last 24 hours 38inmates have tested positive forthe virus.Apart from prisonersof the central jail, several staffmembers have reported theCoronavirus positive leadingthe jail administration to putthe three in isolation inside thejail. Revealing about the situa-tion in Ghaghidih Central Jail,superintendent, NarendraKumar Singh said that they hadstarted putting the jail staffunder test for the Coronavirussince Wednesday. With theincrease in testing the positivecases have also risen.

There are about 300 jailguards and jail administrativestaff in the central jail.Meanwhile, the administra-tion had converted old Sakchijail into a quarantine centre forprisoners.

He said a decision wastaken to convert Sakchi Jailinto a quarantine centre as itwill help in reducing risk ofother jail inmates gettinginfected with killer virus.

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Bokaro has seen a huge spurtin fresh COVID-19 cases

during the past two days. Thetotal number of active casesrushed to 385 while the deathtoll jumped to seven in the dis-trict, informed AK Pathak CivilSurgeon Bokaro.

In a single day surge dis-trict reported 106 new coron-avirus positive cases on Fridaywhile 73 new positive caseshave been reported on Saturdaynight.

Pathak attributed the spurtin cases to a large number oftest results sent back from lab-oratories late on Friday andSaturday night. “All total of3026 samples were collectedand sent for tests from RT-PCR, Truenat and for RapidAntigen tests. All were shiftedto COVID Hospital and con-tact tracing of all is beingdone,” added Civil Surgeon.Meanwhile, exercising the pow-

ers conferred under sub-sec-tion 34 (B & C) of the DisasterManagement Act, 2005,Deputy Commissioner RajeshKumar Singh sealed the sever-al areas under YaduvanshnagarChas, Siwandih,

Hotel Palace Near Bye PassRoad, Ukarid Basti, BokaroSteel City Sector-8 / A, Sector-2 / A, Sector-4 / C, Sector-3,Jhopri Colony, OppositeSaraswati Vidya MandirSchool, Sector-6 / D,Government Officers Colonyand Sector-12 / F declaring thesurrounding area of the infect-ed people’s residents as a

Containment Zone.Expressing concern over thespurt in Coronavirus positivecases in the district Singh said,everyone needs to be vigilant.He urged that everybody mustapply a mask, follow social dis-tance, and wash their handswith soap. The best way is thatall of you stay safe in your ownhomes.

Singh appealed, “Supportthe administration in makingthe district free from COVID-19, follow SOP.” He said thatthere is no need to be afraid,but to be aware of coronavirusinfection.

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Cattle smugglers in Palamuhave done away with the

traditional open trucks andincorporated customisedtankers to dodge police and runtheir illegal business unabated.

Chhaterpur police inPalamu seized one such tanker,which was modified to smug-gle cattle instead of oil.

SDPO ChhaterpurShambhu Kumar Singh said thecattle smugglers have left theouter look of the tanker intactbut the interior of the tanker isa total change. Singh said an oiltanker has a maximum of threecompartments and here in thismodified version of the tankerthere are no compartments.There is a ladder inside withwhich smuggler gets in thetanker.

Further, to give cattle aproper grip there is a layer ofsoil and sand on the insidebody of the tanker. Cow dungand urine fill the inside of thetanker which is cleaned at any

isolated place.To avert any col-lision among the cattle thesmugglers have fitted foamboards on the inside walls ofthe tanker, added Singh.

Foam protects cattle frominjuries. There is a verticalcleavage in the back of thetanker and any sincere and alertpolice official can notice it tobelieve that the tanker is not foroil but for something else.

The seized tanker withmodifications had this verticalcleavage. Sources said the num-ber of cattle in the tankerdepends upon its size but twodozen cattle are generallyaccommodated in the tanker.

SP Ajay Linda had a wordof praise for Chhaterpur SDPOand his team of police officialsthat got this tanker seized and25 cattle rescued from it out ofwhich 22 are cows and three arecalves.

The tanker driver triedhard to outrace chasing policeteam but following an intensepolice chase the driver aban-doned the cattle tanker andfled.

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In a country having no legalprotection for whistleblow-

ers, Dinesh Thakur, a senioremployee at RanbaxyLaboratories, decided in 2004to blow the lid off the dirtysecrets of his employer afterdiscovering that Ranbaxy hadbeen fabricating drug testingresults, putting millions of livesin jeopardy. Thakur relentless-ly pursued the misdeeds of thePharma major with the USFood and DrugsAdministration (FDA) for closeto a decade. Finally, in 2013,Ranbaxy admitted in anAmerican court to selling adul-terated drugs and ended uppaying a record $ 500 millionsin fine.

Katherine Eban's book'Bottle of Lies: Ranbaxy and theDark Side of Indian Pharma'(Juggernaut 2019) is a grippingaccount of the high-stake chaseto bring Ranbaxy to book andthe fall from grace of one of thebiggest success stories of cor-porate India.

It focuses on quality issuesplaguing generic drugs intend-ed for American consumersand the laxity of the regulator(FDA), yet readers in Indiawould note many disturbingfacts.

The author, a RhodesScholar and a well-knownAmerican investigative jour-nalist, has examined over20,000 FDA documents andinterviewed hundreds of peo-ple to show how deceit anddeception are deeplyentrenched in much of thepharmaceutical industry inIndia.

Troubling questions havebeen raised in the book aboutthe biggest names in Indianpharma: Wockhardt, DrReddy's, Glenmark and RPGLife Sciences. Cipla is the onlyIndian company to have comeout clean.

The ineptitude of theIndian pharma regulator, theCentral Drugs StandardControl Organisation (CDSO),FDA's Indian equivalent, hasbeen well recounted too. Thatthe CDSO never found prob-lems with Indian pharma com-panies including Ranbaxywould shock and infuriate thereaders. Drugs banned acrossthe world seem to have beennonchalantly approved in the

country. It appears that India'stop drug regulator has donemore to protect the erringdrug companies from regula-tion than it has to protect theIndian consumers from baddrugs.

The book raises some eth-ical issues as well. What may beviewed as cheating in manycultures, are oftentimes lookedupon as creativity in India. Themodel of aggressive shortcuts,the ability to dodge rules andget the desired results, often bytrickery, is glorified here as'Jugaad'.

In a cultural milieu whereit's okay with people to give andtake bribes, it won't surprisereaders to find two topAmerican pharma companies- Mylan Laboratories and QuadPharmaceuticals - which fraud-ulently compromised on thequality of their drugs, to havebeen headed by people ofIndian origin.

As Ranbaxy pushed itsworst drugs in poor countriesof Africa and Latin America,with little or no regulation, itepitomised bottomless corpo-rate greed, and also reeked ofdownright racism. At a time

when AIDS was destroyingAfrica where more than fivethousand people a day weredying, Ranbaxy knowingly dis-patched spurious HIV drugswhich degraded easily, andwere useless in the hot andhumid conditions of Sub-Saharan Africa.

In a world of scarcity,Africa was saturated with lowquality generic drugs that toooften didn't work and patientsfrequently died when treatedwith drugs that should havesaved them.

Yet the bottom-line is thatamidst the insurmountable pileof lies and chicanery, and a bla-tant disregard for law in phar-ma industry, there are peoplewho have consciously chosenintegrity.

Like Dinesh Thakur, thewhistleblower. And Dr YusufHamied of Cipla. Hamied'shumanitarian zeal saw his com-pany offering AIDS drug cock-tail for a paltry $ 350 a year perpetient against the prevailingWestern prices of between $10,000 and $ 15,000 a year. Nowonder Cipla was backed to thehilt even by the Bush adminis-tration.

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In its continued effortstowards serving the com-

munity, Vedanta ElectrosteelSteels Limited (ESL), steppedup its efforts to help migrantlabourers who got stranded orhave returned to their home-towns during the COVID-19pandemic and subsequentlockdown.

During the pandemic, sev-eral migrant labourers, truck-ers and helpers were stranded,homeless, starved and stuck inand around the area during thelockdown situation. ESL inassociation with the districtadministration took on myri-ad initiatives to feed the hun-gry and ensure adequate facil-ities were provided.

More than 250 migrantlabourers and truck driversstuck were fed daily, twice a day,by the company during theperiod of lockdown. More than8000 migrant workers weretransported to their respectivehomes on their arrival to theBokaro Railway Station fromvarious parts of the countrythrough buses provided byESL.

ESL’s CSR team also pro-vided dry ration for nine ‘DalBhat Kendras’. The companydistributed Chura-Gud to thecontrol room and block offices,fulfilling almost 30 percent ofthe total district requirement.The company also helped trainand unskilled labourers to helpwith sewing face masks,phenyls and sanitisers.

Pankaj Malhan, CEO ESLsaid, looking after the com-munity and the people hasalways been a top priority forus. We are committed to con-tributing to the quality of life

and social well-being of com-munities where we operateand beyond. Our business hastrue meaning when it createsbetterment opportunities forthe people around us. Themigrant labourers are a part ofthe community and were inneed of help in these difficulttimes.

“ESL’s CSR team has beenactive in helping them navigatethrough this pandemic by pro-viding them food, shelter, anda means of livelihood and willcontinue to do provide supportduring these difficult times,” headded.

ESL received recognitionfor their contribution to thefight against COVID-19 bythe Bokaro DistrictAdministration. In the appre-ciation letter issued to ESL itstated, “We are extremelypleased with the help offered bythe ESL management andemployees in our fight againstthe COVID pandemic.”

“They have worked close-ly with our office to provideessentials and helped imple-ment measures for the safety oftheir employees and the com-munity.

The hard work done bytheir team has helped to sig-nificantly minimize the spread

of the virus,” said ShashiPrakash, Sub-DivisionalOfficer.“There was very goodwork from the Vedanta ESLteam during the lockdown asfar as migrant labourers areconcerned. The team reallyhelped them in all aspects andwas present there to assistthem in this time of distress,said PoonamTopo, of theSiyaljori Police Station. “TheVedanta ESL team arrangedfood, rations as well as masksand sanitizer for the migrantlabourers who were stranded.The Vedanta ESL team workedvery hard to rehabilitate thelabourers during the lock-down.”

During the crisis, ESL alsohelped provide logistics sup-port during the lockdown,installed touch-free hand washsystems produced almost12000 masks, and distributedmasks, soaps, sanitizers, ther-mal guns, and PPE kits.

The company also under-took the responsibility of feed-ing 4000 stray animals. Theteam ensured thorough saniti-zation and social distancingmarking at important placeslike banks and shops. Almost60,000 liters of sodiumhypochlorite was used to dis-infect villages in Bokaro.

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The All India LodhiKshatriya Mahasabha

today organised a commem-orative event to mark theMartyrdom Day of GulabSingh Lodhi at Sonari.

Amarpreet Singh Kale,founder of Naman, an inspi-ration for the eminent socialactivists and youth of thecity, participated in the event.

Gulab Singh Lodhi was a rev-olutionary who participatedin the Indian independencemovement. Kale said that ourhistory has been very heroic,there have been many braverevolutionaries who havegiven sacrifices for the sake oftheir country,

today it is essential thatwe remember the sacrifices ofthe brave people from thebottom of our heart and offer

our gratitude to them. Also,he said that parents of suchheroes should always berespected. On this occasion,national vice president of AllIndia Lodhi Kshatriya Samaj,Rajkumar Singh, GopalLodhi, RK Lodhi, SangeetaLodhi and Kanchan Lodhi,others were present. In viewof COVID-19, social distanc-ing norms like masks and oth-ers were implemented.

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Sports play a vital role inmaking children as well as

an adult strong from insidewhile inculcating the impor-tance of maintaining a fit andsound body, said Arjuna andDronacharya awardeeVolleyball player Shyam Rao.

Advocating “Sports for All”Rao said, sports also play thevital role of imparting charac-ter values, teaches us honesty,teamwork and fair play. It helpsin the development of focusand concentration, in-turnassists during studies amongthe children too. “Sports shouldbe encouraged at grass rootlevel in schools. Governmentand Federations must take anote on it,” stressed Rao.

Rao was addressing a webi-nar titled “EnrichingVolleyball” on Sunday.Organised by government leadPG College, Waidhan in asso-ciation with ITK India, twodays webinar was kicked-off onSaturday aiming to strengthenthe Volleyball games.

Rao said, there is a need tochange the “Volleyball index”

and “attitude towards thegame”. Long-term success canbe expected from the develop-ment of sports culture. “Schoolsports, the largest talent pool inthe sport, needs to be given thehighest importance,” hestressed.

Dr Uma Kant Singh, SportsAmbassador, ITK LeipzigUniversity Germany said,sports has the power of instill-ing values like self-motivating

spirit, discipline, leadership,taking ownership of success aswell as failures.

Dr Singh and JaideepSarkar, an Asian Silver Medal(AVC) the recipient inVolleyball have discussed theeffort to spread modern sportsacross the country throughJharkhand.

Speaking on the occasionduo also emphasised theimportance of OlympicEducation in modern sportsand also praised the worksbeing performed by the Indianunit of IPCA.

Addressing to the webinarDhyanchand Award winnerOmprakash Tanwar insistedon the talent hunt. WhileInternational trainer Dr. M. H.Kumara highlighted on “MatchAnalysis”.Sebastian George dis-cussed in detail the untouchedhistory of the volleyball gamein India.

Shakti Kumar Saggar, for-mer international volleyballplayer, Director of SportsAuthority of India (SAIL) andSports Head of Tata Steel,shared his memories ofGermany.

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The Barkagaon police ofHazaribag district have

arrested two hardcore mem-bers of Peoples LiberationFront of India (PLFI) from thejungle area of the block. Boththe arrested ultras had wreakedhavoc in the Barkagaon,Keradari, Urimai and Giddipolice stations areas here.

The SDPO of Barkagaonarea Om Prakash said in a pressmeet on Sunday that both thearrested persons confessed thatthey were working for theorganisation under the direc-tion of Dinesh Yadav andAwdhesh Jaiswal of Bihar.

They have demanded ahuge amount of levy from out-

sourcing companyTrivaniSanik. PLFI gave theresponsibility to the two rebelsto collect the levy amountfrom the company.

The SDPO said that theyhatched the plan in the jail.When the other persons of theorganization met them theydisclosed their plan and direct-ed them to act according to theplan.

He further said that boththe arrested persons are thenamed accused of more thandozen cases in the differentpolice stations of the district aswell as in Chatra district policestations. The names of arrest-ed persons are RiteshBhoktaand Ashok Ganjhu. Both areresidents of local villages.

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Frequent lapses in manage-ment of Covid-19 patients

have marred Jharkhand’slargest state-run hospital’sefforts at dealing with the pan-demic so far, and the suicide ofa 32-year-old Covid patientoutside the isolation ward ofRajendra Institute of MedicalSciences (RIMS) on Saturdayhas again brought the hospitaladministration in the crosshairsof health authorities and com-moners.

The patient, a resident ofGarhwa, hanged himself usinga towel at a stone’s throw fromthe main isolation centre,where all Covid patients aretreated, at around 3am onSaturday.

And none of the RIMSauthorities got to know aboutthe incident until dawn,sources working at the hospi-tal said. While the local policelodged a case of unnaturaldeath, there was no committeeset up at the hospital level toprobe the matter and trou-bleshoot the lapses.A member

of the Covid-19 task force atRIMS said that the victimwould have appeared in theCCTV camera installed outsidethe isolation ward, and propermonitoring of the CCTVfootage could have saved hislife. “We can call it a securitylapse,” he said requesting

anonymity. RIMS’ run so faras a Covid hospital has beenriddled with similar incidentswherein patients could havebeen saved had health workersacted promptly.

So far, at least two Covidpatients have died in the hos-pital after falling in the toilet.

On July 19, a 70-year-old Covidpatient fell in the toilet of theIntensive Care Unit (ICU) ofRIMS and died. In a rerun ofthe incident, another Covidpatient from Dhanbad couldnot survive a fall in the sametoilet on August 13.

The coordinator of RIMS’

Covid-19 task force, Dr.Prabhat Kumar, said that thetwo patients died of hypoxia, acondition in which a person’sbody or a particular organ isdeprived of sufficient oxygen.

“Since the virus affects thelungs of a patient, hypoxia canbe a common cause of death forCovid patients,” said Kumar.“The chances of cardiac arrestalso increase in Covid patients,”he added.

Kumar said that a high-level meeting was held at RIMSafter Covid patients died whileusing the toilet. “Learning fromour mistakes, we have made itmandatory for every Covidpatient to inform an attendantbefore going to toilet,” headded.

Some incidents of patientsfleeing the isolation centre atRIMS have also been reportedin the past. On June 16, parentsof a Covid-infected toddlerfled the hospital with theirchild in an auto-rickshaw andwere eventually held at Gomoh,about 130 kilometers from thecapital. Besides, RIMS has alsoreported cases of absconding

Covid patients in the month ofMarch. “The security has beenbeefed up after the incidents ofpatients fleeing the isolationward were reported,” said RIMSsuperintendent, Dr. VivekKashyap.

RIMS saw a change ofpower at the helm in the mid-dle of a pandemic when formerdirector Dr. DK Singh wasreplaced by Dr. Manju Gari asan acting director on June 27.Singh was spearheading thefight against Covid-19 since thefirst case of infection wasreported here on March 31.

He had also expressed thedesire to continue serving asthe director during the pan-demic period.

Gari, on Sunday, refused totalk about the recent incidentsin the hospital and asked thiscorrespondent to speak withthe authorities of the con-cerned department.

The largest state-run hos-pital has a 100-bed isolationcentre for Covid patients. RIMSwas also the first governmenthospital in Jharkhand to startCovid testing and treatment.

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An international seminar-cum-discussion was orga-

nized on the 145th birthanniversary of Pandit RajkumarShukla, the great freedom fight-er who convinced MohandasKaramchand Gandhi to visitChamparan for the ChamparanSatyagraha.

The participants attendingthe seminar demanded BharatRatna for Shukla. Raj KumarShukla, born in 1875 at Satwariavillage in West Champaran,was instrumental in convincingMahatma Gandhi at theCongress session in Lucknow in1916 to visit Bihar and see theplight of indigo farmers at thehands of the British plantationowners.

The function was broadcastlive on three channels channelssimultaneously in the world.Educationists, writers, execu-tives, Hollywood, Bollywoodfilm actors and directors fromall over the world participatedin the function. The programwas inaugurated by PadmaShree Dr. SN Subbarao. Thetheme of the program was:"Pandit Rajkumar Shukla's con-

tribution to the independenceof India". On this occasion, Dr.Subbarao said that the historyof Mahatma Gandhi is incom-plete without Rajkumar Shuklabecause it was Shukla whoconvinced MK Gandhi to visitChamparan. During that timethere was limited trafficresources Shukla who was afarmer by profession, visitedKolkata, Lucknow, and Gujaratconvincing Gandhi to visit

The program was presidedover by Ajay Rai, president ofPandit Rajkumar ShuklaFoundation.

Rai said that history ofRajkumar Shukla should bere-evaluated in a big way.Onthis occasion, the film actorRajesh Jais said that MahatmaGandhi in his book has writtenabout Shukla’s truth, non-vio-lence and human values.

On this occasion, thePrincipal of DPS School andPresident of Sahodaya, Dr. RamSingh said that the Departmentof Education should includeRajkumar Shukla life and con-tribution to society in theschool curriculum so thatyounger generations learnabout his contribution.

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Jharkhand Pradesh CongressCommittee (JPCC) may wit-

ness reshuffle in coming futureas the tenure of JPCC In-Charge RPN Singh will becomplete in October and hemay be replaced by anotherleader.Singh may get duty ofanother state on the basis of theparty's performance inJharkhand's Assembly elec-tions which concluded eightmonths earlier.

The party won 16 seats inalliance with Jharkhand MuktiMorcha (JMM) and RashtriyaJanata Dal (RJD) and a coali-tion government was formed inthe State in leadership of JMMExecutive president, HemantSoren. The name of the newJPCC In-Charge may beannounced during the meetingof the Congress WorkingCommittee (CWC) which willbe held on Monday.

There is speculation thatduring the meeting the name ofthe national president of thegrand old party will be con-sidered because AICC Working

President, Sonia Gandhi hasshown reluctance to carry onwith her job several times in thepast. With this, there can betalk of changing the party in-charge of many states.According to party sources thetop leadership can hand overthe command of the party toRPN Singh in another statealso.

