25
Monday
March
2019
`3.00 Ÿ Pages 14
AHMEDABAD
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Opinion
Trade wars and other
geopolitical uncertainties
have fuelled a global rush
for the yellow metal, writes
G Srinivasan  P6
City
Students of CEPT University
to build no-waste toilet
system in a school in a
village in Gujarat, which has
about 300 students  P3
india
Pakistani troops violate
ceasefire along the Line of
Control in J&K’s Poonch and
Rajouri districts, killing one
Indian Army soldier P4
world
As voters in Thailand flock to
the polls for the first election
since the 2014 coup, exit
polls predict a win for Thaksin
Shinawatra’s party P7
sports
World No. 1 Naomi Osaka
crashes out of the
third round of the
WTA Miami Open,
losing to Taiwan’s
Hsieh Su-Wei in
3 sets 
 P11
Afterhrs 
Actor Katrina Kaif is making
the most of the
schedule of Bharat,
which is currently
underway at the
Filmcity in
Mumbai
Power-Pant performance
Results: KKR beat SRH Today’s match:
by 6 wickets. n DC beat RR vs KXIP
MI by 37 runs Jaipur, 8pm
Wait ends for
Dhanush guns
New Delhi: Dhanush, the
first indigenous long-range
artillery gun developed dur-
ing the project to upgrade the
scam-ridden but useful Bo-
fors artillery gun, will be in-
ducted into the Indian Army
on March 26. The first batch
of six guns will be deployed
along the China and Pakistan
frontiers, sources in the In-
dian Army said. By the end
of the year, a complete regi-
ment — comprising of 18
guns — will be in action
along the borders shared
with China and Pakistan.
Report, P14
Snap POLL
Q. Have you tracked
the rise in assets of
your local MP?
Yes No
Go to our Twitter handle
@dna, look for #DNAPoll
and vote.
Party no bar as
MPs grow richer
26 lawmakers’
assets rose over
500% in five yrs
Saswat Panigrahi & Sumit K Singh
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Twenty-six
Members of Parliament be-
longing to different parties
turned richer by more than
500 per cent between 2009 and
2014, as per declaration of as-
sets made by the lawmakers.
Four of them registered more
than 1,200 per cent rise.
Most of the MPs have var-
ious business interests,
which perhaps catapulted
their assets as they got ree-
lected after five years. The
data forms a part of a peti-
tion filed in the Delhi High
Court by the Associations of
Democratic Reforms and PRS
Legislative Research.
The rise in the assets of
MPs has been in the spotlight
amid BJP’s charges, in the
run-up to the Lok Sabha elec-
tions, against Congress pres-
ident that the latter clocked a
250 per cent growth in his
properties.
Kamlesh Paswan of BJP,
ET Mohammed Basheer of
IUML leader, Sisir Kumar
Adhikari of Trinamool Con-
gress, ADMK’s P Venugopal,
and Kodikunnil Suresh of
Congress are among the top
gainers in terms of assets.
UPA chairperson Sonia
Gandhi’s assets moved up-
ward from Rs 1,37,94,768 to
Rs 9,28,95,288 between 2009
and 2014.
Delhi Capitals’ Rishabh Pant at his unorthodox best during his
27-ball 78* against Mumbai Indians on Sunday. Pant’s blitzkrieg
handed MI a crushing defeat in their opening game.  Report, P10
Officials probe ‘virtual
SIMs’ used in Pulwama
Srinagar: A request would
be sent to the United States to
seek details from a service
provider of “virtual SIMs”,
which were used by the Jaish-
e-Mohammed suicide bomb-
er behind the Pulwama at-
tack and his Pakistan and
Kashmir-based handlers.
It was a fairly new modus
operandi where terrorists
across the border were using
a “virtual SIM”, generated by
a service provider in the
United States. In this technol-
ogy, the computer generates
YESTERDAY’S POLL RESULT:
Do you think the Lokpal
will succeed in curbing
corruption in the country?
Yes  48%
No 34%
Can’t say 18%
On fast lane
Kamlesh ET Mohammed Sisir Kumar Kodikunnil
Paswan (BJP) Basheer (MUL) Adhikari Suresh
`17,68,000 `6,05,855 Trinamool Cong (Congress)
`10,16,40,625 `1,32,16,259 `10,83,159 `16,52,747
`1,94,98,381 `1,32,51,330
2009 2014
the 500% club
Twenty-six MPs, including UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, SP
supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and minister of finance Arjun Ram
Meghwal, saw their assets going up by over 500% between 2009-2014
BJP sweats it out get caste math right
Ahmedabad: BJP leaders have been racking their brain
to get the caste combinations right ahead of the Lok Sab-
ha polls. The party has assessed different parameters and
socio-political equations to pick candidates, but its selec-
tion process is tricky as compared the Congress. With five
to six candidates coming from diverse communities, the
party has to strike a fine balance, said a senior party
leader, who did not wish to be named.  Report, P3
That’s a jump of nearly 570 MPs, MLAs and other politi-
per cent. SP supremo Mulay- cal executives that also in-
am Singh Yadav and minister clude the Prime Minister
of finance Arjun Ram Megh- show that their incomes oth-
wal too have seen their assets er than assets are way below
increase by over 500 per cent. the pay packets of corporate
The astronomical rise in executives.
assets is what differentiates a An MP is entitled to take
politician’s income from home Rs 1,40,000, which in-
earnings in other sectors. cludes monthly pay, constitu-
Currently, pay and perks of ency and office allowance.
Akhilesh takes
Mulayam’s seat
at Azamgarh
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Samajwadi Party
(SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav
will be contesting from
Azamgarh in the upcoming
Lok Sabha elections, a seat
currently held by his father
Salman Ansari/DNA
Mulayam Singh Yadav. Sen-
ior leader Azam Khan will
contest his debut Lok Sabha
election from Rampur.
The party has also named 40
star campaigners to hold pub-
lic rallies. They include Mu-
layam Singh, Ram Gopal, Jaya
Bachchan, Ashu Malik, Dim-
ple Yadav and Ahmad Hasan.
SP is contesting 37 seats in
Uttar Pradesh, and is in alli-
ance with the BSP, which will
contest 38. Ajit Singh’s RLD
has been given three seats,
while two seats have been left
for the Congress.
Mulayam had won both
a telephone number and the Azamgarh and Mainpuri in
user downloads an applica- 2014, but decided to give up
tion of the service provider the latter. The party’s choice
on their smartphone. The of replacing him with son
number is linked to social Akhilesh is a strategic move
networking sites. The verifi- by the party to bolster its
cation code generated by chances in the crucial East
these networking sites is re- UP region. Mulayam will con-
ceived on the smartphone. test from Mainpuri again.
In Pulwama, Dar was in Akhilesh had dethroned
constant touch with his han- his father as party chief in
dlers using the same technol- 2016 after a bitter feud. He also
ogy, officials said. They said showed the door to his uncle
the numbers used were pre- Shivpal. Shivpal has since
fixed with +1, the country formed his own party and has
code for the US. —PTI often attacked Akhilesh.
India lodges protest over two Hindu
girls’ kidnapping, conversion in Pak
Swaraj, Chaudhry
engage in war of
words on Twitter
Iftikhar Gilani
Iftikhar.gilani@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: India has lodged
an official protest over mis-
treatment and persecution of
minorities in Pakistan.
Sources have said that an of-
ficial note was handed over to
the Pakistan Foreign Office
on Sunday, demanding suita-
ble remedial action to protect
and promote safety, security
and welfare of Pakistani citi-
zens, especially minorities.
The move comes on the
back of a video that went viral
showing the abduction and
forced conversion of two Hin-
du girls aged 14 and 16 in Pa-
kistan’s Sindh province. The
incident had also triggered a
social media war of words be-
tween the two countries.
According to a pact signed
‘Nation needs
Modi govt 2.0’
New Delhi: Emphasising
that the 2019 Lok Sabha elec-
tions will be a fight between
two contrasting ideologies —
the “development agenda” of
the BJP and the “intent of
corruption and power” of the
Opposition parties — BJP
president Amit Shah on Sun-
day said that only a Modi gov-
ernment 2.0 must be elected to
continue the momentum. The
BJP president said people
must shun a coalition of those
who have self-serving intent
of graft and power.  Report, P5
Karnataka govt calls off ban on Ola
Cabs, taxis to resume service today
Bengaluru: The Karnataka
government on Sunday re-
voked the suspension on mo-
bile application-based taxi
aggregator Ola Cabs after it
agreed to pay a fine for the
operation of bike taxis ‘ille-
gally’. The service would re-
sume from Monday.
The state government had
on Friday suspended the li-
cence for six months, saying
it was running bike taxis
without permission.
The suspension was lifted
after Ola executives had a de-
tailed discussion with state
law-ful lawyers up in arms over LLB exam at govt law college
Law question paper says ‘law is an ass’
Kranti Vibhute
kranti.vibhute@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: “Law is an ass, ma-
jority of lawyers are cheats.
What a cocktail is this? Are
judges the medicine?” This is
not the topic for a debate on
primetime news television,
but rather a question that fi-
nal year law students at
Mumbai’s Government Law
College are expected to an-
swer. The question was part
of the question paper for the
‘Drafting, Pleading and Con-
veyancing’ subject, held on
March 16.
Pakistan’s minority community members protested in large numbers
between the then prime min-
isters of the two countries in
April 1950 — Jawaharlal
Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan
— both countries had
pledged to guarantee rights
of minorities and prevent
forced conversions. In case
of such violations, the gov-
ernments of two countries
were authorised to take re-
medial measures by high-
5 sailors back home after 1 yr in jail
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: More than 14
months after their ship was
detained by Greek authori-
ties on the charge of carry-
ing explosives and they were
put behind bars, five Indian
sailors returned home on
Sunday.
The five Indians were on
board MV Andromeda when
the Greek Coast Guard chose
to punish them. Despite prov-
ing that the cargo contained
only raw material for fire-
Ola Cabs officials
met officials of state
transport dept,
including chief secretary,
and the issue was sorted out
Priyank Kharge,
Minister for social welfare
chief secretary TM Vijay
Bhaskar and other officials.
Speaking to PTI, minister for
social welfare Priyank
Kharge said, “Ola Cabs offi-
cials met the officials of state
transport department, in-
the question in question
„„Students were asked to
explain, in not more than
seven lines, if ‘Law is an
ass, lawyers are cheats’
Students who appeared
for the exam, as also many
in the law fraternity, were
shocked to read this. Head
of the law department at
Mumbai University, Raje-
R.N.I. No. : GUJENG/2007/22424
lighting issues. Over many
decades since the Simla
Agreement of July 1972,
however, the countries never
invoked the 1950 Nehru-Lia-
quat pact. The Simla Agree-
ment pledged non-interfer-
ence in each other’s internal
affairs, though government
sources said this was violat-
ed by Islamabad several
times since.  Turn to P4
The sailors arrived in Mumbai on Sunday morning
crackers, the five men had to
do time at the overcrowded
Korydallos Prison Complex.
The ship had set sail from
cluding the chief secretary,
and the issue was sorted out.”
Asked why action was not
taken against the other bike
taxi services, which are simi-
lar to Ola Bike, Kharge said,
“Probably nobody had
brought it to the notice of the
government.” Earlier,
Kharge had tweeted, “There
is an urgent need for policies
to catch up with new tech-
nologies and also industries
too should work closer with
the government to help
evolve policies for innova-
tions.” — PTI
„„Experts have said a
majority of the students will
become lawyers and such
questions will prejudice them
shri Varhadi, refused to
comment. However, another
professor said, “Questions
like this shouldn’t be includ-
ed in the exam paper. They
give out a wrong impression
Imran orders
probe; parents
approach court
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Pakistan Prime
Minister Imran Khan on Sun-
day ordered the Sindh and
Punjab governments to work
together to rescue the two
teenaged Hindu girls. Infor-
mation Minister Fawad
Chaudhry said, “The minori-
ties in Pakistan make up the
white of our flag and all of
our flag’s colours are pre-
cious to us. Protection of our
flag is our duty.”
Meanwhile, the girls’ par-
ents have approached a court
in Bahawalpur seeking pro-
tection. Reports also said that
the Sindh police has arrested
one man from Khanpur, who
is suspected to have assisted
in the nikah (marriage) of
the underage girls.
Turkey on January 6, 2018,
and was headed for Djibouti
when it was sent to the Greek
coast for repairs.  Turn to P4
German family
to give $11mn
over Nazi past
Berlin: One of Germany’s
richest families plans to do-
nate millions to charity after
learning about their ances-
tors’ enthusiastic support of
Adolf Hitler and use of
forced labourers under the
Nazis, according to a report
Sunday. In a four-page report,
the Bild newspaper reported
that documents uncovered in
Germany, France and the US
reveal that Albert Reimann
Sr. and Albert Reimann Jr.
used Russian civilians and
French POWs as forced la-
bourers. Report, P7
regarding advocates. Also,
most of the students who
are taking this exam will go
on to become lawyers in the
future. Questions should
match the discipline regard-
ing the usage of words that
are followed in actual court-
rooms.”
Meanwhile, Sandeep Ke-
dare, who works as an advo-
cate and is the executive
president of the Republican
Bahujan Vidyarthi Parishad,
has decided to file an official
complaint with the college
and the university.
 Turn to P4
 02 
daily news & analysis I Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019
musings
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia

Pasta with Manchurian: How will it taste?

Lawfully Yours

L
ast week, Italy joined China
and signed deals worth almost
$3 billion. The significance
here lies not in the relatively
small sum of money involved,
but in the fact that these deals
have been signed under the new Chi-
nese aggressive policy of Belt and
Road Initiative. Italy succumbing so
easily is a little surprising.
anurag Consider this: the erstwhile
k agarwal mighty Roman Empire kowtowing
to the diktats of China!
The author is a
Unbelievable, but in the fast-
professor at IIM-A, changing geopolitical situation, this
akagarwal@iima.ac.in is a fact. China is in a very strong
strategic position and its bargaining
power, though fluctuating with the
on-going tariff war with the United
States, is still very high. Of late, Ita-
ly has been going through economic
problems and its banks – including
its oldest bank Monte dei Paschi –
are in deep trouble. Its national car-
rier, Alitalia can, hands down, win
the trophy for the ‘worst airline of
the world’, if there were such an
award, even beating Air India by a
large margin. The political leaders
in Italy are looking forward to the
Chinese funds to give a new lease of
life to Alitalia. What a shame! At
least in India, Air India is survived
by the Indian taxpayers’ money.
The role of the Italian mafia in its
politics and business is an open se-
cret. The Morandi Bridge collapse in
Genoa in August last year, which
lead to the death of forty people and
the mafia connection revealed in
investigations later, leave no doubt
in the minds of curious observers
that the fundamentals of doing busi-
ness in the country have been ter-
ribly shaken. About €1 billion has
been spent in the last five years on
upgrading and maintaining the
highways by a private company that
managed the bridge. One can imag-
ine where all that money had gone.
Political debauchery in Italy at
the time of Silvio Berlusconi as the
Prime Minister a few years ago was
matched only by our own Narayan
Dutt Tiwari, who was forced to un-
dergo a paternity test by a court’s
order – which shockingly gave a
positive result – and had earlier
brought disgrace to the Governor’s
office in Andhra Pradesh due to his
promiscuity and indiscreet conduct.
He is no more, but still, is considered
to be a tall political leader, who at
one point in time, was even in the
race of the prime minister’s posi-
tion in the country. Phew!
Signing some of the business deals
with China may look innocuous as
there are a good number of Italian
companies getting their goods manu-
factured in China, and some Italian
companies have Chinese workers
manufacturing their products. But
the Chinese getting cosy with Italy
with the Belt and Road Initiative is a
disturbing signal. China is making
its presence felt in Europe very
strongly to counter the American in-
fluence – under Trump’s hostile poli-
cies – and in the process make new
friends, interestingly on its own
terms. With pots of gold, lightning
speed decision-making, and flawless
execution, Chinese businesses – fully
backed by their government – are
truly a delight for any economy. The
question is, at what cost? Can a coun-
try directly or indirectly let a foreign
nation take a slice of its sovereignty?
Italy itself has to be blamed for the
desperate position it is in today.
China keeps on trying with all
sorts of tricks – trade, force, mili-
tary, provoking neighbours, diplo-
macy, dumping dirt-cheap goods,
bidding for major projects, supply-
ing equipment, cheap labour, etc. –
to entice India, and somehow make
the country and its people depend-
ent. So far, India has succeeded in
thwarting all such moves. Sri Lanka
and Pakistan are heavily dependent
on China and are almost in its pock-
et. With Europe not in its best shape
– Brexit, secessionist movements in
several countries, the refugee prob-
lem, warring factions, sliding econ-
omy, stagnant population, etc. – Chi-
na’s discreet onslaught may prove to
be the last straw on camel’s back.
India has to be cautious. Small-
and medium-sized companies are
often over-zealous to do business
with Chinese companies at very un-
reasonable terms. India will do well
not to get into the Chinese trap. The
country doesn’t need to have noo-
dles with kadhi-pakoda. Let Italy
enjoy pasta with Manchurian.

Sow right to Deserted

It is not
grow right ‘chuddies’, it
REVERSE shift
is ‘discussion’
M
ost of the parents who come to me com-
plain about their teenagers not listen- view point

ing to them. They seem to defy their
parents about anything and everything
– right from not eating right, not study-
ing enough to wasting time on their
gadgets et. al. Rebelliousness in terms of not tak-
ing a shower on time or not wearing apt clothes
befitting a particular occasion included. More
than children, parents need some lessons here.
After all, they seem to conveniently forget ‘what
you sow is what you reap.’
What kind of a teenager, a child turns out to
be, what kind of a bond a child and parents share,
how close they are etc. solely depends on the
amount of time invested by the parents. The
foundation is laid right from the time a baby is
born. Did the parents
spend maximum time
with their infants when
they needed them the
most? Something as
small as reading a bed-
time story in a child’s
formative years makes a
world of a difference. It’s
like putting money into a
SAGARIKA SHAH bank account and watch-
Relationship and ing it grow. Such associa-
couples therapist. Helps tions help to build a
strong relationship, in-
couples and individuals crease vocabulary, aid to
deal with their introduce the right mor-
relationship problems als, feed their imagina-
effectively tion apart from a pletho-
T
here are two English books that Indians
are in utter awe of, ie The Guinness
Book of World Records and Oxford dic-
tionary. Any entry in either from India
instantly becomes a news, even if it is
as absurd as most number of selfie por-
traits clicked together (no need to specify that
India holds it) to addition of word “chuddies”
in the Oxford dictionary.
I may have missed getting wiser about the
latter, but a local FM station enlightened me
about it while I was on the way to watch a panel
discussion between young student leaders.
Entry of chuddies (in a rather mispro-
nounced and plebeian slang form) in the Oxford
dictionary is just one of the many examples of
words that English language has borrowed from
us, so I don’t consider worthy of a discussion,
but as I was riding the train of thoughts about
words, when I reached the venue of panel dis-
cussion, I realised something far more interest-
ing.
Oxford dictionary has, till date, acknowledge
borrowing Indian words and adding them to the
repository of word meanings, but have they re-
alised that India has an even greater achieve-
Summer is yet to arrive but the Nalsarovar, that plays host to several migratory birds, has already turned dry —Pravin Indrekar/DNA
ment to offer, as we have taken words from Ox-
ford dictionary and have redefined their mean-
ings!
The panel discussion I attended had “young”
“student” “leaders” having a “discussion”, and

Electoral debates: Where are the

looking at the people on the stage and what they
sagarika@thoughtcounsel.com ra of other benefits. were engaged in, that one statement had, in my
It’s as simple as par- personal opinion, re-de-
ents who don’t read always have difficulties in fined four words of Oxford
convincing their children to read. With the inter- dictionary in a single

alternative visions?
net and television being the biggest competitors swipe.
to books, reading can get worse. Not just academ- I am ready to accept that
ics, children should be encouraged to read fiction my claim about the event
to assist them to cultivate an interest in reading. redefining the meaning of
Fiction eases the anxieties of children and ado- young, student and leader
lescents since it introduces them to an array of one-upmanship, as I argued last week. lier five year plans, and then these issues was possibly a subjective
minds on the margin

characters and situations they can relate to and
can find ways to deal with life just the way these
characters did.
Children can’t be expected to be weaned off
their gadgets when they see their parents glued
to their phones, tabs or televisions all the time.
Healthy eating habits of parents get rubbed on
to children. But when parents eat out or order in
food, children are bound to emulate. Expecting
them to eat right is not right, right?
As someone said “Cultivate your craft (of par-
enthood). Water it daily, pour some tender loving
care into it, and watch it grow. Remember that a
plant doesn’t sprout immediately. Be patient and
know that in life you will reap what you sow.”
S
urprisingly, the debate on the key de-
velopmental issues is quite muted
this time. There was a fresh thought
recently articulated by the
finance minister that
whether GST council
framework will work for fostering
inter-state consensus at the fed-
eral level on agriculture, health,
and rural development. This is an
interesting argument because it
means state subject may move
practically to concurrent list
through consensus of course.
The advantage of such an ar- anil gupta How do we balance these slightly
rangement is that populist com-
petitiveness may be substituted
by longer-term realistic policy- founder of Honey including CMs of all states was
making. For instance, many
states do not realise how much
damage they did to the cause of
sustainable water use in agricul-
ture by free power or horsepower
based metering. Not only it led to
wastage of water and decline of water table
but also led to a decline in soil fertility, high-
er leaching of fertilizer productivity, higher
incidence of pests and diseases and overall
loss of soil productivity in the long term.
Maybe such issues when discussed collabo-
ratively will not remain an issue of political
Another advantage is that good practices
of initiatives of one state may become na-
tional policy without getting into political
biases. The downside is the fear that cen-
tralization tendencies already evi-
dent in national polity may be-
come further strong. The Subsidi-
arity principle of governance says
that decisions should be taken as
close to the point of implementa-
tion as possible. The need of the
hour is greater decentralization.
Further, the scope for greater
evidence-based or otherwise, poli-
cy experimentation may go down.
paradoxical choices?
The author is National Development Council
Bee Network one such forum where such issues
& visiting faculty could be resolved. The Planning
at IIM-A Commission and now Niti Aayog
anilgb@gmail.com could have facilitated inter-state
dialogue in a more balanced man-
ner involving experts on merit. If
all those experts who worked in previous
national committees are considered biased
with one ideology, then there will be no fair
participation of experts in any national con-
sultation. Ideally, a committee of experts
should frame issues in various sectors as
used to happen during the evolution of ear-
could be debated in the meeting of Planning
commission, NDC or GST council kind of
fora. There was another mechanism to take
a diverse opinion of experts/stakeholders in
the budget-making process and that was con-
sultation with different stakeholders before
framing budget. This has been almost done
away with in recent years.
Let me frame some of the ways in which
policy planning process can be made less
vulnerable to political ideological shifts in
some of the core areas. We can create ad-hoc
groups of experts having state representa-
tives as well in farming policy choices before
these are discussed at Niti Aayog/planning
commission level.
These may have detailed pros and cons of
various choices. For instance calculation of
virtual water in the export of agricultural
commodities may show that when we make
price and export policies for commodities,
we also assume the value for water con-
sumed in growing those corps which is ex-
ported to other countries.
These expert groups will also flag uncom-
fortable issues as to what happens to those
farmers when loan waivers are done who
never got loans at all? Building good credit
climate for agriculture, industrial and ser-
vice sector will require inter-state fora.
I hope this debate is carried forward.
 Full report on dnaindia.com
comprehension of my bi-
samir ased mind, so I would limit
this discussion to, well, dis-
shukla cussion.
City-based science If I look at Oxford (on-
line version) dictionary for
nomad who tries to the meaning of word “dis-
find definitive answers cussion” as enshrined in it,
samir.shukla@icloud.com it imagines that a discus-
sion is “action or process
of talking about something in order to reach a
decision or to exchange ideas”.
But, as I looked at what was happening on the
stage, it was clear that discussion in India
meant bedlam, chaos, mayhem, uproar, havoc,
tumult, commotion, confusion, disorder, anar-
chy, furore, frenzy, din, babel, rumpus, fracas,
hurly-burly, maelstrom and possibly a mad-
house in state of pandemonium.
If I get off the train of sarcasm, I am really
sad to see what we have done to not just to a fine
word, but to one of the finest human achieve-
ments, ie human ability to converse with each
other to find conclusions using dialectics.
There is nothing more defining us humans
than our ability to discuss. We have come this
far as a species because we are (or rather were)
able to find a better way forward by understand-
ing each other’s point of view through discus-
sions, but we are now reaching a point where
this uniquely human trait is vanishing, at least
in public forums in India.
As a democracy, it is great to see that we are

Bali: Musings and inspiration on culture

having so many public discussions, but what we
are missing is that discussions need decorum
to exist. What we have are shouting matches
where no one is listening. With dialectics dying
a million deaths across India in panel discus-
sions, we are no far from destroying the very
JOY OF LIVING almost every office, shop and establish- actors were very traditional and realistic, soul of our precious democracy.

