10

Wednesday
Snap POLL
April
2019 Q. Is Naxal violence a YESTERDAY’S POLL RESULT:
bigger threat Should the Opposition stop
than Pakistan? demanding proof of Balakot
`3.00 Ÿ Pages 14 air strike now?
Yes No Can’t say
AHMEDABAD
www.dnaindia.com Go to our Twitter handle Yes  79%
epaper.dnaindia.com @dna, look for #DNAPoll No 18%
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C’garh Maoists kill ‘The only thing the Congress

does honestly is corruption’
BJP MLA, 4 others PM Modi says I-T raids have exposed who is scared of the ‘chowkidar’
Bhima Mandavi’s DNA Correspondent
trail of violence correspondent@dnaindia.net
convoy ambushed chhattisgarh frequently hit by deadly naxal attacks Mumbai: Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi

in Dantewada two brought up the Income Tax department’s raids at the

days before polls
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: BJP legislator
Bhima Mandavi and four oth-
ers, including three police per-
sonnel, were killed instantly
after Maoists ambushed his
convoy in Dantewada region
of Chhattisgarh on Tuesday.
Mandavi was on the road
while campaigning for the
Lok Sabha elections which
begin on Thursday. The at-
tack on Mandavi took place
just two days before the Mao-
ist-infested Bastar area votes
in the first phase of the polls.
A Central Reserve Police
Force team was dispatched to
the area, as the state’s Chief
Minister Bhupesh Baghel
called for a high-level meeting.
The other four killed are
Head Constables Chagan Kul-
deep and Ramlal Oyemi, Con-
stable Somdu Kawasi and the
driver of the vehicle Dantesh-
war Maurya.
The Maoists had set off a
blast through an improvised
explosive device buried in the
road. “The blast ripped apart
the lawmaker’s bullet-proof
vehicle. The mangled remains
can be seen lying some dis-
tance from a crater in the
road,” said a senior IPS officer.
The five people died in-
stantly. Sources said when
people tried to come out of
office and houses of Congress leaders and aides at a
rally in Latur district in Maharashtra on Tuesday. It
was his first joint rally with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav
Thackeray after they linked arms once more in the
state for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The Prime Minister said crores of black money
in the form of cash was found as a result of the
raids, which was to be used for purchasing votes.
“For last six months, the Congress has been saying
that chowkidar chor hai. But these raids expose
who is the real chor. Who is afraid of chowkidar? It
has been barely six months that the Madhya
Pradesh government has been formed and evidence
of loot of billions of rupees have come to light. The
only thing Congress does honestly is corruption,”
Wreckage of legislator Bhima Mandavi’s convoy he said.
After walking up on stage, the Prime Minister
„„April 4: Four BSF jawans killed, 2 hurt after Naxals held Uddhav’s hand high enough for everyone to see,
struck them with improvised explosive devices in Kanker and referred to him as his “younger brother”. The
two powerhouses were at Ausa in Latur district on
„„Feb 18, 2018: 2 state police personnel killed in Tuesday, along with Maharashtra Chief Minister
gun battle with CPI (Maoist) at Bhejji in Sukma district Devendra Fadnavis and Republican Party leader-
„„April 24, 2017: 26 CRPF killed in clash with Maoists plus-minister Ramdas Athavale.  Turn to P4
in Burkapal-Chintagufa area in south Bastar area
other vehicles in the convoy, region, but he wanted to ad- PM Modi to address 2
rallies in state today
the Maoists, who were hiding dress the people.
nearby, opened fire, after The Maoists, known to es-
which a gunfight followed. calate violence before elec-
Prime Minister Narendra tions, have warned the locals Ahmedabad: Prime minister Narendra Modi
Modi “strongly” condemned not to cast their votes: posters will address two public meetings in Gujarat on PM Narendra Modi with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at a rally in
the attack and added: “The with the message dot the area. Wednesday, his first visit to his home state since support of alliance candidates at Ausa in Latur district—PTI
sacrifices of these martyrs Chhattisgarh’s chief elec- announcement of elections on March 10, while
will not go in vain.” Lauding toral officer held a video con- Congress president Rahul Gandhi is slated to Talking about human Our government
Bhima Mandavi, he said: ference with collectors and visit the state on April 15. Gujarat BJP spokesper- rights doesn’t suit the doesn’t just talk about
“Courageous, he assiduously SPs of districts slated to go to son Bharat Pandya told reporters that Modi will
served the people... His de- polls in phases 1 and 2 and address rallies at Junagadh Agricultural Univer- Congress as you were the teaching lessons. Our only
mise is deeply anguishing.” instructed them to take ut- sity and Songadh in Tapi district. The PM is ex- party which had taken away expectation from PM now
Mandavi had won from most precautions. The polls pected to reach Rajkot at 9:30 am, from where he the Late Balasaheb is that deal Pak such a blow
Dantewada after defeating will be held as per schedule. will travel to Junagadh. “He will address a public Thackeray’s citizenship and that nothing of it remains
Congress’s Devti Karma in meeting at Junagadh at 10:10 am, and then travel
last year’s assembly polls. He inside to Songadh, where he will address a meeting at
right to vote to mess (with India) again
had been asked not to cam- 12:45,” Pandya said.  Report, P2 Narendra Modi, Uddhav Thackeray,
RSS worker killed by terrorists P5
paign in the violence-prone Prime Minister Shiv Sena chief

PIL challenges PUBG No proceeding

against top
Kings trump Knights SC verdict on
Rafale review
ban in Guj high court developer: ED petition today
Nirupam Banerjee DNA Correspondent New Delhi: The Supreme
nirupam.banerjee@dnaindia.net correspondent@dnaindia.net Court will on Wednesday pro-
nounce verdict on the pre-
Ahmedabad: A public inter- Mumbai: More than two liminary objections raised by
est litigation has been filed in years after so-called activists the Centre that the docu-
the Gujarat High Court chal- filed a complaint with a bar- ments on which it was claim-
lenging the ban imposed on rage of baseless allegations, ing “privilege” cannot be re-
Is Alpesh set playing PlayerUnknown’s
Battlegrounds, or PUBG, by
the Enforcement Directorate
has finally given clean chit to
lied upon to re-examine the
verdict in the Rafale fighter

to quit Cong? authorities in several cities

Ahmedabad: In a blow to the
Congress ahead of the Lok
Sabha elections, Alpesh Tha-
kor its MLA from Radhanpur
seat in north Gujarat, is set to
quit all the party posts. How-
ever, it was not immediately
clear if he would also leave
the party and resign as MLA.
across the state. The petition
filed by Internet Freedom
Foundation (IFF) is likely to
be taken up this week by the
division bench of Acting
Chief Justice AS Dave and
Justice Biren Vaishnav.
The multi-platform battle
game, which took the gaming
world by storm with over 10
crore downloads on Google
game point
„„PUBG is an online
multiplayer battle game
developed by PUBG
Corporation, a subsidiary
of South Korean video
game company Bluehole.
„„It is inspired by
the 2000 Japanese
Avighna Developers. “We
conducted a preliminary in-
quiry into the allegations and
found nothing. There is no
FIR and no pending proceed-
ing in the case now,” ED
sources told DNA.
In November 2016, there
was a storm in the media that
the ED was investigating into
allegations of money launder-
ing involving a former Chief
jet deal with France.
A bench headed by Chief
Justice Ranjan Gogoi will
pronounce the verdict.
On March 14, SC had re-
served verdict on the prelimi-
nary objections raised by the
Chennai Super Kings’ pacer Deepak Chahar (R) celebrates after dismissing Robin Uthappa of Kolkata Knight Riders Centre on admissibility of
in an IPL tie in Chennai on Tuesday. CSK won by 7 wickets —PTI  Report, P10 privileged documents an-
nexed by former Union minis-
ters Yashwant Sinha and
Arun Shourie as also activist

SBI reduces home loan rates

The deci-
sion “to re-
sign from all
posts in Con-
gress party”
was taken in the core meeting
of Gujarat Kshatriya Thakor
Sena, said Jagatsinh Thakor
of the Sena.
“The core committee has
decided that Alpesh Thakor
will resign from all posts in
Congress within 24 hours,”
Jagatsinh Thakor said in a
WhatsApp message late on
Tuesday. Thakor could not be
reached for comment.
Play alone, was recently
banned in Ahmedabad, Ra-
jkot, Gir Somnath, Vadodara,
Surat, Anand and Bhavnagar.
The ban was imposed by
city police authorities under
Section 144 of the Criminal
Procedure Code (CrPC) on the
grounds that it results in vio-
lent behaviour among young-
sters and affects their studies.
While many cities includ-
ing Ahmedabad lifted the ban,
it is still in place till April 30
in other cities like Rajkot.
The petitioners have also
challenged arrests of around
film Battle Royale,
and expanded into a
standalone game
21 people who were caught
playing the game.
The counsel for IFF told
DNA that the ban imposed by
law enforcement agencies is
unconstitutional. The advo-
cate said people have a right
to choose their recreation
and there is no concrete evi-
dence to prove the game re-
sults in violent behaviour
among youngsters.  Turn to P4
Minister of Maharashtra and
the involvement of a leading
city developer in the scheme
of things. It turns out that the
smear campaign by motivated
elements was launched to tar-
get the developer’s reputa-
tion, and the clean chit comes
as an apt closure for the
Avighna management.
In their plaint to ED, the
mischievous elements had al-
leged the former CM had
ploughed his funds through
offshore routes into a luxury
housing project of Avighna
Group in Parel.  Full report, P4
Mumbai: The nation’s largest
lender State Bank of India on
Tuesday cut interest rates on
housing loans up to Rs 30 lakh
by 10 basis points.
Accordingly, the interest
rate on housing loans below
Rs 30 lakh will be in the range
of 8.60-8.90 per cent, from 8.70-
9 percent earlier.
The public lender has also
reduced the lending rates by a
marginal 5 basis points across
all tenors, effective April 10.
The revised one-year mar-
ginal cost of funds-based lend-
ing rate (MCLR) stands
at 8.50 percent down
from 8.55 percent ear-
lier, the bank said in
a statement.
The move follows a
25 basis points cut in
repo rate by RBI in its first
monetary policy review an-
nounced last week.
In the February policy re-
view also the monetary au-
thority had lowered the key
rates by a similar quan-
tum. In a 4:2 majority
vote, the central bank
had cut the repo rate
to 6 per cent from 6.25
per cent earlier, citing
the need to support
growth that has been slug-
gish since many months.
 Report, DNA Money
lawyer Prashant Bhushan in
their review petition against
SC’s December 14 judgement
that dismissed all petitions
against the Rafale jet deal.
“Only after we decide the
preliminary objection raised
by the Centre, we will go into
other aspect of the review
petitions,” the bench said,
adding “only if we overrule
the preliminary objection, we
will go into other details”.
Centre had said the docu-
ments could not be considered
in evidence as per Section 123
Indian Evidence Act. —PTI

EC summons Revenue Nirmohi Akhara appeal to SC

secretary, CBDT head over transfer of Ayodhya land
Manan Kumar & Anjul Tomar
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: The Election
Commission (EC), on Tues-
day, summoned both Revenue
secretary A B Pandey and
Central Board of Direct Taxes
(CBDT) chairman P C Mody.
The move comes a day af-
ter the Finance Ministry
wrote to EC justifying the
raids and assuring that the
action by the Income Tax De-
partment was impartial and
nondiscriminatory, irrespec-
tive of the political affiliation
of individuals.
The EC had on Sunday in-
structed investigation and
enforcement agencies under
the Finance ministry to en-
sure raids during election
time are neutral and non-
Ex-civil servants
write to President
New Delhi: A group of
former civil servants
wrote to President Ram
Nath Kovind on Monday
about the “erosion of peo-
ple’s confidence in the
credibility of the EC”.
The letter said that the
Moral Code of Conduct
has been violated several
times, but EC has “failed
to take action”.
discriminatory, and that the
commission should be kept
in the loop. A controversy
had erupted following recent
I-T raids.  Turn to P4
Abraham Thomas
abraham.thomas@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: The Nirmohi
Akhara, a party in the Ram
Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid
title suit, has filed a plea in the
Supreme Court over the Cen-
tre’s move to transfer 42-acre
land around the disputed site
to its original owners – Ram
Janmbhoomi Nyas. The
Akhara has alleged that the
lease deed obtained by Nyas
was by fraud as the area was
originally leased to it for de-
velopment of a park.
The recent development is
significant as the mediation
proceedings over the disput-
ed Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri
Masjid site measuring 0.313
acre is currently ongoing un-
der Court’s monitoring. Once
Disputed Site
n Centre plans to transfer 42-
acre land around disputed site
to Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas
n Nirmohi Akhara claims the
lease deed obtained by Nyas
was by fraud as the state
originally leased it for a park
this dispute gets settled, the bench in Mohd Aslam Bhure
focus will shift to the 67.703 case in March 2003 ordered
acres of land (inclusive of status quo and allowed the
disputed site) surrounding it Centre to restore land to the
which the Central Govern- original owners after the legal
ment acquired under the Ac- battle is settled. The Centre
quisition of Certain Areas of sought SC’s permission to lift
Ayodhya Act, 1993 following the status quo and allow them
the demolition of the dispute to return/restore 42 acre of
structure at Ayodhya. the 67 acre acquired land to
While deciding on the valid- Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas.
ity of the Act, a Constitution Full report on www.dnaindia.com
 02
daily news & analysis I Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019
In Central Gujarat, it’s advantage BJP ‘BJP’s 3-yr spend
BJP looks set to retain Vadodara, Kheda and Chhota Udepur, while the Congress seems to be ahead in Anand
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
The Congress party, which
aims to reverse its fortunes in
Gujarat and is targeting to
win 6-9 Lok Sabha seats in the
state, faces an uphill task in
central Gujarat. While Rival
BJP is the favourite to win
three of the six seats in the
region, the Congress has its
nose ahead in just one.
The BJP is expected to win
Vadodara, Kheda, and Chho-
ta Udepur, the Congress may
wrest the Anand seat, where-
as a close fight is expected in
Dahod and Panchmahal
seats, say political watchers.
Vadodara, from where PM
Narendra Modi was elected
in 2014 elections, is seen as
one of the sure-shot seats for
BJP. The party has fielded sit-
ting MP Ranjanben Bhatt —
elected last time with a mar-
gin of 3.29 lakh votes after
Modi vacated the seat — and
Congress candidate Prashant
Patel, who also heads the
party in Vadodara, is unlike-
ly to pose a major challenge
to Bhatt. Even in the 2017
polls, when Congress put up
its best performance in dec-

