ˇ-˘ 0 1˛2 - / /- 0 ,- .˘$# &, / ˙ 75.8 .!*-496 ’89+. ’8 ...€¦ · punjab, haryana,...

16
T he Centre and States are headed for a major con- frontation on the implementa- tion of the National Population Register (NPR). After Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal and Left-led Kerala Governments refused to implement the NPR approved by the Union Cabinet last week, the Congress- ruled States too are set to reject it in its existing format. Launching a fresh offensive against the Modi Government, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi likened the NPR and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to demoneti- sation, and said these exercis- es are a “tax” on the poor, who will suffer the same way they did after the note ban in November 2016. A senior Congress leader told The Pioneer that the party- led State Governments would not implement the NPR since it seeks to extract details sim- ilar to the NRC. The Congress leadership has questioned the very motive of the Government to seek details like declaration of “date and place of birth of both parents” for the first time in the NPR forms. Sources said party has asked its Chief Ministers to reject the NPR. The Congress Governments in States have already criticised the contro- versial CAA and NRC that led to mass mobilisation and protests across the country during the last fortnight. A formal announcement is likely to be made when the party conducts flag marches across the country for its “Save India, Save Constitution” on Saturday coinciding with the grand old party’s foundation day. Then Minister of State for Home in the UPA Government Ajay Maken on Friday charged the Centre with working on the NRC across the country in the garb of the NPR. Home Minister Amit Shah has clarified that there is no link between the NPR and the NRC. “NPR is register of pop- ulation, NRC is register of cit- izens. There is no link between the two and the two have dif- ferent processes,” Shah said in an interview with a news agency early this week. Maken sought to buttress the point by citing that the NPR forms are seeking information like mobile numbers of all family members and driving licence details which had not been sought when the NPR was last conducted in the 2010-11 by the UPA Government. Maken also rejected the Government’s contention that these details were to be shared voluntarily and not mandato- rily. “The NPR forms have an ambiguous ‘if available’ clause. Anybody who does not share these details would run the risk of his citizenship being deemed doubtful,” Maken explained to The Pioneer. Asserting that the NRC has always been on the BJP’s agenda, Maken pointed out that way back in 2003 when the NDA was in power it had brought out an amendment in the Citizenship Act seeking to make registration of every cit- izen compulsory. “When the Congress came to power in 2004, there was a pilot project carried out in a union territory with a small population of 3.1 million. We junked it, though the BJP had sought to implement it across the country, as it was found that less than half of the residents could produce valid docu- ments. Most of them were poor who had no means to be in possession of documentary proof of citizenship,” the Congress leader pointed out. In the last NPR, data was collected on 15 criteria. This time data on 21 points will be collected. S evere cold wave conditions continued unabated in sev- eral parts of north and central India on Friday with Delhi breaking a 22-year-old record. The minimum temperature was recorded at 4.2 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal in Delhi. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicts some relief in the region from December 31 onwards. Severe cold wave conditions have been recorded for 14 con- tinuous days so far, surpassing 13 continuous days in 1997. According to the IMD, from December 29-30, the wind direction will change from northwesterly to easterly, which is likely to reduce cold wave. In its daily weather report, the IMD said due to the per- sistence of cold northwesterly winds in the lower levels over northwest India and other favourable meteorological con- ditions, “cold day to severe cold day conditions” are very likely over many pockets of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, north Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh for the next two days. North-East and central India has been reeling under a spell of severe cold wavw con- ditions over the last week. The IMD also predicted snowfall in middle and high hills from December 31 to January 2. The IMD said a fresh western disturbance is very likely to affect the western Himalayan region from December 30 night onwards and this will bring rain and thunderstorm in isolated pock- ets of north, northwest and central India. “Dense fog at isolated pockets is also very likely over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, north Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh during next three days and over north Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and Odisha during next two days and over northeastern India during next 4-5 days and abate thereafter,” it said. Under the western distur- bance, major parts of northwest and central India are likely to experience fairly widespread rainfall accompanied with hail- storm at isolated places during December 31-January 1, it said. T he country’s commercial capi- tal on Friday witnessed two massive rallies at two historic venues — August Kranti Maidan and Azad Maidan — in favour of and against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) respec- tively. With the BJP putting up an impressive show of strength in sup- port of the CAA and the Joint Action Committee (JAC) for Social Justice staging a numerically effec- tive protest against the law. With no let-up in the protests against the CAA and the National Register for Citizens (NRC), the BJP — operating under the banner of “Samvidhan Sanman Manch” — held a large rally in support of the CAA at the August Kranti Maidan on a day when the JAC for Social Justice — a body of activists, stu- dents and social groups — flexed its muscles against the CAA and the NRC in Azad Maidan. Friday’s was the third protest organised by various bodies against the CAA and the NRC in the metropolis in the last fortnight, while the BJP-affiliated organisa- tions have organised so far two ral- lies — including the one held on Friday — in support of the CAA. Though the protest organised by JAC for Social Justice was not of the mammoth scale as the one held at the August Kranti Maidan on August 19 when several Bollywood celebrities had turned up, Friday’s rally at Azad Maiden drew a large number of people from various sections of society. T he Mig-27 fighter jets, which played a crucial role during the 1999 Kargil War, bid adieu to the Indian Air Force on Friday after 35 years of active service. These jets “Bahadur” flew their last sor- tie at Jodhpur airbase before getting decommissioned. Air Marshal SK Ghotia, Chief of South Western Command, who was present at the event, said, the plane has been at the frontline and proved its worth in the Kargil War. Jodhpur airbase had the squadron of seven MiG-27s and they participated in the final fly-past there. The IAF also tweeted a poem on the emotional event and said it salutes the mighty MiG-27 for its yeoman service to the nation. #AdieuMiG27 Her targets met. Her promises kept. And all her duties done, On she goes. All haloed and pretty. Into the setting sun. IAF spokesperson Anupam Banerjee, who flew missions in MIG-27 during the Kargil War, described the moment as very emotional. The last fleet of the MiG- 27 was escort-landed by the Sukhoi Su-30, followed by the traditional water cannon salute, officials said. To mark this his- toric occasion, a team of Surya Kiran aircraft put on an air show with an acrobatic display in various formations. These swing wing Mig-27 jets played an important role strafing high-altitude targets on mountain sides during the Kargil War. These helped the Army to climb these heights as the Pakistanis till then were dominating. In fact, the IAF lost one MIG-27 during those missions when Flight Lieutenant K Nachiketa, who was flying one jet, had to eject after his engine failed after a hit by ground fire. He was captured by the Pakistanis and returned to India some days later. After being inducted, as many as 165 MiG-27s were assembled at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with a small number signifi- cantly upgraded jets entering service from 2006 onwards. It is these jets which were decom- missioned. Older variants of the MiG-27, including the MiG-23 have already stopped operating. The MIG-27 weighing about 20 tonnes performed exceptionally well at low alti- tudes and carried out gun, bomb and missile attacks. The GsH-6-30 gun of the jet remains the most powerful cannon ever installed on an IAF fighter, capable of spewing out a whopping 4,000-6,000 rounds per minute. T he ceasefire violations from Pakistan have more than doubled as compared to last year’s figure, mirroring the tension between the two neigh- bours. Pakistan has regularly violated ceasefire on the 750- km long Line of Control (LoC), especially after August 5 when Article 370 was abrogated. Till date this year, more than 3,200 violations have taken place along the LoC with Pakistan trying to domi- nate and push in terrorists during the firing. The violations figure for the last year is 1,610. Moreover, since August 5 more than 900 violations took place, officials said here on Friday. On the current situation on the LoC, they said the Pakistan Army is keeping the border “hot’ by relentless firing in sectors, including Aknoor and Poonch in Jammu region, and Uri, Keran, Gurez and Tangdhar in Kashmir region. They also admitted the fir- ing is unlikely to come down in the coming days as Pakistan after having failed to foment trouble in the Kashmir Valley following the abrogation of Article 370 is resorting to violations in an effort to dom- inate. Given the topography of the LoC, Pakistan is in advan- tageous position militarily in Poonch and Rajouri sectors. A mid tight security arrangements, with drones keeping an eye from the sky, the Friday prayers passed off peacefully in Uttar Pradesh with no untoward incident reported from anywhere after last week’s anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests that left 19 dead. “The entire State was peaceful,” Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police OP Singh told reporters in Lucknow. The State was placed under a thick security cover with deployment of central paramilitary forces in sensitive areas. As a precautionary measure, Internet services which were resumed after nearly a week, were suspended again in over 20 of the 75 UP districts, including Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Agra to check rumour-mon- gering, officials said. Drones were also used to keep a vigil, particularly in areas where violence had broken out last week after Friday prayers. Protesters had hurled stones at policemen and set vehicles on fire. Reports from Moradabad, Amroha and Hathras districts said the juma namaz was offered at vari- ous mosques and the congregations dis- persed peacefully. In Lucknow, a heavy deployment of paramilitary force personnel was seen out- side the historic Tiley Wali Masjid in the Old City area. In Ajmer, a large number of Muslims, including khadims of the Ajmer dargah, took out a protest march and burnt an effigy of Deewan Zainul Abedin Ali Khan, the spiritual head of the dargah, accusing him of misleading Muslims on the issue of the amended Citizenship Act. A mid country-wide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said no one would be stripped of their citizenship and accused the Congress of spreading rumours. Addressing a public rally here to mark the the second anniversary of the BJP Government led by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur in Himachal Pradesh, Shah in his half-hour address defend- ed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). "No one will be stripped of their citizenship," he said. The Home Minister said Congress and company are spreading rumours that the citizenship of the minorities will be taken away with the Citizenship Amendment Act. "I challenge Rahul 'baba' to show even one clause in the Act that has provision to take away citizenship of anyone," said Shah. He said under this Act there was no provision to take away the citizenship of anyone, even belonging to a minority community. "This Act has a provision to give citizenship to the those belonging to the minority who came from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan," Shah said. Detailed report on Pg 2

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Page 1: ˇ-˘ 0 1˛2 - / /- 0 ,- .˘$# &, / ˙ 75.8 .!*-496 ’89+. ’8 ...€¦ · Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, north Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh during next three days and over

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The Centre and States areheaded for a major con-

frontation on the implementa-tion of the National PopulationRegister (NPR). After MamataBanerjee-led West Bengal andLeft-led Kerala Governmentsrefused to implement the NPRapproved by the Union Cabinetlast week, the Congress- ruledStates too are set to reject it inits existing format.

Launching a fresh offensiveagainst the Modi Government,former Congress chief RahulGandhi likened the NPR andthe National Register ofCitizens (NRC) to demoneti-sation, and said these exercis-es are a “tax” on the poor, whowill suffer the same way theydid after the note ban inNovember 2016.

A senior Congress leadertold The Pioneer that the party-led State Governments wouldnot implement the NPR sinceit seeks to extract details sim-ilar to the NRC. The Congressleadership has questioned thevery motive of the Governmentto seek details like declarationof “date and place of birth ofboth parents” for the first timein the NPR forms. Sourcessaid party has asked its ChiefMinisters to reject the NPR.

The CongressGovernments in States havealready criticised the contro-versial CAA and NRC that ledto mass mobilisation andprotests across the countryduring the last fortnight.

A formal announcement islikely to be made when theparty conducts flag marchesacross the country for its “SaveIndia, Save Constitution” onSaturday coinciding with the

grand old party’s foundationday. Then Minister of State forHome in the UPA GovernmentAjay Maken on Friday chargedthe Centre with working on theNRC across the country in thegarb of the NPR.

Home Minister Amit Shahhas clarified that there is nolink between the NPR and theNRC. “NPR is register of pop-ulation, NRC is register of cit-izens. There is no link between

the two and the two have dif-ferent processes,” Shah said inan interview with a newsagency early this week.

Maken sought to buttressthe point by citing that the NPRforms are seeking informationlike mobile numbers of allfamily members and drivinglicence details which had notbeen sought when the NPR waslast conducted in the 2010-11by the UPA Government.

Maken also rejected theGovernment’s contention thatthese details were to be sharedvoluntarily and not mandato-rily. “The NPR forms have anambiguous ‘if available’ clause.Anybody who does not sharethese details would run the riskof his citizenship being deemeddoubtful,” Maken explained toThe Pioneer.

Asserting that the NRChas always been on the BJP’sagenda, Maken pointed outthat way back in 2003 when theNDA was in power it hadbrought out an amendment inthe Citizenship Act seeking tomake registration of every cit-izen compulsory.

“When the Congress cameto power in 2004, there was apilot project carried out in aunion territory with a smallpopulation of 3.1 million. Wejunked it, though the BJP hadsought to implement it acrossthe country, as it was found thatless than half of the residentscould produce valid docu-ments.

Most of them were poorwho had no means to be inpossession of documentaryproof of citizenship,” theCongress leader pointed out.

In the last NPR, data wascollected on 15 criteria. Thistime data on 21 points will becollected.

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Severe cold wave conditionscontinued unabated in sev-

eral parts of north and centralIndia on Friday with Delhibreaking a 22-year-old record.The minimum temperature wasrecorded at 4.2 degrees Celsius,three notches below normal inDelhi. The India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) predictssome relief in the region fromDecember 31 onwards.

Severe cold wave conditionshave been recorded for 14 con-tinuous days so far, surpassing13 continuous days in 1997.According to the IMD, fromDecember 29-30, the winddirection will change fromnorthwesterly to easterly, whichis likely to reduce cold wave.

In its daily weather report,the IMD said due to the per-sistence of cold northwesterlywinds in the lower levels overnorthwest India and otherfavourable meteorological con-ditions, “cold day to severe coldday conditions” are very likelyover many pockets of Punjab,Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi,north Rajasthan and UttarPradesh for the next two days.

North-East and centralIndia has been reeling under aspell of severe cold wavw con-ditions over the last week. The

IMD also predicted snowfall inmiddle and high hills fromDecember 31 to January 2.

The IMD said a fresh western disturbance is verylikely to affect the westernHimalayan region fromDecember 30 night onwardsand this will bring rain andthunderstorm in isolated pock-ets of north, northwest andcentral India.

“Dense fog at isolatedpockets is also very likely overPunjab, Haryana, Chandigarh,Delhi, north Rajasthan and

Uttar Pradesh during nextthree days and over northMadhya Pradesh, Bihar,Jharkhand, sub-HimalayanWest Bengal, Sikkim andOdisha during next two daysand over northeastern Indiaduring next 4-5 days and abatethereafter,” it said.

Under the western distur-bance, major parts of northwestand central India are likely toexperience fairly widespreadrainfall accompanied with hail-storm at isolated places duringDecember 31-January 1, it said.

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The country’s commercial capi-tal on Friday witnessed two

massive rallies at two historicvenues — August Kranti Maidanand Azad Maidan — in favour ofand against the CitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA) respec-tively. With the BJP putting up animpressive show of strength in sup-port of the CAA and the JointAction Committee (JAC) for SocialJustice staging a numerically effec-tive protest against the law.

With no let-up in the protestsagainst the CAA and the NationalRegister for Citizens (NRC), theBJP — operating under the bannerof “Samvidhan Sanman Manch” —held a large rally in support of theCAA at the August Kranti Maidanon a day when the JAC for SocialJustice — a body of activists, stu-dents and social groups — flexedits muscles against the CAA andthe NRC in Azad Maidan.

Friday’s was the third protestorganised by various bodies againstthe CAA and the NRC in the

metropolis in the last fortnight,while the BJP-affiliated organisa-tions have organised so far two ral-lies — including the one held onFriday — in support of the CAA.

Though the protest organisedby JAC for Social Justice was not of the mammoth scale as theone held at the August Kranti Maidan on August 19 whenseveral Bollywood celebrities hadturned up, Friday’s rally at AzadMaiden drew a large number ofpeople from various sections ofsociety.

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The Mig-27 fighter jets,which played a crucial role

during the 1999 Kargil War, bidadieu to the Indian Air Forceon Friday after 35 years ofactive service. These jets“Bahadur” flew their last sor-tie at Jodhpur airbase beforegetting decommissioned.

Air Marshal SK Ghotia,Chief of South WesternCommand, who was present atthe event, said, the plane hasbeen at the frontline andproved its worth in the KargilWar. Jodhpur airbase had thesquadron of seven MiG-27sand they participated in thefinal fly-past there.

The IAF also tweeted apoem on the emotional eventand said it salutes the mightyMiG-27 for its yeoman serviceto the nation.

#AdieuMiG27 Her

targets met. Her promises kept. And all her duties done, On she goes. All haloed and pretty. Into the setting sun. IAF spokesperson Anupam

Banerjee, who flew missions inMIG-27 during the Kargil War,described the moment as veryemotional.

The last fleet of the MiG-27 was escort-landed by theSukhoi Su-30, followed by thetraditional water cannon salute,officials said. To mark this his-toric occasion, a team of SuryaKiran aircraft put on an airshow with an acrobatic displayin various formations.

These swing wing Mig-27jets played an important role

strafing high-altitude targetson mountain sides during theKargil War. These helped theArmy to climb these heights asthe Pakistanis till then weredominating.

In fact, the IAF lost oneMIG-27 during those missionswhen Flight Lieutenant KNachiketa, who was flying onejet, had to eject after his engine

failed after a hit by ground fire.He was captured by thePakistanis and returned to Indiasome days later.

After being inducted, asmany as 165 MiG-27s wereassembled at HindustanAeronautics Limited (HAL)with a small number signifi-cantly upgraded jets enteringservice from 2006 onwards. Itis these jets which were decom-missioned. Older variants ofthe MiG-27, including theMiG-23 have already stoppedoperating.

The MIG-27 weighingabout 20 tonnes performedexceptionally well at low alti-tudes and carried out gun,bomb and missile attacks. TheGsH-6-30 gun of the jetremains the most powerfulcannon ever installed on anIAF fighter, capable of spewingout a whopping 4,000-6,000rounds per minute.

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The ceasefire violations fromPakistan have more than

doubled as compared to lastyear’s figure, mirroring thetension between the two neigh-bours. Pakistan has regularlyviolated ceasefire on the 750-km long Line of Control (LoC),especially after August 5 whenArticle 370 was abrogated.

Till date this year, morethan 3,200 violations havetaken place along the LoCwith Pakistan trying to domi-nate and push in terroristsduring the firing.

The violations figure forthe last year is 1,610. Moreover,since August 5 more than 900violations took place, officials

said here on Friday.On the current situation on

the LoC, they said the PakistanArmy is keeping the border“hot’ by relentless firing insectors, including Aknoor andPoonch in Jammu region, andUri, Keran, Gurez andTangdhar in Kashmir region.

They also admitted the fir-ing is unlikely to come down inthe coming days as Pakistanafter having failed to foment trouble in the KashmirValley following the abrogationof Article 370 is resorting toviolations in an effort to dom-inate.

Given the topography ofthe LoC, Pakistan is in advan-tageous position militarily inPoonch and Rajouri sectors.

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Amid tight security arrangements, withdrones keeping an eye from the sky,

the Friday prayers passed off peacefully inUttar Pradesh with no untoward incidentreported from anywhere after last week’santi-Citizenship (Amendment) Actprotests that left 19 dead.

“The entire State was peaceful,” UttarPradesh Director General of Police OPSingh told reporters in Lucknow.

The State was placed under a thicksecurity cover with deployment of centralparamilitary forces in sensitive areas.

As a precautionary measure, Internetservices which were resumed after nearlya week, were suspended again in over 20of the 75 UP districts, including Ghaziabad,

Bulandshahr, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar,Shamli and Agra to check rumour-mon-gering, officials said.

Drones were also used to keep a vigil,particularly in areas where violence hadbroken out last week after Friday prayers.Protesters had hurled stones at policemenand set vehicles on fire. Reports fromMoradabad, Amroha and Hathras districtssaid the juma namaz was offered at vari-ous mosques and the congregations dis-persed peacefully.

In Lucknow, a heavy deployment ofparamilitary force personnel was seen out-side the historic Tiley Wali Masjid in theOld City area.

In Ajmer, a large number of Muslims,including khadims of the Ajmer dargah,took out a protest march and burnt aneffigy of Deewan Zainul Abedin Ali Khan,the spiritual head of the dargah, accusinghim of misleading Muslims on the issue ofthe amended Citizenship Act.

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Amid country-wide protestsagainst the Citizenship

Amendment Act, Union HomeMinister Amit Shah on Fridaysaid no one would be strippedof their citizenship and accusedthe Congress of spreadingrumours.

Addressing a public rallyhere to mark the the secondanniversary of the BJPGovernment led by ChiefMinister Jai Ram Thakur inHimachal Pradesh, Shah inhis half-hour address defend-ed the Citizenship AmendmentAct (CAA).

"No one will be stripped oftheir citizenship," he said.

The Home Minister said

Congress and company arespreading rumours that thecitizenship of the minoritieswill be taken away with theCitizenship Amendment Act."I challenge Rahul 'baba' toshow even one clause in the Actthat has provision to take awaycitizenship of anyone," saidShah.

He said under this Actthere was no provision to takeaway the citizenship of anyone,even belonging to a minoritycommunity.

"This Act has a provision togive citizenship to the thosebelonging to the minority whocame from Bangladesh,Pakistan and Afghanistan,"Shah said.

Detailed report on Pg 2

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Union Home Minister andBJP President Amit Shah

on Friday said that the presentState Government led by ChiefMinister Jai Ram Thakur hasensured that Himachal Pradeshemerges as the role model forthe other States of country inmatter of development.

Addressing a big rally at thehistoric Ridge here to mark thecompletion of two years of pre-sent State Government, Shahcongratulated the Governmentand people of HP for becomingthe first State in the countrywhere every household has a gas

connection, adding this wouldgo a long way in preserving theenvironment of the country.

Shah also released a coffeetable book brought out byInformation and PublicRelations Department on twoyears achievements of the StateGovernment.

He also provided gas con-nections to last three beneficia-ries of Himachal GrihiniSuvidha Yojna, thereby makingHimachal Pradesh the first Stateof the country with a gas con-nection in every house hold.

Speaking on the occasion,Working President of BJP, JPNadda said that the Union

Home Minister Amit Shah wasinstrumental in making thedream of crores of India true byabrogating Article 370 in

Jammu and Kashmir and alsobringing several Acts and Lawsto ensure safety and security ofthe Nation. “The BJP

Government in the State wasensuring balanced developmentof the State with special focus onthose areas which have beenneglected so far,” he said, addingthat it was the then UnionNDA Government whichannounced industrial packagefor Himachal Pradesh thatpaved way for industrial devel-opment in the State. He said thatAIIMS and three medical col-leges were sanctioned for Stateby Central BJP Government.

Chief Minister Jai RamThakur said the two years ofpresent State Government hadbeen full of good governance,innovation, people’s faith,progress and development. “TheState Government from the dayone of assuming office startedworking for development ofevery area of the State and wel-fare of every section of society,”he said.

He said that victory of BJPin all four seats in general LokSabha elections by a recordmargin and thereafter in twoassembly by-elections, vindi-cated the faith of people in poli-cies and programmes of StateGovernment.

Thakur referred to reduc-tion in age limit for receivingsocial security pension forsenior citizens from 80 years to70 years, starting Jan Manchand Chief Minister Helpline-1100 as achievements of thegovernment which has benefit-ed the people of the state.

The chief minister said 22lakh people of the state werecovered under AyushmanBharat Yojna of UnionGovernment, pointing out thatthe State Government had alsostarted ‘Him Care’ Scheme forthose families not coveredunder Ayushman Bharat.

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Himachal Government onFriday celebrated the first

groundbreaking event of theRising Himachal GlobalInvestors’ Meet at Shimla withprojects of �.13656 crore,

The occasion saw the pres-ence of Union Home MinisterAmit Shah as the chief guestwho also released CoffeeTable Book ‘SarvodayaHimachal’ on the occasion.

Shah appreciated theefforts of the StateGovernment for organising

this Meet and thereafter suc-ceeding in ensuring groundbreaking of projects worthover �13,000 crore.

Amit Shah also visited theexhibition put by Satluj JalVidhyut Nigam Limited(SJVNL) and others on theoccasion.

Governor BandaruDattatraya said the StateGovernment has initiated sev-eral welfare and development-oriented schemes in the State.

Chief Minister Jai RamThakur said that StateGovernment was able to

achieve this feat, as theGovernment has been contin-uously working on improvingupon the ease of doing busi-ness, doing away with unnec-essary NoCs, simplifying rulesand procedures, building anonline single window systemfor approval and clearances.He said that this ground break-ing ceremony was a befittingreply to those who were criti-cizing the move of the StateGovernment for organizingGlobal Investors Meet atDharamshala.

Thakur said MoUs worth

�.96,000 crore were signedwith various prospective entre-preneurs by State Government.adding that he was personal-ly monitoring the progress ofall projects on ‘Him Pragati’portal, wherein theGovernment officers andinvestors were on one platformto resolve issues on the dayitself. The State Governmenthad also brought in sector spe-cific policies to makeHimachal Pradesh an attrac-tive destination for investors togive further impetus to invest-ment eco-system, he added.

