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MUMBAI,LATECITY
JUNE7,2020
14PAGES,`5.00
DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA
TALKS ON LADAKH SITUATION
Line of Actual Control: Marathon meeting
between Indian and Chinese commanders
XIV Corps Commander to brief Army Chief on meeting,
no immediate word from Delhi, Beijing on outcome
KRISHN KAUSHIK
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
INDIANANDChinesearmycom-
manders sat across the table for
more than three hours Saturday
to find ways to resolve the tense
situationalongtheLineof Actual
Control in eastern Ladakh.
LtGeneralHarinderSingh,XIV
CorpsCommander,ledtheIndian
delegation to the Chinese border
meeting point at Moldo near
Chushul. The Chinese army team
was led by Maj General Liu Lin,
commanderoftheSouthXinjiang
MilitaryDistrict,whichisrespon-
sible for the border with Ladakh.
Scheduled to start early
Saturday morning, the meeting
Half of Covid deaths
in last fortnight — but
fatality rate still low
Over 80% of deaths concentrated
in 26 districts, key Covid hotspots
KARISHMA MEHROTRA
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
SINCETHEfirstdeathinthemid-
dle of March, Covid fatalities in
thecountryhavemovedto6,642
in seven weeks with almost half
of them (3,059) occurring in the
last fortnight.
Thesedeathsremainconcen-
trated—over80percentin26dis-
tricts, the Covid hotspots. Indeed,
Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad,
Thane, Pune, and Chennai were
the only districts with more than
100deathsthesepasttwoweeks.
They saw 1,964 deaths over this
period, almost half of their total
4,055 Covid deaths.
But India’s case fatality ratio
(CFR, number of deaths per 100
cases)stillremainslow—2.8per
SUNDAY
STORY
PAGE 8
A LONG
RECESS
This season,
admissions to coaching
centres are down to
half as institutes try to
reinvent their
classrooms for a
post-pandemic world
UNLOCKING THE
ECONOMY
WISHLIST & ROADMAP
AN EXPRESS INTERVIEW SERIES
ASHU SUYASH
MD & CEO, CRISIL
ECONOMY, PAGE 7
` 115 per kilo
` 143 per kilo
` 178 per kilo
` 60 per Dozen
A file photo of Indian and Chinese personnel on the LAC. ANI
began only after 11 am. Sources
saidthetalkscontinuedformore
than three hours, with a break
for lunch.
LtGeneralSinghisexpectedto
cent. Globally, the CFR is 5.8 per
cent. In the US, it is 5.7 per cent,
in Brazil it is 5.5 per cent, and in
Russia it is 1.2 per cent.
Even though cases and
deaths are mostly concentrated,
they are spreading. In the last
fortnight, districts reporting at
least one death have risen from
roughly 230 to about 320.
About90districtsthathadno
deaths as of May 22 now have at
least one. Most of these districts
seeingtheirfirstCoviddeathsare
in Uttar Pradesh (18) and Bihar
(13) — reflecting the spread.
Similarly, there are around
700 districts in the country (out
of atotal736)that havereported
at least one Covid case. That
number was 630 on May 22,
right after the country entered
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
5 IAS officers to supervise
pricing at 35 private
hospitals in Mumbai
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
AS COMPLAINTS of patients be-
ing fleeced by private hospitals
continue to pour in, the
Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation (BMC) on Saturday
appointed five IAS officers to su-
pervise the pricing at 35 private
hospitals. Two on-the-ground
auditors have also been ap-
pointed at each of these hospi-
tals, who will assist the IAS offi-
cers in five tasks listed by the
municipalcommissioner,astate-
ment issued by the BMC said.
The officers, it stated, will
have to ensure that for 80 per
cent beds patient are charged as
per norms prescribed by the
governmentandalerttheCovid-
Not allowed in stadium, so Barmy Army wants to be heard
As international cricket returns with England-West Indies Test
match in July, iconic fan club wants its chants on PA system
PAGE 1
ANCHOR
VISHAL MENON
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
WHEN INTERNATIONAL cricket
returns to the stadium for the
first time next month after the
Covid pandemic shut down all
sporting activity, its most iconic
fanswanttomaketheirpresence
brief Army chief General M M
Naravane on what transpired at
themeeting.Untillatenight,there
wasnowordonthemeetingfrom
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
STEPPING OUT
People at Dadar Chowpatty in Mumbai on Saturday after the easing of lockdown restrictions. Shops that reopened in the city
continued to see low footfall, while most shops remained shut. Ganesh Shirsekar
19 control room and the munic-
ipal commissioner if any dis-
crepancy is noted.
The five officers will also be
responsible to check if hospitals
have displayed the rates of beds,
PPE kits, mask, etc on a notice
board at prominent places, be-
sides ensuring that patients are
being discharged as per the pol-
icy of the state, and hospitals are
updating the real-time bed va-
cancy data on BMC dashboard.
They will also have to check if
therewasanydiscrepancyinthe
data of the BMC dashboard and
actual vacancy in the hospitals.
Currently, the civic body is
using a real-time dashboard on
bed availability, the data for
which is updated every 30 min-
utes. Accordingto theBMC,each
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
felt—orrather,theirvoiceheard.
And so, the 33,000-strong
Barmy Army has asked the
EnglandandWalesCricketBoard
tousethePAsystemattheAgeas
BowlinSouthamptontobeltout
recordingsof theirfamouschants
and anthems to cheer up the
English team that take on the
West Indies from July 8-12.
Cricket is returning with a
tentative first step, and fans will
not be allowed in the stadium.
“We are really hopeful that they
Thisis key to
diplomatictalks
THE MEETING between
the Leh-based Corps
Commander and his
Chinese counterpart sig-
nals two things: the situa-
tion calls for high-level at-
tention, and the realisation
on either side that engage-
ment is key. Reports on
what transpired at the
meeting will feed the next
diplomatic approach, and
shape negotiating strate-
gies over the standoff.
Safeguards for workforce lost in
clatter of powerlooms in Malegaon
TEST
REP RTS
FROM THE
FIELD
TRACKINGTHEVIRUS,
LOCKDOWN
ZEESHAN SHAIKH
MALEGAON, BHIWANDI, JUNE 6
IT FELT like a furnace inside the
tin-shed powerloom unit in one
of Malegaon’s bylanes, but
Mohammed Yunus, 63, was
happyandreassuredonMonday.
He was at work after almost two
monthsof lockdownimposedby
the government to stop the
spread of the Covid pandemic.
“My family and I managed to
willacceptouroffer.It'stotallyup
totheEnglandandWalesBoard's
discretion,” Chris Millard, man-
aging director of Barmy Army,
told The Sunday Express.
Thefanscameupwiththeof-
ferafterEnglandcaptainJoeRoot
said that “a few Barmy Army
chants a couple of times a ses-
sion would be nice... If we need
a wicket or something, I am sure
the lads would appreciate that”.
The last international match
was an ODI between Australia
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
After Bill on new map, Nepal
tells India: Let Foreign Secys
talk, even if meeting is virtual
SHUBHAJIT ROY
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
DAYS AFTER its government
sought parliament’s backing for
a Bill on the country’s new polit-
ical map that includes territories
onIndianmaps,Kathmanduhas
conveyed to Delhi that it is open
to the idea of a virtual meeting
between the Foreign Secretaries
to resolve the border issue that
is threatening relations.
TheSundayExpress haslearnt
that the Nepal government, via
a note verbale (a diplomatic
note), said that the Foreign
After almost two months, Mohammed Zahid stepped into the
powerloom unit in Malegaon where he works. Zeeshan Shaikh
survive the lockdown because
myemployerpaidRs700aweek,
and social organisations helped
us with ration. But I realised this
would not last long. I had to get
First time in 25 years, England will play a Test without the
support of Barmy Army from the stands. Courtesy: Barmy Army
MCS/204/2020-22RNINO.MAHENG2002/21899
Nepal Prime
Minister K P
Sharma Oli
Secretaries can meet in person
or hold a virtual meeting to dis-
cuss the issue of Kalapani,
Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, the
Indian territories it is claiming.
Last month, Delhi said that
the Foreign Secretaries, Harsh
Vardhan Shringla and Shankar
Das Bairagi, will discuss the
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
backtowork,”saidYunus,speak-
ingloudlytobeheardamidstthe
clattering of looms.
TheMaharashtragovernment
had allowed powerloom units
Khwaja Yunus
custodial death: Four
suspended Mumbai
cops reinstated
SADAF MODAK
& SAGAR RAJPUT
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
SIXTEEN YEARS after being sus-
pendedfortheir allegedinvolve-
ment in the custodial death of
27-year-old Khwaja Yunus in
January 2003, four policemen
were reinstated on Friday and
resumeddutyonSaturdayinthe
city’s police force.
Assistant police inspector
Sachin Vaze and police consta-
bles Rajendra Tiwari, Sunil Desai
resumed duty in the local arms
unit. Constable Rajaram Nikam
was reinstated in the motor ve-
hicle department. The four, sus-
pended in different months in
2004, continue to face trial on
charges including murder and
destruction of evidence.
KhwajaYunus,aParbhanires-
ident, was an engineer and
workedinDubai.Hewasarrested
underthePreventionofTerrorism
Act on December 25, 2002, by
MumbaiPolice,whichclaimedhis
TRACKING INDIA’S COVID CURVE
LOCKDOWN
DAY CASES:
74 2,36,657
KEYSTATES TOTAL
TOWATCH CASES
■ Maharashtra 80,229
■ Gujarat 19,119
■ Delhi 26,334
■ Tamil Nadu 28,694
■ Bihar 4,598
■ West Bengal 7,303
* Compounded Daily Growth Rate over last 7 days
CONCERN CAUTION
ASSAM: KARNATAKA:
No let-up in rising
numbers, cases
double in the last
Has been growing
rapidly over last
few days, now in
one week.