on MSP more than
BJP’s Ranjanben Bhatt and Congress’ Bharatsinh Solanki campaigning for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls —FILE
ades, all seven seats part of
Vadodara LS were won by
BJP with a cumulative lead
of 3.66 lakh.
Meanwhile, BJP is also ex-
pected to win the Kheda seat,
where it has again fielded
Devusinh Chauhan as its
candidate. Chauhan had de-
feated veteran Congress lead-
er and five-term MP Dinsha
Patel with a margin of 2.32
lakh votes in 2014, and is ex-
pected to stave off the chal-
lenge from former minister
Bimal Shah, who joined the
Congress recently. Resent-
ment among local Congress
leaders over Shah’s selection
is expected to work to the
BJP’s advantage.
The BJP is also expected to
retain Chhota Udepur seat,
where it dropped three-term
MP Ramsinh Rathwa and
fielded Geeta Rathwa as its
nominee. She will face-off
against Congress’s Ranjit
Rathwa, son of 10-term MLA
Mohansinh Rathwa. BJP had
won the seat in 2014 with a
margin of 1.79 lakh, and even
though the Congress bagged
four of the seven Assembly
seats that are a part of the
Chhota Udepur LS, the BJP
still had a cumulative lead of
over 43,000.
The one seat in central Gu-
jarat where Congress ap-
pears to be on a firm-footing
is Anand, where it has fielded
former union minister Bhar-
atsinh Solanki. Solanki had
won from Anand in 2004 and
2009, but lost in 2014 by 63,000
votes — the lowest margin in
the state. The party’s confi-
dence stems from the fact
that it had a lead of more
than 59,000 votes over BJP in
the 2017 assembly polls in
Anand. The BJP fielded in-
dustrialist Mitesh Patel from
Anand, after dropping MP
Dilip Patel. “The Anand seat
is ours to lose,” said a senior
state Congress leader.
Political insiders also ex-
pect good fights in Dahod and
Shrivastav’s threats
can violate MCC: CM
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Threatening voters to vote
in favour of BJP, as done by
Waghodia MLA Madhu
Shrivastav, can be a case of
violation of Model Code of
Conduct, but whether it is
a case of party indiscipline
will come later, Gujarat
Chief Minister Vijay Ru-
pani said in Gandhinagar
on Tuesday. He said that
what Shrivastav has done
is not proper, adding that
the statement of the Guja-
rat BJP president, where
he referred to a Congress-
men as ‘haramzado’ has
been misinterpreted.
“The EC has issued a
notice to Madhu Shrivas-
tav. He will reply to the no-
tice. Threatening someone
or giving them induce-
ments to vote in favour of a
certain party can be a vio-
lation of MCC. He should
have been restrained,” said
Rupani. Shrivastav also
threated a journalist who
Crop insurance:
Cong camps at
agri department
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
The Congress party took the
issue of non-payment of crop
insurance to farmer to the
streets, with three MLAs
camping out on Monday
night at the office of Director
of Agriculture. They de-
manded the details of the
status of settlement of claims
of farmers and after they
failed to get any details from
the government, claimed that
the party will make it a cam-
paign issue.
Brijesh Merja from Morbi,
Rutvij Makwana from Choti-
al and Chirag Kaladia from
Jamnagar conducted over-
night protest at the office of
Director of Agriculture in
Gandhinagar on Monday
night. Chief Minister Vijay
Rupani termed the act of the
MLAs as a stunt during elec-
tion time saying that they are
“shedding crocodile tears”.
ah
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Panchmahal seats.
Tribal reserved Dahod
will see a face-off between
Union minister Jashwant-
sinh Bhabhor and former
BJP MP Babu Katara, who is
contesting on the Congress
symbol. Bhabhor had won in
2014 with a margin of 2.32
lakh, but Katara is unlikely
to be a walkover. It was Kata-
ra who had broken Congress’
streak of nine straight wins
in Dahod by winning it for
the BJP for the first time in
1999. He also won in 2004, but
was in political wilderness
after being arrested for hu-
man trafficking in 2007. He
joined the Congress after his
son Bhavesh successfully
contested in 2017 polls as the
party’s candidate from Jhal-
od seat.
A fight also looks likely in
Panchmahal seat, where the
BJP has fielded MLA Ra-
tansinh Rathod as its candi-
date and Congress has
pitched prominent OBC lead-
er VK Khant. The BJP had
won the seat in 2014 polls
with a margin of 1.70 lakh
votes, and had a sizeable lead
of nearly 74,000 votes even in
the 2017 Assembly polls.
Madhu Shrivastav
was reporting on the issue.
State’s chief electoral of-
ficer S Murali Krishna said
that they are expecting the
collector’s report in con-
nection to the incident in a
couple of days, and would
take appropriate action
based on the report.
Terming what Shrivas-
tav did as unfair, the CM
said that it is not yet a mat-
ter of party indiscipline.
“Let him first reply to the
notice by EC. Whether it is
a case of party indiscipline
comes later,” he said, add-
ing, “Talking to him now is
not necessary.”
PM Modi to land in Guj today,
to address two rallies in state
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Prime minister Narendra
Modi will address two public
meetings in Gujarat on
Wednesday, his first visit to
his home state since an-
nouncement of elections on
March 10, while Congress
president Rahul Gandhi is
slated to visit the state on
April 15.
Gujarat BJP spokesper-
son Bharat Pandya told re-
porters that Modi will ad-
dress rallies at Junagadh
Agricultural University and
Songadh in Tapi district.
He said that the PM will
reach Rajkot at 9.30 am, from
where he will travel to Juna-
gadh in a helicopter.
“He will address a public
meeting at Junagadh at 10.10
am, and then travel to Son-
gadh, where he will
address a meeting at 12.45,”
edabad
Cong’s in 25 years’
Keyur Dhandeo
keyur.dhandeo@dnaindia.net
The government spend on
Minimum Support Price
(MSP) over the past three
years was Rs 2,600 crore as
against the Rs 1,200 crore dur-
ing the 25-year-rule of the
Congress party, Gujarat Chief
Minister Vijay Rupani cal-
imed on Tuesday. However,
agriculture experts said that
during Congress’ rule, market
price were remunerative and
so MSP was not needed. They
added that the market prices
were subdued during the BJP
rule and therefore the govern-
ment had to intervene to con-
trol agrarian distress.
Rupani also said that nev-
er before in the history of
Gujarat, groundnut farmers
got Rs 1,000 per 20 kg. The CM
made these statements while
launching the Gujarati ver-
sion of the party’s manifesto
at ‘Kamalam’ state BJP head-
quarters in Gandhinagar.
“We paid a premium of Rs
1,400 crore, against that the
farmers’ claims worth Rs
2,600 crore have been settled.
This is the highest ever in the
state. Claims have been set-
tled in most talukas. There
may be isolated cases where
claims are yet to be settled,”
said Rupani.
He also said groundnut
farmers got an MSP of Rs
1,000 per 20 kg which was un-
precedented. According to
him, the state government
had also given farmers an in-
put subsidy of Rs 13,000 in
addition to the Rs 6,000 prom-
ised by the central govern-
ment. Rupani added that the
central and state govern-
ments were taking steps to
ensure doubling of farmers’
income by 2022.
However, Sagar Rabari,
founder and president of Gu-
jarat Khedut Ekta Samiti
said that prices in open mar-
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani addressing a press briefing at the launch of the
Gujarati version of BJP’s manifesto in Ahmedabad on Tuesday
File photo of PM Modi addressing
an election rally
he said.
The BJP’s media coordi-
nator Prashant Vala said
that the Prime Minister is
expected to address four-five
more rallies in the state in
the run-up to the elections,
adding that one of the rallies
would take place in Anand,
while locations of the re-
maining meetings are in the
process of being finalised.
Meanwhile, Congress
CM claim refuted
„„CM claimed that over
the past three years,
MSP spend was Rs
2,600 crore as against
the Rs 1,200 crore during
the 25-year-rule of the
Congress party
„„Agriculture experts
said that during Cong’
rule, market price were
remunerative and so
MSP was not needed.
ket were not remunerative
necessitating higher MSP
spend in the past three years.
“Earlier Indian agricultural
products were exported. That
pushed up prices. Now we
import many of agricultural
produce. This decreases mar-
ket price. Naturally, the gov-
ernment has to spend more
on MSP. In fact this reveals
the government’s failure,”
Rabari told DNA.
He also denied Rupani’s
claim that Rs 1,000 for 20 kg
of groundnuts was the high-
est ever MSP in Gujarat.
“Previously, prices in open
market were as high as Rs
1,100 per 20 kg. So the claims
of CM are unfounded. There
are a number of talukas
where just about six per cent
of claims have been settled.
How is it possible if govern-
ment has declared them scar-
city-hit,” said Rabari.
He said that it was unfair
to compare insurance settle-
ment with premium paid. In
fact actual settlement should
be compared with claims of
settlement. “You may be pay-
ing Rs 1,000 as vehicle insur-
ance. The vehicle is damaged
and you put claims worth Rs
10,000. If the insurance pays
Rs 2,000, it cannot say that
claimant has got Rs 2,000
against the premium of Rs
1,000,” he said.
gujarat line-up
„„Modi will address
rallies at Junagadh
Agricultural University
and Songadh in Tapi
district.
„„He is expected to
address four-five more
rallies in the state in the
run-up to the elections,
one of them in Anand
sources said that party pres-
ident Rahul Gandhi would
be visiting Gujarat on April
15, and address a public
meeting at Rajula in the Am-
reli district. They added that
he would be visiting Gujarat
at least once more before the
elections. It is reported that
Priyanka Gandhi would also
be addressing a couple
of public meetings in the
state.
 ah
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in brief
Participants at a voter
awareness event organised
by Ahmedabad
Head constable,
kin in dock for
harassing wife
A complaint was lodged
against a police head
constable with the Sabar-
mati police station by his
wife, alleging that her
husband and in-laws are
mentally and physically
torturing her after she
gave birth of baby girl.
Ranjan Vaghela, a resi-
dent of New Ranip area
said that she married
Shaktisinh Vaghela in
2014. Soon after, Ranjan
gave birth to her daugh-
ter and his and his fami-
ly’s behaviour towards
her changed and they
physically and mentally
harassed her. However,
she claims that despite
being tortured for six
years, she filed a com-
plaint now because she
cannot deal with the har-
assment anymore.
AMC seizes 400
ethylene sachets
The health department
of the Ahmedabad Mu-
nicipal Corporation on
Tuesday seized 400 pack-
ets of ethylene that are
used to artificially ripen
the fruits. Along with it,
the department also de-
stroyed 130 kg of state
and unhygienic fruits
like mango, papaya, etc.
They have taken admin-
istrative charge of Rs
15,000. The department
has collected food sam-
ple from 31 units like old
drinks and other milk
products. The results for
them will be declared af-
ter two weeks.
GIIS violates FRC order yet again, Woman’s
burnt for filing
violence plaint of Dev Aurum members
parents now seek help from CM
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Parents of students of Global
Indian International School
(GIIS) were left in shock on
Tuesday morning when the
school authorities, despite an
order from the Fee Regulato-
ry Committee (FRC) to admit
students, refused to take back
students who were given leav-
ing certificates. Parents of
over 35 students had breathed
a sigh of relief after the FRC,
on Monday, had stayed puni-
tive actions taken by the
school against students. How-
ever, when they dropped their
children off at the school on
Tuesday morning, the ad-
ministration not only refused
to take them back, but asked
parents to re-admit the chil-
dren and pay the fees.
The parents then rushed
to Kamalam, BJP’s head-
quarters seek help from the
chief minister who was to ad-
dress media persons there.
“This is real ‘Dadagiri’ of the
school,” said Jay Parikh, one
of the parent. “The school is
not even obeying the FRC.
Where do we as parents go?
This was the reason we vis-
ited Kamalam and met the
CM. He has directed the case
to state Education Minister
Four molest woman sleeping inspired shift blue plaque will make it easier to spot unesco heritage bldgs
on footpath, stab husband too City’s heritage properties will get a blue bauble
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
A 30-year-old woman lodged
a complaint with the Kalu-
pur police station on Mon-
day that four men tried to
molest her while she was
sleeping on the footpath and
that when her husband tried
to stop them, he was stabbed
by one of the accused.
According to the police,
the incident took place early
on Monday morning at
around 4 am on the footpath
located exactly opposite to
the Sarangpur water tank.
The complainant and her
husband work as labours
and live on the footpath.
On Sunday night, after
getting back from work, the
edabad
‘RTE portal offers limited choice’
Parents claim there is a GPS issue with the site, doesn’t allow them to opt for certain schools
Tanushree Bhatia
tanushree.bhatia@dnaindia.net
Parents willing to get their
children admitted under the
Right to Education (RTE) Act
are flummoxed by the online
process to fill out the admis-
sion forms. According to
them, the portal has GPS is-
sues because they are unable
to select the preferred
schools. Many parents
claimed that schools such as
Anand Niketan, DAV school,
Zydus School for Excellence,
etc, were not reflecting on the
portal.
Sharing her experience, a
single parent and a resident of
Vejalpur, Shabnam Ansari
(name changed) said: “Since
yesterday, I have tried to fill out
the forms 4-5 times, but all in
vain. While I could fill out the
form properly, the tab to select
schools of my choice only re-
flected state-board schools.
Govt opposes Alpesh
Kathiriya’s bail plea
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Ahmedabad: The state gov-
ernment has vehemently op-
posed the bail plea of Patidar
leader Alpesh Kathiriya that
is pending before the Gujarat
High Court. Kathiriya is
presently in jail in connec-
tion with a sedition case reg-
istered against him in Surat
after a sessions court can-
celled the bail granted to him
for violating bail conditions.
In an affidavit submitted
before the single judge bench
of Justice VM Pancholi, DCB
police station’s inspector
Gaurang Patel has submitted
that Kathiriya was well
aware of the bail conditions
levied on him by the sessions
court. However, within a few
days of getting bail, he “mis-
hand
AMC ignored warning
The chaos outside the school on Tuesday after children weren’t allowed in
This is real ‘Dadagiri’ of the school. The
school is not even obeying the FRC. Where
do we as parents go? This was the reason we
visited Kamalam and met the CM.
Jay Parikh, parent of one of the affected students
Bhupendrasinh Chudasama
who has called all of us on
Wednesday morning for a
meeting.”
They alleged that the stu-
dents were made to stand out-
side the school building on
Tuesday morning and the
parents were asked to re-ad-
mit the children.
On Monday, the FRC
passed an order observing,
“During the pendency of the
couple slept on the footpath
and at around 4 am, the
woman woke up after she felt
someone was touching her.
As she got up, four unidenti-
fied men were trying to mo-
lest her so she started shout-
ing, which alerted her hus-
band, who then tried to stop
them. In the dispute, one of
Parents at centres filling up the admission forms under RTE Act
There are many other schools
such as DAV, Zydus school,
Cosmos Castle International
school, etc, within 6 kilome-
tres of my residence, but those
are not in the list. She said that
she also tried to change her
location of my residence from
Vejalpur police station to Ve-
jalpur police chowki to see if it
used his liberty and violated
the bail condition” wherein
he was expected to respect
law and order.
Patel has submitted that
after getting bail, Kathiriya
and his supporters, on Decem-
ber 25, 2018, started an agita-
tion at the Surat collector’s
office without permission;
unlawfully assembled and
went to Sarthana police sta-
tion and entered into a scuffle
with police personnel on De-
cember 27; and obstructed traf-
fic police from discharging
their duties on December 28.
The inspector also submit-
ted that considering Kathiri-
ya’s criminal antecedents, past
conduct, and no respect for law,
the court should not use its dis-
cretionary power to release
him on bail. The next hearing
is scheduled on April 18.
matter before the Supreme
court, the committee has not
taken any action till date for
non-compliance of its order
however since the school has
started taking punitive ac-
tions against the students
despite the fact that the par-
ents were ready and willing
to pay the fees as determined
by the committee, the school
is directed to stay all such pu-
nitive actions.”
the accused pulled out a
knife and stabbed her hus-
band and then they fled from
the spot.
According to the com-
plainant, the entire episode
occurred within 10 minutes
and the injured was rushed
to the hospital for treatment.
Later a complaint was lodged
with the police against the
four accused.
RG Desai, Inspector of Ka-
lupur police station said,
“Regarding the matter,
we have taken the complaint
and further investigation
is on.
We are trying to recover
CCTV footage from the near-
by area to identify the ac-
cused. But till right now
nothing has been found.”
made a difference, but list re-
mained the same.
“RTE admission is the
only hope for my son to get
good education as I am facing
difficulty to raise him. I work
as a cook at two houses to run
my family”, she said.
Interestingly, this phe-
nomenon is not new. Even
sunny dispositions
In the sweltering heat, two elderly women rest in an Ahmedebad garden and cool themselves off with a hand fan
on Tuesday evening —Pravin Indrekar/DNA
It further stated that the
school is directed to accept
the cheques of all such out-
standing fees from the par-
ents on the basis of the fees
determined by the commit-
tee. The school has commit-
ted a breach of the provision
as well as the final orders
passed by the committee and
issued school leaving certifi-
cates to various students for
non-payment of fees.
“The state government
had brought this Act and had
set up zone-wise FRCs. But
there is no implementation
of the Act. We do not know
whether the FRC works un-
der the school or it is the
other way round because the
school is violating the FRC
order. Even the cops are sup-
porting the school authori-
ties,” another parent said.
When dna contacted the
school management, a GIIS
spokesperson said, “We have
followed the due process for
fixing of school fees and are
in full compliance of the
guidelines, directed by the
Supreme Court vide order
dated February 2, 2018.”
When prodded about FRC
violation and asked why the
students were asked for re-
admission, there was no re-
sponse.
Gargi Raval
gargi.raval@dnaindia.net
In a bid to make UNESCO
properties even more distinct
and easily identifiable, many
monuments and houses in
the city will now get blue
plaques to mark them. So
now, exploring the Pols, one
will be able to spot the sites
marked by UNESCO as part
of World Heritage City. The
civic body has already start-
ed pasting these plaques on
each listed heritage property.
“Those listed properties
needed to get a different iden-
tity. This makes it easier for
the tourists or visitors to
identify the heritage houses
without the help of guides.
Additionally, the blue badges
6-km range
„„Many parents claimed
that Anand Niketan, DAV
school, Zydus School for
Excellence, etc, were not
reflecting on the portal
„„According to them,
the portal has GPS
issues because they
are unable to select the
preferred schools.
„„Despite being in the
6-km radius, they are not
reflected on the site.
last year, choice of schools
was a big problem, said Gul-
moin Khokhar, convenor of
Zubeida Seva Ghar that
works for the cause of RTE.
On day 1, the website had
crashed in the afternoon and
later in the evening, we found
that not many schools were
displayed in the list of choic-
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
A complaint was lodged with
Chandkheda police station on
Monday by a school teacher
against her husband after he
burned her hand with a hot
iron box. According to the po-
lice, the husband took the dras-
tic step after his wife lodged a
case of domestic violence
against him and her in-laws.
The complaint has been
lodged by the victim, identi-
fied as Monika Sharma, a resi-
dent of Chandkheda and a
teacher with the DPS School in
Gandhinagar. She stated that
in 2014, she married Vikram
Sharma, a resident of Delhi.
Around 10 days ago, her in-
laws came to Ahmedabad and
started living with them. In
that time, a dispute broke out
between her in-laws and her
because they taunted her for
not doing household work
and not giving dowry.
Late on Sunday night,
when Monika couldn’t han-
dle the stress, she lodged a
complaint with the police
against her husband and in-
laws. The next day, when her
husband came to know about
it, he beat her and burnt her
hand. She then called police
control for help, who reached
the spot and later a complaint
was lodged.
will be a matter of pride for
the house owners as well,”
said Ashish Trambadia, di-
rector, World Heritage City
Trust of Ahmedabad Munici-
pal Corporation.
The blue-coloured round
plaques in the city will be
similar to the iconic ones in
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019 I daily news & analysis
es for the parents,” he said.
Speaking about the same,
MI Joshi, Director of Primary
Education said: “In the first
two days, close to 86,000 appli-
cations have been filed. This
year we have taken due care
for location of schools, but if
parents face difficulty, they
can approach the forms receiv-
ing centre. We have not re-
ceived any complaints so far.”
This year, the state govern-
ment aims to give admissions
to 1.10 lakh students as
against 85,000 last year. The
process will continue till
April 20. The education de-
partment intends to complete
the first round of admissions
under RTE before summer
holidays begin. The first list
of admissions will be de-
clared by April 25 and the
students whose names are on
that list will be required to
confirm their admission be-
fore May 1.
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Dev Aurum Commercial
Complex association mem-
bers have said that they had
submitted a letter to the dep-
uty municipal commissioner
in July 2018 regarding insuf-
ficient fire safety at their
premises. In the letter, they
had mentioned that the fire
NOC (No Objection Certifi-
cate) for Dev Aurum Com-
mercial Complex had expired
on March 2018. They held
that the AMC chose to ignore
their warnings.
“To obtain the certificate,
we had called the respective
agencies so that NOC can be
obtained as the government
rules, as informed by the
agency – the fire equipment
installed are incomplete and
non-operational so NOC
can’t be given to the com-
plex which is a threat to the
life of the staff as well as
owners of the 360 units. Re-
questing you to please do
the needful and take imme-
diate steps and restore the
safety of the said complex,”
states the letter from the
Dev Aurum Commercial Co-
operative Service Society
Ltd to the civic body. DNA
has a copy of the letter.
The members also said
plaque gambit
„„Apart from the monuments, there are more
than 2,200 residential units located in different
Pols, 49 institutional buildings and other sites that
are a part of the city’s rich heritage legacy.
„„The blue-coloured plaques in the city will be
similar to the iconic ones in London, believed
to be the oldest of its kind in the world. There
are over 940 such plaques in London, whereas
Ahmedabad will have 2,500 plaques.
London, believed to be the
oldest of its kind in the world.
In London, there are around
940 such blue plaques on the
heritage sites, while
Ahmedabad will have more
than 2,500 such plaques.
The civic body has already
modified the plaques. “Earli-
03
CEO gets Vaghani’s
comment probed
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Taking suo motu cognizance
of media reports related to
state BJP president Jitu Va-
ghani allegedly abusing the
Congress party, the state’s
Chief Electoral Officer on
Tuesday directed the Surat
district collector to conduct
an inquiry.
“We have taken note of
media reports about the com-
ments made by a political
leader in Surat, and have
sought a report from the col-
lector,” CEO S Murali Krish-
na said, without naming Va-
ghani. The BJP leader stirred
controversy on Monday by
using abusive words to target
the Congress, asking voters
to identify those trying to dis-
turb peace in the state.
During a poll campaign
meet in Surat, Vaghani ac-
cused Congress of trying to
create chaos as it had no
chance of winning. “I am tell-
ing the Congress, you cannot
win in Surat and in the state,”
he said.
“But you want to create
chaos and an atmosphere of
fear. One such incident has
File photo of the fire in Dev Aurum Commercial Complex
chief fire officer in dock
Civic chief said his chief fire
officer had inspected the
building in the past before
issuing the certificate
that after sending the letter,
they had met the municipal
commissioner as well. Ac-
cording to one of the mem-
bers, they had asked the
commissioner to cancel
Building Use permission as
no steps were taken even af-
ter the letter. “Later in Octo-
ber 2018, a team of the fire
department had conducted
an inspection and had issued
a certificate to the building,”
added one of the members.
Upon contacting Municipal
er there was a sticker over a
steel badge which was easy to
tamper with. The newly-de-
signed plaques will be en-
graved with details of a par-
ticular house number, build-
ing or location,” claimed
Trambadia.
The plaques designed for
Jitu Vaghani at a rally
occurred but if a second inci-
dent takes place, we can
throw you out of Surat,” he
added, while using the abu-
sive word.
Vaghani did not divulge
the exact incident he was re-
ferring to, but claimed on
Tuesday that he had used the
abusive words for Congress
leaders like Mohammad Sur-
ti, a former minister in the
Congress government who
was convicted in the 1993 Su-
rat bomb blast case.
Speaking to reporters in
Valsad, Vaghani said, “I had
said it earlier too. In which
government Mohammad
Surti was a minister? Was he
a patriot? But, the Congress
always indulges in appease-
ment of minorities.”
Commissioner is believed
to have served show-cause
notice to chief fire officer
MF Dastoor on Tuesday.
Commissioner Vijay Nehra,
he said his chief fire officer
had personally inspected the
building in the past before is-
suing the certificate. “A few
months back when the repre-
sentation was made, chief fire
officer himself had visited the
place and made sure that the
things are in order. Subse-
quently, the certificate was is-
sued to the building. I have not
received a report on yester-
day’s incident as it is still un-
der investigation,” said Nehra.
the city reads ‘Ahmedabad
World Heritage City’ along
with its respective grade and
category, survey number and
location. “There will be two
sizes of the plaques for resi-
dential and other institution-
al monuments,” added the
director. To honour the herit-
age status, the civic body has
initiated to give tax bills to
the heritage units in yellow
colour paper with the seal of
World Heritage City.
The city has been recog-
nised by many tourists after
bagging the World Heritage
City status from the UNESCO.
Apart from the monuments,
there are more than 2200 resi-
dential units located in differ-
ent Pols, 49 institutional
buildings and other sites.
 04
daily news & analysis I Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019
in brief
NCW notice to
Maha cheif secy
New Delhi: The Nation-
al Commission for Wom-
en has issued a notice to
Maharashtra Chief Sec-
retary over a news re-
port of women getting
their wombs removed to
avoid hindering work
and fines due to men-
struation, it said on
Tuesday. The Commis-
sion said it is seriously
concerned about the pa-
thetic and miserable
condition of such wom-
en and the crimes and
atrocities being perpe-
trated on them. The
news report from the
Beed district of Maha-
rastra states that many
women there have had
hysterectomies as it is
the “norm” in villages to
remove the uterus after
having two to three chil-
dren and the menstrual
periods hinder work and
attract fines. The NCW
requested Maharashtra
Chief Secretary U P S
Madan to intervene in
the matter and initiate
legal action to arrest the
menace and ensure that
no such atrocities occur
in future.
Fire beaks out at Customs office
at Delhi International airport
New Delhi: A fire broke out at
the Customs office outside Ter-
minal-3 of the Indira Gandhi
International airport here on
Tuesday morning, gutting sev-
eral important documents,
police said. A call about the fire
was received at 7.45 am after
which four fire tenders were
rushed to the spot, according to
a Delhi Fire Services official.

RSS leader, PSO killed in
terrorist attack in J&K
Curfew imposed in Kishtwar, Army called in after tension grips the district
Ishfaq-ul-Hassan
h_ishfaq@dnaindia.net
Srinagar: Ahead of the polls,
tension gripped the commu-
nally sensitive district of
Kishtwar on Tuesday when
terrorists stormed the district
hospital in broad daylight and
assassinated the senior Rash-
triya Swayamsewak Sangh
(RSS) leader Chanderkant and
his Personal Security Officer
(PSO).
Sensing trouble the authori-
ties clamped curfew and called
out the Army to maintain or-
der. Kishtwar is part of Ud-
hampur parliamentary con-
stituency which is going to
polls in the second phase.
A pharmacist by profes-
sion, Chanderkant was per-
forming the duties when ter-
rorists barged inside the Sher-
e-Kashmir district hospital
and fired indiscriminately at
him and his PSO.
The PSO died on the spot
while Chanderkant was griev-
The fire broke out on the sec-
ond floor of the Customs office
building and was brought un-
der control fire by 9 am. No
casualty has been reported, the
official said.
Police said a case under the
section of 436 of the Indian
Penal Code (IPC) has been reg-
istered against unidentified
persons.—PTI
RSS activists raise slogans and burn tyre during a protest against the
attack on their party leader Chandrakant Singh —PTI
ously injured in the incident.
He was immediately shifted to
hospital where he too suc-
cumbed to his injuries.
“He was a pharmacist and
posted in the district hospital.
Since he was associated with
RSS, he was provided with
PSO. At about 12:30 pm some-
body opened indiscriminate
firing and injured him and his
PSO. His PSO is no more while
CBI opposes Lalu’s bail plea in fodder case
Abraham Thomas
abraham.thomas@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: The Central Bu-
reau of Investigation (CBI)
told the Supreme Court on
Tuesday that if former Bihar
Chief Minister Lalu Yadav is
granted bail to lead his party
– Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)
in the Lok Sabha elections,
corporate honchos serving
jail sentence in corruption
cases will be emboldened to
approach the top court for
bail to carry out their usual
business.
Not wanting to encourage
such a practice, the CBI said
President Ram Nath Kovind visits an exhibition at National Police Memorial on the occasion of CRPF Valour Day, in
New Delhi, on Tuesday —PTI
PIL challenges PUBG ban in Guj HC
From p1
He also said the arrests made
by the police post the ban is
violative of fundamental
rights enshrined under the
Constitution as Section 144 of
the CrPC does not empower
the authorities to impose a
ban on playing a game.
he suffered critical wounds,”
Angrez Singh Rana, deputy
commissioner of Kishtwar,
told DNA. This is the second
major political assassination
in Kishtwar since November
last year. On November 1, BJP
state secretary Anil Parihar
and his brother Ajit Parihar
were assassinated by terror-
ists when they were returning
home after closing their book
Lalu Prasad
that the apex court has al-
ways maintained a zero toler-
ance approach towards cor-
ruption cases and here was a
man who as a Chief Minister
of one of the largest states in
Valour day
The advocate also ques-
tioned the authorities on how
can people be harassed for
playing a game, when the ban
on it is in clear violation of Ar-
ticle 14 (equality before the
law), 19 (freedom of speech),
and 21 (deprivation from life
and liberty) of the Constitu-
Terrorism haunts
„„RSS leader,
Chanderkant Sharma
(52), who worked as a
pharmacist at the health
centre in Kishtwar
„„This is the second
major political killing
in Kishtwar since
November last year
„„Last year, BJP state
secretary Anil Parihar and
his brother Ajit Parihar
were assassinated
shop, at Tapal Moholla in the
Kishtwar district.
Protests rocked the town as
the news of terror attack
spread in the area. District
administration immediately
imposed curfew and snapped
the mobile internet as precau-
tionary measure. Later Army
was also called out to main-
tain order and avoid any flare
up in the district.
CBI’s contention
In this backdrop, the CBI
wondered that on one
hand, Lalu claims his
condition is so bad that
he cannot be housed in a
jail. At the same time, he
also seeks bail to be out
to carry out duties as a
party president
the country misappropriated
public wealth to the tune of
Rs 950 crore in the fodder
scam.
Out of six cases where he
is named accused, he has
tion.
In the popular online game,
inspired by the 2000 Japanese
film Battle Royale, up to a hun-
dred players parachute onto
an island and scavenge for
weapons and equipment to
kill others while avoiding get-
ting killed themselves.
tenders & Notices
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
Former Kerala
Finance Min
K M Mani dead
Kochi: Kerala Congress(M)
chairman and former state
Finance Minister K M Mani,
who had been one of the lead-
ing figures of Kerala politics
for nearly five decades, died at
a private hospital here Tues-
day.
The health condition of
Mani (86) who had been un-
dergoing treatment at the
VPS Lakeshore hospital here
for pulmonary disease, “took
a churn for the worse by 11
AM” and he breathed his last
at 4.57 PM, hospital sources
said. Mani had been suffering
from COPD (Chronic Ob-
structive pulmonary disease)
for several years and had fre-
quently been hospitalised for
chest infection.
He was again hospitalised
on Friday for chest infection.
Though he showed sign of
improvement, his condition
worsened on Tuesday, the
sources said.
His body will be taken to
Kottayam on Wednesday
morning to enable his follow-
ers and friends pay their last
respects and later, to his home
town Pala. The funeral will be
held on Thursday at 2 PM at
the cemetry in St Thomas Ca-
thedral, Pala, party leaders
said.—PTI
been convicted in four cases
where he faces a jail term of
27.5 years and in two cases,
trial is pending. Out of the
27.5 years to be spent in pris-
on, Lalu has effectively un-
dergone 20 months imprison-
ment. He remained hospital-
ised for 8.5 months.
In this backdrop, the CBI
wondered that on one hand,
Lalu claims his condition is
so bad that he cannot be
housed in a jail. At the same
time, he also seeks bail to be
out to carry out all essential
responsibilities as a party
president in the ensuing Lok
Sabha polls.
‘The only thing
Cong does
honestly is...’
From p1
Uddhav reciprocated in his
speech by reminding the PM
of how Sardar Patel had
thrown his weight behind
Maharashtra’s cause in Mar-
athwada when it was part of
the Nizam of Hyderabad’s
empire. He also welcomed his
support for issues close to his
heart. “The BJP manifesto
promises to build the Ram
Temple in Ayodhya, do away
with Article 370 and look into
the welfare of farmers, which
is why the Sena has allied
with the BJP,” he said. “I ap-
peal to Prime Minister Modi
to destroy Pakistan which is
causing bloodshed every day.
I challenge the Opposition to
prove their worth by attract-
ing fifty per cent of the crowd
of today’s rally.”
Demonstrating that their
differences were clearly a
thing of the past, PM Modi
praised Shiv Sena founder
and Uddhav’s father, late Bal-
asaheb Thackeray, for put-
ting the welfare of the people
before dynastic politics.
indi
No proceedings
against top
developer: ED
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: More than two
years after so-called activists
filed a complaint with a bar-
rage of baseless allegations,
the Enforcement Directorate
has finally given a clean chit
to Avighna Developers. “We
conducted a preliminary in-
quiry into the allegations and
found nothing. There is no
FIR and no pending proceed-
ing in the case now,” ED
sources told DNA.
In November 2016, there
was a storm in the media that
the ED was investigating into
allegations of money laun-
dering involving a former
Chief Minister of Maharash-
tra and the involvement of a
leading city developer in the
scheme of things. It turns out
that the smear campaign by
motivated elements was
launched to target the devel-
oper’s reputation, and the
clean chit comes as an apt
closure for the Avighna man-
agement.
In their complaint to ED,
the mischievous elements
had alleged that the former
CM had ploughed his funds
through offshore routes into
a luxury housing project of
Avighna Group in Parel.
The complainant had
roped in BJP MP Kirit So-
maiya to intensify the base-
Congress claims new
expose´ in note ban
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: The Congress on
Tuesday alleged that offi-
cials of the Modi govern-
ment continued to exchange
old notes after demonetisa-
tion in lieu of hefty commis-
sions. Senior Congress lead-
er Kapil Sibal, showing a
‘sting’ operation, alleged
that an employee of the Re-
search and Analysis Wing
(R&AW) who is posted at the
Cabinet Secretariat, was in-
volved along with an In-
dusInd Bank employee.
Releasing a video at a
press conference at the Con-
gress headquarters, which
showed the exchange of
banned notes with the new
currencies at commissions
ranging between 15% to 40%,
Sibal said the Modi govern-
ment looted the people.
“It is another proof of
how Modi-led government
looted the people. They
banned these notes of Rs 500
and Rs 1,000 denominations
during demonetisation in
2016. But this video shows
the exchange of demonetised
notes with the new ones in a
government godown in Ma-
harashtra,” Sibal alleged.
In the videos, the R&AW
employee is seen mentioning
BJP president Amit Shah
twice. The alleged modus op-
ECI summons Revenue
sectary, CBDT head
From p1
These were conducted over
several weeks to unearth use
of unaccounted cash in the
upcoming polls, with the
Congress accusing the Bhar-
tiya Janta Party (BJP) of tar-
geting opposition leaders
across the country.
Congress had alleged that
the BJP-led government was
using the enforcement agen-
cies to change the optics be-
fore elections. 
The I-T department has
carried out searches at the
premises of the aides of Mad-
hya Pradesh Chief Minister
Kamal Nath, senior Congress
leader Ahmed Patel’s Char-
tered Accountant SM Muin,
and at the houses of CM
Ramesh, the Telugu Desam
Party MP and a close aide of
Andhra Pradesh Chief Min-
ister Chandrababu Naidu.
less allegations against his
political rival, causing im-
mense collateral damage to
Avighna Group’s repute.
When contacted, Somaiya
said, “My job as a people’s
representative is only to
bring an issue to the notice of
the investigating officials
and the judiciary. After that,
I have not followed up in the
case.”
On their part, the ED offi-
cials maintain that only a
‘preliminary inquiry’ was
conducted to ascertain the
facts related to the case and it
was found that there is no
substance in the allegations.
The Avighna Group ap-
proached the ED officials im-
mediately after the allega-
tions surfaced in 2016 and
showed them all the relevant
papers. “The ED accepted our
submissions, ceased further
investigations in the case and
the clean chit by ED is a logi-
cal closure in the matter,”
said Kailash Agarwal, chair-
man of Avighna Group. He
added that it was a malicious
operation by elements with
vested interests. “The allega-
tions about a former CM in-
vesting funds in Avighna
Group were baseless. No
politician has ever invested a
single rupee in Avighna
Group at any point and our
books clearly reflect this,”
said the NRI businessman.
Kapil Sibal
erandi is that the notes are
printed abroad and then
brought into India via the
Hindon Air Force Base at
Delhi border. Sibal added
that “a team of government
officials drawn from differ-
ent departments” were in-
volved in the alleged racket.
Sibal demanded that ac-
tion be taken on the matter.
“The alacrity with which the
Enforcement Directorate
(ED) searches people, it can
easily arrest these people
and tell the country what the
truth is. Will the ED, CBI,
and the government arrest
these people,” he asked.
Responding to these
charges, union minister
Ravi Shankar Prasad told
reporters in Patna that the
BJP will seek legal remedies.
“Kapil Sibal has made false
allegations on our party
president Amit Shah and we
will take legal action,” said
Prasad.
Searches were also conduct-
ed at several places including
Delhi, Karnataka and Tamil
Nadu.
Responding to the EC letter,
the Revenue Department
said, “We understand the
words ‘neutral’, ‘impartial’
and ‘non-discriminatory’
means we must act as and
when information is availa-
ble against anyone, irrespec-
tive of political affiliation.
This is precisely the practice
that the department follows
and will continue to do so.”
The department also urged
the EC to “take action at their
end if they come across any
specific information about
the use of illicit money in the
electoral process. It may also,
if deemed fit, pass on the in-
formation confidentially to
I-T Department for further
action.”