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Expressing strong displea-sure over non-inclusion of

Punjab in the CentralGovernment-initiated ‘Atal BhuJal Yojna’, Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) on Friday said that it was a discriminatory acton the part of the UnionGovernment.

AAP’s Punjab state kisanwing president and KotkapuraMLA Kultar Singh Sandhwansaid that it was pertinent tomention that the Centre hadannounced the launch of AtalBhu-Jal Yojana recently with a view to improve statusof underground water in sevenstates, including Maharashtra,Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka ata cost of �6,000 crore, while Punjab was excludedfrom the list.

Sandhwan said that by notincluding Punjab, the largestcontributor to the country’sgrain reserves, in the much-hyped scheme indicated step-motherly treatment on the partof the Union Government.

AAP leader was critical ofthe Badal couple — UnionMinister Harsimrat Kaur Badal,SAD president and FerozepurMP Sukhbir Badal — forbetraying the interests ofPunjab and the Punjabis, sim-ply to protect the ministerialberth of Badal ‘bahu’ (daugh-ter-in-law) by bartering inter-ests of the state to keep theirunholy alliance with the saffronparty going.

“Only 27 percent of thetotal area in Punjab got canalwater, a major share of whichhad already been polluted dueto industrial wastes, while 73percent of the area was irrigat-ed with the ground waterreserve,” he said. Out of the 138blocks in thestate, waterhad gonedown to analarming levelin 110 blocks,which hadbeen identifiedas criticalzones in theGovernmentreports, headded.

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Page 3: ˇ-˘ 0 1˛2 - / /- 0 ,- .˘$# &, / ˙ 75.8 .!*-496 ’89+. ’8 ...€¦ · Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, north Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh during next three days and over

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Congress party’s trusted sol-dier is apparently not see-

ing eye-to-eye with the partygenerals. Difference in opinion appears to havecropped up between CaptAmarinder Singh and the partyhigh command.

His absence from the twomajor party events in thenational capital recently isbeing seen as an indicator ofemerging fissures between thepolitical stands of the ChiefMinister and the party’s centralleadership.

Even as everyone in theparty is crooning “all is well”, ithas been learnt that the ChiefMinister is having some dif-ference of opinion with thehigh command over the pro-posed Cabinet reshuffle —

while Capt Amarinder is infavour of re-inducting his closeaide and former Minister RanaGurjit Singh, the party highcommand has proposed togive the cricketer-turned-politi-cian Navjot Singh Sidhu his“due”.

Notably, the All IndiaCongress Committee (AICC)has organized ‘Bharat BachaoRally’ on December 14 to high-light the “divisive and disrup-tive” policies of the BJP gov-ernment. Punjab Congresspresident Sunil Jakhar had also

called a meeting of senior lead-ers, including Ministers, legis-lators, among others, to ensurethat Congress activists andsupporters from Punjab “over-whelmingly participate” in therally.

However, Capt Amarinder

chose to skip the event citingthat poor weather conditionscould not allow his helicopterto take off. On the other hand,Chief Ministers of otherCongress-ruled states, KamalNath, Ashok Gehlot, BhupeshBaghel, participated in theevent.

In another instance, theAICC staged a silent ‘satyagra-ha dharna’ at Rajghat onMonday to protest against thepolice brutality during anti-Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) protests in which party’sentire top leadership, includingCongress Chief Ministers —Gehlot, and Kamal Nath —participated, but CaptAmarinder was once againmissing from the scene.

“Chief Minister had aminor eye operation onDecember 20 (Friday), and he

was advised a week’s rest. Thatwas why he did not participatein the satyagraha dharna onMonday, the Chief Minister’sclose associate told The Pioneeradding that he would beresuming his office work bynext week.

It has been learnt that theparty command had commu-nicated the Chief Minister toconduct a Cabinet reshuffle,while suggesting that Sidhushould be given a responsibil-ity — an idea not acknowl-edged by Capt Amarinder.

On the other hand, thehigh command has indicatedthat it was not in favour ofChief Minister’s decision tore-induct Rana Gurjit in theCabinet as it did not want togive birth to any undue con-troversy.

Notably, Capt Amarinder

had chosen Rana Gurjit as hisMinister when the CongressGovernment took over thestate reign in 2017. But, he hadto resign in January 2018 as thestate Irrigation and PowerMinister after facing allegationsof his alleged involvement inthe sand mining auctions.Sidhu, who was also the obvi-ous choice among the first setto ministers, formally resignedfrom the State Cabinet in Julythis year in protest against the“punishment” of changing hisportfolio.

The former cricketer tookstrong exception after the ChiefMinister openly blamed himfor the party’s not-so-goodperformance in the State’surban pockets during 2019Lok Sabha elections, and vir-tually revolted against the party.He has been staying away from

the party events, and officialmeetings, since then.

The party high commandbelieved that sidelining a per-sonality like Sidhu may affectthe party, especially at a timewhen the voice of giving larg-er role to Sidhu is gainingmomentum within the stateparty unit.

Capt Amarinder was plan-ning to meet the party’s inter-im president Sonia Gandhi todiscuss the Cabinet reshuffle,besides other issues, but thesame was cancelled reported-ly after the latter turned downthe proposal to induct RanaGurjit in the Cabinet.

“There is nothing like that!This CAA and NRC issue hasput everything on hold.

Entire focus is now on thisissue,” said a senior Congressleader.

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Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)has announced to ‘gherao’

Punjab Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh’s official res-idence in Chandigarh onJanuary 7 to protest against thegovernment’s dictatorial deci-sion to hike electricity tariff inthe State, pressing for a rollback on the decision.

AAP Sunam MLA AmanArora and Barnala MLA MeetHayer (Gurmeet Singh) onFriday said that every sectionof society was passing througheconomic hardships due toanti-people policies of theGovernment.

“Punjab Cabinet’s decision

to jack up electricity tariff fur-ther by 36 paise per unit fromJanuary 1 would crush thecommon consumer,” they said.

They said that power tar-iff in the State was already onthe higher side compared toother states of the country,despite being a state power sur-

plus State.Citing an example of the

Arvind Kejriwal-led DelhiGovernment, AAP MLAs saidthat it did not produce a singleunit of electricity, but was pro-viding cheaper electricity to thepeople there, saying that 22lakh families were getting elec-tricity bills worth zero rupee.

AAP leaders said that theSupreme Court had imposed afine of �1,424 crore on two ofthe three private thermal plantsoperating in the state.

“The government is raisingthe tariff by 36 paise per unitfrom the people to be paid bythe two private players, whichAAP won’t tolerate at any cost,”they said.

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Haryana Transport MinisterMool Chand Sharma on

Friday launched KilometerScheme bus service based onVehicle Tracking System andflagged off five buses atGurugram.

“The State Government iscommitted to provide propertransport facilities to the peo-ple of the State and the arrivalof these buses will certainlyprovide great convenience tothe passengers,” Sharma said,adding that under the kilome-ter scheme, 150 buses will berun soon in the first phase. Inaddition, AC buses and Volvobuses will also be operatedthrough the Transport

Department under the kilo-meter scheme in due course.

The Transport Ministersaid the State Government has

also planned to buy new busesfor Haryana Roadways and

approval for purchasing 150minibuses and about 20 Volvobuses, 100 ordinary buses havebeen given and all these busesare likely to be added to thefleet before March 31, 2020. Heinformed that Gurugram willsoon get a new bus stand,which will be equipped withState-of-the-art facilities andthe site for this have alreadybeen identified.

Sharma said according toan estimate, about 8 to 10thousand buses are required inthe State. “This scheme hasbeen introduced to fill this gap,”he said. Buses running underthe Kilometer scheme are avail-able at a rate of only Rs 26.92per kilometer and this willprovide better transport facil-

ities to the public.Additional Chief Secretary,

Transport Department SiddhiNath Roy said out of these fivebuses which have been flaggedoff, two buses will run betweenGurugram to Chandigarh, twobuses from Gurugram andJaipur and one bus fromGurugram to Hisar. He said inview of the high number ofpassengers on these routes,these buses have been startedand soon such buses will be runon other routes as well.

Roy said these buses will beoperated through HaryanaRoadways and the conductor ofthe bus will be from the depart-ment. Along with diesel andmaintenance, all the expenseswill be borne by the bus owners.

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Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij onFriday said the State Government is

determined to eradicate corruption andensure justice to victim, adding every pos-sible effort should be made to ensure thatthe victims get justice easily.

Presiding over the monthly meeting ofthe District Public Relations andGrievances Committee at Sirsa, he said nonegligence while addressing the complaints

of any citizen will be tolerated.During the meeting, the Home

Minister gave a patient hearing to thecomplainants and directed all the officersof the departments concerned to ensurethe disposal of every complaint.

Listening to a complaint, Vij directedthat the material used during the con-struction of the streets should be re-exam-ined and samples checked by the autho-rised laboratory.

He said that officers and employees

who do not work honestly will not bespared. He said officers of all departmentsshould work amicably to solve problemsof common people on a priority basis.

He further directed the officers of thePolice Department that the police officersshould understand the pain and ensurethat justice is given to every person whoapproaches them.

In the meeting, 15 problems were dis-cussed and most of the complaints wereresolved on the spot.

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Haryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal Khattar has

received a letter of appreciationfrom the United States Senate for doing several worksin the interest of the Sikh communities and for theState Government’s continuoussupport given to theCommunity.

A delegation includingIndiana, United States (US)based prominent SikhAmerican and chairperson of

Sikhs Political ActionCommittee (PAC), GurinderSingh Khalsa, Principal SriGuru Teg Bahadur KhalsaCollege, Delhi, Dr. JaswinderSingh and an InformationTechnology (IT) Expert andEntrepreneur Vishal Malik metKhattar on Friday.

During the meeting thedelegation also handed over a resolution passed by theUS Senate.

An official spokesman saidthat on November 14, 2019, theUS Senate had unanimously

passed the resolution, recog-nizing the historical, cultural,and religious significance of the550th birthday of Guru Nanakand the contributions and sac-rifices by Sikh Community.

The Chief Ministerapprised the delegation aboutthe efforts being made by theState Government to protect the Sikh Heritage inState and about the LohgarhTrust and he also thankedIndiana Senator Todd Youngfor his complements and spe-cial gesture.

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There will be a ban on thetransfer of officers and

employees engaged in the workof the Special SummaryRevision program of PhotoElectoral Roll in Haryana fromFebruary 10 to April 30, ChiefElectoral Officer, Haryana,Anurag Agarwal said on Friday.

He said as per the direc-tions of the ElectionCommission of India, thephoto voter lists in the State arebeing revised under a specialsummary revision program.Under this program, the pub-lication of draft integrated elec-toral roll will be published onFebruary 10, 2020. While ear-lier the same was to be done onDecember 30, 2019.

Therefore, theCommission has imposed aban on transfer of DistrictElectoral Officer, DeputyDistrict Electoral Officer,Electoral Registration Officerand Assistant ElectoralRegistration Officer.

Apart from this, theCommission has also issueddirections to fill up the vacantpost, if any, at the earliest.

The Commission has fur-ther directed not to transfer thesaid officers without the priorpermission of the Commission.

Agarwal said that the pro-gram of special revision ofvoter lists has been revised by the Commissionconsidering January 1, 2020, asthe qualifying date. As per thenew schedule, the draft of integrated voter listswill be published on February10 and claims and objectionswill be filed from February, 10to March 12. Special cam-paigns will be organised onFebruary, 15-16, 29 and March1, 2020.

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Coming to the defence of hisparty’s Government on the

issue of power tariff hike,Punjab Congress presidentSunil Jakhar on Friday cate-gorically said that the ‘white elephants’ of Akali Dalwere responsible for theenhancement of power rates inthe State.

Jakhar, interacting with themedia persons on the sidelinesof investiture ceremony ofnewly appointed Punjab AgroIndustries Corporation chair-man Joginder Singh Mann,said that in form of thermalplants set up by the Akali Government, under-utilised assets were created justto corner benefit to the privateplayers.

These were the real whiteelephants of the State, he added.

“Due to these underuti-lized liabilities, which couldhave cater to the need of Stateonly for two months, the powertariff in the state has beenenhanced,” said Jakhar while

urging the Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh to get a thor-ough probe conducted for fix-ing the accountability of allthose people who were respon-sible for this plunder of stateexchequer.

Jakhar also urged the ChiefMinister to appoint senior offi-cer of the State Government toapprise the MLAs about thesins of the Akali-BJPGovernment in power sector.

“The MLAs would be fur-ther asked to make the peopleaware about the misdeeds ofthe Akalis,” said Jakhar addingthat the Akalis would be madeaccountable for these sins andthey would not be spared at anycost.Describing Punjab ChiefMinister as saviour of water,Jakhar said that while Akalishad sold the rights of water totheir friends, Capt Amarinderhas always stood for saving thestate’s water.

Vindicating the ChiefMinister’s stand to includeState in ‘Atal Bhujal Yojana’ forconservation of ground waterresources, he said that it was the

need of hour to save depletingground water level.

However, Jakhar said thatowing to anti-Punjab stance ofBJP, the state has to be extracautious while going into anysuch agreement.

“BJP Government has beenusurping their rights of thestates through their policy ofexcessive centralization due towhich we must be careful toensure the waters of the state are safeguarded,” he said.

At the same time, Jakharalso slammed the ModiGovernment for its divisivepolicies saying that all policiesof the BJP-led UnionGovernment, includingCAA/NRC, were aimed atspreading hatred and disturb-ing communal harmony in thecountry.

Jakhar said that Congresshas always stood for commu-nal harmony, peace and broth-erhood adding that anyonewho deviates from the ideolo-gy was not associated with Congress.

�������������� ������ ���������������Chandigarh: The BranchOffice of National InvestigationAgency (NIA) at Chandigarhlocated near Model Jail, Sector-51, Chandigarh was inaugu-rated on Friday by Y. C. Modi,Director General, NIA in thepresence of DGPs of Punjaband Haryana.

The event was attended bysenior police officers of Punjab,Haryana, Himachal Pradesh,Chandigarh Administration,Central Armed Police Forces,Indian Army and other gov-ernment agencies. NIA wascreated with a mandate toinvestigate offences related toterrorist activities and othercrimes having national andinternational importance. Itstarted functioning from theJanuary 19, 2009. PNS

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Haryana and Punjab reeled under freezing cold

on Friday, with the mercurysettling at 0.3 degree Celsius inHisar.

Hisar in Haryana experi-enced the season’s coldest night as the minimum temperaturedropped by six notches, aMeteorological Departmentofficial said here.

Mercury plummeted atother places as well and officials said there was no immediate relief insight as severe cold was likely to continue for the nextfew days.

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The crisis in the JannayakJanata Party (JJP) seemed to

be deepening as Ram KumarGautam, the senior leader ofJannayak Janata Party (JJP) andMLA from Narnaund who hadresigned as the party’s nationalvice-president on December25, refused to meet his partychief and Deputy Chief MinisterDushyant Chautala.

“Whatever I have to say, Ihad conveyed. Now there is noquestion of rethinking on mydecision”, he said when askedwhether he would take back hisresignation as Vice President ofthe party.

Gautam said that he had noregrets about resigning fromthe post of party vice-president.“JJP is not a national party. Iwas made all India vice presi-dent in the party even thoughthe party has influence in a lim-ited pocket in Haryana. I amamong those who follow theideals,” he said, adding “Myself-esteem has been hurt, so Iwill not go to meet Dushyant.”

Gautam said, “JJP is a partymade by me and my efforts.

People have elected me, I haveresponsibility towards them. IfI resign from my party, I willlose the seat as well and I can-not leave my constituency in thelurch. I nurtured nurtured theparty with my sweat and blood.”

He said, “I was not even anaspirant for JJP ticket. ButDushyant and his father AjayChautala were keen that Ishould join them and fightelection against the sitting BJPMLA Capt Abhimanyu.

Gautam, who was in therace for becoming a ministerafter the JJP formed an alliancewith the BJP said that afterbecoming the Deputy ChiefMinister, Dushyant took 11

departments under his controland forgot the other partyleaders.”Along with this,Gautam also indicted thatmany other MLAs of the partyare associated with him.

As of now, there is noministerial berth from JJP inthe coalition government. Aday before, Dushyant, whiletalking to reporters at Secretariatsaid,” I will not comment what-ever he (Gautam) has said so far.He should talk to party leaders.Their concern will be addressed.Once resignation letter isreceived the party presidentNishan Singh will look into it.”

Meanwhile, Dushyant indi-cated that he was not going to

give ministerial berth to anyone of his party colleagues inthe BJP-JJP led coalition gov-ernment in the State.

Replying on the questionthat MLA Gautam wants tobecome Minister in the govern-ment, Dushyant said, “We do notwant to say anything if he wantsto become a Minister. Party issupreme for us and our respon-sibility is to strengthen the partyand the government.” He reiter-ated that there is no differencesamong the party leaders andparty leaders are working on theground to boost the partythrough membership drive.

Gautam has no history ofremaining in one party for long

time. He became an MLA fromBJP in 2005, a few days later, hecame close with the Congress.

He contested the 2010 elec-tion on a Congress ticket andlost. Then he also got disillu-sioned with the Congress. Hecontested 2014 election as anindependent and lost. In 2019,he fought on JJP ticket.

When JJP decided to jointhe government with BJP, leg-islators like RamkumarGautam, Ishwar Singh,Ramkaran Kala and DevendraBabli were hoping to becomeministers but this could nothappen. Gautam’s outburstreflects the frustration of theministerial aspirants.

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Peaceful protests were held inseveral parts of Punjab on

Friday against actress RaveenaTandon, director-choreogra-pher Farah Khan and comedi-an Bharti Singh for allegedlyhurting religious sentimentsof the Christian community ona TV show.

The protests in Jalandharand Gurdaspur towns that sawa huge presence of Christianprotesters.

Punjab Police have bookedthe actress trio for allegedlyhurting religious sentiments.

A day earlier, Raveen

sought an apology, if she hurtsomeone's feelings.

"I haven't said a word thatcan be interpreted as an insultto any religion.

The three of us (FarahKhan, Bharti Singh and I)never intended to offend any-one, but in case we did, mymost sincere apologies to thosewho were hurt," she tweeted.

The case was registeredon the complaint of Sonu Jafar,President of the ChristianFront, in Ajnala town inAmritsar district.

He alleged that religioussentiments of the Christianshave been hurt, when the stars

trivialised the word ‘Hallelujah’, while trying topronounce it.

"Hallelujah" is a Hebrewword meaning "Praise ye, Yah",referring to the Lord.

The case was registeredunder Section 295-A (deliber-ate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religiousfeelings of any class by insult-ing its religion or religiousbeliefs) of the Indian PenalCode (IPC).

Senior Superintendent ofPolice Vikram Jeet Duggal saidthe case was registered on thecomplaint along the videofootage of the programme.

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Members of various civilorganisations, noted per-

sons, youths and studentsunder the banner of theMahanagar Nagarika Manchaon Friday organised a humanchain at the Nejaji Cetu here inprotest against the CitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA),National Register of Citizens(NRC) and proposed NationalPopulation Register.

“Through the CitizenshipAmendment Act, the UnionGovernment is trying to dividethe country on religion basis.After stiff protests, theGovernment is now trying to

prepare NRC through theNational Population Register,”alleged protestors.

They demanded with-drawal of CAA, proposed NPRand NCR and stopping ofpolice action against p0rotesto-ers. They too demanded com-pensation for family of thedeceased who were killed dur-ing protest

Among others, ProfBirendra Nayak, ChittaranjanMohanty, Prashant Das, DrSatya Ray, Shishir Das, JugalKishore Nayak, LaxmiMohanty, BishwabasuMohanty, Dali Das, DrBishwajit, Akshaya Das andGaneshwar Sethi participated.

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The Chief Minister ofUttarakhand Trivendra

Singh Rawat inaugurated theNational Handloom Expo atthe Parade Ground here onFriday.

The being organised byUttarakhand Handloom andHandicraft DevelopmentCouncil (UHHDC) will con-tinue till January 12, 2020.

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Just after Friday namaz, thenational Capital witnessed

multiple peaceful protestsagainst the CitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA). Scoresof people gathered at Jor Bagh,Jama Masjid, Uttar PradeshBhawan and Jamia MilliaIslamia (JMI) to mark theirprotest.

Meanwhile, to maintain lawand order situation in the city,the Delhi Police on Fridaymorning imposed Section 144at Seelampur, sub-divisions ofConnaught Place in New Delhi district and at severallocations in south-east, northand south districts. Police alsocarried out flag march at north-

east Delhi’s Seelampur, Jafrabad,Welcome and Mustafabad areaswhich had witnessed violenceon December 17. Adequatepolice force from adjoining dis-tricts and 15 companies ofparamilitary forces weredeployed in the north-east dis-trict. The Delhi Police also useddrones to keep a vigil on the sit-uation.

“We have been conductingflag march in the northeastdistrict along with the membersof ‘Aman Committee’ to ensurethat law and order remains incontrol. We have also beenappealing to the people to helppolice maintain peace,” saidVed Prakash Surya, the DeputyCommissioner of Police (DCP),north-east.

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Punjab’s former Minister andsenior Congress leader

Joginder Singh Mann on Fridaytook over the charge as PunjabAgro Industries Corporation(PAIC) Chairman in the pres-ence of Punjab PradeshCongress Committee presidentSunil Jakhar, several MLAs andother senior leaders of Congress.

PPCC president Jakhar,while congratulating Mann onhis new appointment, recalledthe outstanding services ren-dered by him for strengtheningthe party at the grassroots levelbesides championing the causeof underprivileged sections ofthe society.

“During his long politicalcareer spanning over fivedecades, Mann has served theparty and people of the State invarious capacities. I hope thatPAIC would be immensely ben-efitted from Mann’s leadershipand visionary approach toimplement the StateGovernment’s ambitious plan tofurther promote agro-based

industries across Punjab to sup-plement the farmers’ income,”said Jakhar.

Expressing gratitude to theChief Minister Capt AmarinderSingh for shouldering a respon-sibility on him, Mann said thathe would serve the organizationwith best of his capacities andcapabilities so as to steer PAICto the new heights of glory.

He assured the ChiefMinister that he would dis-charge his responsibilities andduties as chairman with utmostdedication, sincerity and com-mitment.

Pertinently, a seniorCongress leader, Mann hadrepresented Phagwara assemblysegment in Punjab VidhanSabha thrice in 1985, 1992 and2002. Mann also served asMinister in the Council ofMinisters led by former ChiefMinisters Late Beant Singh andHarcharan Singh Brar besidesRajinder Kaur Bhattal and CaptAmarinder Singh.

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Army Chief General BipinRawat said here on Friday

the Indian armed forces haveutmost respect for humanrights laws and are extremelysecular and their driving ethosare "Insaniyat"( Humanity) and"Sharafat"( Decency).

Making these observationswhile addressing the officers ofthe National Human RightsCommission(NHRC) on thetopic "Preserving HumanRights in times of War andPrisioners of War," he also saidthe armed forces are disci-plined and not only ensure pro-tection of human rights of ourown people but also of adver-saries and deal with the pris-oners of war as per the GenevaConventions.

Rawat had on Thursdayfound himself in the thick of acontroversy after his remark onthe arson and violence againstthe Citizenship AmendmentAct (CAA) invited criticismfrom political parties.

While stressing that thearmed forces follow"Insaniyat"( Humanity) and"Sharafat"( Decency), he, how-ever said the challenge is thechanging war fare tactics withthe advent of technology.Unlike the attack by any armed

forces, the terror attacks remainunaccountable in internation-al law. Hence, the counter ter-rorism and anti insurgencyoperations have to be dealt ina manner of winning the heartsof the people by identifying andalienating the insurgentsamong them without collater-al damage, which becomesvery challenging and difficult.

General Rawat said that theArmy Head Quarters had cre-ated a human rights cell in1993, which now is beingupgraded to the level of aDirectorate to be headed by anAdditional Director General.This will also have police per-sonnel to address the com-plaints of human rights viola-tions against the armed forcesand facilitate related enquiries.

Moreover, a new initiativehas been taken in October thisyear by recruiting womenJawans in Military Police Force.He said that the Army takesalong with it several police per-sonnel in search operations,but keeping in view the con-cerns of women during suchoperations, the army has nowdecided to deploy its ladyJawans of its Military PoliceForce also.

Rawat said keeping in viewthe provisions of human rightslaw and importance of the

protection of human rights,now a court of enquiry is beingheld after every anti- insur-gency operation and all recordsare maintained related to suchoperations.

Referring to the ArmedForce Special Powers Act(AFSPA), the Army Chief saidthat the Act gives almost thesame powers to the Army,which are also exercised byPolice and CRPF in connectionwith search and enquiry oper-ations.