Based on daily data by Centre, ICMR, state governments
outsidecontainmentzonestore-
sumeoperationsonMay21.With
lakhsof migrantworkersreturn-
ing to their homes and supply
chains yet to fully restored, pow-
erlooms – that too only a few –
restarted only a week later.
On a normal day, six others
would join Yunus to handle the
36 power looms in the unit he
works. But on Monday, only two
gavehimcompany.InMalegaon,
most of those employed in pow-
erlooms, estimated to be over a
lakh, are domiciles or residents
of the city, and probably this will
help resumption of full opera-
tions earlier.
Bhiwandi is not so. Nearly 80
per cent of the over four lakh
workers here are migrants from
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
andNewZealandthatwasplayed
withoutfansinSydneyonMarch
13. And Millard admits that the
comeback, too, will be tough for
fans. “This will be the first time
that a cricket match featuring
England will not have our pres-
ence in the stadium. It feels
strange, but given the unprece-
dented situation that we cur-
rently find ourselves in, we are
just delighted that there's finally
somecrickethappening,”hesays.
Since the 1994-95 Ashes se-
ries, when about 50 supporters
were first spotted wearing
Barmy Army shirts with the
Union Jack emblazoned on the
eye
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE
Black Death and
Other Colours
How past pandemics
have reshaped art and made
space for loss and suffering
on the canvas
PAGES 11, 12, 13
KhwajaYunuswasarrested
onDecember25,2002
involvement in a bomb blast in
Ghatkopar on December 2.
Yunus and three other co-ac-
cused were interrogated in
Ghatkopar on January 6, 2003.
While the police claimed subse-
quently that Yunus ran away
from custody that day, his co-ac-
cused told the POTA court they
saw him being stripped, as-
saulted severely, and he vomit-
ing blood.
In January 2017, one of the
men booked along with Yunus,
deposed in the trial court hear-
ing Yunus’s murder that four
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
RECOVERED: 1,14,072 | DEATHS: 6,642
TESTS:45,24,317 | DOUBLINGRATE:15.96**
SURGEIN 7-DAYAVG. DOUBLING
24HRS GROWTH* RATE **
2,436 3.70% 19.48
2.63%
510 27.39
1,330 6.11% 11.78
1,438 5.11% 14.10
146 4.59% 15.69
427 6.14% 11.73
** Calculated over 7-day growth
A GLIMMER
HIMACHAL:
Second wave seems
to have abated.
Growth falls below
top 10 national rate
INSIDE
VETERAN BJP
LEADER, 3-TERM MLA
CHANDRAKANTA
GOYAL PASSES AWAY
‘HE WENT INSIDE TO
GET OUR TV SET... I
WISH HE HADN’T’:
MOTHER OF 17-YEAR-
OLD KILLED IN
CYCLONE
STATE PLANS TO BUY
10,000 VIALS OF
REMDESIVIR: TOPE
PAGE 4
back, all England games have
startedwithatrumpeterleading
the travelling fans’ rendition of
‘Jerusalem’, the song popular
among all English sports fans.
Following the team around
the world for a quarter of a cen-
tury hasn’t been easy, though.
In March, a few Barmy Army
members were stranded in Sri
Lanka when the series was can-
celled due to the rising number
of Covid cases. “Some of our
members had already arrived
before the cancellation was an-
nounced, and got stranded.
Thankfully, the British High
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
 2 THE SECOND PAGE
SC to hear plea
to review 2018
Covid deaths
order upholding its fourth phase of lockdown
Aadhaar with major relaxations in non-
containment zones.
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
THE SUPREME Court is set to
hearapleaseekingreviewof the
apexcourt’s2018rulinguphold-
ing the constitutionality of
Aadhaar on Tuesday.
Afive-judgebenchheadedby
CJISABobdewilltakeupthecase
in chambers.
An in-chamber hearing
means case files will be circu-
latedamongthejudges,andoral
arguments in open court be al-
lowed only if the court agrees to
review the case.
Besides the CJI, Justices A M
Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud,
AshokBhushanandLNageswara
Rao will hear the case.
In November last year, an-
other five-judge bench headed
by then CJI Ranjan Gogoi had ex-
pressed doubts over correctness
of theverdictupholdingAadhaar
Act, which had been passed by
Parliament as a money Bill.
Thereviewisnotlikelytotake
into account the November rul-
ing, as the Supreme Court has
held earlier that a change in law
subsequenttothejudgmentcan-
not be valid grounds for review.
In 2018, the Supreme Court
had upheld constitutional valid-
ity of Aadhaar while placing
some restrictions on its use.
Civilian killed by
militants in Barmy Army
Commission intervened and got
north Kashmir them back to the UK. Owing to
ADIL AKHZER
SRINAGAR, JUNE 6
SUSPECTED MILITANTS shot
dead a civilian in north
Kashmir’s Baramulla district on
Saturday. A Jammu and Kashmir
Police spokesperson said Ishfaq
Ahmad Najar, a resident of
Adipora Bomai in Sopore, was
fired upon outside his home.
“... at about 21:30 hrs Sopore
police received information
about a terror crime incident in
Bomai area where terrorists had
fired on a civilian. Officers at-
tending the terror crime spot
learnt that one individual was
shot at by the terrorists near his
house,” the police said.
“He (Najar) was critically in-
jured in the firing and suc-
cumbed to injuries,” said a po-
lice officer in Sopore. He was
taken to a hospital, where doc-
tors declared him brought dead.
Soonaftertheattack,security
forces cordoned off the area and
launched a manhunt to nab the
attackers.Asof lateSaturday,the
operation was still on.
Assam man dies
after assault by
police, 2 cops held
ABHISHEK SAHA
GUWAHATI, JUNE 6
ASECRETARYof avillagedefence
party died after an alleged as-
sault by two policemen, who
have now been arrested, in
Assam’s Nagaon district, senior
officials said on Saturday.
Phanidhar Bora, in his early
50s, succumbedtohis injuriesin
hospital, a day after he got into a
scuffle with Constable Ataur
Rehman and Naik Paresh Sarma
of the Jajori police station.
“A case of culpable homicide
has been registered against the
policemen. They have been ar-
rested and taken on three-day
police remand. We intend to
submit a chargesheet within 15
days and take the trial to fast
trackcourt,”saidAdditionalDGP
(Law and Order) GP Singh.
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FROM PAGE ONE
Other than these six major
hotspots, 20 districts recorded
between10 and100newdeaths
over this period amounting to
594 new deaths — 43 per cent of
their 1,375 total deaths.
The majority of districts
(around 205) saw between 10
and one new deaths, mostly in
Uttar Pradesh (40), Madhya
Pradesh (22), and Gujarat (21).
But while new districts are see-
ing their first deaths, the num-
berof districtsseeinglargenum-
bers is not changing
significantly.
There were 200 districts that
had between one and 10 deaths
as of May 22, that number is
now 275 districts. Roughly 20
districts had between 11 and 50
deaths. That is now 29 districts.
Roughly five districts had be-
tween 50 and 100 deaths. That
number is now seven. Six dis-
tricts had above 100 deaths,
while now 10 have that many
deaths.
The Indian Express reported
that less than five per cent of pa-
tients required critical care. In
both high-burden and low-case
load states, only 2.25 per cent
needed ICU admission and only
1.91 per cent were on oxygen.
This trend has maintained since
the first cases came in.
Only the US, Mexico, UK, and
Brazil have reported more daily
deaths than India over the past
couple of days.
the uncertainty, I must admit
thatitwasthemostdifficulttour
we had endured in 25 years,”
says Millard.
For the July series, he says,
they are going the extra mile to
“replicate” the stadium atmos-
phere online. “We are currently
looking to have some form of
digital interaction with all our
members and fans. They can log
intoourhomepageandsingand
chant when the match is on.
Jerusalem will be played at the
start of every day's play along
with the signature trumpet,” he
says.
The July series, Millard be-
lieves, “can lift the mood of the
nation” -- the UK has recorded
over 2.83 lakh Covid cases so far,
including more than 40,000
deaths.
“The fact that international
cricket is resuming under the
current circumstances will be
massive... and I dare say, it can
have the same effect that the
Ashes wins of 1981 and 2005,
and last year's historic 50-over
World Cup triumph, had on the
Surplus wheat: At 125 lakh tonnes,
Madhya Pradesh only next to Punjab
HARIKISHAN SHARMA
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
MADHYA PRADESH has
emergedasonlythesecondstate
in the country to procure more
than 100 lakh metric tonnes
(LMT) of wheat, and is set to sur-
pass Punjab to become the
largestwheat-procuringstatefor
thecentralpoolduringthe2020-
21 Rabi marketing season.
Data available with the Food
Corporation of India (FCI) shows
that as of June 6, Madhya
Pradesh has procured 125.59
LMT wheat — 98.62 per cent of
the total arrival of 127.34 LMT
wheat in the state.
MP’s current wheat procure-
ment figure is just below that of
EXCLUSIVE
WEB
TECH
Line of Actual Control: Marathon meeting
between Indian and Chinese commanders
either the Army or Ministry of
External Affairs.