ball
ballet
lok sabha election 2019
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Pol parties no game for sports
While BJP sums up its vision for sports in just a few lines, Cong has given little more but with no great insight
Chander Shekhar Luthra
shekhar.luthra@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: The 2019 General
Elections are now round the
corner. And so is the 2020 To-
kyo Olympics, as the qualify-
ing process has already started
for our elite athletes to secure
a berth in this coveted event.
So, what is the road map our
political parties have been lay-
ing down for our athletes?
With manifestos of almost
all major political parties out,
the talk of becoming a global
sporting power looks to be a dis-
tant dream for many decades to
come. How much our political
parties actually care for sports
and sportsmen can be judged
from the fact that none of the
mainstream party – BJP or Con-
gress – has dedicated a “full
page” to such a subject which
has mass appeal, or so what we
have been thinking all our lives!
Ruling BJP, which has for
the first time showed courage
to make an ex-Olympian Rajya-
vardhan Singh Rathore as
sports minister, has summed
up its vision for sports in just
a few lines. “Our government
has taken comprehensive steps
to develop the culture of sports
in the country through the ‘Kh-
elo India’ scheme, and we will
continue to provide adequate
resources under this scheme to
ensure the achievement of de-
clared objectives. Under this
scheme, special attention will
be given to encourage sporting
talent among women and trib-
als,” the manifesto reads.
Congress, on the other
hand, has given little more
than this but without any great
insight into “what it needs to
become sporting power like
China”. Both the manifestos
speak about sufficient funds to
promote sports amongst wom-
en. BJP has a special mention
of much publicised ‘Khelo In-
dia’, which according to party
insiders was the game-changer
during the last five years.
But Congress candidate
from Dhanbad, Kirti Azad, a
three-time MP, has a different
take on the issue. “I went to the
court in DDCA matter to ensure
transparency is brought in, not
just in the management of
cricket association, but all other
sports,” said the member of In-
dia’s 1983 World Cup squad.
When asked for his vision in
Kanhaiya files papers Eyeing clean sweep in Haryana, SC rejects plea to
with big crowd in toe BJP treads cautiously on 2 seats ban Modi’s biopic
Vithika Salomi
vithika.salomi@dnaindia.net
Patna: Flanked by the likes
of Jignesh Mevani, Shehla
Rashid, Swara Bhaskar, Gur-
mehar Kaur, Teesta Setalvad,
Fatima Nafees (Najeeb Jung’s
mother) and followed by a
crowd of thousands of sup-
porters, Left candidate and
former JNUSU president
Kanhaiya Kumar filed his
nomination for the much-
hyped Begusarai Lok Sabha
seat on Tuesday.
Kanhaiya, a native of Bi-
hat in Begusarai, started his
two-kilometre long march af-
ter taking blessings from his
mother and said, “I have learnt
from mothers that no matter
how big the target is, persis-
tence helps us in achieving it.”
He is up against Union
Minister and BJP leader
Giriraj Singh, who was shift-
ed to Begusarai from Nawada
constituency and ex-RJD
MLC Tanweer Hassan, who
was the runner up in 2014.
Both Singh and Hassan have
filed their nominations but
locals claimed that neither of
their rallies were as huge as
Kanhaiya had managed.
“Singh’s was the smallest,
perhaps due to his initial re-
luctance to contest from Be-
gusarai. Hassan at least man-
aged a few thousand together
for his nomination rally. But
today, over two-kilometre
stretch is painted red. Most of
his supporters are youths,
carrying red flags and raising
slogans in his support. Sev-
eral have come from outside
Begusarai just to express
t
sports powerhouse? No!
talk of becoming a global sporting power looks to be a distant dream
Krishna Poonia
vs Rajyavardhan
Singh Rathore
Constituency:
Jaipur Rural
Poll date: May 6
Sitting MP: Rajyavardhan
Singh Rathore (BJP)
2014 victory margin:
332896
Runner-up: Dr CP Joshi
(Congress)
Medal Tally
lympic games Asian games
O
2016 Rio 2018 Jakarta
0 Gold 15
1 Silver 24
1 Bronze 30
2 Total 69
67th Rank 8th
2012 London 2014 Incheon
0 Gold 11
2 Silver 10
4 Bronze 36
6 Total 57
56th Rank 7th
2008 Beijing 2010 Guangzhou
1 Gold 14
0 Silver 17
2 Bronze 34
3 Total 65
50th Rank 6th
case he is being made in-charge
of this ministry, Azad added:
“Sports Code should be imple-
mented on the same lines of
Justice Lodha Committee rec-
ommendations, which has been
accepted in toto by Supreme
Court in July 2016. Look at the
situation in India... In Hockey,
Australian coach Graham Reid
today becomes our 25th coach
in last 26 years. How can we see
Left candidate Kanhaiya Kumar
‘democracy wins’
“If Kanhaiya Kumar wins,
it would be a victory
for democracy,” actor
Swara Bhaskar, one of
the most vocal critics of
the central government
in Bollywood, said on
Tuesday. It was her 31st
birthday and she was in
Begusarai campaigning
for Kanhaiya Kumar.
their support for him,” a local
reporter told DNA.
The supporters, in fact,
were unfazed by heavy show-
ers that hit Begusarai during
the march. Groups of youths
singing parodies such as
“Jhanse mein na aayenge,
Kanha ko jitayenge, Thik hai”
and wearing shirts with slo-
gans such as “Hum leke ra-
henge Aazadi” were some of
the highlights of his rally.
However, the jury is still
out on how many of support-
ers will actually turn into
votes for Kanhaiya and
whether he will be able to take
on Singh and Hassan in the
triangular contest.
Kamal nath’s riches
`125cr
Assets declared by Madhya
Pradesh CM Kamal Nath and wife
Alka as per former’s affidavit filed
for Chhindwara Assembly bypoll
There is a real possibility of the country witnessing a
repeat of 1996 in 2019 where regional parties come
together to evolve a Third Front and form a govt. Congress will
remain an anchor party and Front partners will pick the PM.
N Chandrababu Naidu, TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister
Election Commission Tuesday said the notification for phase-5 polls will be issued on wednesday
Bhaichung Bhutia Gautam Gambhir Kirti Azad
Constituency: Constituency:
Sikkim New Delhi seat
Polling date: Polling date:
April 11 May 12
Sitting MP: Sitting MP:
Prem Das Rai (Sikkim Meenakshi Lekhi
Democratic Front) (BJP)
2014 victory margin: 2014 victory margin:
41,742 1,62,708
Runner-up: Runner-up:
Tek Nath Dhakal (Sikkim Ashish Khaitan
Krantikari Morcha) (AAP)
2000-01 `250.4 cr
2001-02 `315.27 cr
2002-03 `328.71 cr
2003-04
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07
2007-08
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
2014-2015
2015-16
2016-17
2017-18
2018-19
2019-20
professionalism in such a sce-
nario where the coach doesn’t
know whether he will be the
coach the next day or not? A lot
needs to be done in sports and
Congress has the vision to take
us forward by giving a chance
to professionals to run the re-
spective sports disciplines.”
Apart from Azad, former
Olympian Krishna Punia has
been pitted against Rathore
Chhavi Bhatia
chhavi.bhatia@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Even as the BJP
released a list of eight seats
for Haryana, it is treading
cautiously on two -- Rohtak
and Hisar. While a few names
are doing rounds for both the
seats, the party does not seem
to be in a rush to finalise any
one given how these two plac-
es stopped its clean sweep in
the state. The third one was
Sirsa. It has, however, fielded
former IRS officer Sunita
Duggal for Sirsa which is a
reserved seat.
After its phenomenal win
in Haryana in the last parlia-
mentary and state elections
ballot, not bullet Forget terror, valley immersed in festival of democracy
Kashmir reverberates with poll songs & dance
Ishfaq-ul-Hassan
h_ishfaq@dnaindia.net
Srinagar: ‘Azadi’ can wait
but elections cannot!
Come elections, the restive
Kashmir is reverberating
with song and dance to cele-
brate the biggest festival of
democracy.
From ‘wanwun’ (Kashmiri
folklore sung by women in
rows during marriages) to
Kashmiri Bacha Nagma
(Kashmir folk dance wherein
a man dressed as a woman
wearing langha dances to the
tunes of Kashmiri songs), the
poll rallies are witnessing ex-
`7.01cr
Nath’s movable assets; his
wife’s is worth Rs 33.50 crore.
Nath’s immovable assets is
over Rs 68.36 crore.
Constituency:
Dhanbad (Jharkhand)
Polling date:
May 12
Sitting MP:
Pashupati Nath Singh
(BJP)
2014 victory margin:
292954
Runner-up:
Ajay kumar Dubey
(Congress)
Sports
`412.04 cr budget
`431.15 cr
`449.86 cr
since
`523.77 cr 2000-01
`815 cr
`1564.07 cr
`3670.13 cr
`2058.8 cr
`866.23 cr
`757 cr
`1093 cr
`1395.5 cr
`1541.13 cr*
`1592 cr
`1938.16 cr
`2002.72 cr**
`2216.92 cr
from Jaipur rural. The battle
between these two sporting he-
roes has made the contest in-
teresting and can divide the
Rajasthan’s Jat community.
the Road ahead
India’s first individual Olym-
pic gold winner, Abhinav
Bindra, recently pointed out
how the United Kingdom’s
huge spending on athletes be-
why jittery
„„BJP does not seem
to be in a rush to finalise
candidates on two seats
-- Rohtak and Hisar
„„The party had lost
Hisar & Sirsa to regional
rival Indian National
Lok Dal last time
despite being a non-entity in
this part of the region, the
party wants to up the victory
quotient and is eyeing a clean
sweep, sources say, adding the
extensive chaffing of prospec-
tive contenders for Rohtak
and Hisar. The BJP had
traordinary enthusiasm of the
people particularly in North
and Central Kashmir regions.
Drummers are busy cheer-
ing up the crowds and women
are busy singing the songs for
candidates as the convoy of
electioneers pass by. Even men
are dancing to the drum beats
in a traditional way to signal
a new beginning in the valley.
“Dekho Dekho Kaun Aaya
(look who is coming),” shouts
the crowd amid a huge round
of cheers. “Sher Aaya... Sher
Aaya,” comes the response
from the people who burst
into frantic dance to welcome
their leaders.
300gms
Gold owned by Nath. His wife
possesses over 915 grams as
well; besides diamond and stone
jewellery valued at Rs 2.20 crore.
Prasun Banerjee
Constituency:
Howrah (West Bengal)
Polling date:
May 6
Sitting MP:
Prasun Banerjee
(Trinamool Congress)
2014 victory margin:
196,956
Runner-up:
Sridip Bhattacharya
(CPM)
n Under UPA govt
n Under NDA govt
* Rio
Olympic
Games,
** Asian
Games and
CW Games,
a hike of
`253 cr
fore the 2016 Rio Games trans-
lated into more medals.
A study to compare India
against the UK shows how our
country spends roughly a one
fourth on sports budget com-
pared to the UK. It also shows
how the UK spends money on
fewer athletes compared to In-
dia, where spending is diffused
among numerous federations
and athletes.
bagged seven seats, losing
Hisar and Sirsa to regional
rival Indian National Lok Dal
and Rohtak to Congress.
In Rohtak, the party is faced
with a popular face of sitting
MP Deepender Singh Hooda
from Congress. Son of former
Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh
Hooda, he has been represent-
ing the city which is also his
home turf since 2005. Al-
though the Congress too is yet
to announce its candidates, it
is final that Deepender will be
retained from Rohtak. To
counter the three-time MP, the
BJP is mulling state ministers
Capt Abhimanyu, and OP
Dhankar and former Karnal
MP Arvind Sharma.
What has added a zing to
the whole campaign is that
women in large numbers are
joining the rallies to welcome
No more
political
outcasts
Independent can-
didate Jatin (c) and
Sneha Kale pose af-
ter filing nomination
as candidates for
elections in Mumbai
on Tuesday. Both are
members of Mum-
bai’s transgender
community. --AP
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019 I daily news & analysis
This is also because the UK
has 18 million people aged be-
tween 15 and 35, while India has
more than 400 million youth in
that age group. A survey just
after the Rio Games calculated
the £5.5 million ($7 million) in-
vestment per medal by UK
Sport, a govt body that funds
and manages Olympic sport.
In simple words, the UK
spends $1.5 billion (nearly Rs
9000 crore) on sports infra-
structure and training through
an annual sports budget, while
UK Sport spent about $350 mil-
lion on Olympics preparation
over four years (2013-2017).
In comparison, India spends
a third of UK, or Rs 3,200 crore
on youth affairs and sports
through the Union budget and
the states, according to esti-
mates from a review of sports
budgets of six large states.
Political field
Congress party, interestingly,
has also promised ‘Centres of
Sporting Excellence’ in differ-
ent parts of the country and at
least one ‘Sports Counselling
Centre’ in every district, be-
sides sufficient funds to “pro-
mote sports among girls and
women, persons with disabili-
ties and disadvantaged groups
such as Scheduled Tribes.”
“Congress affirms its belief
that India has the potential to
become a great sporting na-
tion. Our sports policy will aim
to inculcate in our citizens, es-
pecially students and youth,
the culture of sports and fit-
ness and will encourage sports
as a career,” says the manifesto.
It will be interesting to see
how many sportsmen will be-
come members of the next Lok
Sabha. But what will be more
interesting is to see how many
of them would be able to take up
the cause of sports in the next
five years. India certainly wants
to imitate China when it comes
to industry growth, but can the
same be sought in sporting
arena where China has truly
become a world power since
winning its first gold medal at
the Los Angeles Games of 1984.
China has gradually made
tracks towards becoming a
world sports power along with
economic growth. And if India
has to come anywhere near to
China, it has to demonstrate its
stature as a sports power-
house, too!
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Calling it prema-
ture to interfere with the
release of a biopic on
Prime Minister Nar-
endra Modi, the Su-
preme Court on Tues-
day left it for the Elec-
tion Commission to
decide if the movie’s
release would violate the
Model Code of Conduct. The
SC order came on a petition
filed by Congress spokesper-
son Aman Panwar who de-
manded deferment on the re-
lease of the Vivek Oberoi-star-
rer movie, PM Narendra Modi.
The petitioner produced a
Crowd at NC meetings
in Valley; (r) women
dancing --courtesy:
NC/Facebook
the leaders. From Kupwara to
Srinagar, women are enthusi-
astically participating in the
poll rallies singing and danc-
05
Security personnel and poll officials head to polling booths ahead of the
first phase of Lok Sabha elections, in Majuli, on Tuesday --PTI
Campaign ends
for 91 Ph-1 seats
DNA Correspondent BJP harping mainly on na-
correspondent@dnaindia.net tional security and Balakot
airstrikes, corruption of op-
New Delhi: The high voltage position leaders and their fear
electoral campaign finally of an “honest” Modi, while
came to an end at 5 p.m. on the opposition tried to corner
Tuesday in 91 constituencies PM Modi over unemploy-
in 20 states and UTs where ment, agrarian distress and
voting is going to be held on hurting dalits and minorities.
April 11. How crucial these eight
Voting for all Lok Sabha seats are for the BJP can be
seats in Andhra Pradesh,
Arunachal, Meghalaya, Utta-
gauged from the fact that PM
Modi began his electoral cam-
rakhand, Mizoram, Naga- paign from Meerut on March
land, Sikkim, Lakshadweep, 28. He also did two massive
Andaman & Nicobar Islands rallies in Saharanpur later.
and 17 seats in Telangana will The BJP is facing a tough
take place on Thursday. As- challenge from the Grand Al-
sembly elections for Andhra liance of SP-BSP and RLD in
Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal UP. Besides, Modi’s populari-
Pradesh and first phase of
Odisha Assembly polls will
ty the BJP is also banking on
Congress entry as a third
also be held on the day. force to divide votes.
Besides, polls will also be Massive crowds in the ral-
held on eight crucial seats of lies of all three main contests
Western Uttar Pradesh. Last – Grand Alliance, BJP and
time in 2014, all eight seats - Congress –and the difficult
Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaf- caste arithmetic have made
farnagar, Bijnor, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh a psepholo-
Baghpat, Ghaziabad and Gau- gist’s nightmare to predict.
tam Buddha Nagar - were won Besides UP, tough contest
by the BJP by huge margin. is also expected in two con-
The campaign here saw stituencies of West Bengal.
6 Assembly bypolls on May 19
New Delhi: Election Commission on Tuesday announced
by-election to six assembly constituencies spread over
three states. These are Panaji in Goa, Kundgol in Karana-
taka and Sulur, Aravakurichi, Thiruparankundram and
Ottapidaram in Tamil Nadu.
Notification for the polls will be issued on 22nd of this
month and candidates can file nominations till 29 April.
Polling will be held on 19 May and counting will take place
on 23 May. Panaji seat fell vacant due to death of former
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.
Sulur and Tirupparankundram seat fell vacant after
the death of sitting AIADMK MLAs R Kanagaraj and A K
Bose. By-election was necessitated in Kundgol seat in Kar-
nataka due to death of MLA and Minister CS Shivalli.
Homebuyers
to opt NOTA
in this UP seat
two-minute trailer of the mov- Advitya Bahl
ie to point out to the court that advitya.bahl@dnaindia .net
it is due for release on April 11.
The petition argued that since New Delhi: Angry homebuy-
the movie showcases the ers of Gautam Buddh Nagar
life of PM Modi, it will have decided to go for NOTA
influence the voters instead of any candidate in
during the elections the Lok Sabha election as po-
as it will continue to litical parties ruling UP have
run in cinema halls failed to render relief. Buyers
across the country allege they were given sever-
during the polls. al promises by the BJP gov-
But the bench felt the ernment.
issue was premature as the However, none of them
Central Board of Film Certifi- were fulfilled after coming to
cation is yet to certify the film. power. Meanwhile, some vil-
On Monday, the bench had al- lages alleged they will not vote
lowed the petitioner to bring at all as MPs, MLAs come,
proof to show the movie con- make promises and go away
tained objectionable portions but no work has been done.
detrimental to fair elections. Buyers have been running
a campaign on social media
targeting Uttar Pradesh CM
Yogi Adityanath and Prime
Minister Narendra Modi.
The Noida Estate Flat
Owners Main Assn (NEFO-
MA) and Noida Extension
Flat Owners Welfare Associa-
tion (NEFOWA), which have
ing, notwithstanding the ter- been running campaigns to
rorist threats. garner the support of home
“We believe people should buyers to press NOTA, com-
use their right and power in plained the buyers have been
the electoral process to choose waiting for years to get the
the best candidate at this cru- possession of flats.
cial time,” said Suhail Bukha- Neither the state nor the
ri, media advisor to PDP Centre has tried to resolve the
president Mehbooba Mufti. issue yet. “The flat buyers in
The unprecedented enthu- Greater Noida west have not
siasm comes despite dreaded got the flats even after the as-
Hizbul Mujahideen warning surance from the PM. (UP)
the people against joining CM Yogi Adityanath consti-
election rallies in Kashmir. tuted three ministerial com-
Huge rush in poll rallies mittees but those also did not
has also given a new lease of help. Hence our association
life to mainstream leaders has started No Home, No Vote
who are demanding assembly drive,” said Annu Khan, NE-
polls in state at the earliest. FOMA president.
 06
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019
 opini n
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daily news & analysis