In an earlier Government,the Congress remained inpower for only 13 months afterthe formation of the State. Insuch a situation, Singh hasemerged as a proficient strate-gist in the State. Singh becameJPCC In-charge two years agoand then Congress had sevenMLAs in Jharkhand Assembly.He first tried to unite all theanti-BJP parties.

Although he initially got alittle disappointment but afterwinning the Kolebira by-elec-tion, he told the top leadershipthat the party would be strongunder his efficient leadership.

His statement proved to betrue when the party won 16seats for the first time in the2019 assembly elections afterthe formation of the State.

The efficient strategy ofSingh worked in the Congressalliance with JMM and RJD.

There is a possibility thatthe top leadership of theCongress can use the skilledleadership of RPN in states likeBihar and West Bengal. It isknown that elections are like-ly to be held in Bihar inOctober-November this year.

At the same time, theassembly elections will be heldin the state of West Bengal inMarch-April 2021 as well.

Apart from this, Singhhimself hails from UttarPradesh. In such a situation, theparty is likely to get manybenefits by handing over theresponsibility of the adjacentstates.

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An independentmusic label,

Production Houseand ArtistM a n a g e m e n tCompany, InnovuraE n t e r t a i n m e n t ,picked out sevenyoung and talentedrappers from acrossthe country.

One such rapperis Kanishq Singh ofJamshedpur. Singh bagged hisfirst collaboration with the‘Beparwah’ rapper SikanderKahlon after the InnovuraTeam recognised his talent.

The hand-picked artistswill be exclusively managed byInnovura and they aim to leadthese young talents to thelimelight.

The Company also host-ed a series of Online TalentHunts through the Instagramplatform with no registrationfee and gave out cash prizes

worth upto Rs 1 lakh to thewinners. The contest receivedentries in huge numbers andwas promoted by many promi-nent faces from the televisionindustry and YouTube icons.

The Hunt paved the wayfor upcoming artists to show-case their talents. Their goal isto provide deserving talentswith only the best opportuni-ties possible.

The EntertainmentCompany has big plans for it’sartists and many more bigreleases in store.

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Former Home Minister andsenior Congress leader, Subodh

Kant Sahai said on Sunday saidthat the question 'Who is going tobe the Congress President' has nowcaptured nation's attention.

This, he said, is a welcome signas it a clear signal of the return ofCongress as the principal opposi-tion to the draconian Modi rule.In this situation it is beyond-doubt that Sonia Gandhi’s ability,capability, and visionary leadershipstands unparalleled, he added."It isthough very unfortunate that hercurrent health does not allow herto take the huge responsibility ofleading the party and straining herfragile health further.

The Congress aspires her to beavailable for a long long time as theguiding spirit. The Congress praysearnestly that she should lead infuture when her health recovers,"said Sahay. The senior Congressleader further said that RahulGandhi has been fighting tooth-

and-nail against the disastrousNarendra Modi Government; andhe is the only one in the Countrywho has taken it upon himself toexpose and challenge Modi instraight political fight. "Under thegiven circumstances RahulGandhi's only difficulty is that histeam is not mature enough to fightthis unprecedented political battleof totalitarian nature.

The BJP has taken it to thelevel of a battle as do all the total-itarian outfits. We have our jobcut-out to take with us other like-minded parties and political and

intellectual formations to cementa united and ethically strong faceof opposition to take up the gaunt-let and take the battle to thedoorstep of this totalitarian gov-ernment," he added.

Sahay said in his opinion ifSonia Gandhi continues therewould be nothing better than that.Otherwise Rahul Gandhi shouldlead the party without any hesita-tion. "He has all the qualities to beour captain having the tempera-ment of a brave morally uprightsoldier; he is a relentless fighterand has age on his side," he added.

The former Union Ministerrecalled an instance of RahulGandhi being detained in fourpolice stations in a single day inDelhi, unperturbed, calm, andfull of determination and energyshowing his real character.Sahaiwas confident that with a matureteam under the leadership ofRahul Gandhi, Congress will ful-fill the task to carry the entireopposition to save the nation andconstitution.

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Taking suo moto cognizanceof social media posts and

media reports exposing anextortion-accused Covidpatient consuming alcohol at ahospital in Dhanbad, ChiefMinister Hemant Soren onSunday directed the concernedDeputy Commissioner (DC) toinvestigate the matter and takeaction against the ones respon-sible for the lapse.

The incident occurred atthe Central Hospital of BharatCoking coal Limited (BCCL)triggering a debate over themanagement of the hospital.

The patient in questionhas been identified as one SKGupta, a resident of Katras area,who happens to be under trialin cases of extortion and mis-behavior with a woman.

Gupta’s picture went viralon Sunday and the ChiefMinister was to Tweet and askDhanbad DC to probe into thematter.

In light of the orderTweeted to the Dhanbad DC,Sub Divisional Magistrate(SDM) Raj Maheshwaram and

Deputy Superintendent ofPolice (DSP) Mukesh Kumarrushed to the hospital forinquiry.

Talking to media personslater, the SDM said a separateFIR is being filed against theaccused who already is anaccused under different sectionof extortion and other sectionsof IPC.

“We would hand over thereport to deputy commission-er with all facts and actionwould be initiated on his direc-tion on persons found respon-sible for the security breach.

We have separately spokento ward boys, security person-

nel besides hospital manage-ment and appropriate actionwould be taken against themtoo,” he said. Gupta was bookedby Katras police three days agofollowing complaints by hisneighbors.

As per the StandardOperating Procedure (SOP),Gupta’s Covid test was con-ducted before sending him tojail, and it came positive, saidMaheshwaram.

On Saturday late eveninghis photographs of consumingliquor in ward went viral andon Sunday morning someonetweeted it to the Chief Ministerdemanding action.

Though investigation hasbegun in the case, certain ques-tions remain unanswered. Thehospital has CCTV camerasinstalled, and despite the elec-tronic surveillance, someonecould supply liquor to the hos-pital.

The Chief Minister is inprecautionary home quarantineafter two of his Cabinet col-leagues tested positive forCovid-19. However, he hasbeen active on social media,addressing cases over Twitter.

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Tribal leaders and academi-cians have welcomed Chief

Minister Hemant Soren’s visionfor inclusion of three tribal lan-guages-Mundari, Ho andKuruk (Kuduk) in the EighthSchedule of the Constitutionwhich will pave way for pro-motion and development ofthese languages.

The leaders claimed thatwith the inclusion of thesethree tribal languages in theeighth schedule it will fulfill thedemand and aspirations of

tribal and linguistic experts inJharkhand who have beendemanding inclusion of theselanguages in the 8th Schedule.

Welcoming the move, for-mer parliamentarian and pres-ident Adivasi Senegal Abhiyan,Salkhan Murmu said, “Weappreciate CM Hemant Sorenfor his demand for inclusion ofthese three languages.”

However, Murmu apartfrom appreciating also put for-ward his other demand whichincludes CBI probe over themurder of RameshwarMurmu—the sixth descendantof Hul Kranti hero SidoMurmu, implementation ofstate domicile as per 1932Khatiyani, introduction ofSarna religious code whichpaves way for separate religious

column for tribals of state.Salkhan Murmu who is alsopresident of State JDU alsodemanded for grant and statusof Santhali language as statefirst language at par with Hindiand safety and security todescendant of freedom fighterBirsa Munda and Sido Kanhu.

Santhali along with Bodo,Dogri, Maithili was added inthe eighth schedule of theConstitution. Head of RanchiUniversity’s tribal and region-al languages department HariOraon welcomed the state gov-ernment’s move but said thatregional languages alsodeserved urgent attention.

“If the Government ofIndia includes Mundari, Hoand Kuruk in the EighthSchedule, it will give these lan-

guages the status of nationallanguages which would lead toits promotion and develop-ment. Safeguarding languagesare crucial for conserving andpromotion of culture.Currently, 22 languages are inthe Eighth Schedule of theConstitution,” he said.

Earlier, Chief MinisterHemant Soren on Saturdayshot a letter to Union homeminister Amit Shah demandinginclusion of three tribal lan-guages-Mundari, Ho andKuruk (Kuduk) in the EighthSchedule of the Constitutionwhich will pave way for pro-motion and development ofthese languages.

Soren wrote: "Jharkhandbeing a tribal domination statehas a vast number of people

speaking Ho, Mundari andKuruk. For their overall devel-opment and conservation onthe lines of Santali language, itis imperative that these areincluded in the 8th schedule ofthe Constitution. I therefore,hope that the government ofIndia will comply with ourdemands at the earliest." Sorenadded that these languagesalready had the status of a sec-ond language in this state.

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Under the direction ofGeneral Manager, East

Central Railway, LalitChandra Trivedi EastCentral Railway SportsAssociation organised “FitIndia Freedom Run” onSunday at Pataliputra RailCampus with the objectiveof staying healthy and mak-ing others health conscious.

From August 15 toOctober 02, Fit India

Freedom Run is being orga-nized in five mandals, work-shops and units of EastCentral Railway.

In this series, the racewas started by AshokKumar, Additional GeneralManager, East CentralRailway in Pataliputra SportsComplex, in which largenumber of officers and rail-way personnel of EastCentral RailwayHeadquarters took part.

Additional GeneralManager himself led this

race to encourage officersand employees towardshealth. Members of the EastCentral Railway Women'sWelfare Organisation alsoparticipated in this race.During this time all proto-cols related to Covid-19including social distancingwere followed.

On this occasion, theAdditional General Managersaid that the objective of the"Fit India Freedom Run" isto encourage fitness amongthe general public by fol-lowing all protocols related

to Covid-19 and rid the cit-izens of obesity, sluggish-ness, stress, anxiety andother diseases. To help ingetting it.

This programme ismore important in view ofwellbeing in order toimprove immunity in thecontext of current times andcircumstances.

This is the need of thehour to compete with theKovid-19.The "Fit IndiaFreedom Run" is an attemptby the Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to strength-

en the Fit India Movementand encourage it to includefitness in the lives of citizens.

The largest nationwiderace "Fit India FreedomRun" is being organized bythe Sports Ministry startingon 15 August, India on theoccasion of 74thIndependence Day till 02October, the 151st birthanniversary of MahatmaGandhi.

Organising the "Fit IndiaFreedom Run" by the IndianRailways with the concertedefforts of the rail families, itis fully supporting theawareness.

In order to make thisinitiative a success, a largenumber of railway officersand employees as well as rel-atives and relatives in all thedivisions, workshops andunits of East CentralRailway, reached out to thepeople of the "Fit IndiaFreedom Run" campaign.Is ensuring large participa-tion.

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The Centre on Sunday gavethe go ahead for the

resumption of shooting of filmsand television serials andreleased the standard operatingprocedures (SOPs) — with‘contact minimisation at itscore — for the purpose.

These SOPs have beenfinalised after consulting theHealth and Home ministries,Information and BroadcastingMinister Prakash Javadekarsaid while announcing the‘Guiding Principles and SOPs’.

Javadekar said barringthose who are in front of cam-eras all others will have to wearmasks even as he hoped thatthe release of the SOPs will notonly lead to resumption ofshooting of films and TV seri-als, but also generate employ-ment.

Shooting for films and TVserials was suspended follow-ing the outbreak of the novelcoronavirus and a nationwidelockdown was imposed, start-ing March 25 which continuedtill the unlock process startedoff from June 8th.

The SOPs outline thathigh-risk employees will haveto take extra precautions andnot be exposed to frontlinework requiring contact withpublic. Besides the mandatoryusage of masks, sanitisationnorms and respiratory eti-quette will have to be strictlyfollowed. The use of AarogyaSetu app too has been advised.

Thermal screening at entrypoints will be mandatory andonly asymptomatic personswill be allowed on the premis-es. Physical distance of six feetat all times as far as feasibleshould be maintained. Crowd

management in parking lotsoutside premises to ensurephysical distancing is also partof the guiding principles.

Production houses werealso asked to ensure visitorsand audience were not allowedon sets. For outdoor shooting,necessary coordination withthe local authorities will haveto be ensured to minimise andmanage spectators. Staggeredcall and pack-up timings fordifferent production units shallbe ensured by studios havingmultiple sets.

“Common locations suchas sets, cafeteria, make-uprooms, edit rooms, vanity vans,washrooms, etc. shall be sani-tised regularly. Sensitive equip-ment, while keeping in con-sideration the delicate natureand technical feasibility, shall besanitized, to the extent possible,before and after the shoot.Adequate provisions for ratio-nal use of gloves, boots, masks,PPE, etc. shall be undertaken,”the guidelines said.

The SOPs forbid sharing ofcostumes, hair wigs, makeupitems, equipment, and use ofPPEs by make-up artists andhair stylists. The guidelinesalso said stigmatisation orunruly behaviour shall be dealtwith strictly in coordinationwith the local authorities.

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After metros like Delhi andMumbai witnessed a huge

Covid-19 caseload, the deadlyvirus is now fast spreading inlarge and small cities, whichexperienced migration fromthese megapolises. More so,when almost all the States inthe country are reporting theCovid-19 cases.

Also, in small cities, aspeople are not following infec-tion prevention measures, andsocial distancing guidelinescoupled with poor awarenessdrives in view of dismal healthinfrastructure, the cases arelikely to further increase.

If this continues, saidhealth experts, chances arevery high that infection will likea wildfire in small cities. Acombination of large-scale test-ing and contact tracing is theneed of the hour, they said.

In fact, the cases havealready breached the 30-lakhmark, with 10 lakh being addedto the tally in just the last 10days.

So far the virus has claimedmore than 54,000 lives.

However, the governmentis yet to declare that the virushas taken shape of communi-

ty transmissionU n d e r

guidelines setby the WorldH e a l t hOrganization(WHO), Indiashould be con-ducting around140 daily testsper millionpeople in orderto safely relaxcoronavirus restrictions.

New hot spots continue tofeed surges in cases in ruralareas of Uttar Pradesh andBihar states in India’s north,and in the southern states ofTelangana, Karnataka, TamilNadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh, with182,453 cases, is also amongstthe five most-affected states bytotal tally, accounting for 7.2per cent fresh Covid-19 cases.The total number of cases inUP is 6.1 percent of the nation-al burden and 2,867 lives havebeen claimed by the infection.

Professor K. Sr inathReddy, President of the PublicHealth Foundation of India,said as the large cities wherethe virus entered and spreadfirst are recovering from theepidemic, smaller cities and

towns are becoming the zonesof active infection.

“If the initial experience ofbeing relatively free from thevirus leads to complacencyand careless behaviour, thevirus will spread rapidly evenin these areas. We need to stepup public health measures andmotivate people to adopt safepractices like physical distanc-ing, avoiding crowded events,using masks outside home andfrequent hand washing.

Engaging local communi-ty networks and influencerswill help in promoting safebehaviours,” he added.

The Union HealthMinistry said that on Sunday10,339 new cases and 912deaths were reported, bringingthe total to 30,44,940.

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Union Minister JitendraSingh on Sunday said

Permanent Resident Certificate(PRC) holders will also needJammu and Kashmir domicilecertificate in order to apply forjobs and to get other benefits inthe Union Territory. Singh,Union Minister for PMO, saidan impression is being createdin certain quarters that thoseholding PRC don’t need toapply for the domicile certifi-cate in Jammu and Kashmir“which is not true”.

All PRC holders have to getJammu and Kashmir domicilecertificate for applying for jobsand to get other benefits in theUT, he said here in a statement.

Singh, who hails fromJammu and Kashmir, appealedto all concerned not to be mis-led by such rumours.

The minister, however,said, those holding PRC of theerstwhile State of Jammu andKashmir are eligible for receiv-ing new domicile certificate onthe basis of PRC alone and suchPRC holders shall not berequired to produce any otheradditional document.

As far as the displacedKashmiri Pandits are con-cerned, Singh said, they can get

the domicile certificate on pro-duction of either PRC or cer-tificate of registration asmigrant.

For such bonafideKashimiri migrants and bonafide Kashmiri displaced per-sons who have migrated butnot registered with the ReliefDepartment of Jammu andKashmir administration, a spe-cial limited provision has beenprovided to apply before theRelief and RehabilitationCommissioner (Migrant) forregistration for the purpose ofissuance of a domicile certifi-cate, he said.

Singh said the Jammu andKashmir Grant of DomicileCertificate (Procedure) Rules2020 have a provision thatapplications for grant of domi-cile certificate can be submit-ted either physically or elec-tronically (online).

The competent authoritycan also issue the domicilecertificate electronically, hesaid.

Singh said the new domi-cile law in Jammu and Kashmirhas brought optimism not onlyto those presently living inJammu and Kashmir but alsoto such residents who are liv-ing in different parts of theworld.

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With the Government indi-cating that the JEE and

NEET would be held as perschedule in September, theCongress on Sunday requestedthe Centre to defer the all-Indiamedical and engineeringentrance examinations takinginto consideration the con-cerns raised by a section of stu-dents and parents amid thecoronavirus pandemic.

Former Congress chiefRahul Gandhi, who has beenattacking the Government ona daily basis on a number ofissues, said the ruling dispen-sation must listen to the ‘’mannki baat’’ (alluding to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s radioprogramme by the title) ofstudents and arrive at “anacceptable solution”.

While party general secre-tary Priyanka Gandhi Vadrasought the postponement ofthe National Eligibility cumEntrance Test (NEET) and theJoint Entrance Examination(JEE) till the coronavirus situ-ation improves in the country,Congress leader in Lok SabhaAdhir Ranjan Chowdhurywrote to the Prime Ministersuggesting that the exams bedeferred. For his part, seniorCongress leader while Kapil

Sibal said these needed to bepostponed.

“GOI must listen to the#StudentsKeMannKiBaat aboutNEET, JEE exams and arrive atan acceptable solution,” Rahultweeted. Priyanka too took toTwitter to say: “The COVID-19 situation in the country isyet to normalise. In such a sit-uation, if students who aretaking NEET and JEE, andtheir parents have raised con-cerns, then these should betaken into consideration bythe government and those con-ducting these exams.”

In his letter, Chowdhuryrequested PM Modi to inter-vene and postpone the exams.“The aspirants of nationalexamination are under tremen-dous mental pressure as tohow they could be remainimmune to the infection whileattending the examinationphysically. Right at this pan-demic situation their concernsshould be given due consider-ation. The spectre of corona willbe haunting the students dur-ing the examination periodstretching from September 1 to6,” he said.

Chowdhury said when thecountry is witnessing a spike ofCOVID-19 infection with sin-gle-day rise of 70,000 cases, “Ithink it is absolutely necessary

to review the date of exambecause approximately 25 lakhstudents are supposed to par-ticipate in the exam, hence Ithought it prudent to knock thedoor of wisdom of PrimeMinister of India.”

“Your sagacious interven-tion may bring about the reliefof those anxious aspirants. Mysuggestion to you PrimeMinister is that the examination

could be deferred for a certainperiod till the situation is sta-ble,” he said.

Former HRD MinisterKapil Sibal also tweeted, “Stopthis injustice. NEET-JEEEntrance Exams. Elitistapproach. The poor discrimi-nated. Digital divide.Jeopardising lives. Reachingexam sites hazardous. Poorconnectivity and more. Only

just , fair and sensible solutionis to postpone: NEET, JEE.”

The Supreme Court hadlast week dismissed a plea seek-ing postponement of JEE(Main) April 2020 and NEET-Undergraduate examinations,which are scheduled to be con-ducted in September, amidspurt in number of COVID-19cases, saying precious year ofstudents “cannot be wasted”

and life has to go on. TheGovernment too has indicatedat its conduct as per schedule.

The JEE (Main) is sched-uled to be held betweenSeptember 1 and 6, while theJEE (Advanced) on September27. The NEET will be held onSeptember 13. JEE is for admis-sion into premier engineeringcolleges, while NEET for under-graduate medical courses.

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Respiratory distress has beenfound to be the most com-

mon cause for patients’ earlyhospital readmission after dis-charge, researchers have saidfollowing a follow-up of over2,900 patients who went homeafter recuperating.