Earlier in the day, an official
statement said: “Indian and
Chinese officials continue to
remain engaged through the
establishedmilitary anddiplo-
matic channels to address the
current situation in the India-
China border areas. At this
stagethereforeanyspeculative
andunsubstantiatedreporting
about these engagements
would not be helpful and the
media is advised to refrain
from such reporting.”
There was no immediate
statement on the meeting
from Beijing either. A day ear-
After Bill on new map, Nepal tells India: Let
Foreign Secys talk, even if meeting virtual
issue “after” the two countries
have “successfully dealt” with
the Covid-19 pandemic.
On May 9, the spokesper-
sonfortheMinistryof External
Affairs said: “Both sides are in
the process of scheduling
Foreign Secretary level talks
which will be held once the
datesarefinalisedbetweenthe
two sides after the two soci-
eties and governments have
successfully dealt with the
challenge of Covid-19 emer-
gency.”
The idea of Foreign secre-
tary level talks – it began in
1997 during Prime Minister I K
Gujarat’svisitandagainduring
general mood and sentiment,"
he says.
The next big hope? India.
“It would be great if we can
tour India next year for the Test
series. It's a great country to
travel. Cricket is revered in that
part of the world and the sup-
portfortheirteamisjustincred-
ible,” he says, even though there
was a bit of a flutter when they
last visited four years ago.
In 2016, during the first Test
atRajkot, thegovernment’s sud-
den demonetisation decision
put the English fans in a spot.
"Some of us had run out of cash.
Thankfully, the British High
Commission came to our rescue
by providing us with details of
ATMs from where we could get
fresh currency notes," says
Millard.
Cops reinstated
other policemen, different from
Punjab’s 127.12 LMT — the
biggest contributor to the
central pool.
However, MP may cross
Punjab’sfiguregiventhatthelat-
ter ended its procurement May
31 and the process is still on in
the former.
Initially, MP had a target of
100 LMT of wheat procurement
during current rabi season but it
was revised upward to 140 LMT.
While there is no official ex-
planationfortheunprecedented
spike in MP's wheat procure-
ment, sources said one reason
could be the lower participation
of private players because of
Covid lockdown restrictions.
“Usually,privateplayersgoto
buy MP wheat, which is consid-
ered of better quality. But this
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
FROM MELUHA TO HINDUSTAN, THE MANY NAMES OF INDIA AND BHARAT
Severalnomenclatureshavebeenappliedacrossdifferentpointsintime,andfrommultiplesocio-political
pointsofview,todescribethegeographicalentityorpartsofitthatwenowknowasIndia.
WHATSAPP: MULTI-
DEVICE SUPPORT
You can soon use the
same account on
multiple devices
lier, the Chinese Foreign
Ministry said the border situa-
tionremained“stableandcon-
trollable”.
Ahead of the Saturday
meeting of the army com-
manders, Indian and Chinese
ambassadors joined a video
callbetweendiplomatsof their
border working mechanism to
underline that “the two sides
shouldhandletheirdifferences
through peaceful discussion”
and “not allow them to be-
come disputes”.
Officials cautioned against
expectationsof anyimmediate
resolution,sayingtheSaturday
meeting could be the first of
the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-GP
Koirala talks in 2000 -- was re-
vived by Nepal last November,
but these could not be held.
Given the uncertainty over
how long the Covid pandemic
will continue, Kathmandu is
now seeking talks through
videoconference.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi has held several video-
conferences, starting with
SAARC countries which was
attended by Nepal Prime
Minister K P Sharma Oli, and
then G-20 countries.
External Affairs Minister S
Jaishankar has also met sev-
eral counterparts through
the ones suspended, had tor-
turedYunus.Sofar,heistheonly
witness to have deposed in the
case. The seven men booked for
the blast apart from Yunus were
subsequently acquitted of all
charges.
“My son would have been
acquitted too if he was alive. We
trust the criminal justice system
buttheaccusedbeingreinstated
feels like a betrayal. Instead of
this, there should be efforts in
expediting the trial to punish
those who killed my son,” said
Asiya Begum, the 70-year old
mother of Yunus.
The role of the four police-
men reinstated on Friday is al-
legedtobethatof destroyingev-
idence in the case.
According to the notice an-
nouncing their reinstatement, a
meeting was held on Friday un-
der the chairmanship of the city
Commissioner of Police as per
year, the private participation
has been less,” a source said.
Last year, MP had procured
67.25 lakh tonnes of wheat,
lower than the 10-year average
of 71 LMT, whereas Punjab
achieved an all-time high figure
of 129.12 LMT.
While Punjab has produced
surplus foodgrains for the coun-
try for decades, MP joined the
league very recently. For in-
stance, in 2007-08, MP had pro-
cured only 0.57 LMT wheat,
while the figure was 67.81 LMT
for Punjab and 33.5 LMT for
Haryana.
Subsequently, MP’s procure-
ment grew and in 2013-14, with
63.55 LMT, it surpassed
Haryana’s 58.73 to become the
second biggest contributor to
STORIES OF STRENGTH
several.
Military and diplomatic
talks so far had pointed to
Chinese “intransigence”, but
both New Delhi and Beijing
sent out clear signals Friday
that the two sides need to
work “in accordance with the
guidanceprovidedbythelead-
ership” – a reference to the
‘strategic guidance’ following
the informal summit between
PrimeMinisterNarendraModi
and President Xi Jinping in
Wuhan in April 2018.
The Indian agenda for the
meeting, an official said, cen-
tred around restoration of the
LAC status quo ante—before
videoconference.
OnMay8,DefenceMinister
Rajnath Singh used a video-
link to inaugurate the new 80-
km road via Lipulekh on the
MansarovarYatratrail, trigger-
ing a wave of protests in Nepal
which says the territory be-
longs to it.
Nepal’s Foreign Ministry
objected to the opening of the
road, and described India’s
move as an “unilateral act”.
This, it said, ran against the
understanding between the
two countries, including at the
level of Prime Ministers, that a
solution to boundary issues
would be sought through ne-
rules constituted to review sus-
pension orders periodically. The
four are stated to be reinstated
pending court order in the case
andpendingdepartmental/pre-
liminary inquiry against them.
Param Bir Singh,
Commissioner of Police,
Mumbai,didnotrespondtocalls
and messages.
Officials said the committee
meetseverythreemonthstode-
cide on reinstating suspended
officials. “The committee takes
a decision based on considera-
tions whether reinstating sus-
pended police personnel will
have any impact on the case or
its investigation,” said a senior
IPS officer, who did not wish to
be named. The officer said the
long-pending trial was also a
reason why they were rein-
stated.
The official confirmed that
Vaze and two other constables
the central pool.
It maintained the lead over
Haryana for next two years un-
til 2015-16. After that it kept
procuring an average of 61 LMT
wheat per year before crossing
the notional psychological mark
of 100 LMT in the current year.
MP is a “decentralized pro-
curement” state, where wheat is
procured by state agencies and
only surplus wheat stocks over
and above the state’s require-
ment — under the Targeted
Public Distribution System or
National Food Security Act, 2013
andotherwelfareschemes--are
taken over byFCIfor dispatching
to other consuming regions.
In 2010-11, Haryana and
Punjabjointlycontributedabout
73.5 per cent to the central pool.
NEW ROLE FOR A
SCHOOL PRINCIPAL
A lesson in
management and
patience
China diverted its forces from
an ongoing military exercise
towards the Indian side.
The Indian side planned to
raise the issue of the limits of
patrollingbybothsides,ascon-
ducted hitherto, and seek
restoration. In the Pangong Tso
area, Indian troops are not be-
ing allowed by the Chinese to
patrol up to Finger 8, the LAC
point on the northern bank of
the lake.
India was also for a mutu-
ally agreed progressive reduc-
tion of heavy military equip-
ment, such as artillery guns
and tanks, from the rear areas
of both sides.
gotiations.
On May 20, the Nepal gov-
ernment released a new polit-
ical map depicting Kalapani,
Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura
within its borders.
And last Sunday, Nepal
Law Minister Shiva Maya
Tumbahamphe tabled a con-
stitution amendment Bill,
seeking to give legal sanctity
to the new map. The govern-
ment was assured the support
of two-thirds in the House of
Representatives following the
decision of the Nepali
Congress, the main
Opposition party, to back the
legislation.
Desai and Tiwari reported to
work on Saturday.
The case has been stalled af-
ter the state government re-
moved the prosecutor conduct-
ing the trial in 2018. Asiya
Begum's plea before the
Bombay High Court against the
removal is pending. Other pleas
by the accused are also pending
before the High Court.
“We have maintained that
the four men have nothing to do
with the murder and prima fa-
cie they can be only charged
with destruction of evidence.
Being suspended for such a long
time has been a struggle for
them,”saidlawyerRounakNaik,
representing the four police-
men.
Safeguards lost
With a largescale exodus, only a
few arelefttorestartworkinthe
Land dispute, not cane dues, behind
farmer’s suicide, say officials
AMIT SHARMA
MEERUT, JUNE 6
THEMUZAFFARNAGARadminis-
trationandpoliceonSaturdaysaid
a 55-year-old sugarcane farmer,
whose suicide had triggered a
protest in Sisauli town the previ-
ousday,tooktheextremestepdue
to a land dispute with his broth-
ers not because of unpaid dues
fromasugarmill,aspreviouslyal-
leged by his family.
Aseniorofficialfromthestate
Sugarcane Department said
Khatauli-Triveni Sugar Mill has
paid farmer Om Pal Singh
Rs 31,334 out of Rs 47,194 in dues
for a total supply of 156 quintals
of sugarcane.