Not a James Bond movie
The swirling debate on AFSPA is getting to be increasingly shrill, uninformed and dangerous
VVPAT slips
Over the last few
years, we have
been witnessing a
debate on the sub-
The SC order should put to rest any further controversy ject of Armed
Forces Special

A
pparently, political parties are difficult to convince. After per- Powers Act (AFS-
sistent confirmation by virtually every serving and former PA). Sadly, it is be-
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) about the soundness of coming more stri-
electronic voting machines (EVMs), the 21-party opposition front dent as media
Lt Gen Satish Dua
channels have
is not entirely satisfied. Following up with the Supreme Court multiplied, as have activists and ‘ex-
demanding an enhanced paper trail count has paid dividends. The perts’.
apex court has directed a somewhat reluctant Election Commis- Now with the social media, no chan-
sion to increase by five times the number of EVMs whose vote nel is needed. Suddenly, everyone has a
count must be matched with voter verifiable paper audit trail view and a platform to express it. So the
(VVPAT) slips in each assembly segment. On an average, it could debate has got high on rhetoric and low
on content. There are frequent refer-
mean 35-40 VVPAT counts per parliamentary seat. If in the pro- ences to phrases like ‘draconian law’,
cess, the results get delayed by at least four hours, if not more, be ‘licence to kill’, ‘free hand to army to
it so. Though leaders of the 21-party front failed to convince the rape and murder’, and much more.
court of the need to count VVPAT slips of 50 per cent EVMs in the Are we talking about our Indian
Lok Sabha elections, they could rightfully claim moral victory in Army, the simple soldiers who risk
so far as succeeding to get the Commission to change its procedure their lives day after day for country and
countrymen? Or are we talking about
of counting VVPAT slips of one randomly selected EVM per as- characters from a James Bond movie?
sembly segment is concerned. The apex court has, however, done Why have the debates got so shrill?
well to place its confidence in the Election Commission and the Partly because it is fashionable to talk
EVMs. There is no doubt that subjecting more EVMs to verifica- about human rights (in that case, one
tion will lead to greater satisfaction not just for the political par- needs to make a case about the human
ties, but even the common mass of voters. It is equally true, how- rights of soldiers as well, but I will
leave it for a subsequent day).
ever, that it would add to the already overworked Commission. The rights part have got discussed
Even more importantly, it would put the Commission’s infrastruc- threadbare and the legal mores ana-
ture under severe strain on May 23, the day of the general election lysed to the hilt. Knowledgeable in their
results. It would, however, be fair to say that it is a new system that fields as they might be, these experts When conditions improve, and situation permits, the government revokes AFSPA in consultation with the army and other stakeholders
is going to be introduced and chances of unknown glitches cannot have no idea of how to operate in these
be ruled out. Officials in the Election Commission believe, pri- tricky situations, where there is risk to remote, high altitude and thickly for- Special Powers Act.
life and limb. ested mountains, there is no habitation, The Act, as well as the deployment
vately of course, that increasing the mandatory count of VVPAT The Indian Army, on the other hand, let alone any representative of the civil of the army, is temporary. As soon as
trail to five EVMs from the existing practice of one, could delay barely comes out openly in support of administration. Hence the army officer the situation normalises, both will go
results by four hours, if not more. The Commission, under exist- its stand on the AFSPA and has always in charge is empowered to take a few and the army will be most happy to re-
ing rules, follows a system of counting VVPAT slips in one polling been reluctant to put forward its views actions himself, such as searching a turn to its primary duties. When condi-
booth per constituency in Vidhan Sabha elections and one polling in public. The result is the public has bunker or hideout without warrant, tions improve, and situation permits,
booth per assembly segment in Lok Sabha polls. However, this got a one-sided and distorted picture. destroying illegal equipment, explo- the govt revokes AFSPA in consultation
Recently, this subject gathered addi- sives and armament in situ, arrest anti- with the army and other stakeholders.
could stretch even longer, maybe 7-8 hours, if candidates demand tional momentum as a major political national elements without warrant (but In the past, on the recommendations
counting of VVPAT trails for other EVMs, as provided for under party suggested changes in their posi- hand them over to the police within 24 of the army, AFSPA has been revoked
Rule 56 (D) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. So look at it any tion on the AFSPA in their election hours), and lastly stop anyone from do- from Mizoram in 1987, Punjab in 1997
way, expect delayed results on the day of the counting. A sample manifesto. Once again, there was a ing anything that may be illegal and and Tripura in 2015.
survey by the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI)-led experts has said flurry of activities, speeches and de- against the interests of the state, to the Selective revocation of AFSPA is
that counting of VVPAT slips of 479 EVMs from a total of 13.5 lakh bates. Given the poll climes, there was extent of opening fire, if needed. seem to understand that these checks fraught with immense danger. It gives
the obvious political tilt, as can be ex- Additionally, if an army man com- are required for our own security and terrorists the latitude to operate from
EVMs ensured a voter confidence of 99.9 per cent. Even more im- pected. mits a wrong while operating under safety. their safe sanctuaries. The failed model
portant, there has been no single mismatch in the EVM count and But the Indian public deserves bet- AFSPA, he can be prosecuted in a court Let us also appreciate that the army of Imphal is a case in point.
VVPAT slips, till date. Be as it may, it is imperative in a democracy ter. The purpose of this piece is to put of law, for which an approval of the cen- is the instrument of last resort. It is Revoking or diluting AFSPA should
that any doubt, howsoever minor, needs to be cleared. By such a forward the facts simply, correctly and tral government is needed. called in when the civil administration, only be done in light of the security
comprehensive exercise, as has been ordered by the SC, it would directly, so that we can aspire for more Later, when AFSPA was made appli- the police and the central armed police situation, after giving due considera-
lay to rest any nagging doubts about the efficacy of the EVMs that informed debates. cable to Punjab and Jammu and Kash- forces have not been able to bring any tion to views of all stakeholders. It will
Let us first understand what AFSPA mir in 1990, two more provisions were given situation under full control. be highly dangerous if extraneous pres-
has acquired a logic and direction of its own. is. It was first promulgated in its pre- added, namely authority to search a When the army is called in, it should sures come to dictate such sensitive

Higher education
sent form in 1958 in North East India
when the army was called in to control
the Naga insurgents, as the Naga Na-
tional Council had declared independ-
There are no additions to a star-studded list of institutes ence.
Normally, a district magistrate
vehicle without warrant and to search
an individual.
These checks have become common-
place in our lives these days. We open
the boot of our cars and get body
searched very readily by a security
be empowered or enabled to operate ef-
fectively. If army is also not effective in
controlling the situation, who else will
the country turn to?
Hence, to operate effectively in a dis-
turbed situation, in the absence of po-
decisions.
If it is so done, the situation is likely
to worsen and slip back by a few years.
And then army will be called in again,
and so the cycle will go on.
Author is a former Chief of Integrated Defence

T
he fourth edition of the Indian rankings based on the Na- hands over any given situation to the guard at a movie hall or a mall. Hardly licing powers, the army needs an ena- Staff and Corps Commander in Srinagar who
tional Institutional Ranking Framework 2019, announced by army by actually signing a form. But in ‘draconian’ or ‘licence to kill’! Here, we bler in the form of the Armed Forces planned and executed the surgical strikes
President Ram Nath Kovind, is a reconfirmation about In-
dia’s top higher educational institutions, even as it does not add
any new name to a star-studded list. IIT-Madras emerges as the QUOTE HANGER slowburn
top- ranked higher education institute, but it should surprise no
one that eight of the top 10 engineering institutions are IITs.
While Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, was de-
Dalima Chhibber Rujuta Diwekar India tops global remittances at $79 bn
@DalimaChhibber @RujutaDiwekar
I
clared the best university, Delhi University’s Miranda House ndia retained its position as the world’s high of $529 billion in 2018, an increase
emerged as the best college. AIIMS was not surprisingly India’s Sad that we had to bow out Don’t be a fool, this phool top recipient of remittances with its of 9.6 per cent over the previous record
diaspora sending a whopping $79 bil- high of $483 billion in 2017. Global remit-
best medical college while NLSIU is ranked as the country’s best of Olympic Qualifiers round 2 because is good for your bones, brain and lion back home in 2018, the World Bank tances, which include flows to high-in-
law school. The one relatively new entry is Jamia Hamdard, of the goal difference. Keep supporting blood sugars. Put your hands said in a report on Monday. India was fol- come countries, reached $689 billion in
which emerged as the top varsity for Pharmacy. While the track us and we will work even more hard lowed by China ($67 billion), Mexico ($36 2018, up from $633 billion in 2017, it said.
together for the coconut flower billion), the Philippines ($34 billion), and
record of such institutions is truly commendable, the bigger
issue at stake is the absence of new names on the list. India’s and come back stronger the next time. Egypt ($29 billion), the global lender said.
developed islands of excellence such as IIT and IISc now produce With this, India has retained its top spot
on remittances, according to the latest
Bob Dylan distillery to
Dimple Yadav
about 15-20 per cent of faculty members of universities world-
wide, which is good news. However, according to the World @Dimpleyadav
edition of the World Bank’s Migration open in winter of 2020
Wherever possible and Development Brief. Over the last

M
Bank, while India has the third largest higher education struc- Anti-liquor activists forgot three years, India has registered a sig- ore information is being released
ture in the world after the US and China, in terms of expenditure we have removed AFSPA, in nificant flow of remittances from $62.7 about music icon Bob Dylan’s project
their ‘save daughter’ campaign in their billion in 2016 to $65.3 billion 2017. “Re- in downtown Nashville in conjunc-
per student as well as per teacher, India falls way behind. In the
inebriated state when it came to
North East. But in mittances grew by more than 14 percent tion with the 50th anniversary of his
last decade, access to higher education has improved as more
IITs, IIMs and central- and state-level universities have been es- harassing a Muslim girl in Meerut Kashmir, removing in India, where a flooding disaster in
Kerala likely boosted the financial help
“Nashville Skyline” album. Dylan is set
to help open a whiskey distillery in win-
tablished. The trouble is that this proliferation has also raised AFSPA will that migrants sent to families, the Bank ter of 2020 under the brand “Heaven’s
concerns about an imbalance between excellence and inclusion. said. In Pakistan, remittance growth was Door.” A news release says Heaven’s Door
Having said that, India needs to welcome the National Institute Donald Trump tantamount to moderate (seven per cent), due to signifi- Spirits will transform the 160-year-old
Ranking Framework as steps in the right direction. Rankings @realDonaldTrump hanging soldiers in cant declines in inflows from Saudi Ara-
bia, its largest remittance source. In
Elm Street Church into the Heaven’s
Door Distillery and Center for the Arts,
increase the quality of education. Universities compete among The mainstream media has full public Bangladesh, remittances showed a brisk featuring the distillery, a whiskey library,
themselves to rank higher as this begets them greater autonomy never been more inaccurate or corrupt uptick in 2018 (15 per cent). According to a restaurant and a 360-seat live perfor-
from regulation, and also more money. Some other reforms like —Narendra Modi, the report, remittances to low-and mid- mance venue. It will also feature Dylan’s
semester systems and choice-based courses could also enhance than today. It only seems to get worse. Prime Minister dle-income countries reached a record paintings and metalwork sculptures.
academic performance and free students to explore their interests. So much fake news.
send your feedback to editor@dnaindia.net

Mapping up the Chinese dragon, India style

The news that cus-
toms officials in
China have de-
stroyed 30,000
world maps print-
ed in the country
for not mentioning
A r u n a c h a l
Pradesh and Tai-
Prasenjit Chowdhury wan as part of its
territory, should
not surprise anyone.
With no immediate roadmap to-
wards the settlement of Sino-Indian
border dispute in sight, there is reason
to expect that China would, off and on
up the ante, by laying claim to
Arunachal Pradesh now or a fingertip
in Sikkim next.
Earlier, the Chinese Foreign Minis-
try released a map depicting Doklam as
part of China. The standard Chinese
tactic of assigning their own names to
places and then claiming historic asso-
ciation with them, is also old hat.
China claims almost the entire
Arunachal Pradesh. They protested
when Arunachal was granted state-
hood and have not recognised it as a
part of India yet. It did the same with
Sikkim.
China’s claims over a large part of
Arunachal Pradesh (called South Tibet
in China) being a key pickle of the Si-
no-Indian border dispute, constitutes
the core of India’s opposition to the
Belt-and-Road-Initiative (BRI).
India has not lent any serious
thought to the Northeast. Sardar Patel’s
geopolitical view of the Northeast as
first and foremost a sensitive border re-
gion with China, inhabited by culturally
distinct “Mongoloid” people whose loy-
alty to India was highly tenuous, exem-
plifies the worldview of Indian elites.
China occupied the Aksai Chin pla-
teau in the 1950s and completed a road
through it in 1957 when India was
caught napping (in fact India claimed
some 180 km of the 1,200 km-long road,
when they found out about the road by
reading Peking newspapers of this “re-
markable” piece of engineering).
In the east, India argued that the
border was delimited by the McMahon
line between Bhutan and Burma, the
boundary negotiated by Britain in 1914.
From 1958, Chinese maps started
showing large parts of Bhutanese terri-
tory as part of China as well.
Chinese authorities unveiled a ‘new’
map showing the totality of Beijing’s
territorial claims in 2014 too, taking
into account Taiwan (which Beijing
considers a renegade province), the
Spratlys and Paracels, the two main ar-
chipelagos of the South China Sea, con-
tested by Vietnam, the Philippines and
a number of other Southeast Asian na-
tions, and a 10-dash line (as opposed to
China’s earlier nine-dash line) encir-
cling most of the South China Sea, not
to speak of its old claim over the
Arunachal Pradesh.
China does regularly issue diplomat-
ic complaints when officials from New
Delhi travel to Arunachal Pradesh – be
they Pranab Mukherjee, Narendra
Modi or Dalai Lama.
It unilaterally renamed six places in
Arunachal Pradesh in 2017 in an appar-
ent retaliation against the Dalai Lama’s
visit to India’s easternmost state, with
an irredentist intent of reaffirming Be-
ijing’s “territorial sovereignty” to the
region.
What should India do if China sticks
to its wide territorial claims and refuses
to budge from any part of the occupied
territories and evince little interest in
an early settlement of territorial issues?
In view of China’s nerve-sapping
bargaining over where the Line ought
to be, the settlement of the LAC cannot
be forthcoming any time soon – the
first exchange of maps occurred seven
years after the 1993 agreement to main-
tain peace and tranquility along the
LAC.
The answer is to redouble its claim
on Arunachal Pradesh by focusing on
infrastructure development along the
disputed border with China (the McMa-
hon Line), thereby promoting further
migration into the area.
China started the territorial game
way before and it’s only lately that In-
dia has woken up to the menace.
The Indo-China frontier was mapped
and the line drawn by Captain Henry
McMahon of the Indian Army, starting
in 1893, following which the border was
known as the McMahon line, a demar-
cation of which China had almost al-
ways remained disdainful. Now if Chi-
na fancies some maps, assigning to it-
self territories owned by other nations,
we reserve our fair share of being dis-
dainful. Perhaps, a lasting peace calls
for a permanent solution.
Author is a commentator on geopolitical
affairs and cultural issues