The results published in thelatest issue of Journal ofGeneral Internal Medicine arein contrast to the Indian pre-mier research body, IndianCouncil of Medical Research(ICMR) which, based on itsrecent study said that there hasbeen no evidence so far ofrepeat Covid-19 infections, orrelapses.

However, the researchersfrom the Mount Sinai HealthSystem, New York’s largest aca-demic medical system, foundthat the most common causefor a patient’s early hospitalreadmission after dischargewas for respiratory distress.These patients were also morelikely to have other ailmentsincluding chronic obstructivepulmonary disease and hyper-tension.

As per the study, of the

nearly 2,900 dischargedpatients, more than 100 (3.6%)returned for emergency careafter about 4.5 days while 56 ofthose returning patientsrequired readmittance into thehospital.

“Half the patients returnedfor respiratory complications.Compared to patients who didnot return, those returninghad higher rates of chronicobstructive pulmonary diseaseand hypertension”, said GirishNadkarni from Mount Sinai.

The study aimed to under-stand what conditions impactthese patient outcomes canhelp improve care during thehospital stay and after dis-charge.

Nevertheless, what came asa relief was that the patientswho returned had a shorterlength of hospital stay during

treatment, lower rates of anti-coagulation treatment, andwere less likely to require inten-sive care.

“A return to the hospitalafter admission for Covid-19within 14 days of discharge wasrelatively low for the majorityof patients. However, the mostcommon cause for a patient’sreturn to the hospital was forrespiratory distress. Patientswho returned were more like-ly to have chronic obstructivepulmonary disease and hyper-tension,” said Nandkarni.

“This study shows thatmany patients have lingeringeffects from hospitalizationfor Covid-19 and thus, there isopportunity for longitudinalstudies that could furtherassess the long-term effects ofvirus on patient outcomeswhen they are discharged.”

Dr. Anuradha Lala alsofrom Mount Sinai said.“Covid-19 has diminished andthen resurged in many places,and as such, it is crucial for usto understand the post-hospi-talisation course and risk fac-tors for coming back into thehospital.

“As we move into a phase

where Covid-19 is no longer anovel disease, we must transi-tion our attention to the post-acute phase to understandhow to keep patients well andout of the hospital.”

Mount Sinai’s Dr BenjaminGlicksberg echoed similarviews: “We found that indi-viduals with certain comorbidconditions, specifically COPDand hypertension, were morelikely to return to the hospital.

“These findings may helpclinical practitioners optimizedischarge strategies in theshort-term and suggest theneed for future studies on tai-lored monitoring to decreasethe risk of hospital returns.”

In India, members of theICMR’s surveillance and clinical group had said a fewdays ago that there has been noevidence so far of repeatCovid-19 infections, or relaps-es, in recovered patients.

The members were askedabout possible relapses aftersome members of Covid-19task forces in states said theremay have been cases of infection emerging again inrecovered patients.

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Covid-19 infections in twoof the biggest paramilitary

forces—CRPF and BSF— havecrossed the 13,000 mark witheach of these forces recordingover 6,500 cases. The com-bined data of infection amongthe paramilitary forces hassurpassed the tally of 21,000cases.

The Border Security Force(BSF), world’s biggest borderguarding agency, has recordeda total of 6,527 cases of Covid-19 infection including 1,882patients continuing to be active.As many as 4,624 patients haverecovered and 21 have suc-cumbed to the pandemic.

During the last 24 hours,the BSF reported 137 newcases of infection and 73 recov-eries.

Likewise, the CentralReserve Police Force (CRPF)has till Saturday reported 6,554cases of Covid-19 infectionout of which 1,770 are activeand 4,752 patients have beencured. As many as 32 personshave died due to the disease.

As on date, the CentralIndustrial Security Force (CISF)has reported 3,299 cases ofinfection from the pandemicout of which 746 are active and

2,536 have recovered besides 17patients have died due to thedisease.

The Indo-Tibetan BorderPolice (ITBP) has reported2,552 cases as on Saturday.Out of the 2,552 cases, 1,243patients have recovered and1,306 are still active. The forcehas lost three personnel due tothe viral infection.

Till Sunday, the SashastraSeema Bal (SSB) has reported1,609 cases of which 944 haverecovered and 661 are activebesides four casualties in theranks.

The National SecurityGuards (NSG) has reported 104cases of Covid-19 of which 95have recovered and nine areactive.

The National DisasterResponse Force (NDRF) hasreported 458 cases of which 435have been cured and theremaining 23 are active withoutany loss of life due to the dis-ease.

The combined data for allthese seven forces has been hasreached 21,144.

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The India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) on

Sunday said that the monsoonrains have intensified overcentral and western regionsbecause of the formation oflow-pressure areas over theBay of Bengal and this willcause extremely heavy rainfallmeasuring 20-25 centimetersin parts of Rajasthan, Gujaratand Madhya Pradesh.

Indore, which was award-ed the cleanest city the fourthtime in a row a couple of daysback, received its highest sin-gle-day rainfall in 40 years,and Bhopal the highest forAugust in 14 years due toheavy rainfal l that continued for the past threedays. India has received 699.7mm rainfall as against thenormal of 652.2 mm, anincrease of 7 percent so far.

According to the IMD, themonsoon trough lies acrossRajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,Jharkhand, West Bengal andthe northwest Bay of Bengal.

There is a well-marked low-pressure area lying over north-west Madhya Pradesh (MP). Itis very likely to move west-wards across Rajasthan duringthe next 24 hours.As the low-pressure moves westwards,Gujarat and southernRajasthan will remain affect-ed at least until Tuesday.

The monsoon trough isactive and south of its normalposition (from Ganganagar tothe Bay of Bengal). It is likely to remain active duringthe next two-three days.

Due to these favourableconditions, IMD is expectingextremely heavy rain overRajasthan and Gujarat; heavyto very heavy rain over ghatareas of Madhya Maharashtra,Gujarat and Rajasthan duringthe next two-three days.

The IMD said that Indorereceived 263.4mm rain onSaturday, breaking the August1981 record of 212.6mm andthis is also the first time thismonsoon that all 52 districtsof the state received rain at thesame time. According to

IMD, the heavy rainfall bat-tered Gujarat inundating low-lying areas and paralysingnormal life in several parts ofthe state on Sunday.

Severe waterlogging hasbeen reported in several areas,while at some place rainwaterentered houses.

Kutch has so far received159.12 per cent of averageannual rainfall, followed bySaurashtra at 121.60 per cent,south Gujarat at 83.40 percent, east-central Gujarat at69.58 per cent and northGujarat at 67.87 per cent.

Meanwhile, the CentralWater Commission (CWC)has said that major riversflowed in severe flood situa-tion on Saturday at 33 stationsacross Bihar, Assam, UttarPradesh, Andhra Pradesh,Odisha and Telangana andone each in Chhattisgarh,Jharkhand and West Bengalon account of enhanced monsoon conditions generat-ed by successive low-pres-sure areas from the Bay ofBengal.

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The Ministry of ConsumerAffairs has asked the State

Government to include all eli-gible disabled persons underthe National Food SecurityAct so that they could availrations. In a letter sent to stategovernments and union terri-tories, the ministry advised allStates/UTs to ensure that alldisabled persons, who are eli-gible as per identification cri-teria of beneficiaries underNFSA, are covered under theNational Food Security Act2013 and they get their entitledquota of food grains underNFSA &amp; Prime MinisterGarib Kalyan Yojna as per provisions of the Act.

It is stated that those notalready covered should becovered with fresh rationcards to be issued as per theeligibility criteria.

It is also reiterated thatdisability is one of the crite-ria for

inclusion of beneficiariesunder AAY households and asdisabled persons are vulner-able section of the society.

The letter further advisedthat it is imperative that theyare also covered by States/UTsunder the priority householdsas per the criteria of identifi-cation evolved by them

The Section 10 of theNational Food Security Act,2013 provides for coverage ofpersons under the AntyodayaAnna Yojana in accordancewith the guidelines applicableto the said scheme and theremaining households as priority households in accordance with such guide-l ines as the StatesGovernment may specify.

The ministry said thatSection 38 of the Act man-dates that the CentralGovernment may from timeto time give directions to theState Governments for effec-tive implementation if theprovisions of the Act.

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There is a growing appre-hension in the liquor indus-

try that the prices of severalpopular brands may go upafter the proposed tax-structurerevision by the MamataBanerjee Government in WestBengal.

Raising the red flag againstthe proposed steep hike inliquor prices, the Indian alco-holic beverage industry hasasked the Mamata dispensationto reconsider the proposedrevision in the excise policy.According to the alcoholic bev-erages industry, the proposedexcise policy of the StateGovernment will kill the indus-try and lead to thousands ofpeople being jobless.

In a joint representation toChief Minister MamataBanerjee, the two major liquorassociations – Confederation ofIndian Alcoholic BeverageCompanies (CIABC) andInternational Spirits and WinesAssociation of India (ISWAI) –said, “It is well known that thealcoholic beverage industry isfacing an acute fall in sales vol-

umes in West Bengal. Saleswere down significantly in thelight of the additional levy ofVAT of 30% which wasimposed after the Covid-19pandemic broke out, conse-quently leading to a fall in taxrevenues for the Government.”

Under the proposed poli-cy, consumer prices of the fast-moving brands will go up by40-90% (translating to Rs.150to Rs.450 per bottle), as a con-sequence of the changes in tax-ation and in the trade margins.The price increase could be 9%from current level for rumwhile for some whiskey brandsit would be 20% more than thecurrent level.

In the new structure, tax onvarious IMFL will range from

�330 to �4,500, taking exciseduty and additional excise dutytogether. The tax will rangefrom �132 and �690 for strongbeer while for mild beer itcould range from �106 to �552.

“There has been a sharpdrop of 58% in sales volumesacross segments after the taxwas imposed in April 2020 andthe AlcoBev trade resumed inMay 2020. If a 30% increase inconsumer prices brought on bythe imposition of VAT couldbring sales down like shownabove, it is frightening to envis-age what further hiking oftaxes on spirits will do toliquor sales in the state andconsequently to theGovernment’s tax collections,”it added.

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With the Election Commission of Indiacoming out with a pandemic protocol

for conducting Assembly elections in Biharindicating thereby that the elections will beheld on scheduled time the Bengal BJP unithas renewed its claim for holding civicelections in various municipal bodies of theState.

Questioning the State Government’s “realintentions” behind not holding the civic elec-tions in the name of pandemic State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said that“Trinamool Congress is aware of the fact thatit will be routed in the municipal electionswhich has already been shown in the lastyear’s parliamentary elections … hence theyare trying to postpone the elections and fordoing so they are hiding behind the coronapandemic.”

Asking the State Election Commission toimmediately begin the process of holdingmunicipal polls Ghosh said “if the polls arenot held now the anger of the people will onlyaccumulate and multiply and they will givea befitting reply in the next year’s Assemblyelections.”

Civic elections were due in April-May thisyear but the Government was forced to post-

pone it indefinitely in view of the rising num-bers of corona cases in the State.Administrators have been appointed in all themunicipal boards including the KolkataMunicipal Corporation. The respective sittingMayors are currently functioning as theadministrators.

Ghosh who have said that his party wouldlaunch a movement demanding civic elec-tions, said “the people are fed up with syn-dicate and goonda raj being perpetrated bythe Trinamool Congress. They have also seenhow the corrupt this Government is partic-ularly after the large-scale bungling in dis-tribution of relief after Amphan super cyclonehit the State… The TMC knows that it willlose the elections if it is conducted now andso they are hiding behind the corona pan-demic to avoid polls.”

The TMC leadership however reactedsharply to Ghosh’s statement. Senior leaderFirhad Hakim said, “he is a big leader withsmall views … The State Government hadmade elaborate preparations for the electionsbut things were stalled by the lockdownordered by the BJP Government in theCentre and now he is talking of holding civicelections… For the BJP politics is bigger thanpeople’s lives but for TMC people’s safety isof more importance.”

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Bengal Governor JagdeepDhankhar has once again

attacked the State administrationthis time targeting the permanentexecutive for capitulating to theextent of “crawling” before theirpolitical masters and urged ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjee to freethem from the political bondage.

Making yet another prickingstatement Dhankhar on Sundaysaid that he had requested the ChiefMinister to “unshackle politicalcaging/chaining” of the police andadministration.

Urging the Chief Minister to“unshackle political caging/chain-ing of policed and administration,”he said that the State’s law and ordersituation had dropped to an“alarming low” with a free run forthe illegal “bomb making” busi-ness.

Indicating that the civil ser-vants had stooped to the level ofbecoming political workers hesaid that they were often behavinglike politicians which was uncon-stitutional. The unlawful conduct

of the Bengal bureaucracy was anopen secret he said.

“This is a staggering blow to‘rule of law’ and democracy. Thismenacing stance of police andadministration would generateconsequences. Politically commit-ted police and administration-death knell of democracy. Publicservants are not political workers,he said picking on in particular theIAS and the IPS brass whom hewarned that their conduct wouldnot be without consequence.

“Never thought IAS /IPS couldso capitulate and be in “crawl”unlawful mode, blatantly unmind-ful of conduct rules. Their actionsare opens secret. Democraticessence shredded. Why be a partyto this and crucify democratic val-ues” he tweeted.

The Governor who had earli-er alleged that the bureaucraticestablishment entrusted with inves-tigating and alleged scam regard-ing purchase of materials to com-bat the pandemic was suppressingthe matter instead of revealing it.

The Governor who had nolove lost with the Chief Minister

often the duo engaging in open let-ter wars had earlier lodged a com-plaint with Union Home MinisterAmit Shah regarding the affairs ofthe State leading to a large-scalecriticism.

When asked to comment onthe issue the senior leader FirhadHakim said the “Government wasfed up with the comments made bythe Governor adding “we do notwant to comment on those whoclaim themselves as constitution-al heads but act as members of apolitical party.”

CPI(M) leadership attackedboth the sides with its seniorleader Sujan Chakrabarty saying,“had the BJP Government realintentions to do something aboutthe corrupt government in Bengalthen they would have taken actionin CBI investigation in the Sharadaand other scams but everyoneknows about their camaraderie…”He also said that “before pointingfingers at Bengal the Governorshould also have referred to whatis happening in Tripura which iswitnessing its worst oppressivegovernment in its history.”

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Though there was a small fall in the number of per-sons tested positive for Covid-19 in Kerala on

Sunday, situation remained as critical as it was ear-lier.

The day saw 1,908 new patients getting diagnosedwith coronavirus, out of which 1,718 were victims oflocal transmission.

A release by the Government of Kerala said thatthere were 160 new patients who failed to furnishdetails like where, when and how they contracted thepandemic.

The Government release said five persons suc-cumbed to the disease while 1,110 persons were curedof the ailment. Thiruvananthapuram tested 397 newpersons positive out of which 367 were cases of localtransmission.

As on Sunday, Kerala has 20,330 Covid-19patients. The day saw hospitalisation of 2,066 personstested positive with the pandemic. There are 622hotspots in the State.

With just eight days to for Onam, the State’s majorfestival which brings together all caste, creed and evenforeigners together, ten out of 14 districts in the Statehave more than 100 patients each.

Many shops and markets across the State remainshut on account of local close down and restrictions. The speed with which the pandemic isspreading across the State has become a matter of con-cern.

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Amajor political crisis is brew-ing up in Kerala as the

Congress on Sunday lambasted theruling CPI(M) and Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan for the irregular-ities in the signing of the LIFEMission contract between the StateGovernment and the UAE ConsulGeneral as well the decision of theGovernment to appoint consul-tants close to the Adani Group asadvisors.

The major embarrassmentfaced by the Government was thedisclosure that the legal firm CyrilAmarchand Mangaldas, hired aslegal advisors to bid for theThiruvananthapuram Airport, wasowned by Paridhi Adani, thedaughter-in-law of GautamAdani.

The Adani Group walked awaywith the contract to ruin the air-port for the next 50 years in a glob-al tender and bidding process.

Ramesh Chennithala, Leaderof Opposition came down heavi-ly on the Government for its act oftreason. “The CPI(M)-led gov-ernment opposed the Adani Group

in public while it helped the Groupin a clandestine manner. This isnothing but cheating the publicblatantly,” said Chennaithala. Healso alleged that the KPMG andthe CAM group were made con-sultants without floating a tender.Chennithala said the Congressled UDF would observe August 27as Black Day all over the Statedemanding Pinarayi Vijayan’s res-ignation.

The CPI(M) on its part field-ed E P Jayarajan, minister forindustries, to take on theOpposition onslaught. Jayarajanblamed the Adani Group for notrevealing its association with thelegal firm.

“It’s not the CPI(M) andPinarai Vijayan who are responsi-ble for this. The Adani Group willbe held responsible for the same,”said Jayarajan. He accepted thatthere was lack of caution on thepart of the Government whileappointing the legal group.

Earlier, Kodiyeri Balakrishnantold the media that the CPI(M)would not allow the Adani Groupto operate the airport on itsown.

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Covid-19 cases are surging con-tinuously. Record-breaking sin-

gle day fresh 125 covid cases werereported today Furthermore, 3patients from other districts were alsofound positive here took the cumu-lative number for the covid-19 casesin the district to 3,256 including2,346 recoveries and 29 deaths.Today 62 recovered patients havebeen discharged and returned totheir homes. Current active cases inthe district are 1,007.

Today a test report of 2,000people came, out of which 125 werefound infected. Most of them werefrom the antigen test kit. Along withthe city, the covid-19 infection startshitting the villages as well. Today 30%of the total cases were reportedfrom the villages. Apart from this, 62patients recovered out of which 18patients were from Deen Dayal hos-pital. About a dozen of home isola-tion people were also recovered.Currently, there are 1007 activecovid-19 cases in the district. Thedaily count of fresh cases for the lastfour days is crossing hundreds.

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Kerala Government led by the CPI(M)is in for a major crisis as the

Opposition parties, especially the BJP, arecoming out on a daily basis with chargesof corruption against Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan himself.

On Sunday, K Surendran, the youngpresident of the Kerala BJP undertook aday-long fast at Thiruvananthapuramdemanding the immediate resignation ofVijayan and his cabinet colleague K TJaleel who is facing probe by the UnionMinistry of finance in connection withviolation of Foreign Exchange RegulationAct (FERA).

There are three major allegationsagainst Vijayan, according to Surendran.“The NIA and the EnforcementDirectorate probing the gold smugglingscam have told the courts that the ChiefMinister’s Office has become a safe havenfor international gold smugglers. Inaddition to M Sivsankar, the suspendedprincipal secretary of the Chief Minister,many senior officials in the CMO havedealings with gold smugglers,” said theBJP leader who swore that this is whatthe agencies told the court.

He said the LIFE Mission, which was

touted as the flagship programme of theKerala Government is enmeshed incorruption.

“The deal was signed between theKerala Government and the UAE ConsulGeneral which itself was against all exist-ing norms,” he pointed out. He also saidthat though the �20 crore contract wasto build apartments for those who losttheir houses in the 2018 floods, the TVchannel owned by the CPI(M) itself hasdisclosed that an amount of Rs 4.5 crorewas paid as commission to various peo-ple.

The outcry by the CPI(M) andVijayan against the awarding ofThiruvananthapuram Airport to AdaniGroup was described by Surendran as the“proverbial icing on the cake” on cor-ruption charges. “

The State will see a series of agita-tions to be launched by the BJP in weeksto come which would culminate onlywith the resignation of Vijayan. His cab-inet colleague Jaleel has been caught red-handed smuggling gold under the pre-text of Quran. He has done blasphemyby making use of a holy book to dounholy act. The spiritual leaders ofIslam should question Jaleel about thepropriety of such an act,” said Surendran.

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Ramvir Upadhyay, a legislator of Sadabad andan ex-Minister in BSP government, met

Chief Minister Yogi at his residence in Lucknowon Saturday.

If sources are to be believed, RamvirUpadhyay's son Chiragveer may join the BJP.Ramveer says that he met the CM about thedevelopment of his region. Ramvir Upadhyay iscurrently an MLA from Sadabad on a BSP tick-et. He was suspended by the BSP, accusing himof supporting the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

He has been suspended from the BSP sincethen. By the way, his brothers Mukul Upadhyayand Vinod Upadhyay have held the BJP flag.Now on Saturday, when Ramveer met ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath at his residence inLucknow, the discussion has started that his sonChiragvir Upadhyay can join the BJP.