The 22-hour protest was
called off on Friday evening after
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020
How the drug
Remdesivir got
approved in India
NEWEPISODEEVERYDAY
On the 3 Things podcast, we talk about the
basis on which the drug was approved in
India, and what the latest research about it
reveals.
looms.
In both Malegaon and
Bhiwandi, workers spin yarn
into a rough cloth called “grey”
in trade parlance. This is then
transported outsidethestate for
further processing to produce
ready-to-sell finished good.
The two cities account for al-
most 90 per cent of the state’s
and 40 per cent of the country’s
powerlooms. Bhiwandi alone
has 7.5 lakh looms, and
Malegaon 2.5 lakh units.
Together, they provide jobs to
over five lakh workers.
Nearly61percentof all cloth
in India is produced by the de-
centralised powerloom sector,
with Maharashtra contributing
the most. Of the 22 lakhs power
looms in the country, nearly half
are in Maharashtra.
While allowing powerlooms
to resume operations, the
Maharashtra government had
advocated workplace safe-
guards to reduce exposure to
coronavirus. But in the few
loomsthathavereopened,prac-
tically no precautions are being
followed.
In Yunus’s small unit, there
were no disinfectants and sani-
tisers. Yunus and his two co-
workers were not wearing a
mask when The Indian Express
visited the unit.
When asked, Mohammed
Zahid, who works along with
Yunus, said, “In this heat, wear-
ing a mask is cumbersome.
Moreover, there are not many
people who wear masks every
day.”
It is not that workers are not
scared of the virus. Abdul
Razzaque, 51, who has worked
in a powerloom for 35 years in
Malegaon, worries a lot. Sitting
outside a local mosque – where
he spends much of his time
these days – Razzaque says not
getting back to work is not an
option.
“My self-respect does not al-
low me to live on doles any-
more... I will resume work the
moment an opportunity
comes,” he says.
Advocate Yaseen Momin, a
powerloom owner in Bhiwandi,
says less than 10 per cent of the
units have resumed operations
in the town. “These units won’t
be able to continue operations
for more a month if markets in
Mumbai and other parts do not
open.Anotherproblemislabour
shortage. Bhiwandi has seen a
massive exodus and only 25 per
cent of the labour force has
stayed back. Until workers re-
turn, normalcy is unlikely to be
restored in this sector,” Momin
says.
In an integrated sector like
textiles, allowing power looms
tooperateismeaninglessif mar-
kets for raw materials and fin-
ished goods are not opened. "If
markets where we procure raw
Union minister and local MP
SanjeevBalyanvisitedSisauliand
announcedRs10lakhcompensa-
tion to Om Pal’s family.
“NoFIRinthisconnectionhas
beenlodgedagainstthemanage-
ment of Khatauli-Triveni Sugar
Millbyfamilymembersofthede-
ceased because the sugarcane
dueswerenotanissuebehindthe
suicide. Om Pal hanged himself
following a land dispute with his
two brothers,” Virendra Kasana,
in-charge of Bhauri Kalan police
stationtoldTheSundayExpresson
phone. A patch of 35 bighas of
sugarcane field has been divided
among Om Pal and his two other
brothers.
“Locals told us that while
Singhwaslookingafterthewhole
land,histwobrotherswererarely
seeninthefield.ThisiswhySingh
materials and sell our wares re-
main closed, how does allowing
power looms to operate make
sense. I am sure that without
further relaxations even those
looms that have started func-
tioning will shut down in a
month," Momin said.
While powerloom owners
have all along been reluctant to
modernise, the pandemic and
the resultant lockdown has,
ironically hit those who mod-
ernised the hardest. With mas-
sive overheads including loans
toreplayandthedependenceon
skilledworkforce,theyhavenei-
ther workers, nor are left with
resources post lockdown.
“Local labourers are not
skilled enough to handle the
modernized looms. These were
largely run by migrant workers.
However, due to the pandemic
nearly100haveleft.Wearenow
operating with just 30 workers,
and way below our capacity.
These are very difficult times for
powerloom owners,” said Zahid
Faizee who recently set up a
state-of-the-art air powerloom
unit in Malegaon.
The local administration is
seized of the problems faced by
the industry. Malegaon
Municipal Corporation
Commissioner Trimbak Kasar
said while not many power-
loomshadopenedupin thecity,
the sector had to look at newer
markets to expand.
“There is a major spike in de-
mand for masks and gloves in
the world. Malegaon has the
technicalwherewithalaswellas
the labour force to take advan-
tage of this demand. We are
thinking if wecanuseourlooms
to set up a system through
which we can become a part of
the supply chain for creating
masks and gloves. This will help
in reviving the sector here,”
Kasar said.
IAS officers to
check pricing
bed atthese35hospitalswill
be assigned a unique identifica-
tion code for better manage-
ment through the civic body’s
centralised helpline -- 1916.
The IAS officers, the BMC
statementstated, willalsobere-
sponsible to ensure that hospi-
tals are not denying admission
to walk-in patients who are
Covid-19 symptomatic, positive
or suspected, while ensuring
theynotallowingthe admission
to asymptomatic patients.
“A dedicated email address
willalsobegiventoeachof these
IAS officers. Any aggrieved per-
son can lodge a complaint re-
garding any private hospital
through this email. These com-
plaints will be investigated by
the concerned officer with the
help of his team,” the statement
stated.
wasaskingforalargershareinthe
farm income,” said Kasana.
Muzaffarnagar District
Magistrate Selva Kumari J said
Om Pal was supposed to supply
156 quintals of sugarcane, as per
his quota for the season, to the
sugar mill but could supply 149
quintals.Shealsoconcurredwith
the police investigation that the
suicide was the fallout of a land
dispute.
Balyan on Friday evening an-
nouncedRs5lakhcompensation
fromCM’srelieffundandanother
Rs 5 lakh through his own efforts
withinaweekforOmPal’sfamily.
The Samajwadi Party and
Rashtriya Lok Dal and farmer
leader Chaudhary Mahendra
Singh Tikait’s Bharatiya Kisan
Unionalsoannouncedmonetary
help for the family.

3 THE CITY
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020
MSRTC to run
250 buses to
connect MMR
to the city
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
INAmovetoprovidetransporta-
tion for office goers and govern-
ment employees under ‘Mission
Begin Again’, Maharashtra State
Road Transport Corporation
(MSRTC) is set to run 250 buses,
providing crucial connectivity
from Mumbai Metropolitan
Region (MMR) to the city.
This will be in addition to the
400 buses that have been run-
ning by the corporation for es-
sential workers since March 23.
These buses will be started
fromPanvel,Palghar,Aasangaon,
Virar, Nalasopara, Vasai, and
Badlapur. Of these, 142 will be
special buses for Mantralaya, 15
for the municipal corporation,
and the remaining will provide
connectivity to various areas
within the city. An official from
MSRTC said, “Private employees
will be allowed to board these
busesbyshowingtheirIDcards.”
The number of buses are be-
ing increased as under ‘Mission
BeginAgain’,governmentoffices
can work with 15 per cent staff.
MSRTC, so far, has ferried about
14,000 essential workers
throughout the two months of
the lockdown.
In absence of clear guidelines, confusion
prevails in sealed apartment blocks
SANJANABHALERAO
MUMBAI,JUNE6
EVEN AS the city opens up grad-
uallywiththeeasingoflockdown
restrictions, confusion over the
rules applicable at apartment
blocks with active coronavirus
positive cases have remained. In
absence of clear guidelines, resi-
dents and housing welfare asso-
ciations say they have found
themselves in a fix on matters
such as allowing domestic helps
or doorstep delivery of newspa-
pers among others.
On May 18, the
Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation (BMC) had an-
nounced that it would not seal
an entire building but only the
particular floor of an apartment
building where a Covid-19
case(s) has been reported from.
The circular also stated that
HC TO BMC, STATE
‘Allow liquor store in mall to sell alcohol online’
OMKAR GOKHALE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
THE BOMBAY High Court di-
rected state authorities and the
Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation (BMC) to grant a
liquor store located in a mall –
but with a separate entrance –
permission to sell alcohol on-
line through home delivery
service, and considered it a
standalone store.
The court observed that ac-
cess to the shop was separate
and independent of the en-
trance to the mall. “In matters
such as the present case, the ap-
proach of the respondent au-
thorities needs to be practical,
rather than technical,” it said.
Ojus Marketing
Management Pvt Ltd, which
owns the store ‘World of Wines’
inside CR2 Mall at Nariman
Point had filed a plea seeking
permission for the sale of liquor
City records 2-hour heavy rain
EXPRESSNEWSSERVICE
MUMBAI,JUNE6
Mumbai on Saturday woke up to
heavy rainfall, accompanied by
wind and thunderstorm, days af-
ter tropical Cyclone Nisarga
brought heavy showers to city.
The India Meteorological
Department(IMD)hasattributed
the weather pattern to pre-mon-
soon showers and forecast partly
cloudyconditionswiththepossi-
bility of light to moderate show-
ers for Sunday as well.
Between5.30amand8.30am,
the Santacruz weather station
recorded 64.9 mm rain, while
Colaba received moderate rain of
18.6 mm. “There was a short but
(Top) Taxis havestartedplyingin Mumbaiwiththeeasingof lockdownrestrictions;children
playatDadarChowpattyonSaturday. Ganesh Shirsekar
maids, vendors or service
providers would not be allowed
entry toa housing societywhere
a positive case has been re-
ported, and societies have to tie
up with local vendors, medical
stores and online merchants to
deliver supplies at its boundary.