L
ast week, a few days were spent in a
lush tropical place, with beautiful
beaches framing the golden orange
sunrise. The hour before dawn would
be crowded with the chirpy cadence
of various birds, each one persis-
tently trying to attract my attention.
The Sanur beach in the city of Den-
pasar, the capital of Bali, was nothing
short of paradise. Jakarta, the capital of
jayanti ravi Indonesia — an archipelago nation of
The author is a about 18,307 islands — was itself very
impressive with its distinct buildings,
Harvard-educated monuments and modernity. As one spent
civil servant & writer, a few days in the city of Denpasar, many
and has worked in features, big and small, caught my eye.
the education sector Perhaps the seasoned maturity of han-
jayanti.ravi.dna@gmail.com dling tourists from across the world —
the main contributors to the economy,
made the locals very polite in almost any
interaction.
Their commitment to cleanliness was
yet another feature that was clearly evi-
dent. Their struggle with English was
more than made up by this disposition.
A land blessed with lush greenery,
fresh fruits, vegetables, it gave me the
taste of the first mango of this season, as
I sipped a refreshing smoothie. Further,
ment had a shrine that was being wor-
shipped daily. A small, square trough
made of a banana leaf would carry the
offerings comprising flowers, leaves, joss
sticks and small eats such as biscuits or
sweets. I noticed women offering this and
praying for a few minutes, with graceful
hand gestures.
Almost the entire city of Denpasar is
dotted with statues of Indian mythologi-
cal figures, such as Garuda, Krishna and
so on, not to mention Ganesha statues
that are seen at every nook and corner.
The architecture of many offices and
homes also have a distinct Indian signa-
ture, with a style resembling the temples
of Kerala and Mangalore. What was
more, the meeting at the medical hospital
began with greetings of ‘Om Swasti Astu’
and ended with ‘Om Shanti Shanti’. Bali
seemed more Indian than even India in
so many ways.
On Saturday morning, we watched the
‘Barong and Kris Dance’ at Sari Wisata
Budaya. In the precincts of a temple, we
were treated to a cultural feast. This gave
an authentic taste of Balinese culture, as
a group of artists played very soulful mu-
sic using a variety of drums and xylo-
phone-like instruments that produced
beautiful rhythms and melodies. The
theme of the dance resonated with the
universal struggle of good against evil. It
included classical Balinese dance, theat-
rical pieces with humour and high emo-
tions. The accompanying percussions
and melodies changed their intensity and
pace to mirror the moods enacted. The
hour-long presentation showed the con-
stant struggle of the good spirit, Barong
with the mythological evil monster of
Ranga. The costumes and make-up of all
with heavy embellishments and fresh We need to recognise this issue and save our
flowers such as Champa, adding special democratic discourse from getting hijacked by
charm to their gracious movements, cacophony, and that will be possible only when
recitations and statuesque poses. those moderating these discussions realise that
The popularity and interest that this they have a big role to play here, and that is not
show evoked both among the locals and of agent provocateur but of someone who pre-
foreigners were evident from the fully- vents emotional frenzy from clouding human
packed hall of several hundreds of people reason.
that watched the show with rapt atten- Indian democracy needs a new set of heroes
tion. This is a source of livelihood for the who can help India discuss, in the true Oxford-
artists and musicians, who perform eve- ian spirit of the word.
ry morning. This also helps preserve,
promote and propagate the cultural herit-
age, which often has to compete with
modern influences of Internet, social and
electronic media. Such events would add
greater life to temples and monuments,
filling them with music and emotions.
These also serve to entertain, educate and
elevate the audiences as they provoke
them to reflect on the plot and theme, and
identify with struggles and break-
throughs in their own life stories.
As I reflect on the shrines, statues, ba-
nana leaf offerings and the dance in the
temple courtyard, these simple ideas ap-
pear extremely inspiring. Can we repli-
cate these little ideas to make our own
homes, workspaces, schools and temples
living and breathing centres of culture?
 ah
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
Caste conundrum for BJP in 7 seats
Selection of candidates for these seats is tricky because of the dominance of more than one community
Chintan Acharya
chintan.acharya@dnaindia.net
The BJP leaders have been
brainstorming for candidate
selection on some seats inor-
der to get their caste combi-
nations right. The party has
assessed different parame-
ters and socio-political equa-
tions. But the selection pro-
cess is tricky when they com-
pare the candidates with
Congress members.
There are five to six seats
in Gujarat which have diverse
caste combination. To bal-
ance the equation, BJP will
have to choose their counter-
parts accordingly. “Sabarkan-
tha, Jamnagar, Junagadh,
Bhavnagar, Anand and Navs-
ari are the seats where the
BSP chief Mayawati to Traders in Guj oppose CAIT’s letter to RaGa
address rally on Apr 17
The Bahujan Samaj Party,
which has not got much elec-
toral success in Gujarat, is
planning to contest all 26 Lok
Sabha seats in the state. Party
chief Mayawati will address a
rally here on April 17 and
functionaries in the state are
upbeat that it would give front
line parties like the ruling
BJP and the opposition Con-
gress a tough fight.
In 2014, the BSP fielded can-
didates on 26 seats but all of
them lost. In the 2017 Assem-
bly polls, it fielded candidates
in 138 out of 182 seats, but
failed to open its account de-
spite Mayawati addressing ral-
lies in Vadodara and Rajkot.
“The BSP will fight all seats on
its own. Mayawati ji will ad-
dress a rally in Ahmedabad on
April 17. We have a large sup-
port base in Gujarat and we
had recently won the civic
polls in Chhotaudepur as well
as several district and taluka
seats over the last few years,”
Ashok Chavda, Gujarat BSP
president said.
in brief
Bodies of couple
who jumped into
Sabarmati found
The bodies of a man
and a teenage girl were
fished out from the Sa-
barmati River near
Ambedkar Bridge, a day
after they allegedly com-
mitted suicide, police
said. Kamlesh Parmar
(26), a resident of Vi-
japur, and Shweta Par-
mar (16), hailing from
Danilimda, had jumped
into the river on Satur-
day. “No suicide note has
been recovered. Prima
facie, it appears the cou-
ple entered into a sui-
cide pact after tying
each other’s hands with
a handkerchief,” he said.
28 new swine flu
cases reported
28 new cases of swine
flu were reported across
the state on Sunday. Su-
rat Municipal Corpora-
tion registered the high-
est number of cases at
13 followed by the
Ahmedabad Municipal
Corporation limits that
saw three new case. One
new death has also been
reported due to the dis-
ease in the state. Since
the beginning of 2019
over 4000 swine flu cases
have been recorded in
the state.
Mercury rises 38 deg, sustainability students to spend few days in Punadra village and build low-cost toilet
brace for more heat CEPT university students to build no-waste toilet system
DNA correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Summer has arrived and
mercury is scaling new
height. According to the In-
dia Meteorological Depart-
ment (IMD), this week there
is a possibility that the mer-
cury will cross 40 degree Cel-
sius in the city.
The new bulletin by the
Met department states that
there will be a further rise in
the maximum temperature.
The bulletin mentioned that
there is no large change in the
maximum temperature for
the next two days, thereafter
rise in maximum tempera-
ture by 2-3 degree Celsius
likely over the region.
edabad
File photo of a BJP raly
party leaders were perplexed
to take the final call,” said a
senior leader of BJP on con-
dition of anonymity.
He added, “We have to
Mayawati
The BSP has over one lakh
registered workers in Gujarat,
party leaders claimed.
Gujarat BSP secretary
Pradeep Parmar said booth
level work as well as door-to-
door campaign had started in
all 26 seats. “Many people are
not aware that it was the BSP
which had floated the concept
of booth level management. A
sector committee looks after
10 booths. Above that, we have
ward level, seat level and dis-
trict level committees and fi-
nally the state leadership,”
said Parmar. —PTI  greater extent, the threshold
Tour operators in Guj Major fire in Piplaj godown, no injuries
give a ‘poll package’
With election fever gradually
gripping the country, tour op-
erators in Gujarat have come
up with special packages for
foreign tourists wishing to
experience various Lok Sab-
ha polls related events in the
state during the campaign
period. From attending politi-
cal rallies to meeting candi-
dates, around 20 tour opera-
tors in the state will provide
guided tours to foreign tour-
ists under the unique initia-
tive called ‘Election Tourism’.
Around 1,800 tourists from
across the globe had wit-
nessed the 2014 Lok Sabha
election in Gujarat under
this initiative, industry
sources said, adding that the
number is expected to cross
2,500 this year.
The tourists who had vis-
ited the state in 2014 mainly
comprised of students, re-
searchers, media profession-
als, political analysts and
those who wanted to under-
stand how elections in India
are conducted on such a mas-
sive scale, said Manish Shar-
ma, chairman of the Gujarat
Tourism Development Soci-
ety (GTDS), an organisation
of tour operators.
“Around 1,800 foreign tour-
ists had visited Gujarat in the
2014 Lok Sabha polls. They
were mainly from Japan,
UAE, the US and some Euro-
pean countries. They were
On Sunday the maximum
temperature in the city was
recorded 38 degree Celsius
which was a degree above the
normal while the minimum
the temperature was recorded
24.4 degree Celsius which was
four degree above normal.
For Monday the Met de-
partment forecast dry weath-
er with clear skies. The maxi-
mum temperature is expected
to remain around 38 degree
Celsius while the minimum
temperature could be around
24 degree Celsius. Highest
maximum temperature was
recorded in Mahuva which
was 39.6 degree Celsius. Out
of 23 IMD stations, 18 stations
recorded maximum tempera-
ture more than 35 degree.
make one choice out of two to
three candidates for a single
seat. We are fearful of Con-
gress candidates. If they give
ticket to someone from sec-
Keyur Dhandeo
keyur.dhandeo@dnaindia.net
The letter by Confederation of
All India Traders (CAIT) na-
tional secretary general has
met with opposition in trad-
ers’ circles in Gujarat. CAIT’s
Gujarat unit vice president
Suresh Tanna resigned citing
that the letter does not reflect
traders’ sentiments and they
were kept confidential. CAIT’s
leaders in Gujarat said that is-
sues raised by Congress presi-
dent are valid and that the
trade body should be apoliti-
cal to ensure it’s credibility
among the traders of the
country. The issue will be
raised during the meeting of
Working Committee of CAIT
to be held in Pondicherry on
April 3 and 4.
CAIT secretary general
Praveen Khandelwal recently
wrote a letter to Congress
president Rahul Gandhi ob-
jecting to calling it Gabbar
Singh Tax and that traders are
suffering because of GST.
Khandelwal had said that
GST is being simplified to a
Respresentational picture
Election tourism
The concept of election
tourism in Gujarat was
first introduced during the
Assembly polls in 2012,
followed by the 2014 Lok
Sabha election that saw
1,800 foreign tourists
during LS polls.
taken to different parts of the
state by tour operators to wit-
ness various poll related
events, such as bike rallies
and public meetings,” Shar-
ma, owner of city-based Ak-
shar Travels, said.
According to him, there
are different tour packages to
choose from. While the six-
day package costs Rs 40,000,
the two-week long package is
for Rs 1.50 lakh. Sharma ex-
pects that over 2,500 foreign
tourists will visit Gujarat
during the Lok Sabha polls
this time. —PTI  He further added, “It was a
DNA correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
In a unique course this sum-
mer, students of CEPT uni-
versity will build no-waste
toilet system in a school in a
village in Gujarat. As part of
the course ‘Thinking Hands’,
a collective design work-
shop’, students will spend
few days in Punadra village
in Gujarat and learn to build
a low-cost sustainable toilet
in a school.
Courses offered as part of
summer and winter school
differ from the regular se-
mesters in terms of struc-
ture, approach and content.
The courses are intense and
short and help students un-
Fight for a seat
„„Banaskantha seat has
two major dominating
OBC communities and
those are Chaudhary
and Thakor. Likewise,
Jamnagar has mixed
dominance of Patel and
Ahir (nomadic) community,
whereas Junagadh and
Bhavnagar have tight
competition between
Patels, Koli (fisherman),
Ahir and Karadia (farming)
communities.
ond dominating community,
we may lose out on a huge
chunk of votes in that case.”
Banaskantha seat has two
major dominating OBC com-
Representational picture
CAIT is a traders body and should not be
politicised. For us all political parties are
equal. The contents of the letter are unfair for
traders. Traders interest should be the priority.
Suresh Tanna, VP, CAIT, Gujarat
limit has been by extended up
to Rs 40 lakh and by and large
the traders are ‘deeply satis-
fied’ with GST. Moreover,
Khandelwal has also asked
the traders affiliated to CAIT
to advocate on his behalf to
enable him get a ticket.
DNA correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
A major fire breakout was re-
ported at Piplaj Pirana road
Sunday afternoon around 1.45
pm. The fire had broken out at
a makeshift godown near the
Pirana dumping yard where
several scrap materials like old
tyres, tubes, wood were stored.
According to officials, the
cause of the fire was an old
tyre and it slowly spread to the
wood that was stored there as
well. The fire spread to such an
extent that almost all the resi-
dents rushed out of their
homes. Many also gathered
their belonging as there was a
possibility of fire spreading
out in the nearby areas too.
At first, five teams were sent
to douse off the fire, later real-
ising the massive fire, 43 vehi-
cles were sent into the spot.
These also included several
senior officers who were tak-
ing stock of the situation.
After five hours of continu-
ous struggle to douse the fire,
the situation was brought un-
der control. The operations
continued till late evening to
cool down the area and to make
sure it doesn’t reignite or
spread further. “While it’s true
that as the scorching summer
approaches, more fire cases
are reported but we are still
trying to investigate the inci-
dent. We know that it started in
old tyres, but we are investigat-
ing the root cause.”
Students will learn to build a low-cost sustainable toilet
derstand critical sites, situa-
tions and create opportuni-
ties to learn by making. The
course will be taught by San-
gita Kapoor who is a sustain-
munities and those are
Chaudhary(Anjana Patel)
and Thakor. If BJP gives tick-
et to candidate from Chaud-
hary community and Con-
gress may give ticket to a
member of Thakor commu-
nity. The Thakor votes go one
sided and possibly that could
affect neighbouring constitu-
ency Patan too where Thakor
votes are a deciding factor.
The same way, the combina-
tion of Thakor, Patel and
Kshatriya community on Sa-
barkantha seat also have in-
creased worries for BJP.
Likewise, Jamnagar has
mixed dominance of Patel
and Ahir (nomadic) commu-
nity, whereas Junagadh and
Bhavnagar have tight compe-
tition between the Patels,
Suresh Tanna, VP of CAIT
in Gujarat told DNA that
Khandelwal’s letter to Rahul
Gandhi do not reflect senti-
ments of traders. “CAIT is a
traders body and should not
be politicised. For us all politi-
cal parties are equal. The con-
Firefighters run to douse fire at a makeshift godown near the Pirana dumping yard —Reuters
massive fire, and could have
spread out in the residential
blocks too. It was good that
able design entrepreneur and
a French architect Laurent
Fournier who refurbishes ex-
isting buildings using frames
of wood, bamboo, steel, con-
Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019 I daily news & analysis
Koli (fisherman), Ahir and
Karadia (farming) communi-
ties. “The results in last as-
sembly polls also indicate
that maximum of our candi-
dates lost because of the
caste equations. We are there-
fore cannot afford to take
things casually or to try out
any kind of political experi-
ment. We would proceed cau-
tiously,” the leader added.
The BJP is likely to an-
nounce of the names of their
candidates next week. The
party is hopeful that the Con-
gress’ list would comes out
soon, so that they would have
time to make last moment
changes, if needed. The last
day of filing nomination for
Lok Sabha polls on Gujarat
seat is April 4.
tents of the letter are unfair
for traders. I have time and
again warned them that an
impression is being created
that CAIT in an arm of BJP.
Traders interest should be the
priority and not personal in-
terest,” said Tanna. He admit-
ted that traders are facing lots
of problems in GST.
Pramod Bhagat, president
of CAIT in Gujarat acknowl-
edged that Tanna has re-
signed. “Issues (about GST)
Rahul Gandhi is raising are
valid. We do not agree with
the letter Pravin Khandelwal
has written to Congress pres-
ident. We want CAIT to be a
non-political body. We will
rais the issue in the meeting
of Working Committee,”
Bhagat told DNA.
Samir Shah, president of
Saurashtra Oil Millers Asso-
ciation (SOMA) said that no
doubt GST is simplified but a
lot needs to be done. A mem-
ber of CAIT in Gujarat said
that Khandelwal wants to
score brownie points with
higher ups in BJP to contest
Lok Sabha elections as a BJP
candidate.
many evacuated and did not
wait for things to get from bad
to worse,” said Rajesh Bhatt,
focus
„„The aim is to build
a low-cost, context
appropriate, sustainable
Ecosan, a form of no-
waste toilet system, in
the village school that
currently serves 300
students.
„„Course includes
discussions, story-telling,
and a talk by social
development practitioner.
crete and stone, and masonry
in walls, domes and vaults,
using rammed earth, adobe,
brick and stone.
The course will include
03
MP dropped
from BJP list
hits out at party
Surendranagar MP Devji
Fatehpara, who was denied a
ticket by the BJP for the
April-May Lok Sabha polls,
blamed two party colleagues
for his ouster. The BJP, which
Saturday released a list of 15
candidates, dropped Fatehpa-
ra from Surendranagar and
replaced him with Mahendra
Munjpara.
Fatehpara said he had
been denied a ticket at the
behest of former minister
Jayanti Kavadiya and MLA
Dhanji Patel, a charge both of
them denied. “I have been de-
nied a ticket at the behest of
Jayanti Kavadiya and Dhanji
Patel. Kavadiya has been
against me for a long time.
Now, he has got the company
of Dhanji Patel. Both of them
brought in Munjpara because
they wanted someone who is
obedient, someone who fol-
lows their orders,” Fatehpara
told reporters in Rajkot.
While Kavadiya, a former
MLA from Dhragandhra seat
of Surendranagar, was a min-
ister in the state government
prior to 2017, Dhanji Patel
won the 2017 Assembly polls
from Wadhwan.
“The BJP has done injus-
tice by denying me a ticket,
despite the fact that I have
done so much for the constit-
uency and for its people,”
Fatehpara claimed.
He also threatened to re-
File photo of Surendranagar MP Devji Fatehpara—facebook
additional chief fire officer.
Electricity in that particular
area was also cut down.
discussions, story-telling ses-
sions, cooking sessions and a
talk by a social development
practitioner and the students
will work with master arti-
sans from the village.
Professor Mercy Samuel
said, “The idea to offer this
course is to expose students
to find their own way of com-
bining the formal and the
vernacular harmoniously
and to benefit from the ver-
nacular without destroying
it, but striving to contribute
to it. The focus of this inter-
vention is to build a low-cost,
context appropriate, sustain-
able Ecosan, a form of no-
waste toilet system, in the
village school that currently
serves 300 students and 40
in-depth
„„Jayanti Kavadiya
and Dhanji Patel denied
Fatehpara’s allegations,
claiming the decision
to drop the sitting
Surendranagar MP was
taken by party’s leaders.
sign from the BJP and work
for the Congress candidate in
the Lok Sabha polls.
“In the coming days, I have
called a meeting of Koli com-
munity leaders. If my com-
munity asks me to resign
from the party, I will follow
the order,” said Fatehpara.
He added he would put in
his “best efforts” to ensure
the victory of the Congress
candidate if his community
asked him to do so.
Both Fatehpara and Munj-
para are from the Koli com-
munity. Patel and Kavadiya
denied Fatehpara’s allega-
tions, claiming the decision to
drop the sitting Surendrana-
gar MP was taken by the
party’s top leadership. “I am
just an MLA. I don’t have any
say in who would get a ticket
and who won’t. It is the parlia-
mentary board which takes
such decisions,” said Patel.
The state goes to polls in a
single phase on April 23.
—PTI 
Main accused
still free in dalit
assault case
DNA correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Questions are being raised
about the arrest of the main
accused in the case in which a
17-year-old class 12 teen was
allegedly tied to a tree and
beaten up. The teen was on his
way to Mehsana to appear for
his Board exams when two
people forced him to sit on
abike and drove him far and
then physically abused him.
While cops arrested two
people identified as Mahen-
dra and Harsh in connection
with the case, Ramesh Patel,
whom the boy had claimed
was one of those behind the
attack, is yet to be arrested.
Kaushik Parmar, a Dalit
rights activist said that when
the teen has identified one of
the accused, the delay in ar-
resting him raises suspicion.
“It is for the police to prove
later whether Ramesh was
involved or not. But once the
teen has named him why the
delay in arresting him? We
suspect the cops are under po-
litical pressure,” said Parmar.
A close relative of the vic-
tim said they don’t under-
stand why the accused has not
been arrested. “The cops told
us they will soon carry out an
identity parade of the two ar-
rested, but the man whom the
boy identified is still roaming
free,” said the relative.
Anganwadi students. While
the school has nearly 350 stu-
dents, it however lacks basic
infrastructure such as prop-
er sanitation. Through a 10-
day period of working, learn-
ing and living in the village,
the workshop attempts to
stitch a variety of technical,
social and collaborative ex-
periences expanding on the
potentials of what architec-
ture and design can accom-
plish.”
Interestingly, the course is
open for professionals as
well. “Students will use tra-
ditional methods from last 30
years in vernacular architec-
ture including shallow
domes, bamboo framing,
long-lasting thatch, etc.”
 04
daily news & analysis I Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019
in brief
Temperatures
soar, 2 die of
sunburn in Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram:
At least two persons
have died of suspected
sunburn in Kerala in the
last two days even as the
weathermen have
warned that the maxi-
mum temperature was
likely to be two to three
degrees above normal in
11 districts in the next
two days. According to
the Indian Meterological
Depratment, maximum
temperature was very
likely to be above nor-
mal by 2 to 3 degrees cel-
sius in 11 districts, in-
cluding Thiruvanan-
thapuram, Kollam,
Pathnamthitta, Alapu-
zha, Ernakulam, Palak-
kad and Kannur, till
March 26. A 42-year-old
man from nearby Paras-
sala died Sunday, while a
60-year-old man was
found in Kannur with
sun burns.
Two held with US
currency in Assam
Guwahati: A train
checking party of Guwa-
hati GRPS on Saturday
seized 540,000 US Dol-
lars, which is around Rs
3.75 crore, from two pas-
sengers at the Guwahati
railway station. The two
men identified as Go-
lianmung and Thang Pi-
ang were nabbed from
platform no. 2 of Guwa-
hati railway station at
10:45 am, railway offi-
cials said. According to
officials, the duo board-
ed the train in New Jal-
paiguri railway station,
West Bengal and de-
boarded in Guwahati
railway station from UP
Saraighat Express.
2 senior managers of restaurant CBI files case against guard recruitment firm
held over sewage deaths in Delhi
New Delhi: Two senior man-
agers of a restaurant in Delhi
were arrested in connection
with the death of two employ-
ees while cleaning its kitchen
treatment plant, police said
on Sunday.
The incident occurred on
Saturday at the Pirates of
Grill in west Delhi’s Rajouri
Garden. Housekeeping em-
ployees Rakesh (45) and Ajay
(19) died due to asphyxiation,
while two of their colleagues
were hospitalised, the police
had said.
The owners of the restau-
rant were also questioned
BSF has 14,115 personnel in low medical category—Pic for representation
CAPFs ask govt for
new system to ‘weed
out’ unfit personnel
New Delhi: The central para-
military forces have asked the
government to bring a new as-
sessment system that would
annually “weed out” unfit per-
sonnel as over 55,000 troops in
their combat ranks are in the
“low medical category”.
The recommendation was
made after the Union Home
Ministry, under which these
internal security forces func-
tion, recently held a meeting
with all the Central Armed
Police Forces (CAPFs) at the
North Block here.
The six CAPFs are the
Central Reserve Police Force
(CRPF), the Border Security
Force (BSF), the Sashastra
Seema Bal (SSB), the Central
Industrial Security Force
(CISF), the Indo-Tibetan Bor-
der Police (ITBP) and the As-
sam Rifles.
The meeting was called in
the wake of a recent Delhi
High Court directive to in-
crease the retirement age of
jawans and officers, up to the
rank of commandant, in
these forces from 57 to 60
years, like that in the CISF