When asked about this, Ramveer told thathe had discussed with the CM about the devel-opment of his area only. On Saturday, the CMmade a very good statement on Lord Parshuramin the assembly, and i thanked him for that. Onthe ongoing discussions about Chiragveer, hesaid that people should wait for it.

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Immunity, sound health, exercise andgood nutrition are essential to fight

covid-19 as stated by doctors. Keeping thisadvisory in mind, the jail administrationstarted Modern Gymnasium and Yoga ses-sions for the inmates of Aligarh Jail. Andthe prisoners here are doing exercise andyoga, eating healthy organic food to suc-cessfully fight with this pandemic situation.In the 3 months long lockdown, the jailadministration planned for the soundhealth of the inmates and prepared theModern Gymnasium in the jail. Now afterthe opening of Lockdown, the prisonershave been allowed to exercise in the Gymand social distancing is being followedthere. Jail administration is influencingthem towards fitness and yoga to have asound health.

Now prisoners in Aligarh jail can stayfit and build muscles. Jail authorities haveopened a fully equipped gymnasium forthe inmates. They say that the gymnasi-um in Aligarh jail will provide the pris-oners oppotunities to develop their healthamidst this pandemic.

Senior Jail Supritendent Alok Singhsaid motive behind starting a gymnasiumis that with sound health and nutrition,they will be able to deal with this pandemicsituation as well as, sound health will alsoimprove their way of thinking and they willreturn back to society in a positive frameof mind.

“What's unique is that most of theseexercising machines in the gyn have beenmade and built by the inmates themselves,using waste materials”.

The jail authorities in Aligarh have

been making efforts tokeep the prisoners in apositive and healthyenvironment. Campsof yoga and fitnessteachers have been heldto make prisonersaware of the fitness andsound health.

Alok Singh saidthat prisoners havebeen provided specialuniforms for gym ses-sions. He told that weare awaring them of

the health threat going on and thus theyare influencing them to focus towardssound health and nutrition. Regular campsare being organised to address health relat-ed issues of the prisoners.

Alok Singh reiterated that even womenprisoners are not lagging behind and arebeing influenced towards sound health andnutrition . They are also recieving train-ing and yoga guidance regularly.

This will definitely help themselves tostay calm and build up a good health aswell.

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Amedical scientist with decades ofexperience behind them have

asked doctors and media to stay awayfrom creating panic among the peo-ple at the time of the coronavirus pan-demic. Prof B M Hegde, in the edito-rial in the latest issue of the “Journalof the Science of Healing Outcomes”,an international peer-reviewed scien-tific journal has written that thethrust must be to help the public toboost their immune systems duringthis kind of outbreaks.

“The panic that is being producedby the media would only depress theirimmune systems due to fear. While thehealth authorities should all to that isin their power to contain the spread,they should take care not to scare thepublic unnecessarily. Our immunesystem will function at its best whenwe are happy. Fear weakens theimmune system,” Prof Hegde wrote in

the editorial.Prof Hegde, who belongs to the

rare breed of medical scientists, is aFellow of the Royal College ofPhysicians awarded by four topmedial universities in the world. Hewas also a medical warrior havingworked as a frontline physician dur-ing the 1968-1969 Flu epidemic thatclaimed 5,000 lives in Britain alone infour weeks.

Prof Hegde writes from his ownexperience of the 1978-1969 flu andthe present pandemic that ninety per-cent of the affected people usuallyhave mild and moderate symptomswhile the young and children and theaged are vulnerable besides thosewith comorbid conditions.“Ultimately, it all depends on howwell the body is equipped to copewith the new crises,” said the profes-sor who is a strong proponent ofholistic treatment protocol for all kindof illness.

“Immune system plays a veryimportant role in keeping Covid-19 atbay. Fatal cases are the ones that haveeither a weak immune system that getsoverwhelmed to react to this virus andin the bargain produces so many rogueantibodies and chemicals that coulddestroy the patient’s lungs, so calledviral pneumonia or depressedimmune system due to malnutritionand poverty,” writes Prof Hegde in theeditorial.

He was the first medical scientistto forecast at the beginning of theCovid-19 outbreak that it wouldtake time to develop a vaccine for thepandemic. “Herd immunity , beingdiscussed everywhere is nothing buta woolly cincept. What matters at theend of the day is individual immunity.Consuming what our ancestors ate,is more than enough to build arobust immune system,” he writes andsigns off with a series of dos anddon’ts to win over Covid-19.

Lucknow: Fifty-nine people suc-cumbed to coronavirus in UttarPradesh on Sunday as 5,423 freshcoronavirus cases surfaced, pushingthe State's infection count to 1,87,781,according to a health bulletin.

So far, 2,926 people have diedfrom the disease in the State, a seniorofficial said. Briefing reporters here,Additional Chief Secretary AmitMohan Prasad said the fatality ratestands at 1.56 per cent.

Of the new infections, Lucknowreported 712 cases followed by 320 inKanpur. Allahabad reported 266 freshcases; Varanasi 242 and Gorakhpur232.

Of the 59 COVID-19 deaths, 10were reported from Lucknow; eightfrom Kanpur; five from Allahabad;three each from Varanasi, Bareilly,Hardoi and Sultanpur, the health bul-letin said. The count of active casesin the state stands at 49,242.

So far, 1,35,613 patients havebeen discharged after recoveringfrom the disease with the recovery

rate at 72.21 per cent, Prasad said. The senior official said 1.3 lakh

samples were tested in UP onSaturday.

Across the state, 62,774 helpdesks have been set up for the con-venience of the public, Prasad said.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath directed thedistrict magistrates and chief medicalofficers of all districts to meet twicea day to make better treatment facil-ities available to patients.

Chairing a meeting of senior UPgovernment officials at his official res-idence in Lucknow, Adityanath saidspecial attention should be paid todistricts of Lucknow, Allahabad,Kanpur and Gorakhpur, according toa statement.

Adityanath said no religious orcultural events should be held at pub-lic places while the adherence to theCOVID-19 protocol must beensured. More than five personsshould not be allowed to gather at aplace, he directed. PTI

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Itanagar: Arunachal Pradeshreported 97 More COVID-19cases, including 35 securitypersonnel, pushing the state'stally to 3,223, a senior healthdepartment official said onSunday.

The fresh cases include 24each from Tawang and UpperSubansiri, 22 from the CapitalComplex region and 16 fromWest Kameng, StateSurveillance Officer L Jampasaid. Barring seven, allof them are asymptomaticand have been shifted toCOVID care centres.

Arunachal Pradesh nowhas 990 active cases after 103people were discharged fromhospitals on Saturday, increas-ing the total number of recoveries to 2,228,Jampa said.

The state's recovery rate stood at 69.12per cent.

“Thirty-five paramilitary personnel --22 from Tawang, 11 from West Kameng andtwo from East Siang -- are among the new

patients,” the official said.Altogether 1,752 people, including 682

security personnel, have tested positivesince August 1, he said. Five patients haveso far died due to COVID-19 in the state.

Arunachal Pradesh has thus far tested1,41,655 samples, Jampa added. PTI

Bareilly: In a gruesome incident, a manwith the help of his second wife alleged-ly killed his seven-year-old daughter andburied her in his house, police said hereon Sunday.

Izzatnagar police station SHO K KVerma said Ravi Babu, a resident ofAalok Nagar, had married Ritu after thedeath of his first wife almost two yearsago.

“On Thursday, they killed Kajal (7)and buried her in the house. Whenpolice reached the house after beinginformed by their neighbours, the hus-band-wife duo said their pet had died.However, some children informedpolice that Kajal had died,” Verma said.

On Friday, the girl's cousin Surajlodged a police complaint alleging thathis sister has been murdered.

On Sunday, following orders by thedistrict magistrate, the body of the girlwas exhumed, police said, adding thatKajal's elder sister is still missing.

Ravi and his wife have been detainedand the matter is being investigated,police said. PTI

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Bourbons, it is famously stated,learnt nothing and forgot nothing.It is heartening that the Sheikhs ofEmirates have chosen to departfrom that mindset. The United

Arab Emirates (UAE), in its 50th year of exis-tence, has decided to establish diplomaticrelations with Israel. One is reminded howthe accursed “Palestinian cause” had prevent-ed India from entering into full diplomaticcommunion with the Jewish country until1992. However, since then, India has gainedimmensely from its ties with Israel, where-as Palestine was an absolute drag upon us.

The UAE’s choice, of course, predicatesupon Israel’s decision to discontinue annex-ation of the West Bank (actually parts whereIsraeli settlers live). Still, it is a climbdownfrom the position maintained by the lateSheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1918-2004), the founding president of the UAEand a forceful critic of Israeli politics.Shortly after the outbreak of the secondPalestinian intifada in September 2000, theUAE had stepped up its monetary assistanceto the Palestinian National Authority (PA),led by Yasser Arafat (UAE Year Book, 2005,page 27).

Within 10 days of Sheikh Zayed’sdemise on November 2, 2004, Yasser Arafatalso passed way in Paris on November 11.Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, succeed-ed Arafat as the new President of PalestinianAuthority in the election held in January2005. The event promised to open a newchapter of peace. In April 2005, SheikhHamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the thenDeputy Prime Minister of the UAE, issueda statement on resolving the Palestine issue.Hamdan noted that any solution to the con-flict must be based “on the international andlegitimate resolutions that call for an end tothe Israeli occupation of the Palestinian andArab territories and the establishment of aPalestinian state with Jerusalem as its capi-tal.” (UAE Year Book, 2005 Page 83).

However, long before, the Palestinianstate itself turned into a chimera for no faultof Israel. Between August 15 and September22, 2005, Israel withdrew completely fromthe Gaza strip and adjacent NorthernSamaria. Some 9,000 Israeli citizens livingin 25 settlements in Gaza were evicted in theprocess against their wishes. This was exact-ly when the fissures within the PalestinianAuthority became palpable. Fatah, a creationof Late Yasser Arafat and which dominatedthe Palestinian Liberation Organisation(PLO), felt increasingly challenged byIslamist group Hamas, which had gainedprominence during the second Intifada. Inthe first and till date, only the parliamentaryelection of the Palestinian Authority held onJanuary 25, 2006, Hamas (running under thename “Change and Reform”) could secure74 seats in a 132-seat unicameral legislature,putting Fatah into distant second spot with45 seats.

Talks about forming a national unity

Government that would includerepresentatives from Fatah andother parties failed. The list ofCabinet Ministers presented byPrime Minister-designate IsmailHaniya on March 27, 2006,contained names of only Hamasrepresentatives. As though aFatah-led presidency andHamas-led Government werenot a sufficient cause for friction,the US and the EU discontinuedtheir diplomatic ties and mon-etary assistance citing thatHamas did not recognise Israel’sright to exist.

Hamas was not a part of theOslo Accords-I (1993) and II(1994) signed between Israel andPLO, which contained assur-ances on mutual co-existence,peace and dignity. It continuesto negate Israel’s fundamentalright to exist.

The state of affairs withinthe Palestinian Authority dete-riorated sharply as a result of thegrowing Fatah-Hamas conflict.Hamas tried to raise its parallelsecurity force for PalestinianAuthority as it failed to cut teethinto existing security apparatusloyal to Fatah. The situation spi-ralled into a civil war, which splitthe Palestinian Authority alongregional lines. On June 14, 2007,Hamas conclusively seized Gazastrip, thus ending months ofrivalry and conflict with Fatah-controlled paramilitary forces.

Since that date, all the king’shorses and all of his men could-n’t put the Humpty of Palestinetogether again. The Parliamentbuilding in Ramallah, West

Bank, presents a sad picture ofPalestinian politics. According toa January 2020 report by France-24, its doors are smashed, tablesgather dust as 12 years of unreadpostal mails continue to pile up.

Should the Arab countriesremain wedded to a commit-ment that dead-ended? Theirofficial position is best encapsu-lated in a line from theKhartoum Declaration(September 1, 1967): “No peacewith Israel, no recognition ofIsrael, no negotiations with it,and insistence on the rights ofthe Palestinian people in theirown country.” The UAE was nota participant in the KhartoumConference (August 29-September 1, 1967) in whicheight Arab heads of the Statedeliberated inter alia on theirresponse towards Israel in theaftermath of the six-day war(June 5-10, 1967). The six-daywar led to Israel capturing theSinai Peninsula and Gaza Stripfrom Egypt, Golan Heights fromSyria and West Bank, includingEastern Jerusalem from Jordanagainst the united strengths offour Arab militaries.

The Emirates of the UAEwere then called the TrucialStates, which like neighbouringBahrain and Qatar, were BritishProtectorates since the 1820s. Itwas only in January 1968 thatthe British suddenly announcedtheir intention to withdrawforces from the Persian GulfStates in a phased manner. Thisled to inter alia the birth of theUAE in 1971. Thus, for almost

150 years, the Emirates had nopower to deal with foreignnations except through Britain.They had never been party toArab League’s (estd.1945) cam-paign to “wipe out Israel fromthe face of the globe.”

However, two key signato-ries of the KhartoumDeclaration subsequently madepeace with Israel. Egypt onMarch 26, 1979, and Jordan onOctober 26, 1994, signed peacetreaties with Israel, recognisingthe latter’s right to exist. Boththese treaties, facilitated by theUS, were signed in WashingtonDC.

Even Israel and PalestinianLiberation Organisation signedtwo treaties as a result of OsloAccords viz, WashingtonAgreement on Declaration ofPrinciples of Palestinian Self-Rule (September 13, 1993) andthe Cairo Agreement on theGaza Strip and Jericho (May 4,1994). Interestingly, it wasMahmud Abbas, the thenPalestinian spokesperson onforeign affairs, who had actual-ly signed the agreement along-side Israeli foreign minister viz,Shimon Peres in Washington.How can Abbas, as the Presidentof the Palestine NationalAuthority, object to the UAE’sestablishing diplomatic relationswith Israel? Should they wait tilleternity for the lost cause of thePalestinians?

(The writer is an author andindependent researcher based inNew Delhi. The views expressedherein are his personal)#������������������������&�����

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Sir — Indeed, arrangements andprecautions to conduct theJEE/NEET examinations whileensuring the safety of candidatesare imperative. The SupremeCourt has mandated that theexams be conducted, even in themidst of a daunting pandemic, tosave student careers. Increasingthe number of centres with thor-oughly ventilated and sanitisedhalls, social distancing, masks andless crowding at the exam centresand screening students are amust. Even a single case ofCOVID-19 among the candi-dates will be detrimental.

NR NagarajanSivakasi

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Sir — Cricket is known as a gen-tleman’s game and former skipperof the Indian men’s team, MSDhoni, embodied this descrip-tion. But it was surprising thatPrime Minister Narendra Modiwrote a letter to Dhoni, callinghim “one of the important illus-trations of the spirit of NewIndia, where the family name

does not make young people’sdestiny but they make their ownnames and their own destinies.”

Sports lovers will be awarethat the Prime Minister has, thusfar, never really showed any inter-est in sports. If he did care about

sports, then why is it that thedemise of two of the country’smost valuable sportspersons —Chuni Goswami and PKBanerjee, whose contributionsto India’s football legacy areimmense — went unacknowl-

edged by him? It would not beunreasonable to summarise thatthe Prime Minister’s display ofgreat fondness for Dhoni waspurely politically motivated —after all, there are some crucialState Assembly elections around

the corner and the addition ofsomeone like Dhoni to the BJP’scampaign would be a master-stroke. Modi is a seasoned politi-cian: He is unlikely to extend suchgestures without reason. Dhoni is,and will likely remain, in the lime-light for a while, and the PrimeMinister’s fondness for the cam-era is well-known. Modi’s affec-tion aside, if the former cricketcaptain does decide to join poli-tics, then cricket lovers will hopethat he has a fulfilling and grace-filled innings, much like thosethat have out on the field.

Bidyut Kumar ChatterjeeFaridabad

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Gaps online” (August 21). TheNCERT survey has flagged someserious issues in present timeswhen the whole education systemremains dependent on gadgets.Many from the middle class havelost their jobs. How can the poorbuy these costly gadgets?

SmitaVia email

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The perennial deliberations on gender equal-ity and women’s empowerment have cometo the fore again. The school of post-mod-

ernism has witnessed and inundated us withnumerous opinions whether women are equal tomen. This time the debate was kicked off whenthe food delivery company Zomato announcedup to 10 days’ paid ‘period leave’ per year forwomen and transgenders. Announcing the deci-sion, Zomato founder and CEO DeepinderGoyal stated, “There shouldn’t be any shame orstigma attached to applying for period leave. Youshould feel free to tell people on internal groups,or e-mails that you are on your period leave forthe day.”

Given this announcement, the social mediawas flooded with numerous opinions, for andagainst the move. There are umpteen questionsdoing the rounds. Is it a new wave of feminismor a part of the existing activism for feminism?Or is it a corporate ploy to make women lessemployable? However, this narrative should notbe allowed to make society digress from the dis-course on gender equality, which is one of theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of theUnited Nations (UN).

A startling UN study says that worldwidewomen do 2.6 times more unpaid care anddomestic work than men. According to theInternational Labour Organisation’s (ILO’s)report titled ‘Care work and care jobs for the futureof decent work’, data from 64 countries represent-ing two-thirds of the world’s working age popu-lation show that 16.4 billion hours per day arespent in unpaid care work — the equivalent totwo billion people working eight hours per daywith no remuneration. Were such services to bevalued on the basis of an hourly minimum wage,they would amount to nine per cent of the glob-al Gross Domestic Product or $11 trillion.According to the report, “Globally, women per-form 76.2 per cent of total hours of unpaid carework, more than three times as much as men. InAsia and the Pacific, this rises to 80 per cent.”

Sadly, achieving gender equality has some-what slipped from the development agenda inIndia. The National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB), in its latest data, points out that casesof missing women, sexual violence and harass-ment at home and workplaces are on the rise. Thenumber of sexual harassment cases in shelterhomes has grown by 30 per cent. The cases relat-ing to sexual assaults at workplaces, registeredwith the National Commission for Women(NCW), are increasingly a matter of concern.

Though India is the world’s fifth-largest econ-omy, the workforce participation rate of womenabruptly declined last year, the World Bankreveals. While women constitute 48.1 per cent ofthe population of the country, only 23 per centof them are in the workforce. When India’s femaleworkforce is compared with other countries, it is35 per cent, 56 per cent and 61 per cent in SriLanka, the US and Canada respectively.

In the corporate world, Indian women occu-py only 15 per cent of the seats in boardroomsacross the nation and only six per cent of Boardchairs are women. Adding to the problem, ruralwomen are departing from the workplace at a

faster rate than their urban counterparts.Economic and cultural reasons can beattributed to the disturbing trend in theemployment landscape. Worryingly,India has fared badly in UN rankingslike the Gender Development Index andGender Inequality Index.

Talking about menstruationremains an age-old taboo in India,despite the fact that there have been afew documentaries and movies made ina bid to break the silence over the issue.There is no doubt that when a privatecompany is offering paid ‘period leave’even in these troubled times, it hasforced several private and Governmententities to consider this aspect.

The encouraging aspect is that thisis not the first time that something likethis is being considered in the country.The Government Girls School inTripunithura, located in the erstwhileprincely state of Cochin (nowErnakulam district), had in 1912allowed students to take period leaveduring the time of their annual exam-ination and permitted them to write itlater.

In 2017, a Mumbai-based digitalcompany had also announced that itwould offer ‘First Day of Period Leave.’The Bihar Government has been per-mitting women to take two extra daysof leave since 1992. A woman MP in2017 tabled a Menstrual Benefits Bill inthe Parliament, arguing for two days’‘period leave’ for women each month.

As per global data, around 26 percent of the global population in thereproductive age undergoes the men-struation cycle. And women inIndonesia, Japan, South Korea and cer-

tain countries are exempted from workduring this time to a certain extent.