However, over the years thearmy itself has diluted its appli-cation in its own way under theten commandments issued bythe Chief of Army Staff, whichare to be strictly adhered byevery soldier, and particularlythose deployed for operationsin anti- insurgency areas.

The Supreme Court guide-lines on this are also beingstrictly followed by soldiers,who are all given special train-ing before their deployment incounter insurgency andcounter terrorism operations.

Earlier, NHRC MemberJustice PC Pant gave an insightinto various laws protectinghuman rights. He also men-tioned about some of the fun-damental rights, which are notgiven to the armed forces inline of their duty.

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Ahead of the DelhiAssembly polls, the mantra

for the Centre is slum-specificwelfare measures for thenational Capital. After its ini-tiative to regularise 1,731 unau-thorised colonies, the HUAMinistry has lined up a plan tobuild 2 lakh houses under thePradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(PMAY-Urban) in the slums ofDelhi in Kalkakji Extension,Dilshad Garden, Ashok Vihar,Kathputli Colony among oth-ers.

The move is targeted at 10lakh beneficiaries from theslums, which are a major vote-bank for the AAP. The BJP-ruled Centre's focus is thus onsuch clusters both to makeinroads into the ruling dis-pensation's stronghold as alsoto negate the impact of its var-ious freebie schemes. The min-istry also announced that thetotal number of houses beingfunded under the scheme to 1.3crore under the housing for allscheme.

Addressing a press confer-ence, Union Minister Hardeep

Singh Puri on Friday accusedthe AAP government of tryingto create hurdles in imple-mentation of the PMAY-Urbanin Delhi and said its politicalapproach is based on a "pack oflies". Puri's allegations camethree days after Delhi ChiefMinister Arvind Kejriwallaunched the MukhyamantriAwas Yojana (MMAY) forJhugi Jhopri (JJ) Clusters anddistributed ownership certifi-cates to 65,000 families livingin the city's slum areas. "Ifdevelopment is going to bebased on the nomenclature ofa scheme, you deprive yourown people..." Puri said.

The Delhi Governmenthas created hurdles in everyproject, be it the constructionof Metro Phase-IV or theRegional Rapid Transit System(RRTS), he alleged. Wheneverthere was talk on the con-struction of Metro Phase-IV,the AAP Government tried tocreate hurdles, he said.

"In-situ rehabilitation ofthree JJ clusters at KalkajiExtension, Kathputli Colony(Opposite Shadipur Depot)and Jailorwala Bagh (Ashok

Vihar) will be completed byJune 2020. As many as 7,500two room houses has beencompleted or at advance stage.The construction of 3,024 flatsat Kalkaji Extension is likely tobe completed by May-June,2020 and the eligible benefi-ciaries will be handed over pos-session of these flats.

"Out of 2,800 EWS housesunder construction for JJdwellers of Kathputli Colony,construction of about 500 hous-es is expected to be completedby March, 2020, which wouldbe handed over to the eligiblebeneficiaries of KathputliColony. Another 1,675 hous-es in Jailorwala Bagh (AshokVihar) are also likelyto be com-pleted by December, 2020 forallotment to the beneficiaries ofJJ Dwellers of Jailorwala Bagh,"the Ministry said.

As per the data, there are685 JJ clusters surveyed by theDelhi Urban ShelterImprovement Board (DUSIB)and 85 inlisted clusters in Delhi.Puri alleged that since thePMAY (Urban) was launchedin June 2015, not a single pro-posal has been received from

the AAP Government. TheDelhi Development Authorityis the nodal agency for imple-menting in-situ slum rehabili-tation of JJ Clusters residents onland owned by the DDA andthe Centre, according to theMinistry.

With the approval of of 6.5

lakh houses under PMAY(Urban), taking the total num-ber of houses being fundedunder the scheme to over 1.3crore. Puri said in the nextthree-four months, theMinistry will sanction all the1.12 crore houses, a target setby the Government.

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Days after the poll strategist’spolitical consultancy firm

I-PAC was roped in by the AamAadmi Party (AAP) ahead ofthe Delhi Assembly election,Union Housing and UrbanAffairs Minister Hardeep SinghPuri on Friday said, “Who isPrashant Kishor?” Replying toa question at a Press confer-ence, Puri who is also the co-incharge of the BJP for theDelhi polls, said he did notknow Kishor personally.

“Who is Prashant Kishor?,”he asked, when a question wasput to him about I-PAC being

roped in by the ArvindKejriwal-led AAP ahead of theDelhi polls, slated to be heldearly next year.

When reporters told theMinister that Kishor was apart of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi's campaign inthe 2014 Lok Sabha polls, hesaid, "I was not there duringthat time." "May be I shouldknow, but I do not know him(Kishor)," Puri said on beingtold by reporters that he wasalso part of the BJP-ledNational Democratic Alliance(NDA) — the national vice-president of the Janata Dal(United).

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The National InvestigationAgency (NIA) on Friday

chargesheeted 11 personsincluding six abscondingaccused and four companies inthe case relating to seizure of532 kg of banned drug heroinat Integrated Check Post atAttari in Punjab.

The accused persons andentities have been chargedunder IPC Section relating tocriminal conspiracy besidesrelevant provisions of theNarcotics, Drugs andPsychotropic Substances(NDPS) Act and Unlawful

Activities (Prevention) Act. The NIA filed the

chargesheet before the NIASpecial Court, Mohali, Punjab.

The chargehseeted accusedinclude Tariq Ahmad Lone,Jasbir Singh, Nirbhail Singh,Sandeep Kaur, Ajay Gupta,Ranjit Singh, Iqbal Singh,Farookh Lone, Sahil, ShoaibNoor and Amir Noor underSections 120-B IPC, NDPS Actand UA(P) Act.

The charge-sheeted com-panies include KanishkEnterprises Pvt. Ltd., GuptaFast Forwarders Pvt. Ltd.,Global Vision Impex andAimex General Trading

Company. The case relates to seizure

of 532 Kg. of Heroin and 52 Kg.of mixed narcotics on June 29this year at Attari ICP underprovisions of Custom Act, 1962and attendant sections ofNDPS Act besides interceptionof two persons — GurpinderSingh, an Amritsar based trad-er and Tariq Ahmed Lonefrom Handwara, Jammu &Kashmir.

"The involvement of aninternational drug racket basedin Pakistan as well as inAfghanistan has come to light.This is a case of narco-terror-ism, having national and inter-

national implications with evi-dence of generation of fundsthrough the proceeds of sale ofnarcotics smuggled fromacross the international bor-der," the NIA said in a state-ment.

Investigation has estab-lished that the above accusedformed a terrorist gang to bring many consignments of narcotics to India, the agencysaid.

During the investigationsearches were conducted atvarious places in Punjab andvarious incriminating docu-ments including bank accountdetails, electronic and digital

devices, ammunitions anddetails of Hawala transactionswere seized.

The investigation has beenable to establish an interna-tional conspiracy in whichnationals of Afghanistan,Pakistan and Indian nationalsbelonging to Punjab, Jammuand Kashmir and Delhi hascome to light so far. A vastnetwork of Hawala and otherinformal channels has beenused to smuggle narcoticsinto India through the legiti-mate trade route betweenIndia and Pakistan in the garbof import of rock salt, theagency added.

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Retail onion prices on Fridayremained higher at up to

�150 per kg even as the import-ed supplies have started arriv-ing to boost the domestic avail-ability and check prices.

According to theDepartment of ConsumerAffairs, in metros, retail price ofonion was ruling at �120 a kgKolkata, at �102 a kg in Delhiand Mumbai and at �80 a kg inChennai. In most cities, onionprices were ruling at �100 a kg.In Itanagar, the onion was at�150 a kg. The prices willremain high till January endnext year. Only a substantialincrease in domestic arrivals ofthe crop can help significantlyease onion prices in the localmarkets where average whole-sale prices are still ruling at �60-70 a kg, traders said.

Sources in the departmentsaid that imported onions havestarted arriving. "About 1,160tonne has reached India.Additional 10,560 tonne ofshipments are expected toarrive in the next 3-4 days. Theimported onion is being sold at

�65-80 a kg across the country.Both red and yellow onionshave been imported fromTurkey, Egypt and Afghanistan.While Turkey has bannedonion exports due to risingprices.

State-owned MMTC,which is importing the keykitchen staple on behalf of theGovernment, has contracted49,500 tonne of onion so far.Some shipments will arrivenext month. Onion prices haveshot up sharply due to esti-mated 25 per cent fall in kharifproduction of 2019-20 cropyear (July-June) compared tothe previous year because of latemonsoon and eventual excess

rains in the major producingStates.

The prices have failed tocool down despite severalGovernment measures in thelast few weeks. TheGovernment has alreadybanned export of onion,imposed stock limits on tradersand is also supplying bufferstock at a cheaper rate. Tradersand experts are of the view thatonion prices will continue toremain firm till January whenlate kharif crop will start hittingthe market.

The country had lastimported 1,987 tonne of onionin 2015-16 when prices hadshot up significantly.

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The ceremony to hand over thebaton of the Chairman of the

Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC) wascancelled at the last minute on Friday.

In the pre-scheduled ceremonyChairman CoSC Army Chief GenBipin Rawat was to hand over the batonto Navy Chief Admiral KarambirSingh, the second senior.

The CoSC comprises chiefs of theArmy, the Navy and the Air Force andthe senior-most member is appointedits chairperson.

There was indication that the cer-emony has been cancelled as theGovernment is going to appoint thecountry's first Chief of Defence Staff(CDS) in the next couple of days. TheCDS will also act as the permanentchairman of the CoSC.

The ceremony to hand over the baton of chairman of COSC was scheduled as Gen Rawat is due for retirement from service onDecember 31. It is widely expected thatGen Rawat will be appointed as India'sfirst CDS once he demits office of theArmy Chief.

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Seeking to counter theOpposition's campaign on citi-

zenship issues, the BJP is likely toorganise a national-level conferencein January to reach out to Muslims.

Senior BJP leader andMinority Affairs Minister MukhtarAbbas Naqvi on Friday held ameeting, which was attended byNational Commission forMinorities chairman GhayorulHasan Rizvi and some key MuslimBJP leaders, to chalk out a strate-gy in this regard.

Sources said BJP leaderGhayorul Hasan Rizvi and theparty's minority morcha presi-dent Abdul Rasheed Ansari alsoattended the meeting.

The idea is to "demolish mis-information campaign" being car-ried out by some political partieson the new citizenship law, NRCand NPR, they said adding theparty has launched a nationwidecampaign to create awareness overthese issues.

A national-level conferencewill be organised in the first weekof January to inform Muslimsabout the key aspects of theseissues and "how the opposition isspreading confusion", they said.

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The BJP on Friday dubbed Congressleader Rahul Gandhi as the "liar of the

year" after he claimed that the NationalPopulation Register is a "tax" on the poor.His comments have "embarrassed" peo-ple and his Congress party, senior BJPleader and Union Minister PrakashJavadekar said.

Javadekar also accused the Congressof trying to fan instability in the countrybut asserted that people are with the gov-ernment on the new citizenship law andNPR. The NPR does not involve any mon-

etary transaction and its data is used toidentify the poor so that government wel-fare schemes could reach the targeted peo-ple, he said.

A similar exercise was undertaken in2010 as well, he said.

"When Rahul Gandhi was Congresspresident, he would say anything andspeak lie all the time. Now he is no longerpresident but continues to speak lies. Ifthere were a category of the liar of the year,he would be its recipient. His commentsused to embarrass his family. His lies nowembarrass his party and entire country,"Javadekar told reporters.

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Jagiroad (Assam): AssamChief Minister SarbanandaSonowal on Friday said theindigenous people of the State,whose interests are protectedby the Assam Accord, will benot be affected by granting ofIndian citizenship to a “smallnumber” of persecuted people.

Sonowal, while addressingBJP's 'Peace and ProgressMarch' in Morigaon district ofAssam which was also attend-ed by leaders of its alliancepartners AGP and BPF, saidthe state government is com-mitted to protecting the landrights, culture and language ofthe indigenous people.

"Congress could not pro-vide security to the small num-ber of people who fled theircountry due to religious per-secution. Now, they are beinggiven an opportunity to getIndian citizenship by applying

under the Citizenship(Amendment) Act, 2019.

"These people will nothave any negative impact onthe indigenous people. Do notget misled by the misinforma-tion being spread that the BJP-led government will bring inforeigners and settle them onthe surplus lands in villagesand tea gardens," Sonowalsaid.

Noting that only a negli-gible number of foreignerswill get Indian citizenshipunder the Act, he said the BJPgovernments at the Centreand the state will ensure thatthe interests of the indige-nous people are protectedunder Clause 6 of the AssamAccord.

Sonowal said the Clauseprovides constitutional, leg-islative and administrative safe-guards for protecting, pre-

serving and promoting thecultural, social and linguisticidentity and heritage of theAssamese people.

He said the BJP neverworked against the interests ofthe Assamese people and theparty had even supported thesix- year-long anti-foreignersAssam Movement.

The state government willalso reach out to the people todispel their misunderstand-ings about CAA, he said.

Sonowal accused theCongress of settling "lakhs offoreigners" in Assam during itsrule and wondered why therewere no movements againstforeigners then like what thestate is witnessing now.

Protests against the Act,mainly spearheaded by studentbodies AASU and AJYCP, arecontinuing across theBrahmaputra Valley. PTI

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Panaji: Any attack on "Indianspirit" can damage the age-oldsecular fabric of the country,Archbishop of Goa Filipe NeriFerrao said on Friday.

He was addressing theannual civic reception on theoccasion of Christmas here.Chief Minister Pramod Sawantand several ministers were pre-sent on the occasion.

Though the Archbishop didnot refer to any political issue, hisremarks came amid the ragingcontroversy over the amendedCitizenship Act.

Anything that vitiates thegenuinely "Indian spirit" candamage the "centuries-old sec-ular fabric of our nation," he said.

"Sometimes, it (attack onIndian spirit) causes distur-bances and flare-ups that canmar the peace and the tranquil-ity among its citizens," theArchbishop said. PTI

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Mobile Internet facility wasresumed in Ladakh's

Kargil district on Friday butthere is no word on wheninternet services will berestored in Kashmir, wherethe blackout has completed

145 days after the Centre abro-gated provisions of Article 370of the Constitution, officialssaid.

In Kargil, mobile internetservices were restored in viewof complete normalcy return-ing to the district, with nountoward incident taking placeover the past four months, theofficials said.

They said local religiousleaders have appealed to peo-ple not to misuse the facility.Broadband services werealready functional in Kargil.

Internet services were sus-pended on August 5, the daythe Centre announced nullifi-cation of Article 370 and bifur-cation of Jammu & Kashmirinto two Union Territories —Jammu & Kashmir, andLadakh.

The digital blackout inKashmir completed 145 dayson Friday with no sign ofrestoration of the services innear future.

There is no word on wheninternet services will berestored in the Valley, the offi-cials said.

BJP general secretary RamMadhav on Thursday had saidbroadband internet facilitieswere being restoredin Kashmir in a phased man-

ner."The broadband internet

services are being restored in aphased manner. The facilitieshave been restored to thehotels," he had told reportershere.

He had said the localadministration will restore thebroadband services in moresectors after a security review.

In the Valley, the businesscommunity and students arethe worst sufferers due to theinternet shutdown.

"Almost every paperworkrelated to business is now to bedone online. Although the gov-ernment has set up facilitationcentres at various places, theseare not enough. For example, Ihave to shut my shop for a dayto be able to give GST returns.It is not only cumbersome buthumiliating as well, said FarooqAhmad Khan, a businessman.

Hundreds of students, whoaspire to appear in variouscompetitive examinations, haveto make frequent visits to theinternet kiosks set up in officesof deputy commissioners of various dis-tricts and some educationalinstitutions.

Jammu: BJP leader RamMadhav termed the country-wide protests over the amend-ed Citizenship Act and theensuing violence a "political,communal conspiracy" onFriday and blamed theCongress for it.

He lashed out at the oppo-sition party for raking up theNational Population Register(NPR) issue and said it was the"baby of the UPA".

"It (violence over CAA-NPR) is a political, communalconspiracy. We condemn theopposition and communalforces for it," the national gen-eral secretary of the ruling

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)told reporters here.

He alleged that the currentsituation in the country wasdue to a "misinformation cam-paign" by Opposition partiesand certain communal forces.

"The Congress party isinvolved in the promotion ofviolence in the country,"Madhav said.

Criticising opposition par-ties, particularly the Congress,for targeting police, he said thegrand old party should fight theBJP politically, instead of tar-geting the wings of the gov-ernment, especially thepolice. PTI

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Mobile Internet serviceswere restored in Kargil

district of Ladakh on Fridayafter remaining suspended for145 days in the wake of theCentre abrogating provisions ofArticle 370 of the Constitution,officials said.

The services were restoredin view of complete normalcyreturning to Kargil, with nountoward incident taking placeover the past four months, theofficials said.

They said local religiousleaders have appealed to peo-ple not to misuse the facility.

Broadband services werealready functional in Kargil.

Internet services were sus-pended on August 5, theCentre announced abrogationof Article 370 and bifurcationof the State into the union ter-ritories of Jammu and Kashmir,and Ladakh.

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Former Deputy Mayor of Srinagar Municipal Corporation(SMC) Sheikh Imran was arrested on Friday by the Anti-

Corruption Bureau (ACB) in a case pertaining to alleged mis-appropriation of crores of rupees from the Jammu & KashmirBank.

Imran, who was removed as Deputy Mayor of the SrinagarMunicipal Corporation (SMC) after a no-confidence motionagainst him was carried in the corporation on Thursday, wastaken into custody by the ACB for questioning in connectionwith illegal appropriation of subsidy given to his company forsetting up of a Controlled Atmosphere (CA) store, officialsources said.

According to spokesman of the Anti-Corruption Bureau,"Case FIR 3/2019 was registered by ACB against Shiekh ImranDirector M/S Kehwa Square Pvt. Ltd. Bohri Kadal Srinagar, offi-cers of J&K Bank and other Govt officials, for illegal appro-priation of subsidy with inflated project cost for establishmentof CA storage at Lassipora, Pulwama".

ACB Spokesman said, Kehwa Group got their loan of ��138crores with J&K Bank, restructured for merely an amount of� 78 crores under a well knit conspiracy by Sheikh Imran andpartners of M/S Kehwa Square Pvt. Ltd along-with JK BankOfficials.

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Continuing her relentlessattack on the BJP

Government and taking themovement against CitizenshipAmendment Act to the regionsChief Minister MamataBanerjee on Friday assuredthe people of Bengal that therewould be no CAA or NationalRegister for Citizens till she wasalive.

“There will be no CAA orNRC in Bengal as long as I amalive,” Banerjee told a largeaudience at Naihati in North 24Parganas. Iterating that herGovernment would not construct any detention centre,neither will allow any suchplace to come up in Bengal theChief Minister said “there willbe no detention centre inBengal and no one will have toleave this State till I am there,”and added no one had any rightto take away people’s right tocitizenship.

“Right of citizenship is ourbirth right and no one can takethat away,” the Chief Ministerwho had earlier said that shewas not in the know of her par-ent’s birth places or for thatmatter she was not in the possession of their birth cer-tificates said and asked “whoare they (BJP Government) totake away our citizenship. Weare born Indians. We are thechildren of the soil.”

Attacking the BJP leadersfor trying to divide the Indiansociety in the name of “suchdiscriminatory laws” Banerjeesaid “this is one leadershipthat is systematically planningto divide India for their narrowpolitical purpose. But they willnot succeed in their gameplans as India is united as one.Indian culture unites them.”

On the right of the studentsto protest against alleged anti-people approach of the gov-ernment she asked, “Why can'tstudents protest against a dra-conian law? The Centre is tak-ing action against protestingstudents and is rusticatingthem from universities,” andreminded that she wouldalways take the students’ sides. Banerjee who had beenleading large rallies in Kolkataon Friday took the movementoutside the mega city. TheChief Minister is likely to holdsimilar rallies in Purulia districtand Siliguri in January herparty sources said.

Meanwhile, in first suchmove the Left Front and theCongress on Friday hit the

streets with a massive rallyagainst the CAA and NRCpromising to took out evenlarger processions in days tocome.

In what is being seen as thetwo party’s muscle flexing exer-cise the “impressively big” rallywalked about 3 kilometresshouting slogans against theCAA-NRC and in support ofan all-India general strike onJanuary 8.

“This is the first time wehave come out jointly inKolkata on a big issues andhave been able to unite all theanti-BJP, anti-TMC parties thathave secular credentials,” StatePCC president Somen Mitrasaid adding “in future biggerrallies will be taken out.

The procession comprising20 Left parties and Congresswas jointly led by top CPI(M)leaders like Biman Bose,Suryakanto Mishra andCongress leaders like Mitra,Pradip Bhattacharya and oth-ers.

The BJP too took out amassive rally at Tamluk in EastMidnapore in support of theCAA with State BJP presidentDilip Ghosh attacking theTMC and the Left for “confus-ing the people about the realimport of the law which nevertalks about taking one’s citi-zenship but talks about pro-viding the people with citizen-ship right.”

Kolkata: The Bengal Oppositionparties have questioned the “hiddenagenda” behind the MamataBanerjee Government’s decision toreward senior IPS officer and formerKolkata Police Commissioner RajeevKumar — with alleged role in tam-pering of evidence in Saradha chitfund case — with a posting meantfor the IAS officers.

Kumar a highly qualified IITian(in computer technology) vides a lateevening Government notification onThursday was transferred from thepost of Additional Director Generalof Police to Principal Secretary,Information Technology.

“It is unprecedented that a taint-ed officer who is facing CBI inves-tigation gets a reward posting andelevation from IPS to IAS cadre. Thisis only possible in the regime ofMamata Banerjee,” said seniorCPI(M) leader Sujan Chakrabartywondering why the BJP was silentabout that posting.

Kumar’s case is pending in theSupreme Court where the CBI hasappealed for a permission to arresthim after getting an adverse order inCalcutta High Court which restrict-ed the top cop’s movements betweenhis office and residence.

Kumar was allegedly under-ground for about a month inOctober with the CBI hot in his trail— a development that the opposi-tion dismissed as a hand-in-glovetactic of the BJP and TMCGovernments.

The senior officer who is cur-rently on leave and is reportedly outof country apparently pursuing hispost doctoral degree in mathemat-ics is wanted by the CBI for hisalleged complacency in the multi-crore chit fund case in which a num-ber of vital evidences — like pen dri-ves, dairies of the main accusedSudipto Sen, lap tops etc — werereportedly seized but not exhibited. PNS

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After suffering huge lossesin strong retaliatory firing

late Thursday night in whichat least four Pakistani Armysoldiers lost their lives, twoeach across Kupwara andPoonch sectors, The PakistanArmy on Friday targeted sev-eral forward villages inSunderbani and Nowsherasectors of Rajouri district.

According to groundreports, alert Indian troopsafter noticing suspectedmovement of heavily armed infiltratorsprevented intrusion bid oppositeKupwara sector. In retaliatory firing, atleast two Pakistani soldiers were killedwhile some of their posts, aiding intru-sion bid suffered damages.

The Pakistan Army, also sufferedheavy damages opposite Krishna Ghatisector of Poonch after they resorted touse of heavy calibre weapons to target

Indian positions. At least two Pakistanisoldiers lost their lives in retaliatory fir-ing as their forward posts were direct-ly hit by the Indian Army.

Situation remained tense alongthe line of control in Rajouri district onFriday as the Pakistan Army targetedseveral civilian areas in Sunderbani,Kalal and Nowshera sectors. Accordingto official sources, several structures

were hit during intenseexchange of mortarshelling.

More than one dozenforward villages in the areawere worst hit by randomshelling of mortars, officialsources said.

Defence PRO inJammu, Lt-Col DevenderAnand said, "Pakistan ini-tiated 'unprovoked' cease-fire violation by firing ofsmall arms and shellingwith mortars along LoC inSunderbani around 1.15

p.m". Hours later, Kalal and Nowsherasectors were also targeted by thePakistan army around 6.30 p.m.Defence PRO said, the Indian Armyretaliated befittingly. Large number ofborder residents, braving severe coldwave conditions, remained closetedinside their homes for long hours dueto continuous exchange of firing in thearea.

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The Congress on Fridaycharged the Narendra

Modi Government at theCentre with working on theNational Register for Citizensacross the country in the garbof National Population Register,which received the Cabinetnod earlier this week.

AICC spokesman AjayMaken, who was speaking tonewsmen, sought to buttressthe point by citing that the NPRforms are seeking informa-tions like mobile numbers of allfamily members and drivinglicense details which had notbeen sought when the NPR was

last conducted in the 2010-11by the UPA Government inwhich he was the minister ofstate for home.

Maken also rejected theGovernments contention thatthese details were to be sharedvoluntarily and not mandato-rily. The NPR forms have anambiguous 'if available' clause.Anybody who does not sharethese details would run the riskof his citizenship being deemeddoubtful," he told a press con-ference here.