Soldier killed in Pak JKLF ban: Pandits thank PM
ceasefire violation
Pakistan resort
heavy shelling in
Poonch region of
Jammu division
Ishfaq-ul-Hassan
h_ishfaq@dnaindia.net
Srinagar: For the third time
in a week, Pakistan army pro-
voked India when they killed
an Indian soldier guarding
the Line of Control (LoC) in
the Poonch sector of the Jam-
mu division.
Grenadier Hari Bhakar
received grave injuries dur-
ing ceasefire violation on Sat-
urday in Poonch Sector. He
was rushed to nearest field
hospital for immediate medi-
cal treatment. However, he
succumbed to his injuries on
Sunday.
“Unprovoked firing by Pa-
kistan Army commenced in
the evening of March 23 in
which heavy caliber weapons
and rockets were also fired.
Own troops retaliated in
strong measure inflicting ad-
equate damage and casual-
ties to Pakistan Army,” said
Lieutenant Colonel Devender
Anand, defence spokesman at
Jammu.
Hailing from Joosari vil-
lage of Nagaur district in
Rajasthan, martyr Hari Bha-
kar is survived by his mother
Kamla Devi. “Grenadier Hari
Bhakar was a brave soldier
and the nation will always
remain indebted to him for
the supreme sacrifice,” he
said.
Greande Hari Bhakar is
Pic for representation
and they are going through
the documents to ascertain
their role, an officer said.
Area manager Pankaj Ku-
mar and unit manager Aftab
have been arrested, Deputy
Age discrimination
The court had called the
current policy of different
age of superannuation in
four paramilitary forces
-- CRPF, BSF, ITBP and
SSB -- as “discriminatory
and unconstitutional”
and said it created two
classes in the uniformed
forces
and the Assam Rifles.
The court had called the
current policy of different
age of superannuation in
four paramilitary forces --
CRPF, BSF, ITBP and SSB -- as
“discriminatory and uncon-
stitutional” and said it cre-
ated two classes in the uni-
formed forces.
While all the forces, ex-
cept the CRPF, said they had
no problems in enhancing
the superannuation age of
their combat troops, they
raised concern over the fall-
out of this move as they
needed to have young blood
and an agile. —PTI
indi
Senior officers pay respect to rifleman Karamjeet Singh, who was killed in
shelling along the LoC in Rajouri, last week—File photo
Soldier killed, 1 injured in cylinder blast
Jammu: An Army soldier
was killed Sunday and an-
other injured when a gas
cylinder exploded inside a
camp in Kathua district of
Jammu and Kashmir, police
said. The incident occurred
when the soldiers were car-
rying a gas cylinder inside
their barrack in Janglote
the third soldier to have been
killed by the Pakistan army
on the Line of Controls since
last Monday. Rifleman Kara-
mjeet Singh was killed when
Pakistan army resorted to
unprovoked mortar shelling
and small arms fire on the
Indian forward positions
along the LoC in Sunderbani
Sector on March 18. On the
occasion of Holi, Pakistan
army killed rifleman Yash
Paulwas along the LoC in the
Sunderbani sector on March
21.
Later Pakistan extended
their shelling to Nowhsera
Commissioner of Police
(West) Monika Bhardwaj
said.
A case was registered un-
der Section 304 (culpable
homicide not amounting to
murder) of the Indian Penal
Code and various sections of
the Scheduled Castes and the
Scheduled Tribes (Preven-
tion of Atrocities) Act,
Bhardwaj said.
Investigations revealed
that the accused were the su-
pervisory officers of the staff
and were responsible for
their safety and security, an
officer said.—Agency
Law question
paper says
‘law is an ass’
From p1
Kedare, who had originally
raised the issue, said, “This
is demeaning advocates, and
will create a confusion in
the minds of law students
regarding whether or not
they should pursue this ca-
reer, since their exam paper
has termed lawyers as
cheats. How can a question
like this go unnoticed by the
supervisors as well? There
is a need of accountability
all around. Those who are
accountable must be held
responsible for this mis-
take.”
Ashok Yende, former
head of department of law
at Mumbai University, said,
“This is an out of syllabus
question, and these are un-
parliamentary words. Such
questions shouldn’t be
asked in an exam.”
developing bond The event will help IAF air-warriors to interact with Malaysian counterparts
Tejas to take part in Malaysia’s aerospace exhibition
New Delhi: India’s indige-
nous supersonic fighter jet
Tejas will for the first time
participate in aerial displays
during the five-day Langkawi
International Maritime and
Aerospace Exhibition
(LIMA) in Malaysia.
India has been projecting
the Tejas aircraft in a big way
as it has been manufactured
indigenously at the Hindu-
stan Aeronautics Limited
(HAL) and designed by the
Aeronautical Development
Agency (ADA) for the Indian
Air Force and the Indian
Navy. The Indian Air Force
will participate in the Mari-
time Aero Expo for the first
army camp in the afternoon,
a police official said. He said
Naik Deepank Twang (35) of
Darjeeling was killed and
another soldier was injured
in the blast. After comple-
tion of legal formalities, the
body of the deceased was
handed over to his unit for
last rites, the official said.
sector targeting the Indian
forward positions with mor-
tars and small arms fire. “Pa-
kistan initiated unprovoked
ceasefire violation by shell-
ing with mortars and firing
of small arms along LoC in
Nowshera Sector,” he said
Figures reveal that Paki-
stan has carried out more
than 118 ceasefire violations
on the Line of Control since
Indian Air Force (IAF) jets
bombed Jaish-e-Mohammad
terror camps in Balakot area
of Manshera in the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province of
Pakistan on February 26.
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: The Central Bu-
reau of Investigation (CBI)
has registered a case after the
Food Corporation of India
(FCI) informed them that
their were irregularities
found in the recruitment pro-
cess of watchmen for FCI by
a private company. The case
has been registered under
sections of impersonation,
criminal conspiracy and for-
gery. Over a dozen people
have been mentioned as the
accused in connection with
the case.
In August, last year the
general manager (regional)
of the FCI stated in a com-
Five sailors return home after
spending 14 months in Greek jail protest at Hindu...
From p1
While the explosive material
was legal, local authorities
did not go through the docu-
ments that the Greek ship-
owner had, said Bhupendra
Singh, one of the crew mem-
bers, in Mumbai after their
return.
His colleague Rohtash Ku-
mar said they were fortunate
to have been back after being
trapped for an offence that
they never committed. He
said, “We thought the case
will take decades to wind up.
We saw the most disturbing
days of our lives in jail where
inhuman treatment of de-
tainees is a daily routine. I
would like to thank the Indi-
an High Commission, the
Ministry of External Affairs
and the Maritime Union of
India for helping us out.”
Kumar said he is keen to
The IAFs’ team departed for Langkawi on March 22—File photo
time, during which it will
showcase its indigenously-
developed light combat air-
craft Tejas.
New Delhi: A Kashmiri or-
ganisation Sunday welcomed
the Centre’s move to ban
separatist organisation JKLF
and holding its founder, Ya-
sin Malik, responsible for the
genocide of Kashmiri Pan-
dits.
The Global Kashmiri Pan-
dit Diaspora, a joint initiative
of Kashmiri Pandit organisa-
tions in India and abroad, has
been persistently and vehe-
mently demanding the for-
mal acknowledgement that
what the Kashmiri Pandits
suffered was nothing but
genocide, a statement said.
The organisation thanked
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi for “his bold and honest
step” in recognising that the
militant movement in “Kash-
mir is not about liberation,
not about economic suffer-
ing, not about justice but a
theo-fascist movement which
has brought great suffering
to the land and its people,”
People take a selfie with a graffiti on a wall at Lodhi art district in New Delhi on Sunday—PTI
plaint to the CBI that irregu-
larities have been committed
in the recruitment process of
watchmen for FCI on part of
private firm Ace Integrated
Solutions Limited. Based on
the complaint a preliminary
enquiry was registered.
While the FCI was carry-
India lodges official
join the ship back. “But be-
fore that, I would like to
spend some time with my
family members in Mathu-
ra.”
Another crew member, Ga-
gan Deep, who is from Ben-
galuru, said jail authorities
informed them that they
were the first Indians to be
lodged in the jail since it was
built in 1953.
Gagan Deep said he had
not been paid for the last 23
months. The sailor said Paki-
stani inmates of the Greek
The IAFs’ team departed
from Air Force Station Kalai-
kunda for Langkawi on March
22 via Myanmar, Yangon.
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
A security personnel stands guard outside JKLF headquarters during a
strike, in Srinagar on Sunday—PTI
the statement added.
“It is so heartening to see
that our Prime Minister
means business as far as deal-
ing with Pakistan’s machina-
tions in Kashmir is con-
cerned,” the statement reads.
The “victory” (ban on
JKLF) has been achieved be-
cause of the sacrifices and
hard work of the entire Kash-
food fiesta
ing out a background verifi-
cation they noticed several
discrepancies and hence de-
cided to scan the various opti-
cal mark recognition (OMR)
sheets and called the candi-
dates as well. A total of 171
candidates were shortlisted
against the 53 advertised
jail often comforted them
when they felt down and low.
The other two crew members
are Jaideep Thakur and Sat-
ish Patil.
The Maritime Union of
India is going to file a case in
a Greek court against the lo-
cal Coast Guard for compen-
sation for the Indian seafar-
ers since they were put
through great trauma with-
out any fault of theirs.
The crew members will
meet officials of the Union
Shipping Ministry on Mon-
day and apprise them of the
entire episode.
Amitabh Kumar, Acting
Director General of Ship-
ping, said the Directorate
General of Shipping was fol-
lowing up on the matter with
the Greek government
through the Indian embassy.
 (With inputs from PTI)
home grown
India has been projecting
the Tejas aircraft in
a big way as it has
been manufactured
indigenously at the
Hindustan Aeronautics
Limited and designed
by the Aeronautical
Development Agency for
the Indian Air Force and
the Indian Navy.
“India’s indigenous super-
sonic Light Combat
Aircraft(LCA)-Tejas & the
world’s lightest supersonic
miri Pandit community, it
said. The GKPD has present-
ed a MoU to Home Minister
Rajnath Singh in September,
2018, which articulated that
the first and foremost de-
mand of the KP community
was to recognise Genocide
and Ethnic cleansing of
Kashmiri Pandits, the state-
ment said.
posts, out of which 96 candi-
dates qualified after Physical
Endurance Test (PET) and
document verification. As
advertised, 53 candidates
were empanelled by the agen-
cy and 43 were kept in the
waiting list.
“In light of the findings in
the exercise of due diligence,
it was decided to call the orig-
inal OMR sheets of all the 171
shortlisted candidates for
scrutiny. It was also decided to
call the 17 doubtful candidates
(14 with photo, signature mis-
match). Minor discrepancies
like roll numbers not filled,
non-indication of month in
date of birth and other minor
issues were observed,” stated
the complaint.
From p1
On Sunday, External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj
sought a report from the In-
dian High Commission in Is-
lamabad about the alleged
abduction, forced conversion
and underage marriage of
the two sisters, Reena and
Raveena. The girls were al-
legedly kidnapped by a group
of “influential men” from
their house in Ghotki district
of Sindh.
A video that showed a
cleric solemnising the nikah
(marriage) of the girls went
viral and triggered an out-
rage. The Hindu community
in Pakistan has been carry-
ing out massive demonstra-
tions, calling for strict action
to be taken against those re-
sponsible.
Following Swaraj’s tweet,
however, Pakistan informa-
fighter which has already
joined IAF, is for the 1st time
taking part in aerial displays
during five-day Langkawi In-
ternational Maritime & Aero-
space Exhibition,” the IAF
said on its official Twitter
handle.
“Today was the final prac-
tise session before the open-
ing display for LIMA 2019,
commencing 26th March
2019. IAF’s Tejas (LCA) dur-
ing the practise session today
at Langkawi International
Airport, Malaysia,” the IAF
tweeted.
The IAF also posted pic-
tures and a video of the Tejas
aircraft practicing.
Mastermind Malik
„„The JKLF has been at the
forefront of separatist activities
in J&K and was involved
in the killings of Kashmiri
Pandits in 1989 leading to
their exodus from the valley.
„„“Malik was the
mastermind behind the
purging of Kashmiri
Pandits from Kashmir
Valley and is responsible
for their genocide,”
said Rajiv Gauba, home
secretary
The Yasin Malik-led Jam-
mu Kashmir Liberation
Front (JKLF) was banned on
Friday for “promoting” se-
cession of the militancy-hit
state from the Union of India.
Union Home Secretary Ra-
jiv Gauba had said the JKLF
was banned as the government
has a policy of zero tolerance
against terrorism. —Agency
Fire breaks
out at AIIMS
Trauma Centre
New Delhi: A New Delhi: A
fire broke out on the ground
floor of the AIIMS Trauma
Centre near the operation
theatre area here on Sunday,
triggering panic among peo-
ple, including patients. No
casualty has been reported
in the incident, AIIMS au-
thorities said.
A call was received at 6.13
pm about the incident and 24
fire tenders were immedi-
ately rushed to the spot, the
Delhi Fire Service said.
The fire was brought un-
der control by 8 pm and the
cooling process is underway,
Chief Fire officer Atul Garg
said.
AIIMS administration
has instituted an inquiry
into the matter to identify
the cause of the fire, which
is suspected to be due to a
short circuit.
According to a source at
the hospital, two patients in
separate operation theatres
(OTs) had undergone surger-
ies just half an before the
fire broke out and were at
the OT recovery rooms.
“At the nick of time, the
alert staff and doctors
quickly shifted them to the
emergency area,” the source
said.
Around 50 patients from
different floors of the AIIMS
Jai Prakash Narayan Apex
Trauma Center’s wing ‘A’,
which is located above the op-
eration area, were evacuated
due to large amount of smoke
emanating from these floors
and were shifted to other
wards, he said.—Agency
tion minister Chaudhary
Fawwad Hussain called it the
country’s “internal issue”.
Replying to his tweet, Swaraj
then said, “Mr Minister, I
only asked for a report from
Indian High Commissioner
in Islamabad about the kid-
napping and forced conver-
sion of two minor Hindu
girls to Islam. This was
enough to make you jittery.
This only shows your guilty
conscience.”
The Langkawi Interna-
tional Maritime Aero Expo
(LIMA-2019) is planned in
Langkawi, Malaysia from
March 26 to March 30, which
will provide an opportunity
to the IAF air-warriors to in-
teract with their Royal Ma-
laysian Air Force (RMAF)
counterparts and foster close
relationship between the two
services.
This will serve as a foun-
dation for any future interac-
tion with the Malaysian Air
Force. It will also provide an
opportunity to RMAF to as-
sess the capabilities of LCA,
an official statement said.
 —PTI

ball
ballet
lok sabha election 2019
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
While ruling party has already announced its list of candidates for the state, the Opposition party is playing the wait-and-watch game
BJP ready for battle, Cong still shaky
Chander Shekhar Luthra
shekhar.luthra@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Come May 19
and Himachal Pradesh voters
will decide if they are satis-
fied with the new leadership
under Jai Ram Thakur or if
they prefer their 85-year-old
“yuva” leader Shanta Kumar
back in the saddle.
Ironically, though Kumar
has been denied a ticket from
his stronghold Kangra, he
insists that he had no plans to
contest polls this election cy-
cle. To that end, he also had
a closed door meeting with
the CM at his Delhi residence
a couple of days ago, but
there is no clarity on what
actually transpired.
Kangra Stronghold
Kangra is considered to be a
stronghold of Kumar who
has won this seat four times
— in 1989, 1998, 1999 and 2014.
However, this time round, the
party has decided to field
food and civil supplies minis-
ter Kishan Kapoor in Ku-
mar’s stead.
In the meeting with the
CM though, it is believed that
the two leaders might have
discussed the probable candi-
dature from Kangra and the
other peeve: Prem Kumar
Dhumal and family.
The 84-year-old Kumar is
considered the founding fa-
ther of the BJP in the state,
but during Dhumal’s regime,
he was sidelined from the
state politics. He managed to
make a grand comeback in
2014 after then MP Rajan Su-
shant joined Aam Aadmi
Party (AAP). Kumar, at the
time, had almost hung up his
boots, but defeated his near-
est rival, Chander Kumar of
the Congress with a huge
margin of 1.7 lakh votes.
Yet, when the Central Cab-
in brief
‘Unemployment
will be key issue’
New Delhi: Employment,
employment, and employ-
ment — will be the focus of the
Congress’s election campaign,
party’s manifesto committee
member Sam Pitroda has said,
asserting that the country was
going through a jobs “crisis”
Pitroda, a long-time Gandhi
family adviser and the chief of
the Indian Overseas Congress,
said agrarian distress is also a
major issue facing the country
and it needs to be addressed.
No ticket for Union
min SS Ahluwalia
New Delhi: The BJP on Sunday
named Raju Singh Bisht as its
candidate from Darjeeling seat
for the Lok Sabha polls in place
of sitting MP and Union min-
ister S S Ahluwalia. In a state-
ment, the party said it has also
received support from two local
organisations, Gorkha Janmukti
Morcha and Gorkha Libera-
tion Front. Leaders of the two
Gorkha outfits met BJP general
secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya,
who is in-charge of the saffron
party’s affairs in West Bengal,
here, it said, describing Bisht as
a young party leader.
‘Akhtar’s name was
to mislead people’
Mumbai: Veteran actor Sha-
bana Azmi on Sunday said the
makers of the upcoming film
PM Narendra Modi deliberately
added her husband, lyricist
Javed Akhtar’s,in the credits
to “mislead” the audience. The
74-year-old writer’s name was
mentioned in the credits of the
film’s trailer alongside lyricists
Prasoon Joshi and others. On
Friday, Akhtar had expressed
shock over his name being
mentioned in credits of the film.
Producer of the film, Sandip
Ssingh had clarified that an old
song penned by the lyricist had
been used in the film and hence
decided to give him the credit.
t
will himachal pradesh repeat the 2014 sweep?
with virbhadra not actively campaigning, the state could well turn out to be an interesting study
No. of constituencies
04
himachal
pradesh
Total electorate
51,54,854
Male
26,45,584
Female
25,13,357
Third gender
59
First-time voters
88,127
Polling stations
7,723
367 950
Deemed critical Notified vulnerableal
inet was named by new Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, Ku-
mar was not on it; he was in-
stead put with other 75-plus
leaders into the ‘Margdar-
shak Mandal’.
‘Chowkidars’ working
only for rich: Priyanka
New Delhi: Taking a swipe
at the BJP leaders in Uttar
Pradesh, Congress general
secretary Priyanka Gandhi
Vadra on Sunday said these
‘chowkidars’ (watchmen) are
only working for the rich and
are not bothered about the
poor.
She attacked the Uttar
Pradesh government while
citing a media report on
Twitter that claimed the dues
of sugarcane farmers had
crossed Rs 10,000 crore in the
state.
“The families of sugar-
cane farmers toil day and
night but the Uttar Pradesh
government does not even
take the responsibility of
paying their dues,” Priyanka
Gandhi Vadra said. “Rs 10,000
crore of farmers’ dues means
everything, including their
children’s education, food,
health, and the next produce
comes to a standstill. These
chowkidars only work for the
rich and do not care about the
poor,” she claimed.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
was recently appointed the
Congress general secretary
for Uttar Pradesh East.
All BJP leaders in the coun-
try had recently followed PM
‘For polls, no sale of liquor against coupons, tokens’
New Delhi: To curb distri-
bution of alcohol to influ-
ence voters during elections
in Delhi, the Excise Depart-
ment has warned liquor
shops against selling it on
the basis of “coupon or to-
ken” in the city.
An official said the de-
partment has issued a circu-
lar, directing liquor outlets
across the national capital to
strictly follow opening and
closing time of their estab-
lishments. The seven Lok
Sabha seats in Delhi will go
to polls on May 12.
In its circular, the depart-
ment asked these establish-
ments that all the sale of
note on vote
26 lakh
Bottles of indelible ink ordered by
the Election Commission for the
upcoming polls. The 10cc bottles
will cost around `33 crore
The so-called mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) is a
mahamilavati maal (adulterated product) which has
reached its expiry date even before its manufacturing.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, senior BJP leader
Haryanavi singer-dancer Sapna Chaudhary does volte-face, claims she hasn’t joined Congress
Himachal Pradesh CM Jai Ram Thakur with PM Narendra Modi and the state governor at an event —FILE
Lok Sabha
BJP
elections
2014 04
Congress
21
BJP Assembly
44 elections 2017
Number of seats
68
dhumal duo
Meanwhile, it is a well-known
fact that two-time CM Dhu-
mal’s son Anurag Thakur is
a common enemy for both
these factions. It was Anur-
Priyanka Gandhi in Varanasi
‘Rahul won’t
fight from Ker’
Srinagar: After scathing
attacks by both Amethi
candidate Smriti Irani
and UP CM Yogi Adity-
anath over Rahul Gandhi
considering also contest-
ing from Wayanad in
Kerala, Congress on Sun-
day clarified that he was
only going to be contest-
ing from Amethi.
Narendra Modi in adding
‘Chowkidar’ to their Twitter
handles, after Modi claimed
that he was a ‘chowkidar’ of
the country and would not al-
low any wrongdoing. —PTI
liquor will be done only
through scanner. According
to the official, any violation
32%
Tribal population in the state of
Chhattisgarh who are seen as
a vital voter component in the
upcoming polls.
74.6%
Voter
turnout
in 2014
Independents
02
CPI (M)
01
ag’s negative publicity
amongst the voters that was
instrumental in not only the
defeat of his father in the As-
sembly polls, but worked in
favour of his rivals in keep-
Adityanath tears into Oppn & its candidates
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Kickstarting his
poll pitch for the 2019 Lok
Sabha elections from Saha-
ranpur, Uttar Pradesh Chief
Minister Yogi Adityanath on
Sunday tore into the Con-
gress and other Opposition
parties and said that when
the Modi government fed ter-
rorists with “bullets” and
“bombs”, some parties of-
fered them with “biryani”.
The UP CM was campaign-
ing for the BJP candidate
Bru voters to get special booths ‘Must re-elect Modi for
Aizawl: Bru voters lodged in
relief camps in Tripura
would exercise their fran-
chise for the lone Lok Sabha
seat in Mizoram on April 11
in special polling booths
which would be set up for
them at Kanhum village in
Mizoram-Tripura border, of-
ficials said on Sunday.
The Election Commission
of India (ECI) has instructed
the Mizoram Election depart-
ment to make arrangements so
that the Bru voters lodged in
relief camps in Tripura could
exercise franchise at Kanh-
of the order will be viewed
seriously and strict action
taken against liquor shops
22
Expenditure observers deployed
in Bihar to check on the can-
didates’ campaign spend. The
threshold in Bihar is `70 lakh.
one-phase polls
1 4
May 19 
Hamirpur, Kangra, Mandi, Shimla
n Phase of polls n No. of seats
Fact file
Shakti polling booth of Banjar
in Chamba district is the most
inaccessible polling station as it
is a 20-km walk
Only 37 voters for Kinger poll-
ing booth of Lahaul Spiti district
Polling booth at Hikkim is at
14,400 feet
ing Dhumal away from the
power seat.
Now, speculation is rife
that CM Thakur is wary of
Dhumal’s comeback, and un-
like 2014, Anurag may find it
from Saharanpur, Raghav
Lakhanpal. He also described
Congress Lok Sabha candi-
date Imran Masood as the
“son-in-law of Azhar Masood
(Jaish-e-Mohammed chief)”.
“The son-in-law of Azhar
Masood has entered the con-
stituency. He speaks the lan-
guage of hate,” Adityanath
said, adding, “Should some-
one who speaks the language
of Azhar Masood be allowed
to win from Saharanpur?”.
Lashing out at Congress
President Rahul Gandhi, Adi-
tyanath said Gandhi offered
File photo of a Bru voter
mun village, the officials said.
The ECI has also instruct-
ed the Tripura government to
make arrangements for the
transport of the Bru voters
excise dept diktat
„„Establishments
warned that all the sale
of liquor will be done
only through scanner;
maintain brand-wise
stock register
„„A circular directs
liquor outlets across
the national capital to
strictly follow opening
and closing time of
their establishments
as per the Delhi Excise Act,
2009 and the Delhi Excise
Rules 2010.
EC stops
Haasan’s
interaction
05
The election flying squad
on Sunday stopped an
interactive session in
Coimbatore by Makkal
Needhi Maiam (MNM)
leader Kamal Hassan
midway as the party had
not sought permission
to use the public ad-
dress system. —PTI
Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019 I daily news & analysis
Key leaders
hard to win Hamirpur seat. the campaign as well. This,
Jai Ram Thakur
The sitting CM, he will have to
lead the charge and ensure that
the 2014 BJP sweep was not a
In the 2014 elections, the not because of his failing
‘Modi Wave’ helped BJP health, but because the Con-
sweep the state and it was re- gress leadership is now being
one-time event.
peated yet again in the 2017 controlled by his bête noire
Assembly elections as Anur- Sukhvinder Singh ‘Sukhu’.
ag defeated Congress leader Going by the speculations,
Rajinder Singh Rana. He Singh’s son Vikramaditya
then exacted revenge in 2017 Singh is a strong contender to
by beating Dhumal from Su- fight their stronghold Mandi.
janpur seat, by over 98,000 Going by the last three dec-
votes. ades, the seat has been domi- anurag thakur
Historically, the BJP has nated by Singh, Sukh Ram Considered to be wild card, he
won the Hamirpur Lok Sabha and BJP’s Maheshwar Singh, was one of the factors that fa-
seat nine times barring 1996 all of them winning it three ther Dhumal lost his seat. Now,
when it lost the seat to the times each. With BJP once the CM is wary of a comeback.
Congress. Rana, incidentally, again showing faith in their
learnt the tricks of
political survival
from Dhumal only
sitting MP, 60-year-
old Ram Swaroop
Sharma, it may be-
and by beating his come a seat to
one-time guru by watch out for if a
2,900 votes in the family member of
midst of saffron
wave, Rana has
Singh is fielded
here. Sharma de- shanta Kumar
gone from being a feated Singh’s wife While he is not contesting the
political light- Pratibha Singh by election, his ouster from the
list can turn out to be a gamble
weight to a giant- I am humbled over 39,000 votes in gone wrong for the BJP.
killer. He could and honoured 2014.
now be deployed to Shimla, howev-
deliver another to represent my er, had been the fief-
killer punch, this constituency dom of the Con-
time against Anu- and carry gress party till 2009
rag. till it lost the seat in
forward the
Therefore, in the 2014. Singh would
hilly state, well vision of a rising certainly like to re-
known for its yo-yo gain this lost bas-
New India.
politics, Congress tion before he re- virbhadra singh
is eying a shift af- Anurag Thakur, tires from politics. He is the most popular CM of
ter the uneven BJP is well aware the state, but may stay away
BJP leader from campaigning this season
short rule of the of the fact and
as he is unhappy with direction.
new CM. After all, that’s why, it has
it did deliver a clean sweep in fielded a new face — Suresh
the 1996 LS polls. Kashyap, a sitting MLA from
Virbhadra factor
Pachad (Sirmour), to take on
the Congress who may put in
The coming LS polls could the experienced Dhani Ram
well define the future politics Shandil.
of this tiny state. But warning to the weary:
After Kumar’s denial to Last time, Virender Kashyap
contest elections, there are won this seat for the BJP by Vikramaditya Singh
now also overwhelming sig- defeating Congress’ Mohan Virbhadra Singh’s son is being
nals that Himachal’s most Lal Bragta by over 84,000 considered as a strong con-
popular face and four-time votes. The hill state will be an tender to fight for the Congress
CM, Virbhdara Singh, could interesting battlefield of the from their stronghold Mandi.
well keep himself away from old with the new.
“There is a mahaguru in the
Congress. He raises ques-
tions on the valour of our
armed forces. When this is
the condition of the mahagu-
ru, you can imagine the con-
dition of mahachelas,” Adi-
tyanath said. Emphasising
that the BJP is committed to
“nation building”, the Uttar
Pradesh Chief Minister said
it won’t allow any “traitor” to
UP CM Yogi Adityanath with Amit Shah at a rally on Sunday “dent India’s integrity”.
He also attacked Priyanka
prayers at Kashi Vishwanath Adityanath also hit out at and said, “Where were farm-
temple by sitting in a position Sam Pitroda, a close aide of ers’ well-wishers when they
“as if he was offering namaaz”. the Congress president. faced starvation?”
a befitting reply to Pak’
from their relief camps to the
polling booths on April 11.
The officials said that
Tripura government would DNA Correspondent
make arrangements for correspondent@dnaindia.net
transportation of over 12,000
Bru voters from their respec- New Delhi: Emphasising
tive relief camps in North that the 2019 Lok Sabha elec-
Tripura district to the Mizo- tions will be a fight between
ram border on polling day. two contrasting ideologies
Over 6,000 Bru voters in — the “development agenda”
relief camps in Tripura had of the BJP and the “intent of
exercised their franchise at corruption and power” of the
the special polling booths set Opposition parties — BJP
up Kanhmun village during president Amit Shah on Sun- Amit Shah in Agra —PTI
the Mizoram Assembly elec- day said that only a Modi gov-
tion held last year. —PTI ernment 2.0 must be elected For the sake of
to continue the momentum. national security,
Addressing a massive Vijay
Sankalp Samabesh in Agra, people should re-
the BJP president said, “On elect Modi govt. To give
one side, Prime Minister Modi a befitting reply to
is taking the country forward
“Liquor outlets have also with his development agenda. Pakistan, Modi govt
been asked to maintain up to On the other side, there is a must be re-elected.
date brand-wise stock regis- coalition of those who have
ter. Also, no sale will be done self-serving intent of corrup-
Amit Shah,
BJP president
on the basis of coupon or tion and power.”
token,” he said. “For the development of 50
The Chief Electoral Of- crore poor, it is crucial to re-
ficer (CEO) office had on elect the Modi government. their soldiers. Prime Minister
March 19 said a total number For the sake of national secu- Modi has added India’s name
of 257 FIRs were registered rity, people should re-elect the to that list.”
in the Excise Act and 263 per- Modi government. To give a Tearing into the Congress
sons were arrested in the befitting reply to Pakistan, the and other opposition parties
Act. “Till date, two litre, 257 Modi government must be re- for demanding proof, Shah
bottles, 33,385 quarters of elected,” he said. said, “I want to ask the Con-
Indian Made Foreign Liquor Referring to the airstrikes gress who they are aiming to
and 223 bottles, 131 half, on the terror launch pads in help by raising questions over
64,908 quarters of country Pakistan, Shah said, “Previ- the airstrikes. They should not
liquor and 412 bottles of beer ously, there were only two play politics with the security
were seized,” the CEO office countries — the US and Israel of the nation to satiate their
said in its statement. —PTI — which avenged the deaths of vote bank thirst.”
 06
Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019
 opini n
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia

daily news & analysis

Everlasting lure for gold
Trade wars and other geopolitical uncertainties have fuelled a global rush for the yellow metal
Scourge of MDR-TB
In the face of prev-
alent political and
economic uncer-
tainties across the
Eradicating TB from India is a monstrous challenge universe, particu-
larly in major de-