However, discussing periods andleave sanction are not isolated compart-ments. In fact, Menstrual HygieneManagement (MHM), a holisticapproach to address women’s unmetmenstrual hygiene needs, is linked to theSDGs. According to the data producedby UNICEF, 71 per cent of girls in Indiaare still unaware of menstruation untiltheir first cycle begins. Here again, theurban and rural dichotomy is exposed.Hopefully the move to offer period leavewill boost the process of MHM.

Surprisingly this move has beenheavily criticised by a certain section ofwomen. The International Society ofWomen Airline Pilots (ISWAP) has stat-ed that 12.4 per cent of Indian pilots arewomen and such moves will put a ques-tion mark on the capabilities of womenin the workplace.

Public figures in a gender-agnosticstructure termed the move for offeringperiod leave as a discriminatory andanti-feminist. They say that despite thefact that menstruation can be verypainful and debilitating, most womennever make it an excuse to shirk work,either in the workplace or the home.Many have contended that the policydoesn’t give women a fair chance butacts as a hindrance in their battle forgender equality.

They believe that expanding such apolicy would not only mean lowersalaries for women, it would perpetu-ate a hiring bias against women. It setsthe wrong precedent as it will only putmore work pressure on the maleemployees, resulting in gender dis-

crimination yet again. It may ghettoisewomen and create adversities instead ofadvantage in the professional landscape.

However, there is another school ofthought and some women have wel-comed the move. They feel it willbreak all taboos surrounding the issuein the socio-cultural milieu. This act willdestigmatise and deconstruct the dom-inant discourse and enable women totake a day off with dignity instead ofresorting to any pretension of sickness.There is no iota of doubt that it is a start-ing point, which can re-define womenempowerment, resulting in enhancingtheir health and efficacy.

Due to the efforts of social activistslike Arunachalam Muruganantham,the emergence and growth of activismin this direction has gained increasingimportance. The inclusion of transgen-ders by Zomato in this dialogue sur-rounding periods is praiseworthy, too,and adds more value to the announce-ment as this issue has never even beenconsidered. Society has been unfair tothem in this as it has been in every othersphere of their lives.

However, merely doling out periodleave may not improve the efficiency ofwomen. Understanding the demo-graphic pattern, re-engineering thevalue systems, social support and plac-ing public policy at the right time arethe need of the hour to overhaul thedomain of women empowerment intoan organised and organic one.

(Biswal and Chakraborty areAssistant Professors at SIMC and SIBMrespectively and are working at SymbiosisInternational (Deemed University),Pune)

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For almost a year, the Minister ofEducation, Shafqat Mahmood,has been trumpeting the Imran

Khan Government’s plans to roll out arevolutionary Single NationalCurriculum (SNC) in 2021 that will end“educational apartheid” in Pakistan andsee private and public schools andmadrasas following a uniform curricu-lum. But it is only now that a debatearound this has erupted in the media,largely triggered by an article in Dawnby physicist, author and columnist, DrPervez Hoodbhoy.

Dr Hoodbhoy believes that theintention of the SNC to bridge the gapbetween the standards of educationreceived by rich and poor children ismorally attractive, but the Governmentdoes not have the resources to carry outsuch an ambitious plan, especially in acountry where only a minute percent-

age of the annual budget is allotted toeducation. Hoodbhoy is concernedabout the manner in which religiousstudies are being suggested in theSNC. He fears the changes are not onlysimilar to the ones that were introducedin the curriculum during the Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship but actually “aredeeper” than those conceived by thatregime. By “deeper” he does not meanmore reflective. Because as anotherphysicist, educationist and author, DrAH Nayyar, says, Islamic studies inPakistan are almost entirely based onrote learning, which eschews criticalthinking. To paraphrase Dr Nayyar’sconcern, the SNC, instead of bringingnon-religious subjects to madrasas, justmight end up bringing the madrasas topublic and private schools.

The Harvard-educated Dr MariamChughtai, who is one of the architectsof the SNC, insists that such fears areunfounded because, basically, the SNChas adopted a curriculum that wasalready in the works in 2006 and, sec-ond, nothing is mandatory in it becauseprovinces and private schools will befree to pick and choose from it whatthey believe will suit their needs. In herdebates with Dr Hoodbhoy, she hasrefuted his allegations that the SNC will

go on to further radicalise an alreadyradicalised nation.

In a 2003 study on the state of edu-cation in Pakistan, Dr Nayyar and DrAhmad Saleem demonstrate that, from1971 onwards, school textbooks haveincreasingly promoted an artificialnational and sectarian homogeneity,discouraged critical thinking and onlyscantly acknowledged Pakistan’s ethnic,sectarian and religious diversity. In asimilar 2005 study by the educationistand scholar Dr Rubina Saigol, she writesthat the tumultuous departure of EastPakistan in 1971 was understood by theState as a consequence of not pursuinga more unified idea of Pakistani nation-alism and of its majority faith, Islam.Interestingly, this was also the narrativeaired by religious parties. According toDr Saigol, this narrative was firstwoven into a new subject called‘Pakistan Studies’, which then mutatedinto becoming a study of the region’shistory that leapfrogged from oneperiod to the other, nonchalantly ignor-ing those periods that were felt to negatethe post-1971 ideological narrative.

Dr Saigol believes it was a panic-stricken manoeuvre, which was thenwielded as an ideological tool to shapeyoung minds into becoming model,

unquestioning Pakistani citizens. In the1980s, this attempt was further bol-stered by an unprecedented addition inthe curriculum of religious studies, thatwere to be learned through rote. What’smore, Islamic content also seeped intonon-religious subjects which non-Muslims do not have the choice to skip.

In 1947, soon after the creation ofPakistan, the country’s first EducationMinistry announced that Pakistanneeded a new curriculum “in line withthe requirements and ideals of thecountry.” But Pakistan largely followedthe education policy inherited fromBritish India, which was based on the‘Education Dispatch of 1854’ that stat-ed, “schools should be practically use-ful to the people of India in their dif-ferent spheres of life.” This meant anemphasis on the teaching of the sci-ences, law and economics, whereas reli-gious teaching was to be undertakenprivately. In 1959, at the start of theAyub Khan regime the Commission onNational Education suggested design-ing of curricula “to focus on develop-ing basic skills in reading, writing, andarithmetic, creating a high sense ofpatriotism as well as a liking for work-ing with one’s own hand and addition-al subjects for specific vocations and

careers.” The panel also proposed theestablishment of Textbook Boards toregulate textbook development. Thiswas to be an evolutionary process andthe country’s curriculum remained asit was since 1947, even though historytextbooks began to put more empha-sis on Muslim eras of the region’s his-tory, without leapfrogging the non-Muslim ones. Religious studies were stillto be taught at home, but publicschools did begin to introduce somebasic forms of Islamic studies.

In 1967, a permanent institutionresponsible for curriculum develop-ment was formed. But not much couldbe done by it because of political tur-moil (1968-70) and civil war in EastPakistan in 1971. In 1972, when the ZABhutto took over, it recommendeddesigning of curricula “relevant to thenation’s changing social and econom-ic needs compatible with the ideologyof the country.” The subject of PakistanStudies was introduced and so wasIslamiat. Emphasis was also put on“universal free education” for which theGovernment nationalised various pri-vate schools.

According to the 1972 and 1981census reports, literacy rates onlyslightly improved but failed to cross 30

per cent. And as has often been lament-ed by most educationists, the quality ofeducation suffered too. This saw theexpansion of religious subjects andmore “Islamised” additions in PakistanStudies books. “Islamisation” was fur-ther enacted by the Sharia Act of 1991during the first Nawaz Sharif regime.

After 9/11, Musharraf tried tointroduce non-religious subjects inmadrasas because they were seen ashotbeds of religious radicalisation. Notonly did the move fail, this ploy alsofailed to take into account the possibil-ity of radicalisation, emerging in privateand public schools because of a curricu-lum heavily influenced by retrogressiveideological biases and distortions.

The SNC is a continuation of thesame ploy but it is now going the otherway. The overwhelming addition ofnew religious studies in it suggests that,to make the madrasas agree to acceptthe teaching of non-religious subjects,the Government has decided to bringthe madrasas to public and privateschools. This is akin to the State’s recentattempt at mainstreaming radical out-fits by encouraging them to take partin electoral politics. It is a ploy that mostexperts would agree is not working.

(Courtesy: Dawn)

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Washington: Maryanne TrumpBarry was serving as a federaljudge when she heard her broth-er, President Donald Trump,suggest on Fox News, “maybe I’llhave to put her at the border”amid a wave of refugees enter-ing the United States. At thetime, children were being sepa-rated from their parents and putin cramped quarters while courthearings dragged on.

“All he wants to do is appealto his base,” Barry said in a con-versation secretly recorded byher niece, Mary L. Trump. “Hehas no principles. None. None.And his base, I mean my God,if you were a religious person,you want to help people. Not dothis.”

Barry, 83, was aghast athow her 74-year-old brotheroperated as president. “His god-damned tweet and lying, oh myGod,” she said. “I’m talking toofreely, but you know. The changeof stories. The lack of prepara-tion. The lying. Holy shit.”

Lamenting “what they’redoing with kids at the border,”she guessed her brother “hasn’tread my immigration opinions”in court cases. In one case, sheberated a judge for failing to treatan asylum applicant respectful-ly.

“What has he read?” Mary

Trump asked her aunt.“No. He doesn’t read,” Barry

responded.In the weeks since Mary

Trump’s tell-all book about heruncle has been released, she’sbeen questioned about thesource of some of the informa-tion, such as her allegation thatTrump paid a friend to take hisSATs to enable him to transferinto the University ofPennsylvania. Nowhere in the

book does she say that sherecorded conversations with heraunt.

In response to a questionfrom The Washington Postabout how she knew the presi-dent paid someone to take theSATs, Mary Trump revealedthat she had surreptitiouslytaped 15 hours of face-to-faceconversations with Barryin 2018and 2019.She provided The Postwith previously unreleased tran-

scripts and audio excerpts,which include exchanges that arenot in her book.

Barry has never spokenpublicly about disagreementswiththe president, and her extra-ordinarily candid comments inthe recordings mark the mostcritical comments known tohave been made about him byone of his siblings. No one elsein the family except MaryTrump has publicly rebukedthe president.

The transcripts reveal thedepths of discord between thepresident and his sister, illumi-nating a rift that began when sheasked her brother for a favor inthe 1980s, which Trump has fre-quently used to try to take cred-it for her success.

At one point Barry said toher niece, “It’s the phoniness ofit all. It’s the phoniness and thiscruelty. Donald is cruel.”

Mary Trump, 55, told ThePost recently that her uncle isunfit to be president and sheplans to do “everything in mypower” to elect Joe Biden. Herfather, Fred Trump Jr., died of analcohol-related illness when shewas 16 in 1981. In her book, shesays Donald Trump and hisfather mistreated her father.

The Post sought commentabout the tapes from Barry and

White House officials on Fridayand Saturday and did not receivea response.

The allegation that the pres-ident paid someone to take hisSATs, which was one of the mostpublicized allegations in MaryTrump’s book “Too Much andNever Enough: How My FamilyCreated The World’s MostDangerous Man,” stems from aconversation that Barry hadwith her niece on Nov. 1, 2018.

Barry told how she tried tohelp her brother get into college.“He was a brat,” Barry said,explaining that “I did his home-work for him” and “I drove himaround New York City to try toget him into college.”

Then Barry dropped whatMary considered a bombshell:“He went to Fordham for oneyear [actually two years] andthen he got into University ofPennsylvania because he hadsomebody take the exams.”

“No way!” Mary responded.“He had somebody take hisentrance exams?”

“SATs or whatever.... That’swhat I believe,” Barry said. “Ieven remember the name.” Thatperson was Joe Shapiro, Barrysaid.

Donald Trump was friendswith a person at Penn named JoeShapiro, who is deceased.

Shapiro’s widow and sister toldthe Post last month that he nevertook a test for anybody, includ-ing Trump. Mary Trump hassaid it was a different JoeShapiro, but that person has notsurfaced.

During a Post Live interviewlast month, Mary Trump wasasked whether the source of herinformation was Barry. “I prefernot to say who it is,” sheresponded. “It’s somebody whowould have absolutely no reasonto make it up.”

Chris Bastardi, a spokesmanfor Mary Trump, said that shebegan taping conversations in2018 with Barry after conclud-ing that her relatives had liedabout the value of the familyestate two decades earlier dur-ing a legal battle over her inher-itance, in which she received farless than she expected.

Under New York law, it islegal to tape a conversationwith the consent of one party,which in this case was MaryTrump.

The inheritance dispute wassettled privately in 2001, butMary Trump has said she wasduped into an agreementbecause the family said theestate was worth $30 million andshe later believed the value wascloser to $1 billion. AGENCY

4���!��������!�����!���6���������'�3�����Lafayette (US): Communityactivists said they will presenttheir frustrations and demandracial justice from the leadersof a Louisiana city on Sunday,following a night of violencethat erupted after police shotand killed a Black man.

Dozens of people took tothe streets of Lafayette onSaturday in response to thedeath of Trayford Pellerin, 31.

On Friday night, officers fol-lowed Pellerin on foot as he lefta convenience store where hehad created a disturbance witha knife, Louisiana State Policesaid. Stun guns failed to stop him,and the officers shot Pellerin ashe tried to enter another conve-nience store, still with the knife,according to a news release.

The shooting was capturedon video, and the state ACLUcondemned what it described asa “horrific and deadly incidentof police violence against a Blackperson.” Both the ACLU and theSouthern Poverty Law Centerquickly called for an investiga-tion. Saturday afternoon’s proteststarted peacefully, but violencebroke out as night fell — leadingto officers clearing the crowd

with smoke canisters, TrooperDerek Senegal said.

Officials said at a newsconference late Saturday thatfireworks had been shot atbuildings and fires set in themedian of a road where demon-strations had taken place.

“Our intent is not going tobe to just let people disrupt ourtown and put our citizens andour motorists and our neigh-bourhoods in danger,” InterimPolice Chief Scott Morgan said.

Arrests were made, Morgansaid, but an exact number was-n’t immediately available.

“We do support people’sFirst Amendment rights,”Lafayette Parish Sheriff MarkGarber said. “However, when itcomes to the destruction ofproperty, we are not going tohave Lafayette set on fire.”

The activists attempted toattend the news conference butwere “escorted out” becauseLafayette Mayor-President JoshGuillory said it was private,Lafayette NAACP PresidentMarja Broussard said. Theyplanned to confront Guilloryon Sunday at 5 pm at LafayetteCity Hall. AP

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New Delhi: Nepal has strong-ly denied media reports thatChina has been taking over itsterritory at multiple placeswith the support of PrimeMinister KP Sharma Oli’s gov-ernment.

News agency ANI had saidthat China has illegally occu-pied Nepal’s land in severalplaces spreading over sevenbordering districts citing areport by the SurveyDepartment of AgricultureMinistry of Nepal.

Nepalese governmentsources have firmly refuted thereport, saying that the claimfirst made by a leading mediaoutlet in Nepal in June had alsobeen denied. The newspaperhad also issued an apology forpublishing the report.

In a statement then,Nepal’s foreign ministry had

said, “The news allegedly basedon the ‘report’ of the Ministryof Agriculture and LivestockDevelopment which thatMinistry has already refutedand clarified stating that such‘report’ doesn’t exist and thatthe subject matter doesn’t fallunder its jurisdiction.”

“It may be recalled that theboundary between Nepal andChina was delineated anddemarcated on the basis of theBoundary Treaty of 5 October1961 and the subsequent pro-tocols signed between the twocountries,” it said.

“It may be recalled that theboundary between Nepal andChina was delineated anddemarcated on the basis of theBoundary Treaty of 5 October1961 and the subsequent pro-tocols signed between the twocountries,” it said. AGENCY

"�������� ����������/������ ��������� ������� ��;�/������� ��� ��� Lima:Thirteen people died in a

stampede at a disco in Peruafter a police raid to enforce thecountry’s lockdown during thecoronavirus pandemic, offi-cials said Sunday.

The stampede happened atthe Thomas disco in Lima,where about 120 people hadgathered for a party on Saturdaynight, the Interior Ministry said.

People tried to escapethrough the only door of thesecond-floor disco, tramplingone another and becomingtrapped in the confined space,according to authorities.

After the stampede, policehad to force open the door.

Franco Asensios, one ofthose who attended the party,told local radio RPP that thepolice raid started at 9 pm andthat authorities told the party-goers to let the women exit first.“People got excited and startedto go down, and then they said

that the people in front weresuffocating,” he said.

Police have detained 23people. Police chief Gen.Orlando Velasco said nofirearms or tear gas were usedduring the raid.

Night clubs have been pro-hibited from operating sinceMarch because of the pandem-

ic. Peru started lifting quaran-tine restrictions on June 30 inan effort to get the economymoving again, and the dailyreported number of virus infec-tions has doubled to more than9,000 in recent weeks.

Peru has reported about27,500 deaths from the newcoronavirus. AP

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Tehran: Iran said on Sundaythat an upcoming visit thisweek by the head of the UN’satomic watchdog agency toTehran has nothing to do witha US push to impose so-called“snapback” sanctions on Iran.

The Trump administrationlast week dismissed near-uni-versal opposition to its demandto restore all UN sanctions onIran, declaring that a 30-daycountdown for the “snapback” ofpenalties eased under the 2015nuclear deal between Tehranand world powers had begun.

US allies and foes havejoined forces to declare theaction illegal and doomed tofailure. The US argues that Iranhas violated the restrictionsimposed on its nuclear pro-gramme under the 2015 deal,a charge Tehran has dismissed.

Iran’s official IRNA newsagency quoted on Sunday Iran’senvoy to the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency IAEA,

Kazem Gharibadadi, as sayingthat the visit this week is “nei-ther related to the snapbackmechanism nor the USdemand.”

Gharibabadi said the visitby the IAEA chief Rafael Grossicomes within “the frameworkof Iran’s invitation.”

“We do not allow others tomanage Iran,” he said, addingthat Iran’s trust in the IAEA hasbeen “damaged in recentmonths.” He expressed hopeGrossi’s visit will lead to build-ing trust.

“It is important to assureTehran that the agency willmove based on impartiality,independence and profession-alism,” said Gharibabadi.

The IAEA said on Saturdaythat Grossi will head to Tehranto press Iranian authoritiesfor access to sites where thecountry is thought to havestored or used undeclarednuclear material. AP

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Kabul: A roadside bombingon Sunday in easternAfghanistan killed seven civil-ians, a provincial official said,the latest in relentless deadlyviolence in the country amidnew uncertainties over thestart of talks between theTaliban and the Kabul gov-ernment.

No one immediatelyclaimed responsibility for thebombing in Ghazni province’sJaghatu district.

Three women, two chil-dren and two men died whentheir vehicle struck the road-side bomb, said WahidullahJumazada, a spokesman for theprovincial governor.

Afghan civilians continueto bear the brunt of the waracross their country despiteefforts to launch peace talksand find a road map for post-war Afghanistan. AP

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Medan (Indonesia): A rum-bling volcano in westernIndonesia on Sundayunleashed an avalanche ofscorching clouds down itsslopes.

Authorities are closelymonitoring Mount Sinabungon Sumatra, one of Indonesia’smain islands, after sensors

picked up increasing activity inpast weeks.

The volcano in NorthSumatra province was shoot-ing smoke and ash more than1,000 meters (3,280 feet) intothe air on Sunday morning,and hot ash clouds traveled 1kilometer (0.6 mile) south-east, Indonesia’s Volcanology

and Geological HazardMitigation Center said.

Villagers were advised tostay 5 kilometers (3.1 miles)from the crater’s mouth andshould be aware of the peril oflava, the agency said. Air trav-el was not impacted by the ashso far, the Transport Ministrysaid.

There were no casualtiesfrom the eruption, said ArmenPutra, an official at the Sinabungmonitoring post. He said vil-lages outside the red zone werenot in immediate danger.

Some 30,000 people havebeen forced to leave homesaround Sinabung in the pastfew years. AP

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New York: Video app TikToksaid Saturday it will challengein court a Trump administra-tion crackdown on the popu-lar Chinese-owned service,which Washington accuses ofbeing a national security threat.

As tensions soar betweenthe world’s two biggesteconomies, US PresidentDonald Trump has claimedTikTok could be used byChina to track the locations offederal employees, builddossiers on people for black-mail, and conduct corporateespionage.