Vol 12 n Issue No. 155 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
Iranian prez says Tehran: Iran’s President Hassan
Rouhani (pictured, right) on
US is ‘leader of Tuesday accused the US of being
the real “leader of world terror-
ism”, hitting back after Washing-
world terrorism’ ton blacklisted Iran’s Revolution-
ary Guards as a terrorist group.
Tehran was quick to retaliate
on Monday by declaring US troops
“terrorists” following Washing-
ton’s move, which was welcomed
by Iran’s regional arch-rivals Is-
rael and Saudi Arabia.
It was the first time that Wash-
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019 I daily news & analysis
ington has branded part of a for-
eign government a terrorist
group, meaning that anyone who
deals with the Islamic Revolution-
ary Guard Corps could face prison
in the United States.
“Who are you to label revolu-
07
tionary institutions as terror-
ists?” an angry Rouhani demand-
“Who is propagating and en-
couraging terrorism in today’s
ed in a speech broadcast live by
state television... You want to use
world? Who wanted to use ISIS
(the Islamic State group) as a
terrorist groups as tools against tool?” Rouhani asked, saying that
the nations of the region... you are
the leader of world terrorism.”
the US is “hiding” the leaders of
the jihadist organisation. —AFP
10
Wednesday
April
2019
Ahmedabad
www.dnaindia.com
Sensex
38939.22 238.69 p
Gold 10 gram 31897.00
US $ 69.30 0.37 q
news in numbers
moneyedit Power infra co EMC faces bankruptcy with `6K cr debt
India’s auto
mart slump a
sign of worry
T
he automobile industry,
the barometer of eco-
nomic health of the
country, is facing a grave
demand slump. Society of
Indian Automobile Manu-
facturers (SIAM), a lobby
group for vehicle manu-
facturers in the country,
on Monday made a fore-
cast of single-digit growth
for the industry in 2019-20.
The data revealed the
slowing urban demand
with car sales growing by
mere 2.4% in last fiscal,
the worst performance in
the past four years.
SIAM’s forecast is to be
seen in tandem with the
paring of India’s growth
forecast. International
Monetary Fund (IMF) on
Tuesday trimmed the
growth by 20 basis points
to 7.3%, citing loss of mo-
mentum. Similarly, Asian
Development Bank and
Reserve Bank of India had
last week peeled off growth
projection to 7.2% from
7.4%, putting blame on the
slowing global activities
and weakening domestic
investments. India’s auto-
motive industry, which is
the fourth largest in the
world, forms around 7% of
country’s GDP.
The impact of regula-
tory changes, increase in
insurance cost and the li-
quidity crunch, which
forced the industry to go
through a subdued growth
in past seven months, is
likely to spill over to the
first quarter of 2019-20.
Hopefully, the demand
may pick up in the second
quarter onward and peak
in the run-up to the new
emission regime.
ST smart
Jet operations
down to 32 flights
Crumbling Jet Airways
has massively reduced its
operations from its main
hub Mumbai to just
about 32 flights Tuesday,
said an airline source.
Amid acute financial
crunch, which has also
forced it to delay salaries
to employees and
payments to banks,
aircraft lessors and
vendors, Jet is struggling
to remain afloat. “Jet on
Tuesday operated only 22
planes, bringing down
daily operations to 32
flights from Mumbai, the
main hub. This included
16 arrivals and
departures each,” the
source said, adding the
airline didn’t operate the
remaining four aircraft.
India to grow at
7.5% in 2020: IMF
India is projected to grow
at 7.3% in 2019 and 7.5%
in 2020, supported by the
continued recovery of
investment and robust
consumption, thus
remaining the fastest
growing major economy
of the world, according
to the IMF. In 2018,
India’s growth rate was
7.1%, as against China’s
6.6%. In 2019, the
International Monetary
Fund (IMF) projected a
growth rate of 6.3% for
China and 6.1% in 2020,
according to the latest
World Economic Outlook
projections released
ahead of the annual
spring meetings of the
International Monetary
Fund and the World
Bank. “In India, growth
is projected to pick up to
7.3% in 2019 and 7.5% in
2020, supported by the
continued recovery of
investment.” However,
IMF had cut global
growth estimate to 3.3%
as world economy loses
steam.
Nifty
11671.95 67.45 p
32.00 q
EURO 78.14 0.29 q
321 lakh bales - Crop estimate for the 2018-19 cotton season, according to Cotton Association of India
Sumit Moitra
m_sumit@dnaindia.net
Kolkata: More than Rs 6,000
crore worth of loans are at
risk, including State Bank of
India’s (SBI’s) Rs 1,675 crore,
with leading power infra-
structure company EMC go-
ing the insolvency way.
The debt resolution of
the entity, which had a sig-
nificant global presence,
might face delays as the
company owned by the
Toshniwal family is under-
going a forensic audit.
EMC was earlier in the
news when it was roped in
as a strategic investor to res-
cue the Khaitan family-
owned McNally Bharat En-
gineering but the deal was
Banks fail to keep pace ITC’s
Fortune Select hotel
to check out of Lavasa city
with RBI’s 50 bps rate cut
SBI and other lenders have cut interest rates by 5 to15 bps this year
Manju AB
manju.ab@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Despite 50 basis
points (bps) cut in the inter-
est rates by Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) in the calendar
year 2019, banks have cut
rates by only 5 to 15 bps.
A basis point is one hun-
dredth of a percentage
point.
State Bank of India and
Indian Overseas Bank on
Tuesday cut interest rates
by 5 bps. While SBI cut rates
across tenures to be effec-
tive from April 10, IOB cut
rates for its two- and three-
year loans.
SBI’s one-year interest
rate, or marginal cost-based
lending rate (MCLR) to
which most loans are
pegged, is down 5 bps to
8.55%, the lowest among the
banks. It also cut home loan
rates for up to Rs 30 lakh by
10 basis points to 8.60-8.90%.
In both the monetary
policy reviews on February
7 and April 4 this year, RBI
cut the repo rate by 25 bps
each. For better monetary
transmission, the central
bank is working on setting
up external benchmarks to
which bank loans can be
pegged.
SBI has linked its cash
credit/overdraft (CC and
OD) rates above Rs 1 lakh to
the repo rate for better
transmission of RBI’s policy
rates. The benefit of reduc-
tion in repo rate by 25 bps by
RBI (from April 04 2019) will
get passed on in its entirety
to CC/OD customers bank-
ing with SBI from May 01,
2019, the bank said in a re-
lease.
SBI’s move follows close
on heels of the largest pri-
vate sector lender, HDFC
for control Founder Bhavish Aggarwal is fighting to maintain his independence against SoftBank
Why Ola turned down a $1.1 billion SoftBank deal
Saritha Rai
Bengaluru: Start-ups, when
they raise venture money to
build their businesses, begin
with a Series A round and
then proceed through Series
E, F or maybe G before going
public. The Indian ride-hail-
ing service Ola is a bit unu-
sual: It just completed its
Series J fundraising and is
marching toward Series K, a
letter almost unheard of by
researchers that track such
things.
What’s going on here is
about more than money. Ola
co-founder Bhavish Aggar-
wal is fighting to maintain
his independence against
SoftBank Group Corp. The
Japanese conglomerate, led
by Masayoshi Son, was an
early backer of Ola, but Ag-
garwal has grown con-
cerned about its influence as
Silver kg 37750.00 90.00 p
British pound 90.48 0.47 q
later called off in 2016.
Given the current state of
affairs in the power and engi-
neering sectors, both the
companies are now facing
hardships with questions
now being raised over their
survival.
As per claims filed by the
financial institutions and
other creditors, the Kolkata-
based EMC has an unpaid
debt level of Rs 6,309 crore
with State Bank of India
having the highest exposure
of Rs 1,675 crore among the
members of a consortium
of 24 banks and financial
institutions.
EMC is one of the earli-
est entrants in the power
infrastructure sector and
forayed into overseas mar-
Repo rate
7.75 (%)
Jan 15, 15
How they compare
SBI 8.60% to 8.90% 10th April 2019
Indian overseas 8.70% 10th April 2019
ICICI Bank 9.05%
HDFC bank 8.85 % to 9.35% for others
Bank, which cut its one-year
MCLR by 5 bps to 8.70% on
April 8, 2019.
ICICI Bank had already
revised its lending rates on
April 1 anticipating a cut in
the repo rate in RBI’s mon-
etary policy which was un-
veiled on April 4. The new
one-year MCLR from ICICI
Bank is 8.75%, down from
8.80%.
Bank of Baroda had said
last week that it is not
changing in its MCLR in
SoftBank took a stake in his
archrival, Uber Technolo-
gies Inc, and then encour-
aged the rivals to merge.
Son struck a preliminary
deal to put another $1.1 bil-
lion into Ola to boost his
stake to more than 40%, ac-
cording to people familiar
with the matter. But Aggar-
wal tried to include terms to
guarantee his own control
over the start-up, and the
deal ultimately fell apart,
said the people, who asked
not to be identified because
the matter is private. In-
stead, Aggarwal is piecing
together smaller slices of
funding from unaligned
backers. This year alone, he
picked up $300 million from
Hyundai Motor Co and
about $90 million invest-
ment from Sachin Bansal,
the co-founder of Flipkart
Online Services Pvt. Bhavish
Aggarwal
FTSE 100 Nikkei 225
7451.89 5.02 p 21802.59 40.94 p
Brent Crude $/barrel 70.80 0.84 p
UAE dirham 18.88 0.06 q
TRIPPING POINT
„„EMC has an unpaid debt level
of Rs 6,309 crore with SBI having
the highest exposure of Rs 1,675
crore among the members of a
consortium of 24 lenders
„„The company’s fortunes
started dwindling in financial
year 2016-17 with the change in
the power sector dynamics and
rise in its receivables
kets way back in the 1970s In fact, when the
by exporting transmission Khaitans were desperately
towers, conductors and looking at ways to revive
other hardware items, and their ailing McNally Bharat
also taking up turnkey pro- Engineering, they inked a
jects in Europe, Africa and deal to rope in EMC as a
the Middle East. strategic investor and
SBI to cut
savings bank
not in
rate to 3.5%
sync
DNA Money Correspondent
Deposit correspondent@dnaindia.net
growth lags
bank credit For the first time after the
growth saving bank deposit rates
were deregulated by Re-
Bank credit serve bank of India (RBI) in
growing at October 2011, State Bank of
14% while India will be bringing down
deposit its savings bank rate to 3.5%
growth is at for deposits up to Rs 1 lakh
10% effective May 1, 2019. The
bank has around 440 million
savings bank accounts.
MCLR rates for 1 year
About 95% of this customer
base have deposits of only
SBI 8.50% up to Rs 1 lakh. For deposits
Indian
overseas 8.65%
above Rs 1 lakh the new de-
posit rate will be 3.25%.
6.00 ICICI
Bank
8.75% The new rates will be ef-
fective after the bank links
Apr 4, 19
HDFC 8.70% its savings bank deposits to
the repo rate from May
1.Two loan products – cash
Housing loan below 30 lacs credit and the overdraft fa-
cility over Rs 1 lakh - will
also become cheaper by 25
bps as these products get
linked to the repo rate. This
means that when there is a
movement in the repo rate,
savings bank deposit rates
April 2019. and the select lending prod-
Among the banks, only ucts will be impacted.
Axis Bank has hiked its SBI’s cut in its savings
MCLR by 5 bps to 8.90% and bank deposit rates may trig-
thereafter, it has kept its ger other big banks to bring
MCLR flat. down their rates. The sav-
“We are conscious of the ing bank deposit rates were
fact that there has to be effec- for the first time deregulat-
tive and appropriate trans- ed in October 2011 but all
mission of the rates. After the big banks continued to
the last meeting, I had held keep the rates steady at 4%.
meetings with public sector YES Bank was the first to
and private sector banks. seize the opportunity and
The banks have cut MCLR hike its rates to 6% in Octo-
by up to 10 basis points. ber 2011 after deregulation.
Time to reroute
„„Aggarwal is piecing together smaller slices of funding
from unaligned backers
„„This year alone, he picked up $300 million from
Hyundai Motor Co and about $90 million investment
from Sachin Bansal
„„Aggarwal has also gone to the founders of India’s
Snapdeal for advice on managing SoftBank
“Bhavish is spurning
SoftBank money as he
doesn’t want to get diluted
out of Ola,” said Mohandas
Pai, venture capitalist and
former chief financial of-
ficer of Infosys Ltd.
“Founders become employ-
ees when someone sits on
your Board and tells you
how to run the show.”
Bengaluru-based Ola de-
nies there is a rift with the
Japanese company.
merge the companies, thus
using its strength and con-
tacts to pump in equity and
bring in new businesses.
As per the deal between
the Khaitans and the Tosh-
niwals, EMC bought 12.32%
Ashish K Tiwari
t_ashish@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Fortune Park Ho-
tels, a subsidiary of one of
India’s leading hospitality
chains ITC Hotels, has
pulled the plug on its Lavasa
property.
The 60-room business ho-
tel managed under the ban-
ner Fortune Select Dasve, was
Lavasa hill city’s first full-
service branded hotel to start
operations in March 2009.
Sources told DNA Money
that the Fortune Park man-
agement is in the final stage
of exiting its contract with
the hotel. “The management
contract for this hotel has
been under review for a
while now. Given the chal-
lenges faced by the company
and the destination, the ITC
Hotels subsidiary has de-
Fortis, Stellant plan
to sell stake in RHT
Ateeq Shaikh
ateeq.shaikh@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Less than three
months after acquiring
RHT Health Trust, Fortis
Healthcare Ltd’s interna-
tional arm and Stellant
Capital Advisor Services
Pvt Ltd have initiated talks
to sell a stake in the Sin-
gapore-listed firm as
well as its trustee-man-
ager RHT Health Trust
Manager Pte Ltd.
According to a disclosure
made on Singapore Stock
Exchange on April 7, the
discussions are being held
by the RHT Health Trust
owners.
“RHT Health Trust Man-
ager Pte Ltd wishes to in-
form unitholders of RHT
that it has been notified by
Fortis Healthcare Interna-
tional Ltd (FHIL), a control-
“SoftBank has been a
great partner for us as we’ve
grown our business,” a
spokesman for the company
said in a statement. “There
are so many emerging syn-
ergies with SoftBank that we
envisage in the years to
come, as we continue to
build a global mobility busi-
ness out of India.”
“We enjoy a cordial rela-
tionship with all our portfolio
companies, including Ola,”
said a SoftBank spokeswom-
an. “Beyond this, we do not
comment on specific individ-
uals and internal matters.”
Aggarwal avoids gather-
ings with Son and his port-
folio companies when he
visits India, according to
people familiar with the
matter. Aggarwal has said
he declined SoftBank invita-
tions only because he
doesn’t visit New Delhi, ac-
stake in McNally Bharat in
2015 followed by a deal to
acquire
19.77% stake.
an additional
The pact, however, was
called off in 2016 because of
the failure of both the
groups to find enough syn-
ergy or benefit in their
merger of the businesses.
Till 2015-16, EMC contin-
ued its strong presence in the
power sector, winning trans-
mission projects in countries
like Georgia, Tanzania, and
also acquiring a company in
Spain call Regya that special-
ised in power projects.
EMC’s fortunes started
dwindling in FY17 with the
change in the power sector
dynamics and rise in its
receivables, industry in-
no service
„„Hotel’s reservations
have been closed as the
brand is going to change
„„Earlier, Accor
discontinued
management of Lavasa
Convention Centre
cided not to go for an exten-
sion. The hotel chain is cur-
rently in the process of exit-
ing the management of the
property,” said a source re-
questing anonymity.
ling unitholder of RHT, and
Stellant Capital Advisory
Services Pvt Ltd, the sole
shareholder of the trustee-
manager, that they have
each commenced discus-
sions with various parties
to explore the possibility of
sale of their interests in
RHT and the trustee-manag-
er, respectively,” read
the regulatory an-
nouncement.
Fortis Healthcare In-
ternational owns 27.82%
in the RHT Health Trust.
RHT Health Trust Manager
Pte Ltd holds 2.68%. The
trustee-manager is a whol-
ly-owned unit of Stellant.
Fortis Healthcare Inter-
national Ltd, as well as Stel-
lant Capital Advisor Servic-
es Pvt Ltd, have claimed that
these “discussions are pre-
liminary and no firm prTuo-
posal has been received”.
cording to one person famil-
iar with the matter.
Aggarwal has also gone to
the founders of India’s Snap-
deal for advice on managing
SoftBank, the people said.
SoftBank invested in the e-
commerce start-up about five
years ago and then tried to
push the founders to sell out
to a larger rival, Flipkart.
When Snapdeal refused the
deal, Son switched allegianc-
es by stopping further invest-
ment in the company and put
$2.5 billion into Flipkart.
Ola currently has 1.3 mil-
lion drivers on its platform
in over a hundred cities and
since last year has expanded
to Australia, New Zealand
the UK. It also entered the
food delivery business in In-
dia, burning cash in a bid to
grab market share from
Uber Eats as well as local
operators. —Bloomberg
siders say.
The problem was aggra-
vated following its exposure
to McNally Bharat.
“During FY16, EMC in-
vested in McNally Bharat
Engineering, a bigger loss-
making company. The invest-
ment had to be funded
through additional borrow-
ings of Rs 143 crore. The
higher debt level was in-
curred during a time when
management’s time was di-
vided between the existing
and the newly acquired busi-
ness leading to weak moni-
toring of cash flows and con-
siderable irregularities in
servicing the debt,” India
Ratings said while down-
grading the company to de-
fault grade in March 2017.
DNA Money, in its July 30,
2018 edition, had first report-
ed the possibilities of the ITC
subsidiary exiting Lavasa.
When contacted, ITC Ho-
tels did not comment on the
development. Queries
mailed to company spokes-
persons remained unan-
swered till press time.
“The Lavasa hotel will go
out of Fortune’s network
very soon. In fact, the hotel
has already stopped accept-
ing future bookings,” said
another source familiar
with the development.
A call inquiring about ho-
tel room availability for the
month of May confirmed
the same.
“Sir, the reservations
have been closed. You can
call after April 15, and check
for the same,” said the ho-
tel’s front desk executive.
Voda Idea
expects Indus
stake sale in
four months
New Delhi: Telecom firm
Vodafone Idea expects the
sale of its 11.15% stake in
Indus Tower to complete in
the next three-four months
which could yield an esti-
mated Rs 5,500 crore, a sen-
ior company executive said
on Tuesday.
Under a contract signed
with Bharti Infratel in April
2018, the company has an op-
tion to sell the 11.15% stake
in Indus Tower for cash
ahead of the merger of the
country’s largest mobile
tower firm with the Bharti
group firm.
“As things stand now, that
process is in NCLT and ex-
pectation is that it should be
completed in the next three-
four months timeframe. Be-
fore the merger is consum-
mated, we have the right to
receive that in cash. The
value will fluctuate.
“The value is dependent
on Bharti Infratel (stock)
price. At current Bharti In-
fratel price, the cash value is
more than Rs 5,500 crore,”
Vodafone Idea chief finan-
cial officer Akshaya Moon-
dra said.
The company expects
that the money raised from
the stake sale in Indus Tow-
er and the Rs 25,000 crore
rights issue, which is open-
ing on Wednesday, will give
it long term war chest to
compete in the market.
“We believe that the pro-
ceeds from the rights issue
coupled with the monetisa-
tion of our stake in Indus
Towers Limited will allow
us to make the required in-
vestments in the business
to achieve our strategic
goals,” Vodafone Idea chief
executive officer Balesh
Sharma said.
The Board of directors of
Vodafone Idea on March 20
cleared the planned Rs
25,000-crore rights issue at a
price of Rs 12.50 per equity
share, a steep 61% discount
to the prevailing market
rate. —PTI
 c mpanies
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
Deal
TechM to acquire
18.1% stake each in
Street lnfotek, Vitaran
IT services major Tech Mahindra said it will acquire
18.1% stake each in Infotek Software and Systems
(ISS) and Vitaran Electronics for a consideration of
up to Rs 13 crore. “The Investment Committee of the
Board of directors of the company has approved the
proposal to acquire 18.1% equity shares each of ISS
and Vitaran Electronics,” Tech Mahindra said in a
regulatory filing. The cost of the transaction -- being
carried out in cash -- is up to Rs 13 crore, it added.
The investment will also help expand Tech
Mahindra’s solution portfolio to cater to the smart
city projects, the filing said.
Citroen ties up
with CarDekho
French automaker
Citroen said it has tied-
up with auto portal
CarDekho to enter pre-
owned car market in
India. Citroen, which
announced its India
entry last week, plans
to launch its first
vehicle by the end of
next year. The company
is confident that in
Cardekho, it has found
a dynamic partner to
provide a value
proposition for the
customers in the Indian
pre-owned car market.
In brief
JSW Steel’s output
grew 3% in FY19
JSW Steel Tuesday said
its crude steel output
grew 3 per cent to 16.69
million tonne (mt)
during financial year
2018-19. The company
had produced 16.27 mt
of crude steel in the
2017-18 fiscal, JSW Steel
said in a statement.
During 2018-19, JSW
Steel’s output of flat
rolled products stood at
11.74 mt, up 3% from
11.44 mt in the previous
fiscal.
SREI INFRA FINANCE
Share price on BSE in `
76.55
29.25 35
Apr 2, 18 Apr 9, 19
Srei to raise up to
`500 cr via bonds
Srei Infrastructure
Finance Tuesday
opened its bond issue to
raise up to Rs 500 crore
for on-lending and
meeting general
corporate needs. The
first tranche of the
company’s non-
convertible debentures
(NCDs) is slated to close
on May 9, the company
said in a release. The
issue is of a face value
Rs 1,000 each amounting
up to Rs 100 crore (base
issue) with an option to
retain oversubscription
of up to Rs 400 crore,
totalling up to Rs 500
crore.
Opto Circuits to
repay YES Bank
Medical devices firm
Opto Circuits India
Tuesday said it has
entered into a one-time
settlement with YES
Bank for settling the
total outstanding
amount of Rs 33.51 crore
for a consolidated
amount of Rs 8.5 crore.
This amount is “to be
paid as per the
structured installments
by April 2021”, Opto
Circuits India said in a
filing to the BSE. Shares
of Opto Circuits India
were trading at Rs 7.98
per scrip on the BSE,
down 2.92 per cent from
its previous close.
JLR starts
booking for Velar
Jaguar Land Rover
India (JLR) Tuesday
said it has commenced
bookings for locally
manufactured Range
Rover Velar which is
priced at Rs 72.47 lakh
(ex-showroom). The
model comes with both
petrol and diesel
powertrains, priced
similarly at Rs 72.47
lakh. The local
manufacturing of the
model also reaffirms the
company’s commitment
to the Indian market,
the company said.
Dvara KGFS buys
Varam Capital
Dvara KGFS, formerly
IFMR Rural Channels
and Services, a
financial service
institution, said it has
acquired Varam
Capital, a non-banking
microfinance
institution. Following
the acquisition,
customers of Varam
Capital and its digital
capabilities would be
merged with KGFS to
enhance the ability of
combined business to
grow profitably and
serve rural customers.
Avaada Energy gets
`1K cr for solar play
New Delhi: Avaada Energy
Tuesday said it has received
an investment of Rs 1,000
crore for financing its 2.4 gw
solar energy portfolio of the
targeted 5 gw capacity in
Asia and Africa.
Avaada Energy is a sub-
sidiary of Avaada Group.
The investment has come
from Asian Development
Bank; DEG, the German De-
velopment Finance Institu-
tion, Netherlands Develop-
ment Finance Company
FMO and company’s promot-
er, a statement said.
The 2.4 gw capacities
funded through this infusion
95 will facilitate Avaada’s lead-
80
ership role in India’s transi-
tion to clean energy and con-
65 tribution in achieving the
50 government’s vision of 100
gw of solar energy by 2022.
Avaada is targeting an ex-
20
tensive portfolio of 5 gw so-
lar projects across Asia and
Africa of which about 2.4 gw
capacities are under imple-
mentation.
“Investments by these
global financial stalwarts re-
validates our impeccable ex-
ecution track record, high
Discom dues spike to `41,000 cr in Jan Adani’s Oz coal mine
New Delhi: Outstanding
dues of power producers on
electricity distribution utili-
ties have increased by more
than 20% to Rs 40,804 crore in
January 2019 compared to
the year-ago month, adding
to the woes of the stressed
sector.
According to PRAAPTI
portal, discoms owed a total
of Rs 33,848 crore to power
generation companies in
January 2018.
The portal was launched
in May 2018 to bring trans-
parency in power purchase
transactions between gener-
ators and discoms.
In January this year, total
overdue amount, which was
not cleared even after 60 days
of grace period offered by
generators, stood at Rs 26,052
crore against Rs 20,264 crore
comment With high interest rates, consumers aren’t feeling wealthy, and there isn’t much incentive for them to buy
How consumers are broke in India’s $70 bn car market
Anjani Trivedi
Heading into an election, In-
dia’s enthusiasm for cars
and motorbikes has all but
evaporated. It’s unlikely to
return anytime soon, despite
all the grand promises to im-
prove the lives of masses.
Passenger car sales,
which have been sliding
since last summer, fell an-
other 6% last month while
those for motorbikes – the
larger and more profitable
market – collapsed 15%.
Commercial vehicle sales,
which include trucks and
buses, also slowed. Overall
production in the country’s
$70 billion auto industry is
slumping. Hero MotoCorp
Ltd which commands a third
BSNL may cut losses to `7.5K cr
Market share of the PSU telecom has increased from 9.44% to 9.76% in last nine months
Mansi Taneja
mansi.taneja@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: On the back of
several cost-cutting meas-
ures undertaken, the ailing
telecom PSU company BSNL
is expected to narrow its
losses to Rs 7,500 crore for
the fiscal year ending March
2019. However, the compa-
ny’s total revenues is expect-
ed to come down to Rs 22,000-
Rs 23,000 crore in the last
fiscal from Rs 25,000 crore in
2017-18.
It had posted a loss of Rs
8,000 crore for the year ended
March 2018, and Rs 4,793
crore in the year-ago fiscal.
For the first time, the com-
pany recorded a 50% in-
crease in its enterprise busi-
ness revenues at Rs 6,500
crore during 2018-19. The
company, however, has not
officially announced the fi-
nancial numbers.
The market share of
BSNL has increased from
9.44 % to 9.76 % (all India
level) from March 2018 to
January 2019, as per Trai
numbers.
BSNL has been able to
save Rs 2,500 crore last year
renewable bet
„„Financing is for its
2.4 gw solar energy
portfolio of the targeted 5
gw capacity in Asia and
Africa
„„Investment has come
from Asian Development
Bank, DEG and other
financial institutions
preforming assets generat-
ing maximum returns for all
our stakeholders,” Avaada
Group chairman Vineet Mit-
tal said.
Avaada Energy is a devel-
oper of renewable energy
projects, backed by its strong
Engineering, Procurement
and Construction (EPC) ca-
pabilities. —PTI
stressed sector
„„Discoms owed a total
of Rs 33,848 crore to
power generation firms in
January 2018
„„In December 2018,
the total outstanding
on discoms was
Rs 39,400 crore
in same month in 2018.
Power producers give 60
days time to discoms for pay-
ing bills for the supply of
electricity. After that the out-
standing becomes overdue
and generators charge penal
interest on that in most of
the cases.
The data on the portal in-
dicates that the outstanding
as well as overdue amount
of the market, posted a 20%
drop.
This downbeat sentiment
should worry investors and
policymakers. Inventories
are piling up and consumers
don’t feel like spending. With
unemployment soaring, af-
fordability remains a stick-
ing point. That’s partly why
India is largely a two-wheel-
er market, with annual sales
of more than 20 million units
compared with about 4 mil-
lion for passenger vehicles.
True, there are lots of
cars and motorbikes on the
road in India – at close to 30
million and about 170 mil-
lion, respectively. With more
than 1 billion people and low
levels of car ownership, this
downturn may be a tempo-
6,500cr
`
revival Enterprise business revenues
signs
during 2018-19
BSNL Losses
Rs crore
8,000
7,500
4,793
FY17 FY18 FY19
as it froze employee expens-
es, curtailed medical and
other administrative costs.
Out of the Rs 2,500 crore an-
nual savings, around Rs 625
crore came from employee
benefits.
Owing to a huge employee
base of around 1.76 lakh
with annual expenses of Rs
15,000 crore, BSNL has been
struggling to manage its fi-
Bajaj Energy plans to
raise `5,450 cr via IPO
Mumbai: Bajaj Energy Ltd
(BEL) along with Lalitpur
Power Generation Company,
Tuesday filed for a initial
public offering with the mar-
ket regulator Sebi with a
plan to raise Rs 5,450 crore
through offer.
The offer comprises fresh
issue of share up to Rs 5,150
crore by the company and an
offer-for-sale of equity
shares by Bajaj Power Ven-
tures aggregating up to Rs
300 crore.
The company did not say
when they plan to open the
IPO. Normally it takes
months to get the Sebi clear-
ance for an initial public of-
fer.
The company plans to uti-
lise the proceeds from the
IPO to purchase 6.99 million
equity shares of Lalitpur
Power Generation Company
Ltd (LPGCL) from Bajaj Pow-
er Ventures and Bajaj Hindu-
stan Sugar for Rs 4,972 crore,
the companies said in a state-
ment, adding the remaining
amount will be utilised for
general expenses.
has also increased over the
preceding month. In Decem-
ber 2018, the total outstand-
ing on discoms was Rs
39,400 crore while the total
overdue amount was Rs
24,262 crore.
Discoms in Uttar Pradesh
(UP), Maharashtra, Karna-
taka, Madhya Pradesh, Hary-
ana, Tamil Nadu and Delhi
account for the major por-
rary blip given sales have
grown at an average annual
rate of 8% to 10% over the
past five years.
So why is demand this
tepid? Because buyers just
can’t spend. That’s particu-
larly the case among young-
er people, as well as those in
Panacea Biotec
to settle 65%
of lenders’
total dues
2,500cr 15,000
` `
Company saved after
curbing various expenses
nancials for the past several
years. The heightened com-
petitive intensity has im-
pacted the overall telecom
industry, leading to a decline
in margins and triggering a
consolidation phase. BSNL’s
employee costs account for
55-60% of the total expendi-
ture.
The company delayed the
payment of employees’ sala-
getting ready
to tap markets
`5,150 cr
Worth of fresh issue of shares
and offer for sale by Bajaj Power
Ventures
`4,972 cr
Co to buy shares of Lalitpur Power
from Bajaj Power and Bajaj Hind
Bajaj Power owns 100% in
Bajaj Energy, which is into
developing, financing and
operating thermal power
plants with a gross installed
capacity of 2,430 mw.
tion of dues to power gener-
ating companies, taking
longer duration of up to 610
days to make payments, the
portal showed.
Maharasthra tops the list
with 610 days to make pay-
ments, followed by Ra-
jasthan (608 days), Tamil
Nadu (606 days), Madhya
Pradesh (593 days), Karna-
taka (580 days), Uttar
Pradesh (575 days) and Del-
hi (575 days) in that order.
Overdues of public sector
thermal power companies
amount to over 52 per cent of
the total overdue of Rs 26,052
crore on discoms.
NTPC alone has overdue
amount of Rs 8,200 crore on
discoms, while NHPC has
Rs 1,596 crore and Damodar
Valley Corporation at
Rs 1,131 crore. —PTI
rural and smaller urban ar-
eas. Hopes are high that
Modi’s manifesto will double
farmers’ income and create
opportunities for India’s
youth.
Even for those who have
money to spend, their choic-
es are, well, boring. Most
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019 I daily news & analysis
cr
Telecom firm’s annual
salary expenses
financial stress
„„Total revenues is
expected to come down
to Rs 22,000-Rs 23,000
crore in the last fiscal
from Rs 25,000 crore in
2017-18
„„BSNL has sought
equity infusion of
around Rs 7,000 crore
towards the allotment
of 4G spectrum
ries in February, which cre-
ated a huge issue with elec-
tions round the corner. This
incident has put the focus
back on the revival of BSNL,
which has sought equity in-
fusion of around Rs 7,000
crore towards the allotment
of 4G spectrum and approval
for a voluntary retirement
scheme (VRS) at around Rs
6,500 crore.
This 2,430-mw capacity
comprises 450 mw from five
operational plants of 90 mw
each, owned and managed by
Bajaj Energy and 1,980 mw
from the power plant owned
and managed by a special
purpose vehicle of Lalitpur
Power.
Bajaj Energy intends to
acquire Lalitpur Power’s
1,980 mw from the proceeds
of the offer, it said.
Edelweiss Financial Ser-
vices, IIFL Holdings and SBI
Caps are the lead managers
to the issue, while IDBI Capi-
tal Markets is the co-book
running lead managers to
the issue, which will be listed
on both the BSE and NSE.
As at the financial year
ended March 31, 2018, the
PPAs of the BEL Power
Plants and the LPGCL Power
Plant have a remaining aver-
age term of 18 years and 23
years, respectively.
Bajaj Energy and Lalitpur
Power Generation Co have
each entered into long-term
fuel supply agreements with
Central Coal Fields. —PTI
wins environmental nod
Melanie Burton
Melbourne: India’s Adani
Enterprises has taken a step
closer to the construction of
a controversial thermal coal
mine in Australia after win-
ning federal government ap-
proval for its groundwater
management plan.
Adani wants to de-
velop the Carmichael
coal deposit in Queens-
land state, but has faced
fierce environmental resist-
ance that has turned the pro-
ject into a political hot potato
ahead of a federal election
due next month.
Environment Minister
Melissa Price said on Tues-
day the project still needed
cars look and feel the same,
with models made by Maruti
Suzuki India Ltd and Hyun-
dai Motor Co dominating
theroads. Fancier cars re-
main inaccessible. On top of
that, congestion and pollu-
tion are becoming a real
menace.
Consumers’ apathy has
spread to manufacturers. De-
spite heavy government pro-
tection with import duties,
margins are shrinking and
companies aren’t re-invest-
ing much. While India’s auto
sector has outperformed the
benchmark stock index for
the past decade, it has under-
performed by more than 25%
since July, Bernstein
Bernstein analysts note.
Until cars become more
09
The DoT has already
asked Trai for its views on