A
ccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), tubercu- veloped countries
losis (TB) remains the world’s deadliest infectious killer. such as the United
Each day, nearly 4500 people lose their lives to TB and close States and the
G Srinivasan United Kingdom,
to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. the allure of gold
That makes the commemoration of the World TB Day extreme- as the safe haven stock to hold and the
ly important. The theme of World TB Day 2019 — ‘It’s time’— appetite for amassing it has seldom been
underscores the urgency to act on the commitments made by so sharply focused as in today’s troubled
global leaders. TB is a poor man’s disease. The “high burden” times. With the ongoing global trade war
countries (HBCs) are usually low on the human development between the fading and fast emerging
super-powers such as America and China
index. In addition to India, Indonesia and China, there are 19 making little progress, how can the rest
more countries accounting for about 83 per cent of all estimated of the world remain calm? The latest re-
cases worldwide. Despite the government’s efforts, the situation port of the World Gold Council (WGC)
in India looks bleak. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion makes quite a revealing study about how
that India will be TB-free by 2025, five years before the global countries prefer to place their faith in the
target of 2030 doesn’t take into account the ground realities. For yellow metal which was derided as “the
relic of a barbaric era” by the renowned
one, multidrug-resistant (MDR) cases have shot up exponen- economist Keynes. That both nations and
tially in the last few years. According to the Union Health Min- the constituents (people) opt to have their
istry’s National Anti-TB Drug Resistance Survey, 2018, among safe bets latched on to bullion is demon-
the 1.8 million TB patients of 2017, 38,605 were multiple drug strated by the fact that retail investment
resistant (MDR) and 2,666 were extensively drug-resistant in coin was mostly made by individuals
(XDR), a more critical condition. The figures are gross underes- as a safety measure against turbulent
times. It zoomed to touch a five-year pin-
timates. WHO’s TB statistics for India for 2016, the incidence of nacle in 2018 of 236.4 tonnes and demand
MDR TB cases was pegged at 1,47,000. MDR is purely a man- for gold bars held steady at 781.6 tonnes.
made crisis as a TB patient is likely to develop such a condition Interestingly, even central banks added a
if he or she doesn’t complete the course of medicine and doesn’t hefty 651.5 tonnes to official gold reserves
follow doctor’s advice on dosage and timing of the medicines. in 2018, the second highest yearly total on While there was a slump in gold import during demonetisation, demand picked up the following year
What’s even worse is the fact that an estimated 40 per cent of record. Global gold mine production too
inched up to a new record high of 3,347 eleventh largest gold reserves in the (GMS) to persuade people to make better
the Indian population is infected with the bacteria, the vast ma- tonnes last year, bolstered by a healthy world. India’s overall position in terms use of the idle assets in their homes,
jority of whom have latent TB rather than TB disease. It’s a production pipeline. of gold holding pegged at 607 tonnes roughly only 1134 kilograms of gold were
full-blown pandemic that requires long-term measures because Net purchases jumped to their peak would have been tenth had the roaster collected from the individuals/Hindu
eradicating TB from India will demand a public-private partner- since the end of US dollar convertibility covered only countries and not institu- Undivided Families during the two years
ship based on mutual trust and unwavering commitment. A into gold in 1971 as the swathe of central tions such as the International Monetary 2016-2018. However, the authorities were
huge number of MDR patients seek treatment in the private banks turned to gold as a relieving di- Fund (IMF) which is third on the list with able to get approximately 10,872 kilo-
versifier from risks than any other form total gold reserves of 2814 tonnes. grammes of gold from temples/trusts/
sector where most medical practitioners are incapable or under- of investments including currencies! For the record, the foremost slot is mutual funds/gold exchange traded
qualified to treat this form. Moreover, the two most effective This is predicated on the palpable fear held by the United States which with gold funds and other entities such as compa-
drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin, are not only largely ineffective that there might be greater currency reserves of 8133.5 tonnes is followed by nies and firms under the GMS during
but also become toxic. So doctors are left prescribing less effec- volatility, given the taut geopolitical German with 3,369.7 tonnes. Barring these two years!
tive drugs which have to be taken for longer periods. For the situation and trade tensions among ma- IMF, Italy and France finish the top five suaded by the authorities to wean them Though the government claims that
poor man, MDR TB treatment can be expensive if he has to shell jor powers with each slapping trade re- slots with reserves of a little over 2400 away from their entrenched habits. This idle gold held by households, trusts and
taliatory tariffs and erecting formal and tonnes each. Among the Asian nations, can be seen from the fact that imports of various bodies in the country is deposit-
out something around Rs 1,40,000 in one year, which is the min- informal barriers across the free move- China and Japan possess 1864.3 tonnes gold (including gold dore bars) during ed under the GMS which has benefitted
imum duration of the treatment. The government initiatives ment of goods. and 765.2 tonnes respectively, way ahead most of the Modi Sarkar tenures were the jewellery industry with the gold
are plagued by delays in diagnosing patients and prescribing The added apprehension is that with of India. The new trend witnessed last around 915 tonnes in 2014-15, 968 tonnes gleaned being used to lend gold as gold
medications. In fact, the one-size-fits-all type of treatment ag- the mighty US dollar being likely to be year in gold holdings by countries per- in 2015-16, 780 tonnes in 2016-17 and 955 metal loan, the amount of gold deposited
gravated drug resistance. Even now there is no institutional buffeted by the unpredictable policy gy- sisted well into the first month of 2019 too tonnes in 2017-18. The relative slump in or recycled for the trade was no patch on
mechanism to ensure that patients adhered to their regimens. rations of the US and the anemic eco- with WGC computing that “gross pur- the import during 2016-17 might be partly the gargantuan appetite for the yellow
nomic recovery in most of Europe, given chases of 48 tonnes and gross sales of 13 due to demonetization of high denomina- metal and people’s dogged faith in gold as
And, perhaps, the worst thing was, for years, the government the lacklustre performance and clash- tonnes leading to global gold reserves tional currencies clamped by the Govern- a savior when there is an economic pre-
had ignored the drug-resistant TB patients, as if they didn’t ex- ridden situation such as in Britain over rising by 35 tonnes on a net basis in Jan- ment on November 8, 2016. However, the dicament! Unless and until unvarnished
ist, thus allowing the numbers to increase substantially. Now Brexit or in France over popular upris- uary with substantial spurts from nine situation resumed its normalcy the very campaigns are made by celebrities to dis-
that the government has woken up, its National Strategic Plan ings against Macron’s economic policies, central banks” mostly from the emerging next year. But the import costs always suade the purchase of the idle asset
2017-25 is going to be on reaching patients seeking care from the holding of bullion looks attractive as economies. hovered between 32 to 34.41 billion dol- against their extant promotional cam-
private providers. It has also substantially increased the budget its returns in local currency terms are In India, the lure of gold both for mak- lars a year, save during 2016-17 when it paigns for jewellery shops, more serious
quite mouth-watering. ing ornaments for retail sale and also by cost 27.52 billion dollars as the volume results from schemes like the GMS would
$2.5 billion. This should bring cheer to the patients. Near home, India that always boasts way of keeping bullion in the form of imported was also less. seldom happen, analysts plaintively say.
of being the largest consumer of gold is small sovereigns/biscuits as safe invest- Although the NDA government fash- The author is a senior economic journalist.

Wanderlust
now ranked as being in possession of the ment bet, remain too strong to be dis- ioned the Gold Monetization Scheme Views are personal

QUOTE HANGER slowburn

When it comes to leisure travel, India is at the top
New tech can detect eye surface cancer
I
ndia may have slid a few notches on the World Happiness In- Harsh Goenka Harsha Bhogle
dex, but we aren’t a nation of glum faces. Our happiness, it @hvgoenka @bhogleharsha
R
esearchers have developed an auto- and more curative treatments such as
seems, lies in leisure travel: to explore new places and cultures
and broaden our horizon. The World Travel and Tourism Coun-
Kindness is a language Warner and Sunrisers. mated, non-invasive technique for topical therapies whereas advanced le-
diagnosing eye surface cancer, which sions may require eye surgery or even
cil’s (WTTC) Economic Impact 2019 report states that Indians which the deaf can hear and the blind The partnership continues. may reduce the need for biopsies, pre- the removal of the eye, and also has the
are top spenders when it comes to leisure tourism and travel. can see. Spread kindness! vent therapy delays and make treatment risk of mortality,” said Habibalahi, lead
In terms of countrywide contribution of travel and tourism to far more effective for patients. According scientist on the project.
GDP, we have beaten America and China hands down. India to a report published in PTI, the method,
S lrfan Habib described in the journal The Ocular Sur-
holds the top spot for spending 94 per cent of its total GDP con-
tribution to travel and tourism on leisure, followed by Mexico,
@irfhabib It should be noted that face, comprises the custom-building of
an advanced imaging microscope in as-
Over 500 mn-year-old
Research in universities
Thailand, Spain and Brazil. Indians love to travel both within
the country and abroad. The UN World Tourism Organisation only on topics of “national priority”,
India is meeting most of its oil sociation with state-of-the-art computing
and artificial intelligence operation. The
fossil trove unearthed
and gas requirements through
S
(UNWTO) estimates that the number of Indian outbound tour- dictates the HRD circular. Another result is an automated system that is cientists in China have discovered a
ists will be over 50 million by 2022. A rapidly growing younger
blow to right to ask questions, imports. Scientists should study able to successfully identify between dis-
eased and non-diseased eye tissue, in
“stunning” trove of well-preserved
thousands of fossils estimated to be
population combined with a burgeoning middle class has con-
tributed to the surge in tourism. What more, Indians are willing critique and dissent. the potential of renewable energy real-time, through a simple scanning about 518 million years old on a river bank
process. “Clinical symptoms of ocular in the country’s central Hubei province,
to spend because of high disposable incomes. In 2018, travel and derived from the surface squamous neoplasia (OSSN) are according to PTI. The fossils are particu-
tourism contributed 9.2 per cent of India’s GDP. Most of it, Musharraf Ali Farooqi ocean — from known to be variable and in early stages larly unusual because the soft body tissue
about 87 per cent, came from domestic travel while 13 per cent can be extremely hard to detect so pa- of many creatures, including their skin,
@microMAF wind, wave and tients may experience delays in treat- eyes, and internal organs, have been “ex-
was on international leisure travel. Interestingly, Indians do
Provision of basic ment or be inaccurately diagnosed,” said quisitely” well preserved. Palaeontologists
not believe in mixing business with pleasure. That explains why
services, protection, and justice
tidal sources Abbas Habibalahi, a researcher at the have called the findings “mind-blowing” -
the country lags in business travel with only 5.2 per cent of Australian Research Council (ARC) Cen- especially because more than half the fos-
travel spend in 2018 going to work-related trips. Given its mind- has become dependent on social — M Venkaiah
tre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPho- sils are previously undiscovered species,
boggling diversities, India has tremendous tourism potential. Naidu, at CSIR-
media representation and National Institute of
tonics (CNBP). “The early detection of the BBC reported. The fossils, known as
It needs sustained marketing initiatives to showcase the coun- OSSN is critical as it supports simple the Qingjiang biota, were collected.
try to the world at large.
campaigns. How nice! Oceanography
send your feedback to editor@dnaindia.net

Grand weddings of semi-rural gentry inspired by Bollywood

In the wedding
season, there’s al-
most never a day
when the village
opposite our
house in Greater
Noida isn’t re-
sounding with DJ
beats. The land on
Vandana Vasudevan which our apart-
ment complex is
built once belonged to this village and
our lives are interconnected with the lo-
cal people in myriad ways. It is now a
rich village as the farming land has
been acquired by the government and
the farmers have got the money they
never imagined they would acquire in a
few generations. One fallout of this
new-found prosperity is that the wed-
dings have become ostentatious with
the DJ playing well into midnight, fire-
crackers being lit in complete disregard
to any court order and staggering mul-
ticuisine buffets.
Last month I attended one such wed-
ding. The boy was unemployed but the
family was nouveau riche, mainly earn-
ing from rental income. They had used
their new money obtained by the sale of
agricultural land to build a series of
rooms that they leased out to migrant
construction labourers from poorer
states. The bride’s family had a similar
rise to riches, in a neighbouring village.
A Maruti Swift stood at the entrance of
the pandal, with no attempt to hide the
dowry. Practically anyone was able to
reel off how much cash and how much
gold was given by the bride’s father.
As the internet and TV melt borders
between big cities and small and be-
tween urban and rural, wedding trends
inspired by the rich and famous, have
spread far into the interiors. Only wom-
en above 60 seemed to be wearing saris.
The rest were in lehengas, whose de-
signs were copies of those worn by re-
cent Bollywood brides. A young woman
even wore a flowing blood red western
style gown, which she told me she
bought in Bilaspur, a town with less
than fifty thousand people in Rampur
district of UP. Food counters lined the
perimeter of the venue. Two girls in
jackets and trousers were welcoming
guests handing over their dinner plates.
I learnt that they were part of the cater-
ing company, hired from Delhi. An in-
novative locally crafted roti machine
was presenting one hot roti after anoth-
er in an assembly line. An entire mithai
shop had been transplanted offering
every possible traditional north Indian
confectionary. Fireworks lit up the
night sky while the dance floor
throbbed with dancing women and
their children keeping step.
This family belonged to the Gurjar
community, once upon a time nomads,
who then became farmers, and now are
just prosperous people spending the
windfall they had landed as a result of
urbanization.
Ramanand, an old relative recounted
the weddings of the Gurjars, just about
fifteen years ago. “Ek mombatti ki rosh-
ni mein ho jaati thi shaadi” he said.
Generators were not ubiquitous, so in
power-starved UP, entire streets were
not lit up like they had done that night.
Caterers were unheard of in the village;
the women of the house would cook all
the delicacies. Land deals had changed
everything. The profile of the guests
was different too. Many ex-farmers
were now residents of building ‘socie-
ties’ doing office jobs or owning small
businesses. Their children went to well-
known schools of the area and while
they retained a link with the village,
their lifestyle and appearance were
more similar to the urban educated
middle class.
The practice of multiple grand func-
tions was unheard of in these parts pre-
viously. There would be only one formal
event of the actual wedding. However,
the party I was attending that evening
was a post-wedding reception, a practice
borrowed from outside their milieu.
The standards of how much is good
enough have zoomed upwards in semi-
urban societies, which being close to
metro cities, are aspirational but are
also sufficiently traditional to retain
their strong community ties. The most
adverse impact has been on those vil-
lagers who have not benefitted from
land sales but are not spared the pres-
sure to keep up when it comes to wed-
dings. A driver who conducted his
daughter’s wedding a year ago had the
same number of items in the buffet as
the one in this prosperous Gujjar wed-
ding. “Every item has to be there- that
Moradabadi dal, the hot kadhai milk
and the coffee in the end, else there will
be questions.” These pressures force the
poor in the village to borrow from credi-
tors and remain in debt for years.
The gargantuan wedding celebra-
tions of 2017/18 of Deepika-Ranveer,
Virat-Anushka, Priyanka-Nick and the
Ambani heirs that became newsworthy
around the world have only reinforced
the ‘big is beautiful’ credo, among
communities in interior India. In a
country where the masses take their
cues from film and cricket stars, these
idols could have set a different example
and help influence a more sensible
thought process.
The writer is an author and columnist