The 'Mission Begin Again'
guidelinesissuedbythestategov-
ernment and rolled out from
Friday, however, has allowed
plumbers, electricians, pest con-
trol service providers equipped
with masks and sanitisers to op-
erate between 5 am and 7 pm.
An ambiguity over availing
suchservicesatapartmentblocks
with active positive cases and
sealed floors then have triggered
confusion and discord at several
housing societies across the city.
“There is a lot of confusion
among residents. Since a few
floors are sealed, many are won-
dering if the containment zones
as a standalone retail shop, and
the issuance of a clarification
that all liquor stores, including
those inside malls, be allowed
to commence home delivery. A
division bench of Justices S J
Kathawalla and S P Tavade on
Friday heard the plea.
The petitioner, through ad-
vocates Hiren Kamod, Prem
Khullar and Abhishek Adke,
maintained that their store,
though situated inside a mall,
had a separate entrance, but
was refused permission for
home delivery by authorities.
Municipal Commissioner
Iqbal Singh Chahal had allowed
the online sale of liquor through
home delivery in Mumbai from
May 23 onwards for standalone
stores. The service was to be al-
lowed from 10 am to 6 pm.
“Under no circumstances can
over-the-counter sale of liquor
be permitted.”
OnJune3,theHighCourthad
directed authorities to respond
intense spell of rain and windy
conditions over Mumbai, Thane
and Dombivli for about 45 to 60
minutes,especiallyinthesuburbs,
on Saturday morning due to a
cloudpatchoverthecity,”saidKS
Hosalikar, IMD’s western region
deputy director general. Heavy
showers were also recorded
across various parts of the
MumbaiMetropolitanRegionin-
cludingKalyanandNaviMumbai.
Waterloggingwasreportedon
Sandhurst Road and Sion Road,
andatGandhiMarketandDahisar
East. Six wall-collapse incidents
fromthecity,andthreeeachfrom
eastern and western suburbs, 69
complaints of tree- and branch-
fallincidentsand19shortcircuits
were also reported. ENS
BACK TO BUSINESS
rulesaretobefollowedorthenew
'Mission Begin Again' guidelines
would apply,” said Kalpana
Sharma, a Mumbai-based jour-
nalist who lives at an apartment
blockinMalabarHill,wherethree
positivecaseshavebeendetected.
Apartment owners pointed
out that the confusion was trig-
gered due to multiple circulars.
“Eachhousingsocietyismak-
ing decisions as per their risk ap-
petite. Every day there are new
norms with regards to what is al-
lowed and what is not,” Amin
Merchant,aBandraresident,said.
While the state government
notification is still not clear on al-
lowing domestic helps, an issue
that resonates with most people,
BMC has allowed domestic help
inapartmentswherepeoplehave
tested positive, but not on that
particular floor. The civic body,
however, has left a final decision
in the matter to the discretion of
toapleafiledbyasouthMumbai
shop owner seeking permission
for the online sale of liquor to in-
clude shops inside malls.
Senior Counsel Anil Sakhare
from BMC argued that it could
not permit commercial activity
for non-essential service stores
inside malls as per guidelines,
and therefore relaxation
granted by the BMC to stand-
alone liquor stores will not ap-
ply to the petitioner’s store.
Moreover, additional govern-
ment pleader Jyoti Chavan for
the state, opposed the plea and
submitted that the relaxation
could not be given to the peti-
tioner’s shop as it was inside a
mall.
After hearing submissions
and perusing photographs of
the shop, the bench, led by
Justice Kathawalla, said author-
ities should take a practical ap-
proach while granting permis-
sions. “Economic impact or
strain that has been caused…by
housing societies.
Again,whilethestategovern-
ment has allowed door-to-door
delivery of newspapers, many
housingsocietieshavedecidedto
only allow newspapers to be de-
liveredtillsocietygates,whilesev-
eral others are yet to take a deci-
sion in the matter leaving
residents in a pickle.
MaharashtraSocietiesWelfare
Association (MahaSeWa), mean-
while,hasallowedhomedelivery
of newspapers at housing soci-
eties attached with them. “We
have already issued guidelines to
60,000cooperativehousingsoci-
eties and office bearers to permit
thehomedeliveryofnewspapers,
effectivefromJune7byfollowing
necessary guidelines such as
wearingamask,useofhandsani-
tisers and maintaining social dis-
tancebythedeliveryperson,”said
Rajeev Saxena, chairman
MahaSewa (Taskforce).
the lockdown is common
knowledge and the state had
permitted businesses to oper-
ate while adhering to social dis-
tancing norms and other pro-
tective measures,” the court
noted.
The bench further observed,
“Petitioner’s shop does not fall
in the containment zone. We
are not impressed by the hyper-
technical interpretation pro-
vided by authorities to show
that it is inside a mall. The intent
of the guidelines issued by the
state in not allowing the opera-
tion of businesses situated in
malls is to ensure that too many
people do not gather in one
place, where it will be difficult
to follow norms of social dis-
tancing.”
Granting relief, the court di-
rected authorities to give per-
mission to the petitioner for on-
line sale of liquor as a
standalone retail store in accor-
dance with the guidelines.
Shops continue to see low
footfall, most remain shut
EXPRESSNEWSSERVICE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
SHOPS IN Mumbai continued to
seelowfootfallforthesecondday
ascustomerslargelystayedaway,
still unsure if it was safe to step
out. Many retailers too, plagued
by a host of issues, including ab-
senceof clarityoverwhichshops
on which side of the road should
open and which side should re-
mainshut,andshortageof work-
erstoservecustomersandensure
socialdistancinginsidetheshops,
remained shut on Day 2 of
Mission Begin Again.
Thecity'sretailers'association
said most shops had remained
shut. Viren Shah, who heads the
Federation of Retail Traders
Welfare Association said that
footfallinshopshadonlymargin-
ally increased on Saturday over
Friday.
“There was a slightly higher
turnoutonSaturdayascompared
to Friday. On the whole, people
arestillafraidtovisitshopsforfear
of being infected,” he said. Those
that opened did not appear to be
followingtherulethatonlyshops
on each side of the road could
open only on alternate days.
There were shops open on both
sides.
Shahaddedthatmosttraders
spent Friday cleaning and taking
stock of inventory after opening
shuttersforthefirsttimeinthree
months. “Only half the shops in
Mumbai opened on Friday as
most employees have either re-
turned to their native villages or
live too far away to reach their
workplaces,” he said.
Theassociationhasalsoasked
the BMC to modify operating
hours from the present 9 am-5
pm to 11 am-8 pm instead. “This
will yield more taxes to the gov-
ernment,shopswillbeabletopay
salaries to their staff and cus-
A shop at Dadar reopens Saturday. Ganesh Shirsekar
tomers can shop at ease,” said
Shah.
He added that more shops
would open after the confusion
surroundingtheodd-openoper-
atinghoursareresolved.Asenior
Mumbai Police official said after
wardofficersacrossthecitypub-
lisheddateswhenshopsoneach
road can stay open, they have
held meetings with traders to
help them understand the rules.
“Theguidelinesissuedbythe
BMC are very specific but it will
take a few days until shopkeep-
ersunderstandthemcompletely.
Weareaskingshopsfloutingthe
guidelines to close,” said the of-
ficial. Of the large traders at
Crawfordmarket,onlythosesell-
ingumbrellasarecurrentlyopen,
saidCWardmunicipalcouncillor
Rita Makwana. “Even they are
open only because the monsoon
isabouttosetin.Allothershopsin
theareaareclosed.Veryfewpeo-
pleareventuringouttomarkets,”
she said.
Shops outside the western
exit of Andheri railway station
also bore a deserted look on
Saturday. Pratik Gala, who runs
Anupam Stationery Store said
that his store is encouraging cus-
tomers to opt for home deliver-
ies. Gala has set up a counter at
theentranceandprohibitedcus-
tomers from entering.
“Wearedownto5employees
from a staff of 30 and cannot af-
ford anyone getting infected.
Moreover,westockseveralsmall
itemsandwillnotbeabletocon-
trolalargenumberof customers.
They do wear masks and gloves
butwecannotriskallowingthem
to enter,” he said.
To further limit the exposure
of his staff to infection, Gala has
alsoaskedcustomerstoplaceor-
ders for books and stationery on
onlinedeliveryservices.Butwith
the railway station shut, footfalls
at his strategically located store
have reduced drastically.
Bipin Patel, a shopkeeper on
the normally packed Hill Road in
BandraWesthasalsoswitchedto
home deliveries to protect his
staff from infection.
“We are still not allowing
walk-insaswedon'twanttotake
theriskoftransmission.Inthelast
twodays,Ihaveseenagreaterin-
creaseincarsontheroadsthanin
the number of customers in the
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
market,” he said.
Javed Shaikh, who runs
Channel Green Mobile Shop in
YariRoad,AndheriWest,saidthat
sinceFriday,customershaveonly
been calling the shop's landline
phonetoaskif itis open.“Noone
isprioritisinggettingtheirphones
serviced or repaired at this time.
We have also been badly im-
pactedase-commerceplatforms
were allowed to open up much
beforeus.Customersprefertoor-
der phones online,” he said.
Harsh Patel, a municipal
councillorinGoregaonWest,said
thatgarmentandelectronicssto-
ries in his ward witnessed low
footfalls.“Peoplehavenotyetbe-
come used to shopping for non-
essentials.Thereisalsotheques-
tion of people having the means
to commute easily to those
shops,” he said.