Asserting that the NRChas always been on the BJPsagenda, Maken pointed outthat way back in 2003 when theNDA was in power it had

brought out an amendment inthe Citizenship Act seeking tomake registration of every cit-izen compulsory.

When we (Congress) cameto power in 2004, there was apilot project being carried outin a union territory with a smallpopulation of 3.1 million. Wejunked it though the BJP hadsought to implement it acrossthe country, as it was found thatless than half of the residentscould produce valid docu-ments. Most of them werepoor who had no means to bein possession of documentaryproof of citizenship, theCongress leader pointed out. PTI

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Aligarh: The AMU Teachers'Association on Friday called fora judicial probe into the clash-es between police and studentsduring a protest against theamended citizenship law lastweek.

The association alsodemanded that "false cases"against Aligarh MuslimUniversity (AMU) students beimmediately withdrawn andguilty police personnel be pun-ished as per the law. Withoutthese it will become difficult torestore normalcy on the insti-tute's campus, the teachers' bodysaid. Hundreds of AligarhMuslim University (AMU) stu-dents protesting against theamended Citizenship Actclashed with police onDecember 15 at a campus gateafter which the universityadminstration announced clo-sure of the institution till January5. After the clash the police hadsaid students broke the policecordon and fought pitched bat-tles with them. But students hadquestioned this version.

"Nothing less than a judicialinquiry" will help in ensuringjustice to the victims of the vio-lent incidents of December 15,the association said in a resolu-tion passed in a meeting of itsexecutive committee onFriday. PTI

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Former Chief Minister andsenior BJP leader Devendra

Fadnavis on Friday slammedthe Shiv Sena-led MaharashtraGovernment for denying per-mission to take out a morchafrom the August Kranti Maidanto Lokmanya Tilak statue atGirgaum Chowpatty in southMumbai in support of theCitizenship Amendment Act(CAA).

Addressing a pro-CAA

rally at the August KrantiMaidan, Fadnavis said: “Wehad sought permission for tak-ing out a peaceful morchafrom the August Kranti Maidanto Lokmanya Tilak statue atGirgaum Chowpatty. But, theState Government denied uspermission. The StateGovernment appears to havelost its senses. The Governmentmay prevent us from taking outa rally, but it cannot prevent usfrom supporting CAA”.

Charging that the

Opposition parties were delib-erately trying to create unrestin the country, Fadnavis said:“The opposition is deliberate-ly trying to create misunder-standing among Indian

Muslims about the Act. Forvote bank politics, oppositionis trying to create unrest”.

Maintaining that the theCAA would not take away thecitizenship of any Indiannational, Fadnavis said:“Pakistan has failed to fulfill theassurance during Partition thatminorities will be protected inboth the countries. Hence, it isour responsibility has to lookafter the persecuted Hindus inPakistan because they are ourpeople".

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The Gujarat High Court on Fridayupheld capital punishment for a

22-year-old man convicted for rapeand murder of a three-year-old girlin Surat in October 2018.

A division bench of Justices BelaTrivedi and A C Rao rejected theappeal filed by Anil Yadav againstthe death penalty awarded by a spe-cial Protection of Children fromSexual Offences (POCSO) Act courtin Surat in July. The StateGovernment had sought confirma-tion of the sentence.

The victim went missing fromher house in Godadara area of Suraton October 14, 2018. Police foundher body a day later from a lockedroom on the ground floor of the

building where she lived.Yadav, who occupied that room,

was missing. A migrant labourerfrom Bihar, he knew the victim andher family. He was arrested from hisvillage in Buxar district of Bihar fivedays after the body was discovered,and charged with raping and mur-dering the girl.

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Following wide anger andresentment all over Tamil

Nadu against conferringhonorary doctorate to thetainted film lyricistVairamuthu by a privateuniversity in Chennai,Rajnath Singh, UnionDefense Minister, who wasto be the chief guest for thefunction cancelled his tripitself to the city scheduledfor Saturday.

Hindu Front, anumbrella organisation fea-turing Sangh Parivar con-stituents had threatened onFriday morning that it wouldstage a black flag demon-stration against the Ministeras well as the university onSaturday.

Later, following assur-ances from the State BJPhead quarters that theMinister had cancelled histrip to Chennai, the Hindu

Front leaders called offthe proposed black flagdemonstration.

Vairamuthu was inthe news last year asmany female film artistescame out in the open aspart of the “Me Too”campaign against himfor his overtures andattempts to sexuallyabuse them offering themchances in films. ThoughVairamuthu had denied anysuch happenings, the num-ber of allegations by artistesincreased which put thenational award winningsong writer in an embar-rassing situation. The nationhad honoured the writerwith Padma Bhushan in2014 for his distinguishedservices in “Literature andEducation”.

Scathing attack camefrom leading playback singerChinmoyi Sripada of Tamilfilm industry who was thefirst victim to come out in

the open as part of theMeToo campaign againstthe lyricist. “The DefenceMinister of India is confer-ring an honorary degree toKavignar Vairamuthunamed by 9 women so farfor having molested

them.Just reiterating — outing

KNOWN molesters doesNO damage to them. InsteadI got banned from working.

Yes, I know this doctor-ate is for his prowess in thelanguage which is well estab-lished.

The way he went on,they might as well add a doc-

torate for being a ser-ial molester. Also welldone, SRM. Youcouldn’t have chosen abetter example foryour students on ‘RoleModel’”, wrote thesinger in her socialmedia.

Besides Chinmoyi,many prominent per-

sons including Prof RVaidyanathan of the IndianInstitute of Managementfrom across the countryasked the union minister tokeep off from the convoca-tion ceremony.

TR Parivendhar, MPwho is the chancellor of theUniversity himself was in theeye of a storm followingdisclosure by nearly hun-dred students that they werecheated of � 90 crore by hisuniversity offering seats forMBBS course. He was inChennai Central Prison forthree months and the case isyet to be resolved.

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Panaji: Goa Shiv Sena chiefJitesh Kamat on Fridayexpressed gratitude toGovernor Satya Pal Malik forbeing sensitive towards Goanson the Mahadayi water diver-sion issue.

This is after Malik toldlocal cable channel 'PrudentMedia' that he was with thepeople of Goa in their fight forMahadayi, and attacked theCentre on the river dispute.

Goa and Karnataka arelocked in a battle on Mahadayiriver water sharing and the for-mer has opposed the Centre's

letter on December 24 to theneighbouring state informingthat environment clearancewas not needed for the KalsaBhanduri project on the riverthere.

The governor has beenhere only for two months butis sensitive to the sentiments ofGoans unlike others who claimto represent people of the state,Kamat said in a statement.

He also attacked ChiefMinister Pramod Sawant onthe issue and said the latter wascriticising Goan agitators ratherthan standing with them. PTI

Chennai: The first phase ofpolls to elect councillors, pan-chayat union presidents andward members for the localbodies concluded in TamilNadu on Friday with reports ofstray incidents taking place ina few polling booths. The datesfor the much-awaited pollswere announced by the StateElection Commission early thismonth.

The polls are being heldexcluding the nine districtswhere the delimitation exercisehas to be completed.

The newly formed ninedistricts are Kancheepuram,Chengalput, Vellore,Tirupattur, Ranipet,Villupuram, Kallakurichi,Tirunelveli and Tenkasi.

The second phase wouldbe held on December 30.

According to sources, thereare nearly 1.30 crore voters tocast their vote in first phasewhile another 1.28 crore in thesecond phase. The pollingwhich began at 7 am ended at5 pm.

The counting of voteswould take place on January 2.According to the Tamil NaduState Election Commission,the total number of pollingbooths set up was 49,688 ofwhich 24,680 were covered in phase-I. total number of candidates contest-ing the polls was 2,31,890, theSEC said in a press release. PTI

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Thousands of devoteesthronged the Lord Ayyappa

temple here on Friday for themandala puja which markedthe culmination of the 41-day annual pilgrim season that was peaceful unlikeprotests over women's entrylast year.

Chanting “swamiyesaranam” Ayyappa devoteesthronged the hill-top templeand waited patiently to witnessthe special pujas and ritualsincluding “kalabhaabhishekam” and “kalasaabhishekam”.

The 'mandala puja' washeld under the aegis of the headpriest Kandaru MaheshMohanararu and Melshanti(Chief Priest) A SudheerNamboothiri as pilgrims chant-ed hymns of the Lord in uni-son.

The idol of the LordAyyappa was adorned with'thanka angi,” the sacred gold-en attire, which was broughthere on Thursday evening in aceremonial procession fromthe Sree Parthasarthy temple atAranmula.

Last year, the shrine hadwitnessed frenzied protests bydevotees over the entry ofyoung women after the LDFGovernment decided to imple-ment the September 28 verdictof the Supreme Court allowingwomen of all age groups tooffer prayers.

However, with petitionsagainst the September 28 ver-dict being referred to a largerbench by the apex court, theState Government decided toexercise caution and held thatwomen in the 10-50 age groupwho wish to visit the hill tem-ple should get a “court order”and it would not encourageactivism.

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Union Minister RamdasAthawale said here on

Friday that he disagreed withRSS chief Mohan Bhagwat'sassertion that all 130 crorepeople living in India areHindus.

Speaking in Hyderabad onThursday, Bhagwat had saidthat the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh considersthe entire population of Indiaas Hindu society, irrespective ofpeople's individual religionsand culture.

Athawale, a Dalit leaderwho heads the RepublicanParty of India, a constituent ofthe NDA, told PTI

that he did not agree withBhagwat.

“If it is said that RSS con-siders everyone Indian (insteadof Hindu) and we are all unit-ed, I can understand. Hindusare the majority community,but there are also Buddhists, Muslims,Christians, Jains, Dalits,Backward Classes. All of us areone and united as Indians,” hesaid.

At one time Buddhism wasa dominant religion in manycountries including India, hesaid, adding, “Should we (then)say all of us are Buddhists?”

Coimbatore: A 34-year oldman was on Friday sentencedto death by a special court herefor rape and murder of a seven-year old girl nine months agoon the city outskirts.

The victim's mother hailedthe verdict, saying it should bea deterrent in future to “suchbeasts”.

Judge R Radhika of thespecial court for Protection ofChildren from Sexual OffencesAct (POCSO) cases heldSanthoshkumar guilty undervarious sections of the IndianPenal Code and the POCSOand awarded the capital pun-ishment.

According to prosecution,Santhoshkumar had allegedlyraped and murdered the girl,

daughter of a neighbour of hisgrandmother, at Pannimadaiand dumped the body in agarbage bin on March 25.

Santhoshkumar was arrest-ed on March 31 days after thegirl was found dead with herlimbs tied and the body bear-ing injuries with the incidenttriggering protests by locals.He was thrashed by an angrygroup of public when he wasbrought to the government

hospital here for medical checkup after his arrest.

The trial in the case wasproceeding in the MahilaCourt, which has now beendesignated the POCSO court,and 32 witnesses were exam-ined.

Judge Radhika awardeddeath sentence for murder, lifeimprisonment for rape andseven year imprisonment fordestroying evidence under IPCand POCSO sections.

Passing orders on a petitionby the girl's mother seekingarrest of another person whosealleged involvement in thecrime came to light recentlyafter DNA tests, the judgeordered the police to furtherinvestigate the case. PTI

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Jaipur: Rajasthan ChiefMinister Ashok Gehlot onFriday said the Constitutionguarantees freedom of speechand disagreement should notbe seen as something anti-national.

He said the youth of thecounty was being misleadthrough social media whichwas not good for a healthydemocracy.

“The Constitution hasgiven the freedom of speechand disagreement should notbe seen as something anti-national,” Gehlot said at a pro-gramme here.

“The country today needsto follow the path shown byMahatma Gandhi. It shouldrun as per the spirit of theConstitution so that everyonecan get social and economicjustice,” Gehlot said at a pro-gramme here.

He said youths were beingmisled through social mediawhich was a matter of concern.

Speaking at the meeting ofthe National Federation ofIndian Women at RavindraManch here, Gehlot said hisgovernment has taken severalinitiatives to prevent crimesagainst the women. PTI

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The outcome of the UnitedNations’ Climate ChangeConference, also known as COP25 (25th United Nations ClimateChange Conference), held in

Madrid from December 2 to 13, has dis-appointed many. It produced a bland, plat-itudinous statement re-emphasising with“serious concern the urgent need toaddress the significant gap between theaggregate effect of Parties’ mitigationefforts in terms of global annual emissionsof greenhouse gases by 2020.” It simulta-neously added that it “stresses the urgencyof enhanced ambition in order to ensurethe highest possible mitigation and adap-tation efforts by all Parties.”

COP 25’s failures were primarily in twoareas. One was its inability to frame rulesgoverning the operations of carbon trad-ing, which owes its origin to the KyotoProtocol of 1997. Deferred to this year bythe last year’s conference, COP 24, it hasbeen shelved for the next climate confer-ence, COP 26, to be held in Glasgow inDecember next year. The second was itsfailure to make any progress towardsachieving meaningful emission cuts.

One must first look at the carbon trad-ing since deliberations over it were sup-posed to be a principal feature of the con-ference even before the latter began. It owesits origin to the Kyoto Protocol, which cameinto force in 2005. Dividing countries intodeveloped and developing ones, and recog-nising that the former were responsible forthe current level of greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions through more than 150 years ofindustrial activity, it mandated that the 37industrialised nations plus the EuropeanUnion cut their emission levels to targetsfor GHG emissions for the first complianceperiod from 2008 to 2012. Developingcountries, numbering 100, and includingIndia and China, were asked to con-tribute by investing in projects designed tolower emissions in their countries.

Developed, industrialised countriesundertook to reduce their annual hydro-carbon emissions by an average of 5.2 percent, representing 29 per cent of theworld’s GHG emissions, by 2012. Allcountries were required to draw up nation-al emission reduction targets, calledNationally Determined Contributions(NDCs), which they had to submit regu-larly to the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFC-CC). The protocol laid down that insteadof reducing its own emissions, a pollutingcompany or country could buy carboncredits from another that had reduced itscarbon footprint. Industrialised countriescould do so through the EmissionReduction Purchase Agreement, while aClean Development Mechanism gavedeveloping countries carbon credits in theform of Certified Emission ReductionUnits, which were bought and sold in a sep-

arate market. Equally, insteadof reducing emissions domes-tically, an industrialised country or a company couldoffset its high levels of GHGemissions by investing in greenventures through what theProtocol identified as JointImplementation (JI) projectsand, thereby, earn EmissionReduction Units from the latter.

The question arises: Whatis a carbon credit? It is a per-mit or a certificate, issued by aGovernment or a regulatorybody, allowing a country or anorganisation to burn a certainspecified amount of hydrocar-bon fuel over a specified peri-od. Each carbon credit is val-ued against one tonne of hydro-carbon fuel.

As the commitment peri-od of the Kyoto Protocol endedin December 2012, parties to itmet in Doha, Qatar, andamended it, fixing new emis-sion reduction targets for theperiod 2013 to 2020. The DohaAmendment, as it was called,was, however, never ratifiedand was superseded by theParis Climate Agreement of2015. Article 6 of the ParisClimate Agreement providesfor international cooperationand carbon trading.

Unfortunately, the issue ofcarbon trading has been cloud-

ed by allegations of corruptionand the fundamental claimthat it does not really help inreducing emission levels.Particularly under focus havebeen Joint ImplementationProjects. The rules providethat an industrialised countrymust invest in a project, whichwould not otherwise have comeabout and not in ones that wereto happen anyway. The allega-tion is that the latter has beenthe case in an alarming num-ber of instances.

As early as August 24,2015, a report in The Guardianby Arthur Neslen referred tothe findings of the StockholmEnvironment Institute that theJoint Implementation schemewas so open to abuse thatthree quarters of the allowancesunder it lacked environmentalintegrity. As a result, around600m tonnes of carbon werewrongly emitted under theUNFCCC-administered JointImplementation (JI) scheme.The institute’s paper, whichwas corroborated by UnitedNations officials, and parts ofwhich were published in NatureClimate Change, states that anestimated 80 per cent of JI pro-jects were of low environmen-tal quality. The Guardian dis-patch quotes one of the authorsof the report, VladyslavZhezherin, as saying, “Many of

them didn’t observe therequirements of JI on ‘addition-ality’ as they would probablyhave happened anyway, and Iwould even doubt the physicalexistence of some of these pro-jects.” He was further quoted tohave added, “I would say thatmany of them were fake.”

According to The Guardianreport, Russia and Ukrainewere the two biggest beneficia-ries of the JI system. Not sur-prisingly, JI markets in thetwo countries have receivedparticular attention. TheGuardian report quotes asource with regulatory experi-ence in Ukraine’s JI market assaying that as the 2000sdragged on, JIs increasinglycame to be seen by market par-ticipants as “a corruptionmechanism.”

Clearly, the rules and reg-ulations for carbon tradingneed to be reformed substan-tially to rule out corruption andensure transparency in transac-tions. Matters have been furthercomplicated by the issue ofwhether carbon credits earnedbefore the Paris ClimateConference can be used in theperiod after it came into force.Not surprisingly, the rules con-tinue to be subjects of discus-sion and, judging by theprogress thus far and the inter-ests involved, are unlikely to be

finalised in COP 26. Even ifthese are, the wider question ofwhether the carbon tradingsystem actually helps in reduc-ing emission levels remains,with the critics pointing out thatit primarily helps the develop-ing countries to maintain theirhigh emission levels withoutmaking any significant contri-bution to reducing — or evencontaining — emission levels inthe developing countries.

This once again under-lines the fact that globalwarming can only be mitigat-ed by implementing the ParisClimate Agreement’s goal ofkeeping the global tempera-ture rise this century to wellbelow 2OC above pre-indus-trial levels and to pursueefforts to limit the tempera-ture increase even further to1.5OC. It is also important toachieve the Agreement’s goalof enhancing the ability ofcountries to deal with impactsof climate change.Unfortunately, no progresswas made in these directionsin Madrid and given the atti-tudes of the Trump adminis-tration and leaders like JairBolsonaro, the President ofBrazil, no significant progressis likely in the near future.

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

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Row over NPR” (December27). The faux pas on the AssamNational Register of Citizens(NRC) had the Government errin haste over its subsequent andcontradictory narrative on theNational Population Register(NPR)-NRC. It must be said thatthe Government counted on thismiasma to look for electoralleverage in the upcomingAssembly elections.

Assam, however, has longbeen vehement over the prima-cy of the Assamese ethos in anypolitical prescription. The netresult is a nationwide reaction,with each section interpretingthe same page to its own under-standing. The feverish attemptsat translation by every stake-holder can be toned down, if notbe subdued, only when theSupreme Court gives its rulingon the Citizenship AmendmentAct (CAA). We have seen howa simple referendum over Brexithas tied up a nation with fourcenturies of vintage democracyin knots for three long years.

R Narayanan Navi Mumbai

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Sir — It is really disquieting thatthe Indian Government has shutdown the internet in variousparts of the country in order to

quell the protests against theCitizenship Amendment Act(CAA), with Uttar Pradesh top-ping the list.

This situation is eerily remi-niscent of the blackouts carriedout by the Chinese Government

during the pro-democracyprotests in Hong Kong earlier thisyear. That the current scenario isbeing equated with an authoritar-ian regime is not a healthy sign.

Adrian David Chennai

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Sir — It is heart-warming toknow that former Indian crick-et team skipper Mahendra SinghDhoni has accomplished hisglorious 15 years in internation-al cricket. With an unconven-tional batting technique, new-fangled wicket-keeping expertiseand fearless captaincy, Dhonichanged the face of Indian crick-et and took the team to newheights in the internationalarena. He also became a rolemodel for countless youngstersacross the nation.

Dhoni has always been astrong pillar of the Indian crick-et team. Despite being a smalltown boy, he made it evidentthat nothing can restrain anindividual from achieving great-ness in life if one has a genuinepassion and a strong will to doso. Since he has not played forteam India for the past sixmonths, one hopes that hemakes a sturdy comeback soonin international cricket.

Tushar AnandPatna

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Having missed the first and secondindustrial revolution of the 19th andearly 20th century (courtesy the sub-jugation of India to colonial rulers ofthose times) and even the third tech-

nology-driven revolution (this one was primarilydue to the “protectionist” and “inward-looking”Government policies, which were not conducive toembracing technology), India is at the forefront ofleading the fourth industrial revolution — a digi-tally driven one —with speed and scale.

The digital revolution calls for a shift frommechanical and analogue electronic technology todigital electronics, which began in the late 50s andthe late 1970s with the adoption and proliferationof digital computers and digital record-keeping,which continues till the present day. The last fiveyears have seen massive proliferation of affordablemobile phones, increase in the penetration of theinternet and the explosion of data use from a mere0.2 GB a month to 11 GB. This was possible dueto the mammoth investment in telecom infrastruc-ture, exponential growth of mobile factories with-in the country, expansion of telecom services (withprime focus on data services) and the adoption ofnew technologies, which are many times more effi-cient and cost effective. This was in turn spurredby an enabling policy environment that included“change horses in midstream.” For instance, underthe New Telecom Policy (NTP), 1999, serviceproviders were allowed to switch over to the pay-ment of license fee as a percentage of their annu-al revenue.

Digital infrastructure now forms the bedrockof unprecedented growth of start-ups in sunriseindustries viz, online retail commerce, retail bro-kering, food delivery, ride-hailing, digital aggrega-tion of service providers such as plumbers, clean-ers and painters among others. Consequently, Indiahas now emerged as the third largest start-up ecosys-tems in the world, right behind China and the US.It offers huge scope for generating employment andincome. The success of the Modi Government’s“financial inclusion” programme is predicated onthe use of the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-mobile phone(JAM) trinity. This platform is used for direct trans-fer of subsidy and other benefits to the beneficia-ry’s account. This scheme has helped save thousandsof crores of rupees by plugging leakages. This, how-ever, would not have been possible in the absenceof a robust digital architecture.

The Government has made effective use of tech-nology to empower the farmers by distributing dig-itally-enabled 140 million soil health cards, whichhave all the information about the nutrient statusof the soil and provides information on what fer-tilisers and other inputs are needed to improve soilhealth and its fertility. The Government alsolaunched the National Agriculture Market (NAM),a pan-India electronic trading portal, for farm pro-duce for the creation of a unified national marketfor agricultural commodities. Payments of wagesunder MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi RuralEmployment Guarantee Scheme) are also beingdone through the Aadhaar Payments Bridge (APB)using the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) model.

The digital architecture has also helped mil-lions of consumers and traders in facilitating easeof payments and business. The Government hasalso given a boost to indigenous digital paymentmechanism. The Bharat Interface for Money-

Unified Payment Interface (BHIMUPI),with over 600 million transactions amonth (January 2019), is the interoper-able backbone that connects all bankswith the consumers.

True, India has seized the opportu-nity and taken the lead in the digital rev-olution. However, given the huge size ofthe nation, vastness in terms of bothdemography and geography, there are mil-lions of people, who still remain uncon-nected and those connected are faced withquality issues. This makes it clear that thereare massive challenges when it comes toenacting the kind of changes that are nec-essary in order to make a digital leap tothe fourth industrial revolution. All stake-holders, including the Government andservice providers, must be prepared toaddress the loopholes.

First, economic growth, whichslowed down to five per cent and 4.5 percent during the first and second quar-ter of the year, needs to be revived andaccelerated to eight per cent in order tofulfil the dream of a $5 trillion econo-my by 2025. A “robust” and “healthy”digital infrastructure will be very crucialto achieve this target. It is equallyimportant to realise the vital goal of dou-bling farmers income.

Second, substantial augmentation ofthe existing infrastructure will be nec-essary for the Modi Government toachieve its ambitious financial inclusionprogramme and at the same time ensur-ing effective implementation of welfareschemes. For instance, under thePradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi(PM-KISAN), which promises to enroll140 million marginal farmers within itsfold, only 70 million have been enrolledso far. The Government has not evenreached the half-way mark yet.

The proposal to pay fertiliser sub-sidy through the DBT system requiresmonumental efforts in terms of collect-

ing farmers’ data viz, land size, cropgrown, soil status and fertiliser use. Allof these need to be put on digital record.There is also a need to create a technol-ogy-driven financial architecture for has-sle-free transfer of money into the ben-eficiary’s account. Unfortunately, theexercise has not even begun.

Third, India needs at least three tofour telecom service providers so as tomaintain delivery of “quality” services at“affordable” price (considering the grow-ing needs, we should be aiming at six).Unfortunately, today, the telecom indus-try is at the brink. One major player,Vodafone-Idea, has already hinted atclosing the shop if the Government doesnot provide relief. There is an urgentneed to pull it back.