Vol 12 n Issue No. 139 RNI: GUJENG/2007/22424. Printed and Published by Prashant Saxena on behalf of Diligent Media Corporation ltd. Printed at Bhaskar Printing Press, Survey No.148 P, Nagdevta Mandir, Changodar, Bavla Highway, Sanand, Ahmedabad (Gujarat) and Published at Diligent Media Corporation
Limited, Venus Atlantis Building, Unit No. 201 to 208, 2nd Floor, 100 Feet Road, Prahladnagar, Satellite, Ahmedabad 380015. Phone: 079 4060 2000. Editor: Deepak Lokhande Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act.
 w rld
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
in brief
Detained jihadists
are ticking bomb,
Syria Kurds warn
Baghouz: Syria’s Kurds
warned Sunday that de-
spite the demise of the Is-
lamic State’s “caliphate”,
the thousands of foreign ji-
hadists they hold are a
time-bomb the world ur-
gently needs to defuse.
World leaders were quick
to hail Saturday’s an-
nouncement by the Kurd-
ish-led Syrian Democratic
Forces that the last shred
of land controlled by IS
had been conquered. But
as the SDF swept the dev-
astated the riverside vil-
lage of Baghouz where ji-
hadists made their dramat-
ic last stand, the top Syrian
Kurdish foreign affairs of-
ficial warned that IS mem-
bers captured during the
assault still posed a threat.
‘US Prez to sign
Golan sovereignty
decree today’
Jerusalem: US President
Donald Trump will on
Monday sign a decree rec-
ognising Israeli sover-
eignty on the Golan
Heights while hosting Is-
raeli Prime Minister Ben-
jamin Netanyahu at the
White House, Israel’s act-
ing foreign minister said.
A senior US official said
last week that the Trump
administration was pre-
paring an official docu-
ment to codify support
for Israel’s annexation of
the strategic plateau that
it seized from Syria in the
1967 Middle East war.
New Zealand attack
sparks debate
over free speech
Dunedin: New Zealand-
ers are debating the lim-
its of free speech after
their chief censor banned
a 74-page manifesto writ-
ten by the man accused of
slaughtering 50 people at
two mosques in the city
of Christchurch. Some
say the ban goes too far
and risks lending both the
document and the gun-
man mystique.
479 plucked from cruise ship off Norway
Oslo: Rescue services had air-
lifted 479 people to safety from
a luxury cruise liner with en-
gine trouble off the coast of
Norway by Sunday morning
and began towing the vessel to
a nearby port.
The Viking Sky, with 1,373
passengers and crew on board,
sent out a mayday signal on
Saturday as it drifted towards
land in the Norwegian Sea.
The airlift of passengers,
many of them elderly, from the
Viking Cruises ship by helicop-
ter was halted on Sunday
morning as two tugboats start-
ed steering the vessel towards
the nearest port.
Founder and chairman of
Viking Cruises, Norwegian bil-
lionaire Torstein Hagen, said
he hoped the vessel would ar-
rive at the port of Molde on
Norway’s west coast by Sunday
afternoon. “They’ve had a bit
of a shocking experience,”
Hagen told Norwegian TV2
and other media after meeting
passengers who had been
hoisted one by one from the
ship’s deck in stormy weather.
“Most of our passengers are
senior citizens ... imagine what
it’s like to hang there on that
wire. It must be a terrible expe-
rience but they seem to have
handled it very well,” Hagen
said. The helicopters are on
standby in case the captain de-
cides to restart the airlift, the
rescue service said. The 915
passengers were mainly from
the United States and Britain,
the rescue services said. There
were also Canadians and Aus-
tralians on board, among oth-
Malaysia threatens EU with
fighter jet boycott over palm oil German billionaire family admits to Nazi past
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia
may retaliate against an EU
plan to curb palm oil use by
purchasing new fighter jets
from China instead of Euro-
pean arms companies, its
leader said Sunday.
The Southeast Asian coun-
try is the world’s second larg-
est palm oil producer after
neighbouring Indonesia, and
recently threatened to chal-
lenge the bloc’s plan to phase
out its use in biofuels at the
World Trade Organization.
Both Malaysia and Indone-
sia have been at loggerheads
with EU lawmakers over the
crop’s cultivation, which has
Parl tries to grab Thai Oppn to win most seats: Exit poll
Brexit from UK PM
Theresa May faces a possible ‘coup’ by some ministers
seeking to oust her, others insist she is still in charge
London: The United King-
dom’s exit from the European
Union was in disarray on
Sunday as Prime Minister
Theresa May faced a possible
plot by ministers to topple
her and parliament prepared
to grab control of Brexit from
the government.
At one of the most impor-
tant junctures for the coun-
try since World War II, Brit-
ish politics was at fever pitch
and, nearly three years since
the 2016 referendum, it was
still unclear how, when or if
Brexit will ever take place.
With May humiliated and
weakened, ministers insisted
she and the British govern-
ment were still in charge of
the country, and that the best
option was still for parlia-
ment to ratify May’s twice-
defeated Brexit divorce deal.
As hundreds of thousands
of people marched across
central London on Saturday
to demand another Brexit ref-
erendum, May was the sub-
ject of what The Sunday
Times said was a “coup” by
senior ministers seeking to
oust her. The newspaper cited
11 unidentified senior minis-
ters and said they had agreed
that the prime minister
should stand down, warning
that she has become a toxic
and erratic figure whose judg-
ment has “gone haywire”.
When asked by Sky about
reports in The Sunday Times
and other newspapers of a plot
and whether she had run out
of road, finance minister Phil-
ip Hammond said: “No. I don’t
think that is the case at all.”
“Changing prime minister
wouldn’t help us,” Hammond
said. “To be talking about
changing the players on the
board, frankly, is self-indul-
gent at this time.”
Hammond said the best
way forward would be for
BROKEN WINDOWS
„„Images and video
posted by passengers
on social media showed
furniture sliding around
and panels falling from
the ceiling as the vessel
drifted in waves of up to
eight metres
„„“We were having
lunch when it began
to shake. Window
panes were broken
and water came in. It
was just chaos. The
trip on the helicopter, I
would rather forget. It
was not fun,” American
passenger John Curry
told public broadcaster
NRK on Saturday
ers, the cruise company said.
Some 20 injured passengers
had been taken to hospital, Vi-
king Cruises said, while others
had only minor injuries. One
was taken to St Olav’s Hospital
in Trondheim and others were
taken to local hospitals.
“Many have also been trau-
matised by the experience and
need care when they arrive on
shore,” the Norwegian Red
Cross said. The ship has been
able to restart three of its four
engines on Sunday morning
but still needed assistance. The
tugboats, one in front and the
other behind, were towing the
ship at 7 knots (13 kmph). The
vessel is about 80 kms from
Molde, Norway’s maritime res-
cue service said. —Reuters
coming to terms reimann family plans to donate 10 million euros to charity
Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad
caused rampant deforesta-
tion and destruction of wild-
life. In his strongest state-
ment yet on the proposed
curbs, Malaysian Prime Min-
ister Mahathir Mohamad
said his country could look
Protesters dressed as medieval knights take a break after attending the
People’s Vote campaign for a second EU referendum in London —AFP
POSSIBLE SUCCESSORS
„„The Sunday Times
reported that Theresa
May’s de-facto deputy,
David Lidington, was
one contender to be
interim prime minister but
others are pushing for
Environment Secretary
Changing prime
minister wouldn’t
help us. To be
talking about changing
the players on the board,
frankly, is self-indulgent
at this time
Philip Hammond,
Finance Minister
parliament to back May’s
deal, although he said that it
might not be approved and so
parliament should then try to
find a way to end the impasse.
“I’m realistic that we may
not be able to get a majority
for the prime minister’s
(Brexit) deal and if that is the
case then parliament will
(Clockwise from top) Passengers protect themselves from a collapsing ceiling; furniture is seen while cruise ship
Viking Sky was listing; Viking Sky drifts towards land after the engine failure, seen from Hustadvika, Norway
elsewhere to upgrade its age-
ing air force fleet of Russian
Mig-29 fighters -- in effect
abandoning plans to pur-
chase France’s Rafale jet or
the Eurofighter Typhoon.
“If they keep on taking ac-
tion against us, we will think
of buying airplanes from
China or any other country,”
he was quoted as saying by
the official Bernama news
agency. But the premier said
he was not “declaring war”
on the EU as his country
needed goods from the bloc,
many members of which are
among Malaysia’s top trading
partners. —AFP
Michael Gove or Foreign
Secretary Jeremy Hunt
„„“I don’t think that I
have any wish to take over
from the PM, I think (she)
is doing a fantastic job,”
Lidington told reporters
outside his house
have to decide not just what
it’s against but what it is for,”
he said.
Array of Options
Brexit had been due to hap-
pen on March 29 before May
secured a delay in talks with
the EU on Thursday.
Now a May 22 departure
date will apply if parliament
rallies behind the British
prime minister and she is
able to pass her deal. If she
fails to do so, Britain will
have until April 12 to offer a
new plan or decide to leave
the EU without a treaty. Some
lawmakers have asked May to
name her departure date as
the price for supporting her
deal, though it was unclear
when a third vote might take
place. —Reuters
Berlin: More than 70 years af-
ter the end of World War II, one
of Germany’s richest families
has admitted to its dark links
with Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Spokesman of the Reimann
family, Peter Harf, told Bild am
Sonntag of plans to give 10 mil-
lion euros ($11.3 million) to
charity after learning of their
elders’ support for the Nazis
and their company’s use of
forced labour during the war.
“Reimann senior and Rei-
mann junior were guilty. The
two entrepreneurs have both
passed away, they belonged ac-
tually in prison,” said Harf.
Albert Reimann senior died
Bangkok: Thai voters
flocked to the polls on Sunday
for the first election since a
2014 coup, and an exit poll in-
dicated the populist party
linked to exiled former leader
Thaksin Shinawatra would
win the most seats, but not
enough to form a govern-
ment.
The race has pitted mili-
tary junta chief Prayuth
Chan-ocha seeking to retain
power and stay on as prime
minister against a “demo-
cratic front” led by the Pheu
Thai Party loyal to Thaksin.
Thailand has been under
direct military rule since
then-army chief Prayuth
overthrew an elected pro-
Thaksin government in 2014.
Former telecommunications
tycoon Thaksin was thrown
out by the army in 2006 and
has lived in self-exile since
2008.
Unofficial results of Thai-
land’s first general election
since 2011, from the Election
Commission, were not due
for several hours.
Police stoned as flashmob in
Frankfurt descends into chaos
Frankfurt: A flashmob
gathering in central Frank-
furt descended into chaos
with teenagers hurling
stones at police officers,
German authorities said
Sunday.
A group of 600 youths
had gathered on Saturday
evening at the popular
shopping street Zeil which
they began running
through “without any con-
sideration for pedestrians”,
police said in a statement.
Police therefore issued
the flashmob organiser
with a dispersal notice, but
an officer was then sud-
denly punched in the face
by a 17-year-old youth.
As officers detained the
teen, some among the crowd
began throwing stones at
police.
Three officers were hit,
Reuters
in 1954 and his son in 1984.
The company they left be-
hind, JAB Holding, is today a
behemoth that owns household
brands ranging from Clearasil
to Calgon. With wealth esti-
mated at 33 billion euros, the
Reimann family is believed to
be Germany’s second richest.
Harf said the family began
digging into their dark past in
the 2000s, and in 2014 decided
to commission a historian to
produce a thorough study into
their ancestors’ ties to Nazism.
The family plans to make
public a full account when the
book by the historian, Paul
Erker of Munich University, is
Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019 I daily news & analysis
Electoral officials count votes at a polling station in Bangkok on Sunday —AFP
However, immediately af-
ter polls closed at 5 p.m. (1000
GMT) the Thai PBS channel
aired an exit poll by Thai re-
search center Super Poll that
indicated Pheu Thai would
win 163 seats in the 500-seat
House of Representatives.
The same exit poll indi-
cated junta chief ’s Palang
Pracharat would win 96 seats,
the establishment Democrat
Image for representation —AFP
with one suffering light in-
juries. The other two were
unscathed.
The gathering was final-
ly cleared two hours after it
began.
Investigations were now
ongoing on the background
of the flashmob, police said.
Authorities were also ex-
amining if organisers could
be liable to take on the costs
of the ensuing police opera-
tion. The flashmob chaos in
Disease fears mount for
Africa cyclone survivors
Beira: Disease is threatening
to aggravate the already dire
conditions facing millions of
survivors following the power-
ful tropical cyclone which rav-
aged southern Africa 10 days
ago, officials warned on Sun-
day. Cyclone Idai smashed into
Mozambique’s coast unleash-
ing hurricane-force wind and
rain that flooded swathes of
the poor country before bat-
tering eastern Zimbabwe --
killing 705 people across the
two nations.
“It is inevitable that cases of
cholera and malaria will arise.
In many areas we are already
fighting with malaria cases,”
said Land Minister Celso Cor-
reia at a briefing in Beira, 1,000
km northeast of the capital
Maputo. The UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs’ Sebastian Rhodes
Stampa, also at the briefing,
warned that disease outbreaks
in inaccessible areas could be
“really problematic”.
The World Food Programme
said Friday that the humani-
tarian disaster unfolding in
Mozambique is on a par with
the situation in Yemen and
Syria which are both in the
grip of civil wars. Aid workers
from across the world are con-
tinuing to arrive in the region
to bring help to more than two
million affected people across
an area of roughly 3,000 sqkm.
Survivors are struggling
in desperate conditions with
some still trapped on rooftops
and those rescued in urgent
Reimann family’s spokesman
Peter Harf —AP
finished, said Harf. Quoting
letters and archival docu-
ments, Bild am Sonntag said
Reimann senior was a willing
07
Party 77 seats, the Bhum-
jaithai Party 59 seats and the
new Future Forward Party 40
seats. If correct, the projec-
tion would mean that Pheu
Thai would not have enough
votes to form a majority gov-
ernment in its hoped-for
“democratic front” with oth-
er parties.
Prayuth’s Palang Pracha-
rat party also could not form
Frankfurt came just days
after a mass brawl in cen-
tral Berlin between follow-
ers of two social media
stars.
Nine arrests were made
as a fight broke out on the
Alexanderplatz late Thurs-
day among 400 backers of
two rival YouTubers.
Police said it took around
100 officers, two of whom
were injured, to break up
the melee. —AFP
A man sells eggs after Cyclone Idai
at Praia Nova, Beira —Reuters
‘sorry for beira’
„„Wilfried Deloviare, a
19-year-old resident of
Beira which was caught
in the eye of the storm,
said he felt “sorry for our
town, our city, because
we suffered a lot to build
it. Houses are completely
destroyed, and some
people don’t have money
to rebuild their businesses
-- and many businesses
are going to fail,” he said
need of food and medical sup-
plies. “The government is al-
ready setting up a cholera
treatment centre to mitigate
cholera. We should not be
frightened when cholera is-
sues arise,” added Correia,
describing efforts to control
the emerging humanitarian
crisis. “It is normal. It’s almost
inevitable. Malaria, we know
how it arises. We have lots of
wetlands and we’re going to
have malaria that is sure to
come up (there).” —AFP
donor to Hitler’s SS as early as
1931. His company was in 1941
deemed a “crucial” firm in the
war, as it produced items for
the Wehrmacht and the arma-
ments industry. In 1943, the
company was using as many as
175 forced labourers, and em-
ployed a foreman who was
known for his cruel treatment
of the workers.
Harf, who confirmed the
conclusions drawn by the Bild
report, said there had been no
known efforts to provide any
compensation to the forced la-
bourers. “But we have since
talked about what we can do
now,” he said. “We want to do
vote dynamics
„„Voters are choosing
the 500-seat House of
Representatives. The lower
house of parliament and
an upper house Senate,
which is appointed entirely
by the ruling junta, will
select the next government
„„Pro-Thaksin parties
have won every election
since 2001, but the past
15 years have seen
crippling street protests
both by his opponents
and supporters
a government on its own, but
it would have a better chance
to form a coalition needed to
elect a prime minister due to
junta-written electoral rules
that favour it. Turnout was
estimated to be high as 80 per-
cent among the 51.4 million
Thais eligible to vote, the
Election Commission said
about an hour before the polls
closed. —Reuters
US on edge for
Russia probe
findings on
Prez Trump
Washington: The US public
and Washington’s deeply di-
vided political class on Sun-
day faced another day of anx-
iously waiting to learn if the
key findings of the Russian
meddling probe will implicate
President Donald Trump in
serious wrongdoing.
Special Counsel Robert Mu-
eller submitted the confiden-
tial final report on his
22-month investigation Friday
and Attorney General Bill
Barr has been studying the
document, which he must
summarize for Congress.
The Justice Department
had told legislators that Barr
would not be sending an out-
line of its “principal conclu-
sions” -- expected over the
weekend -- on Saturday, ac-
cording to US media.
That left the American pub-
lic still in the dark over what
the Mueller investigation un-
covered about the president’s
ties to Russia and alleged acts
of obstruction of justice.
Chronic tweeter Trump,
who was spending the week-
end at his Palm Beach, Flori-
da Mar-a-Lago residence, re-
mained uncommonly silent
after spending two years re-
peatedly labeling Special
Counsel Robert Mueller’s in-
vestigation an illegal witch
hunt.
After the president spent
the morning golfing, White
House spokesman Hogan Gid-
ley confirmed that they still
had not seen the report or
been briefed on its findings.
Asked how the president felt,
Gidley replied: “He’s good.”
Meanwhile, Democrats in
Congress, many of whom are
hoping for evidence to support
a presidential impeachment,
pressed hard to ensure the re-
port’s full contents are made
public, and not just a summa-
ry prepared by the Trump-ap-
pointed Barr.
Neal Katyal, the former
Justice Department official
who drafted the rules for spe-
cial counsels, said Barr had no
excuse for keeping Mueller’s
report secret. —AFP
US President Donald Trump
more and donate ten million
euros to a suitable organisa-
tion.” Many of Germany’s big-
gest companies have over the
decades confronted their Third
Reich history.
Among them is Volkswa-
gen, which used concentration
camp internees and prisoners
of war as slave labour in its
factories during the war.
In 1938, Hitler himself laid
the foundation stone for the
first Volkswagen factory in
Wolfsburg in northern Ger-
many, tasked with building an
affordable car for all Germans
-- which would go on to become
the iconic Beetle. —AFP
25
Monday
March
2019
Ahmedabad
www.dnaindia.com
Sensex Week change
38164.61 140.29 p
Gold 10 gram 31925.00
US $ 68.96 0.14 q
news in numbers
Week Ahead WhatsApp, Skype may get light-touch Trai regulation
THE
Domestic
Macro data: December
quarter external debt data
will be out on March 28.
Government budget value
and infrastructure output for
February, and current account
deficit for third quarter will be
announced on March 29.
F&O expiry: The
benchmark equity indices will
see the expiry of futures and
options trade for the month of
March on Thursday.
Trade talks: A fresh talk
between the US and China on
Thursday about the trade deal
will be closely seen by the
investors.
Crude price: Crude oil
prices slipped by 2% on Friday.
Further movement in the price
will be closely observed.
Overseas
Chicago Fed National activity
 tioned to this category was
index data for February will
be released today along with
Japan’s all industry activity
index for January
US’s balance of trade for
 Mantri Mudra Yojana during
January and current account
defict for third quarter will be
declared on Wednesday
Personal income and new
 lakh people were given
home sales data of US to be
released on Friday
ST smart
‘Don’t cut BSNL
power supply’
The Department of Tel-
ecommunications has
asked state govern-
ments not to disconnect
electricity connections
of state-owned BSNL
and MTNL on account
of pending dues as they
are providing strategic
services for the upcom-
ing elections, sources
said. BSNL has already
cleared 90% of its pow-
er dues and is expected
to clear the rest in the
next 15-20 days. “A letter
from the Department of
Telecom has been sent
to state chief secretar-
ies requesting them to
avoid disruption in
MTNL and BSNL elec-
tricity connections be-
cause it is providing
strategic support to
state machinery for
managing elections,” an
official said. When con-
tacted, BSNL chairman
and managing director
Anupam Shrivastava
said, “We have cleared
90% of the dues for elec-
tricity connections.
Now around Rs 250
crore is left, which will
be cleared in next 15-20
days. There were some
disconnections that
took place but all of
them have been restored
now.”
No end of tunnel
for HFCs: Icra
The liquidity crisis has
crimped credit growth
for housing finance
companies (HFCs) and
is unlikely to improve
much in FY20, even as
the weak external
environment will put
pressure on asset
quality, warns a report.
HFCs are expected to
report a 13-15% credit
growth in FY19, which
will inch up to 14-16% in
the next fiscal year,
rating agency Icra has
said in a weekend
report. Aggravating the
difficulties will be a
likely pressure on the
asset quality front due
to the weak operating
environment, it warned.
“Discussions with some
HFCs reveals that their
stock of repossessed
assets has also
increased, due to the
lower saleability of
those assets leading to
elongated recovery
time,” it explained.
Gross NPAs) in home
loans will increase to up
to 1.3%.
Nifty
11456.90 30.05 p
30.00q
EURO 77.94 0.28 q
7% - Housing prices rose in seven major cities during the past five years, according to brokerage firm Anarock
Mansi Taneja
mansi.taneja@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Telecom regula-
tor Trai may go for a light-
touch regulation for over-
the-top (OTT) players such as
Skype and WhatsApp.
The first open house ses-
sion is scheduled for today
and the recommendations
are likely to come out by May.
Telecom Regulatory Au-
thority of India (Trai) is ex-
amining the issues sur-
rounding OTT players such
as Skype and WhatsApp
which have services in direct
competition to telecom play-
ers. The main point of con-
tention is whether there is a
regulatory imbalance be-
Lenders plan to invite Banks meet 85% of Mudra target
bids for Jet Airways
Tatas may be back in fray; Etihad Air may have to exit
Manju AB
manju.ab@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Lenders are laying
the ground for a new owner
in Jet Airways as they insist
on an undertaking from the
shareholders that will trim
founder-chairman Naresh
Goyal’s stake to below 10%
while Abu Dhabi-based Eti-
had will have to agree to exit
from the ailing airline.
Led by State Bank of India
(SBI), lenders are planning to
call for open bids to sell Jet
Airways after obtaining writ-
ten agreements from Goyal
and Etihad. Goyal, who cur-
rently owns 51% of Jet Air-
ways, will have to bring down
his stake to 9% and have no
voting rights. Etihad, whose
holding is at 24%, will have to
agree to sell its entire stake
if it does not bring in new
capital.
The Tata Group may be
back in the fray for acquir-
ing Jet Airways after such
conditions are met. Prelimi-
nary talks for a deal were
held late last year but the
Group had subsequently
withdrawn as there was no
firm indication that Goyal
would step down.
“We have a two-stage plan
and are insisting on an agree-
ment from both the share-
holders. Goyal has to cut his
stake to 9% while Etihad,
which has declined from
making additional invest-
ments, will have to agree to
exit. This will ease the path
for us to rope in a new inves-
tor,” a senior bank official
said.
Lenders will be subscrib-
ing to a 15-year-old zero cou-
pon non-convertible deben-
ture (NCD), issued by Jet
Airways, to provide funding
Sebi seeks powers speed bump
to inspect listed cos E-bikes to cost more under FAME-II
New Delhi: With an aim to
thwart financial frauds, reg-
ulator Sebi has sought pow-
ers to conduct an inspection
of books of accounts of list-
ed companies for contraven-
tion of any securities law
and also to take direct action
against the fraudsters.
Besides, the Securities
and Exchange Board of In-
dia (Sebi) has proposed a
heavy penalty for altering,
destroying, mutilating, con-
cealing or falsifying records
and documents or other tan-
gible objects with an intent
to obstruct, impede or influ-
ence a legal investigation.
At present, Sebi is empow-
ered to conduct such inspec-
tions in case of violations
relating to insider trading
and fraudulent or unfair
trade practices.
However, the regulator
has now asked the govern-
ment that its power to under-
take inspection of books at
listed companies should be
Silver kg 38120.00 135.00 p
British pound 91.08 0.54 q
tween the telecom industry
and OTT players.
“There is a need for a
light-touch regulation. A fi-
nal decision will be taken
after discussion in the open
house. By May, Trai should
be able to come out with its
views,” a senior Trai official
told DNA Money on the con-
dition of anonymity.
Telecom players have
been demanding a level play-
ing field with the OTT indus-
try, which has eaten into
their revenues. With inter-
net penetration on the rise in
India, now even cable and
DTH industry is feeling the
heat of such players includ-
ing Netflix, Amazon Prime
and other video platforms.
JET AIRWAYS
(INDIA)
Share price on BSE in `
842.75
Jan 1, 18
` 800-1,000crore
Funding lenders plan on providing in the
interim period
15-year Zero coupon non-con-
vertible debenture (NCD)
lenders will be subscribing to
Goyal will own in Jet Airways in the first stage,
25.5% down from 51%, after conversion of debt into
equity at Rs 1 a unit
Etihad’s
12%
stake will fall
to from 24%
June 30 Deadline banks have kept for
shareholders to offload the stake
of Rs 800-1,000 crore in the
interim period to keep the
floundering airline afloat.
Banks expect to rope in a new
investor within four weeks,
the source added.
The participation in the
NCD will be subject to Goyal
agreeing to sell 16% stake to
a new investor so that his
holding further falls to 9%.
Etihad will also have to give
an undertaking that it will
exit Jet Airways by selling its
remaining 12% stake.
“This will give us an op-
for contravention of any se-
curities laws without limit-
ing it to violations relating to
one or two regulations, a
senior official said.
The Sebi Act empowers
the regulator to conduct an
inspection of any book, reg-
ister or other documents and
records of any listed com-
pany if it has reasonable
grounds to believe that the
company has been indulging
in insider trading or fraudu-
lent and unfair trade prac-
tices relating to securities
markets. —PTI
FTSE 100
7207.59 22.16 p
Brent Crude
But Trai is mainly ex-
amining OTT services
which are similar to tele-
com players such as voice
calls, messages, etc, al-
though not all OTT servic-
es or players are under the
225.85
Mar 22, 19
Participation in
NCDs will be subject
to Goyal agreeing
to further sell 16%
stake after initial
dilution to a new
investor so that his
holding falls to 9%
Banks will
` 8,400
50%
hold in Jet
Airways crore
Jet Air’s
debt
tion to explore more inves-
tors. Some may want Goyal
out. Others may want Etihad
out,” said another banking
official.
In the first stage, Goyal
will own 25.5% of Jet Air-
ways, down from 51%, after
conversion of debt into eq-
uity at Rs 1 a unit. Etihad’s
stake will fall from 24% to
12% while banks will hold
50% of Jet Airways. Banks
have kept a deadline of June
30 to offload the lenders’
stake.
Localisation, time-bound duties may also hamper growth
Shahkar Abidi
a_shahakar@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: As finer details
of the second phase of Fast-
er Adoption and Manufac-
turing of Electric & Hybrid
vehicles (FAME) scheme
emerge (FAME-II), two-
wheeler manufacturers are
beginning to feel that the
subsidy system under the
new regime will end up
making the vehicles more
expensive in comparison to
FAME-I.
Two-wheeler and compo-
nent manufacturers claim
that localisation and time-
bound Custom duties crite-
ria in the new policy may
hamper the growth of the
industry, making the vehi-
cles costlier. The new policy,
if implemented in its cur-
rent form, may affect the
supply chain players, who
would further shy away from
investing in the EV sector.
As a result, the worried
Nikkei 225
21627.34 176.49 p
$/barrel 66.45 0.29 q
UAE dirham 18.83 0.06 p
easy call
„„The first open house
session is scheduled for
today
„„Recommendations
expected to come out
by May
„„OTT industry in India
is expected to reach a
size of $5 bn by 2023
radar, the official said.
Video consumption on
YouTube, Netflix, etc, has
been the main driver for in-
creasing data usage in India,
which was triggered by the
entry of Reliance Jio in late
Anjul Tomar
anjul.tomar@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: The banks have
sanctioned loans of Rs 2.5
lakh crore under Pradhan
this fiscal so far as against
the disbursement target of
Rs 3 lakh crore set for the
year, latest finance ministry
data up to March 15 showed.
While the government is
short of its disbursement
target by Rs 50,000 crore, the
finance ministry is confi-
dent of banks achieving it by
month-end.
“The banks should be able
to meet the target fixed for
loan disbursement for this
year. If not, they are likely to
finish very close to it. So far,
about 85% of the disburse-
ment target has been
achieved and the remaining
will also be met within the
given time frame. The data
comes with a certain time
Centre nets `11,300 cr from sale
of enemy shares, CPSE buybacks
New Delhi: Sale of ‘enemy
shares’ and buyback of
stocks by CPSEs have togeth-
er yielded the government
over Rs 11,300 crore, thus
helping the exchequer mop
up Rs 85,000 crore from disin-
vestment in the current fiscal
-- the second highest receipt
ever. The government has gar-
nered Rs 700 crore through
the first-ever sale of enemy
shares after the Cabinet in
November 2018 gave its ap-
proval to the Department of
Investment and Public Asset
Management (Dipam) to sell
such shares held in compa-
nies.
Enemy property refers to
the assets left behind by peo-
ple who migrated to Paki-
stan or China and are no
longer citizens of India.
Besides, over Rs 10,600
crore has come in from the
electric two-wheeler manu-
facturers and component
makers have been holding
meetings with the govern-
ment officials including
those from Niti Ayog and
transport ministry in order
to make a course correction.
At present, there are 12 orig-
inal equipment manufactur-
ers (OEMs) involved in the
manufacturing of two-
wheelers in India. “Nobody
is opposing it. But the gov-
2016 with its 4G services.
OTT industry in India is
expected to reach $5 billion
by 2023 and rural areas will
play a big role in OTT con-
sumption. About 48% of In-
dia’s internet users, around
650 million by 2023, are ex-
pected to be from rural areas,
as per The Boston Consult-
ing Group.
The issues of data protec-
tion and data privacy also
need to be dealt with while
framing the regulations for
OTT industry, the official
said. Telecom players need to
invest constantly in their
networks to maintain the
quality of services norms.
OTT players are not subject
to any levy despite huge traf-
lag,” a senior official in the
finance ministry said.
Under the Mudra scheme,
banks provide loans up to Rs
10 lakh to small entrepre-
neurs. Loans are granted
under three categories -
Shishu, Kishore and Tarun.
Shishu category is up to Rs
50,000, while Kishore is be-
tween Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 lakh
and Tarun between Rs 5 lakh
and Rs 10 lakh.
During this year, Mudra
buyback of government
shares by Central Public
Sector Enterprises (CPSEs).
In 2018-19, the govern-
ment for the second time in
a row exceeded the disinvest-
ment target by mopping up
Rs 85,000 crore as against the
budget estimate of Rs 80,000
crore. In 2017-18, the govern-
ment mopped up a record
over Rs 1 lakh crore, against
the target of Rs 72,500 crore.
During the current fiscal,
low on charge
„„Under the new
regime, the subsidy is
Rs 10,000 for battery
strength of 1 kiloWatt.
„„Under FAME-I, the
subsidy was Rs 20,000
flat for two-wheelers
without any condition
for the power strength
of the battery
ernment should wait for the
volume (of electric two-
wheelers) to pick up before
imposing norms regarding
battery power, localisation
and customs duties,” said an
executive working for an
OEM.
Earlier this month, the
Cabinet had approved Rs
10,000 crore for FAME-II
scheme which sets aside sub-
sidy for electric vehicles.
The incentives are primarily
fic flowing through their
platforms, which needs to be
looked into owing to security
and interception issues.
Platforms such as What-
sApp and Facebook have al-
ready faced the ire of the
government over the spread-
ing of fake news. Separately,
the Ministry of IT and Elec-
tronics has issued draft
guidelines for intermediar-
ies to bring online content
under regulation.
A section of the industry
is not in the favour of OTT
sector being regulated as it
will kill innovation and the
business model, while some
feel there needs to be a light-
touch regulation consider-
ing the fact that telecom net-
Inclusive scheme
„„This year, Mudra
loans were sanctioned to
4.8 crore people
„„Of these, three
crore were women
beneficiaries
„„Among minorities, 48
these loans
loans were sanctioned to 4.8
crore self-employed people.
Of these, as many as three
crore were women benefi-
ciaries while one crore were
new entrepreneurs. Among
minorities, 48 lakh people
were given these loans.
Of the total amount sanc-
tioned, women received
loans of Rs 1 lakh crore and
minorities Rs 22,328 crore. As
far as new entrepreneurs are
concerned, the amount sanc-
share sale through Ex-
change Traded Funds
(ETFs) has yielded the high-
est amount of Rs 45,729
crore, followed by Rs 14,500
crore from the acquisition
of the government’s 52.63
per cent stake in REC by
state-owned Power Finance
Corporation (PFC).
In addition, the govern-
ment has received Rs 1,929
crore via initial public offer-
ing of five companies --
MSTC, RITES, Ircon, Garden
Reach Shipbuilders and Mid-
hani.
The government has re-
ceived Rs 5,218 crore from
the offer for sale of Coal In-
dia, and another Rs 5,379
crore from sale of SUUTI
stake in Axis Bank.
As regards the buybacks,
the government has mopped
up over Rs 10,600 crore. ­­—PTI
targeted at two-wheelers,
three-wheelers, fleet taxis
buses as a sizeable number
of Indian public travel in it.
Parallelly, the government
also announced a plan to set
up Tesla-like battery manu-
facturing Giga plants in In-
dia under National Mission
on Transformative Mobility
(NMTM). The plan, which
will be phased out over a pe-
riod of five years, envisages
a few large-scale, export-
competitive integrated bat-
teries and cell manufactur-
ing plants.
The first phase, FAME-I,
was introduced in 2015, offer-
ing incentives of up to Rs
29,000 for hybrid and electric
two-wheelers and Rs 1.38
lakh for cars.
According to the industry
insiders, under FAME-I re-
gime, the subsidy was Rs
20,000 flat for two-wheelers
without any condition for
the power strength of the
battery.
works are capital intensive
with security issues involved
as well.
OTT providers are players
which offer information and
communication technology
(ICT) services, but neither
operate a network nor lease
network capacity from a net-
work operator. Instead, they
rely on the global internet
and access network speeds.
According to Trai, there
are two types of OTT provid-
ers. On one hand are OTT
communication services
(VoIP) providing real-time
person to person telecom ser-
vices using the network in-
frastructure of the telecom
operator competing with
them.
Rs 82,331 crore. The banks
sanctioned loans of Rs 25,282
crore and Rs 10,000 crore re-
spectively to small business
owners in scheduled caste
and scheduled tribe category,
while those falling under
other backward classes re-
ceived Rs 51,855 crore under
Mudra scheme.
The loan scheme was in-
troduced by the NDA govern-
ment in April 2015. Since
then, the banks have sanc-
tioned loans to the tune of Rs
8.25 lakh crore to over 17
crore entrepreneurs. For the
last three years, the dis-
bursement targets have been
met. In 2017-18, the disburse-
ment was 104% of the target.
In previous years too, the
government had overshot its
disbursement target.
Mudra loans are collater-
al free loans given to the non-
corporate, non-farm small or
micro enterprises.
FPIs invest
`38,211 crore
in March on
liquidity gush
New Delhi: Foreign inves-
tors have poured in a net
amount of Rs 38,211 crore in
the domestic capital mar-
kets in March so far, mainly
on account of improved
global liquidity.
In February, foreign port-
folio investors (FPIs) had
put in a net amount of Rs
11,182 crore in the capital
markets -- both debt and eq-
uity.
Analysts attributed the
increase in infusion to a
shift in stance on monetary
policy outlook by various
central banks globally.
The depository data
shows that foreign inves-
tors pumped in a net sum
of Rs 27,424.18 crore in eq-
uities, while the debt mar-
ket saw a net infusion of
Rs 10,787.02 crore during
March 1-22 -- taking the to-
tal to Rs 38,211.20 crore.
According to Harsh Jain,
chief operating officer of
Groww, the cooling of US-
China trade war and no
hike in interest rates by the
US Fed have made India at-
tractive to FPIs. Other fac-
tors like stable crude oil
prices have also helped.
After a shaky start this
year, FPIs have made a “con-
fident comeback” into the
Indian equity markets, not-
ed Himanshu Srivastava,
senior analyst manager re-
search at Morningstar In-
vestment Adviser India.
“In January, the US Fed
announced a pause in a rate
hike, followed by China and
European Central Bank
providing stimulus for
their economy. This bol-
stered the risk-on senti-
ments resulting in foreign
flows taking a U-turn and to
make their way back into
emerging markets like In-
dia,” Srivastava said.
Improvement in the
country’s macro outlook as
well as expectations of for-
mation of a stable govern-
ment post elections has
improved India’s prospects,
he added. —PTI
 c mpanies
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
Delhivery raises
$413 million from
Deal
Street SoftBank
Logistics company Delhivery said it has raised more
than $400 million in a financing round led by the Soft-
Bank Vision Fund. Carlyle and Fosun, both existing in-
vestors in Delhivery, also participated in this round of
financing, the company said in a statement. Delhivery
plans to rapidly scale up its reach from 15,000 to 20,000
pin codes by first quarter of financial year 2019-20, ag-
gressively grow e-commerce market share investment,
and expand its end-to-end supply chain platform to en-
terprise customers and SMEs (small and medium enter-
prises) with the funds received, it added in the statement.
Tata Cap to raise
$100 mn in ECB
Tata Capital, the
financial services arm
of the diversified
conglomerate, will be
raising $100 million in
foreign borrowings
through an arm by
next week, a top
official said. The
external commercial
borrowing (ECB) being
raised by Tata Capital
Housing Finance is a
part of a liabilities
diversification
programme of the
company, the official
added.
In brief
KARNATAKA BANK
Share price on BSE in `
154.8
128.6 140
Jan 1, 18 Mar 22, 19
Karnataka Bank
reports `13 cr fraud
Karnataka Bank said it
has reported to the
Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) about a fraud
amounting to Rs 13.26
crore in the fund-based
working capital facility
extended to SRS
Finance Ltd. The fraud
was on account of
“diversion of funds”,
the lender said in a BSE
filing. The bank had
extended the working
capital facility under
multiple banking
arrangements and
necessary accounting
treatment has already
been given as per the
extant RBI guidelines, it
added.
RInfra’s 41 lakh
shares pledged
The promoter group
entity of Reliance
Infrastructure has
pledged 1.56% of the
company’s shares,
according to a regulatory
filing. Reliance Project
Ventures and
Management Pvt Ltd had
on March 6 pledged 41
lakh shares. With this
pledge, the total pledged
shares by the promoter
entity stands at 35.37%
of the total share capital
in the company.
TaMo to hike PV
prices from April 1
Tata Motors said it will
increase prices of its
passenger vehicles
range by up to Rs 25,000
from April on account
of rising input costs and
external economic
conditions. The
company joins the likes
of Toyota and Jaguar
Land Rover which have
also stated that they
would hike prices of
select models from
April. Tata Motors
currently sells a range
of passenger vehicles
starting from the Nano
to premium SUV Hexa.
Samshek gets Nair
Ventures on board
Aiming to expand its
India presence, US-
based online women
fashion retailer
Samshek Inc has got on
board investment
facilitation firm Nair
Ventures for capital and
infrastructure support.
Without divulging
financial details of the
collaboration, Nair
Ventures said in a
statement it is looking
forward to help
Samshek establish and
expand its presence in
markets like the UK, US
and India by helping
them execute business
scaling processes.
NSE arm acquires
Aujas Networks
NSEIT, the IT-services
focused subsidiary of
the National Stock
Exchange, said that it
has acquired Aujas
Networks Ltd, a
company which
provides information
security consulting
and IT risk
management services.
Aujas has operations
in India, the Middle
East and North
America. It has over
390 customers globally,
according to
DealStreetAsia.
NCLAT sets aside
Jyoti Structures’s
180
160
liquidation order
120
100
80
New Delhi: The National
Company Law Appellate
Tribunal (NCLAT) has set
aside the order to liquidate
Jyoti Structures and asked
the Mumbai bench of Na-
tional Company Law Tribu-
nal (NCLT) to consider the
Rs 4,000-crore resolution
plan submitted by Sharad
Sanghi and others.
Allowing the appeal filed
by Sanghi in this regard, a
two-member bench headed
by chairman Justice S J
Mukhopadhaya has remit-
ted back the matter to the
Mumbai-bench of the NCLT
directing it to pass an order
within two weeks.
“The case is remitted to
the Adjudicating Authority,
Mumbai Bench (NCLT),
Mumbai to approve the
plan...” said NCLAT in its
order.
“The appropriate order
be passed on an early date
preferably within two weeks
from the date of the produc-
tion of the copy of this or-
der,” the order added.
The NCLT had on July 31,
2018, rejected the resolution
plan submitted by Sanghi
and had passed an order to
liquidate Jyoti Structures,
which had a debt of Rs
7,010.55 crore.
According to the Rs
3,965.06 crore resolution
plan submitted by Sanghi,
managing director and
chief executive officer of
information technology so-
lutions provider Netmagic,
along with others, Rs 50
crore will come as an up-
front payment followed by
Rs 75 crore in the next one
year.
While the remaining will
come as staggered payments
in 15 years from the effective
date.
Earlier, Sanghi’s resolu-
bill shock
Power firms stare at `3 L crore NPAs as discoms default
New Delhi: As much as Rs 3
lakh crore of investment in
a dozen power plants of the
private sector is at risk of
turning into NPA as states
buying power have not been
making payment for months,
official data and sources
said.
According to data availa-
ble on the PRAAPTI portal
of the Ministry of Power, 12
power generating compa-
nies belonging to firms such
as GMR and Adani Group
and public sector generators
like NTPC have about Rs
41,730 crore outstanding
from state distribution com-
panies (discoms) as of De-
cember 2018.
Dues as on date run into
an estimated Rs 60,000 crore,
half of it being towards in-
dependent power producers
in the power sector.
The Bharatiya Janata
Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh
has the most outstanding
Hind Glass says will repay
`2,500 crore loan by April
Singapore-based investors are pumping in Rs 1,200 crore into the firm
Sumit Moitra
m_sumit@dnaindia.net
Kolkata: In a relief to banks
like State Bank of India
(SBI), debt-ridden glass pack-
aging major, Hindustan Na-
tional Glass and Industries
Ltd (HNGI), has promised its
bankers to repay the com-
plete outstanding amount of
Rs 2,500 crore by April 2019.
A large part of the fund
would be coming from near-
ly Rs 1,200 crore that is being
pumped into the company
by a group of Singapore-
based investors in the Indi-
an arm of global liquor ma-
jor Carlsberg.
The country’s largest glass
bottle maker has given its as-
surance in a statement filed
with the Calcutta High Court
to liquidate its dues by next
month. This would mean
asking the SBI to extend its
deadline which ends on
March 31 by another month.
As per a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) signed
resolution plan
„„The NCLT had in
July 2018, rejected the
resolution plan submitted
by Sanghi and passed
an order to liquidate Jyoti
Structures
„„The company had a
debt of Rs 7,010 crore
tion plan was voted by
62.66% voting shares of the
committee of creditors
(CoC), while members with
23.12% had voted against
and the remaining 14.21%
remained abstained on
March 26 and 27, 2018.
Later, some members of
CoC changed their plans
and, finally, the tally was
reached to 81.31% of the to-
tal votes on April 2, 2018.