allotment of 4G spectrum to
BSNL without auction. The
revival plan is expected to
come up for Cabinet approv-
al only after the new govern-
ment takes over in June.
“The worst is behind us.
The silver lining is that the
decline in revenues has
stopped; it has started look-
ing towards the north. Only
Reliance Jio and BSNL have
been adding users and in-
creasing their market share.
We are seeing positive signs.
The focus is back on reviv-
al,” BSNL chairman and
managing director Anupam
Shrivastava said.
Since the formation of
BSNL, we have paid around
Rs 1,65,000 crore towards sal-
ary. The PSU is sitting on a
gold mine but salaries are
the biggest expenditure that
is pulling BSNL down, he
said.
BSNL is expecting a pay-
ment of about Rs 2,900 crore
from the stuck government
projects in April and May,
revenue accruals from enter-
prise business and a soft loan
of around Rs 3,500 crore.
Muted demand puts `4.51 L cr
housing units in limbo
Delayed project is resulting in cost overruns, which has been
further compounding the funding crunch for several real estate
builders in top cities, according to property consultant Anarock
5.6 lakh housing
units - Running behind
delivery timelines
2.10 lakh 1.92 lakh
Housing units running Apartments are
behind schedule in NCR delayed in MMR
If buyers stop purchasing under-
construction properties, builders would
have a far more challenging time to get
funds from external sources for project
construction,"  —Anuj Puri, Anarock founder and chairman
nine further approvals from
the Fe d e r a l a n d Q u e e n s -
l a n d s t at e g ove r n m e n t s
before mining can
start.
“This decision does not
comprise the final approval
for this project,” she said.
The groundwater man-
agement plan also re-
quires approval from the
state government.
While the Carmichael
project would create jobs
and has strong support in
the region, the ruling con-
servative Liberal-National
coalition and opposition La-
bor Party both fear losing
votes in major cities where
voters are worried about
climate change. —Reuters
affordable, demand will wa-
ver. One way around this is
to boost auto financing. But
that’s already a well-trodden
path: Such loans already
back around 70% of passen-
ger car buyers and 50% of
the two-wheeler market, ac-
cording to Bernstein.
Meanwhile, other outlays
continue to pile up. Fuel is
expensive and the upfront
cost of insurance is also set
to rise because of new rules
that went into effect in Sep-
tember.
With high interest rates,
it’s probably imprudent for
borrowing to outpace in-
come gains. Consumers
aren’t feeling wealthy, and
there isn’t much incentive
for them to buy. —Bloomberg
New Delhi: Drug firm Pana-
cea Biotec said SBI-led con-
sortium of lenders has ap-
proved a one-time settlement
plan to clear outstanding
dues.
“All consortium lenders
have approved the bilateral
one-time settlement (OTS)
at 65% of their outstand-
ing debts,” Panacea Bio-
tec said in a filing to the
BSE.
The settlement has been
done to resolve the current
debt position of the compa-
ny, it added.
On Monday, India Resur-
gence Fund, promoted by
Piramal Enterprises and
Bain Capital Credit, along
with its associates had an-
nounced an investment of up
to Rs 992 crore in Panacea
Biotec.
In February, Panacea Bio-
had said its board had ap-
proved raising up to Rs 864
crore for a OTS with its lend-
ers and other purposes. The
company had said it would
raise the funds through the
issue of non-convertible de-
bentures on a private place-
ment basis. —PTI
72% - Total stuck
housing units in
NCR and MMR
` 41,770 cr
- Worth of housing
units stuck in
Bengaluru, Chennai
and Hyderabad
Arihant Group
plans `250 cr
investment in
Noida project
New Delhi: Realty firm Ari-
hant Group will invest Rs 250
crore to develop an afforda-
ble housing project compris-
ing 944 flats at Greater Noida
in Uttar Pradesh.
The company has launcheof
flats in the project ‘Arihant
Adobe’ in Greater Noida
West (popularly known as
Noida Extension) in price
range of Rs 30-35 lakh.
The entire investment
would be met through inter-
nal accruals and customer
advances, said Arihant
Group MD Kaushal Jain.
“Noida/Greater Noida is
primarily an end user driven
property market. So, hous-
ing demand and sales in
Noida and Greater have
always been good,” he
said.
The project, though in af-
fordable category, would be
built with best of construc-
tion technology, Jain said.
The first phase of the pro-
ject is expected to be ready
and delivered by April 2022
while the entire project may
be complete by November
2024.
Jain said eligible home
buyers would get interest
subsidy of up to Rs 2.67 lakh
as this project is being devel-
oped as per the area and
other norms under afforda-
ble housing scheme of the
central government. The
GST rate will be one per cent.
Arihant Group has deliv-
ered seven residential and
commercial projects in Noi-
da, Greater Noida and Gha-
ziabad.
It is planning to develop a
housing project at Faridabad.
—PTI
 10
Wednesday
April
2019
Ahmedabad
www.dnaindia.com
FOOTBALL
Scaloni is briefly hospitalised on Tuesday in
Mallorca after being hit by a car while riding
a bike. He suffers “facial injury” and “several
bruises” and has been discharged from hospital
MOTOR SPORT
BALL GAME
Bowling tight line
to restrict Warner,
Bairstow: Rajpoot
Kings XI Punjab seamer
Ankit Rajpoot says the
plan was to bowl a tight
line and not give any
room to the dangerous
opening duo of David
Warner and Jonny
Bairstow on Monday
night. About Warner, he
said, “The plan was to
block his runs by bowling
a tight line. I did not give
him opportunity to play
to his strength.” Rajpoot
said the wicket was a bit
helpful with some swing.
Sharma defends
SRH’s fragile
middle-order
SRH medium-pacer
Sandeep Sharma defend-
ed his team’s fragile mid-
dle-order and its tenden-
cy to fall apart in the on-
going IPL, saying it is
not wise to form opin-
ions after one failure. He
said: “The fact is that our
opening pair has been
batting so good that mid-
dle order was not tested.
Even in this game, Warn-
er played through, only
in one game the middle
order collapsed and from
one game alone an opin-
ion cannot be formed.”
on the tube
(All Live)
BASKETBALL: NBA:
Sony ESPN: 07:00 Okla-
homa City vs Houston;
05:30 (Thu) Brooklyn vs
Miami
CRICKET: Star Sports 1,
2, 1 Hindi: 20:00 IPL, MI
vs KXIP
FOOTBALL: Star Sports 3:
20:30 Super Cup semifinal,
ATK vs Chennaiyin FC
UEFA Champions League
(QFs 1st leg)
Sony Ten 2: 00:30 (Thu)
Manchester United vs Bar-
celona; Sony Ten 1: 00:30
(Thu) Ajax vs Juventus
HOCKEY: FIH Pro League
Star Sports Select 2:
22:00 Belgium vs USA
(Women): 00:00 (Thu)
Belgium vs Spain (Men)
Rohit eyes return to roaring form
MI captain Rohit Sharma takes on Lasith Malinga during a net session in Mumbai on Tuesday —Hemant Padalkar/DNA
Match No. 24
Taus Rizvi
r_taus@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Virat Kohli’s fail-
ure as captain of Royal Chal-
lengers Bangalore in the
12th edition of the Indian
Premier League (with six
successive defeats in as
many games) has formed a
debate on social media
among Indian cricket fans.
They want Rohit Sharma to
lead the Indian team instead
of Kohli at the forthcoming
ICC Cricket World Cup in
England.
The opinions in virtual
world will hardly have an
impact on the decision of
the selectors and Kohli will
continue with his job as the
leader of Men in Blue with
Sharma being his deputy.
While Kohli may not have
emerged as a successful cap-
tain in IPL, there has been
Argentina coach Lionel
Narain Karthikeyan is looking forward to his Super GT debut in Japan this weekend, marking a full-time switch to sports car racing
Knights falter
in Kings’ castle
Chahar (3/20), du Plessis (43*) star in CSK’s 7-wicket
win over KKR; Russell (50*) wages lone battle for visitors
Match No. 23
DNA Correspondent
sports@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: It is not just like
that Chepauk is called the li-
ons den. To beat Chennai Su-
per Kings at their own den is
a dream for every IPL team.
And Kolkata Knight Rid-
ers’ by now know how tough
life is playing at MA Chidam-
baram Stadium.
In the clash of table top-
pers, the Dinesh Karthik-led
side suffered a rare bad day in
office when MS Dhoni’s men
walked home with another
win to emerge as leaders once
again in the points table.
On a slow-paced and turn-
ing track, Chennai used all
their experience and patience
to chase down Kolkata’s total
with seven wickets in hand,
thanks to experienced South
African batsman Faf du Ples-
sis (44*, 45b, 3x4).
Chennai reached the tar-
get of 109 runs losing three
wickets and with 16 balls to
spare.
Opener Shane Watson (17,
9b, 2x4, 1x6) gave a fiery start
before Sunil Narine sent him
back. Suresh Raina, too, fell
after a 13-ball 14 cameo.
The chase was left to the
experience pair of du Plessis
and Ambati Rayudu. And the
duo did well to stitch a 46-run
stand before the latter fell to
Piyush Chawla.
With du Plessis at the other
end, the target was just as for-
mality as he wisely mixed
patience with aggression
to see his team through.
Earlier, Chennai
bowlers delivered yet
MI’s Kieron Pollard with his son on
Tuesday —Hemant Padalkar/DNA
n zone
4,611
No of runs Rohit Sharma has scored in IPL in 178
games with an average of 31.57. He stands 3rd in
highest run-getters in IPL list
no question about his own
form.
On the other side, Shar-
ma has risen as a strong
leader displaying some
smart moves for his fran-
chise — Mumbai Indians.
However, there has been a
sudden dip in his batting
form, which could be con-
cerning for not just Mumbai
Indians but for Team India
FOOTBALL Pele arrives back in Brazil on
Tuesday after a six-day hospital stay in France. He
was discharged from a Paris hospital late on Mon-
day after treatment for an urinary infection. Pele,
78, leaves airport in Brazil in wheelchair
again to restrict Kolka-
ta Knight Riders to
108/9.
KKR never re-
covered from the
early loss of wick-
ets and found the go-
ing tough to fin-
ish with a be-
low par score
despite an
unbeaten 50
off 44 balls
from Andre
Russell.
A lot de-
pended on
the in-form
Russell af-
ter a poor
show from
the batting
unit. He
played the only
way he knows, going for
big shots, and succeed-
ed to a certain extent.
He finished with five
fours and three
sixes.
The under-rat-
ed Deepak Cha-
har, who re-
turned im-
pressive figures
of 3 for 20 from 4
overs, rattled the KKR
top-order with early
strikes, including that
of the big-hitting Chris
Lynn as the visitors
struggled to 29 for four in
the powerplay.
Harbhajan Singh
(2/15), Imran Tahir (2/21)
CSK’s and Ravindra Jadeja (1/17)
Imran Tahir put the brakes on the KKR
whistles in batting with a disciplined ef-
fort.
celebration
after removing KKR were under pres-
sure from the word go as
KKR’s Dinesh
Karthik in Chennai
on Tuesday —AFP
Lynn and Sunil Narine fell
within the space of five
balls. First, Chahar trapped
Lynn leg-before wicket for
a duck in the first over, as
the Aussie missed a pull
MI VS
Match No. 24, Venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Live on Star Sports 1, 2, 1 Hindi, 8pm
Malinga boost for mumbai
MI: The hosts must be
high on confidence
after two back-to-back
wins. Lasith Malinga’s
return will further boost
their morale. Rohit Sharma
will hope to return
to form
Rohit
Sharma contest
Rohit Sharma’s form has been a concern. He will hope to get back
among the runs. Will KXIP captain and offie Ravichandran Ashwin
let him have it so easy?
‘Hitman’ in IPL 2019 so far
11 vs SRH, April 6
Played: 23, MI: 12, KXIP: 11
Pitch Report: Wicket wil
13 vs CSK, April 3
continue to aid pacers
and batsmen
32 vs KXIP, March 30
8
Punter Point:
MI: 8/11,
47 vs RCB, March 28
KXIP: 11/10
14 vs DC, March 24 jab at the Wankhede Stadium
on Wednesday, the Borivili
lad will look to returning
amongst runs in a big way.
And, what better way than to
score against a side compris-
ing an attack of Mohammed
Shami, Sam Curran, Mujeeb
as well. Ur Rahman apart from the
Having openly conveyed wily offie Ashwin.
his intent to opening the in- Sharma has so far scored
nings for MI this whole IPL just 118 runs in five games at
season as a part of the prep- a modest average of 23.60
arations for World Cup, with 48 being his highest
Sharma must not be happy against Kohli’s men. Mind
with the kind of form he has you, he has been in solid
shown in the first five touch and looks good every
games. time he steps out to bat. It’s
With Mumbai hosting the just that he has struggled to
R Ashwin-led Kings XI Pun- convert those starts in to
CSK’s MS Dhoni stumps KKR’s Piyush Chawala in their IPL match in Chennai on Tuesday —AP
off a delivery that kept low.
In the next over, Harb-
hajan tossed one up to
Narine, who attempt-
ed a big shot, only to
skew it to the point
region where Cha-
har took a good
catch running
backwards.
Nitish Rana (0)
became Chahar’s
second victim, taken
smartly by Ambati
Rayudu. Robin Uthap-
pa (11, 9 balls, 2X4)
played a couple of good
shots, before perishing
to a pull which landed in
the safe hands of Kedar
Jadhav at deep-square
leg.
A lot was expected of
skipper Dinesh
Karthik but he flat-
tered to deceive, ham-
mering a shot off Ta-
hir straight into the
hands of Harbhajan
at mid-wicket, to be
dismissed for 19 to
leave KKR in trouble
at 44 for five.
That KKR’s 50
came up only in the
12th over, indicating
how much their
batsmen struggled
to come to grips
with the surface at
Chepauk.
 —with PTI inputs
KXIP
KXIP: Opener KL Rahul
Team holds the key with bat
News while Chris Gayle has been
off colour of late. Captain R
Ashwin will seek consistency
after their thrilling win over
SRH despite David Warner’s
half-century
Key Ravichandran
Ashwin
Weather Report: Sea breeze
from the west will be a respite
on an otherwise hot evening
Watchability quotient: (1-3: Forget it;
4-7: If there is nothing else to watch;
8 and above: try not to miss it)
daddy scores, which he has
been known for. Blame it on
the slow wickets, Sharma
has succumbed to the oppo-
sition in different situations.
Going by the numbers,
the stylish batsman has not
managed to impress with
the bat in the last two sea-
sons, averaging below 25.
But, he will be keen on get-
ting back to his old IPL form
where he would dominate
the attack at will.
Sharma coming back to
his big-scoring abilities will
not only help Mumbai Indi-
ans but also boost his confi-
dence heading into the
World Cup.
Orange cap
David Warner
(SRH)
349 runs
Jonny Bairstow (SRH)  263
Andre Russell (KKR)  257
Purple cap
Kagiso Rabada
(DC)
11 wickets
Imran Tahir (CSK) 9 Result: CSK win by 7 wickets
Yuzvendra Chahal (RCB) 9 Man of the match: Deepak Chahar
n zone
20
No. of dot balls CSK’s
Deepak Chahar bowled
on Tuesday, including
five in the 19th over.
This the most number of dot balls
in an IPL innings ever, jointly with
Munaf Patel’s 20 for RR against
KKR in 2009
16
No. of wins CSK have
out of their last 17 IPL
matches at MA Chid-
ambaram Stadium. The
only loss came against MI in 2015
KKR’s Andre Russell in action during
his 50* on Tuesday —AP
Warner indulges in antics to
avoid ‘Mankading’ by Ashwin
Mohali: Sunrisers Hy-
derabad’s David Warner was
extra cautious while Ravi-
chandran Ashwin operated
in the IPL Monday night, de-
liberately dragging his bat
inside the safe zone to avoid
becoming a victim of
‘Mankading’.
The incident happened
during the IPL match be-
tween Sunrisers Hyderabad
and Kings XI Punjab here.
Warner was seen taking
precaution by staying inside
the crease during Ashwin’s
over. Warner, who was at the
non-striker’s end, kept drag-
ging his bat inside the safe
zone to ensure that he does
‘India key to
promoting
women’s Tests’
Sydney: Australia captain
Meg Lanning has said wom-
en’s Test matches need to
spread beyond Australia-
England rivalry and felt In-
dia needed to play a big role
in promoting the format.
“We’d love to play more
Test matches. Unfortunately,
it’s only Australia and Eng-
land that are interested at the
moment, and we only play
each other every couple of
years. That probably is a bit
of a problem,” Lanning said.
“Hopefully down the track
more countries are interest-
ed. I think India would be
great at playing Test match-
es. I think they’d probably be
the big fish to get involved
because they’ve got such a
big influence in cricket. —PTI
10
SCOREBOARD
CSK vs KXIP, Match No. 23, Venue: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai; Toss: CSK, elect to bowl
KKR R B 4/6 SR Jadeja 4-0-17-1 (W1), S Kuggeleijn 4-0-34-0 (W1),
I Tahir 4-0-21-2
C Lynn lbw b Chahar 0 5 0/0 0.00
S Narine c Chahar b Singh 6 5 0/0 120.00
R Uthappa c Jadhav b Chahar 11 9 2/0 122.22
N Rana c Rayudu b Chahar 0 3 0/0 0.00
CSK (target 109) R B 4/6 SR
S Watson c Chawla b Narine 17 9 2/1 188.88
D Karthik c Singh b Tahir 19 21 3/0 90.47 F du Plessis (not out) 43 45 3/0 95.55
S Gill st Dhoni b Tahir 9 12 0/0 75.00 S Raina c Chawla b Narine 14 13 1/1 107.69
A Russell (not out) 50 44 5/3 113.63 A Rayudu c Rana b Chawla 21 31 2/0 67.74
K Jadhav (not out) 8 8 1/0 100.00
P Chawla st Dhoni b Singh 8 13 0/1 61.53
K Yadav (run out) 0 1 0/0 0.00 Extras (W6, NB2) 8
MP Krishna c Singh b Jadeja 0 2 0/0 0.00 Total (for 3 wkts, 17.2 ov) 111 (6.4 runs per over)
H Gurney (not out) 1 5 0/0 20.00 Fall of wickets: 1-18 (Watson, 2.2 ov), 2-35 (Raina, 4.6
Extras (LB1, W3) 4 ov), 3-81 (Rayudu, 14.4 ov)
Total (for 9 wkts, 20 ov) 108 (5.4 runs per over) Bowling: P Chawla 4-0-28-1 (NB1), MP Krishna 4-0-23-0
Fall of wickets: 1-6 (Lynn, 0.6 ov), 2-8 (Narine, 1.5 ov), (W1), S Narine 3.2-0-24-2 (W6), K Yadav 4-0-16-0, H
3-9 (Rana, 2.3 ov), 4-24 (Uthappa, 4.4 ov), 5-44 (Karthik, Gurney 2-0-20-0 (NB1)
8.4 ov), 6-47 (Gill, 10.1 ov), 7-76 (Chawla, 15.3 ov), 8-76
(Yadav, 15.4 ov), 9-79 (Krishna, 16.3 ov)
Bowling: D Chahar 4-0-20-3 (W1), H Singh 4-0-15-2, R
HOW THEY STAND
25
No. of sixes Andre TEAM M W L T P NRR
Russell has scored in CSK 6 5 1 0 10 0.310
6 matches this IPL. His KKR 6 4 2 0 8 0.614
KKR team-mate Nitish
KXIP 6 4 2 0 8 -0.061
Rana is second at 12
SRH 6 3 3 0 6 0.810
MI 5 3 2 0 6 0.342
DC 6 3 3 0 6 0.131
RR 5 1 4 0 2 -0.848
RCB 6 0 6 0 0 -1.453
Six meter
12 7 0
big screen. The clip of the in-
cident was later uploaded by
the official IPL website –
iplt20.com.
Earlier in the tournament,
off-spinner Ashwin had dis-
missed Rajasthan Royals’ Jos
Buttler without giving him a
prior warning and that had
attracted a lot of criticism
from across the cricket fra-
David Warner (L) grounds his bat as ternity.
R Ashwin bowls in their match in As per the rules, a bowler
Mohali on Monday —Twitter is within his right to dismiss
a batsman who leaves the
not become Ashwin’s crease before the ball is being
‘Mankad’ victim. released. But the practice has
The Australian’s antics been generally deemed as
was quickly picked up by the against the “spirit of the
cameras and replayed on the game.” —PTI
Starc sues insurer over
injury payout for IPL
Melbourne: Australia left-
arm pacer Mitchell Starc
has sought legal remedy to get
$1.53 mn from his insurer over
an injury payout for his IPL
contract after he failed to turn
out for his franchise KKR in a
single game last year.
According to a report in the Test series against South Af-
SMH, Starc, who didn’t figure rica. The report further stat-
in any game for KKR last year ed that Starc took out a policy
after getting injured in the that would pay him $1.53 mil-
Test series against South Af- lion benefit if he missed the
rica, has filed a lawsuit in the IPL season because of injury.
Victorian County Court last According to court docu-
week against the insurers of ments, Starc paid a premium
his lucrative IPL deal. of $97,920 to be covered be-
At the 2018 IPL auction, tween February 27 and March
KKR snapped Starc up for 31 in 2018. But on March 10, he
$1.8 mn. But Starc didn’t fea- claimed he started feeling
ture in the world’s richest T20 pain in his right calf while
tournament last year after bowling in the second Test in
suffering a calf injury in the Port Elizabeth. —PTI
 sP rt
www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
Hot on Heels
India held 3-3,
bow out of Oly
qualifiers
The Indian women’s
football team Tuesday
missed out an opportuni-
ty to qualify for the third
round of the 2020 Olym-
pic qualifiers after it was
held to a 3-3 draw by My-
anmar in Mandalay (My-
anmar). The Maymol
Rocky-coached side, with
an average age of 21,
needed a win to top
Group A of the Olympic
qualifiers Round 2 but
squandered the lead
twice to play out a draw
and bow out of the com-
petition at the Mandalar
Thiri Stadium here.
Punjab beat
Assam 2-0
Hosts Punjab beat As-
sam 2-0 in a group B
match on the second day
of the 73rd National
Football Championship
for Santosh Trophy at
Guru Nanak Stadium in
Ludhiana on Tuesday.
Earlier in another group
B encounter, Maharash-
tra and Karnataka
played out a 2-2 draw to
share one point each.
Shot putter
Manpreet banned
Asian champion shot
putter Manpreet Kaur
has been banned for four
years by the National An-
ti-Doping Agency
(NADA) for flunking four
dope tests in 2017. The pe-
riod of suspension would
begin from July 20, 2017,
the date of her provision-
al suspension, according
to an order of the anti-
doping disciplinary panel
(ADDP) of the NADA dat-
ed March 29. “Yes, Man-
preet Kaur has been sus-
pended for four years,”
NADA Director General
Navin Agarwal said.
Kynan Chenai fails
to qualify
India’s Kynan Chenai
fought valiantly before
suffering a shoot-off
heartbreak that put paid
to his chances of making
the finals of the
men’s Trap event at
the ongoing ISSF
World Cup Shotgun
stage in Al Ain, UAE.
The Hyderabad lad
shot a creditable 122
out of 125 in the qualify-
ing round, but given the
high-level of shooting,
found himself in a seven-
man shoot-off for the last
two final slots.
1
2 win since he was given the
3 Solskjaer had a free ride
Send in your answers to
sportsdna@gmail.com. Names
of the first 10 winners will be
published tomorrow
Eriksson, Roca shorlisted for India job
New Delhi: Former England
manager Sven-Goran Eriks-
son headlines a list of 35
names shortlisted for the post
of the Indian football team
coach, which also includes the
highly successful ex-Bengalu-
ru FC manager Albert Roca.
The much-travelled Sven-
Goran, a Swede, and Spaniard
Roca apart, Tommy Taylor
(England), Hakan Ericson
(Sweden), Tomislav Sivic (Ser-
bia), Lee Clark (England) and
Lucas Alcaraz Gonzalez
(Spain) are some of the other
candidates shortlisted for the
coveted post.
Sven-Goran, who was in
charge of England for five
years until 2006, had last
month expressed his interest
regarding the job to the All
India Football Federation
(AIFF).
The Indian team’s spirited
showings in recent times had
Barca roll into Ole’s town
Manchester United manager faces reality test since taking charge as Messi & Co meet them in first leg of quarterfinals tonight
Manchester: Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer enjoyed a charmed
life as interim Manchester
United manager but Barcelo-
na’s visit to Old Trafford on
Wednesday will show him the
scale of the task he faces as
the new full-time boss.
The Norwegian was re-
warded with a three-year deal
after reviving United’s for-
tunes since taking caretaker
charge in December, lifting
them back into contention for
a top-four place and trans-
forming the mood at the club.
The highlight of his reign
so far was a dramatic 3-1 away
victory over Paris Saint-Ger-
main in the last 16 in the
Champions League, which
enabled United to overturn a
2-0 first-leg defeat to reach the
quarterfinals on away goals.
Solskjaer has given his
creative players licence to at-
tack, with Paul Pogba and
Marcus Rashford let off the
leash to devastating effect.
But some of the gloss has
come off in recent
weeks, with three de-
feats in four matches
badly denting Unit-
ed’s chances of quali-
fying for next sea-
son’s Champions
League and dumping
them out of the FA Cup.
Solskjaer, who famously
scored the winning goal for
United against Bayern Mu-
nich in the 1999 Champions
League final in Barcelona,
was upbeat after drawing the
Spanish league leaders in the
quarter-finals last month, be-
fore he was confirmed as the
new long-term boss.
“We want these games
against the biggest clubs and
the biggest teams. We had the
final against them in 2009 and
2011 (both of which Barca
won) and the semifinal in 2008
when Scholesy (Paul Scholes)
scored,” Solskjaer said.
“It’s these games our fans
and this club crave. We are
looking forward to this one.”
Worryingly for Solskjaer,
though, some of United’s fa-
miliar failings under Jose
Mourinho have returned to
haunt them in the weeks since
the draw was made.
Poor run
They were unfortunate to
lose at Arsenal but appeared
short of inspiration in losing
twice to Wolves in the FA Cup
and Premier League, while
even Solskjaer admitted they
did not deserve their solitary
permanent job as Watford
enjoyed the better of the
chances in a 2-1 defeat at Old
Trafford.
when he took over from Mour-
inho, with morale at a low ebb
When you get Barcelona, with
the quality of their team, we
know we need to step up our
game. We know we need to perform to
our best levels, which we didn’t
against PSG at home. The outcome of
the second leg against PSG has given
the players and supporters belief that
the same is possible against Barcelona
—Ole Gunna Solskjaer
Sven-Goran Eriksson
a ripple effect with the posi-
tion of the men’s coach at-
tracting over 250 applications,
an unprecedented number
that also includes some well-
known names from Europe.
The post has been left va-
cant since Stephen Constan-
tine resigned after the Indian
team’s failure to make the
knockout round of the AFC
Asian Cup.
“The federation has re-
ceived over 250 applications.
and the club 11 points off the
top four. Despite recent hic-
cups, he has had notable suc-
cess and ultimately has his
sights set higher than finish-
ing in the top four.
The 46-year-old will proba-
bly be forgiven if United fall
short against a Lionel Messi-
inspired Barcelona.
But if he fails to reverse
the mini-slump and Unit-
ed suffer a heavy defeat
to the Spanish cham-
pions there is a dan-
ger the season could
peter out and mo-
mentum could be
lost. —AFP
CR7 in Juve
squad at Ajax
Turin: Cristiano Ronaldo
has been included in Ju-
ventus’ squad for Wednes-
day’s match at Ajax in the
first leg of the Champions
League quarterfinals,
marking his return from
two weeks out with a right
thigh injury. He was in-
jured while on interna-
tional duty with Portugal
last month.
Ronaldo scored a hat
trick against Atletico Ma-
drid in the last 16, almost
single-handedly over-
turning a first-leg deficit.
Defender Giorgio
Chiellini (calf) and mid-
fielder Emre Can (ankle)
were left off the squad
because of injury. —AP
125 were selected after that
and out of which 80 qualified
as per the AIFF’s require-
ments. After that, around 35-
40 names, based on various
criteria, have been forwarded
to the technical committee.
Seven to eight will be called
for the final interviews, fol-
lowing which the appoint-
ment will be made,” an AIFF
official told PTI on the condi-
tion of anonymity.
As a manager, the 71-year-
old Eriksson won 18 trophies
with various clubs in Sweden,
Portugal and Italy, between
1979 and 2000, and became the
first manager to win league-
and-cup doubles in three
countries.
However, the Swede was
not as successful in interna-
tional football. Besides Eng-
land, he had managed the na-
tional teams of Mexico, Phil-
ippines and the Ivory Coast.
Tonight’s matches (QFs 1st leg)
Manchester United vs Barcelona,
Sony Ten 2: 00:30 (Thu)
Ajax vs Juventus,
Sony Ten 1: 00:30 (Thu)
Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku (L) and Paul Pogba during a training session on the eve of their Champions
League quarterfinal first leg against Barcelona in Manchester on Tuesday —AFP
Under Roca, Bengaluru FC
played four finals in his two
seasons in charge - making
the final of the AFC Cup in
2016, the Federation Cup in
2017 and the ISL and Super
Cup in 2018.
Under his charge, Bengalu-
ru FC won the Federation Cup
and the Super Cup, but missed
out on the AFC Cup and the
ISL titles.
In a managerial career of
over two decades, the 52-year-
old Alcaraz competed in 10 La
Liga seasons at Recreativo,
Racing de Santander, Grana-
da and Levante. He was also in
charge of five clubs in Seg-
unda Division (second divi-
sion), winning promotion
with Recreativo and Murcia.
The 58-year-old Hakan Er-
icson, during his playing ca-
reer, turned out for Swedish
sides Aby IF, FK Kick and IK
Sleipner. —PTI
Kashyap,
Mugdha enter
main draw
Singapore: India’s Parupalli
Kashyap and Mugdha Agrey
qualified for the main draw of
the men and women singles
competitions at the Singapore
Open badminton tournament
here on Tuesday.
Kashyap, a 2014 Glasgow
Commonwealth Games gold
medallist, defeated Japan’s Yu
Igarashi 15-21 21-16 22-20 in the
final round of the qualifica-
tion to seal his place in the
main draw.
Kashyap, who is married to
London Olympics bronze med-
allist Saina Nehwal, had ear-
lier defeated Malaysia’s June
Wei Cheam 21-5 14-21 21-17 in
his first qualification round.
Kashyap will take on Den-
mark’s Rasmus Gemke in the
opening round of the men sin-
gles event on Wednesday. —PTI
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019 I daily news & analysis
LPGA founder & Hall of Famer
Marilynn Smith dies at 89
Daytona Beach (USA): Mari-
lynn Smith, one of the 13
founders of the LPGA Tour
whose 21 victories, two majors
and endless support of her
tour led to her induction into
the World Golf Hall of Fame,
died Tuesday. She was 89.
She died in Goodyear, Ari-
zona, surrounded by family
and friends, the LPGA Tour
said. Smith last was seen in
public on March 24 at the
Bank of Hope Founders Cup,
greeting players as they
walked off the 18th green.
Smith was president of
the LPGA from 1958 to 1960,
and in 1973 she became the
first woman to work a PGA
Tour event as a TV broad-
caster.
“Marilynn was my found-
11
Time for Pogba to
deliver on big stage
Manchester: Ahead of Bar-
celona’s Champions League
trip to Old Trafford, the Cata-
lans’ president has admitted
even they could not compete
with Manchester United’s
then world record offer to
bring Paul Pogba back to
England in 2016.
“We couldn’t af-
ford that amount of
money at the time,”
Josep Maria Bar-
tomeu told ESPN.
“So he went to
United, and he’s
making them bet-
ter as a team be-
cause he’s one of
the stars of the world
of football right
now.”
However, nearly
three years on, United
can feel they have still to
receive sufficient bang for
the bucks they paid to Ju-
ventus for Pogba in an £89
million ($116 million)
transfer fee.
The French World Cup
winner will start for just the
second time in a Champions
League knockout game for
N ZONE
0 10
The No. of European match-
es that Manchester United
have lost at home against
Barcelona (W2, D2, L0)
1
No of visits Barca would have
made to Old Trafford since
the 2008 semifinal and repre-
sents Solskjaer’s biggest test
as United boss to date.
2
The No. of games that United
have won of their last 11 CL
knockout ties (W2 D3 L6).
They failed to win both their
last-eight matches against Bayern
Munich in the 2013-14 season
8
The No. of shots that Romelu
Lukaku had made at goal in
Champions League season
before he scored — with
both of his shots against PSG in
their 3-1 win in the last 16
Did you know?
n So far in this season Manchester United have only lost only two
Champions League games at home this season. They have lost three
in a season only once — in the 1996-97 season. And in all these three
matches featured Oe Gunnar Solskjaer, who is the current manager of
the Old Trafford team.
n Though Manchester United has defeated Juventus and PSG in the
Champions League, it has lost to both of them at home
Marilynn Smith —AP
er, my North Star and most
importantly my friend,”
LPGA Commissioner Mike
Whan said on the tour’s web-
site. “In her life, she broke
barriers, shattered stereo-
types and made others ‘be-
lieve.’”
“I’ll miss her weekly hand-
United on Wednesday.
Benched for both legs of a
bitterly disappointing last 16
exit to Sevilla last season by
Jose Mourinho due to person-
al differences and poor perfor-
mances, Pogba’s only previ-
ous start ended in a red card
and a 2-0 defeat to Paris Saint-
Germain back in February.
Without their suspended
star, a youthful United side
pulled off a miraculous 3-1
win in Paris to make it to the
last eight for the first time in
five years and give Pogba an-
other chance to shine on the
Champions League stage.
The arrival of Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer to replace the sacked
Mourinho in December re-
moved any excuses that it was
the Portuguese’s straitjacket
that was limiting the output
of one his most talented play-
ers. An upturn in form was
immediate. Pogba scored nine
goals and created six more in
his first 12 games under Solsk-
jaer. However, his form has
cooled since, and not by coin-
cidence so has United’s with
three defeats in their last four
games.
Pogba has also not done his
approval ratings among the
United fans any favours by
publicly flirting with Real Ma-
drid while away on interna-
tional duty last month and
talking of his admiration
for Madrid boss Zinedi-
ne Zidane.
“He’s capable of
doing everything.
There are midfielders
who know how to de-
fend really well, others
who are very good in attack. He
knows how to do everything,”
said Zidane. —AFP
The No. of English
teams that have been
eliminated in their of
their last 11 Champions
League knockout ties against Span-
ish sides since Since Chelsea beat
Barcelona in the 2011-12 semifinal.
Leicester Cith beating Sevilla in
the last 16 in 2016-17 is the only
exception
12
Barcelona have made
it to quarterfinal for the
12th successive season,
which is a Champions
League record
17
The No. of CL quarter
final appearances Barca
would have made when
they take on United on
Wednesday. It is a joint-
record with Bayern Munich.
23
The no. of matches, out
of 29 (79%), that Barca
have won when the first
leg of their knockout
matches are played
away. They have won only four out
of 12 first leg matches at home,
which is just 33%.
written cards, her daily calls
to my office and her love for
every LPGA teacher, tour
player and staff member,” he
added. “Quite simply, Mari-
lynn left this world better
than she found it and set a
standard that will guide us
forever.”
The LPGA Tour began in
1950. Shirley Spork and Mar-
lene Bauer Hagge are now the
only surviving founders.
Smith had turned pro in
1949 at a time when equip-
ment companies began to
recognize the potential for
growth in golf after World
War II. She signed a $5,000
contract with Spalding for up
to 100 clinics a year, and she
eventually had a signature
line of golf clubs. —AP
 10
Wednesday
April
2019
Ahmedabad