Pravin Chheda, former BMC
councillor from Ghatkopar said,
“Citizens are not crowding non-
essential shops in Ghatkopar.
They are not stepping out for
shopping for clothes or utensils,
or any other non essential items.
Localsarestillliningupatgrocery
stores.”

4 MAHARASHTRA
THE INDIAN EXPRESS, SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 2020
CYCLONE NISARGA
‘He went inside to get our TV set... I wish he
hadn’t’: Mother of 17-year-old killed in cyclone
Pandharinath and Asmita Javlekar lost their only son Amar
Javlekar (17) after he was crushed under the wall of their
house that collapsed due to Cyclone Nisarga (left); Houses
damaged due to the cyclone. Deepak Joshi
MAYURA JANWALKAR
SHRIVARDHAN, JUNE 6
IN RAIGAD district where
Cyclone Nisarga made landfall
on June 3 causing large scale de-
struction,AmarJavlekar(17)was
one of the two people killed that
day.Hisparents,staringataheap
of cement blocks, the remains of
a collapsed wall of their home
under which Amar was crushed
to death, rue that he may have
been still alive had he not gone
back into their house to save a
precious possession.
‘It was just the two of us at
home,’ said his mother Asmita
Javlekar, who has a limp after a
Government nod to horticulture Veteran BJP leader, 3-term MLA
insurance scheme for three years Chandrakanta Goyal passes away
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
THE MAHARASHTRA govern-
ment has given nod for imple-
menting the ‘Restructured
Weather Based Horticulture
Insurance Scheme’ (RWBHIS)
between 2020-21 and 2022-23.
State Agriculture Minister
Dadasaheb Bhuse said farmers
can now register online for the
voluntary crop insurance
scheme, which is open for both
farmers with existing crop
loans or those willing to take
new ones.
The scheme provides finan-
cial support and security to
farmers in the likelihood of fi-
nancial loss to farm produce
caused by natural calamities,
including hailstorm and unsea-
sonable rain. Under it, a farmer
has to pay only five per cent of
the total insurance premium,
while the remaining amount is
paid by the Centre and state.
Agriculture secretary,
Eknath Davale, said, ‘In
Ahmednagar, Amravati,
Sindhudurg, Nashik, Washim,
Yavatmal, Satara, Parbhani,
Jalna, Latur and Kolhapur dis-
Uddhav inaugurates Man held for kidnapping 13-year-old girl had
coal mine near Nagpur abducted 26-year-old migrant worker: Police
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
CHIEF MINISTER Uddhav
Thackeray on Saturday inaugu-
rated the Western Coalfields’
Adasa coal mine near Nagpur
throughavideoconference,stat-
ing that the proper utilisation of
mines would help resolve the
power shortage issue.
‘Coal is very important for
power generation. If we utilise
the production of the quality of
coal properly, then the issue of
shortage of power will be re-
solved. It will also help provide
uninterrupted electricity supply
at cheaper rates to rural areas,’
said Thackeray after the inaugu-
ration of the coal mine.
Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj
Singh Chouhan also simultane-
ously inaugurated two mines in
MP. Union Minister for Road
Transport & Highways Nitin
Gadkari and Union Minister for
Coal and Mines Pralhad Joshi
toe injury she suffered while es-
caping her home, as it was being
poundedbythefiercewindsthat
Nisarga brought. ‘He went back
togetourtelevision.Idon'tknow
why he had to do that. I wish he
hadn't,’shebreaksdown,attheir
home in Gaulwadi village in
Shrivardhan.
Amar’s father Pandharinath
Javlekar's vision is fogged by
cataract. Nearly 60 year old, he
works as a daily-wage farm
labourer. His mother works as a
house help. ‘He was my only son
and he was born many years af-
ter our marriage. We are poor
people but we wanted to give
him a good education. We
wanted him to study and do
The process of shortlisting insurance company for
Beed, Aurangabad, Akola, Sangli, Wardha, Thane
and Hingoli districts, is underway, Davale said
tricts, the HDFC Ergo General
Insurance Company has been
shortlisted to provide insur-
ance to farmers. Whereas, Bajaj
Allianz General Insurance
Company has been selected for
Raigad, Buldhana, Jalgaon,
Nanded, Pune and Osmanabad
districts. The Bharatiya Krishi
Bima Company will cater to the
districts of Dhule, Palghar,
Solapur, Ratnagiri, Nagpur,
Nandurbar.’
The process of shortlisting
the insurance company for
Beed, Aurangabad, Akola,
Sangli, Wardha, Thane and
Hingoli districts, is underway,
he added.
The agriculture department,
Bhuse said, has permitted the
cultivation of oranges, sweet
lime, pomegranate, guava,
lemon and chikku in 18 districts
during ‘mrug bahar’ cycle
(bearing fruits from February
onwards) and cultivation of
grapes, bananas, mango,
Coal is very important for
power generation. If we
utilise the production of
the quality of coal
properly, then the issue
of shortage of power will
be resolved. It will also
help provide
uninterrupted electricity
supply at cheaper rates
to rural areas.’
UDDHAV THACKERAY
joined the event online.
Thackeray further said that
coal mines should ensure low
pollution levels. ‘The mines
should also be environment
friendly,’ he said.
Officials said an investment
of Rs334crorehasbeenmadeon
theAdasacoalminethatwillpro-
duce1.5millionmetrictonnesof
coal per year. It will also provide
employment to 550 people.
well. He had told me ‘Aai, mala
police officer vhaychay (Mother, I
want to be a police officer)’, she
weeps.
At the mouth of the
Gaulwadi village is the Gram
Panchayat office that is now
missing tiles on its red roof. At its
door lay the remains of a large
tree felled by the cyclone. Most
of Shrivardhan is now a detritus
of tree branches and scree along
every road.
Prashant Lad, a neighbour of
the Javlekars described the day
of chaos that Nisarga brought to
their village. ‘The boy was
crushed under the cement wall.
We knew he had died on the
spot but how do we inform the
cashew, orange, sweet line,
pomegranate have been al-
lowed in 23 districts for ‘ambia
bahar’ cycle (fruition from
September-October).
Strawberry cultivation will be
based on specified tried-and-
tested locations in selected
districts.
The last date to apply for the
insurance scheme for ‘mrug ba-
har’ sweet lime and chikku is
June 30, orange cultivation June
20, guava June 14, and pome-
granate July 14. Under ‘ambia
bahar’ cycle, the last date for fil-
ing the application for grape is
October 15, sweet lime and ba-
nana October 31, orange,
cashew and mango November
30. For pomegranate, it is
December 31 and strawberry
October 14.
The department has urged
the farmers not to rush on the
last date and instead start ap-
plying online seeking the help
of local agriculture centres.
SAGAR RAJPUT
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
A 32-YEAR-OLD man has been
arrestedforallegedlykidnapping
a 13-year-old girl, daughter of a
migrant worker, while the fam-
ily was walking to their native
place in Akola from Mumbai in
May, Jalgaon police said. The
man, police said, was also
wantedinthekidnappingcaseof
a 26-year-old migrant worker
from Akola. The woman was re-
portedlyabductedwhileshewas
walkingbacktohernativevillage
in Chhattisgarh, police said,
adding that the motive in both
thekidnappingcaseswassexual
assault, but did not take place in
either case.
Ganesh Banger, a resident of
Malegaon, was arrested from
Nashik after police traced him
throughhismobilelocation,and
senttojudicialcustodyatJalgaon.
OnMay19,hehadkidnapped
the 13-year-old child from
police when people were run-
ning helter-skelter and rooftops
and tree branches were flying in
their faces? Phones weren't
working. I took my two-wheeler
dodging fallen trees to look for
policemen who were all on pa-
trolling duties,’ said Lad.
In about an hour after its
landfall at about 12:30 pm on
June 3, Nisarga had wrecked
havoc, destroying several vil-
lages in its path. ‘When I called
for help, no one could even hear
us at first. Everyone was scared
for their lives,’ said Asmita.
Lad informed the police the
same evening but the cyclone
had made it difficult for the vil-
lagers to retrieve Amar's body. It
Mother of Union Minister Piyush Goyal was ‘woman of the masses’
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
VETERAN BJP leader
Chandrakanta Goyal, mother of
Union Minister of Railways,
Commerce and Industry Piyush
Goyal, passed away on Saturday.
The minister announced the
death on Twitter, saying that she
had dedicated her life towards
serving people and had inspired
himtodothesame.Andthatshe
had always shown him the way
with her love and affection.
The 88-year old, whose late
husband, Ved Prakash Goyal,
was the former BJP national
treasurer and shipping minister
in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee gov-
ernment, was elected from
MatungaAssemblyconstituency
in central Mumbai for three suc-
cessive terms from 1990.
Goyal made her first political
foray as a corporator of the
Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation in 1978 from Sion.
She announced her retire-
ment from electoral politics
in 2004.
Jalgaon, while her family was
walking back to Akola from
Mulund in Mumbai, where they
were stranded due to the coron-
avirus-induced lockdown.
Theaccusedhadapproached
the family when they had
stopped for lunch at Jalgaon and
offered to drop the child and his
17-year-old brother at Akola on
his bike, a police officer from
Nasirabad police station in
Jalgaon, said.
After riding at least seven
kilometreswiththetwosiblings,
the man had asked the boy to
walk for some distance to avoid
being stopped at a police check-
point ahead. He had assured to
meettheboyafterthepolicebar-
ricade but had instead sped off
with the minor girl. When the
boy could not find his sister, he
informed his parents following
which a case was registered at
Nasirabad police station in
Jalgaon.