Trump signed an execu-tive order on August 6 givingAmericans 45 days to stopdoing business with TikTok’sChinese parent company,Bytedance. AFP

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Minsk (Belarus): More than100,00 protesters demandingthe resignation of Belarus’authoritarian president ralliedSunday in a vast square in thecapital, keeping up the massiveoutburst of dissent that hasshaken the country since adisputed presidential electiontwo weeks ago.

Sunday’s demonstrationoverflowed Minsk’s sprawling7-hectare (17-acre)Independence Square. Therewere no official figures oncrowd size, but it appeared tobe 150,000 people or more.

Dozens of police prisonertransport vehicles were parkedon the fringes, but police madeno immediate efforts to breakup the gathering.

Earlier this month, some

7,000 people were arrested,many of them beaten withclubs or wounded by rubberbullets, in the protests after theAugust 9 election that officialssay handed PresidentAlexander Lukashenko a sixthterm in office. Protesters say theofficial election results, inwhich Lukashenko reportedlyreceived 80 per cent of the vote,are fraudulent.

The size and duration ofthe protests are unprecedentedfor Belarus, a former Sovietrepublic of 9.5 million peoplethat Lukashenko has ruledwith an iron fist for 26 years.

The 65-year-old leaderappears to be flailing about fora strategy to counter them. Hehas repeatedly blamed Westerninterference, claimed the

protests were backed by theUnited States and accusesNATO of building up troopconcentrations in Poland andLithuania on Belarus’ westernborder, which the alliancedenies.

He also claimed thatRussian President VladimirPutin was willing to offer secu-rity assistance to his govern-ment to quell the protests if heasked for it.

Lukashenko has consis-tently repressed any oppositionduring his time in office andweariness with his hardlinerule, as well as dismay over thecountry’s deteriorating econo-my and Lukashenko’s cavalierdismissal of the coronaviruspandemic, appear to have gal-vanized opponents. AP

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Flagstaff (US): Late on a fallevening in 2001, Alyce Slimand her granddaughter stoppedat a gas station on the NavajoNation after searching for atraditional healer for leg ail-ments.

There, in an area wherehitchhiking is common, Slimagreed to give two males a ride.They got into her pewter-coloured pickup truck andwhen she stopped later to letthem out, they didn’t budge.

Instead, Lezmond Mitchelland Johnny Orsinger stabbedSlim 33 times and placed herlifeless body next to the 9-year-old in the back seat as theydrove to an abandoned sheep

camp.They told Tiffany Lee to

prepare to die and slit herthroat. She was still breathing,so they dropped rocks on herhead, killing her, too.

As the 38-year-old Mitchellsits on federal death row, hisexecution scheduled forWednesday, the Navajo gov-ernment is asking officials tospare his life on the basis of cul-tural beliefs and sovereignty.

The stance is pushing upagainst the wishes of some ofthe victims’ family for the exe-cution to move forward,including Tiffany’s parents.

“An eye for an eye,” thegirl’s father, Daniel Lee told The

Associated Press.“He took my daughter

away, and no remorse or any-thing like that. The NavajoNation president, the council,they don’t speak for me. Ispeak for myself and for mydaughter.”

Under federal law, NativeAmerican tribes can decidewhether they want their citizenssubjected to the death penaltyfor a set of crimes involvingNatives on tribal land. Nearly all574 federally recognised tribes,including the Navajo Nation,have opted out.

Mitchell was the firstNative American sentenced todeath since the resumption of

the federal death penalty in1994 and the only NativeAmerican currently awaitingexecution.

He ended up on death row because he was convictedof carjacking resulting in death — a crime that carriesthe possibility of capital pun-ishment regardless of where ithappens.

His upcoming execution isthe first of a handful set afterthe government said it wouldcarry out executions followingan informal 17-year moratori-um. The case has stirred emo-tion among tribal membersand painful reminders of thegrisly crime. AP

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Tata Consumer Products Ltdis redrawing its entire sales

and distribution system to bemore direct, active and digi-tised and aims to double itsdirect reach in the next 12months responding to the chal-lenges of the coronavirus pan-demic, a top company officialsaid.

The Tata group FMCGfirm is shifting its focus oninnovation also and is targetingto double the contributionfrom new products. Besides, itis rebuilding its core business,creating capacity and is realis-ing synergies from the inte-gration of its food and bever-age businesses in India. Underits growth plans, TataConsumer Products Ltd, whichrecently bought out its JV part-ner PepsiCo in NourishCoBeverages, is also exploringboth organic and inorganicopportunities in the segment.

“Our growth plans forFY21 will focus on executingour strategic plans, whichincludes building on our corebusinesses, jump shifting dig-ital and innovation, realisingsynergies from the integrationof our food & beverage busi-nesses in India, stepping up ourcapability building agenda,exploring new opportunitiesorganic and inorganic,” TCPLManaging Director & CEOSunil D’Souza told PTI. TCPLis making its entire distributionsystem to be more “direct,

active and digitised” to doublethe direct reach in 12 months,he added.

“We expect to expand ourdirect reach by 2x in the next12 months and target to dou-ble our total numeric reach inthe next 36 months,” saidD’Souza. After merging con-sumer products business ofTata Chemicals with

Tata Global Beverages, thecompany was renamed TCPLand now owns brands likeTATA Salt, TATA Tea, Tetley,Eight O’ clock and HimalayanWater.”The company wouldleverage its access to the TataChemical R&D centre for inno-vation agenda with a target ofdoubling the contribution fromnew products,” said D’Souza.

It would be upping its dig-ital quotient, which includesleveraging digital technologyfrom the front-end startingwith the salesmen and stockistslevel. TCPL is linking the entiresupply chain, including ware-housing, manufacturing andprocurement, for “faster deci-sion making, better cost-effec-tiveness and a more seamlessway of working, as also scalingup e-commerce capabilityacross platforms for all ourbusinesses in India and inter-national,” he said.

Over expansion of salesnetwork, D’Souza said it wouldwork on its supply chain, whichis scalable and can be leveragedfor any new category or busi-ness, which TCPL wants to bolton in the future.

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As many as 412 infrastruc-ture projects, each worth

�150 crore or more, have beenhit by cost overruns of over �4.11 lakh crore owing to delaysand other reasons, according toa report. The Ministry ofStatistics and ProgrammeImplementation monitorsinfrastructure projects worth�150 crore and above.Of the1,683 such projects, 412 report-ed cost overruns and 471 timeescalation. “Total original costof implementation of the 1,683projects was �20,65,336.20crore and their anticipated

completion cost is likely to be�24,77,167.67 crore, whichreflects overall cost overruns of�4,11,831.47 crore (19.94 percent of original cost),” the min-istry’s latest report for June2020 said. The expenditureincurred on these projects tillJune 2020 is �11,21,435.29crore, which is 45.27 per centof the anticipated cost.

However, it said that thenumber of delayed projectsdecreases to 418 if delay is cal-culated on the basis of latestschedule of completion.Further, it said that for 979 pro-jects neither the year of com-missioning nor the tentative

gestation period has beenreported. Out of 471 delayedprojects, 127 have overall delayin the range of one to 12months, 112 have delay of 13 to24 months, 127 reflect delay inthe range of 25 to 60 monthsand 105 projects show delay of61 months and above.The aver-age time overrun in these 471delayed projects is 43.34months. The brief reasons fortime overruns as reported byvarious project implementingagencies are delay in landacquisition, delay in obtainingforest/environment clearancesand lack of infrastructure sup-port and linkages.

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Overseas investors have putin �41,330 crore in Indian

markets on net basis in Augustso far as the excess liquidity inglobal markets found its way toemerging markets like India.

According to the depos-itories data, foreign portfolioinvestors (FPI) pumped in�40,262 crore into equities and�1,068 crore in the debt seg-ment between August 3-21.

Prior to this, FPIs werenet buyers for two consecutivemonths. They invested �3,301crore in July and �24,053 crorein June on net basis.

According to HimanshuSrivastava, associate director -manager research, MorningstarIndia, there has been excessliquidity available in the glob-al markets with many majorcentral banks pushing aggres-sive stimulus measures to com-bat the coronavirus pandemicand support their dwindlingeconomies.

“Also, the US is print-ing money constantly. Theexcess liquidity is finding itsway into India as well as prob-ably other emerging markets,”he added.

Srivastava said FPIs haveturned their focus towardsemerging markets like Indiabecause these markets havebeen performing well and offera good potential to generatebetter returns.

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As many as five large banks,including SBI, PNB and

BoB, are likely to sell shares toinstitutional investors in thesecond half of this fiscal as theylook to shore up their capitalbase amid the coronavirus pan-demic impacting the economy.

Qualified InstitutionalPlacement (QIP) would be themost preferred way and publicsector banks are likely to takea call on taking this route afterfinalisation of their secondquarter results, merchant bank-ing sources said.

According to the sources,banks would get a better pic-ture about their Non-Performing Assets (NPAs),one-time loan restructuringand consequent ratings latest bythe end of October.

Subsequently, banks canstart the process of deciding thetime, quantum, appointment ofmerchant bankers and otherformalities, the sources said.

Four to five large banks likeState Bank of India (SBI),Punjab National Bank (PNB),Bank of Baroda (BoB) andUnion Bank of India wouldlook at raising capital towardsthe end of third quarter or dur-ing the fourth quarter of thisfiscal, they added. Further, thesources said these banks haveto plan capital raising in sucha manner that there is nocrowd out of liquidity andenough space is available toboth domestic and globalinvestors to participate in var-

ious QIPs. PNB has alreadyexpressed its intent to hit cap-ital markets in the fourth quar-ter this fiscal to raise funds tohelp meet growth needs andregulatory requirements.

“We will be planning (cap-ital raising) somewhere aroundthe end of third quarter orbeginning of fourth quarter. Bythis time, we would havedeclared two quarterly balancesheet of the amalgamated enti-ties,” PNB Managing DirectorS S Mallikarjuna Rao told PTIin June. It is to be noted thatprivate sector banks, includingICICI Bank, Axis Bank andKotak Mahindra Bank, havealready mobilised capitalthr0ugh QIPs in the last threemonths.

In a precursor to capitalraising exercise, most of thepublic sector bankshave alreadygot shareholders’ approval forraising capital through a mix ofdebt and equity route in the

current fiscal.For example, shareholders

of SBI have given approval forraising �20,000 crore throughpublic issue or private place-ment of shares while PNB hasreceived shareholders’ nod formopping up �7,000 crore.

BoB and Union Bank ofIndia too have approvals fromtheir respective shareholdersfor raising �9,000 crore and�6,800 crore, respectively, byway of common equity capitalthrough various modes, includ-ing QIP.

During the current fiscal,banks might be required toraise capital based on theassumptions of growth in RiskWeighted Assets (RWA) andploughing back of profits.

As far as raising capitalthrough Tier I and Tier IIbonds are concerned, SBIrecently raised �8,931 crore byissuing Basel III-compliantbonds to investors.

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Digital payments in Indiaare expected to grow over

three-folds to �7,092 trillion by2025 on account ofGovernment policies aroundfinancial inclusion and growingdigitisation of merchants,according to a research report.

The country’s digital pay-ment market was worth around�2,162 trillion in 2019-20,RedSeer Consulting said in itsreport.”The current 160 millionunique mobile payment userswill multiply by 5 times toreach nearly 800 million by2025. This growth will be dri-ven by a number of demandand supply-side drivers,” the

Bengaluru-based managementconsultancy said.

“Mobile payments willdrive around 3.5 per cent oftotal digital payments of �7,092trillion by financial year 2025,up from the current 1 percent. The total mobile paymentusers who currently stand atabout 162 million would reacharound 800 million during thisperiod,” the report said.

According to thereport, wallets will continue toplay a key role in its growthwith the continuous increase inboth frequency and user base.By 2025, wallets are expected tohave a higher penetration andlower-income would eventual-ly drive multiple small-tickettransactions, it said.

RedSeer, which serves var-ious e-commerce companiesand venture capitalists includ-ing Tiger Global, estimates

that the growth of digital pay-ments specifically will come outby increasing penetration withoffline merchants and the pen-etration with the unorganisedretail sector will grow on the

back of increased merchantdigitisation in cities beyond tierII.

Redseer sees COVID-19 asa catalyst to digital paymentsacross India. “COVID-19

seems like another demoneti-sation-like catalyst for theindustry. Digital paymentproviders have been quitehands-on in terms of respond-ing to this situation, by offer-ing enhanced support onessentials such as offering gro-ceries, masks, sanitisers,COVID-19 insurance, offeringintegration with donations toPM fund and other essentialproduct and services,” RedSeerConsulting founder and CEOAnil Kumar said.

According to RedSeer, dig-ital payments share of grocerystores increased to 75 per centdue to COVID-19 as peoplepreferred paying throughmobile phone due to safetyconcerns. “There is significantheadroom for growth of EDC(electronics data capture) ter-minals in the small retailer uni-verse. Large and mid-sized

retailers use more than 2 EDCterminals.

Today we have around 5million terminals, which isalmost 5 times that in financialyear 2015,” the report said.According to the report, thepayment gateway aggregatormarket in India, which is cur-rently estimated to be at Rs 9.5trillion, is expected to grow by2.4 times driven by large valuetransactions. It is expected togrow at a compounded annu-al growth rate of 19 per cent inthe next 5 years to reach �22.6trillion by FY 2025.

“The payment gatewaymarket today is very competi-tive, and all leading players arefighting for the market share.Paytm leads this pack and hasgrown the fastest followed byBillDesk with marquee gov-ernment clients,” the reportsaid.

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The country’s largest alu-minium extrusion firm

Jindal Aluminium, which con-trols over 30 per cent of thedomestic market, is increasingits focus on the defence andaerospace segments as itexpects these sectors to bemore active given the policychanges allowing private play-ers, says a senior companyofficial.

The �3,000-croreBengaluru-based companywith 52 years of history is alsothe second largest maker of alu-minium flat rolled products,producing 50,000 milliontonnes of rolled products, giv-ing it 10-12 per cent of the mar-ket; and 1,20,000 milliontonnes of extruded productsper annum. Its products reach42 countries globally, con-tributing 15-20 per cent of itstopline annually, says vice-chairman and managing direc-tor Pragun Jindal Khaitan, thegrandson of the group founderand chairman Sitaram Jindal.“While we straddle the entirespectrum of the aluminiumdownstream industry, we seelot of scope to widen our focuson the defence sector withgovernment allowing largerprivate participation in this.Another focus area is the aero-space segment, where also wesee more business coming infrom. “Currently our revenuefrom these two segments isnegligible.

We want to really play bigin these two areas,” Khaitantold PTI.

He, however, did not offera revenue target from thesenew focus areas. Currentlymost of its business come fromelectrical, electronics, facade,solar and aviation, he said.

Another focus area will bethe packaging segment andalso the metro/high-speed rails,Khaitan said. “We also want togrow by catering to the pack-aging industry as well as high-speed/metro rail systems.”

Beverage cans are a bigmarket but we will not get intomanufacturing the cans, butonly supply the raw material, hesaid.

Ruling out inorganic routeto scale up, he said they plan toincrease output gradually in amodular manner every year sothat both manpower and tech-nology go hand in hand tomeet rising demand.

Ramping up capacity withthe help of technology is whatwe are looking forward to andnot in snapping up an existingplant because mergers havetheir own cultural and inte-gration issues.

Though the pandemic-dri-ven lockdowns had hit pro-duction in the initial months ofthe first quarter, the operationsare close to 80 per cent of thepre-pandemic days now, hesaid and he expects this fiscalto be marginally better than lastyear when it had closed witha topline of �3,000 crore.

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At a time when businessesacross sectors have been

severely impacted due to theCovid-19, guest experiencecompany DigiValet’s Founderand CEO Rahul Salgia hassaid that diversification of busi-ness portfolios into hospitalsand senior living facilities,apart from hospitality andhotels helped the company“wane” the impact of the pan-demic faster than other busi-nesses.

Salgia also said that theregional diversification of thecompany’s operations acrossthe globe also helped the com-pany to wane the severe impact

of the recent slowdown.“Besides hotels we offer

solutions to hospitals, to seniorliving facilities...we offer solu-tions to serviced residences.We also have a diversifiedportfolio across other verticals.So in fact we are seeing anupsurge in a lot of requestscoming from hospitals becausethere are few groups whichwant to build more hospitals,build more capacity,” the CEOtold IANS.

“As we are diversified inour portfolio besides hospital-ity, we are able to wither (away)this situation better than fewcompanies who are complete-ly dependent on hospitality,” hesaid.

Salgia was of the view thatin the wake of the pandemicnew investments would comeinto the healthcare segment,both from the government andthe private sector and cus-tomer or patient experiencesolutions would also get majoremphasis in the process.

He said that senior living isa major portfolio for the com-pany and it is working on pro-jects globally, including inLondon, which he says wouldbe “game changing” in thesenior living segment.

On the hospitality sector,which forms a major part of thecompany’s clientele, the CEO ofDigiValet said that hotels inIndia are far ahead compared

to other sectors in terms ofadoption of technologies forguest or customer engagement.

Talking of the outlook forthe hospitality sector andhotels, which have beenamong the worst-hit busi-nesses during the pandemicand lockdowns, he was opti-mistic and said that althoughweakness and subdued busi-ness would continue for nextfew months, it will not be longenough before things return tonormal.

“As far as hospitality isconcerned, because of travelbeing restricted, the businessfor hotels is certainly impact-ed and is likely to remain sub-dued for the coming few

months....It is not going to bevery long before things aregoing to get to normal orthings would start gettingrestored.”

Earlier this month, theguest-facing technology makerlaunched ‘Thru’, an end-to-end cloud-based solution forhotel guests to complete theirentire check-in process effort-lessly from their own device,without having to downloadany app or software.

According to the company,by facilitating check-insremotely, from anywhere in theworld, Thru eliminates all con-ventional touch points that theguests and hotel staff wouldotherwise be exposed to.

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For those financial institu-tions including banks in

the country that are still hesi-tant to embark on a Cloudjourney for complete digitaltransformation due to genuineapprehensions emanating fromsafety and regulatory concerns,there is help at hand, say IBMIndia executives.

Banks know well thatembracing the Cloud ecosys-tem can open the floodgates toinnovations that can drivegrowth, increase efficienciesand more importantly, makethe customers happier.

But the sensitivity of thedata that they handle and theregulatory framework withinwhich they must operate tendto sap their confidence.

However, IBM has a Cloudservice precisely to addressthese concerns, two top exec-utives of the company said.

“The world’s first FSS(financial services sector)Cloud provided by IBM has allthese capabilities -- with theclear intent to handle highlyregulated workloads,” SubramNatarajan, Chief TechnologyOfficer, IBM India/South Asia,told IANS.

The IBM Cloud forFinancial Services offering isdesigned to enable a transpar-ent public Cloud ecosystemwith the specific features forsecurity, compliance andresiliency that financial insti-tutions require.

IBM says that banks canconfidently host their mission-critical applications in theCloud and transact quicklyand efficiently.

“As a strategy, banks maychoose to move some of theinfrastructure environmentsfor a subset of applications, tothe Cloud,” Natarajan said.

“While banks can realise

the cost benefits arising out ofthe ‘pay as you use’ models,especially for these workloads,it gives them a Hybrid Cloudenvironment to operate bothfrom on-premise as well as onpublic Cloud, interchangeably,”he added.

A Hybrid Cloud Platformwill enable users to accessmore secure, resilient infra-structure to win in the agile,scale-driven as-a-service econ-omy.

“Throughout the journey,moving the main productionenvironments can occur inphases for a select set of appli-cations. Of course, the nuancesof this strategy may vary fromone bank to another,” Natarajansaid.

According to a recent IBMInstitute for Business Value(IBV) survey, 80 per cent ofIndian survey respondentstrust their bank or other finan-cial institutions to protect their

personal information and datato a major extent.

Indeed, the research indi-cates that India’s citizens andconsumers trust their bankmore than any other organisa-tion or institution they interactwith, including their employers-- 78 per cent; their govern-ment --76 per cent; and theirhealthcare providers --73 percent.