However, Sanghi’s resolu-
tion plan was rejected by the
NCLT on the two grounds, a
total period of 270 days as
mandated under IBC had
lapsed by the time the last
voting took place on April 2,
2018, and was approved with
a majority.
Secondly, as on March 26
and 27, 2018, the voting per-
centage was 62.66% which is
less than 75% votes of finan-
cial creditors.
The order was challenged
by Sanghi before the NCLAT,
which had in August last
year stayed the liquidation
process. —PTI
In some cases, the discoms continue to press for renegotiating terms of power purchase agreement
dues of Rs 6,497 crore, fol-
lowed by Maharashtra at Rs
6,179 crore. Other states not
paying power generating
companies on time include
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Tel-
angana, Andhra Pradesh,
Jammu and Kashmir, Ra-
jasthan, Madhya Pradesh
and Punjab.
According to PRAAPTI
2,800cr 2,524
settling
` Total dues according to the
Total dues of the company according
dues
to bankers
by HNGI in August last year
with its secured lenders, it
would be paying off Rs 2,007
crore to all its lenders in the
form of cash and equity
within 90 days from the date
of approval of the compro-
mise settlement by SBI on
behalf of the consortium
lenders. Following this,
HNGI has paid about Rs 500
crore to its bankers.
“Time to make repayment
of the loans have been ex-
tended. In so far as State
Bank is concerned, the time
for repayment stands ex-
tended till March 31. It is
submitted that the petition-
er has been able to arrange a
foreign investor who has
agreed to invest a sum of ap-
proximately Rs.1400 crores,”
the court has said.
M&A deal value
drops 34% to
$1.24 billion in
February
New Delhi: The value of
merger and acquisition
(M&A) deals in February
2019 slumped 34% to $1.24
billion compared to the year-
ago period, according to a
report.
Leading consultancy
Grant Thornton’s report
showed that the number of
M&A transactions last
month rose marginally to 44
last month whereas the
same was at 40 in February
2018.
In February last year, the
total value of M&A transac-
tions had touched $1.9 bil-
lion.
“While February 2019 re-
corded same number of
deals valued and estimated
atover $100 million as wit-
nessed in February 2018, the
high valued deals totalled to
only $0.9 billion compared to
$1.5 billion in February
2018,” it said.
Pankaj Chopda, director,
Grant Thornton India LLP,
said the shortening of the
run-up period to the nation-
al elections will only deepen
the wait and watch approach
in the deal environment in
the short term and much is
expected post the results of
the general elections.
Regarding last month, he
noted that M&A transac-
tions were dominated by
cross-border transactions as
against a mix of cross-bor-
der and merger transactions
in the same period a year
ago.
“The month of February
recorded the highest vol-
umes in seven months, dem-
onstrating the strong urge to
expand outside local terri-
tory surpassing global head-
winds,” he added.
M&A had a great year in
2018 with the total deal value
crossing the $100 billion
mark during the year—PTI
portal, Uttar Pradesh takes
544 days to clear its dues
while Maharashtra takes 580
days.
More than 80% of the out-
standing is accounted for by
India’s most industrialised
states such as Maharashtra
and Tamil Nadu who are the
biggest consumers of elec-
tricity. The top-10 states take
` cr
latest disclosures by the
company
HINDUSTHAN NATIONAL
GLASS & INDUSTRIES
Share price on BSE in `
185
157
160
135
82.3
110
85
60
Jan 1, 18 Mar 22, 19
There is a dispute over
how much HNGI actually
owes its bankers currently.
While the bankers argue
that the total dues add up to
Rs 2,800 crore, HNGI says it
is much lower.
Gold imports lose shine, fall $29.5 billion in Apr-Feb
The country’s gold imports dipped about in value terms during
April-February 2018-19, which is expected to keep a lid on the
current account deficit, according to commerce ministry data
5.5%
Dip in gold imports
to $29.5 billion in
value terms
Trade experts said softening prices of the yellow metal in the world
Olx India aims to deliver ten-fold
growth, to monetise local biz later
New Delhi: Online pre-
owned good seller Olx,
which is backed by over
$20-billion Naspers group,
will start focusing on mone-
tising its India business af-
ter clocking a 10-fold growth,
a top company official has
said.
Also, the online classi-
fieds platform aims to double
its monthly active users to 10
crore from the current 5
crore.
“The focus from investor
and our board is of growing
India business by at least 10
times and then think about
monetisation. If we can de-
liver value to our investor
then money will come as a
byproduct. Putting a cap on
monetisation will limit our
long-term ambition,” said
Olx India country head Su-
shil Kumar.
The company reached
break-even in the financial
year 2018 with profit after tax
of around Rs 15 crore. Olx is
still in the investment mode
and not focussing on profits,
Kumar said.
“At Olx, our focus is not
obtaining positive cash flow
mounting crisis
„„About 12 power
generating companies
have about Rs 41,730
crore outstanding from
discoms
„„Out of the total
outstanding, Adani
Group has to get
`7,433.47 crore, GMR
`1,788.18 crore
„„NTPC has unpaid
bills of Rs 17,187 crore
an average of 562 days for
payments.
Sources said the delay in
payment is posing severe
working capital issues at the
private power plants.
Delay in realisation of re-
ceivables from the state dis-
tribution companies (DIS-
COMs) weakens the ability
of project developers to ser-
Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019 I daily news & analysis
500cr
`
HNGI has already paid
its bankers
As per the latest disclo-
sures, the total indebtedness
of the company controlled
by the Somany family is Rs
2,524 crores.
Following the assurance,
the court has asked the bank-
ers to go soft on the promot-
ers and allow them time to
repay.
In January, investors Yeo
Soon Keong, Pawan Kumar-
Jagetia, Nirmal Madan Sin-
gh and Kanuriya Parliwal
through a special purpose
vehicle (SPV) Lotus One de-
cided to pick up a 34.41%
stake in HNGI.
Additionally, Lotus One
might extend loans of up to
Rs 800 crore into HNGI, in
tranches either directly or
through associates to help
HNGI repay most of the debt.
markets could be the reason for the contraction in imports
scaling up
„„OLX aims to double
its monthly active users
to 10 crore from the
current 5 crore
„„The company had
acquired Aasaanjobs
early this year for an
undisclosed amount
or profits because that limits
our ambition to grow. That
has been the philosophy at
Olx that look at the opportu-
nity and accordingly do in-
vestment. If we find growth
opportunity we will contin-
ue to invest,” he said.
The focus of the company
for the next year is to double
car sales business, see a two-
fold rise in monthly active
vice debt in a timely manner
and leads to exhaustion of
working capital in some
cases, they said adding de-
layed payments risk projects
being termed non-perform-
ing assets (NPAs) under the
Reserve Bank of India’s
(RBI) new classification
rules.
In some cases, the dis-
coms continue to press for
renegotiating terms of the
power purchase agreement
(PPA). This coupled with
non-payment of penalties/
late payment surcharges is
causing financial stress for
such projects, sources said.
Bajaj Group-owned Lalit-
pur Power Generation Com-
pany Ltd reportedly is una-
ble to clear salaries of nearly
3,000 staff because of pend-
ing dues of over Rs 2,185
crore from discoms of Uttar
Pradesh. So acute is the situ-
ation that the company is
unable to maintain requisite
09
Karnataka govt lifts
ban on Ola Cabs
New Delhi: The Karnataka
government on Sunday al-
lowed cab aggregator Ola to
resume its service which
was suspended two days
back for running bike taxis
without permission.
“Ola cabs will run their
business as usual from to-
day. However there is an ur-
gent need for policies to
catch-up with new technolo-
gies & also industries too
should work closer with
Govt to help evolve policies
for innovations,” Karnataka
social welfare minister Pri-
yank Kharge said in a tweet.
The Karnataka transport
department had on Friday
suspended the licence of
taxi aggregator Ola for six
months, saying it was run-
ning bike taxis without per-
mission.
“As Ani Technologies Pvt
Ltd (Ola Cabs), Bangalore,
has violated the Karnataka
On-demand Transport Tech-
nology Aggregators Rules,
2016, and in the backdrop of
the report submitted by the
Deputy Transport Commis-
sioner and senior Regional
Transport Officer, Banga-
lore (South), the aggregator
licence issued to it till June
19, 2021, has been suspended
$31.2bn
Total imports in the
corresponding period
of 2017-18
38.16%
Surge
in gold
imports in
January to
$2.31 billion
users from 5 crore to 10 crore
and grow jobs segment, Ku-
mar noted.
“Olx already has traffic.
Aasaanjobs has the experi-
ence to find jobs for them
(blue collar workers). This is
a very vertical which is being
heavily promoted today. There
is definitely a play in this ver-
tical. Honestly, how we are go-
ing to play in this vertical and
capture it, we don’t know to-
day,” Kumar said.
Olx acquired Aasaanjobs
early this year for an undis-
closed amount. Kumar said
that Olx will first start to
build around its strength to
cater to job segment and
might look at upskilling the
aspirants in blue collar jobs
category. He added that the
platform will continue to fo-
cus on the sale of pre-owned
goods and focus on doubling
business in a category where
it starts getting traction.
“We are number one in
used car sales with 80% mar-
ket share. We can leverage it
further. Our strength is used
goods, we will continue to
focus on that,” Kumar said.
—PTI
coal stocks.
A recent World Bank
study reviewing the power
sector’s performance points
to challenges such as out-
standing payments of gener-
ating companies pending
with discoms.
Sources said 37,823 mega-
watt (MW) capacity in the
private sector, which was
built at an investment of
over Rs 3 lakh crore, is at
risk due to delayed pay-
ments and run the possibil-
ity of being declared NPAs if
timely repayment of bank
debt is not made.
Out of the Rs 41,730 crore
outstanding as on December
2018, Adani Group has to get
Rs 7,433.47 crore and GMR
another Rs 1,788.18 crore.
Sembcorp has an outstand-
ing payment of Rs 1,497.07
crore.
State-owned NTPC has
unpaid bills of Rs 17,187
crore. —PTI
back on
the road
$300mn
Recently invested by Hyundai Mo-
tor Group in Ola Cabs
$5.7bn
Estimated valuation of the ride-
hailing cab aggregatior
for 6 months under the
rules,” the order dated
March 18 had said.
Ola in response to the or-
der had said it is a law-abid-
ing company that has al-
ways worked with the gov-
ernment to develop liveli-
hood, improve mobility, and
enable a new technology
industry. —PTI
10.8%
Drop
in imports at $2.58
billion in February
10.8%
Drop
in imports at $2.58
billion in February
6.3%
Fall in gems and jewel-
lery exports to $28.5 billion during
11 months of current fiscal
22.43% Increase in gold
imports in volume terms to 955.16
tonne in 2017-18
Mitsubishi
sees home ACs
growing in
double digits
New Delhi: Mitsubishi
Electric expects double-digit
growth in the residential
air-conditioner segment
this year as the company
bets on its technology.
The Japanese electrical
equipment manufacturing
firm also expects “a good
share” from the non-metro
markets besides top cities in
the coming season due to
fast adoption of the latest
technology like inverter-
type air conditioners in
those regions.
Mitsubishi expects sales
of residential AC units to go
up as the mercury increas-
es, though extended winter
in the northern region and
cold nights in the southern
region have led to a slower
start in the industry.
“We expect to have dou-
ble-digit growth over the
last year and expect to con-
tinue with the highest mar-
ket share in the premium
segment,” Mitsubishi Elec-
tric India Product group
head VRF, Living Environ-
ment Division Dipu Manuel
said.
However, the company
has not shared its growth
numbers and targeted unit
growth.
Mitsubishi has over 30
stock keeping units in the
residential segment this
season in which it claims
some items to be specifical-
ly designed to cater to the
high ambient conditions in
India.
“We expect the high am-
bient models to sell even in
places where the actual am-
bient conditions are less
than 52 degrees celsius, due
to urban heat effect, short
cycling of air due to lack of
enough space in an outdoor
location,” he added.
According to Manuel,
awareness of technology is
leading to faster adoption of
inverter technology over fix-
speed AC systems although
they are costlier.
The Indian domestic air
conditioner market is ex-
pected to be around five mil-
lion units and over 20 com-
panies are competing in the
space. Most AC sales for
companies come from the
highly energy efficient
5-star ranges. —PTI
 25
Monday
March
2019
Ahmedabad
www.dnaindia.com
FOOTBALL
BALL GAME
Bhajji defends
Chennai pitch
The Chennai track might
be attracting criticism
but Harbhajan Singh
said the wicket was not
unplayable. “It was a dif-
ficult pitch to bat on but
it wasn’t like it was un-
playable. We’re so used
to watching matches on
good wickets where no
one complains when peo-
ple score 170-180. But if it
spins or seams a little,
everyone has a problem,
saying why is this hap-
pening,” he said. “No one
has a problem with why
so many runs are being
made.”
WC as important
as Ashes: Morgan
Eoin Morgan said switch-
ing focus to ODI cricket
had helped raise the bar
of the sport in England
with the team looking at
the Ashes and World Cup
as equally important.
“The two (test and ODI)
teams are building up to
a big summer and you
have guys who are in
both squads that equally
feel the importance of
the Ashes and the World
Cup,” Morgan said.
on the tube
(All Live)
CRICKET
Star Sports: 20:00 IPL: RR
vs KXIP
FOOTBALL
UEFA Euro 2020 Qualifiers
Sony Ten 2: 22:30 Turkey
vs Moldova; 01:15 (Tues)
Montenegro vs England ;
Sony Ten 1: 01:15 (Tues)
France vs Iceland
Sony Ten 2: 19:30 Interna-
tional Friendlies-Azerbaijan
vs Lithuania
TENNIS
Sony ESPN: 20:30 ATP
Miami Open
BASKETBALL
Sony Ten 1: 07:00 NBA: LA
Lakers vs Sacramento
J&K’s Rasikh latest
unknown from MI
Taus Rizvi
r_taus@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Trust Mumbai In-
dians to throw up surprises
every season. Having un-
earthed talents like Jasprit
Bumrah, the Pandya broth-
ers — Hardik and Krunal —
Mayank Markande, among
others, in the past, the fran-
chise has continued its trend
this season.
On Sunday night, they
threw another unheralded
player into the big Indian Pre-
mier League stage when they
fielded Jammu & Kashmir’s
17-year-old pacer Rasikh
Salam Dar in their opener
against Delhi Capitals.
Dar’s rise has been mete-
oric. It was during the U-19
Cooch Behar tournament last
year that the Mumbai Indi-
ans talent scout spotted him.
In the same season, he made
his List A — Vijay Hazare
Trophy — debut for the state
followed by Ranji Trophy and
Syed Mushtaq Ali.
Dar became the second
player from Jammu & Kash-
mir after Parvez Rasool to
play in the cash-rish Indian
Premier League. At 17 years
and 353 days, he also became
Mumbai Indians’ youngest
player to make debut.
Last season, Manzoor Dar
was picked by the Kings XI
Punjab in the auction but did
not play a single game.
For the baby-faced Dar, it
must have been a dream
come true having received
the cap from legendary India
pacer Zaheer Khan, who is
the director of cricket opera-
tions for Mumbai Indians.
Hailing from a small vil-
lage called Ashmuji in Kul-
gam district in South Kash-
mir, the youngster did not
feel out of place with the way
he bowled in the first major
game of his nascent career.
He swung the ball both
Cricket Durham insists shamed
Australia batsman Cameron Bancroft is “the
best available option” to captain the English
county despite widespread surprise
Brazil are held to a 1-1 draw by determined Panama in an international friendly in Porto
Loss for Mumbai, Capital gain for Pant
Youngster puts poor Australia series behind him, repays Delhi Capitals’ faith in him with match-winning 78* against Mumbai Indians
Match No. 3
Taus Rizvi
r_taus@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Delhi Capitals are
two wickets down for 29 in
3.4 overs. One expects
Rishabh Pant to walk down
the staircase of the iconic
Wankhede Stadium after
captain Shreyas Iyer is dis-
missed, thanks to a brilliant
one-handed diving catch by
Mumbai Indians’ Kieron
Pollard off Mitchel Mc-
Clenaghan.
Instead, Colin Ingram
walks in. New Zealand re-
cruit Ingram’s entry to the
scene is not a surprise,
though. Yet, it begged the
question, why not Pant?
Does the captain lack
faith in his ability to bat long
and deep, especially after his
poor batting show in the last
two ODIs for India against
Australia earlier this
month? Or is the man him-
self struggling with confi-
dence to bat at a crucial
juncture? Don’t forget, it is
the No. 4 spot where a va-
cancy in the World Cup-
bound India squad is still
open and Pant is one of the
contenders for it.
While these and many
thoughts might have flashed
one’s mind but for Pant, it
was business as usual in the
12th edition of the Indian
Premier League.
The 21-year-old proved
that past matters little to
him and that his job is to
punish the leather and hit
the ball as hard as he can.
The result? Once again,
Pant emerged the star per-
former for his team Delhi
Capitals as his devastating
27-ball 78 – comprising seven
Rasikh Salam Dar in his IPL debut
on Sunday —Salman Ansari/DNA
KNOW RASIKH
Full name: Rasikh Salam Dar
Born: April 5, 2001
n Hails from a small village
called Ashmuji in Kulgam
district of South Kashmir
n Was spotted my MI scout
team during U-19 Cooch
Behar tournament in 2018
before being brought in the
auction for Rs 20 lakh
ways by making good use of
the sea breeze at the
Wankhede, hardly giving the
Delhi top order room to open
their arms.
While his wickets column
remained empty, captain Ro-
hit Sharma will be happy that
the pacer delivered in terms
of giving just two boundaries
in his first three overs when
his colleagues were being hit
all around the park. However,
he was taken to the cleaners
by the dangerous Rishabh
Pant in his final over to finish
with figures of 4-0-42-0.
TENNIS
from Miami Open with a left knee injury, making
it the second consecutive WTA event in which
she has retired after falling ill at Indian Wells
Jasprit Bumrah in pain after injuring his shoulder in Mumbai on Sunday.
It is learnt that the India fast bowler is fine —Salman Ansari/DNA
n zone
18
No. of balls Rishabh
Pant took to get to his
half-century, the fewest
by any player against
Mumbai Indians
sixes and as many fours – got
his team an easy 37-run vic-
tory over hosts Mumbai In-
dians in their IPL opener at
the Wankhede Stadium here
on Sunday.
Chasing a steep target of
214 was always a difficult
ask for hosts Mumbai, espe-
cially after their captain Ro-
hit Sharma faltered follow-
ing a good start.
There were cameos from
Keiron Pollard (21) and
Krunal Pandya (32), but it
was down to one man and
their new recruit Yuvraj
Singh (53) who kept the hopes
alive till the 18th over after
the two were dismissed. Once
Kagiso Rabada sent Yuvraj
back, the total was out of
reach and the hosts were re-
stricted to 176/9 in 20 overs.
MI pacer Jasprit Bumrah
did not come out to bat after
he suffered a shoulder inju-
ry in the first innings.
Earlier, after winning the
toss , MI captain Rohit put
Delhi in to bat. The visitors
lost two early wickets till In-
gram and a scratchy Shi-
khar Dhawan steadied the
ship with an 83-run partner-
ship for the third wicket.
With Ingram out and Del-
Dhoni, Kohli
unhappy with
Chennai pitch
Chennai: The IPL 2019 open-
er turned out to be a low-scor-
ing contest and rival captains
Mahendra Singh Dhoni and
Virat Kohli expressed their
dissatisfaction over the slow-
ness of the Chepauk track.
Royal Challengers Banga-
lore were all out for 70 in 17.1
overs, a target that Chennai
Super Kings huffed and
puffed to in 17.4 overs after
losing three wickets.
Despite finishing on the
winning side, Dhoni made it
clear that he would expect
better wickets in the upcom-
ing games.
“I never expected the wick-
et to play how it actually
played. It was too slow. We
were really surprised by how
slow the wicket was. It re-
minded me of a Champions
League wicket in 2011 after
we won the IPL.
“The wicket definitely
needs to be much better, even
with dew it was spinning
big,” Dhoni said
Kohli, who is also the In-
dian captain, said: “The wick-
et looked much better than it
played. No one thought the
wicket’s going to play the way
it played. We thought some-
where around 140-150 would
be an ideal score because of
the dew factor later on.
“A scrappy sort of start to
the league. That is what you
get when you have a wicket
like that.”
Kohli felt neither teams
enjoyed “that kind of a pitch”.
“I don’t think either of the
team would have enjoyed that
kind of a pitch, especially in
T20 cricket where guys want
to get runs and put the runs
on the board or chase scores
down,” he added.
Dhoni said any genuine
spinner will do well on this
track. “The wicket needs to
get much better than where it
is right now. It needs to be
(more) high scoring.” —PTI
Serena Williams has withdrawn
SIXOMETER
0 3 6
hi, at 112/3 in 13 overs, need-
ed a special effort from
someone to take them to a
strong total against a solid
Mumbai batting line-up.
And who better than Pant
for that job. The southpaw
went hammer and tongs, ex-
hibiting his ultra aggressive
skills and unorthodox shots.
Pant’s first four balls
were dots. But once he got
his eye in and understood
the wicket, he went after the
pacers from the next over,
with Ben Cutting being his
first victim.
His maiden boundary
was a walk across the stump
to flick Cutting over fine
leg. And from thereon, there
was no stopping the man.
Hardik Pandya, Bumrah
and the debutant Rasikh
Salam Dar were the victims
of Pant’s assault.
The youngster brought up
his half-century by hitting
Bumrah for a boundary af-
ter flicking him for a stylish
six over backward square
leg boundary.
Mumbai did not have any
answers to Pant’s amazing
batting display. But for the
man himself, it was just an-
other day in the IPL.
Smith’s journey to redemption begins
Match No. 4
Jaipur: Australian batsman
Steve Smith will embark on
a redemption journey when
Rajasthan Royals open their
campaign against Kings XI
Punjab in the 12th edition of
the Indian Premier League
(IPL) here on Monday.
Smith was handed a one-
year ban along with his then
deputy David Warner ex-
actly a year ago for their
roles in the ball-tampering
scandal in South Africa.
Smith was last seen in ac-
tion in a couple of Bangla-
desh Premier League (BPL)
matches late last year before
an elbow injury ruled him
out of the tournament.
The IPL will be the actual
start of his long road to re-
demption and Smith would
be looking to make the most
of it ahead of the World Cup
starting on May 30 in Eng-
land. Smith, though, is yet to
recover fully from his elbow
injury and may take a little
time to get into the groove.
With Smith in their
ranks, the Royals have one
of the best teams this season
led by Ajinkya Rahane and
they would be eager to capi-
talise on the home advan-
tage on Monday.
English all-rounder Ben
Stokes and Jos Buttler are as-
sets to the team but they will
not be available after April 25
as per England and Wales
Cricket Board’s diktat be-
cause of the World Cup, and
Rajasthan would be keen to
win enough matches by then.
Stokes will once again be
the key in both batting and
bowling departments.
The Ravichandran Ash-
win-led Punjab side. mean-
while, would rely heavily on
their openers Chris Gayle
and KL Rahul to provide
them a fiery start.
If the swashbuckling
West Indian opener happens
10
SCOREBOARD
Mumbai Indians vs
Delhi Capitals
Venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Toss: MI, bowl first
Delhi Capitals R B 4/6 SR
P Shaw c de Kock b McClenaghan 7 6 1/0 116.66
S Dhawan c Yadav b HH Pandya 43 36 4/1 119.44
S Iyer c Pollard b McClenaghan 16 10 2/1 160.00
C Ingram c H Pandya b Cutting 47 32 7/1 146.87
R Pant not out 78 27 7/7 288.88
K Paul c de Kock b McClenaghan 3 5 0/0 60.00
A Patel c Salam b Bumrah 4 2 1/0 200.00
R Tewatia not out 9 4 0/1 225.00
Extras (LB2, NB2, W2) 6
Total (6 wkts in 20 Overs) 213 (10.65 rpo)
Fall of wickets: 1-10 (Shaw, 1.3 ov), 2-29 (Iyer, 3.4 ov),
3-112 (Ingram, 12.6 ov), 4-131 (Dhawan, 15.1 ov), 5-157
(Paul, 16.5 ov), 6-165 (Patel, 17.2 ov)
Bowling: R Salam 4-0-42-0 (W1, NB2), M McClenaghan
4-0-40-3, J Bumrah 4-0-40-1, H Pandya 4-0-41-1 (W1), K
Pandya 2-0-21-0, B Cutting 2-0-27-1
Mumbai Indians (Target: 214) R B 4/6 SR
R Sharma c Tewatia b Sharma 14 13 2/0 107.69
Q de Kock c Boult b Sharma 27 16 4/1 168.75
S Yadav run out (Iyer) 2 6 0/0 33.33
Y Singh c Tewatia b Rabada 53 35 5/3 151.42
K Pollard c Tewatia b Paul 21 13 2/1 161.53
H Pandya c & b Patel 0 2 0/0 0.00
K Pandya c Tewatia b Boult 32 15 5/1 213.33
B Cutting c Pant b Rabada 3 4 0/0 75.00
M McClenaghan st Pant b Tewatia 10 8 2/0 125.00
R Salam not out 5 4 0/0 125.00
J Bumrah absent hurt -
Extras (LB2, W7) 9
Total (all out in 19.2 Overs) 176 (9.1 rpo)
Fall of wickets: 1-33 (Sharma, 3.3 ov), 2-37 (Yadav,
5.1 ov), 3-45 (de Kock, 5.5 ov), 4-95 (Pollard, 10.5 ov),
5-95 (Pandya, 11.2 ov), 6-134 (Pandya, 14.6 ov), 7-153
(Cutting, 16.2 ov), 8-170 (Singh, 18.1 ov), 9-176 (Mc-
Clenaghan, 19.2 ov)
Bowling: T Boult 4-0-42-1 (W1), I Sharma 4-0-34-2,
K Rabada 4-0-23-2 (W3), R Tewatia 1.2-0-12-1, K Paul
3-0-21-1 (W2), A Patel 3-0-42-1
RESULT: DC win by 37 runs
We were pretty
much in the
game in the first
10 overs when we were
bowling, but the way
Rishabh batted, you’ve
got to give him credit
Delhi Capitals’ Rishabh Pant hoicks one in the deep against Mumbai Indians on Sunday —Salman Ansari/DNA Rohit Sharma, MI captain
RR VS KXIP
Match No. 4, Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur
Live on Star Sports network, 8pm
battle of the two underdogs
RR: While much of the KXIP: The core of their side
focus will be on Smith, Team is similar to last season,
RR will need their English News and they still lack a qual-
boys Stokes and Buttler to ity all-rounder, although
fire. Their fourth foreigner will be they’ve picked Sam Curran.
Archer, and he might Their four best foreign options
well be their trump could be Gayle, Miller,
card this season. Tye and Mujeeb.
Ben Key Ravichandran
Stokes contest Ashwin
Stokes’s exploits with the bat are well known, and he will have to
set the tone from the onset for RR to go deep this IPL. Ashwin is a
great bowler to the left-handers, and will fancy getting Stokes.
Head to head: Played: 17, RR: 10, KXIP: 6, Tied: 1
Pitch report: Jaipur track is Weather report: Temperature of
not totally flat, and more than 30 degrees C
the spinners will have will make it tough for the
some say in it. players and fans.
Punter Point: Watchability quotient
8
KKR: 4/5, (1-3: Forget it; 4-7: If there is
nothing else to watch; 8 and
SRH: Evens
above: try not to miss it)
Steve Smith, down with an elbow injury, will hope to be fit on Monday —RR
Squads
Rajasthan Royals: Ajinkya Rahane (C), Steve Smith, Ben Stokes,
Won’t be easy for Smith: Ashwin
Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Ashton Turner, Ish Sodhi, Oshane Thomas, Jaipur: Kings XI Punjab his rustiness,” he added.
Liam Livingstone, Sanju Samson, Shubham Ranjane, Stuart Binny, will try to exploit Steve Ashwin himself is
Shreyas Gopal, Sudhesan Midhun, Jaydev Unadkat, Prashant Smith’s rustiness to their struggling to make a come-
Chopra, Mahipal Lomror, Aryaman Birla, Riyan Parag, Dhawal advantage, said skipper back to the Indian ODI side
Kulkarni, Krishnappa Gowtham, Varun Aaron, Shashank Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and is likely to miss the
Manan Vohra, Rahul Tripathi who also reckoned that it World Cup bus with Kul-
Kings XI Punjab: Ravichandran Ashwin (C), Sam Curran, Varun Cha- won’t be an easy comeback deep Yadav, Yuzvendra
karavarthy, Mohammed Shami, Nicholas Pooran, Moises Henriques, journey for the Australian. Chahal and Ravindra Jade-
Hardus Viljoen, Darshan Nalkande, Sarfaraz Khan, Arshdeep Singh, “We all know he is a ja doing a nice job with the
Agnivesh Ayachi, Harpreet Brar, Murugan Ashwin, Chris Gayle, Andrew quality player and must white ball.
Tye, Lokesh Rahul, Ankit Rajpoot, Mandeep Singh, Simran Singh, have worked and prepared Asked if he felt he is still
Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, David Miller hard during the break but in reckoning for a spot in
comebacks are not easy,” India’s World Cup squad,
Ashwin said on the eve of he was a tad irritated. “I
to be in his elements, the and Mujeeb Ur Rahman, the match here on Sunday. can’t answer the question.
Kings XI may be able to draw Punjab’s bowling looks pret- “He must have put a lot Selectors have to answer
the first blood. ty strong. of efforts for a comeback that. But as far I am con-
Skipper Ashwin would be The only problem for mentally. I am sure he cerned, I have played two
desperate to prove that he them is the lack of quality would look to perform and World Cups. If I deserve
can still make a difference in all-rounder, although they on the other hand we would and I am selected I would
this format. With Moham- picked up Sam Curran at the look to take advantage of love to play,” he said. —PTI
med Shami, Andrew Tye auctions. —PTI
 sP rt
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
hot on heels
Sindhu No. 1 seed
as Yufei pulls out
Chinese top seeds Chen
Yufei and Shi Yuqi, on
Sunday, pulled out of the
India Open on medical
grounds, taking some
sheen off the $350,000
World Tour Super 500
tournament beginning
on Tuesday. Chen recent-
ly broke a five-year title
draught for China at the
All England Champion-
ship and Shi Yuqi is the
men’s singles defending
champion. With the top
seeds withdrawing, In-
dia’s PV Sindhu will re-
ceive the top billing.
Lillard stars again
in Blazers win
The play of Damian Lil-
lard has been a constant
for Portland. It’s the con-
tributions by his team-
mates that have coincid-
ed with the Trail Blazers’
rise in the standings. Lil-
lard had 28 points, nine
assists and six rebounds
on Saturday as the Trail
Blazers beat the Detroit
Pistons 117-112 for their
third straight win. With
the victory, the Trail
Blazers moved within a
half-game of the third-
place Houston Rockets in
the Western Conference
standings.
1 Hasan in the last over.
2
3 shifted in favour of SRH but
Send in your answers to
sportsdna@gmail.com. Names
of the first 10 winners will be
published tomorrow
Archana bags silver,
Sathiyan loses in SF
Muscat: G Sathiyan had a
very narrow chance of turn-
ing it around but could not
overcome a tough Mattias
Flack of Sweden in the men
singles semi-finals of the
ITTF Challenge Plus Oman
Open on Sunday.
The fourth-seeded Indian
lost 8-11 11-7 9-11 11-9 9-11 11-9
10-12 and settled for bronze.
The top-seeded Swede and
the Indian had the measure of
each other with the two win-
ning alternate games to take
the issue to the decider. But in
the decider, the Swede had the
slight advantage until deuce.
But once he broke Sathiyan to
go up, it was all over for the
Indian as his opponent
wrapped it up with the winner.
The only Indian to survive
so far, Sathiyan had ended
Frenchman Emmanuel Lebes-
son in the quarterfinals 11-9
11-7 11-9 6-11 12-10 after having
dominated the first three
games. But the seventh-seeded
Frenchman showed intentions
of coming back but the Indian
Ramos helps Spain edge Norway
Paris: Sergio Ramos scored a
second-half penalty to help
Spain beat a spirited Norway
2-1 in their opening Euro 2020
qualifier, while teenage strik-
er Moise Kean netted in Ita-
ly’s win over Finland.
Spain were not at their
clinical best in Valencia, but
got their campaign off to a
solid start despite Norway
threatening an upset. The 2010
World Cup winners have been
unpredictable of late, having
been dumped out by Russia in
the last 16 of the World Cup
and then missing out on the
Nations League finals after a
home loss to England.
“The team responded well
to their equaliser. You always
have the dream and aim of
achieving something impor-
tant,” Ramos told a Spanish
television channel. “We’re in
a new stage with a coach who
has a fantastic style of play.
We’ll take things game by
game. We’ll pick up more con-
fidence from winning.”
Russell’s roar silences Warner’s return
Jamaican’s 19-ball 49* takes KKR to dramatic win over SRH despite Aussie’s 85 in comeback IPL game post ball-tampering ban
Match No. 2
Kolkata: Andre Russell
smashed an explosive 19-ball
unbeaten 49 to spoil David
Warner’s scintillating IPL
comeback as Kolkata Knight
Riders pulled off a dramatic
six-wicket win over Sunrisers
Hyderabad here on Sunday.
Needing 53 runs off the
last three overs, the powerful
Jamaican changed the course
of the match with his big-
hitting against Siddharth
Kaul, taking 19 runs from
that over.
He retained the strike by
taking a smart single and
continued his assault on Bhu-
vneshwar Kumar, who too
bled 19 runs in the penulti-
mate over as KKR sealed the
182-run chase with two balls
to spare.
Russell hammered four
sixes and an equal number of
fours in a run sequence that
read 6-6-1-4-1-4-6-4-0-6-1. Young-
ster Shubman Gill (18 not out)
completed the formalities
with two sixes off Shakib Al
Promoted to open with
Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana
made full use of the opportu-
nity and kept the hosts in the
hunt with a 47-ball 68. But he
departed shortly after a
12-minute interruption
caused by tower lights failure.
The momentum slowly
Russell changed the complex-
ion of the match in a manner
of minutes.
Earlier, Warner made a
tremendous comeback from a
one-year ban with a scintil-
lating 85, helping his side
reach a challenging 181/3.
Putting behind last year’s
ball-tampering scandal, for
which he was banned by
Cricket Australia for a year,
the Aussie smashed three
sixes and nine fours in his 53-
ball knock.
India’s World Cup proba-
ble Vijay Shankar also made
a fine return to the Orange
G Sathiyan
arrested any such possibility
winning the fifth game.
Another Indian to go down
in the round of 16 was A
Sharath Kamal, who lost 1-4
to Croat Pucar Tamislov.
It was disappointing for
India in women singles as
both Madhurika Patkar and
Riti Shankar lost in the first
round of the main draw.
Archana Kamath’s excel-
lent run at the ITTF Challenge
Oman Open ended by losing
the Under-21 women singles
final 7-11 8-11 6-11 to top-seed-
ed Japanese Satsuki Odo on
Saturday evening. —PTI
Spain’s Sergio Ramos (C) challenges Norway goalkeeper Rune Jarstein (L)
in the Euro 2020 Group F qualifying match in Valencia on Saturday —AFP
Coach Luis Enrique named
an attacking line-up with Mar-
co Asensio, Alvaro Morata and
Rodrigo all starting, and it was
the latter who volleyed home
the opener from Jordi Alba’s
cross in the 16th minute.
Winger Jesus Navas cre-
ated several other early
chances for his teammates on
SRH’s David Warner (L) during his knock of 85 against KKR in Kolkata on Sunday. (Right) KKR’s Andre Russell in an aggressive mood during his match-winning knock at Eden Gardens —PTI/AFP
n zone
53
No. of runs Kolkata
Knight Riders scored in
the last 3 overs of the
run chase, the maxi-
mum any team has scored to win in
the last 3 overs in the IPL
Army with a quick-fire un-
beaten 24-ball 40 following
Warner’s exit in the 16th over.
Fellow opener Jonny
Bairstow complemented
Warner well by giving him
the maximum strike as the
duo raced to the 100-mark in
10.5 overs in their massive
118-run opening partnership.
Having opted to bowl, the
otherwise disciplined KKR
attack looked clueless against
the rampaging Warner who
was let off twice while on
scores of 21 and 68 by Robin
India concede late goal, held by Korea
SULTAN Azlan shah CUP
Ipoh (Malaysia): India’s per-
ennial problem of conceding
goals at the fag end of a match
hurt them again as Korea
equalised in the final minute
for a 1-1 draw in the Sultan
Azlan Shah Cup hockey tour-
nament here on Sunday.
India took the lead in the
28th minute through Mandeep
Singh and looked set to earn
their second consecutive win
of the six-team tournament,
but a defensive error led to
Jonghyun Jang scoring from
a penalty corner just 22 sec-
onds from the final hooter.
The match was stopped in
the fourth quarter due to
heavy rains with around eight
minutes left in the match. In-
dia made an attacking start
with midfielder Vivek Sagar
Prasad creating space inside
the striking circle within the
first minute but the Korean
defenders held strong.
The Koreans immediately
launched a counter attack,
entering India’s circle, but
defender Surender Kumar
his first Spain appearance
since March 2014, but Rodri-
go headed over and Morata
was denied.
Norway started to grow
into the game and were hand-
ed a chance to draw level in
the 65th minute when Inigo
Martinez grabbed Bjorn
Johnsen, and Bournemouth
762
No. of runs David
Warner has scored
against KKR in
20 IPL matches,
the most against this team. Rohit
Sharma is 2nd — 757 runs in 23 ties
Uthappa and skipper Dinesh
Karthik, respectively.
Karthik’s captaincy was
defensive and he lost the re-
view to Warner early in the
second over, while SRH made
full use of the DRS by over-
turning a decision against
Bairstow.
There was no looking back
for Warner who batted as if
he was never out of action
and pierced the gaps at ease
with successive boundaries
against Piyush Chawla and
Sunil Narine to unsettle the
Mandeep Singh (L) tries to move past a Korean defender in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup on Sunday —HI
tackled well to clear the ball.
India got two more scoring
opportunities but failed to
convert them. A quick-think-
ing Mandeep Singh gave In-
dia their first penalty corner
in the 10th minute with a
striker Joshua King stepped
up to slot past David de Gea.
Spain wasted little time in
getting their noses back in
front, though, as Jarstein
felled Morata to concede a
71st-minute penalty. Centre-
back Ramos stepped up and
confidently dispatched a
‘Panenka’ spot-kick down the
middle for his 16th goal of sea-
son for club and country. —AFP
Stopwatch: Wales 1 (James 5) bt
Slovakia 0, Kazakhstan 0 lost to Rus-
sia 4 (Cheryshev 19, 45+2, Dzyuba
52, Beysebekov 62-og) Georgia
0 lost to Switzerland 2 (Zuber 57,
Zakaria 80), Gibraltar 0 lost to
Republic of Ireland 1 (Hendrick 49),
Malta 2 (Nwoko 13, Borg 77-pen)
bt Faroe Islands 1 (Thomsen 90+8),
Sweden 2 (Quaison 33, Claesson
40) bt Romania 1 (Keseru 58), Spain
2 (Rodrigo 16, Ramos 71-pen) bt
Norway 1 (King 65-pen), Bosnia and
Herzegovina 2 (Krunic 33, Milosevic
80) bt Armenia 1 (Mkhitaryan 90+3-
pen), Italy 2 (Barella 7, Kean 74) bt
Finland 0, Liechtenstein 0 lost to
Greece 2 (Fortounis 45+1, Donis 80)
David Warner
85
runs
53
balls
9
fours
3
sixes
160.37
strike rate
Andre Russell
49*
runs
19
balls
4
fours
4
sixes
257.89
strike rate
Most 50+ scores
40 David Warner
38 Virat Kohli
36 Gautam Gambhir/ Suresh Raina
35 Rohit Sharma
32 Shikhar Dhawan
otherwise disciplined KKR
spinners.
Warner brought his fifty
with a six against Andre Rus-
sell and then went on to
smack India frontline spin-
ner Kuldeep Yadav for his
second six.
Such was the Warner as-
sault that four of the regular
KKR bowlers including the
frontline spin duo of Sunil
Narine (0/29 in three overs)
and Kuldeep (0/18 in 2 overs)
did not even bowl their full
quota of four overs. —PTI
good tackle in the baseline.
The opportunity was, how-
ever, wasted due to poor exe-
cution as both sides could not
score in the first quarter.
India won their second
penalty corner in the initial
Su-Wei avenges Australian
Open loss, stuns Osaka in Rd 3
Miami: Naomi Osaka
crashed out of the third
round of the WTA and ATP
Miami Open on Saturday as
Hsieh Su-Wei exacted re-
venge for a painful Australi-
an Open defeat with a 4-6
7-6(4) 6-3 victory.
World No. 1 Osaka had
looked in little danger after
winning the first set and
moving a break ahead in the
second. But Taiwan’s Hsieh,
who was a set and 4-1 up in
Melbourne earlier this year
before losing to the Japanese
star in the third round, bat-
tled superbly.
“This was a very emotion-
al win for me,” said Hsieh,
whose 39 winners were one
less than her opponent. “Any
time you beat one of the top
players it is amazing.”
It wasn’t the only shocker
of the day, as Spanish veteran
David Ferrer rallied to beat
Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019 I daily news & analysis
Rana blames power outage,
says he could’ve won it for KKR
Kolkata: KKR ’ opening IPL
fixture against SRH on Sun-
day was halted for 12 minutes
after one of the floodlights
tripped due to a short circuit
and home side batsman Nit-
ish Rana blamed his dismiss-
al on the power outage.
The incident happened at
7.18 pm when SRH’s Rashid
Khan was about to bowl his
third delivery of the 16th
over to Nitish Rana, who was
on 68 then.
“I didn’t know this could
happen. My gameplan sud-
denly got interrupted. I lost
my momentum when I came
minutes of the second quar-
ter but the drag-flick was
saved by the Korean goalkeep-
er. The following minutes saw
Korea execute the full-press
to limit India’s circle entries.
Though the tactic was good,
world No. 3 Alexander Zverev
2-6 7-5 6-3 to reach the third
round.
Ferrer, 36 and ranked
155th in the world, received a
wild card into the tourna-
ment as he continues a lim-
ited schedule in a 2019 billed
as his farewell tour.
Zverev, runner-up to John
11
Russell took the game away from us: Rashid
Kolkata: SRH leg-spinner Rashid Khan said his bowlers could not
have done much against the rampaging Andre Russell. “Russell played
a great knock. He took the game away from us. He played all the shots,
the bowlers did not bowl bad deliveries but he just smashed them,”
Khan said. “It’s just the start of the tournament. We did really well in our
department. We just couldn’t finish well in the last three overs and that
happens in T20 cricket. Hopefully we will try and not repeat the same
mistakes and go back stronger and play well at home next.” —PTI
to the dressing room. The at-
mosphere also became a bit
relaxed. I got into the shell
because of the break. I could
have finished the match if
the break was not there,”
they lost three players (Kim
Hyeongjin, Jihun Yang and
Lee Namyong) to green cards
that reduced their strength to
eight players. The situation
was capitalised by India as
they found easy gaps to make
circle entry and the experi-
enced Mandeep Singh struck
the first goal in the 28th.
India relied on strong de-
fence with precise marking
and constantly pushed the
Korean defence to make for-
ays into the striking circle.
With a little over eight
minutes remaining for the fi-
nal hooter, the game was
stopped due to rain. When
play resumed, Korea put up
an attacking front to win
back-to-back penalty corners,
but did not get any success.
With 53 seconds remaining,
Korea won another penalty
corner, but Jonghyun Jang’s
drag-flick was brilliantly
saved by India’s PR Sreejesh.
A referral by Korea saw them
being awarded another pen-
alty corner and this time, Jang
was on target to level the
scores and snatch a draw. —PTI
(Right) Su-Wei Hshieh (R) of Chinese
Taipei celebrates with coach Paul
McNamee after defeating Naomi
Osaka of Japan (left) in Miami on
Saturday —AFP/ USA TODAY Sports
Isner here last year, coughed
up 12 double faults as he suf-
fered his second straight
early exit in succession after
a third-round departure at
Indian Wells.
Elsewhere, Roger Federer
survived a scare but battled
back from a set down to beat
Radu Albot 4-6 7-5 6-3. —AFP
SCOREBOARD
Kolkata Knight Riders
vs Sunrisers Hyderabad
Match No. 2, Eden Gardens, Kolkata
Toss: KKR, bowl first
Sunrisers Hyderabad R B 4s/6s SR
D Warner c Uthappa b Russell 85 53 9/3 160.37
J Bairstow b Chawla 39 35 3/1 111.42
V Shankar (not out) 40 24 2/2 166.66
Y Pathan b Russell 1 4 0/0 25.00
M Pandey (not out) 8 5 1/0 160.00
Extras (B1, LB4, W2, NB1) 8
Total (for 3 wkts, 20 ov) 181 (9.05 runs per over)
Fall of wickets: 1-118 (Bairstow, 12.5 ov), 2-144
(Warner, 15.6 ov), 3-152 (Pathan, 17.3 ov)
Bowling: M Prasidh Krishna 4-0-31-0 (W2, NB1), P
Chawla 3-0-23-1, L Ferguson 4-0-34-0, S Narine 3-0-29-
0, K Yadav 2-0-18-0, A Russell 3-0-32-2, N Rana 1-0-9-0
Kolkata Knight Riders (tgt: 182) R B 4s/6s SR
C Lynn c Khan b Hasan 7 11 0/1 63.63
N Rana lbw b Khan 68 47 8/3 144.68
R Uthappa b Kaul 35 27 3/1 129.62
D Karthik c Kumar b Sharma 2 4 0/0 50.00
A Russell (not out) 49 19 4/4 257.89
S Gill (not out) 18 10 0/2 180.00
Extras (LB1, W3) 4
Total (for 4 wkts, 19.4 ov) 183
Fall of wickets: 1-7 (Lynn, 1.6 ov), 2-87 (Uthappa, 11.4
ov), 3-95 (Karthik, 12.4 ov), 4-118 (Rana, 15.3 ov)
Bowling: B Kumar 4-0-37-0, S Al Hasan 3.4-0-42-1
(W1), S Sharma 4-0-42-1 (W2), S Kaul 4-0-35-1, R
Khan 4-0-26-1
Result: KKR win by 6 wickets
Man of the match: Andre Russell
Rana said post match.
CAB joint-secretary Av-
ishek Dalmiya termed the in-
cident an “eventuality”. “It’s
not a glitch actually. It was an
eventuality,” he said. —PTI
Women’s
football team
better than
men’s: Chhetri
Sunil Chhetri
New Delhi: The world rank-
ing says so and India football
captain Sunil Chhetri too has
no qualms in conceding that
the national women’s team is
better than the men’s side.
The men’s team is cur-
rently ranked 103rd out of 211
countries. It was in the top-
100 last year. The women’s
side is currently at 62nd out
of 152 nations.
Chhetri, the poster boy of
Indian football with second
most goals among active in-
ternational players, praised
the national women’s team
for its fifth consecutive SAFF
title win.
“Extremely proud of all of
you. I have always main-
tained that the women’s team
is much better than the men,”
Chhetri said.
“Go there, and give your
best in Myanmar. I have been
keeping a track of all of you
playing. Keep up the good
work,” Chhetri said.
The women’s team will
feature in the round 2 of the
Olympic qualifiers which
which kick off in Mandalay,
Myanmar, from April 3. India
have been clubbed with hosts
Myanmar, Nepal and Indone-
sia.
All India Football Federa-
tion (AIFF) president Praful
Patel also congratulated the
women’s side on its success.
“Congratulations to our
women’s football team for
winning the SAFF Champi-
onship. You have once again
proved that you are the true
champions. Keep up the good
work and add many feathers
of success to your crown.
Best wishes,” he said. —PTI
25
Monday
March
2019
Ahmedabad