The service providers themselvesneed to do a lot. They began well bypledging to avoid predatory tariff cuts.This should be sustained (the regulatorwill have to play a role expected from it;it has not done so far). The Governmentmay provide some relief by way of a cutin Spectrum Usage Charge (SUC) fromexisting eight per cent to say five per centand a reduction in Goods and ServicesTax (GST) as well. However, it must notgo for a complete bailout as that coulddestabilise its budget.

Fourth, while implementing revivalplans for BSNL and MTNL, efforts mustbe made to ensure that they remain self-financed and the impact on the budgetmust remain minimal. This can be doneonly if the sale plan of their land and otherassets is vigorously carried forward.Apart from reaching out to remoteareas, where private firms may not go,their continuation is necessary from“security” and “strategic” perspective.

Fifth, the Government must come outwith a comprehensive policy on “subsi-dising” digital services under its welfareschemes to empower farmers, self-help

groups (SHGs) and village panchayatsamong others. Money should come fromthe State or Central budget and, thus,ensure that the service providers, includ-ing BSNL, are not made to foot the bill.

Sixth, in the process of conductingbusinesses, digital companies generatedata on millions of customers. This hasraised three major concerns viz, protec-tion of data; rights of citizens to priva-cy; and national security. Consideringthat the e-commerce landscape is dom-inated by multinationals such as Amazonand Walmart, concerns are heighteneddue to cross-border movement andsharing of “sensitive” data with third par-ties, including foreign Governments.

The Government has adopted amulti-pronged way to address these con-cerns, which includes the issuance of exec-utive orders (for example, last year, theReserve Bank of India ordered all paymentcompanies to transfer data to India with-in six months); enactment of a law on dataprotection; the roll out of a policy on FDIin e-commerce market place and regula-tions for the conduct of MNCs on theseplatforms. However, care must be takento ensure that our digital initiatives andinnovation, especially, the start-up ecosys-tem, are not haemorrhaged. We also needto remember that if India goes too far ininsisting on “data localisation”, “setting uplocal office” and the “handing over thedata key to regulators”, then this can trig-ger retaliation from the US, the EU coun-tries and others, thus affecting billions ofdollar exports from Indian IT and IT-enabled service companies.

Finally, India needs to carefully devel-op its approach to taxation of digital trans-actions (and how the Government canmake OECD agree to our ideas on thesubject) as in the years to come, this willbe a major source of revenue.

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

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In 1910, the then US President, WilliamHoward Taft, had claimed that “within fiveyears, cancer will have been removed from

the list of fatal maladies.” More than a cen-tury later, we are yet to understand the intri-cacies of the disease. Cancer refers to a classof disease where previously healthy cells mul-tiply abnormally and spread or “metastasise”to other parts of the body. When thisgrowth impairs the normal functions oforgans or systems, it can lead to death. Canceris not a single disease but a grouping of hun-dreds of diseases, which share common fea-tures. This means that any cure must be spe-cific to the particular sub-class to be effec-tive. This, along with the fact that curing can-cer ultimately means removal of unwantedgrowths of parts of our own body, make itincredibly hard to treat.

Cancer is of particular concern forIndia. There has been a tectonic shift in the

disease burden faced by the country. Vector-borne diseases, such as that of Malaria, havesteadily decreased over the last three decadesbut the incidence of lifestyle diseases, cate-gorised as non-communicable diseases orNCDs, such as diabetes and hypertension, hasincreased manifold in the same period.Increasingly, cancer’s share in NCDs hasincreased in the past few years. The age-stan-dardised rate of cancer is estimated to be 97per 100,000 people. Treatments are prohib-itively expensive and out-of-pocket expen-diture is highest among any ailment, withabout 40 per cent of cancer cases beingfinanced through borrowings, sale of assetsand contributions from family.

In 2014, the ratio of the number of oncol-ogists to the number of cancer patients stoodat 1:2000, a far cry from the 1:100 ratio of highincome nations such as the US. With 11.5lakh new cancer patients being registeredevery year in the country, the healthcare sys-tem is reeling under overburdened workforceand inadequate infrastructure. In 2018 alone,7.8 lakh people succumbed to the disease.Cancer takes time to present itself, whichmeans it is usually diagnosed at an advancedstage. This inevitably means that the diseaseis tougher and more expensive to treat. Earlydiagnosis, coupled with prompt treatment,especially in the case of common cancers suchas breast, cervical and colorectal cancers, per-

haps is the only way forward in ensuring sur-vivability. But diagnostic services for cancerare scant, the procedures tend to be expen-sive and invasive. The problem India faces istwo-fold: We need to diagnose cancer earli-er and do it at a fraction of the cost. ArtificialIntelligence (AI) may just be the answer.

Field image recognition, a sub-part of AI,has the ability to read and point anomalies.Many companies have come forward anddeveloped AI-enabled radiology tools thatpredict cancer at an early stage. Existence ofa high number of digitised images in radi-ology makes it a ripe field for AI exploration.Emergence of algorithms with the capabili-ty of analysing digital images to individualpixel level has opened the possibility of detect-ing features imperceptible to the human eyes.

MIT’s AI lab and Massachusetts GeneralHospital (MGH) have created a new deep-learning model that can predict from a mam-mogram if a patient is likely to develop breastcancer as much as five years in the future.Identifying subtle markers in breast tissuesthat can act as precursors to malignanttumors, years in advance, is a breakthroughthat supports physician’s clinical decision.Niramai Health Analytix, a startup headquar-tered in Bengaluru, has developed an AI-leddiagnostic platform that uses thermal imageprocessing and ML algorithms for reliable andaccurate breast cancer screening.

The tech community has recognised theimpact that AI can have in healthcare withopen source community and medical estab-lishments actively building data-sets to spurinnovation. Detection of lung nodules andtheir classification into benign and malignantgrowths using CT scans formed the problemstatement of 2017 Kaggle Data ScienceBowl, an international competition in the fieldof machine learning. Responses to thisresulted in models with promising accura-cy ranging from 85-90 per cent. AI can alsosuccessfully segment the lung tumors basedon volumes and offer an insight into triag-ing cases for doctors and radiotherapy treat-ment planning. Whether these algorithms canbe deployed on field, after refinement, is aquestion the medical community and theGovernment needs to answer.

AI may, perhaps, already be better thanhuman doctors in a few, very specific tasks.Taking the conversation outside oncology,NTT Data, a Japanese technology firm, part-nered with Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospitaland Research Center in Pune to test the effi-cacy of its AI diagnosis support solution. Themodel was able to detect 56 emphysema cases,a lung condition that causes difficulty breath-ing, while normal diagnosis without AIdetected 17 cases. These AI detected casesshowed signs of mild or moderate levels ofemphysema, which gave early findings to

kickstart early treatment, thereafter enablingtracking of disease progression. In oncolo-gy as well, AI may be able to diagnose patientsearlier and more accurately than doctors can,with the tools they currently have.Applications of AI in oncology go beyondimage recognition as well.

With the healthcare industry increasing-ly adopting the practice of maintaining dig-itized health records, referred to as ElectronicHealth Records (EHR), AI is increasingly har-nessing these digital records using natural lan-guage processing techniques to analyse dataand predict the development of diseases.Marriage of EHR and AI find applications notonly in disease prediction but also in diseasemonitoring, decision-making and drug rec-ommendation. The use of EHR-enabled AI,to provide better services to the patients, isalready underway in India.

As it stands, there is ample evidence toprove that AI will make diagnosis and treat-ment of cancer cheaper, more accurate andaccessible to all. A few start-ups and health-care institutions are well underway at mak-ing this promise a reality. With advances intechnological infrastructure and burgeoningresearch in AI, we can begin to expect pathbreaking changes in oncological care. But lackof clear regulations, quality data and a dis-parate public health system are impedimentsto large-scale deployment of these solutions.

Perhaps the biggest barrier to the injec-tion of these solutions in public health sys-tems lies in proving generalisability and onground efficacy of these applications. SomeAI algorithms make it impossible to re-tracethe steps involved in the algorithm reachinga decision, a problem which is referred to as“black box problem.” This problem might pre-vent us from weeding out biases and canresult in unwitting and malicious problems.Biases may creep in through other mecha-nisms, such as training the AI model on non-representative datasets. Regulations, whichmandate and set parameters for datasets thatAI algorithms are trained on, are required toprevent any such biases. An ecosystem thatsupports infusion of AI into regular practicesneeds to be developed as well. As it stands,public healthcare systems are fragmented andare not interoperable. While a few standardsdo exist, the healthcare industry is yet to adoptthem in a holistic manner. Adoption of indus-try wide standards along with clear mecha-nisms and guidelines for use and certifica-tion of AI and AI-enabled medical deviceswill be necessary in order to make sure AIsolutions for cancer become ubiquitous.

(Eluri has led digital transformation pro-jects in the pharmaceutical industry. Sharmais a software professional. Both are with theInternational Innovation Corps, ChicagoUniversity)

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Mumbai: As the GDP growthhas plunged to an over six-yearlow of 4.5 per cent in the secondquarter of the ongoing fiscal,credit expansion may plummetto a six-decade low of 6.5-7 percent in FY20, says a report.

Credit growth was a high13.3 per cent in the previous fis-cal, says rating agency Icra in a report. If the forecastturns out to be true, this will belowest credit growth in as manyas 58 years — credit growthstood at a low 5.4 per cent in FY1962, according to the annualcredit growth data on the RBIwebsite.

It can be noted that GDPgrowth plunged to a 25-quar-ter low of 4.5 per cent in thesecond quarter and to 5 percent in the first quarter andnobody is forecasting betternumbers going ahead.

Even the RBI has massive-ly slashed its growth forecast toa low 5 per cent for the year —down by a massive 240 bpsfrom its February projection of7.4 per cent. PTI

New Delhi: Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman onSaturday will hold a meetingwith heads of public sectorbanks to discuss various issuesincluding the recentlyannounced Government mea-sures to prop up the economy,sources said.

The Finance Minister’smeeting with chief executivesand managing directors ofbanks ahead of the UnionBudget assumes significance in

view of the critical role thebanking sector plays in boost-ing consumer demand acrosssectors. Sitharaman is expect-ed to present her secondBudget on February 1, 2020.

According to sources, shewill also review Budgetannouncement on absorptionof Merchant Discount Ratecharges by banks, overdraftfacility to PM Jan Dhan Yojanaaccount holders through RuPaydebit Card. IANS

Mumbai: The country’s foreign exchange reserves increased byUSD 456 million to a fresh lifetime high of USD 454.948 billionin the week to December 20, according to RBI data. In the pre-vious week, the reserves had swelled by USD 1.070 billion to USD454.492 billion.

In the reporting week, the rise in reserves was mainly onaccount of an increase in foreign currency assets, a major com-ponent of the overall reserves, which surged by USD 311 mil-lion to USD 422.732 billion, weekly data released by the ReserveBank on Friday showed.

Expressed in dollar terms, the foreign currency assets includethe effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units likethe euro, pound and the yen held in the forex reserves. Duringthe reporting week, gold reserves increased by USD 164 millionto USD 27.132 billion. PTI

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Three loss making PSUBanks — Allahabad Bank,

Indian Overseas Bank andUCO Bank — have got �8,655crore fresh capital infusionfrom the Government.

The Finance Ministry hasapproved infusing fresh capitalamounting to �2,153 crore inthe Allahabad Bank, �2,142crore in the UCO Bank and�4,360 crore in the IndianOverseas Bank via preferentialallotment of shares.

UCO Bank posted a loss of�892 crore in Q2, AllahabadBank a loss of �2,103 crore andIndian Overseas Bank posted�2,254 crore loss in July-

September quarter.All these banks, except the

Allahabad Bank, are currentlyunder the Reserve Bank ofIndia’s prompt corrective action(PCA) framework and theyneed to have net NPA below sixper cent to get out of PCAwhich is a key criterion.

These banks filed separateregulatory filings on their capi-tal infusion. “We wish to informthat the Bank has received vialetter on December 26 a sanctionfrom Government of India forrelease of �4,360 crore towardscontribution of the CentralGovernment in the preferentialallotment of equity shares(Special Securities/Bonds) ofthe Bank during the financial

year 2019-20 as Government’sinvestment,” the IOB said.

“Government of India, videletter on December 26, con-veyed their sanction for releaseof capital of �2,142 croretowards contribution of theCentral Government in thepreferential allotment of equi-ty shares of UCO Bank,” theUCO Bank said.

These infusions are part ofthe �70,000 crore recapitalisa-tion announced in the Budget.

Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman had first proposeda capital infusion of �70,000crore in public sector banks intwo phases. The Governmenthad so infused �60,314 croreout of this.

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New Delhi: Shares of Allahabad Bank onFriday jumped 8.5 per cent after the lender saidit will get fresh capital infusion from theGovernment in the current financial year.

The scrip climbed 8.17 per cent to close at�19.20 on the BSE. During the day, it zoomed10.98 per cent to �19.70. On the NSE, itadvanced 8.45 per cent to close at �19.25.

In terms of traded volume, 6.47 lakh sharesof the state-owned bank were traded on BSEand over one crore units exchanged hands onthe NSE. The Department of Financial Servicesin a letter on Thursday conveyed the sanctionfor release of the fresh capital infusion fund of�2,153 crore, Allahabad Bank said in a regu-latory filing. PTI

New Delhi: Shares of Indian Overseas Bank(IOB) on Friday advanced 6.5 per cent after thecompany said it will get a capital infusion of�4,360 crore from the government in the currentfinancial year for meeting regulatory requirement.

The scrip zoomed 6.48 per cent to close at�11.99 on the BSE. During the trade, it spurted 14.12per cent to �12.85. On the NSE, it climbed 5.75 prcent to close at �11.95. In August, the FinanceMinistry had announced a capital infusion of �3,800crore in the state-owned lender. This has now beenincreased by �560 crore. “The bank has received videletter dated December 25, 2019 for release of �4,360crore towards contribution of the central govern-ment in the preferential allotment of equity sharesof the bank during 2019-20 as Government’s invest-ment,” IOB said in a BSE filing. PTI

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The rupee depreciated by 4paise to close at a fresh

three-week low of 71.35 againstthe US dollar on Friday, con-tinuing its losing streak for thesixth day in a row amid crudeoil prices hitting three-monthhigh levels.

Forex traders said theUSD/INR spot has been trad-ing in a tight range amid lackof cues. The rupee openedhigher at 71.26 and touched ahigh of 71.19 in morning trade.Later, it lost ground and fell toa low of 71.40 before closing at71.35, the lowest level sinceDecember 4.

On a weekly basis, therupee depreciated by 19 paise.Crude oil prices rose to three-month high levels on positiveUS and Chinese economicdata. Brent futures gained 0.22per cent to trade at USD 68.07per barrel while the West TexasIntermediate was up 24 cents,or 0.4%, at USD 61.92 a barrel.

“The USD/INR spot hasbeen trading in a tight range of71-71.40 amid holiday season,and we expect thin and lack-luster movement to continueeven next week,” said RahulGupta, Head of Research-Currency, Emkay GlobalFinancial Services.

Gupta added “the positivesentiments regarding US-China Phase-One trade dealwill go on until there is anycontradictory news from theUS. 71 will continue to act asa strong support, while 71.40will be a strong resistance.”

Meanwhile, the dollarindex, which gauges the green-back’s strength against a basketof six currencies, fell by 0.36 percent to 97.18. On the domesticmarket front, the 30-share BSESensex ended 411.38 points, or1 per cent, higher at 41,575.14.It hit an intra-day high of41,611.27. Similarly, the broad-er NSE Nifty closed 119.25points, or 0.98 per cent, up at12,245.80.

New Delhi: Intensifying theprotest against deep discountsand disruptive offers by e-commerce majors Amazon andFlipkart, traders on Fridaystaged a day long hunger strikein several parts of the countryunder the aegis of theConfederation of All IndiaTraders (CAIT).

During the protests inabout 500 cities across thecountry, traders also demand-ed government action againstthe e-commerce companiesworking in transport, logistics,travel, home buying, consumerdurables and other segments, astatement from CAIT said.

“We want Indian e-com-merce market free from allglitches, unhealthy and unfairbusiness practices, and till gov-ernment take any action ournational agitation will contin-ue” said Praveen Khandelwal,Secretary General of CAIT.

The traders’ body said theonline platforms are indulgingin preferential seller systemand more than 80 per cent oftheir sales are made by justtheir 10-15 preferred sellers.

IANS

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As the country aims tobecome a USD 5 trillion

economy, the policy makersneed to focus more on the min-ing sector with concertedefforts to regain its 3 per cent share in the GDP by 2024-25,says a study.

According to the studyconducted by industry bodyCII, the mining industry’s sharein India’s GDP (in real terms)in 2018-19 was a low of 2.6 percent, down from 3 per cent in2011-12.

The study ‘Towards aGlobally Competitive Mineralsand Mining Industry’ wasreleased at the Mining Summit2019 here.

“The minerals and miningindustry is core to India’sgrowth ambition of a USD 5trillion economy. Exploration,extraction and managementof minerals have to be guidedby national goals and perspec-tives, to be integrated into theoverall strategy of India’s eco-nomic development. And at thesame time, there should beefforts to promote domesticindustry and reduce importdependency,” Mines JointSecretary Upendra Joshi saidwhile releasing the report.

The sector has a pivotalrole to play in the ‘Make inIndia’ vision of the prime min-ister and exploration canimprove India’s mineral secu-rity and competitive edge.

“There is a significantscope for new mining capaci-ties in iron ore, bauxite and coaland considerable opportunitiesfor future discoveries of sub-surface deposits. TheGeological Survey of India hasalmost doubled its explorationactivity by implementing about400 mineral exploration pro-jects on various mineral com-modities,” he said.

Attractive provisions havebeen made for inviting privateinvestment in mineral explo-ration through revenue sharingmodel. It shall also be ensuredthat the regulatory environ-ment is conducive to ease ofdoing business with simpler,transparent and time-boundprocedures for doing business,Joshi added.

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Markets snapped theirthree-day downwardspiral to finish with

smart gains on Friday as bank-ing, finance and energy stockssaw robust buying amid sup-portive global cues.

The 30-share BSE Sensexended 411.38 points, or 1 percent, higher at 41,575.14. It hitan intra-day high of 41,611.27.

Similarly, the broader NSENifty closed 119.25 points, or0.98 per cent, up at 12,245.80.

During the holiday-short-ened week, Sensex declined106.4 points or 0.25 per cent,while Nifty slipped 26 points or0.21 per cent.

According to traders,banking stocks rallied ahead ofFinance Minister NirmalaSitharaman’s meeting withheads of public sector banks onSaturday to review financialperformance of the lendersand their business growth.

The meeting is expected totake up issues like non-per-forming asset recovery throughboth NCLT and non-NCLTmeans, take stock of the bank-ing sector and push loangrowth, sources said.

Axis Bank was the topgainer in the Sensex pack,climbing 3.33 per cent, fol-lowed by PowerGrid, SBI,Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank,

Reliance Industries and Maruti.On the other hand, Kotak

Bank, UltraTech Cement, Titanand TCS fell up to 0.42 percent.

“State-run banks helpedmarket to trade higher afterconsecutive days of weakness.Another announcement ofbond sale next week from thecentral bank lifted the financialstocks higher while positivesentiments in global marketson easing trade concernsfuelled a broad-based rally.

“Investors to stay focusedon continuity of governmentpolicies and given liquidity issolid, momentum is expectedto shift from premium stocksto value stocks,” said VinodNair, head of research at GeojitFinancial Services.

BSE energy, realty, oil andgas, bankex, finance, auto andpower indices rallied up to 1.74per cent, while consumer

durables ended in the red.Broader BSE midcap and

smallcap indices advanced upto 0.87 per cent.

Global equities soared onexpectations that the “phaseone” trade deal between the USand China will be finalised nextmonth.

Bourses in Hong Kong andSeoul ended higher, whileShanghai and Tokyo slipped inthe red.

Stock exchanges in Europestarted on a positive note.

On the currency front, therupee depreciated by 4 paise toclose at a fresh three-week lowof 71.35 against the US dollaron Friday, continuing its losingstreak for the sixth day in a rowamid steady rise in crude oilprices.

Forex traders said theUSD/INR spot has been trad-ing in a tight range amid lackof cues.

At the interbank foreignexchange market, the domesticcurrency opened at 71.26 andlater fluctuated between a highof 71.19 and a low of 71.40.

The domestic unit finallysettled at 71.35, showing a fallof 4 paise over its previous closeof 71.31 on Thursday.

On a weekly basis rupeehas depreciated by 19 paise.

Brent futures, the global oilbenchmark, advanced 0.29 percent to USD 68.12 per barrel.

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Vistara has partnered withTata group company Nelco

for inflight data services, whichare expected to be rolled by thefull service carrier shortly,according to a senior govern-ment official.

Nearly five years after start-ing operations, Vistara — ajoint venture between Tatas andSingapore Airlines — is alsolikely to be the first domesticcarrier to provide inflight con-nectivity within India. TelecomSecretary Anshu Prakash saidrequired spectrum had beenallocated for the purpose.

“Vistara has tied up withNelco and they have takentransponder space from ISRO(Indian Space ResearchOrganisation)... they had cometo us for spectrum allocationwhich we have done. And theywill be launching these servicesvery shortly,” he said.

When contacted, a Vistaraspokesperson said, “We havenot finalised this yet,” referringto launch of the services.

An email sent to Nelcoseeking comments did not elic-it any immediate response andthe company’s spokespersons

were also unavailable.While airlines can offer

both voice and data connec-tivity under the ‘Flight andMaritime Connectivity Rules-2018’ notified by the govern-ment in December 2018, dataconnectivity is expected to beoffered first, Prakash said.

“There can also be voicebut voice is not happeningright now. Still data is as goodas voice, because once youhave data you can use Over-The-Top (OTT) and makeWhatsApp calls,” he noted.

Regarding inflight wi-fiservices, Prakash said the tar-iffs were not regulated by thegovernment.

“It is for them to decidewhat tariff they will charge. Isuppose it will be an add-on ser-vice that the airlines will offer inrelation to their competitors butwhether they will charge or notcharge, is their decision,” theTelecom Secretary said. Telecompricing is currently under for-bearance, and “tariff is not anissue in this”, he added.

Vistara, in which Tata Sonshas 51 per cent stake and therest is with Singapore Airlines,began commercial services onJanuary 9, 2015. With a fleet of39 planes, the carrier operatesmore than 200 flights a day andis working on expanding itsoverseas presence.

Last month, Nelco said itexpected to roll out in-flight

data connectivity services byJanuary but did not divulge theairlines it would be partneringwith for the offering.

In March, the companyobtained a licence from theDepartment of Telecommuni-cations for providing In-Flightand Maritime Connectivity(IFMC) services.

“We are hoping to startinflight connectivity servicesaround January timeframe. Wewill start with data services,”Nelco Managing Director andCEO PJ Nath had said recently.

As per the terms and con-dition of the IFMC licence, theservices would be activatedonce the aircraft attains a min-imum height of 3,000 metres inIndian airspace to avoid inter-ference with terrestrial mobilenetworks.

The IFMC licence is grant-ed against an annual fee of �1for a period of 10 years and thepermit holder has to paylicence fees and spectrumcharges based on revenueearned from services.

In September, Nelcolaunched its maritime com-munications services in thecountry, and said the offeringwould enable high-end supportto those in sea by providingaccess to voice, data and videoservices while travelling onsailing vessels, cruise liners,ships in India, using satellitetechnology.