After
www.dnaindia.com

Alia Bhatt, who shares screen space with Sonakshi Sinha for the first time in Kalank,
Alia: All praises shares a warm bond with her. The Raazi actress heaps praise on the Dabangg actress,
“I love Sonakshi because she can act with anything, even with a wall or plant. She has
for Sonakshi probably the sharpest insight to direction as an actor. When Abhishek would direct her for a
scene, the way she picked it up instantly is amazing. She delivers it in the next take itself.”

An epic ‘Tabaah Ho Gaye is more

action restrained than Maar Dala’
drama...
...that’s Kangana Ranaut’s
Madhuri Dixit on comparisons between her latest semi-classical

Meena Iyer
number from Kalank and the earlier one from Devdas

next directorial venture

W
hen you watch
Madhuri Dixit
Nayandeep Rakshit dancing on

K
screen,
angana Ranaut, who made her your world
directorial debut with Manikarnika: momentarily
The Queen Of Jhansi, has finalised comes to a halt. She is one
her second project as a filmmaker. of those danseuse-actors,
Talking to us from Delhi, where she is who almost compels you
shooting for Panga, she reveals, “I’m on the to stop what you are doing
verge of announcing my next directorial and stare at her when she
venture. It’s an action film — an epic performs one of her screen
drama. It has taken a lot of my time. Cur- numbers. Watching her in
rently, we are putting everything in order, the semi-classical number
but we have locked the script. We’ll be Tabaah Ho Gaye from
doing a photoshoot, soon after, which we Abhishek Varman’s Kalank
plan to release the poster, too.” Although had exactly that bring-
the film will be mounted on a large scale, things-to-a-halt-effect on the
Kangana says it’s different from the ones media persons who were
that have been seen on the big screen invited to the preview of
recently. She adds, “It’s based on a real-life the number.
story, which I’m fascinated by.” Easily one of the most
accomplished dancers of
The money factor Bollywood, the yesteryear
Kangana acknowledged that diva combines grace with Madhuri Dixit in Tabaah Ho Gaye from Kalank
getting the expected budget can dexterity in a Kathak-based
be a problem when it comes to
women-oriented films. However,
the Queen heroine feels that the
exclusive number choreographed by
Saroj Khan.
If this one has more
success of Manikarnika has made it restrained movements than
easier for her to seek higher funds for Maar Dala from Devdas
her next venture. She says, “There are a (2002), it is because, her
lot of great stories to be told and actresses character, Bahar Begum
today are bringing a lot of business, too. in Kalank is an introvert.
I’m happy with the way Manikarnika MD says, “We had to
worked for me — as an actor and also as really think about this
a director. Now is the right time to start aspect. The character of
work on my second directorial project.” Bahar Begum is so strong
and guarded that we
I’m happy with the way couldn’t go overboard even
when she is dancing. It was
The actress plays
Bahar Begum in
Manikarnika worked for like walking a tightrope of the movie
me — as an actor and also as a emotions. We couldn’t be too
subtle nor could we try a
director. Now is the right time to Devdas kind of stance The character of Bahar Begum is so
start work on my second where she (Chandramukhi) strong and guarded that we couldn’t go
could really let go. It had to
directorial project be razor-sharp.”
overboard even when she is dancing
Kangana Ranaut A still from Maar Dala in Devdas
Kangana Ranaut, actress-filmmaker Madhuri Dixit, actress
Contd on P13

Work not marriage Ayushmann hits a Zoe tricks

her kids into
on Arjun’s mind century in China! playing nice
at the moment The actor’s film Andhadhun has raced past
the `100-crore mark in the Asian country
While
Arjun

A
yushmann Khurrana has
and Malaika had a great run at the
haven’t desi box office. Now, the
spoken about actor has another reason
to celebrate. His last year’s
their release, AndhaDhun, directed
relationship by Sriram Raghavan, has
Zoe Saldana
collected over `100 core in
to the media,

Z
China. An ecstatic Ayushmann
they aren’t tells us, “Cinema has always oe Saldana knows how to make
had universal appeal and it has her kids play nice. The 40-year-
playing coy. cut across languages and old actress, who has twins Cy
But the fact is borders. It’s overwhelming to and Bowie, four, and Zen, two,
see AndhaDhun among cinema with her husband Marco Perego, has
that, at the that has made our country said she loves nothing more than
moment, he proud. For me, personally, the complaining about how exhausted
is busy with movie making `100 crore in
China is a moment of pride. I’m
she is, because it means her brood
has to be nice to her. She told Us
the movies he delighted that as an artiste, I Weekly, “Sometimes my sons are
has signed have contributed to Indian mean, and the moment you kinda
cinema making its mark go, ‘Be nice to Momma’ and... ‘I can’t
and Malaika, globally.” repeat this anymore,’ they turn back
too, has The Badhaai Ho actor and just do it. You repurpose, and
credits Sriram for the success you’re kind of inspired and you go,
many and acclaim that the thriller ‘I’m so happy I have little boys.’’’
professional has received. He says, “It is a The Guardians of the Galaxy star
humbling moment for me and admitted last year that she and her
commit- the entire team of the film that spouse are raising their little ones
ments after becoming a blockbuster in in a gender-neutral environment.
India, it has been appreciated so She said, “My husband participates
Malaika Arora and Arjun Kapoor A source much in China, too. Sriram is a in a lot of tasks that were normally
visionary and I’m thrilled to given to women and vice-versa. I get

A
rjun Kapoor and
Malaika Arora
aren’t among those
Bollywood couples
who hide their relation-
ship. The two have been
clicked together by the
shutterbugs many times.
Karan Johar’s question to
Kareena Kapoor Khan on
his chat show about
playing bridesmaid to
Malaika set tongues
wagging about a possible
ceremony on the cards.
Rumours about the same
taking place on April 19
started gaining momen-
tum. However, those close
to the couple say that
these are just rumours.
This year, Good Friday,
which commemorates the
crucifixion of Jesus
Christ, will be observed on
April 19, making it an
unlikely date to tie the
knot on. Then there are
work commitments.
“While Arjun and Malaika
haven’t spoken about their
relationship to the media,
they aren’t playing coy.
But the fact is that, at the
moment, he is busy with
the movies he has signed
and Malaika, too, has
many professional com-
mitments,” says a source.
The Gunday actor is cur-
rently shooting for Pani-
pat. Sandeep Aur Pinky
Faraar and India’s Most
Wanted are ready for
release. So, has a wedding
date been set? The couple
and their friends are tight-
lipped about the same.
see the love his film has been
getting. He deserves all the
success.”
A still from AndhaDhun
to do a lot of male things, put the TV
Ayushmann Khurrana together, fix things that break. We’re
sort of a gender-fluid household. I
think it’s important to raise boys in
that environment and girls as well.’’
Cinema has always had Zoe also admitted her boys taught
universal appeal and it her how to be nice, since she’d for-
gotten how to sit down and play with
has cut across languages and them after getting caught up in
borders. It’s overwhelming teaching them life lessons. She said,
“We’re caught raising and teaching
to see AndhaDhun among and disciplining and cooking and
cinema that has made our cleaning and not enough time to
country proud play. I think that my kids always re-
mind me when I’m being too boring.
Ayushmann Khurrana, They go, ‘Mama, be nice, sit down
actor and play with 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

Contd from P12

Etc daily news & analysis
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019
13
‘All the chakkars in Tabaah Ho Kartik
heads
Gaye were done in one take’ Udaipur to
Madhuri adds, “Even when
Bahar is dancing, she doesn’t go all

K
out. Here, I must tell you that the
whole spinning bit (some 25-plus artik Aaryan, who was in Delhi
chakkars and turns) were done in just last week, wrapped up the first
one take because we wanted to schedule of Imtiaz Ali’s Aaj Kal
create a memory for the viewers to and returned to Mumbai for a
take back. The whole, ‘How did she do few days to finish his other work com-
it?’ mystery needs to be a talking mitments. Now, the Gen-Y star is all
point.” set to resume work on the romantic
Some of those who saw the drama and will head to Rajasthan for
song, told the Total Dhamaal ac- the same. “He left for the second sched-
tress that it reminded them of her ule of Imtiaz’s film last night. The
evergreen Maar Daala number team will spend the next few weeks in
from Devdas. However, she was of Udaipur, where the crew will film
the firm opinion that there are no some of the major portions of the love
comparisons between the two. She saga.” Imtiaz is known for travelling
says, “Chandramukhi was some- across cities to capture the essence of
one who wore her heart on her different environment in his love
sleeve. She was in love with Dev- stories. But the catch is the second
das and she made no bones about schedule will not have the female lead
it. When she was doing a Maar Sara Ali Khan. “She is not required for
Daala or even for that matter the this leg of the shoot. Kartik will be ro-
classical Kaahe Chhed Mohe, she mancing another newbie for the
was all out there. However, Bahar, portions that will be filmed in
as I said earlier, is more introvert- Udaipur.” Sara will join the crew later,
ed. She is restrained even when for the third schedule. After this, the
she is dancing. And though both, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety actor, too, will
Maar Dala and Tabaah Ho Gaye, get back to shooting Mudassar Aziz’s
are semi-classical numbers, they Pati Patni Aur Woh remake.
Madhur Dixit in Tabah Ho Gaye from Kalank Kartik Aaryan
are very different. Each has its
own appeal.’’

pick your brain crossword hidato Baby Blues

Down Orbit (3)
1 Inexpensive ac- 20 ___ away :
commodation for escaped ? (3)
helots (6) 21 Human-like robot
2 Personae non (7)
___ (6) 22 Body of water
3 Fussy one (4) (3)
4 Rip pans (anag). 23 Plunder (6)
(7) 24 Very much
5 Norwegian com- stirred up (4)
poser - “e.g. rig” 25 Goes too fast (6)
anagram ? (5) 26 Dolt (5)
6 Lazes (5) 27 Avowed (5)
8 Short person (4) 28 Liquor location
9 An unruly crowd (3) The Pajama Dairies
(3) 30 Nursery rhyme
12 Not sweet (3) king (4)
13 Nutlike (5)
15 Iraqi port (5)
18 Composer ___
Dvorak (5)
19 Medium Earth

Across 16 A flavoured drink of wine and 28 Purse (3)

1 A limiting inhibition (4-2) hot water (5)
17 After the bell (4)
7 Restored (8)
8 Small branches (4) 19 Sleight of hand (5)
10 Blackfish (6) 21 Fable writer (5)
11 Ancient, ascetic Jew (6) 22 Nasal grunt (5)
23 Beams of light (4)
14 Capture or arrest (3)
26 Gave medicine (5)
29 Oblivious to danger (6)
30 U.S. gangster (6) The goal of Hidato is to fill the grid
with consecutive numbers that
31 First: Abbr. (4)
connect horizontally, vertically, or
32 Principal (8)
diagonally from first to the last
33 Happenings (6)
number in the grid. The first and last
numbers of a puzzle and some other Tina’s Grove
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.
30 Average; 35 Good; 40 Wow!