Banks can realise the valueof the data by suitably derivingthe insights from the data andinfusing the same into the dig-ital journeys, or even use themfor making business decisions.

“The need for every bankto become more and more‘data-driven’ is evident,”Natarajan said.

“Therefore, modernisingthe data platform, that allowsthe bank to collect data fromvarious sources - inhouse andexternal, organizing it to makeit meaningful, conducting

analysis using ArtificialIntelligence /Machine Learningmethodologies to bring outinsights and finally integratingthem into the business process-es, is the way to go,” he added.

According to ArijitBonnerjee, Director - FinancialServices Sector, IBM India/South Asia, IBM has beenworking with a lot of banksboth globally and in India tohelp them adopt the next-gen-eration business model whichit calls “The CognitiveEnterprise”.

“It starts with creating theright information architectureto leverage the power of dataand then use ArtificialIntelligence to make customerinteractions more contextual,personalised, and instantlygratifying,” he said.

IBM said its Hybrid Cloudplatform generated more than$23 billion of revenue over thepast 12 months.

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Petrol prices across thefour metros rose for the

fourth straight day onSunday.

In Kolkata, petrol wassold for �83.01, higher by 14paise from its previous levelof �82.87 per litre.

Similarly, in Delhi andMumbai, price of the fuelincreased by 14 paise to�81.49 and �88.16 per litrerespectively on Sunday. Theprice of the transportationfuel in Chennai was at �84.52per litre, higher by 12 paise

from � 84.40 on Saturday.

Diesel prices are, howev-er, same across the metros. Inthe national capital, dieselprices have remained stablesince the Delhi Governmentannounced a 13.25 per centreduction in the Value AddedTax on July 30, which hadcaused the price to fall by�8.36 per litre.

Diesel is priced at �73.56a litre in the national capital.Price of the fuel in Mumbai,Chennai and Kolkata was at�80.11, �78.86 and � 77.06per litre respectively.

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The Allahabad High Courthas refused to interfere in

the FIR lodged under thePrevention of Corruption Actagainst the members of theRWA Executive Committee.

This decision will put anend to the arbitrariness of theRWA of various colonies of thestate. The High Court hasgiven this decision after hear-ing the petition of the ExecutiveCommittee of KanchenjungaRWA in Kaushambi Ghaziabaddistrict. The High Court, con-sidering the members of theRWA as public servants,refused to interfere in the FIRlodged against them. The casebelongs to the Kanjanjungaapartment in Kaushambi.

With this decision, the wayfor all 11 members of the exec-

utive committee to go to jail hasalso been cleared.

In the year 2019, on thepetition of Supreme CourtAdvocate Gaurav Goyal, theMeerut Special Court orderedthe police to register an FIRagainst the members of theKanchenjunga RWA Executiveunder the Prevention ofCorruption Act. In which

Abhishek Yadav, another advo-cate of the Supreme Court,argued in the debate that themembers of the RWAExecutive are public servants.Those who come under thePrevention of Corruption Act.If a member of RWA misusesthe association’s money for hisown benefit then it comesunder the category of crime.

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The world where we couldmove around freely withouttaking any major precau-

tions or feeling conscious doesnot exist anymore. It has nowbecome unimaginable to roamwithout a mask on the face and asanitiser in the pocket. It’s a needand not as a choice. However,with this, we definitely need tolook at how effortless it is becom-ing with each passing day as peo-ple are accepting this new acces-sory as part of the lifestyle. It’s alsoencouraging the apparel and clothmanufacturers to come up withquirky designs and trends inmaking wearable safety equip-ment and masks.

However, how to know thatthe material used for producingthese masks ensure safety?

Experts, in terms of protectiveequipment of maximum capaci-ty, have recently suggested a newmaterial — copper — to produceface masks. When we think ofmaterial that can be used to pro-tect ourselves, we are not usual-ly receptive to the idea of copperor any other metal replacing theconventional surgical mask or theN95. To clear the doubt, it isn’t ahard metal fragment shaped likea mask. It is a thin anti-microbialcopper mesh that can be designedto fit everyone.

�4�������������BThere are several reasons

why this idea is getting a newlease of life. Ever since COVID-19 began to wreak havoc acrossthe globe, scientists and acade-mics have been scurrying to theirlaboratories to bring out solutionsto fight the spread of the novelCoronavirus. When it comes totesting materials, which repelviruses effectively, studies suggestthat copper is an anti-microbialmetal and most of the viruses andbacteria diewithin afew hoursof comingin contactwith it.Some moreo b s e r v a -tions aboutthe metalindicate thats o m epathogens diewithin minutes oflanding on coppersurfaces.

According to a researchpublished in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine, the virusbecomes inactive within fourhours of coming in contact withcopper. Considering the effective-ness of this metal in killing thevirus, it would be a wise decisionfor global health institutions likeWHO, as well as governments inCOVID-19-impacted countriesto pass guidelines on the prepa-

ration of masks that contain cop-per.

���� ����������Over the past few months,

businesses have begun to useanti-microbial copper films forseveral applications at public

places, work-places andstores. Thetechnologybehind thefilm is prov-ing to beeffective inimmediatelystarting thedeactivation ofviruses like

COVID-19 andkilling them within

minutes. Since copperand its alloys have a self-

sterilising effect on anythingthat comes in contact with themetal, it is considered an apt solu-tion.

It is one of the very fewproducts approved by the US’Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA). It is being recog-nised as the best possible solutionto protect surfaces and placesexposed to people. From officedesks, door handles, elevator but-

tons to touch pads, ATMs andseveral other surfaces, the non-adhesive and adhesive variants ofcopper films are helping eliminate99.9 per cent of dangerousmicrobes. This is also helping cus-tomers do the work of alcohol-based agents like disinfectants andsanitisers more effectively.

���������� ��������When the copper material or

film comes in contact with a haz-ardous microbe, the microbe getsattracted by the copper ion. As itcould be a nutrient, it tries toabsorb it into the cell. However,the copper ion penetrates the cell

membrane and effectively createsthe loss of water and other nutri-ents. Further to this, it obliteratesother reactive or non-reactiveoxygen species, hitting at thecore of the living aspects ofmicro-organisms. The loss of allthe elements destabilises itsmetabolism, stopping the respira-

tory and reproductive activity,forcing it to perish.

��������������Going back millennia, our

ancestors passed down the tradi-tion of using copper utensils andvessels in our everyday lives fora great reason. They had identi-fied the usefulness and positiveeffects of the shiny metal onpeople’s health. Unfortunately,their utility has been minimiseddue to the proliferation of othermetals and materials, which areeither cheaper or available ubiq-uitously. Nevertheless, as a natur-al anti-biotic and microbe killer,their use can be broadened andexperimented with to derive thebest solutions.

Beyond more than hundredyears of legacy, not many areaware about how a physiciannamed Victor Burg used copperduring the Cholera epidemic. Hehad found out that copper couldbe effective in fighting the spreadof the disease. He made thisobservation after meeting asmelter who worked on copper,who most likely ingested copperand did not get affected by thedisease even after being directlyexposed to it.

Hence, with the currenthealth crisis going out of handand the numbers increasingincessantly, it is important totake this up-scale, provide cop-per-based anti-microbial solu-tions through masks or films, andspread awareness about it. Ananti-microbial copper mask isn’tdissimilar to a regular mask andthis should pique your curiosity.It has copper infused into thewearable material and manufac-turers are expecting it to be agame changer in tackling thefurther spread of novel coron-avirus.

�������� �� ���India is closing in on the three

million COVID-19 positive casesand the country is far from find-ing tangible long-term solutionsto the health crisis. Nation-widelockdown for extended durationsare not an easy option anymoreas people must adjust to the newreality. However, the govern-ment, public health institutionsand MSMEs have a tremendousopportunity at their disposal tofind ingenious ways to integratecopper-based solutions in theirfight against the Coronavirusspread. It is prudent that privateplayers get into manufacturingcopper masks, in line with ourpopulation and its requirements,while finding suitable partnerswho can democratise production,reduce its costs and make it inex-pensive and easily affordable.

(The writer is founder of waste management service, Knam Marketing.)

The film, Graham Staines, EkAnkahi Sachai: The Least of

These has been in the news for allthe right reasons. It boasts ofmany reputed Indian as well asinternational names. Based on thestartling episode where anAustralian missionary was brutal-ly murdered along with his two lit-tle sons in Odisha, the film shookthe audience to its core.

The Sharman Joshi-starrerpreviously saw a limited release inIndia as an English film but it willnow be available in Hindi, too. Thefilm marks Sharman’s maiden col-laboration with Hollywood artistessuch as Stephen Baldwin and ShariRigby, who essay the role ofGraham Staines and his wifeGladys.

The film has received wide-spread recognition for not onlyaccurately depicting an unsettlingincident but also sensitively deal-ing with the subject. The narrativeavoids pointing fingers or playingthe blame game, spreading themessage of “love over hate” even inthe darkest of times, just like its tit-ular character. An interesting triv-ia is that the project has been writ-ten in Australia, produced by anIndian-American, with musiccomposed in South Africa while itwas shot in India, making it a trulyglobal production.

Excited on his countrymengetting to watch the film in Hindi,Sharman shares, “When I read thescript, I immediately knew it wasan honest story that must be putout despite being in English. Butnow that the film premieres inHindi, there is a much larger baseof the audience that will get toexperience the struggle of GrahamStaines and the horrific crimethat occurred in his family’s life. Iplay Manav Banerjee, a journalistwho is conflicted between what isright and wrong, forced to re-examine his duties when facedwith an inconvenient truth. Thischaracter was etched out to perfec-tion and I relished portrayinghim.”

Southern star AditiChengappa, his co-star in the filmhas similar views. She says, “It hasbeen a very emotional experienceworking on this film based on apowerful, and tragic true story.Staines and his family teach usbeautifully about true compas-sion and forgiveness. This storywas waiting to be told and it hasbeen an absolute honour to be partof it. I am glad it is releasing inHindi. I hope that it reaches asmany hearts as possible.”

Prakash Belawadi, who essaysa complex character called KedarMishra in the film, says, “It’s a chal-lenge because it’s painful historyand the core issue is alive... My rolehas many shades — dark anduneasy. It was interesting for me to

explore this man and his innercompromises, as he also shares thescreen with some very talentedactors. The film will leave viewerstroubled with unanswered ques-tions which trouble us even today.It will make them think about rec-onciliation, gratitude and forgive-ness, despite the shocking content.I’m looking forward to watchingthe film with my family.”

Director Aneesh Daniel says,“I wanted to honour GrahamStaines in the best way possible andhence decided to produce a filmthat documents the incrediblechange he brought till his lastbreath. The fact that it premiereson a credible platform is a truereward to the blood and sweat eachone of us invested into the film”.

On the opportunity to joinforces with the best of India as wellas Hollywood, producer VictorAbraham comments, “Every mem-ber of our cast and crew had beenpicked with the utmost confi-dence of them enhancing ourfilm, may it be Sharman, Prakash,Stephen or the rest of this team. Allthese people and their hard workwill now reach a much largernumber of viewers. Language willno longer be a barrier for peopleto discover this true story.”

With outstanding perfor-mances, stellar direction and aninsightful story, the film will showsus stark reality but also give hope.

(The film streams onShemarooMe Box Office fromAugust 28.)

����������������An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret —

she’s homeless and living on a bus. When tragedy strikes,can she learn to accept a helping hand?

Starring Auli’i Cravalho, Justina Machado and RhenzyFeliz, the film releases on Netflix on August 28.

����������������������������Decades after the tournament that changed their

lives, the rivalry between Johnny and Daniel reignites inthis sequel to the Karate Kid films.

Starring Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, theseries releases on Netflix on August 28.

������������ ������������������������� ��������

Patel visits four countries — Mexico, Japan, SouthKorea and Denmark — and interacts with the localpopulation in a ‘man on the street’ manner to exploreconcepts like family & retirement.

The docu-series releases on HBO Max on August 27.

8 � ! ! � 0

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Every human being in this world makes life-long effortsto attain eternal happiness or ever-lasting peace. In fact,

man’s all actions are directed towards the achievement of thisgoal. But the great turmoil and unrest in the world, despiteall efforts, makes one ask: What really is the way to realisethis universal aim? Very few of us know about a fact that thesource of true happiness lies not merely in material objects,rather it springs from the equanimity of mind; it comes bystabilising the mind in theself. We all know well that ifa man’s mind is disturbed,then even the choicest dish-es served to him, great hon-our showered on him andeven a grand receptionaccorded to him, would betasteless. Moreover, man’sindulgence into sense-objectsor his acts of consumingmaterial things ‘consume’him also in the process, forwe all observe that, gradual-ly, man’s physical organsbecome unserviceable, hisframe becomes frail andweak, his senses become fee-ble, his body becomes wearied and outworn, the sap of hislife gets sipped up and the zest and vigour spent up. We alsonotice that one man likes an object fondly whereas this samething is an anathema to other. He wants to get rid of it assoon as possible. Does this not prove that happiness is notdependent upon or proportionate to the material objects onecan store up, rather it has its bearing on one’s mental atti-tude and one’s inner state of being.

We observe that wordly objects are constantly changing;by their very nature they are ephemeral. So how can thatwhich has no permanence, be a source of constant peace orpermanent happiness? Furthermore, we all know from ourown experiences and that of others that man spends his wholelife-time in acquiring objects, storing them up, making themfit for consumption, then consuming them up and, if by forceof circumstances, arising from his past actions, he loses theseobjects, these same things become a cause for mental agony.

The above analysis is not meant to lead one to concludethat man should not work to fulfill his material needs. Aslong as one has physical existence, one will require all thematerialistic things such as food, clothes, shelter and more.If one does not have these, the unfulfilled material needs canupset a man’s mind. Passivity would gradually lead to sloth,which is a vice too. So what was meant to be conveyed inthe foregoing paragraph was that the pursuit of objects oramassing of wealth alone does not lead one to the fulfillmentof the urge for eternal. Rather, one requires health, mentalrest, calmness and good relations with other beings also.

All of the above things depend on what kind of actionswe do. As they say, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” Hence,man cannot escape the result of what he has done. Whetherone is a saint or a sinner, one has to reap his karma — thisis an inviolable rule. For instance, don’t we see that, when aman loses his temper in his dealings with others, his mindsuffers unrest. His anger results in more tension. Thus, hegets caught up in the whirl of confusion and frustration. Soone can rightly conclude that the sinful acts, committed inour past lives are the source of pain, and the root of it all liesin our mind.

Experience has shown that yoga is the only way that onecan take to purify one’s mind as it brings calmness. It destroysthe seeds of sufferings that lie in the mind in the form of laten-cies. A number of studies have shown that yoga may helpreduce stress and anxiety. It can also enhance your mood andoverall sense of well-being. Improved fitness. Practicing yogamay lead to improved balance, flexibility, range of motionand strength. It provides to man happiness, which is notdependent on material objects.

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Picture a university offering acourse in advanced robotics. Ofcourse, there would be scores of

other universities offering the samecourse. Now imagine all the aforemen-tioned varsities collaborating to formu-late a single unified course on advancedrobotics and making it digitally acces-sible at zero cost. This is the rise of rev-olutionary education technology.Through state-of-the-art, cutting edgee-learning platforms that rely on dis-ruptive technological innovations suchas Artificial Intelligence (AI) andMachine Learning (ML), the educationindustry is witnessing a tremendousparadigm shift. A transformation soexpansive and ubiquitous, it may for-ever change the way we perceiveknowledge systems and pedagogy.

One of the primary stakeholders inthe educational structure besides stu-dents, of course, is the teachers.Introducing complex subject courses tostudents, making them graspable, test-ing and evaluating them while alsobeing responsible for their holisticdevelopment — the role of a teacher isno walk in the park. Their job is nolonger restricted to diffusing knowl-edge and conducting tests and parent-teacher meetings. With the changingsocial formation and the advancementsin science and technology, the role ofeducation, and especially that of theteachers, has undergone a tremendoustransformation as well.

KEEPING UP WITH FAST TIMESThe teachers of today need to

simultaneously diversify and demarcatetheir methods of instruction usingdata-driven teaching processes. Theyalso need to attend to the various con-

ditional and personal predicaments ofthe pupils and fill the various condi-tional and societal chinks in the stu-dent’s armor. Add to that the respon-sibility of prepping them up for thedynamic 21st-century living order.Modern-day pedagogy must streamlineand readapt itself if it has to keep upwith the current fast-paced, metamor-phosing age of technological disrup-tion.

EVOLUTION IS THE NAME OFTHE GAME

Technology, the driving forcebehind the countless reconstructionsand re-envisioning of all modernsocial avenues has, sure enough, etchedits evolutionary mark on the pedagog-ical paradigm as well. Learning hasundergone a sea change. Teachers areno longer restricted to the part ofknowledge enforcers and students areno longer the passive receptacles of thedidactic transmission. Schools are nolonger buildings molded out of brickcement and mortar and classes are nolonger the stereotypical settings of afour-walled 2-D space consisting ofblack-boarded pointers and white-chalked memories.

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE END-LESS

With unprecedented advance-ments in technological innovationand scientific know-how, the educationsector has literally become a play-ground of equal participation andmutual coordination. Through a syn-ergised interloping of resources andlabor, school learning has become avista of vast promise and intelligentcooperation. Through a personalised

approach that is centered on first-handexperience and practical application,teachers can deliver even the mostcomplex of subject matters in a lucidfashion. The students, as a result, ben-efit remarkably.

THE ENCHANTMENTThe newly emergent ed-tech plat-

forms have massively empowered bothteachers as well as the students. Teacherstoday can improve upon their subsist-ing intellectual and academic facultiesthrough the path-breaking innovationsproffered through these new-age learn-ing tools. They can also address an indef-initely greater number of studentsthrough the online visual and audio

mediums without being bound by theconstraints of a conventional class-room.

All that is needed is a computer andan internet connection. Even a single ele-mentary level online lesson can imploreand enrich countless young learners,many of them bereft of basic privileges.EdTech can go a long way in helpingthese youthful and deserving mindsfrom remote and backward areas of thecountry, that have no or very little accessto the basic constitutional right to edu-cation.

DARE TO DREAM AND DREAM TODARE

EdTech also makes learning a

smoothened process where teacherscan utilise highly interactive and relat-able audio-visual motifs. Thus, teachingbecomes a more efficient and effectivesystem, which calls upon the engage-ment quotient of various technologicalmodels and innovations. Online learn-ing is a contemporary realisation of theage-old Socratic vision i.e. the triumphof practical experiential-based learningover the uni-dimensional and didactictheory-based learning.

By inculcating AI and other revo-lutionary tech innovations within thepedagogical system, the teacher canteach more and the student too can learnmore in an engaging and enjoyable man-ner. EdTech has admittedly great poten-tial in transforming the learning land-scape in India. The government’s digi-tal India initiative and the consequen-tial growth in technology and infrastruc-ture hold endless possibilities of hopeand betterment in providing optimisededucation and growth opportunities toevery Indian. After all, technology, inessence, is built to enhance the currentscope of things while complimenting thephysical world in its pursuit of the ideal.

(The author is the Regional Director,ONVU Learning, Onvu Technologies.

On July 20, the Chhattisgarhgovernment launched the

Godhan Nyay Yojana underwhich cow dung will be pro-cured from livestock owners forproduction of organic fertilis-ers. As per the scheme, the gov-ernment will buy cow dungfrom registered livestock own-ers at �2 per kg and, after pro-cessing it into vermicompost,sell it to farmers for �8 per kg.Through this scheme, the gov-ernment aims at giving a boostto its rural economy and creat-ing employment opportunitiesbesides promoting organicfarming.

��4� ���������������Launched on the auspi-

cious day of Hareli Parva (a folkfestival celebrated by farmers incentral India by worshippingthe tools and animals used infarming), this scheme bringsnew hopes for agriculturalistsand livestock owners.Implemented by theDepartment of Agriculture andGram Panchayats, the schemeinvolves collection of cow dung

by the Gauthan (cow shelter)Committee and Self-HelpGroups (SHGs) in each village.To be eligible to sell the dung,the beneficiaries are required toregister themselves at the com-mittee after which they aregiven a balance sheet. Thequantity of dung sold at thecentre is recorded in this sheetand is used to make paymentdirectly to the beneficiary’sbank account.