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Script Open High Low LTPBAJFINANCE 4190.80 4259.90 4190.80 4252.70IBULHSGFIN 297.85 307.00 294.20 300.65RELIANCE 1525.00 1545.80 1521.45 1542.15MARUTI 7251.30 7370.00 7251.30 7349.85ICICIBANK 540.00 550.50 538.30 549.40YESBANK 49.40 49.80 47.70 48.00SBIN 333.60 338.30 333.05 337.25HINDALCO 215.95 217.15 214.40 215.40TATASTEEL 468.75 471.65 463.20 469.75AXISBANK 738.15 762.20 736.10 760.70BANKBARODA 99.95 104.60 99.75 104.20RNAM 352.00 369.30 348.50 362.40SUDARSCHEM 405.60 410.00 394.00 397.10ISEC 365.00 436.70 365.00 427.90JINDALSTEL 164.15 164.75 158.45 161.25KOTAKBANK 1697.20 1700.60 1680.55 1685.05TCS 2210.00 2214.60 2178.35 2198.15INDIGO 1323.05 1345.00 1314.30 1339.35ZEEL 296.55 304.70 295.85 298.90BPCL 479.50 492.10 477.40 490.90HDFC 2426.00 2450.00 2420.00 2444.50ADANIGREEN 161.80 164.00 149.20 151.05ZYDUSWELL 1441.40 1476.95 1440.00 1471.85LT 1283.35 1301.75 1280.45 1299.65JSWSTEEL 270.50 271.05 265.10 268.80SPICEJET 96.75 104.85 96.60 103.70INDUSINDBK 1522.00 1540.00 1511.50 1523.85IDEA 6.07 6.14 5.77 5.83HDFCBANK 1278.00 1279.00 1270.00 1274.90HDFCAMC 3232.00 3279.80 3205.85 3230.55PNB 63.30 66.45 63.30 65.35TATAGLOBAL 313.00 319.50 313.00 318.50TATAMOTORS 175.50 176.95 174.95 176.10VEDL 151.50 152.85 150.10 151.85RBLBANK 334.40 339.80 333.65 336.40CANBK 223.90 228.35 222.35 224.20HDFCLIFE 638.50 639.20 629.05 631.20BHARTIARTL 448.90 457.00 448.75 455.30INFY 729.25 737.65 728.75 736.80DLF 226.00 233.45 225.95 232.90MCX 1158.05 1192.95 1153.00 1187.90L&TFH 117.50 118.95 114.75 118.40BEML 977.15 984.20 970.00 973.00JUBLFOOD 1604.75 1630.40 1591.45 1627.75GRASIM 738.60 744.00 736.05 739.50COLPAL 1460.00 1462.60 1449.00 1454.65MRF 63405.00 66460.00 63285.65 65536.25PVR 1827.00 1891.90 1822.00 1884.75PAGEIND 22388.00 23758.30 22200.00 23450.35LICHSGFIN 428.00 444.25 426.90 441.55SUNPHARMA 422.80 426.95 421.85 425.75HINDUNILVR 1945.10 1954.25 1933.75 1949.95HEROMOTOCO 2443.05 2456.95 2423.10 2443.15ITC 237.00 238.40 236.65 236.95SAIL 42.40 42.75 41.65 42.15M&M 532.00 532.20 525.20 530.05DCAL 80.70 84.70 74.30 82.15DMART 1922.20 1930.00 1908.55 1924.15APOLLOHOSP 1381.90 1424.85 1381.90 1418.45BHEL 42.80 43.30 42.60 43.10EICHERMOT 22050.00 22290.00 21907.55 22238.80GODREJPROP 931.00 959.90 931.00 956.70CEATLTD 986.85 1016.55 985.30 1003.10DABUR 457.70 461.30 456.35 459.90ULTRACEMCO 4062.00 4093.00 4044.30 4056.75PEL 1642.00 1652.00 1616.90 1631.15AUROPHARMA 459.70 467.65 459.70 462.85SRF 3414.00 3448.00 3391.10 3423.65DIXON 3958.00 4049.50 3874.15 3903.25PCJEWELLER 24.30 24.30 23.20 23.50BANDHANBNK 504.85 513.45 500.55 507.00BAJAJFINSV 9345.00 9469.30 9345.00 9446.30TATAELXSI 817.00 828.85 814.60 826.20ASIANPAINT 1810.00 1825.75 1801.00 1812.95IDFCFIRSTB 44.00 45.30 43.90 44.75ADANIPORTS 367.40 367.65 362.75 363.65INFIBEAM 55.40 56.85 53.10 53.70FORCEMOT 1123.90 1129.75 1075.50 1113.15UNIONBANK 55.25 56.30 54.90 55.50ESCORTS 619.75 629.40 616.50 623.25ONGC 129.15 129.80 127.20 128.40TATACHEM 670.00 676.50 661.00 667.50TITAN 1193.00 1199.05 1185.25 1191.15HCLTECH 561.00 569.20 556.80 568.00PIIND 1468.95 1482.60 1456.30 1458.80CGCL 199.00 202.45 198.40 200.65COALINDIA 198.40 205.35 198.00 203.30SUNTV 446.00 451.50 445.40 447.85BRITANNIA 3095.00 3095.00 3021.00 3042.00TVSMOTOR 460.55 466.50 458.60 464.85HINDPETRO 258.95 267.20 258.75 266.75CIPLA 472.35 483.35 472.35 481.40FEDERALBNK 86.15 88.65 85.65 88.20JUSTDIAL 576.40 577.15 567.75 572.80RELINFRA 27.95 28.00 25.65 26.70RECLTD 138.85 142.75 138.80 141.55ADANIENT 210.35 211.10 207.10 209.00NMDC 126.25 126.45 123.80 125.95EXIDEIND 178.50 185.70 178.05 184.55BALRAMCHIN 178.00 185.15 175.10 184.55DEEPAKNI 375.00 386.70 373.70 379.65IOC 125.90 127.60 125.05 127.35UPL 572.00 581.20 569.00 580.35MUTHOOTFIN 751.25 761.95 749.60 758.40RAJESHEXPO 686.00 686.00 675.50 676.90AVANTI 574.10 584.10 565.05 578.75DISHTV 13.21 13.56 13.21 13.48

GRAPHITE 306.25 309.90 302.50 304.40MANAPPURAM 172.50 177.80 172.00 176.25POWERGRID 187.00 189.45 185.70 189.10MOTHERSUMI 147.90 149.00 146.30 147.80TECHM 771.60 781.35 769.30 780.55JUBILANT 513.15 532.00 513.15 518.10LTI 1763.30 1775.00 1753.90 1760.60WHIRLPOOL 2423.45 2445.50 2346.45 2387.80ASHOKLEY 79.75 80.50 79.15 79.70DRREDDY 2882.60 2905.45 2863.70 2894.65ABCAPITAL 98.95 101.10 98.30 99.55UJJIVAN 338.10 347.60 338.10 345.20NIITTECH 1639.00 1639.00 1579.10 1581.60PFC 111.85 116.00 111.80 115.00MFSL 531.20 538.70 525.05 529.35IDFC 35.65 38.25 35.65 37.90CONCOR 569.30 575.00 569.30 572.90MARICO 343.00 343.00 339.15 340.65BATAINDIA 1716.95 1724.35 1698.30 1712.65BEL 99.80 101.65 99.15 99.70LUPIN 760.00 772.95 759.05 770.85BALKRISIND 962.00 991.00 962.00 986.50VOLTAS 651.60 655.25 646.60 649.00HAVELLS 641.75 650.00 641.25 646.65ICICIPRULI 493.10 495.00 487.00 488.75LUXIND 1280.80 1294.00 1265.00 1278.00GAIL 118.10 119.25 117.70 118.50BIOCON 290.00 292.95 288.00 292.30INFRATEL 255.10 258.90 253.50 255.65BANKINDIA 71.25 72.70 71.10 71.80TRENT 527.85 547.00 522.40 545.70TATAMTRDVR 72.90 73.55 72.20 72.65NCC 53.35 53.60 52.55 53.00STAR 364.60 368.75 364.60 367.85ICICIGI 1422.05 1423.45 1399.00 1410.30STRTECH 112.50 116.20 112.50 113.95HEG 1117.75 1127.35 1090.40 1096.40OMAXE 158.10 160.80 156.05 158.40FRETAIL 350.00 355.75 336.55 341.25PIDILITIND 1392.15 1405.40 1391.00 1398.05BAJAJ-AUTO 3222.00 3255.00 3221.00 3243.30JAICORPLTD 90.95 91.85 89.40 89.95NTPC 116.50 117.20 115.70 116.80GUJGAS 226.00 232.00 225.00 225.65BERGEPAINT 516.50 516.75 510.30 514.40MINDACORP 94.15 110.00 94.15 103.85WIPRO 251.95 251.95 246.45 247.60SBILIFE 989.90 990.85 977.75 988.55ADANIGAS 156.95 158.50 154.00 155.65INDIANB 105.00 107.65 104.50 104.85SUZLON 2.01 2.01 1.96 1.98RELCAPITAL 14.65 14.80 13.40 13.40M&MFIN 322.00 327.50 322.00 323.95EQUITAS 102.60 106.00 102.30 105.25GODREJIND 428.00 428.00 419.05 424.70

ACC 1456.00 1470.00 1449.20 1451.25VENKYS 1791.75 1808.65 1772.30 1776.00GODREJAGRO 505.00 510.00 502.70 508.30DEEPAKFERT 94.65 100.80 94.65 98.85HEXAWARE 324.00 332.95 323.70 331.00IBREALEST 59.50 60.50 59.00 59.55TORNTPOWER 281.50 284.80 279.60 280.55BHARATFORG 494.00 494.95 485.90 488.70ALBK 18.60 19.70 18.60 19.20RAYMOND 638.35 643.45 630.10 636.35UBL 1299.85 1299.85 1266.85 1276.40MINDTREE 792.60 795.10 784.25 787.05CORPBANK 25.05 27.10 24.90 26.35INDHOTEL 143.75 149.70 143.50 148.80TATAPOWER 55.20 56.25 55.20 56.15FORTIS 131.45 132.90 130.15 131.25SUNTECK 425.00 426.40 416.85 421.70DELTACORP 205.55 207.75 203.00 203.80MEGH 50.45 54.90 50.45 54.30HINDZINC 213.15 214.70 206.15 210.25QUESS 480.95 483.60 468.30 469.75WOCKPHARMA 251.80 253.70 246.00 247.60PHOENIXLTD 793.10 871.00 793.10 842.95GODREJCP 687.50 691.30 678.60 689.25IGL 428.00 430.00 423.90 425.55NBCC 33.95 34.10 33.65 34.00PETRONET 270.40 272.70 268.80 271.60CARERATING 511.05 534.00 505.10 522.30NAVINFLUOR 1030.00 1044.00 1004.60 1017.75CASTROLIND 129.55 130.50 127.35 128.00CADILAHC 258.00 260.50 255.20 256.00COROMANDEL 521.05 528.00 510.40 523.70

ADANIPOWER 60.20 60.75 60.00 60.25BOMDYEING 73.00 74.85 73.00 74.05AUBANK 819.00 822.20 797.15 803.15RPOWER 3.47 3.47 3.31 3.43RITES 292.10 294.25 284.00 285.55AMBUJACEM 195.15 195.70 194.10 194.85BOSCHLTD 15400.00 15600.00 15362.20 15484.30NAUKRI 2532.50 2583.45 2532.50 2567.20APOLLOTYRE 160.30 164.40 160.30 163.70NATIONALUM 43.35 43.70 43.05 43.60SIEMENS 1524.90 1534.00 1521.60 1527.50SPARC 156.80 158.30 154.30 155.90NESTLEIND 14599.45 14680.00 14583.40 14651.75GNFC 175.00 175.00 168.50 169.35INDIACEM 70.45 71.10 69.70 69.90SRTRANSFIN 1162.10 1169.05 1152.00 1164.70SWANENERGY 106.05 107.50 104.90 105.80MOTILALOFS 727.15 768.00 725.00 755.30IRB 67.15 70.00 66.65 69.35DHFL 16.40 16.55 16.00 16.55GDL 99.95 110.60 99.95 109.75JKTYRE 71.25 75.50 71.25 74.65DCMSHRIRAM 362.00 381.00 362.00 372.45PNBHOUSING 433.90 434.90 426.00 428.70UCOBANK 17.00 17.90 16.80 17.20KRBL 281.15 291.55 275.05 286.40KEI 472.80 484.75 471.00 477.95SUVEN 304.40 307.40 302.70 303.70POLYCAB 959.00 970.00 958.00 964.90DIVISLAB 1818.00 1837.00 1818.00 1828.60IOB 11.70 12.85 11.00 11.99AMARAJABAT 714.35 718.15 708.00 715.90SYNDIBANK 26.70 28.25 26.70 27.95JMFINANCIL 87.65 91.95 86.60 91.50ORIENTBANK 52.20 53.85 52.20 52.95ABFRL 232.00 233.50 225.10 232.90CESC 734.40 749.15 734.40 748.30GLENMARK 347.20 350.15 346.35 348.00ALKEM 2040.00 2040.00 1957.30 2018.45DBL 401.00 406.60 396.10 400.00GALAXYSURF 1460.95 1566.55 1449.20 1520.70FINEORG 1896.00 2005.55 1896.00 1948.25ADANITRANS 334.65 336.50 328.65 330.05BAJAJHLDNG 3447.70 3525.00 3427.35 3435.50NOCIL 100.10 100.80 99.00 99.45RESPONIND 91.50 94.55 91.50 93.20SUNDRMFAST 474.00 483.00 461.00 478.35LEMONTREE 65.00 65.80 64.40 64.70RCF 46.50 46.50 45.75 46.10CANFINHOME 395.30 397.85 390.70 391.30PHILIPCARB 112.85 114.80 112.85 113.25LAXMIMACH 3350.00 3468.00 3295.00 3360.65MAHABANK 13.90 13.93 12.72 13.18SCI 61.85 63.00 61.85 62.20DCBBANK 167.80 171.75 167.50 170.80ATUL 4064.95 4074.75 3950.05 4051.55PRESTIGE 335.35 339.40 331.00 336.40IDBI 37.55 37.60 37.10 37.35AMBER 1088.75 1112.95 1083.65 1093.40ABBOTINDIA 13073.40 13220.00 13073.40 13186.35EDELWEISS 115.00 115.50 112.05 114.25ITI 93.15 93.45 91.80 92.30MGL 1049.00 1053.70 1042.00 1045.80ENGINERSIN 101.55 101.55 99.35 99.85EIDPARRY 201.65 204.70 198.90 200.80CHOLAFIN 302.50 305.85 301.15 304.45JISLJALEQS 8.78 8.78 7.98 7.98GMRINFRA 21.90 21.90 21.00 21.10TORNTPHARM 1850.00 1878.05 1850.00 1860.95OIL 150.20 151.60 149.20 150.90PGHL 4181.00 4324.00 4181.00 4259.35PTC 53.80 56.15 53.80 55.75NESCO 668.70 682.60 652.00 674.70NIACL 139.00 142.00 137.55 138.90TATACOFFEE 92.10 92.25 91.15 91.90WELCORP 132.00 134.65 132.00 132.95CUMMINSIND 557.00 563.40 553.60 560.20RVNL 23.00 23.15 22.75 22.85CRISIL 1849.30 1875.00 1812.95 1825.00MPHASIS 876.00 904.55 871.55 893.00APLAPOLLO 1726.00 1790.00 1726.00 1781.60GODFRYPHLP 1297.05 1309.05 1290.10 1295.80TIMKEN 896.25 910.00 888.30 900.10CHAMBLFERT 147.15 150.40 146.60 147.60RAIN 99.00 101.35 98.30 98.55ESSELPRO 171.65 174.85 165.95 171.40ITDC 317.20 317.60 307.55 308.60MIDHANI 157.40 159.50 155.35 157.50OFSS 2835.00 2854.30 2730.00 2748.50BDL 307.50 312.00 298.85 300.60RADICO 318.00 319.00 311.00 312.50RELAXO 618.05 621.60 611.35 612.85KANSAINER 518.05 520.75 510.00 515.45TV18BRDCST 21.10 21.70 21.00 21.20BALMLAWRIE 128.25 128.45 127.50 128.00HONAUT 26634.90 27108.80 26406.10 27022.60GICRE 226.30 232.00 226.15 228.30KTKBANK 72.25 72.50 72.10 72.25JINDALSAW 70.95 73.25 70.95 71.70RATNAMANI 1035.00 1067.95 1032.00 1062.45HFCL 17.45 17.85 17.30 17.55BLISSGVS 149.90 150.50 148.95 149.45LALPATHLAB 1490.00 1510.30 1488.20 1496.95METROPOLIS 1384.75 1435.90 1379.45 1419.70SCHNEIDER 64.45 69.00 63.50 67.30KEC 295.75 301.75 293.50 300.35TRIDENT 6.95 7.00 6.60 6.65GLAXO 1636.60 1637.30 1612.95 1619.00

INTELLECT 142.60 143.30 137.50 138.60JAMNAAUTO 46.90 47.00 45.75 46.00MAXINDIA 77.55 78.90 76.70 78.50CENTRALBK 18.00 18.50 17.80 17.95BBTC 1000.00 1009.00 990.65 993.15ERIS 462.00 462.00 447.00 451.15HINDCOPPER 39.35 39.45 38.85 39.05TATAMETALI 624.55 624.55 602.00 610.85FCONSUMER 23.60 24.20 23.00 23.30ASHOKA 99.00 99.00 97.85 98.10SHREECEM 20429.40 20647.35 20296.35 20492.65JBCHEPHARM 434.90 434.90 426.60 428.75PARAGMILK 139.00 140.55 136.85 137.95FSL 39.55 41.25 39.55 40.40HSCL 57.00 57.65 56.45 56.70VGUARD 213.90 214.00 211.40 211.90SOUTHBANK 10.32 10.40 10.31 10.33GILLETTE 6627.60 6629.65 6583.70 6601.60CREDITACC 779.75 795.90 772.00 774.30CYIENT 410.00 421.65 401.40 415.45

MAHINDCIE 171.35 171.50 165.15 165.85BASF 997.20 1031.50 997.20 1010.20GRANULES 123.90 125.10 123.30 123.65IFCI 6.69 6.75 6.55 6.65MAHSCOOTER 4408.35 4460.00 4408.35 4440.85ASTRAL 1162.00 1169.95 1138.50 1159.80CHENNPETRO 110.80 116.90 110.45 115.00NHPC 24.05 24.15 24.00 24.05PFIZER 4163.20 4212.90 4155.00 4170.10CUB 229.35 233.75 229.35 232.50JKLAKSHMI 275.00 278.40 274.00 275.65PGHH 11689.95 11689.95 11389.50 11478.40GREAVESCOT 130.70 132.80 129.70 131.05SONATSOFTW 308.00 308.55 301.85 304.90KAJARIACER 517.00 522.00 513.00 515.70SIS 951.25 970.80 943.90 968.25THERMAX 1054.25 1059.40 1040.85 1058.40MRPL 40.85 42.75 40.85 42.55CROMPTON 243.60 244.50 240.65 243.05NLCINDIA 53.70 55.25 53.70 54.80GSPL 215.80 218.10 213.10 217.10EMAMILTD 304.10 308.20 304.05 306.50GSFC 70.10 70.45 68.55 69.35ASTRAZEN 2684.30 2704.00 2674.60 2687.30GSKCONS 8350.00 8425.00 8321.25 8409.65LTTS 1487.75 1489.15 1470.85 1478.65J&KBANK 30.90 32.00 30.00 30.25SANOFI 6933.80 7098.95 6925.35 6978.40SUPREMEIND 1126.55 1141.50 1125.30 1136.75ANDHRABANK 17.05 17.70 17.05 17.25ECLERX 547.00 559.85 545.00 550.00INOXLEISUR 376.30 378.60 374.00 376.55WABAG 170.85 171.80 168.50 168.75HUDCO 35.75 36.20 35.70 35.95VBL 693.95 703.40 692.70 697.75WELSPUNIND 47.85 48.35 47.50 47.70HEIDELBERG 176.50 177.15 173.75 174.90IIFL 142.00 145.00 139.65 140.70IPCALAB 1154.00 1154.00 1135.75 1142.45BIRLACORPN 594.80 594.80 573.45 582.85LINDEINDIA 661.20 667.80 652.95 656.55AJANTPHARM 960.95 960.95 953.35 955.75IRCON 407.00 407.00 401.00 403.25GUJALKALI 400.00 416.50 394.50 414.70ITDCEM 49.00 50.85 48.10 50.20STARCEMENT 90.50 90.50 88.70 89.35RAMCOCEM 753.40 754.00 748.00 750.45JSWENERGY 69.75 70.05 69.15 69.70MMTC 18.85 19.40 18.80 19.10AEGISLOG 173.90 177.45 173.90 175.45MINDAIND 351.10 356.65 346.95 354.55SYNGENE 309.50 311.35 307.75 310.00APLLTD 547.05 569.95 547.00 565.00PRSMJOHNSN 60.25 62.50 60.00 60.85BAJAJELEC 339.35 349.00 339.10 340.75RALLIS 169.75 171.45 168.00 168.80GICHSGFIN 162.40 162.75 156.50 157.85GMDCLTD 61.50 62.40 60.80 62.15NATCOPHARM 578.05 580.00 570.00 575.25COCHINSHIP 397.90 400.00 392.45 398.30MHRIL 228.00 228.20 221.00 222.45AAVAS 1879.95 1910.00 1845.10 1855.20MASFIN 879.80 885.05 861.50 872.10NETWORK18 25.05 25.45 23.80 23.90MAHLOG 384.15 400.00 384.15 396.95SJVN 25.05 25.10 24.95 25.00KPITTECH 89.15 95.15 88.50 93.40SHK 109.60 116.00 109.40 110.55VIPIND 420.25 427.20 417.20 425.70NH 305.10 307.40 300.10 301.05JKCEMENT 1158.35 1162.10 1150.00 1160.10

REPCOHOME 317.70 323.20 314.40 316.50MOIL 141.55 142.80 141.30 141.50EIHOTEL 137.90 141.30 136.45 140.45TNPL 165.60 166.70 165.25 166.10KALPATPOWR 399.40 404.20 397.60 402.70OBEROIRLTY 524.70 525.60 521.10 523.90GESHIP 299.10 300.20 297.90 298.35CENTURYPLY 160.85 162.95 159.55 162.70PERSISTENT 670.05 680.00 669.30 677.50BLUESTARCO 791.00 805.00 791.00 801.60BAYERCROP 3678.75 3678.80 3622.00 3625.80DALBHARAT 796.00 797.65 788.05 791.80HIMATSEIDE 124.10 126.10 122.15 122.65REDINGTON 117.50 118.90 115.50 117.05IBULISL 81.25 81.90 79.50 80.40ARVINDFASN 385.00 387.00 372.00 381.00GEPIL 697.20 722.00 692.35 719.90FINCABLES 360.65 365.00 354.10 359.70TEJASNET 83.35 83.85 79.90 80.15VINATIORGA 1911.60 1925.80 1908.00 1914.70GHCL 181.10 183.40 181.10 181.95AIAENG 1650.00 1694.35 1640.90 1686.55IFBIND 710.80 712.00 676.50 691.55KNRCON 233.20 235.35 232.10 233.30NILKAMAL 1251.00 1254.10 1244.55 1248.80JYOTHYLAB 149.30 149.30 147.65 148.00ALLCARGO 97.45 97.85 96.05 96.30HAL 712.20 727.30 712.10 716.65TIINDIA 485.75 488.50 480.95 486.75DHANUKA 395.25 404.25 395.25 403.25SHANKARA 306.30 314.00 305.75 311.80PNCINFRA 193.15 193.15 190.20 191.50TATAINVEST 800.85 810.20 797.85 805.45JSL 37.30 38.00 37.05 37.85LAURUSLABS 365.20 370.20 352.80 357.65CHOLAHLDNG 497.10 501.00 497.10 500.00SHOPERSTOP 346.45 366.10 340.00 359.30TCIEXP 748.00 755.55 744.30 749.10BAJAJCON 232.50 235.50 231.00 231.80SOBHA 399.20 400.00 396.00 397.30TIMETECHNO 50.75 52.15 50.00 51.15JAGRAN* 64.30 65.10 64.25 64.75CARBORUNIV 322.15 324.50 320.00 323.153MINDIA 21477.70 21568.60 21447.85 21468.70SOLARINDS 1086.00 1086.00 1050.00 1056.40FINOLEXIND 542.80 546.00 539.50 544.45SYMPHONY 1149.80 1166.00 1143.30 1157.80TTKPRESTIG 5702.00 5702.00 5614.80 5661.65CAPPL 305.65 305.95 301.80 302.50ORIENTCEM 70.80 70.80 69.00 69.30ADVENZYMES 164.75 164.75 162.55 162.95GET&D 149.75 153.20 147.40 148.75MAHLIFE 395.10 398.00 387.25 390.10TCNSBRANDS 590.00 604.30 585.00 596.45UNITEDBNK 8.87 9.03 8.87 8.95LAKSHVILAS 18.00 18.00 17.50 17.60SFL 1285.00 1286.50 1281.80 1286.50SHILPAMED 279.00 294.75 276.35 288.05AKZOINDIA 1933.00 1959.05 1925.65 1943.50ASTERDM 155.30 155.95 154.00 155.05INOXWIND 34.25 34.50 33.80 33.85TEAMLEASE 2498.05 2535.00 2498.05 2529.00UFLEX 195.95 195.95 192.00 192.30MAHSEAMLES 374.90 377.00 372.35 376.15SCHAEFFLER 4520.50 4610.00 4422.00 4579.70SADBHAV 112.65 113.00 112.00 112.10WESTLIFE 344.75 344.75 340.00 341.85CCL 193.00 193.00 191.40 192.00ENDURANCE 1055.00 1057.75 1041.00 1053.35VARROC 418.10 419.70 413.25 415.10IEX 142.05 142.75 141.45 142.10TAKE 98.00 100.00 97.95 99.00ORIENTELEC 196.20 199.90 193.90 195.75INDOSTAR 175.00 176.85 172.65 174.80SUPRAJIT 183.65 184.95 177.90 180.55WABCOINDIA 6361.00 6387.50 6360.00 6364.25VRLLOG 266.30 271.60 263.00 270.65FDC 206.75 210.00 206.70 208.60SOMANYCERA 214.30 218.40 213.50 214.90GULFOILLUB 826.65 831.20 820.15 829.25CERA 2650.00 2651.05 2567.15 2610.10VMART 1648.25 1648.30 1622.15 1640.65HERITGFOOD 343.60 344.25 339.00 340.20GPPL 84.60 85.95 84.30 85.45VSTIND 4186.90 4208.05 4158.00 4201.20VAIBHAVGBL 800.00 814.00 800.00 810.70THYROCARE 541.00 545.00 539.85 541.60ZENSARTECH 173.00 174.50 172.65 173.95BLUEDART 2180.90 2249.95 2180.90 2237.50LAOPALA 146.15 147.80 144.50 146.50JSLHISAR 68.60 68.60 67.50 67.85SKFINDIA 2135.00 2141.90 2127.95 2131.00NBVENTURES 68.00 68.00 66.65 66.95FLFL 394.30 404.30 394.05 396.95HATHWAY 19.15 20.00 19.15 19.55MAGMA 51.90 52.20 50.05 52.00CHALET 338.75 353.50 337.10 350.15GRINDWELL 585.90 586.85 575.00 585.90CENTRUM 19.65 19.90 19.45 19.90TVSSRICHAK 1672.00 1690.00 1650.00 1654.15GARFIBRES 1173.10 1184.05 1168.95 1175.00VTL 960.00 974.05 960.00 969.70TVTODAY 242.40 242.40 240.65 241.40KPRMILL 659.05 661.55 657.10 658.35SHRIRAMCIT 1366.30 1376.90 1360.60 1376.35GAYAPROJ 78.20 78.20 77.50 77.50JCHAC 1895.75 1916.00 1895.75 1916.00DBCORP 133.20 134.45 132.10 133.70