The girl was rescued from
Loni Takli area in Amaravati the
was pulled out the next day, ‘We
cremated him the next day at
our village crematorium,’ said
Lad.
The Javlekar's have now
movedintoaneighbour'shouse.
Amar's two elder sisters, Rajani
and Naina, both married, were
visiting their grandmother in
Mahad. They couldn't come to
see their brother one last time.
Whatremainsof theJavlekar
home is a door-frame that still
holds the wooden door that
reads 'Shubh labh'. Wedged into
the centre of a single bed is a
chunky slab of cement.
Amar's school bag, his
mother's sarees, utensils and an
electric meter, are scattered
CHANDRAKANTA
GOYAL
1932-2020
‘She had devoted her life to
theJanataPartyatthetimeof the
Emergency, and to the BJP (sub-
sequently), along with her hus-
band. She continued to remain
dedicated to social causes even
after her retirement from poli-
tics,’ a senior BJP leader in
Mumbai said.
Activeintheanti-Emergency
movement,sheandherhusband
were closely associated with the
late Ramnath Goenka, founder-
chairman of The Indian Express.
She is survived by sons
PiyushandPradipanddaughters
PratibhaandPramila,alongwith
next day, Assistant Police
Inspector Pravin Salunkhe from
Nasirabad police station said.
‘After recording the girl’s state-
ment, we formed four special
teams to locate him. As his call
data record showed that he has
been travelling between Pune
and Nashik, we sent a team to
Nashik and caught him there,’
said an investigator.
During interrogation, police
found Banger had kidnapped a
migrant worker from Akola on
May 6 and had at least 10 cases
of cheating and stealing regis-
teredagainsthimindifferentdis-
tricts of Maharashtra.
According to police, on May
6 Banger has approached a
group of migrant workers, walk-
ing towards Chhattisgarh from
Surat, at Murtizapur area and of-
fered to arrange transportation
for them. When they agreed, he
asked them to get their medical
tests done. ‘Banger first took the
victim’s husband to a nearby
hospital for a medical test, but
Pawar visits
cyclone-hit
villages
Mumbai: Deputy CM Ajit
PawarvisitedvillagesinMaval,
JunnarandKhedtehsil,which
were affected by Cyclone
Nisarga earlier this week. He
promised villagers who suf-
fered damages to houses and
crops that speedy compensa-
tion will be provided to them.
He visited Bhoyre and
PavalewadiinMaval;Navlakh
Umbare, Karanj Vihire, Shive,
Vahagaon and Dhamane in
Khed tehsil; and Savargaon,
Pandhre, Yenere and
Dhagadwadi in Junnar tehsil.
Pawar also handed over
chequesofRs4lakheachasfi-
nancial aid to family of those
wholosttheirlivesinaccidents
caused by the cyclone. Four
persons, including two in a
family, died in three different
incidents. ENS
everywhere. Somehow un-
scathed are plastic jars of puffed
rice that sit undisturbed on a
kitchen rack.
Chief Minister Uddhav
Thackeray's announcement of
Rs 4 lakh compensation to the
kin of those killed in the natural
disaster, does little to comfort
Amar'smother.‘Hewasmygold,
my diamonds, my prince. In
whatever way the government
tries to helpus, it won'tbringmy
son back’, she wails.
other family members.
Many top leaders, including
Union Finance Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman and Women and
Child Development Minister
Smriti Irani, offered their
condolences.
‘I had the good fortune of
working with her in Mumbai.
Forever at the forefront for help-
ing the destitute,’ Irani said.
‘She was also a great public
leader in her own right and
worked for the cause of our
party,’ Union Law Minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad said.
Other BJP leaders in the city
also offered tributes. BJP leader
Poonam Mahajan said that in
Goyal, the party had a strong
voice in the Assembly and a ‘lov-
ing leader’.
‘In her, BJP had a ‘woman of
the masses’, who treated each
and everyone as family,’ former
state minister and senior BJP
leader Vinod Tawde said.
Tawde said the cremation
tookplaceonSaturdaywithonly
close family members in atten-
dance due to restrictions owing
to Covid-19 outbreak.
they had to return as the doctor
was reportedly on leave. On re-
turning to the spot, Banger sug-
gested that they should get the
test done from another hospital
and asked the wife to accom-
pany him to it. Instead of taking
her to the hospital, Banger kid-
napped the woman,’ an officer
said, adding her husband lodged
a case at Murtizapur police sta-
tion when the woman did not
return for a long time. ‘In this
case too, Banger abandoned the
woman at Washim on May 7. No
sexual assault was reported,’ the
officer said.
Murtizapur police have now
writtentoJalgaonpoliceseeking
Banger’s custody.
Aninvestigatorsaid,‘Medical
examination of both the victims
showed they were not sexually
assaulted. We believe he knew
that police were chasing him, so
he may not have committed
crime out of fear.’
Thebikeusedforthekidnap-
pingswasalsostolen,policesaid.
Covid toll nears 3,000 in
state; Mumbai records 58
deaths, highest in a day
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, JUNE 6
FIFTY-EIGHT PEOPLE died, the
highest in a single day so far, in
Mumbai due to Covid-19 on
Saturday, taking the toll in the
country’sfinancialcapitalto1,577.
The city has reported more than
50 deaths on a day thrice before.
A total of 120deathswere re-
ported on the day across the
state, pushing the toll to 2,969.
Across Maharashtra 2,739 new
cases were also reported, taking
the total case count to 82,968.
According to the
Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation, 39 patients, who
succumbed to the virus
Saturday, had comorbidities.
Seven of the deceased were 40
years of age, while 21 were
above 60. Twenty-nine people
were aged between 40 and 60
years.
State plans to buy
10,000 vials of
Remdesivir: Tope
TABASSUM
BARNAGARWALA&
PRABHARAGHAVAN
MUMBAI,JUNE6
STATE HEALTH minister Rajesh
Tope announced Saturday that
Maharashtra will procure 10,000
vials of the investigational drug,
Remdesivir.Thestategovernment
is in price negotiations with vari-
oussuppliersandistryingtomo-
bilise Corporate Social
Responsibility(CSR)fundstobuy
the expensive medicine.
Ananti-viraldrug,Remdesivir
is being used on moderately ill to
severely ill patients to stop the
spread of the virus in the body. It
wasmanufacturedin2014totreat
Ebola and has since been used to
treat patients of SARS and MERS.
Earlier this week, the Drug
Controller General of India ap-
provedtheuseof Remdesivirasa
five-day regimen to treat Covid-
19 patients. Gilead Sciences, its
manufacturer, has signed licence
agreements with five generic
pharmaceutical manufacturers -
- with Cipla, Ferozsons
Laboratories,HeteroLabs,Jubilant
LifesciencesandMylan--basedin
India and Pakistan to expand the
supply of the drug in Southeast
Asia. So far, Drug Controller
General of India VG Somani, who
headstheCentralDrugsStandard
Control Organisation (CDSCO),
has only given an approval to
Mumbai-based Klinera Global
Services to import remdesivir
fromthreemanufacturingsitesin
the US.
The drug has been given
emergencyauthorisationinIndia,
which means that it is being al-
lowedaspartoftreatmentthough
clinical trials are still ongoing to
test its effectiveness. Such an ap-
provalmeansthatitsusehastobe
heavily restricted and monitored
in India.
While minister Tope initially
saidaBangladeshicompanymay
beselectedtoprocuremedicines,
Dr T P Lahane, director of
Directorate of Medical Education
and Research, said state govern-
ment has reached out to the US
and some Indian companies to
procure Remdesivir.
Meanwhile,stateofficialssaid
companies were quoting a high
State govt suffering from
action paralysis: Fadnavis
EXPRESSNEWSSERVICE
MUMBAI,JUNE6
OPPOSITION LEADER Devendra
Fadnavis Saturday said the
Maharashtra government is suf-
fering not just from ‘policy paral-
ysis but also action paralysis’. He
said that the Maha Vikas Aghadi
government had shown no ur-
gency to tackle the challenges
posed by Covid-19 or Cyclone
Nisarga.
Addressing the media in
Mumbai, Fadnavis said, ‘The Rs
100-crorereliefforcycloneisvery
little. The state government
shouldprovideadequatepackage
over the National Disaster Relief
Fund norms.’ He said during his
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
On Saturday, the city also re-
ported1,274newCovid-19cases.
With a total of 47,354 positive
patients, Mumbai accounts for
the lion’s share of the state’s
coronavirus burden. So far, 1,181
patients have recovered and dis-
charged.
As per the data released by
the state government, 30 deaths
were reported from Thane dis-
trict on
Saturday, 10 from Pune, and
six deaths were reported from
Navi Mumbai and Ulhasnagar
each. Five people died in Nashik
and Satara each, while two per-
sons died in Malegaon, Solapur,
Amravati, and Akola each.
Atotalof 2,234patientswere
discharged Saturday taking the
total number of patients to have
recovered from the disease to
37,390 across the state.
Currently, there are 42,600 ac-
tive cases in the state with 3,603
active containment zones.
price for the drug, which has led
to a delay in procurement. ‘We
have reached out to a few manu-
facturers,butnothinghasbeenfi-
nalised. We are trying to get CSR
funds to procure it,’ Lahane said.
Manufacturers are reportedly
quotingRs20,000forasinglevial,
which means for a five-day regi-
men the cost per patient will go
up to Rs 1 lakh and for a 10-day
regimen Rs 2 lakh.