Trained by the Departmentof Agriculture, SHGs have acrucial role to play in the suc-cessful execution of thisscheme. These all-womengroups are responsible forpreparing the vermicompostusing the procured cow dung.

Large tanks of 1000 kg capac-ity are being constructed in allthe existing and forthcomingcow shelters. A 1000 kg of cowdung produces 700 kg of ver-micompost in approximately 45days. After the quality check ofthe compost by agricultureauthorities, packages of two,five and 30 kg are created andsold at the decided rate. Withthis, farmers of the state, whoare currently purchasing chem-ical fertilisers at expensiveprices and are using them in thefields, are expected to shift toorganic fertilisers.

�����������5���������The initial response to the

scheme has been promising

specially by the farmers andlivestock owners as the dunghas now become a source ofadditional income. From thedate of launch till August 1, atotal of 82,711 quintal dungwas sold by 46,964 livestockowners to 4,140 cow shelters inthe state. At the rate of �2 perkg, the government has given�1,65,000,00 to the sellers. InKanker district alone, 2,221registered sellers had sold morethan 2,500 quintal of dung inthe first 15 days of the imple-mentation of the scheme.“Earlier, we were not botheredmuch about cow dung butnow we make sure that we col-lect it and sell it to the GauthanCommittee,” shared Shamita

Uikey, a resident of Haatkondalvillage in Durgukondal block.

Not owning any cattle has-n’t prevented farmer Rati RamKumeti of Mungwal village inBhanupratappur developmentblock from benefitting fromthe scheme. “After completingmy farming chores, I roamaround the village and collectcow dung. This way, I am ableto sell 70-80 kg to the commit-tee,” shared Rati Ram.

According to MaheshMandavi, President of theGauthan Committee inGovanda village, Durgukondalblock, “Earlier, livestock own-ers could earn by selling onlycow’s milk but through thisscheme, they are able to earn

some additional income byselling cow dung.”

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The scheme has not onlyassured an additional incomeof �1500 to 2000 per month tothe farmers and livestock own-ers but it has also made it eas-ier for them to purchase anduse organic manure. Earlier, itwould take them three monthsto compost manure using cowdung. The lack of trainingand knowledge resulted in lowquality manure. Through thisscheme, they are able to savetime and provide good quali-ty organic manure to the soilthus maintaining its fertilityand health. In urban areas, theprocured cow dung will also beutilised for manufacturingother products like incensesticks, pots, lamps, idols etc.

This “first of its kind”scheme has the potential ofbecoming a game-changer inthe field of agriculture and cat-tle rearing. Other than improv-ing the rural economy, thisscheme can have long termimpact on animal husbandry,organic farming and the envi-ronment, if implementedproperly taking into confi-dence the entire farmer com-munity of the state.

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UEFA President AleksanderCeferin will hold talks

about retaining the single-gameeliminator format that has beenused to complete the pandem-ic-disrupted Champions Leagueand Europa League seasons,although it could only be usedfor semifinals.

In an interview with TheAssociated Press on Sunday,Ceferin said people inside andoutside of football had contact-ed him to say they were“extremely excited” by the finaleight format that abandoned thehome-and-away two-leggedquarterfinals and semifinals.

“I have to say that this sys-tem of one match seems moreinteresting to me than the othersystem with two legged match-

es,” Ceferin told the AP ahead ofParis Saint-Germain playingBayern Munich in theChampions League final.

Ceferin stressed he wouldconsult widely before pushingfor any permanent changes tothe format. “It’s one of the inter-esting things that was brought bythis pandemic,” Ceferin said.

“We had to do a system like that.We had to play this way, but atthe end, we see it’s a very inter-esting system.

“Now, it’s quite complicatedto place a final eight in the cal-endar. But we saw that peoplewant exciting matches, that inone match, every team can beatevery team in Champions

League or the Europa League. Soit’s something to consider for thefuture ... I think in September orOctober, we have to start to seri-ously speak.”

Ceferin isn’t concerned thatremoving the number of knock-out games could have a signifi-cant financial impact. “Eventhough you have less matches,the value can be higher if pro-moted properly,” he said.

Gathering eight teams inLisbon to conclude theChampions League appearedto be only feasible because nofans were allowed in the two sta-diums as part of coronavirusrestrictions, meaning thePortuguese authorities have nothad to deal with rival factionsgathering in the streets.

A final four format could bemore practical to adopt in a sin-

gle city over a week to create aSuper Bowl-style buzz.

“You are in the center ofattention for a week of thewhole world and this might bea fantastic thing, but we have tosee,” Ceferin said. “The calendaris very complicated, players playalmost 365 days per year. So wehave to see how we do it, if wedo it.

“But again, I think it’s aninteresting format, which wedidn’t think about before andnow it’s somewhere here in ourmind. So we will start dis-cussing about it when we meet.”

UEFA has already beenexploring how to change theChampions League format after2024. The final eight system hasalso been used to conclude theEuropa League and Women’sChampions League this month.

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Legendary batsman SunilGavaskar has described the

current Indian Test side underVirat Kohli as the best ever,saying that the lethal bowlingattack makes it more balancedthan the teams of earlier eras.

Under Kohli, Indiareached the top of ICC Testrankings and the team is cur-rently at number one spot inthe World Test Championshipstandings. The highlight of theteam’s success is the first Testseries win in Australia in2018-19 tour.

“I believe this team is thebest ever Indian Test team interms of balance, in terms ofability, in terms of skills, interms of temperament. Can’tthink of a better Indian Testteam,” Gavaskar said duringthe India Today’s e-ConclaveInspiration series.

Gavaskar said what standsout in the current team is the“varied bowling attack” whichcan win matches on any sur-face, irrespective of the con-ditions.

“This team has the attackto win on any surface. It does-n’t need any help in condi-tions...They can win on anysurface. Batting-wise therewere teams in 1980s that werepretty similar. But they didn’thave the bowlers that Virathas,” the former captain said.

Talking further about the

world-class bowlers India cur-rently has, Gavaskar said,“Definitely without a question,India has got such a variedbowling attack today and thatis so essential. There is a say-ing that ‘if you don’t take 20wickets you won’t win amatch’.

“We have got the bowlingto take 20 Australian wicketson 1 run less than what Indiahas scored,” said the 71-year-old Gavaskar, who scored10122 runs from 125 Testsbetween 1971 and 1987.

While India have alwayshad skilled batsmen and greatspinners, it has been the devel-opment of a clutch of world-class fast bowlers like JaspritBumrah, Mohammed Shami,Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadavand Bhuvneshwar Kumar thathas made it the world’s topteam in recent years.

On the current battingline-up, Gavaskar said thecurrent Indian Test team canscore more runs than the likesof Australia, which leads theICC Test team rankings.

“You need to score runsalso. We saw that in Englandin 2018. We saw that in SouthAfrica in 2017 when we wentthere. We got 20 wickets everytime but we didn’t scoreenough runs.

“But now I think we havealso got the batting to be ableto score more runs thanAustralians.”

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Steve Smith on Sunday saidhe’ll miss being jeered and

heckled by English crowds dur-ing their upcoming limited-overs tour, admitting the boo-ing motivates him to do better.

The master Australian bats-man bore the brunt of the hos-tile English fans on their tripthere last year after returningfrom a ban for ball-tampering.

But he thrived on the tauntsand potshots, scoring an incred-ible 774 runs in four Tests, at anaverage 110.57, including twincenturies on his Test return at

Edgbaston.“I do like batting there,

unfortunately there’s going to beno crowd there to egg me onand give me a bit more motiva-tion,” he said at Sydney airporten route to Perth, from wherethe team will fly to England.

“Still, there’s going to beplenty of eyes on the TV and itis going to be great to be backout there playing.”

Australia’s 21-man squadwill initially quarantine inDerby before the first of threeT20s in Southampton onSeptember 4 in empty stadiums.

They also play three ODIs

at Manchester, with both venueshaving hotels attached so theycan remain in bio-secure bub-bles.

“I’m looking forward togetting back into it, obviouslyit’s going to be a bit differentthan what we’re used to beingin a bubble and playing with nocrowds,” Smith said.

“That presents a challengein itself, but one we’re lookingforward to. We’re lucky to beable to go and play, we’ll just dowhat we need to and play it dayby day, stick together as abunch and help each otherout,” added the former captain.

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Britain’s Andy Murray madea triumphant ATP come-

back on Saturday, defeatingFrances Tiafoe 7-6 (8/6), 3-6, 6-1 in his first match of 2020 atthe Western & Southern Open.

The 33-year-old Scotsmanadvanced in hot and humidconditions to a second-rounddate with German fifth seedAlexander Zverev at the Covid-19 quarantine bubble that willalso be used for the US Open,which starts on August 31.

Former world No 1Murray, now ranked 129th,suffered a pelvic injury at theDavis Cup last November andthat, combined with the pan-demic shutdown, kept him outof competition until he faced22-year-old Tiafoe in a meet-ing of wildcard entrants.

“I thought I moved welltoday,” Murray said. “That wasprobably the thing I was mosthappy with and probably thething I was most apprehensiveabout going into the match. Mytennis could have been better.I did some things well at theend, but I could definitelyimprove in terms of my game.”

Murray broke Tiafoe for a2-0 lead in the third set whenthe American missed a volley,broke again to 5-1 with a back-hand return winner and held atlove to finish matters after twohours and 28 minutes.

With no spectators inattendance at National TennisCenter Grandstand court,Murray said he missed theboost that fans can provide, and

he had to make a consciouseffort to early in the third setto energize himself with fistpumps and the like. “Thathelped a bit,” he said.

Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime appeared to be at aloss as his 6-4, 6-1 victory overNikoloz Basilashvili concluded,with no crowd to cheer orgroan when Basilashvili burieda forehand in the net on matchpoint.

Fellow Canadian DenisShapovalov, the 12th seed,closed out the day’s actionwith a brisk 6-3, 6-3 victoryover former US Open champi-on Marin Cilic.

YASTREMSKA OUSTS VENUSWomen’s play began with a

rematch of the Shenzhen finalin January and another upset asRussia’s Ekaterina Alexandrovatoppled ninth seed ElenaRybakina 7-5, 7-6(6).

Croatian 15th seed DonnaVekic was also a first-roundcasualty, falling 6-2, 6-3 totwice Australian Open cham-pion Victoria Azarenka.

The tournament also lostone of its marquee names when13th- seeded Greek MariaSakkari dispatched Coco Gauff6-1, 6-3 to spoil the 16-year-oldAmerican’s Western andSouthern debut.

After a run to theLexington semi-finals last weekGauff was put under pressureby her Greek opponent, com-mitting 24 unforced errors andhitting only six winners.

Amanda Anisimova easedto a 6-3, 6-3 victory in an all-American clash against 11thseed Alison Riske, while seven-time Slam champion VenusWilliams was another high-profile casualty as she fell toUkrainian 16th seed DayanaYastremska 5-7, 6-2, 7-5.

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Legendary South African all-rounder Jaques Kallis,

Pakistan batting great ZaheerAbbas and Pune-born formerAustralian captain LisaSthalekar were on Sundayinducted into the InternationalCricket Council’s Hall of Famein a virtual ceremony.

Among the finest all-rounders to play the game,Kallis represented South Africain 166 Tests, 328 ODIs and 25T20s between 1995 and 2014.

The 44-year-old is Proteas’highest run-getter in Tests andODIs with 13289 and 11579runs respectively. He alsopicked up 292 and 273 wicketsin Tests and ODIs as a fastbowler.

Remarkably, he is the onlyplayer to score at least 10,000runs and take at least 250 wick-

ets in both Test and ODI crick-et.

“It is something that I neverexpected when I started play-ing. I certainly did not play thegame for any accolades or any-thing like that, I only wanted towin the games for whoever Iwas playing for,” Kallis said.

“But it is nice to be recog-

nised when one has succeededin the sport, it is nice to berecognised by people for some-thing that you have achieved inthe game, something that I amreally proud of.”

Kallis is the fourth SouthAfrican player to be inductedinto the Hall of Fame andAbbas the sixth from Pakistan.

Sthalekar is the 27th fromAustralia and the ninth womanplayer in the list, which includesfive from her country.

In all, 93 players have beeninducted so far under the sys-tem, which sees retired playersbecome eligible five years afterplaying their last internationalmatch.

Gavaskar, who himself wasinducted into the elite club in2009 and attended the virtualceremony, spoke highly ofKallis.

“He is a colossus. The wordfits him like a glove. No praiseis too high for this colossus.Very well deserved to be in thisICC Hall of Fame,” saidGavaskar.

Gavaskar was also all praisefor women’s cricket greatSthalekar.

“It is good to have another‘Kar’ in the ICC Hall of Fame.

Well done. You are an inspira-tion, not just in Australia alsoin India (as she was born there).

Sthalekar representedAustralia in eight Tests, 125ODIs and 54 T20s.

“I am deeply humbled toreceive this honour. Never inmy wildest dreams did I believethat I would ever get to joinsuch an illustrious group ofplayers,” she said.

The third cricketer to befeted in the ceremony wasAbbas, hailed as the ‘AsianBradman’.

Abbas played 78 Tests and62 ODIs for Pakistan, accumu-lating 5062 and 2572 runsrespectively. He averaged over40 in both the formats.

The 73-year-old is the onlyplayer from Asia to have scoredat least a 100 first-class hun-dreds and the first one to scorethree successive ODI hundreds.

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Indian batting great SunilGavaskar has said that he

would have loved to bat likecurrent limited overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma.

Gavaskar, who was thefirst batsman to reach 10,000career runs in Test cricket,said that circumstances anda “lack of confidence” in hisability stopped him fromdoing that in his playingdays.

“The way you see a RohitSharma opening the battingin one-day cricket, Test crick-et, smashing from the firstover. That is what I wanted toplay. Circumstances and ofcourse lack of confidence in

my ability did not allow meto do that,” Gavaskar toldIndia Today.

“But when I see the nextgeneration doing it, I amabsolutely over the moon, Ilove watching the next gen-eration because there yousee progress. You see howthey are setting the bar high-er for the next generation.”

Gavaskar was known toput a price on his wicket,playing long innings andanchoring the Indian bat-ting lineup during his illus-trious career. Rohit on theother hand is known for histendency to decimate bowl-ing attacks and is often ratedas the best limited overs bats-man in the world.

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Pakistan captain Azhar Alikept England at bay withan unbeaten 82 in the

third Test at Southampton onSunday.

At tea on the third dayPakistan were 158-5 — still ahuge 425 runs behindEngland’s mammoth firstinnings 583-8 declared.

But Azhar, who had onlymanaged 38 runs in three pre-vious innings this series, was insight of a hundred, havingbecome just the fifth Pakistanbatsman to have scored 6,000Test runs.

Together with wicketkeep-er Mohammad Rizwan (22not out) he had shared anunbroken stand of 83 afterPakistan had collapsed to 75-5.

JIMMY EYES 600The duo also halted

England great JamesAnderson’s charge towardsbecoming the first paceman totake 600 Test wickets.

It looked like the 38-year-old was well on his way withsuperb lunch figures of 4-21from 11 overs taking him to597 Test wickets and leavingPakistan in the dire position of41-4.

But Pakistan fought backby scoring 117 runs for the lossof just Fawad Alam in Sunday’ssecond session.

The 35-year-old Azhar, inhis 81st match at this level,joined an elite Pakistan groupfeaturing Younis Khan, thecurrent batting coach, JavedMiandad, Inzamam-ul-Haqand Mohammad Yousuf tohave reached the milestone of6,000 Test runs.

England, pressing for theirfirst series win over Pakistan ina decade at 1-0 up in a three-match campaign, resumed intotal command with thetourists 24-3.

Anderson needed just six

balls Sunday to remove AsadShafiq, the batsman’s poorseries continuing when, onfive, he limply edged toEngland captain Joe Root atfirst slip.

England thought they hadAzhar, on 21, caught behind off

a fearsome 91 mph ball fromfast bowler Jofra Archer thatrose steeply.

But umpire RichardIllingworth’s not out decisionwas upheld when a challengerevealed the ball had brushedAzhar’s shoulder — a move

that meant England had usedup all three of their reviews inthe innings.

There was no need fortechnology when Alam, whosenear 11-year wait for a Testrecall ended with a four-ballduck in the drawn second Testat Southampton, fell for 21.

Pakistan were now 75-5but Azhar clipped Archer offhis pads for four to go to 6,000

Test runs and a sim-ilar boundary sawthe under-pressureskipper to a 137-ballfifty.

Both fours were applaud-ed by Azhar’s team-mates inthe Pakistan dressing room,with this match, as has beenthe case with all internation-als in England this season,being played behind closeddoors because of the coron-avirus.

England’s imposing totalwas built on a fifth-wicketpartnership of 359 betweenZak Crawley and Buttler,whose hundred was just hissecond century in 47 Tests.

��4� �� � Former captainBhaichung Bhutia says Indianfootball teams must strive to reg-ularly qualify for the Asian Cupand FIFA youth World Cups ifthey are to become a force toreckon with in the continent.

Bhutia stressed on theimportance of continuously pro-ducing quality players for thenational team by focussing onthe grassroots.

“For the national team, weneed to keep producing goodquality players. We do havegood players at the moment butif we want to compete with thebest in Asia, we need to keepproducing bigger and betterplayers,” Bhutia told AIFF TV.

“AIFF has focused on grass-roots a lot. We need to bestrong at the grassroots and weare working on it.

“Our target for the nation-al teams should be qualifying forthe AFC Asian Cup and theFIFA youth World Cups on aregular basis.”

According to him, anincrease in the number ofmatches and exposure tourshas helped the Indian footballteam improve its ranking inrecent years.

“We had fewer games incomparison and often would getdrawn against tough teams inqualification games. Players noware getting many more match-es and so much exposure. It hashelped them to improve and getbetter over time,” he stated. PTI

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Jos Buttler is convinced ZakCrawley’s double-century

against Pakistan will be thecurtain-raiser “to a very spe-cial career” after sharing a hugestand with his England team-mate during the second day ofthird Test.

Crawley converted anovernight 171 not out, hisfirst Test century, into aninnings of 267.

Together with Buttler,whose 152 was just his secondhundred at this level, he put on359 runs — an England recordfor the fifth wicket.

At the age of just 22,

Crawley has now posted thetenth highest score by anEngland batsman in 143 yearsof Test history.

“It’s a pleasure to watchhim from the other end,”Buttler told reporters. “He hitsthe ball incredibly hard, hasshots all around the wicket andhe’s a great kid to bat with.

“It’s the start of a very spe-cial career. He’s going to scorea few more hundreds forEngland, no doubt. This willgive him a huge amount ofconfidence, but an innings ofthat magnitude will give himso much more belief. He’s gota level head too and he won’tget ahead of himself.”

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Former Pakistan fastbowler Shoaib Akhtar

slammed the team for theirperformance against Englandin the decisive third Testbetween the two sides under-way at the Ageas Bowl.

Pakistan looked to be incontrol for much of the firsttwo sessions of the first daybefore they lost control of thematch due to an epic 359-runstand for the fifth wicketbetween Zak Crawley (267)and Jos Buttler (152).

“I have seen the attitudeof aggressive bowlers, theyhave the intent of takingwickets. I do not know whatis being taught to the currentbowlers of Pakistan. There isno method, Naseem Shahkeeps on bowling at just onearea, there are no slowerballs or bouncers,” Akhtarsaid on his Youtube channel.

“I don’t know why there

is a lack of aggression, we arenot net bowlers, we are play-ing Test matches,” Akhtaradded.

“Our players do notunderstand that when you donot have the right mindset,you would not succeed.Pakistan looked like a veryordinary team, the way weare playing, it is looking likewe will face our biggestdefeat on foreign soil since2006,” Akhtar said.

Shoaib in a tweet alsoquestioned the team’s deci-sion to send in Babar Azamtowards the end of the sec-ond day instead of a night-watchman. Babar becamethe third man to fall to JamesAnderson and his wicketwas the last act of the day.

“It is a very embarrassingperformance from Pakistan,I was very hopeful of our sideperforming well in the series.Pakistan is looking like a clubteam,” he said.

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