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGENIFTY 50 12172.90 12258.45 12157.90 12245.80 119.25COALINDIA 198.50 205.50 197.65 204.20 6.90AXISBANK 739.00 762.00 736.30 760.90 24.40BPCL 479.50 492.10 477.00 489.95 12.75SBIN 333.40 338.35 333.00 337.20 7.35POWERGRID 185.50 189.50 185.50 188.95 4.10ICICIBANK 541.00 550.50 538.35 549.50 10.75UPL 572.35 581.85 568.65 580.50 11.05BHARTIARTL 449.00 457.05 449.00 456.20 8.65IOC 125.90 127.60 125.05 127.50 2.40RELIANCE 1527.00 1546.20 1521.30 1542.00 26.60CIPLA 474.55 483.50 472.80 482.30 8.15LT 1281.55 1301.85 1280.15 1299.80 20.50BAJFINANCE 4198.00 4260.00 4192.00 4253.10 66.00MARUTI 7268.00 7368.50 7251.40 7354.20 113.30TECHM 771.00 781.40 769.10 781.20 10.80HDFC 2427.00 2449.55 2418.55 2443.00 28.90HCLTECH 562.95 569.00 557.00 566.50 6.00INFY 729.75 737.50 728.85 736.55 7.60EICHERMOT 22183.45 22320.20 21902.00 22270.00 224.30TATAMOTORS 176.00 176.95 174.85 176.30 1.70BAJAJFINSV 9360.00 9465.00 9348.05 9440.00 89.90SUNPHARMA 422.00 427.15 421.40 426.00 3.85VEDL 151.45 152.90 150.05 152.00 1.30DRREDDY 2875.00 2905.00 2861.60 2886.50 20.90M&M 529.90 532.75 525.05 531.15 2.80INDUSINDBK 1524.70 1540.00 1512.10 1522.85 7.45TATASTEEL 469.25 471.80 463.20 470.05 2.15HDFCBANK 1272.00 1279.00 1270.00 1275.75 5.30BAJAJ-AUTO 3221.25 3258.00 3220.50 3243.05 13.00TCS 2208.00 2226.40 2176.00 2209.90 7.95GRASIM 737.50 744.00 735.60 739.30 2.55GAIL 118.30 119.20 118.00 118.50 0.40NTPC 116.30 117.20 115.75 116.80 0.40ASIANPAINT 1811.00 1826.00 1800.60 1815.00 5.40HEROMOTOCO2450.00 2458.00 2421.50 2446.00 7.35NESTLEIND 14648.80 14689.65 14574.50 14636.90 37.65ZEEL 297.30 304.90 296.15 297.95 0.65ITC 237.50 238.45 236.45 237.30 0.50HINDUNILVR 1946.90 1954.45 1934.00 1948.20 3.25ONGC 129.50 129.90 127.20 128.20 0.20ADANIPORTS 366.75 367.90 362.80 363.85 0.20HINDALCO 216.10 217.15 214.40 215.10 0.10JSWSTEEL 270.10 271.30 265.10 269.00 -0.15ULTRACEMCO 4087.00 4092.00 4045.00 4057.00 -5.75TITAN 1196.45 1199.20 1184.85 1190.40 -2.10KOTAKBANK 1705.00 1705.00 1681.35 1687.90 -6.35BRITANNIA 3079.00 3082.00 3021.00 3043.00 -19.30INFRATEL 254.90 258.95 252.70 254.10 -2.10WIPRO 250.00 250.75 246.35 247.75 -2.55YESBANK 49.50 49.75 47.65 47.95 -0.70

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The European Union (EU)and Britain will struggle to

seal an agreement on trade andother aspects of their future tiesafter Brexit next year andshould consider extending thenegotiations beyond 2020, a topEU official said in an interviewpublished on Friday.

The UK is scheduled toleave the EU on January 31. Ifit does, it will be the first timea country leaves the world’sbiggest trading bloc.Negotiations between theremaining members and theBritish Government on futuretrade, fisheries, education andtransport relations can onlybegin after that date and must

conclude by the end of 2020.“I am very concerned

about how little time we have,”European CommissionPresident Ursula von der Leyentold the French business news-paper Les Echos. “It seems tome that, on both sides, weshould seriously considerwhether the negotiations arefeasible in such a short time.”

“I think it would be rea-sonable to take stock in themiddle of the year and if nec-essary, agree on an extension tothe transition period,” von derLeyen said. As the leader of theexecutive commission, von derLeyen heads the EU institutionresponsible for Brexit talks andnegotiating trade deals onbehalf of member countries.

Such trade pacts routinelytake years to complete, andbusinesses fear that the UKcould face a new “no-deal”Brexit scenario at the start of2021 if questions aboutwhether tariff-free trade withthe country’s biggest tradingpartner remain unanswered.

But British Prime MinisterBoris Johnson has insisted hewould not agree to any delays.Johnson who won a solid par-liamentary majority in an elec-tion earlier this month, whichhelped him push a Brexit with-drawal deal through the lowerhouse of Parliament, The Brexitbill contained amendmentsthat bar the British governmentfrom extending the transitionperiod beyond 2020.

Istanbul: A Turkish court onFriday issued jail terms to sixjournalists from an opposi-tion newspaper accused oflinks to the group blamed bythe Government for the 2016failed coup, a lawyer told AFP.

The court in Istanbul sen-tenced journalists from theSozcu daily including colum-nist Emin Colasan and editor-in-chief Metin Yilmaz to prisonterms ranging from two yearsand one month to three yearsand six months on terrorismcharges, their lawyer CelalUlgen said.

The nationalist Sozcu is onoccasion vehemently anti-gov-ernment and its angry frontpages are regarded with suspi-cion even by some liberal Turkscritical of President RecepTayyip Erdogan. It is the secondopposition daily to be targetedafter Cumhuriyet newspaper.

“This is an empty case,”Colasan was quoted by thepaper as telling the court.“There is no evidence or wit-ness against us.” Sozcu con-demned the verdict as a “blackstain”, saying those convictedwere only carrying out theirwork as journalists.

The court also sentencedthe newspaper’s accountant totwo years and one month inprison. It said the case againstits owner Burak Akbay, who isthe subject of a 2017 arrest war-rant but remains abroad, wouldbe treated separately.

Lawyer Ulgen said a high-er court was due to decidewhether to uphold the sen-tences, adding that the jour-nalists were currently free.“There is neither a judicialcontrol or any measure thatrestricts their freedom rightnow,” he said. AFP

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Pakistan’s former militarydictator Gen (retd) Pervez

Musharraf on Friday filed apetition in a court against thespecial court’s verdict convict-ing him of high treason andsentencing him to death,according to media reports.

Last week, the special courtin Islamabad sentenced 76-year-old Musharraf to death inabsentia for high treason fol-lowing a six-year legal case.

The 86 page-long petition,filed by Advocate AzharSiddique in the Lahore HighCourt (LHC) on Friday onMusharraf ’s behalf, named thefederal government and othersas respondents, Dawn Newsreported.

The petition highlightedthat the “judgement containeda mix of anomalies and con-tradictory statements”.

It added that the specialcourt “rapidly and hurriedlywrapped up the trial which wasfar from conclusion”, the report said.

The petition stated thatthe special court “has not takeninto consideration that noactions detrimental to nation-al interest were taken by theapplicant” as “no offence ofhigh treason is made out fromthe evidence presented againsthim (Musharraf) before thespecial court”.

The full bench, chaired byJustice Mazahir Ali AkbarNaqvi, will hear the petition onJanuary 9, 2020.

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More than 235,000 peoplehave fled the Idlib region

over the past two weeks, theUN said on Friday, amidheightened regime and Russianattacks on Syria’s last majoropposition bastion.

The mass displacementbetween 12 and 25 Decemberhas left the violence-plaguedMaaret al-Numan region insouthern Idlib “almost empty”,according to the UN humani-tarian agency OCHA.

AFP correspondents in thearea have seen people fleeing indroves in recent days.

The main highway con-necting southern Idlib to theprovince’s north has beenbustling with pick-up trucksferrying civilians out of theflashpoint region. Since mid-December, Russian-backedregime forces have pressed

with an assault on jihadists insouthern Idlib, despite anAugust ceasefire deal and callsfor a de-escalation from Turkey,France and the United Nations.

The increased air strikescame as Damascus loyalistsadvance on the ground.

They have since December19 seized dozens of towns andvillages from jehadis amidclashes that have killed hun-dreds on both sides. Theadvances have brought themless than four kilometres (twomiles) away from Maaret al-Numan, one of Idlib’s largesturban centres.

According to OCHA,ongoing battles have amplifieddisplacement from the areaand the nearby town ofSaraqeb. “People from Saraqaband its eastern countryside arenow fleeing in anticipation offighting directly affecting theircommunities next,” it said.

Kano: Jehadis aligned to theISIS group have released avideo claiming to show the exe-cution of 11 Christians inrestive northeast Nigeria.

The footage posted onlinelate on Thursday by ISIS-linkedpropaganda arm Amaq showed11 blindfolded men being shotand stabbed by jihadists fromthe Islamic State West AfricanProvince (ISWAP) at an undis-closed location.

“This is a message toChristians all over the world,”said a masked man in the one-minute video.

He claimed the killingswere in reprisal for the death ofISIS chief Abu Bakr al-

Baghdadi and his spokesman.ISIS leader Baghdadi com-

mitted suicide in October toavoid capture during a US spe-cial forces raid on his hideoutin the province of Idlib innorthwest Syria.

In recent months, ISWAPhas intensified its attacks onChristians, security personneland aid staff, setting up road-blocks on highways and con-ducting searches.

The United Nations onTuesday condemned the“increasing practice by armedgroups to set up checkpointstargeting civilians” in thenortheast of Nigeria.

AFP

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Russia’s Defence Minister told PresidentVladimir Putin on Friday the first Avangard

hypersonic missiles had been put into service,in a move hailed as a major coup for Moscow.

Analysts say Russia is the first country to putinto combat service intercontinental ballisticmissiles armed with hypersonic weapons thatPutin said can travel 20 times faster than thespeed of sound. “The first missile regimentequipped with latest strategic missiles with theAvangard hypersonic glide vehicle entered ser-vice at 10 am Moscow time on December 27”,Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told a meetingin televised remarks.

He congratulated the military on what hesaid was a “landmark event for the country andthe armed forces.” Shoigu reported to Putin whenthe missiles entered service, a defence ministryofficial told AFP.

Defence officials have earlier said that thefirst Avangard regiment was placed in theOrenburg region in the Urals. “This is the firstintercontinental ballistic missile with the hyper-sonic glide vehicle in the world,” Vasily Kashin,a senior research fellow at Moscow’s HigherSchool of Economics, told AFP.

“It’s a major scientific achievement.” Moscowsaid that it showed the Avangard missiles to USarms inspectors in late November in accordancewith the New START treaty, which is due toexpire in 2021.

The missile does not violate the treaty. Putinunveiled the new weapon during his state of thenation address in 2018, saying it would defeatall existing missile defence systems.

He said at the time the missile was highlymanoeuvrable and flew at 20 times the speed of sound.

Senior officials later said the intercontinentalprojectile was considerably faster. Officials saidthe missile during tests reached the speed ofMach 27, or roughly 33,000 kilometres (20,500miles) per hour.

Mach 1 is a unit of measurement equivalentto the speed of sound. In December last year,Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov claimed itwas impossible to predict the missile’s move-ments, which meant “missile defence is practi-cally rendered obsolete.”

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Embattled Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu told supporters on Friday he

would win a March general election after scor-ing a landslide victory in the leadership primaryof his right-wing Likud party.

Israel’s longest-serving premier, who facesa corruption indictment as well as a third gen-eral election in 12 months, was expected to beatrival Gideon Saar in the leadership primary.

But the convincing margin of victory — by72.5 to 27.5 percent — strengthens his positionin the party he has dominated for 20 years.Netanyahu, 70, called it a “huge win” andpledged to emerge victorious in the March 2 gen-eral election. “Now is the time to unite and bringa tremendous victory for the Likud and the rightin the election,” Netanyahu told a press confer-ence. “Most of the people support the right andsupport me to lead the Government.”

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The setting was surreal and straightout of a Renaissance painting.The actors were influencers on the

art scene, from the capital, each one aprominent member of the Indian artfraternity. We had all gathered ona chilly December evening to playa part in an elaborate projectconceptualised by the acclaimedyoung art practitioner, VibhaGalhotra, for her forthcomingexhibition in February 2020 at theprestigious Jack ShainmanGallery in New York.

If the present year wasexceptional for Indian artand artists, 2020 promis-es even bigger things.Art collections willtend to acquireworks from inter-national auctions.Diverse media,mostly foundobjects (a natur-al or man-madeobject, or fragmentof an object, that isfound by an artist andkept because of someintrinsic interest theartist sees in it) will takeup more space at exhi-bitions and galleries.Various art festivalsand biennales willbe offering moreopportunities toartists from dif-ferent worlds. Iam especial lyexcited to see BapiDas showcasingalongside interna-tional artists at theKo c h i - Mu z i r i sBiennale, curatedby Anita Dube.

However, hav-ing said that, onemust not overlook themajor art events of2019 that broughtIndian artists back

firmly on the centrestage, international-ly. The highlight at the Venice Biennalewas, I would like to believe, the Indian

Pavilion presented by RoobinaKarode and the Kiran Nadar

Museum of Art (KNMA).At the biennale, the cav-ernous space allotted toIndia was brought aliveby the brilliant works ofM F Husain andNandalal Bose, amidthe other participants.

Each of them con-tributed with an out-standing artworkthat had viewersqueuing up forhours yet patient-ly awaiting theirturn. In my owncase, I remember,it had been ane x c e p t i o n a l l ystormy day whenI had visited thespace at theBiennale, but tomy pleasant sur-prise, it wascrowded withart enthusiasts,both young andold, clearlyenjoying thee x h i b i t i o ndespite the terri-ble weather.

It has been asignificant yearfor Indian art inmore ways thanone. Earlier, theDAG had openedits beautiful ly

appointed space inNew York, showcas-ing the works of vet-eran artists MadhviParekh and AnupamSud, among others. Atthe new Museum ofModern Art(MOMA), India was

represented by the brilliant works ofMrinalini Mukherjee (who had justexhibited at the prestigious MET), ZarinaHashmi, Dayanita Singh and SheilaGawda. Jayshree Chakravorty hadopened to great acclaim at MuseumD’Orsay and Ganesh Haloi had receivedsimilar glowing reviews in the showsacross Europe with Akar Prakar.

The year ended on a great note withthe Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa. I feltthis year was especially exciting, giventhe participation of curators likeJyotindra Jain, Ravi Agarwal, NancyAdajania, Rahab Allana, Pramod HG andSudarshan Shetty, who were able to usethe spaces given to them most effective-ly.

As we step into the new year, we hearthat DAG’s Drishyakala is gearing upwith new shows scheduled to openalongside the India Art Fair. Plans areafoot to open another museum space inKolkata, in the heritage CurrencyBuilding. Against this background, thereis a reason to be optimistic about the artscene in the coming year. While AmarKanwar, K G Subramanyan, NilimaSheikh and Nalini Malani have alreadyshown at dOCUMENTA 13 and 14, wenow have younger artists ready to par-ticipate. Among the shows lined up isone at the Nehru Centre curated byBhavna Kakar, which will bring strongfemale voices from the chapters of his-tory. Finally, of course, the most excit-ing art event of next year will be the newedition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale,curated by Shubigi Rao, opening inDecember. So, all things considered,there is much to look forward to in thecoming year. Not only will Indian artistsand curators be collaborating with pres-tigious galleries internationally but with-in the country too there will be a hostof interesting art events. While the cur-rent favourites are MF Husain, FNSouza, SH Raza, VS Gaitonde and ManjitBawa but 2020 is expected to make morefavourites. And while RAQS Media hasbeen making an impact internationally,it will continue to do so in the comingyear. Also, there is hope that art will gothe egalitarian way at last.

� How would you describe TheLong Song?

It is an adaptation of an AndreaLevy book, which centres on thepre-abolition Jamaica, which wasquite a rebellious island, having twoor three rebellion movements everyyear during slavery. It was a verypugnacious island. Andre’s bookcentres on a plantation called Amity,which is probably fictional, wherethe slaves are just catching on to thefact that there’s freedom but in real-ity, there’s just the whiff of it. Someof them are sceptical.

My character, Godfrey, is thehead of slaves. He is scepticalbecause they’ve had trouble beforeand nothing has come of it. But thistime, it might come to fruition. AndCaroline Mortimer (played byHayley Atwell), the lady of thehouse, is slightly incognisant of thefact that change is coming. She hasadopted a girl called July, whom sheclings on to as she is the only onewho can help her communicate withthe slaves.

Godfrey is very proud being thehead of the slaves but then he seesthat freedom is coming and he’s onpossibly the wrong side and he musttake action.

� What does this story mean toyou?

My family is from Jamaica.Hence, I don’t do ‘who do you thinkyou are’ because all the two to threegenerations have been full of slav-ery. So it’s in my family.

I did a documentary calledCaribbean Kid recently, and wewent back to my grandmother’shouse, which was at a plantationisland. We went inside her house atthe back and there were all theseslave graves — small ones for babies,big ones for adults. That’s howslaves were buried — on the prop-erty. So when I read The Long Song,I felt that it’s an alternate slave nar-rative in which Andrea is saying thatat some point, slaves would haveutilised humour to just get throughthe day. And I really believe that. Itwouldn’t have been weeps every day.There would have been somemoments where there was laughter.

So Andrea has drawn a razor-thin line between the drama of itand where we are allowed to knowthat slaves had a sense of humour.In this drama, you’ll see other sidesof what slavery was like too. It’sinteresting, very much like the sta-tus quo. The given circumstanceswere that slavery existed, people hadand were slaves, but they still had tobehave as human beings through-out. There’s no moustache twirlingin it, which is what I like about it.Yes, some people were heavy-hand-ed but there were people who werejust human beings and were toxical-ly affected by what they were doingto make their money.

� You know about this world fromyour ancestry but do you think it’sbeen represented on TV this waybefore?

I think it’s the time to see it. Wehave seen a great change recently interms of represented on screen andtelling stories. So with the kind ofgood content coming up, people alsowant to watch and know about suchchapters and people of history. Wehave heard a lot of stories about slav-ery like Belle, 12 Years a Slave,Django, but this is importantbecause it presents an alternateperspective on it. There’s a zeitgeistin the air to tell stories about slav-ery but I think gatekeepers who arein charge of what we watch get a bitfrightened, thinking ‘is this fine?’But we say, show it, it’s important forpeople to know.

I wasn’t taught this stuff at myschool. So I think it’s important foryoung people to know what hadhappened. If you don’t know yourhistory, you can’t predict yourfuture. People mustn’t be allowed to

sweep these things under the carpet.These are the stories that must betold. After you’ve watched some-thing like this, you won’t be able tosay you didn’t know, anymore.

� Can you tell us who you play andwhat your way into him was?

It’s interesting being an actornow. I used to be a comedian and I

was only concerned if things werefunny or not. Now being an actor,you’re more concerned with ifthings were true or not. Dependingon who’s directing you, sometimes,it’s heightened or more naturalistic,but generally, you’re trying to rep-resent something truthful.

My character, Godfrey, who isthe head slave at the Amity planta-

tion in Jamaica, is described in thebook as a man who’s past the age ofbeing strong, or maybe, ‘a man’ ora lion. But he’s still a proud being.He runs things. It took me sometime to get to where he’s comingfrom. And I kept thinking about myfather actually, who came to Britainin the 1950s and worked really hard.He wore his pyjamas under hisclothes because it was too cold. Veryaustere person, he had a sense ofhumour but quite a lot of schaden-freude with it. He would laugh ifsomething went wrong. Forinstance, someone slipping over inthe snow might make him laugh buthe wouldn’t laugh at Frank Spenceron TV. He had this quite severe turnto his mouth. He would tease butyou would barely know you werebeing teased until you saw a flick-er of something in his eyes. So there’sa lot of that in Godfrey. He’s got asense of humour but he keeps it veryfirmly entrenched. He challengesCaroline Mortimer and teases herbut she doesn’t know she’s beingteased. There’s a fantastic turningpoint, which I won’t reveal, becauseonce he realises there’s a possibili-ty of freedom, he does realise thathe’s been slaving all these years andtreating it as a career.

He has to make some decisionsabout what kind of a person hewants to be and I think that’s a fan-tastic story arc. A character who isentrenched in slavery, has beenstrangely mind-warped into believ-

ing that this is a good thing to bedoing — bossing the other slavesaround, throwing his weight, think-ing he’s the boss — but not beingpaid for it properly (because he’s gota wife and family to take care of),he is also a slave. Then suddenly, herealises there’s only this whiff of free-dom. ‘What would I do if I got free-dom? Would I stay at Amity? WouldI leave? Would I continue this job?Is this a career or is this slavery? It’sslavery!’ It all unfolds for him later.He teaches July about surviving.Very subtly, but he’s keeping an eyeout for her as there’s a fatherly aspectto his character. He has a very sly,deadpan wit.

� Has there been a particularscene or a moment when filmingthat meant something to you ortransported you back?

I think the scene when Carolineis making huge plans for aChristmas party and Godfrey ispatiently trying to explain her thatshe doesn’t have the money toafford all these grand plans and it allexplodes. But there are a fewmoments when he is teasing her andall his colleagues can see that but shecan’t. Suddenly, it becomes veryapparent and she explodes.

In that scene, you get a verystrong sense of the line — Godfreyis behind the line — but there aremoments when he creeps up to theline, having to hold in the laughter.And when he crosses it, there’s an

explosion. I think in all areas —whether you’re in jail, a concentra-tion camp, in slavery — any of thoserestrictive and constraining places,there are those people who push itahead. Godfrey does that too. Hetries really hard. Well, it takes a lotof bravery and guts to be that per-son.

�Did you meet Andrea?I was very lucky to be allowed

to be into Andrea’s preparationwhen she was writing something asa part of another project that wewere discussing together. It meantwe got to speak a lot and we got tobe friends. At the time, she told meto read The Long Song and I nowsee why she did because Godfreywas in there.

�What is the appeal of The LongSong?

I’d say it’s Andrea Levy. Sheshould be like the British kitemark(a UK product and service quali-ty trade mark) for standard.Fantastic writer of a fantastic story.And an alternate perspective to theslave experience that you perhapshaven’t seen before. This is an icon-ic and fascinating story that utilis-es humour to say tough things.And I don’t think that we have seenthat before. I think we have onlyseen the very serious, dramatic andshocking experiences of those wholived the life of a slave. But we havenever seen all that undercut by asly sense of humour, with an unre-liable narrator. We’ve never hadthat.

And I think Tamara does sucha good job of playing July with adeftness of touch. There is nosledgehammer stuff going on here.It’s rather very delicate and light.There’s humour when there needsto be humour. There’s silliness. Butit doesn’t flinch from the truth ofwhat was going on. And I thinkthat’s why you should watch itbecause here, you will not only findsomething that you can watchand enjoy but you also say, ‘Oh mygod, that happened.’