After
www.dnaindia.com

Tusshar ensures that his schedules are planned in a way that he gets enough time
Tusshar, Laksshya with his son, Laksshya Kapoor. The doting dad has taken off to Dubai for a short trip
with his tiny tot. Says a source, “Laksshya got a 10-day break from his playschool.
holiday in Dubai When Tusshar realised there was no school from March 15-25 for his son, they
zoomed off for a holiday.” Explains his absence from his family’s Holi celebrations!

Chhapaak: A story of Katrina shoots

for film and ad
valour and undying saath-saath
human spirit! K
Harshada Rege

atrina Kaif is making the

endorsement, but since she still
had to wrap up her work for the
Salman Khan-starrer, a set has

E
ver since it was an-
nounced that Deepika
Padukone and Meghna
Gulzar were joining
hands for their next, titled
Chhapaak, there has been a
lot of anticipation among
film buffs. Audiences are
curious to see the collabora-
tive effort between the power-
house performer and talented
filmmaker.
most of the schedule of
Bharat, which is underway
at Filmcity, Mumbai. A
brand that she represents had
planned a shoot in Delhi, but
looking at her date diary, they de-
cided to alter the plan. Says a
source, “Katrina is currently
filming Bharat’s patchwork
there. She was supposed to fly to
Katrina Kaif the capital to shoot for an
been created in Filmcity, so that
she can allocate time for the
brand as well.”
This means that the Thugs
Of Hindostan actress is
shooting for the film and the ad
simultaneously. On the personal
front, Kat recently gifted herself
a car to celebrate the good
reviews that she received for her
performance in Zero.

Flip turns your world

Chhapaak is about the
indomitable human spirit.
The celebrated actor, who is
known for her choice of roles,
will be seen as Malti. Here’s

upside down
presenting the first look of
Deepika from the film.
Chhapaak is about determi-
nation and the undying
human spirit of not giving
up despite adversities
at every step. The movie is
close to the actress’ heart as
it marks her foray into
The thriller drama Has premiered exclusively on Eros Now

I
production under her banner
KA Entertainment. t is natural that one’s
Meghna, who has directed attitude influences our
true-life stories such as understanding of them,
Talvar (2015) and Raazi (2018) but there could be
with authentic grit, will be several reasons or
helming Chhapaak. Over the instances that drives them
last six months, the actress and to behave differently. Eros
filmmaker have had various Now, which is known for
look tests, readings and have presenting clutter-break-
been busy with the casting. ing stories, presents yet
Deepika gave her nod to the another fascinating
film instantly when Meghna original series titled Flip.
approached her with the The thriller drama com-
subject. The shoot of the film prises four short movies —
begins today in New Delhi. Bully, The Hunt, Massage
Chhapaak, produced by and Happy Birthday, out
Fox Star Studios, Deepika of which filmmaker Bejoy
Padukone’s KA Entertainment Nambiar has directed the
and Meghna Gulzar’s Mriga first three while Aman
Films, is all set to hit the Sachdeva has helmed the
theatres on January 10, 2020. last one. Each of these
stories has thrilling
turning points that will
Deepika Padukone, keep audiences glued to
their screens.
who is known for It highlights one or
her choice of roles, many moments in the lives
of the main protagonists
will be seen as that have them flip. There-
Malti in this fore, they become stran-
gers to themselves and ex-
Meghna Gulzar ceed expectations in good
Deepika Padukone
in Chhapaak directorial and bad ways.
While Ranvir Shorey
plays the lead in Bully,
Jim Sarbh is all set to
impress his fans with a

Vaani Kapoor trains in

stellar performance in
Heard this?
Massage. The Hunt
Saif and Ali’s features Sheetal Menon in
film on the lines a pivotal role and Happy
Birthday stars talented
of Ghostbusters?

Kathak for Shamshera

Buzz is that Bhoot Police,
which is touted to be a
horror comedy, is on the
lines of the Hollywood
actor Arjun Mathur. These
short movies, ranging
between 25 to 45 minutes,
transport spectators to a

A
fter wrapping up
her next film
Hrithik vs Tiger
(tentative title)
in which she is paired
opposite the Kaabil
actor, Vaani Kapoor has
started shooting for
Shamshera. She will
share screen space with
Ranbir Kapoor in the
dacoit drama. Vaani will
be seen playing a
desirable and
sought-after travel-
ling performer from the
heartland of India.
The actress proved
hit Ghostbusters (1984).
The movie is about four
parapsychologists starting a
ghost-catching business in
New York. It was remade in
2016, albeit with a gender
reversal. The original had
four men playing para
enthusiasts whereas the
reboot had four women.
Bhoot Police, we hear, will be
about two brothers hunting
for ghosts. Saif Ali Khan
and Ali Fazal are tipped to
play brothers who will go
searching for the bhoots!
new world and entertain
them with interesting
concepts. Flip released
exclusively on Eros Now
on March 23, 2019.
Commenting on it,
Ridhima Lulla, Chief
Content Officer, Eros
Group said, “Flip is a
unique original series that
deals with people and
their unspoken insecuri-
ties. The unexpected situa-
tions that unfold with
each story will keep the
audience in suspense.”
Bejoy Nambiar, who is
The poster of Flip
worldwide audience base
Flip is a unique original series that of Eros Now. All the
deals with people and their unspoken four short movies are
extremely different from
insecurities. The unexpected situations that one another, but the basic
unfold with each story will keep the theme of the drama-
audience in suspense thriller is constant. I am
sure audiences will be
Riddhima Lulla, Chief Content officer, Eros Group hooked on to their screens
and watch all the stories
at one go.”
the producer-director the idea of exploring new
of the anthology, adds, stories and I am glad to Watch Flip exclusively
“Viewers today are open to offer Flip to the massive, on Eros Now!