Tinkersons

spend
crossword

sedan, send, sled, spaced, spade, sped,

solutions

sand, sandal, scald, scaled, scalped, scandal,

sudoku
hidato

pedal, placed, planed, plead, pled, salad,

lapsed, lead, lend, paced, paled, panda,
lade, laden, lanced, land, LANDSCAPE,
clasped, dale, dance, deal, dean, decal, laced,
ascend, candela, candle, caned, cased, clad,
spellathon

Marjorie Orr
Your year ahead will be hard working since you will recognise that shortcuts won’t bring you results, while sticking to the straight and narrow will.
IF IT’S YOUR Money will be up and down, so try to save when you can. A speedy everyday schedule will keep boredom at bay though you’ll not always be tactful
BIRTHDAY TODAY when you run into delays or mistakes. Success will crown your efforts from the year end onwards with praise coming your way.

ARIES TAURUS GEMINI CANCER LEO VIRGO

Mar 21 - Apr 20
Pull yourself together, knuckle
down to the inevitable, and
although progress may be
slow, you will end up with a
solid result. Face up to the fact that
someone in a position to call the shots
may be laying down the law. If you can
accept that they are right, you will fare
better. You may have to work more on
your own so try to use the time wisely to
achieve more. Focus on narrow tasks that
require attention to detail.
Apr 21 - May 20
Try not to get resentful if
people are holding you back.
Sometimes being held back
has a purpose. You often
achieve a great deal more if you go
slower. Out of what may initially seem to
be setbacks can come something useful.
Flying ahead at top speed, cutting
corners, can end you up going round in
circles. Maybe alter your approach when
it comes to getting your views across.
Steady persistence might do the trick.
May 21 - June 21
If you have concerns that are
making you feel you’re not
doing as well as you want,
then give yourself a shake.
Be sensible and admit if something isn’t
working. Cut your losses, focus on your
successes, change what you can and
accept what you can’t change. A definite
decision to face reality will boost your
spirits. You’re being thrown back on your
own resources financially and emotionally,
so you’ll need to push yourself.
June 22 - July 23
All of us want easier lives and
tend to assume that everyone
else has less problems. If you
feel that your life is trickier
than other people’s at the moment, it
probably isn’t true. They may just be
hiding it better. Accept the pressures
around now as a way of holding you back
in order to focus. If you concentrate, you
will find the answer. One close
relationship will be going through a cool
phase but that doesn’t mean it will split.
July 24 - August 23
Have a care you’re not seeing
only what you want to see,
rather than the reality of one
situation. If you are, then
you’ll feel let down when you have to face
the facts. Not everything is possible in life.
Sometimes it’s a question of waiting till
the tide turns, and sometimes it is about
facing up to limitations, to what you can’t
change. If you can accept one particular
situation now as it is, you will find it easier
to handle.
Aug 24 - Sep 23
The old saying about not
mending what isn’t broken has
another side: when something
needs to be fixed, there is no
time like the present. Putting it off, or looking
the other way hoping that someone else will
do it, isn’t going to work. Get cracking, push
yourself over your resistance and you will
glow with satisfaction at the result. Loved
ones may be landing heavier demands on
you or not fulfilling their promises. So be
straight with them.

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 Today you’ll be hypersensitive There will be a few restrictions You may be feeling rather Try to be straightforward with You may have put a loved one Have a care since your emotions
Orr to anything unpleasant, trying about, setbacks, even losses. disappointed since a loved one yourself today. You could get on a pedestal and then found may be deceiving you, making
to avoid the rough edges of There is a risk that you may has not been behaving as you carried away with a whim and that they let you down. But you drift off into romantic
with your
everyday living. But if you get feel a bit low, looking only on had hoped. There are rather then later find it wasn’t such a perhaps it’s not their fault; daydreams and fantasies. You do
queries at too uptight and perfectionist you’ll end up the downside. The best tactic is to face up wet blanket influences around at the maybe you were expecting too much. You need to try and be more practical even if you
hot idea. Relationships with certain people
afterhrs@ feeling cut off from certain people, as if to duty and be conscientious. What is moment, so this is clearly not the time to may not be that good since there are may feel circumstances are pushing you in are feeling gloomy or discouraged. Saturn
dnaindia. you were not getting the support and happening may seem negative, but it need be flinging yourself unreservedly into rather critical influences around which a way you don’t want to go. But this is around at the moment can feel unlucky
net encouragement that you expected. Don’t not necessarily be bad. You just have to get parties or passionate clinches. Just don’t tend to show up flaws and inadequacies. really a time for facing the bottom line and because it doesn’t bring results easily. But it
www. sit behind a brick wall and feel sorry for into hard-working gear. You can’t duck and get that weighed-down feeling. Get a grip, But if you do manage to get into a more getting organised. When Saturn is around does have a positive benefit in that it slows
star4cast. yourself. That will just make things worse. dive and leave all the chores to someone tackle whatever muddles or projects you self-disciplined mode, you will feel grateful you have to lay foundations, sometimes you down and makes you think more
com You have to break out of the vicious circle else. By the day’s end, you will be more have been pushing onto the back burner, at the end of the day because you will have backtrack and unpick mistakes, or face up realistically. You will be more down-to-earth
and find a way of bridging the gap. satisfied. especially if they concern cash matters. created things that are substantial. to people you don’t like. and really focused on the essentials.

14 www.dnaindia.com I twitter.com/dna I epaper.dnaindia.com I facebook.com/dnaindia
snapshot
‘Will consult
NE people over
citizenship bill’
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju
If other states of the
1 country want the bill
to be enacted, the
BJP is committed to bring it.
However, for the northeast,
the party will consult the
people before taking any
decision which is clearly
mentioned in the manifesto
Even if the bill is im-
2 plemented in the rest
of the country, there
will be special provisions for
the region
No other dispensa-
3 tion has attached so
much importance to
the northeast as the NDA
government.
There should be no
4 doubt among the
people of the region,
the BJP is committed to
protect their rights
Being a representa-
5 tive of the northeast,
it is my duty to think
of the people of the region
and I assure them that the
BJP will protect their culture,
traditions and languages
The people have also
6 realised the mission
of the BJP. It is com-
mitted to peace, progress
and development
Clean election is the
7 hallmark of clean
governance. We will
try to make election clean
without cash
Equal rights activist
Iyer joins Congress
Ketan Vaidya
ketan.vaidya@dnaindia.net
Mumbai: Equal rights activ-
ist Harish Iyer on Tuesday
joined the Congress.
Harish became a house-
hold name after he narrated
the story of his child abuse,
in the presence of actor
Sridevi and Aamir Khan in
the talk show Satyamev Jay-
ate. Harish said he wants to
continue working on the
cause of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender)
community and against
casteism and Islamophobia
and that politics is a good me-
dium to further his cause.
“I am not looking at get-
ting a ticket. I am not given
any official rank in the party
so far. However, I will con-
tinue to work and support
Priyanka and Rahul. One day
I aspire to have an all India
Queer Congress on the lines
of All India Mahila Con-
gress,” said Harish.
It was his meeting with
Congress president Rahul
Gandhi last year which start-
ed the process, says Harish.
“I raised many difficult
questions. I also told him as
to how some senior leaders in
the Congress made homopho-
bic statements by calling Ho-
mosexuality a disease. I also
spoke about many positives
rare surgery Ureter is the tube that carries urine from the kidney to bladder
Delhi docs remove world’s longest ureteric stone got $1.40 from Twitter in 2018
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Doctors at New
Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospi-
tal have removed the world’s
longest stone from a patient’s
ureter using robotic surgery.
The stone measured 22 cm in
total, which is approximately
the same length as the ureter.
It weighs 60 grams. The long-
est ureteric stone so far had
been reported in Utah of US
and was 21.5 cms long.
Ureter is the tube that car-
ries urine from the kidney to
the urinary bladder.
The stone was found in the
right ureter of a 35-year-old
Some people will be sad, some people will
be happy because maybe their theory went
right. Some people will cry and some
people will destroy their TV.
—Kristofer Hivju, who essays Tormund
Giantsbane in Game of Thrones, on the last season
Dowry-hit women
get more power
Woman driven out of matrimonial house can now file
case where she has taken shelter, rules Superme Court
DNA Correspondent
correspondent@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Traumatized for
dowry in her matrimonial
home, a wife can now make
her husband and in-laws to
face trial before a court near
to her parental house or the
place where she has taken
shelter instead of the earlier
rule that permitted her to file
a case in the court near the
matrimonial home.
Making this exception for
victims of cruelty under In-
dian Penal Code (IPC) Sec-
tion 498A, the bench of Chief
Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Jus-
tices L Nageshwar Rao and
SK Kaul recognized the fact
that cruelty need not be phys-
ical always. There is an ele-
ment of emotional trauma
attached to cruelty which
remains with the victim even
while she is away from the
matrimonial home and thus
the rule of filing of a com-
plaint would exist in the
place where the victim (wife)
dwells.
The bench borrowed the
definition of cruelty from
the Domestic Violence in the
Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act, 2005
which contemplates emo-
tional abuse besides mental
and physical abuse.
The Court found this defi-
nition to have a close connec-
tion with Section 498A which
defines cruelty.
CJI Gogoi, writing the
judgment for the bench, said,
“Mental cruelty borne out of
physical cruelty or abusive
and humiliating verbal ex-
changes would continue in
Harish Iyer with Rahul Gandhi
no hurry for ticket
„„The LGBT activist
said he is not looking at
getting a ticket at this
jucture of his life
„„He aspires to have
an all India Queer
Congress on the lines
of All India Mahila Cong
like Congress MP Shashi
Tharoor raising the issue in
Parliament after dissenting
about many party leader’s
stand on LGBT issues. He pa-
tiently gave me an ear and at
the end said that we are with
you. It was the empathy that
made all the difference.”
Mumbai Congress is not
new to Harish. “I was associ-
ated with Priya Dutt in 2009
when she took up issues like
legalization of prostitution,”
said Harish.
Toast to 140-characters: Dorsey
woman from Saharanpur in
Western Uttar Pradesh. The
patient, Natasha, was com-
pletely pain-free and unaware
of the stone in her body when
she reached the hospital.
“The use of surgical robot
made it possible to remove
such a long stone in a single
surgery and allowed the
stone removal with a mini-
mum scar and quick recov-
ery,” said Dr Sachin Kathu-
ria, consultant, Department
of Urology, Sir Ganga Ram
Hospital. The team of doctors
– Dr Sachin Kathuria, Dr
Ajay Sharma and Dr Vikram
Batra used a robot (known as
Da Vinci) to completely re-
Better recourse
Women can now file SC said the impact on the mental
matrimonial cases,
including criminal
health of a woman by “overt act” by her
husband or his relatives and trauma of
matters pertaining being driven away from matrimonial
to cruelty, from the home can’t be ignored
place where they
have taken shelter Earlier, the Allahabad HC had said that
after leaving or cruelty under Section 498A of IPC can-
being driven out of not be punished in a jurisdiction outside
their matrimonial the one in which a woman’s matrimonial
home house is situated
the parental home even
though there may not be any
overt act of physical cruelty
at such place...Even the si-
lence of the wife may have an
underlying element of an
emotional distress and men-
tal agony. Her sufferings at
the parental home though
may be directly attributable
to commission of acts of cru-
elty by the husband at the
matrimonial home would,
undoubtedly, be the conse-
quences of the acts commit-
ted at the matrimonial home.
Pak FIA wants
26/11 plotter’s
bail cancelled
Islamabad: Pakistan’s top
investigative agency has ap-
proached the Islamabad High
Court to seek the cancella-
tion of the bail of LeT opera-
tions commander Zakiur Re-
hman Lakhvi, the master-
mind of the 2008 Mumbai
terror attack.
The Federal Investigation
Agency (FIA) has filed an ap-
peal in the IHC seeking can-
cellation of the post-arrest
bail of Lakhvi.
Hearing the appeal, a divi-
sion bench of the IHC on
Tuesday asked authorities to
provide the record of the
Mumbai attack case in two
weeks.
The record of the case is
currently with an Islamabad-
based Anti-Terrorism Court
(ATC) which was holding
trial of Lakhavi and other ac-
cused arrested in the case.
Seven LeT suspects, in-
cluding Lakhvi, are facing
charges of abetment to mur-
der, attempted murder, plan-
ning and executing the Mum-
bai attack since 2009.
The ATC in December 2014
granted the post-arrest bail to
Lakhvi and set him free. Lakh-
vi has been living in an undis-
closed location since then. The
FIA said it has enough evi-
dence against Lakhavi and his
post-arrest bail should be can-
celled so that he can be re-ar-
rested. —PTI
move the stone in a single-
stage procedure lasting four
hours.
The surgical robot is avail-
Such consequences, by itself,
would amount to distinct of-
fences committed at the pa-
rental home where she has
taken shelter.”
As a consequence, the SC
held that the courts at the
place where the wife takes
shelter, after leaving or driv-
en away from the matrimo-
nial home on account of acts
of cruelty by the husband or
his relatives, would have ju-
risdiction to entertain a com-
plaint under Section 498A of
of the Indian Penal Code.
‘Bots driving pre-election Twitter trends’
Washington: In the run-up
to the general elections, auto-
mated Twitter bots made a
massive attempt to boost po-
litical hashtags, both in sup-
port of and in opposition to
Prime Minster Narendra
Modi, according to a research
conducted by US experts.
The automated accounts
were deployed on a massive
scale on February 9-10, with
small groups of accounts
pushing out thousands of
posts an hour, according to
the team from the US think-
tank Atlantic Council’s Digi-
tal Forensic Research Lab
(DFRLab).
The accounts were domes-
tic in origin and substance,
researchers said.
While bots were used on
‘Clean Ganga’ a fantastic community project: US judge
New Delhi: Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has a cultur-
al faith-based perspective to-
wards the Ganga and there
will be an “Indian solution”
to a clean river, says Justice
Michael D Wilson of the Ha-
waii Supreme Court who has
played a leading role in estab-
lishing a court that special-
ises in environmental laws in
the US state.
He says “Modi cares about
the river” and dubbed the gov-
ernment’s National Mission
for Clean Ganga scheme as a
fantastic community project.
robot in procedure
„„Doctors at Sir Ganga
Ram Hospital used a robot
to carry out the procedure
„„The stone measured
22 cm, nearly the same
length as the ureter
„„It weighs 60 grams. The
longest ureteric stone so
far had been recorded in
the US and it was 21.5 cm
able only in few hospitals
across the country and helps
make the surgery scar free
and recovery from it early.
Up number of flights to stabilise
soaring airfares, airlines told
New Delhi: India’s aviation
regulator has asked all air-
lines to come out with indi-
vidual medium-term plan by
Wednesday on enhancing
availability of domestic
flights, in a move aimed at
curbing rising airfares, gov-
ernment officials said.
Airfares have been on an
upswing across India for last
few weeks due to sharp de-
cline in number of flights
primarily caused by ground-
ing of three-fourths of cash-
strapped Jet Airways’ 119-air-
craft fleet.
The availability of flights
was also hit by pulling out of
Spice Jet’s 12 “737 Max” air-
craft in March following
safety concerns in the wake
of crash of an Ethiopian Air-
lines jet on March 10.
“The Directorate General
of Civil Aviation has been
meeting with the airlines
continuously so that they
A bus is seen underneath trees uprooted by heavy rains in the Leblon neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on
Tuesday —Reuters
Worrying picture, say experts
n Twitter bots have made a massive attempt
to boost political hashtags
n The manipulation bids have been both
in support of and in opposition to PM Modi
n The scale of the attempted manipulation
bodes ill for online debate ahead of polls
both sides on February 9-10,
the pro-Modi traffic was far
more heavily manipulated
than the anti-Modi traffic.
According to the team, the
pro-Modi traffic far more
heavily manipulated than
any large-scale traffic flow
the DFRLab has analysed as
of yet.
“The incident highlights
“When somebody goes
into the Ganga, they are not
just getting wet. They are get-
ting inspired. It’s a fantastic
community project. Ganga
has not been abandoned de-
spite all the poisoning, peo-
ple still revere it. So I think it
will be cleaned up. There will
be an Indian solution which
will have an epic approach,”
Justice Wilson told PTI in an
interaction.
“This is a culture which
believes in longevity - a com-
mitment that is reflected in
over 2000 years of culture
Such large stones were tradi-
tionally removed by open or
large incision procedures.
Although current technology
allows many modes of treat-
ing the stone with minimal
invasion, none is fool proof
and may need staged at-
tempts at complete removal,
say doctors. The functional
outcome of the surgery was
positive as the patient was
discharged the second-day
post-surgery.
Doctors suggest that a lot
of stone cases come from
North India and it remains
the ‘stone hub’. The only way
to prevent this is by taking
adequate fluid intake.
second
front
page
Ahmedabad I Wednesday, April 10, 2019 I daily news & analysis
Out of control
Airfares have been rising in past
few weeks, particularly after Jet
Airways grounded many planes
It was compounded due to
SpiceJet pulling out 12 ‘737 Max’
planes over safety concerns
DGCA has cleared a nearly
7-month-long summer plan for
many carriers
augment their additional ca-
pacity, which would be over
and above the flights ap-
proved for the summer sched-
ule,” a senior government
official said.
According to officials, the
each of the airlines was “re-
quested to bring an immedi-
ate and medium-term plan to
augment the additional ca-
pacity in the market”, and
ways to increase the overall
crushed
the sheer scale of attempts to
manipulate Twitter traffic as
India’s main political parties
head to the polls. It also un-
derlines the extent to which
social media more broadly
has become an electoral bat-
tleground,” the researchers
wrote in a blog post.
Ben Nimmo, Senior Fel-
low for Information Defense
Image for representation
and faith. People of India are
committed to changing the
present trend of global
warming and unacceptable
New Delh: For the third year
on the trot, Twitter CEO Jack
Dorsey has refused all com-
pensation and benefits from
the micro-blogging portal. He
drew only $1.40 in salary last
year, according to reports.
It was said that Dorsey
took one cent for each of the
140 characters Twitter users
were allowed to include in
tweets earlier. The 140-char-
acter limit was increased to
280 characters in 2017.
In fact, last year was the
first time Dorsey accepted pay
from Twitter since 2015, said
the company in a filing on
Monday with the US Securities
and Exchange Commission.
availability of flights will be
discussed at a meeting on
Wednesday.
The DGCA last month ap-
proved a nearly seven-month-
long summer schedule begin-
ning March 31 for SpiceJet,
Vistara, IndiGo, Air India
and GoAir. However, for Jet
Airways, the DGCA approved
the summer schedule for
nearly a month only due to its
financial crisis.
at the DFRLab took to Twit-
ter to highlight the findings.
“These manipulation at-
tempts ranged from large to
extreme,” Nimmo wrote in a
Twitter post.
“They were too clumsy to
have much impact, but the
sheer scale of the attempts
on both sides is worrying,
ahead of the election,” Nim-
mo said.
While the scale of the ac-
tivity was vast, its impact
was rather muted given the
relatively low number of fol-
lowers of the accounts.
The massive scale of the
attempted manipulation nev-
ertheless bodes ill for the
quality of online debate in
India as the election ap-
proaches. —PTI
levels of carbon emissions.
Their commitment is power
- it is cultural,” he says.
On being asked about sim-
ilarities between Donald
Trump and Modi, Justice
Wilson says there is a big dif-
ference between the two lead-
ers and the Indian prime
minister cares about the riv-
er.
“People compare him to
Trump. There can be some
comparisons which can be
made, but there is a big differ-
ence. I know all politicians
have certain amount of hy-
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
The reason for Dorsey re-
jecting all compensation and
benefits for three years has
been recognised “as a testa-
ment to his commitment to
and belief in Twitter’s long-
term value creation poten-
The DGCA approves win-
ter as well as summer sched-
ules every year to ensure
smooth flights operations.
The airlines were asked to
come out with immediate and
medium-term plan over and
above the summer action
plan to make available addi-
tional flights so that airfares
remain in control.
During the last few weeks,
the Jet Airways has been
grounding its aircraft in
tranches due to non-payment
of dues to its lessors. While
the airline has a fleet of about
119 aircraft, civil aviation
secretary Pradeep Singh
Kharola said on April 4 that
only 26 aircraft of Jet Air-
ways are flying “currently”.
After Jet withdrew some of
its flights from several routes,
IndiGo on April 8 announced
rolling out new flights on both
international and domestic
networks. —PTI
Vice Admiral
withdraws plea
over seniority
Sumit Kumar Singh
Singh.sumit@dnaindia.net
New Delhi: Indian Navy
Vice Admiral Bimal Verma
has withdrawn a petition
from the Armed Forces Tri-
bunal challenging his super-
session. He would seek the
“statutory remedy” of ap-
proaching the government
first. He had been overlooked
for the Navy chief ’s job even
being the senior-most officer
in the force,
Vice Admiral Bimal Verma
is currently the commander-
in-chief of the Andaman and
Nicobar Command. Last
month, the government said
Vice Admiral Karambir Singh
would succeed Indian Navy
chief Admiral Sunil Lanba,
who retires on May 31, ignor-
ing Vice Admiral Verma.
Vice Admiral Karambir
Singh was the second in the
seniority list among the three
officers being considered for
the Navy chief ’s post. Singh
has superseded Verma.
Vice Admiral Verma with-
drew the plea after the tribu-
nal asked why he had not exer-
cised the legal remedy of first
approaching the government.
He was represented by his
lawyer-daughter Rhea Verma
and advocate Ankur Chhibber.
“Vice Admiral Verma did not
initially complain to the gov-
ernment since the matter
would have then come up for
review in front of the defence
minister whereas the appoint-
ment of the next navy chief
was made by the prime minis-
ter-led appointments cabinet
committee,” said Rhea Verma.
perbole and rhetoric but I
don’t doubt that the prime
minister of India cares about
the river Ganges. He cares
about the river. This is the big
difference between the Prime
Minister of India and the
President of the United
States. Prime minister Modi’s
commitment is one of faith.
“I don’t know where I can
find that commitment level
in the executive branch of
USA. The prime minister of
India has a personal cultural
perspective towards Ganga,”
Justice Wilson says. —PTI
tial”, CNET quoted Twitter
as saying in its filing.
The Twitter CEO, howev-
er, has shares whose value
rose 20 per cent since the be-
ginning of 2018. He returned
as Twitter chief in 2015, hav-
ing held the position when
the start-up was nascent.
Taking home a symbolic
salary is not new in the corpo-
rate world. Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg’s basic sal-
ary has remained unchanged
at $1 for past many years. Al-
phabet’s chief executive Lar-
ry Page too has received a sal-
ary of $1 per year since 2004
and declined any additional
compensation. —Agencies