(The Long Song airs everyMonday at 10 pm on AXN.)

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New age Indian travellers aremoving away from the typ-ical traditional holiday

plans and are constantly on thelookout for distinctive and off-beatexperiences such as cruise, adven-ture, solo, knowledge-driven, cul-tural, rural and religious tourism.Every year, different trends emergein the travel and tourism industry,which cater to the desires of wan-derers. Here are some trends thatare set to revolutionise the tourismindustry in 2020.

Technology in travelThrough smartphones and

social media, a number of tools andtechnologies are influencing theway people travel and industryplayers operate worldwide. Thetravel sector has grown tremen-dously due to digital advance-ments like AI (Artif icialIntelligence), voice-based applica-tions, big data analytics, VR(Virtual Reality) and AR(Augmented Reality). This willintroduce a new segment oftourism in India — virtual tourism.If through smartphone technolo-gy, a traveller can have all the per-tinent information s/he needs tohave about the trip, through AR, atraveller will be able to teleport her-self/himself to the farthest cornerof the world. Indian travellers arelargely looking for conveniencewhile also increasingly becomingbolder in their pursuit for explo-ration. Hence, travellers, especial-ly those belonging to the Gen Yand the Gen Z, will adapt to itenthusiastically.

Micro tripsIndians are increasingly show-

ing an intensified appetite for miniescapes of three tofive days toa fairlyn e a r b ydes t ina-tion, com-monly known as

short hauls. With the increasingconnectivity of flights, on-arrivalvisa facilities, on-demand carrentals, budget accommodation,increasing levels of disposableincome, an irresistible appetite forexploring the world as well as cur-rent fast-paced lifestyles, theseshort hauls will be gaining moretraction. They will become the‘most preferred type of holiday’among a large number of travellers.In 2020, more international desti-nations will become the favouritesin the sphere of bite-sized travel.

Personalisation and customisa-tion

Indian travellers are activelymoving away from the

traditional and rigid travel itiner-ary structures and with the risinginternet penetration, they areexposed to and are fervently seek-ing unique and novel experiencesthat they wish to explore. Touriststoday don’t just want to visit a newdestination, they want to immersethemselves in the local culture,soaking in the atmos-phere, cuisine andother ele-

ments that are unique to thatregion. Customising travel plans asper their own desires helps suchtourists make instant and on-the-go decisionsabout theholi-

day, which include a variety ofactivities too. Personalisation andcustomisation of travel plans is thusa trend that is going to rule 2020.

Bleisure travelCommonly known as bizca-

tion, bleisure travel combines bothtravel for work or business andleisure, which is going to take thelead in 2020. Today, Indian trav-ellers place greater emphasis onviewing the world and they don’twant to let go of any opportunityfor the same. With the newer gen-eration of travellers stepping intothe workplace and jet-setting off onwork-related trips, they will beenterprising in their approach to

make the most of their journeyand tick off another

destination ontheir bucket

list. Professionals will be increas-ingly adding weekends or evenweeks to work trips, whether solo,with a partner or family.

Mini moonWith most of the newly-mar-

ried populace leading busy lives, it’sdifficult for them to take off for alarge chunk of time for their hon-eymoon. Thus ‘mini-moon’ travelwill be a new and growing optionfor them as it offers a relaxed expe-rience in a minimal amount oftime. Through this, the couples canstill have the best experience dur-ing a honeymoon right after theirbig day, followed by planning along haul vacation later, in thefuture.

Adventure tourismIt has been observed that

Indians have become bolder intheir vacation choices with a largenumber of travellers actively opt-ing for travel that ensures an

adrenaline rush. Thus adven-ture tourism, which has

been pick-

ing up steam during the last year,will reach new heights in 2020.With the spike in demand for thistype of tourism, many destinations,both domestic and international,are making appropriate arrange-ments for thrill-seekers and areintroducing newer adventuresports.

Spiritual travelOne of the biggest travel trends,

which is expected to grow manifoldin 2020, is spiritual travel. Leisurecombined with spiritual journeys iswitnessing an increased demandnot just from the older generationsbut also from the younger travellerswho are interested in seeking spir-itual harmony. Travellers will wantto incorporate spiritual places orhealing retreats, both nationally orinternationally in their trips in thecoming year. India being an impor-tant centre of religious history hasa number of destinations that willsee a surge in interest from Indianand international tourists. MoreIndians will opt to travel to pilgrim-ages and popular religious cities.

Cruise travelThe sector has witnessed dou-

ble-digit growth in the recent times.This is not limited to just familiesor new couples as even youngertravellers are opting for cruise hol-idays over other traditional vacationspots. Given that cruises are becom-ing extremely stylised and offeringmulti-destination routes along witha range of amenities includingadventure activities, entertainmentshows, and authentic cuisines,they are sure to be included in

more travel itineraries. More cruisecompanies will be offering afford-

able packages as therewill be a surge in inter-

est from varied seg-ment of trav-

ellers whowish to expe-rience thistype of travel.

Aconversation with Mo Rocca is akin tohis Mobituaries podcasts and his new

book of Rocca-style obituaries: A swoopingexploration of people and things past, withthe author playing connect-the-dots inentertaining and enlightening fashion.

For instance, he starts discussing paral-lels between US presidential brother BillyCarter and British royal sister PrincessMargaret and the second-fiddle roles theyplayed. Carter is in Rocca’s book; assessingMargaret’s similarities appeared to be a sud-den fancy.

“My fantasy PSAT has a question,(Queen) Elizabeth is to Margaret as JimmyCarter is to ...,” said Rocca, a “CBS SundayMorning” correspondent known for his drollhumor.

Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving(Simon & Schuster) takes on obituaries ofpeople, as is customary, but includes thosewhose exploits were ignored or who Roccathinks deserve reappraisals. He also digs upbackground for products (there’s a tribute tothe “behemoth known as the station wagon,”for one), fictional characters and historicalmilestones.

In an interview, he discussed how heapproached the book (written with JonathanGreenberg) and its browsing-friendly formatthat makes it a standout for bathroom read-ing (a compliment, which Rocca said he tookas such) and the rare example that has foot-notes. Quotes have been edited for clarity andlength.

�Given your access to TV and podcastaudiences, why write a book?

There are certain things that are easierto write about than to do an audio programabout, things like the station wagon. And myhead has long been stuffed with a lot of fac-toids and arcana, and that’s kind of fun ona page. The book has what I call ‘graveyards.’After each essay, I wanted there to be a grave-yard that would surprise you in its relation-ship to the essay that came before it. so, forinstance, Sammy Davis Jr is followed by otherfamous one-eyed people, Thomas Paine isfollowed by other famous disembodiedbody parts. And I think that that looks niceon the page.”

�The book ranges so far afield with infor-mation on so many topics. Have you beengathering string for years?

I have gathered string for a long time,ideas that have been circulating. My col-league, the film critic David Edelstein,helped me with this one: I’m a big Streisandfan, as you can probably tell from the book,and drawn to the idea that the movie FunnyGirl, when you watch it, you forget that it’sthe story of this person, Fanny Brice. Youthink you’re watching the story of BarbraStreisand. At least I think that, and it’s becausethe performance is so eclipsing and volcanicthat it kind of displaces the person it’s about.And this is the kind of book that had a place

for that, and then the ‘graveyard’ has otherpeople, historic figures, who were eclipsedby the people who played them.

�As the footnotes demonstrate, the bookwas thoroughly researched. Is it importantto you that readers understand it is fact-based history?

It is important to me. Look, I like to sur-prise the reader and there are two differentways that are opposites. I like a topic thatseems like it’s going to be fun and fizzy andit’s going to be a trip, like Billy Carter is going

to be about Billy Beer and when you go intoit, it’s ‘Why am I choking up?’

Conversely, I like to take somethingthat seems like it’s going to be heavy.I like the challenge of (post-Civil War)reconstruction, a word that’s going tomake people go, ‘We’re really doingthis this year?’ and then make it godown easy. And in this case, I choseto humanise it by making it about the

black Congressmen of reconstruction.

�What surprised you in your research?I think a lot of people confuse ‘past’

with ‘backward’ and, I’ll be transparent here,I’ve chosen to be generous with the past. Ido think we need to cut the past some slack

because the tendency is to disqualifypeople for their imperfections. I

think that people aremessy, and I really

sought in thisto embrace

not onlyt h em e s s i -ness ofpeople,b u teras.H��

The kind of talent Indian dancershave, I can say proudly we are

one of best countries when it comesto dance. In the next 10 years, Indiais going to take over the dance scene.Dancers in our country struggle a lotbecause dance never used to be con-sidered as a profession,” said Varun,at the launch of the song Garmi fromStreet Dancer 3D in Mumbai. He wasaccompanied by co-actor NoraFatehi, the film's director RemoD'Souza and producer LizelleD'Souza.

He added: “I have spent somuch time with dancers — andRemo sir is one of them — becausehe started as a background dancer.It gets really tough when parents ofdancers or society don't look atdance as a career. They (Parents) feelthat their kids are damaging theirfamily's reputation by dancingbecause it is not work. I feel that it'swork. They (dancers) travel to trainin the morning and then reach theirdancing venues. Sometimes theypractice on the road, so this film isdedicated to all the dancers becauseif you can feel the music then any-body can dance.”

Street Dancer 3D will clash withthe Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari-directedPanga, starring Kangana Ranaut, onJanuary 24, about which Varunsaid: “Ashwiny and (her husbandand filmmaker) Nitesh sir are peo-

ple I have met on a few occasions.Kangana (Ranaut) is someone I haveknown for a lot of years and I admireher work. I feel both films are verydifferent and we are in 2020, so Ithink we shouldn't think aboutbox-office clash. I feel people shouldwatch both the films. This film(Street Dancer 3D) genuinely marksmy return to doing films for kids.For the longest time, I did not madea film for kids and when I say kids,there is a kid inside all of us so. So,this film is for all of you. I hope kidsand parents will have a good timewatching the film.”

Street Dancer 3D highlightsIndia-Pakistan issues through thescope of dance and music.

Talking about the film's mes-sage, Varun said: “Our characters inthe film are dancing for India, and(they are) Pakistani immigrants. Ithink your motive behind being adancer matters, and it drove me todo the film. Dance is not only forenjoyment but through the mediumyou can express a lot and you canchange lives. In our country, whena kid is born or at birthday partiesand at weddings, we dance a lot. Ifeel we are a very expressive danc-ing nation.”

Street Dancer 3D stars Varunwith Shraddha Kapoor, Nora Fatehi,and Prabhu Deva.

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Jurgen Klopp insisted it is notyet party time for Liverpooldespite tightening their grip

on the Premier League title racewith a dominant 4-0 thrashing ofsecond-placed Leicester to openup a 13-point lead at the top ofthe table.

Roberto Firmino scoredtwice from Trent Alexander-Arnold crosses either side ofJames Milner’s penalty before thebrilliant Alexander-Arnoldrounded off the scoring himself.

Liverpool also have a gamein hand over Leicester and seemdestined to finally end a 30-yearwait to win the title.

“With all the things aroundus, the biggest quality of my boysis that we are not listening real-ly, we are completely focused onwhat we have to do,” Klopp toldAmazon Prime.

“I’m really good at partyingmy friends will tell you, but Inever wanted to have a partywithout a reason.

“If there is something to cel-ebrate I will tell you, until thenwe will work.”

Fresh from winning the ClubWorld Cup for the first time inQatar on Saturday, Klopp’s menshowed no sign of fatigue froma congested December scheduleas they outclassed the Foxesfrom start to finish.

Alexander-Arnold was aconstant threat rampaging for-ward from right-back and stungKasper Schmeichel’s palms insidethe first minute before Kloppsoon had his head in his handswhen Sadio Mane somehowspooned Mohamed Salah’s dan-gerous cross wide.

An opener for the runawayleague leaders was only a matterof time and duly arrived just afterthe half hour mark whenAlexander-Arnold’s cross washeaded powerfully down pastSchmeichel.

The Danish goalkeeper hadensured Leicester’s 3-1 defeat atManchester City on Saturdaywas not far more comprehensiveand needed to be at his best againto keep the Foxes in the game ashe saved one-on-one from Manemoments later.

Two heavy defeats in fivedays have proved to be a realitycheck for Leicester’s title ambi-tions with their focus now onmaking sure they hold off achasing pack including Chelsea,Tottenham and ManchesterUnited to secure a return to theChampions League.

“It’s important there is a lit-tle bit of perspective,” saidSchmeichel. “If you told us wewould be in the position we areat the start of the season wewould have taken it.

“We take this as inspiration,that’s the level. Those are prob-ably the two best teams in theworld at the minute and that’s thelevel we have to aspire to be.”

Liverpool, by contrast,demonstrated why they areChampions League winners andPremier League champions inwaiting.

Klopp’s men finally had thebreathing space they desired viathe arm of Caglar Soyuncu as hehandled Alexander-Arnold’s cor-ner 20 minutes from time.

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Milner had only been onthe field a matter of secondsand stroked home the penal-ty with his first touch.

Three minutes later,Firmino doubled his tally ofgoals and Alexander-Arnoldadded a third assist with a dri-ven low cross that the Brazilianexpertly cushioned before slot-ting into the top corner.

Alexander-Arnold thencapped a magnificent perfor-mance by blasting low andhard beyond Schmeichel intothe bottom corner.

The Boxing Day cardmarks the halfway point of thePremier League season, but

even with half the season toplay, Liverpool’s march towardsthe title looks unstoppable.

“It is theirs to lose,” addedSchmeichel.

UTD ROUT MAGPIES���������� Ole GunnarSolskjaer urged ManchesterUnited to show some consis-tency after Anthony Martial’sdouble and a MasonGreenwood rocket sealed a 4-1 win against Newcastle.

Solskjaer’s side slumpedto an embarrassing 2-0 defeatat lowly Watford last weekendto raise fresh questions aboutthe United manager’s ability toinspire his players.

When Matty Longstaff putNewcastle ahead in the firsthalf on Thursday, Solskjaer’scritics were sharpening theirknives again.

But Martial rode toSolskjaer’s rescue with theequaliser and Greenwood’s

thunderbolt put United aheadbefore Marcus Rashfordrounded off a first half blitz.

Martial netted again afterthe interval as United ended atwo-match winless run in thePremier League and movedinto seventh place, just fourpoints behind fourth placedChelsea in the race to qualifyfor the Champions League.

“The players bounced backreally well. So let’s see how theycope with probably somepraise now and then there’s agame in 48 hours againstBurnley away,” Solskjaer said.

“It was a good day for us,we made it comfortable. Ofcourse you make mistakes butwe had 10 to 15 minutes ofeverything going right.

“That’s one of the bigthings from today, the pressing.We need to be pressing highwith a lot of intensity and thenthe opposition will make mis-takes.”

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Australia snatched two earlywickets to leave New

Zealand facing an uphill battleto stay in the second Test onFriday as they chase the hometeam’s 467, built on the back ofa gritty 114 from Travis Head.

At the close on day two, theBlack Caps were 44 for two withTom Latham not out nine andRoss Taylor on two as a seriesdefeat looms.

Captain Kane Williamsonlasted only 14 balls, skying aJames Pattinson delivery towicketkeeper Tim Paine onnine while TomBlundell, calledup for the out-of-form Jeet Raval,was out to Pat Cummins for 15.

The visitors need to win tosquare the three-match seriesafter crashing by 296 runs in theopening day-night clash inPerth.

Australia looked in com-plete control at tea on 431 forfive, but they then collapsed tobe all out for 467 within nineovers of the restart.

Skipper Paine departed for79 seven balls after tea, withMitchell Starc gone soon afterfor one. Head, Cummins andNathan Lyon rapidly followedwith Neil Wagner (4-83) andTim Southee (3-103) doing thedamage.

Australia started the day at257 for four with Steve Smith on77 and Head not out 25.

Head came into the matchunder pressure after a leanspell, but silenced his critics withonly his second Test century,reaching three figures off 222balls.

“It’s very nice to contribute.It’s pretty cool to score a BoxingDay hundred, nice to get myopportunity,” said Head, addingthat Paine counter-attackingwhen he came in helped.

“It helped that Tim cameout and struck the ball as wellas he did, it definitely took a lotof pressure off me. But credit toNew Zealand, at times it wasdifficult and they stemmed the

scoreboard.”It was a patient innings

from the 25-year-old, whoscored his only other century(161) against Sri Lanka inCanberra. After reaching his tonhe began hitting out and final-ly fell to a Wagner full toss, slic-ing it to Mitchell Santner.

He was ably supported bythe impressive Paine, whoplayed an array of shots tonotch his seventh Test half-cen-tury off just 72 balls. The 35-year-old had a golden opportu-nity to score a maiden ton, buthe blew it, out lbw to Wagnerafter a review.

That brought Starc to thecrease, but he lasted just threeballs before spooning a Southeedelivery to Williamson at mid-off.

Cummins and Lyon man-aged just one run betweenthem with Pattinson left not out14.

“I thought we kept fighting,kept trying and that is one of thegreat characteristics about thisteam, we keep giving every-thing,” said Wagner.

“A tough day, but full cred-it to the Australian batsmen. It’salmost like they’ve been a stepahead of us, they showed a lotof patience and clear plans.”

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Ishant Sharma was a picture of com-mitment while leading the injury-rid-den Delhi attack with an eight-wick-

et match haul to all but ensure an outrightvictory against Hyderabad on the thirdday of the Ranji Trophy group Aencounter at Arun Jaitley stadium onFriday.

Having dismissed Hyderabad for 69in the first innings, Delhi were handi-capped by Pawan Suyal’s injury but thatdidn’t deter Ishant from sending down 19overs, grabbing 4 for 89 in the visitors’total score of 298.

Ishant finished with a match-haul of8 for 108 in 29 overs.

Needing 84 to win, Delhi were 24for no loss in the second innings andare just 60 runs away from fullpoints. If they win by 10 wickets,the team will also walk away witha bonus point.

At a time when the Indianpacers’ workload managementhas become a focal point and topstars only want to bowl a specific num-ber of overs in red-ball games to get intothe groove, the veteran of 96 Test match-es toiled hard, bowled those extra oversand also encouraged young SimarjeetSingh (3/80 in 19.4 overs).

Once Suyal was out of the attack witha groin strain, Ishant had no option butto bowl those extra overs and he startedin earnest, trapping right-hander HimalayAgarwal in-front and then breachingBavanaka Sandeep’s (0) defences.

To give him respite, even Nitish Ranahad to bowl the seam-up stuff. There weretimes, when Ishant pitched it short butwhenever he looked to pitch it up, he wasa handful.

It was opener Tanmay Agarwal (103off 154 balls), who was primarily respon-sible for thwarting Delhi's bid for aninnings victory along with some rear-guard action from Tanay Thyagrajan (34)and Mehedy Hasan (71).

Tanmay and Tanay shared a 93-runstand after Hyderabad were reduced to97 for 6.

Hasan then used the long-handle tohelp Hyderabad avoid follow-on.However, all they could manage in theend was 83-run lead which certainly won’tbe enough.

POREL BAGS THREE �� ����Bengal speedster Ishan Porelblew away the Andhra middle-order withhis triple strike as Andhra were reducedto 110 for 7 on the third day of group Aencounter.

Only 46 overs of play was possible onthe day due which has effectively robbedBengal a chance to get an outright winwith a day left.

Bengal were all-out for 289 in their

first innings and Andhra need to scoreanother 30 to avoid follow-on.

On a breezy winter morning, Andhrahad their backs to the wall with Porel dis-missing skipper Hanuma Vihari (23) andin-form Ricky Bhui (0) off successivedeliveries to finish the day with figuresof 3 for 35.

Porel's new ball partner pace partnerMukesh Kumar accounted for 2 for 36 butAndhra rode on Gnaneshwar’s dogged 45

not out off 145 balls to seethrough the day.

“The ball was movingboth ways and I was enjoy-ing my good form andrhythm. We all are young so

there was a lot of positivity and we bowledour hearts out,” Porel said.

“However I could have bowled wellin the last spell. I tried to bowl pace andwas off the mark.”

SERVICES WIN VS TRIPURA��7� ���� �Diwesh Pathania returnedwith a match haul of eight wickets, whilePoonam Poonia had a hat-trick in his five-for as Services routed Tripura by eightwickets in Elite Group C match.

Pathania claimed 3/27 to returnwith a match-haul of 8 for 63, whilePoonia hogged the limelight with his hat-trick as he ran through the lower-orderen route to his 5/26 to skittle out Tripurafor 84 in their second essay.

Resuming the day on 16 for one with31 runs in arrears, Tripura hardly showedany fight and failed to negotiate the three-seam attack being bundled out in 43.5overs with Poonia dismissing HarmeetSingh, Rana Dutta and Abhijit Sarkar offsuccessive deliveries.

Chasing a paltry 38, Services lost twowickets for six runs inside four overs butopener Abhijit Salvi (23 not out) andArun Bamal (nine) ensured that there wasno more hiccups taking the team homein 11.1 overs.

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Railways created the biggest upset in this season sofar, after they defeated domestic giants Mumbai by

10 wickets within three days in their Elite Group Bmatch at Wankhede stadium.

After bundling out Mumbai for paltry 114 on theopening day, Railways riding on skipper Karn Sharma’sunbeaten 112, grabbed a crucial 152-run first inningslead. Then Railways pacer Himanshu Sangwan (5-60)took five wickets, as Mumbai were bundled out for 198in their second essay, after Test specialist AjinkyaRahane failed miserably in the second innings as well.

For the 41-time domestic champions skipperSuryakumar Yadav (65 off 94 runs) and experiencedAditya Tare (14 off 47 balls) tried to rally the inningswith their 64-run stand before Shardul Thakur (21 off31 balls) along with Akash Parkar (35 not out), ensuredthat Mumbai avoided an innings defeat.

With Parkar’s knock, Mumbai could at least set a47- run target. For Railways, openers Devdhar (27 notout) and Pratham Singh (19 not out) overhauled thetarget in the 12th over, with all 10 wickets to spare.

The Railways’ win is more special, as 42 overs werelost on the first two days.

Mumbai will next play Karnataka at the BKCground from January 3.

Railways coach Harvinder Singh said his team hasdefeated Mumbai for the first time.

“We are very happy, for the first time in history,Railways have defeated Mumbai. The credit goes to theboys, who played very well,” said Harvinder.

Mumbai skipper Suryakumar Yadav said Railwaysoutclassed them in all the departments.

“We could have applied better in the first innings,getting 60-70 runs more would have helped us,” henoted. Former India batsman Vinod Kambli tweeted,“Mumbai team ni masta dabba ghatla (Mumbai playedbadly). Very poor from the team. Disappointed to see@ShreyasIyer15 &@ImShivamDube not being a partof the Mumbai set up for this game when the inter-national game is 5 days away. Would like to see the bestteam playing when possible. #Ranji Trophy.” Mumbaidid not play India players Shreyas Iyer and ShivamDube.

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Veteran Indian pacer IrfanPathan says the country's

rise as a fast-bowling power-house is, for him, the highlightof the year while former bats-man VVS Laxman picked theaway Test triumph overAustralia as his "favouritemoment" of 2019.

The trio of Umesh Yadav(23), Ishant Sharma (25) andMohammed Shami (33)picked81 wickets in Tests this year,averaging less than 20.

The only other time whenthree pacers of the same teamaveraged less than 20 for over20 wickets in a calendar yearwas 1978 with Ian Botham,Chris Old and Bob Willisclaiming the honours for theirside.

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Cricket Australia chief exec-utive Kevin Roberts has

termed BCCI President SouravGanguly’s idea for a four-nation‘ODI Super Series’ as “innova-tive” but stopped short of givingany commitment.

Ganguly had said India willlock horns with England,Australia and one other topcricketing side in an annual ODIseries starting 2021.

After a recent meeting withGanguly in London, (ECB) hassaid it was open to discussionson the matter.

“I think it’s an example ofthe innovative thinking comingout of the BCCI with SouravGanguly as president,” Robertssaid.

“In his very short time,only a couple of months, wehave already seen India committo and host a day-night Test inKolkata, so a brilliant resultthere. And now a suggestionaround the Super Series, anoth-er potential innovation,” headded.

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"This year we saw India'sfast bowlers bowl beautifullyfor the country and it's beenone of the best fast bowlingline-ups that we have seen. Wesaw the intent with which theybowled, they came in, bowledhard-swinging deliveries, newor old ball it didn't matter,"Pathan told 'Star Sports'.

"I have really seen thegrowth of Indian cricket espe-cially in terms of fast bowlingwhich has been the highlightfor me this year," he added.

Their combined averageof 15.16 is the best for anyteam's pace bowlers in a calen-dar year (with minimum 50wickets).

Laxman, on the otherhand, felt India beatingAustralia in their own backyardtook the cake.

India beat Australia 2-1 inthe four-match series, whichbegan in December 2018 butended in January 2019.

"It's been a very good yearfor Indian cricket but being a