‘Deepika and Priyanka

that she is a great
dancer in Befikre, but
for this Karan Malhotra
directorial, she has to

are grace personified’

push her limits. Says a
source, “Vaani needs to
be proficient in several
classical dancing styles
to be able to pull off the

Newcomer Pranutan Bahl believes their personalities add to their roles

choreography. She has
been learning Kathak
for the past few months
to hone her dancing Deepali Singh unfazed. “I believe every actor, but she has these

skills further. In fact,
she has been practising
for hours every day to
perfect her moves and
body postures.”
Vaani says, “Since
Shamshera is set in a
particular time, the
dance sequences require
me to have a classical
body language. I started
taking Kathak lessons to
learn the nuances and
imbibe the grace. Karan
wanted me to adapt to a
more traditional Indian
dance form and break
away from the western
Vaani Kapoor style to do justice to the
choreography.”
A
actor is unique and brings other qualities too that her
t the trailer certain inherent qualities role required. As Kashibai
launch of to the table. Today, if a in Bajirao Mastani,
Notebook, filmmaker wants to cast Priyanka Chopra Jonas
co-producer me, he will do that because brought so much grace and
Salman Khan had I bring something unique dignity to the role. That’s
praised newcomer to the table which someone because those qualities are
Pranutan Bahl’s else cannot and vice versa. inherent to her personali-
dialogue delivery And if there is a role that a ty.” For Pranutan, it’s
and screen presence. And filmmaker can cast anyone important that she fulfills
even when we met Nutan’s for, then that would not the director’s vision. “You
granddaughter, the excite me. So, I don’t believe want to do quality work.
debutante charmed us with in the quintessential Even for Notebook, the
her confidence. When we competition,” she said. makers auditioned more
mentioned that she is sure Elaborating on the same, than 80 girls. So, if they see
to face stiff competition she asked, “Can you see potential in you, and the
from the likes of Janhvi anyone else other than nuances that fit Firdaus
Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan Deepika Padukone in (my character in the film),
Pranutan Bahl Priyanka Chopra Jonas among others, she seemed Padmaavat? She is a great that’s exciting for me.”

Disclaimer: Note to reader: Some of the content/coverage that appear in our special ‘feature’ page/s may be paid for by the concerned brands. Such page/s will be appropriately declared as ‘features pages’ (e.g. reader engagement feature, etc.)
 After
Etc daily news & analysis
Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019
13
Sonakshi’s got a
bigger role than Pari ...in Ajay Devgn starrer Bhuj: The Pride Of India

L
ast week, a big announcement
was made when the makers of
Bhuj: The Pride of India re-

00
vealed their star cast. Toplined

,0
by Ajay Devgn, who plays the lead

1
role, the period saga revolves
around a true story and features
prominent faces like Sonakshi
Sinha, Parineeti Chopra, Sanjay Varun Dhawan
Dutt, Rana Daggubati and Ammy

back-up dancers
Virk. Ajay will be seen as Squadron
leader Vijay Karnik, who was in
charge of the Bhuj airport during
the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Sonakshi

for Varun
Sinha will portray the role of a so-
cial worker Sunderben Jetha Mad-
harparya who was instrumental in
motivating other women during the
crisis. Parineeti plays an Indian

V
spy named Heena Rehman. We
have heard that even though the arun Dhawan recently media at the launch event signed it was grand and the
two female leads have prominent released his song titled and had interesting insights sets were huge. There were at
roles in the project, Sonakshi’s the First Class from to share. Speaking about it, least 1,000 back-up dancers in
one with more screen time. Says a Kalank. While the VD said, “This is my biggest it, which again is a first for
source, “Sonakshi is the main her- fast-paced dance track has song till date. It’s a very pep- me.” Right after this, the Oc-
oine in the entire set-up. She has a him and Kiara Advani groov- py dance number and I’m tober actor did a little jig on
Sonakshi Sinha slightly meatier role than Pari in Parineeti Chopra ing to the beats, the actor happy I got to do a song like the same number, while the
Bhuj.” greeted a sea of fans and the this. The way we have de- crowd cheered him on.

pick your brain crossword hidato Baby Blues

Down 19 Held or fixed
1 Roman garments firmly (7)
(5) 20 Couples (5)
2 Large tall swift 21 Dress; make
running bird (7) straight (5)
4 Advance (4) 23 Hayfields - “saw
5 Literary casta- dome” anagram
way (6) ? (7)
6 Complete (5) 24 Poll (6)
7 Corsican mob 25 Golf item (3)
group (5) 27 Leonhard ___,
9 Comforter or Swiss mathema-
quilt (3) tician (5)
12 Founder of 28 You receive them
Servants of India on your birthday The Pajama Dairies
Society in 1905 ? (5)
(7) 30 Titter - “E thee”
14 Any doctrine (3) anagram ? (5)
16 Tartan (5) 32 Common sense
17 Sir Francis (4)
___ : the great 33 Charged atom
explorer ? (5) (3)

Across able (5) (4) 34 Deluge (5)

3 Choose (5) 18 Inquire (3) 23 Dairy product (4) 35 Sound of amaze-
8 Dull (2-3) 19 Neck of shirt (6) 24 Blighted (7) ment (3) The goal of Hidato is to fill the grid
21 An opening in a 26 Marley’s music (6) 36 Basil-based sauce with consecutive numbers that
10 Regal (5)
garment for the 29 Pulse vegetable (3) (5) connect horizontally, vertically, or
11 A cooking fuel (3) diagonally from first to the last
12 Scale (5) arm (7) 31 Cricket great 37 Possessor (5)
22 ___ Lang Syne : Gavaskar (5) 38 Stow away (5) number in the grid. The first and last
13 Entitle (7) numbers of a puzzle and some other Tina’s Grove
15 Savoury or palat- days of long ago ? 32 More in want (7)
numbers are already filled in.

spellathon How good is your vocabulary? Spell out sudoku

as many words of four or more letters
as you can from the letters in today’s To solve a Sudoku
diagram. In making a word, each letter puzzle, every digit
must be used only once and each word must appear once
must contain the letter in the centre. in: Each of the
There should be at least one nine-letter vertical columns;
word! Plurals, foreign words, and Each of the
proper nouns do not qualify. horizontal rows;
Rate yourself Each of the boxes.
20 Average; 22 Good; 24 Wow!

Tinkersons
crossword

veil, vesicle, vice, vile

solutions

sudoku
hidato

slice, slit, stile, televise, tile,

SELECTIVE, sieve, silt, site,
evil, isle, islet, lice, list, live,
cite, civet, elective, elite, evict,
spellathon
tt

Marjorie Orr
Your year ahead will be hard-working, responsible, a time to stick to the straight and narrow if you want to gain the respect of those whose judgement
IF IT’S YOUR you trust. You will have enthusiastic grand plans and but adventurous schemes will need to wait. Your personal finances will be unpredictable, which just
BIRTHDAY TODAY means that you’ll need to save when there’s surplus to cope with emergencies. By the year end, your perseverance will pay off with success coming.

ARIES TAURUS GEMINI CANCER LEO VIRGO

Mar 21 - Apr 20
You will be bouncing around
with more enthusiasm and
than usual. Having been held
back recently by delays, you’ll
now be forging ahead. This is a predictive
kind of Moon for you today. If you can
look into the future and see where life is
taking you, then you can put your energy
out more constructively. You want to see
things in a much broader kind of way, to
take the bird’s eye view rather than being
sunk in trivia.
Apr 21 - May 20
You will be feeling retiring, not
at all pushy. This is your time
in the year to step back, take
stock, recharge your batteries
and let others do the running around.
Though you won’t take your emotional life
lightly today. Intensity is what you crave
and deep passion. You will either be on
people or off them. Push yourself to make
new agreements with close partners where
money matters are concerned. It may take
a compromise but it will be worth it.
May 21 - June 21
At times, you may try to
accommodate others’ needs or
be agreeable to the extent that
you appear not to have strong
opinions of your own. Though there could
also be the odd confrontation through the
day, not because you’re assertive but you
feel a little over-emotional. If you do stir up
a problem, just don’t go too far. You won’t
really want to see it through. You may start
something and at the end of it all wish you
hadn’t bothered.
June 22 - July 23
More ambitious than usual in
the time ahead, you’ll be keen
to be noticed and aiming for a
more prominent position no
matter how much effort it takes. You’ll be
taking the lead and expecting others to
follow behind. But it’s also important to look
after yourself physically with the rather low
energy Moon that is around. Don’t do
anything that is going to put more strain
on your stamina. Just think positively, eat
healthily, and sit down more frequently.
July 24 - August 23
You will want more stimulating
company, more travel if you can
manage it,or some other way of
broadening your horizons. And
you will be much more emotional in the way
you connect to people. Really reaching out
and expecting friendship in return. Just
don’t get too wrapped up in your own
feelings and forget to ask what others are
wanting. You will want to put on a show and
appear important. At home, you will want to
be in charge.
Aug 24 - Sep 23
In an intense and secretive
time, you will be concentrating
on confidential matters, both
financial and emotional. You
certainly won’t want outside distractions
today. Even if you’re on your own for a
short while, it won’t bother you because it
gives you a chance to mull things over from
the recent past, to get your head together
about one or two things and see what you
need to do for yourself. Then you can get
back to pushing for better agreements.

LIBRA SCORPIO SAGITTARIUS CAPRICORN AQUARIUS PISCES

Write to Sept 24 - October 22 Oct 23 - November 22 Nov 23 - Dec 22 Dec 23 - Jan 20 Jan 21 - Feb 19 Feb20 - March 20
Marjorie Togetherness will be the key to You will be knuckling down Your focus for a few days Into a quieter few days, you You will be skipping around a You will be putting extra effort
Orr your happiness at home. At dutifully to do as much as ahead will be on romance, want to step back from your busier routine than usual at the into getting the budget into
work, you’ve got to be clear in possible. But for that you need children, entertainment and recent busy schedule to take moment. There may be less order. You will be determined to
with your
your own mind about the to be fitter, so review your expressing yourself with gusto. stock, and frankly to put your time for depth than you might earn more or manage what you
queries at message you’re trying to get across, since physical lifestyle, see whether you could You will be more dramatic, fun-loving, like since you’ll be pulled in different already have more sensibly. Though your
feet up more regularly. Domestic and family
afterhrs@ you may get scattered in a busy time. You improve your diet, take up more exercise attention seeking than usual. Today, you security is more important to you at the directions, with more correspondence than spending is also likely to shoot up. Your
dnaindia. have too many loose ends flying around or get more rest. You will also want more will probably be one moment outgoing and moment than usual. Though try not to feel usual to handle. You will not want too much feelings will be more on public display than
net your head, too many people to visit. So you stability and security where money and charming, the next moment seeming rather martyred if your efforts for loved ones are togetherness and will prefer to be one of the usual. At work, you will be more scattered
www. could be spreading yourself too thin and possessions are concerned. You won’t be withdrawn. You won’t know what it is you being taken for granted. Give gladly and gang. As far as you are concerned, there is but also more supportive to colleagues.
star4cast. sounding unfocussed. No one will catch keen to deprive yourself, but if you can actually want. This is all rather pleasant, but look after yourself as well in the absence of safety in numbers. Don’t overreact to a Just don’t overreact, hear slights where
com your attention for long but you’ll throw out force yourself to get the budget in order you do need to have more stable, practical anyone else doing it. Your reward will come stray comment since within minutes the none exist. You’ve got to stand steady for
entertaining titbits as you race past. then you can spend with a clear conscience. people around you. in good time. situation will have changed again. other people, be an anchor for them.
 Only two are demanding proof of bravery of our defence
forces, one is Pakistan and the other is the Congress party second
front
and they are fighting elections with corruption management
party. We believe that nationalism needs to be in heart,
merely naming political party as Nationalist doesn’t help
— Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra
page
14 www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia Ahmedabad I Monday, March 25, 2019 I daily news & analysis

PM’s flagship Train18 All India Muslim body

snapshot
‘I am confident
BJP will win
meets to discuss Ayodhya
may bring Tejas to halt
Amethi seat’
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net

Railways Minister Piyush
Goyal —FILE
I am confident that
1 the Bharatiya Janata
Party would win the
Amethi Lok Sabha seat,
which is represented by
Congress President Rahul
Gandhi.
In the past five years,
2 notable work has
been done in every
sector. The Bharatiya Janata
Party will win more seats as
compared to the previous
election results. The Bharati-
ya Janata Party will also win
Amethi — the traditional
seat of the Congress.
He (Rahul) is running
3 away from Uttar
Pradesh (UP). Far
from UP, he is going to
Kerala and will contest the
elections from there. Smriti
Irani will register a massive
win from Amethi.
The Congress party
4 is a political party of
only one family. It is
now involved in saving the
family.
Unlike Rahul Gandhi,
5 Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has
the capability to control ter-
rorism. The Prime Minister
can take tough stands.
6 Our armed forces
have destroyed the
hideouts of terror-
ists. We have hit the root of
terrorism.
Railways is considering the idea due to frequent complaints, production cost
Shashank Rao With regard to speed, both
shashank.rao@gmail.com the Tejas and Vande Bharat
Express have the ability to
With Train18 gaining pace, run between 160-180 kmph.
the Indian Railways is likely The third Tejas Express has
to put an end to the services already been manufactured
of the country’s first semi by one of the production
high-speed train Tejas Ex-
press. At present, the third
units of the Indian Railways.
Although its route has not
Tejas Express is ready to be been decided yet, demands
rolled out in Delhi. However, have poured in to operate it
senior railway officials on the Delhi-Chandigarh
claim that they are contem- route, a source in the Rail-
plating to stop the manufac- ways said.
turing of Tejas Express
trains for the time being. Tejas Express runs on 2 routes — Mumbai to Goa & Chennai to Madurai;
“There is no doubt that
we will be focussing on man-
Train18 or Vande Bharat inset: Train 18 or the Vande Bharat Express ufacturing more Vande
Express is a flagship train Bharat Express (Train18)
introduced under the leader- The second one is more or comotive and have pro-pas- trains. A decision has not
ship of Prime Minister Nar- less ready and shall be out in senger amenities in tune been made yet on discon-
endra Modi. The Railways is April. From the point of with trains operating tinuing the production of
promoting it heavily and has view of design, the coaches abroad. However, the Tejas Tejas Express trains,” a sen-
announced at least 130 of Train18 are sleeker, aero- Express has LHB coaches ior railway official from
Train18s in the coming days. dynamic, work without a lo- that are pulled by an engine. Delhi said.
...and down it goes
India reduces TB deaths in
HIV patients by 84%: UN
India achieved an 84 per
cent reduction in tubercu-
losis deaths among people
living with HIV by 2017,
the highest recorded de-
cline among over 20 na-
tions and three years
ahead of the 2020 deadline,
the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS
(UNAIDS) said.
Ahead of World Tuber-
culosis Day commemorat-
ed on Sunday, UNAIDS is
urging countries to step up
action to meet the 2020 tar-
A view of an overhead water tank that collapsed on Saturday, in Ramgarh area of Samba, Jammu —PTI get of reducing TB deaths
among people living with
HIV by 75 per cent, as out-
lined in the 2016 United
New Delhi: The All India
Muslim Personal Law Board
(AIMPL), on Sunday, held a
closed door meeting of its
working committee in Luc-
know to deliberate on the
Ayodhya issue.
Speaking to DNA, AIMPL
member Syed Qasim Rasool
Ilyas said that around 70 per
cent of AIMPL’s working
committee members attend-
ed the meeting. The meeting
was also attended by repre-
sentatives of the Sunni Cen-
tral Waqf Board. Ilyas, how-
ever, refused to divulge what
was discussed in the meeting.
The Supreme Court on
March 8 referred the Ram
Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid
land dispute case for media-
tion and appointed Justice
(Retd) FMI Kallifulla as
chairperson of the panel of
mediators. Spiritual guru
and founder of Art of Living
Picture for representation
better life
Picture for representation
Sri Sri Ravishankar and sen-
ior advocate Sriram Panchu,
well-known for his experi-
ence in mediation, are the
two other members in the
panel.
Meanwhile, VHP national
spokesperson Vinod Bansal
said mediation could not
fetch any result in the past.
“Talks were held not only
during the tenure of Rajiv
Gandhi but also during the
TB must be a
disease of past.
tenure of Chandra Shekhar
and VP Singh. But each time,
talks have failed,” he said.
“Respecting the Supreme
Court’s decision, we are par-
ticipating in the mediation
and fully cooperating with
the process,” he said.
The apex court, while bar-
ring media to report proceed-
ings, said that “utmost confi-
dentiality” should be ensured
for “success of mediation”.
Breast implant:
FDA takes up
safety debate
Washington: US health offi-
cials are taking another look
at the safety of breast im-
plants, the latest review in a
decades-long debate.
At a two-day meeting that
starts on Monday, a panel of
experts for the US Food and
Drug Administration will
hear from researchers, plas-
tic surgeons, and implant
makers, as well as from wom-
en who believe their ailments
were caused by the implants.
The panel will consider
next steps, but for now, the
FDA isn’t proposing any new
restrictions or warnings. The
agency’s long-standing posi-
tion is that implants are es-
sentially safe as long as wom-

Virtual SIMs used in Pulwama terror attack,

Nations Political Declara-
tion on Ending AIDS.
World Health Organisa-
Ahead of World TB
Day commemorated
on Sunday, UNAIDS is
urging countries to step
Years of en understand they can have
neglecting rights of the complications, including
scarring, pain, swelling and
poor to health, food &

India says might approach US to seek help

Srinagar: A request would
be sent to the US to seek de-
tails from a service provider
of “virtual SIMs”, which
were used by the JeM suicide
bomber behind the Pulwama
attack and his Pakistan and
Kashmir-based handlers, of-
ficials said.
Piecing together probe
from the site of the terror
strike, searches carried out
by the Jammu and Kashmir
Police and central security
agencies at an encounter site
in Tral, as well as other loca-
tions, it was found that the
the audacious attack, Mu-
dassir Khan, was killed in
the encounter in Tral. Forty
CRPF personnel were killed
on February 14 when Dar
rammed his explosive-laden
vehicle into a paramilitary
force bus at Pulwama in
South Kashmir. India retali-
ated after the strike by bomb-
ing the Jaish terror group’s
The site of Pulwama terror attack hideout in Balakot in Paki-
stan.
bomber, Adil Dar, was in con- In the virtual sim technol-
stant touch with the JeM ogy, the computer generates
across the border, they said. a telephone number and the
The main mastermind of user downloads an applica-
tion of the service provider
on their smartphone.
The number is linked to
social networking sites like
WhatsApp, Facebook, Tele-
gram or Twitter. The verifi-
cation code generated by
these networking sites is re-
ceived on the smartphone
and the user is ready.
In case of the Pulwama
terror attack, Dar was in con-
stant touch with the Jaish
handler as well as Mudassir
Khan and was using the
same technology, the officials
said.  —PTI
tion estimates show that,
globally, TB deaths among
people living with HIV
have fallen by 42 per cent
since 2010, from 5,20,000
down to 3,00,000 in 2017.
The estimates show
that, by 2017, five low or
middle-income countries
achieved or exceeded the
target of a 75 per cent re-
duction in TB deaths
among people living with
HIV, three years ahead of
schedule. India achieved
the highest reduction at 84
per cent, followed by Eri-
trea (83 per cent, Djibouti
(78 per cent) and Malawi
(78 per cent).
up action to meet the
2020 target of reducing
TB deaths among
people living with HIV
by 75 per cent
An additional 18 coun-
tries reduced TB deaths
among people living with
HIV by more than 50 per
cent and are on track to
achieve the target by the
end of 2020, provided that
scale-up of services is
maintained. However, the
estimates also show that
most countries are not on
track and that deaths are
rising in some regions and
shelter has let TB grow
Michel Sidib,
UNAIDS Executive Director
countries, UNAIDS said.
“TB should be a disease
of the past. It has been
treatable and preventable
for decades now. Years of
neglecting the rights of
the world’s poor to basic
healthcare, food, and prop-
er shelter have let TB take
hold and allowed resist-
ance to build, UNAIDS Ex-
ecutive Director Michel
Sidib said.  —PTI
implant rupture.
But the FDA and other
regulators around the world
have been grappling with
how to manage a recently
confirmed link to a rare can-
cer and the thousands of un-
confirmed complaints of
other health problems.
In documents released be-
fore the meeting, FDA regula-
tors said it is “impossible” for
them to determine how fre-
quently the cancer — a form
of lymphoma — occurs be-
cause the US does not track
the total number of implants
on the market. Estimates of
the frequency of the disease
range from 1 in 3,000 women
to 1 in 30,000.  —AP

Dhanush guns to be Seaplane operations to be reality in Andamans soon

inducted into Army New Delhi: Seaplane opera-
tions will soon be a reality in
four islands of Andamans
holistic effort
Five Islands — Avis,
has already been declared as
an authorised immigration
check post for entry into or
lands include infrastructure,
tourism, green energy and
skill development.
with the opening of its bid- Long, Little Andaman, exit from India with valid To begin with, five Islands
for representation

The guns are made by Jabalpur-based Gun Carriage Factory
Sumit Kumar Singh
singh.sumit@dnaindia.net
ding process, under an ambi-
tious project to attract more
tourists to the picturesque
archipelago, officials said on
Sunday. Seventeen islands in
Andamans have also been
identified for holistic devel-
opment, that include build-
ing infrastructure, to pro-
mote tourism.
Bidding has been opened
for seaplane operations at
four locations in Andamans,
Swaraj Dweep, Shaheed
Dweep, Hut Bay, and Long Is-
land, under the UDAN Re-
The guns are manufac-
tured by the Jabalpur-based
Picture for representation
gional Connectivity Scheme
of the Centre, a Home Minis-
try official said.
With the civil works com-
pleted at Diglipur airport on
the northern tip of Anda-
mans, air operations by An-
Smith & Ross — have
been identified for the
project. 12 other islands
will be added later.
Holistic development will
include infra, tourism,
green energy, skill dvpt
daman Airways are set to
commence from June 2019.
Additional airfields are being
explored at Car Nicobar,
Campbell Bay, and in Port
Blair, for a second airstrip,
the official said. Port Blair
travel documents for all class-
es of passengers.
Paving the way for “Ease
of Tourism”, as many as 30
islands have been exempted
from the Restricted Area Per-
mit (RAP) regime.
The requirement of man-
datory registration of for-
eigners arriving in the island
within 24 hours of their en-
try has also been done away
with.
The key sectors identified
for the holistic development
of Andaman and Nicobar is-
— Avis, Long, Little Anda-
man, Smith and Ross — have
been identified for the project
FDA recently found a confirmed link
and another 12 islands will be
between implants & a rare cancer
added later.
Improvement of connec- I guess I am
tivity has been given top pri-
ority to promote tourism, the
hoping that what
official said. we have to say will
Four tourism-based pro- prompt discussion on
jects have been developed
under the Public Private
those specific action
Partnership (PPP) model. Re- points
quests for Qualification (RfQ)
have been floated for projects
James Cook,
too.  —PTI One of the patients

New Delhi: Dhanush, the

Gun Carriage Factory (GCF),
each of the artillery guns
GREETING OLD IMAGINATIVE IDEA MAKES POOR AND REMOTE HAMLET EXPERIENCE A REBIRTH OF SORTS

Offbeat art fest puts isolated California town back on map

first indigenous long-range
artillery gun developed dur-
ing the project to upgrade the
scam-ridden but useful Bo-
fors artillery gun, will be in-
ducted into the Indian Army
on March 26. The first batch
of six guns will be deployed
along the China and Pakistan
frontiers, sources in the In-
dian Army said.
By the end of the year, a
complete regiment — com-
prising of 18 guns — will be
in action along the borders
shared with China and Paki-
stan. It is a 155mm x 45mm
calibre artillery gun. In Feb-
ruary end, the Ministry of
Defence, along with the Indi-
an Army approved the bulk
production order of 118 of
these guns for the Ordnance
Factory Board (OFB).
cost around Rs 14.50 crore
and each shell costs Rs 1 lakh.
The Gun Carriage Factory
received the Dhanush project
in October 2011 and the first
prototype was made in 2014. By any stretch of the imagi- three Los Angeles-based poli, 43, who is the son of an
Later, 11 more prototypes nation, Bombay Beach is an
knack for junk friends — Tao Ruspoli, a film- Italian prince and was once
were made from which 4,200 oddity, starting with its exot- The tiny town boasts a maker and artist, Stefan married to actress Olivia
rounds were fired. ic name, its location by a dy- museum, a drive-in movie Ashkenazy, an art collector Wilde.
The guns have passed tests ing lake and the post-apoca- theatre with junkyard and hotelier, and Lily John- “It’s so removed from the
in extreme cold in Sikkim lyptic landscape that greets cars, and an opera house son White, a philanthropist kind of homogeneity that ex-
and Leh and also in hot and visitors. decorated with disused and member of the Johnson ists in the rest of America
humid weather conditions in The desert town, once a flip-flops recovered from & Johnson family. where you have a Denny’s
Balasore, Odisha, and Babina thriving resort set along the the beaches of Lagos, in Ruspoli said he learned and a gas station at every cor-
in Jhansi. It also worked per- Salton Sea, is among the Nigeria about the town about a dec- ner,” he said on a recent tour
fectly in the deserts of poorest communities in Cali- ade ago after he stumbled on of the town.
Pokhran in Rajasthan. fornia, its 250 or so residents a book about the Salton Sea Ruspoli said he plunked
Dhanush has a strike range seemingly forgotten by the cheap property and organis- — the largest lake in Califor- down $20,000 for his first
of 38 kilometre and 81 per rest of the world. ing an annual three-day festi- nia, created in 1905 by an en- house in Bombay Beach in
cent of its components are Most of the homes have An attendee walks near a flaming installation display that reads ‘I Still Love val called the Bombay Beach gineering error and now 2011 — right after his divorce
indigenously sourced; this been abandoned for decades, You’ by the artist Olivia Steele, at the Bombay Beach Biennales —AFP Biennale. shrinking — and was en- from Wilde — and the idea for
will go up to 90 per cent by the their yards filled with beat- Launched in 2016, the fes- thralled after his first visit. the offbeat festival took shape
end of this year. up trailers and rusted cars. encing a rebirth of sorts as a heeled sponsors have taken tival, which is being held this “It’s mystifying and won- on a weekend trip there with
Full report: www.dnaindia.com But the tiny hamlet is experi- group of artists and well- up residence, buying up dirt- weekend, is the brainchild of derful and weird,” said Rus- Ashkenazy and White. —AFP