According to infectious dis-
easeexpert,DrOmSrivastava,the
two anti-viral drugs Remdesivir
andFavipiravirhaveshownprom-
ise in Covid-19 treatment, so far.
‘But it is too soon to comment on
their efficacy,’ he said. Srivastava
has used the drug provided by a
company on compassionate
grounds.
At least two IAS officers in
Mumbaihavebeenadministered
thisdrugthatisotherwisenotac-
cessible easily for common pub-
lic. ‘While there is currently lim-
ited global supply of Remdesivir,
the company anticipates new
supply of the drug to start to be-
come available in July, with sup-
plycontinuingtoincreasethrough
the end of this year and into next
year,’ a Gilead spokesperson said.
The drug grabbedeyeballsaf-
ter the National Institute of
Allergies and Infectious Diseases
(NIAID) trial announced initial
trial results that Remdesivir was
reducing recovery period to 11
days. The US FDA also approved
the drug last month for emer-
gency use.
In India, drug-makers like
Cipla are learned to have already
sought approval to manufacture
andsupplyRemdesiviraspartofa
voluntary licence signed with
Gilead. However, CDSCO is still
performing audits of their facili-
ties and awaiting sufficient data
from these companies to ensure
that their generic versions of
Remdesivir adhere to the quality
andsafetystandardsforthismed-
icine, a senior official said.
Another senior official said if
Bangladesh provides Remdesivir
as donation, India can accept the
stock. ‘At the same time, there
needs to be a check on how au-
thentic and effective the product
manufacturedbythiscompanyis,’
said an industry executive aware
of the development.
tenure, Rs 6,800-crore package
was given for flood-ravaged
Sangli, Kolhapur and Raigad dis-
tricts. ‘From people rendered
homelesstofarmerswhosecrops
havebeendestroyed,thegovern-
ment should provide immediate
financialhelpofRs10,000eachto
rural families and Rs 15,000 each
to urban families.’
He said that the Centre was
providing all help to tackle the
pandemic.‘Duringthelockdown,
3,840ShramikSpecialtrainswere
deployed to carry migrants from
one state to another. Already
5,000MSMEshavebeenprovided
Rs 800 crore loans in a short pe-
riod of less than a month. The
MSME package will benefit the
state the maximum,’ he said.

5 THE OUTBREAK
Rajeshhasbeendrivinganauto—almostnon-stop—for30years.
Afteragap,theEastDelhiresidentisbackonroad. Praveen Khanna
JAIPUR:12:40PM
Tourist sites have been opened in Rajasthan, but footfall is low.
At Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, guides Sudhir Sharma (right) and
Tej Singh Rajawat say earnings are at a standstill. Rohit Jain Paras
TN govt caps Covid
treatment charges
in private hospitals
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, JUNE 6
THE TAMIL Nadu government
on Saturday issued orders to cap
the charges for Covid-19 treat-
ment in private hospitals.
As per the new guidelines, in
which hospitals are categorised
basedonamenities,thefirsttwo
levels — Grade A1 and A2 — of
hospitals are allowedtochargea
daily fee of Rs 7,500 and Rs
15,000 for the general ward and
ICU, respectively. For Grade A3
and A4 hospitals, the ceiling for
charges per day in the general
ward and ICU are fixed at Rs
5,000andRs15,000,respectively.
Health Minister C themeasureswereapositiveges-
Vijayabaskar's statement said
thedecisionwasmadeasperCM
EdappadiKPalaniswami’sorder.
Earlier, a committee headed by
state Health Secretary Beela
Rajesh hadsubmittedareportto
the government on permissible
charges for private hospitals. As
per the order, no fee over and
abovethepermittedratescanbe
collected from patients.
The government had earlier
CASE COUNT: THE CHANGING PICTURE
A look at how Covid-19 case counts in states
are changing as migrants return home
UTTAR PRADESH
10,604 370
Foreignentrants:None
TAMIL NADU
16,022 1,458
Foreignentrants:6
RAJASTHAN
13,570
Foreignentrants:NA
253
KERALA
3,908 108
Foreignentrants:64
States’ data for last 24 hours, updated up to 9 pm on June 6
Amid rising cases, Bengal
govt to convert schools,
lodges to Covid hospitals
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
KOLKATA, JUNE 6
WITH A rise in the number of
positivecasesinWestBengal,the
stategovernmenthasdecidedto
convert schools and tourist
lodges, besides local healthcare
centres, to make eight new ded-
icated hospitals for treatment of
Covid-19. It has also decided to
augmentthecapacityof existing
Covid hospitals in the state.
The state has 69 Covid-dedi-
cated hospitals, of which 16 are
state-runand53areprivatehos-
pitals requisitioned by the gov-
ernment. A total of 8,78 beds
have been earmarked for Covid
patients and the occupancy
stands at 19.57 per cent. There
are a total 920 ICU beds and 392
ventilators in these hospitals.
According to a notification is-
suedFridaybythestatehealthde-
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020
Chief
Minister
Edappadi K
Palaniswami
fixed treatment costs for benefi-
ciaries of the Chief Minister’s
Comprehensive Health
Insurance Scheme in govern-
ment-notified private hospitals
treating Covid.
However, these measures
may not grant a reprieve to those
who complain of exorbitant fees
at private hospitals. Dr G R
Ravindranath of the Doctors'
AssociationforSocialEqualitysaid
ture, but may not bring down
treatmentcosts.“Only20%oralit-
tlemorethanwhatyouwouldsee
inanormalbillwouldbecharged
underroomrentorsuchservices.
But over 80% of a private hospital
billwouldoftenbeunderthecost
of medicine, disposable medical
equipment, consultation fee and
otherexpensivetests.Thegovern-
ment's regulation should have
been addressing these costs...”
ANDHRA PRADESH
137 12,771 210 41
Foreignentrants:8
KARNATAKA
29 11,862 378 333
Foreignentrants:8
PUNJAB
102 5,558
Foreignentrants: NA
54 8
■ Samplestested
34 ■ Positivecases
■ Migrants
partment, locations to be con-
verted to hospitals include the
TribenitouristlodgeinDarjeeling’s
Lamahatta,MadhumamataLodge
inBirbhum’sRampurhat,Modern
School in Malda’s Manickchowk,
and Christio Seva Sadan in
Murshidabad’sJiagunj.
“Wehavealreadyconverteda
lot of hospitals, both private and
government, including medical
college hospitals,as Covid hospi-
tals. These hospitals only cater to
Covid positive cases. After lakhs
of migrant labourers returned to
Bengalfromdifferentstates,more
Covid cases are identified. More
testingisalsobeingdone.Sothere
is a need to be prepared,” said a
seniorhealthdepartmentofficial.
“Asapartof thatpreparation,
weareconvertingmoreavailable
institutions into Covid hospitals.
Schoolsandtouristlodgestooare
being converted into Covid hos-
pitals,” the official added.
Everysummer,shepherdsfrom Punedistrict’sBaramatiandPurandhartehsilsmakethelongjourneytotheKonkan
regiontograze theirflock.This year,though,wasparticularlypunishing—withroadsideseateriesshut,foodwashardto
comeby;theyhadnowaytopowertheirphones; andnohelpwasforthcomingfromvillagersfearfulof thecoronavirus.
Aftermorethanamonthontheroad,theyhavereachedBopdevGhat,andareontheirwayhome.
Punjab unlock plan: Restaurants to
stay shut, malls to open with curbs
KANCHAN VASDEV
CHANDIGARH, JUNE 6
WHILE RESTAURANTS in Punjab
will continue to remain shut for
dine-in even after Monday, the
state government has given a go-
aheadformallsandplacesofwor-
ship to reopen — with some re-
strictions in place.
Accordingtoguidelinesissued
bythestategovernmentSaturday,
restaurantsorfoodcourtsinmalls
willonlyprovidetakeawayservice.
Guests in hotels will have to be
servedfoodinrooms.Thedecision
willbereviewedonJune15.
The fresh guidelines provide
for a token-based entry to malls.
Therewillbeaprovisionformax-
imumtimelimitforamallvisitor.
“The maximum number of per-
sons allowed in each shop in a
mall shall be fixed on the basis of
maintenanceofsix-feetdistance,”
saysthegovernmentnotification.
Aspertheguidelines,mallvis-
itors are required to have COVA
appontheirphones.Afamilywill
allowedtoenteramallevenifone
of the members has the app in
his/herphone,theguidelinessay.
COVA has been developed by
the state government to provide
preventive care information.
“Trial of clothing/accessories
shall not be permitted,” says one
of the guidelines for the malls.
Religious places will be al-
lowed to remain open from 5 am
to9pm.Notmorethan20people
willbeallowedonthepremisesat
any given time and langar and
prasad will not be distributed.
Night curfew is to be strictly
enforced from 9 pm to 5 am.
Violation of these guidelines
Ganga Ram hospital fights Covid — and FIR by Delhi govt
ASTHASAXENA
NEWDELHI,JUNE6
THE FAULTLINES between the
Delhi government and Sir Ganga
Ram Hospital deepened on
Saturday as an FIR was filed
against the hospital’s Medical
Superintendentforallegedlyvio-
latingdirectionsissuedunderthe
Epidemic Diseases Act. The FIR,
CONFERENCE ON FUTURE OF SCHOOLS AMID PANDEMIC
‘Can’t make assumptions about students’ learning’
SUKRITABARUAH
NEWDELHI,JUNE6
AS THE Indian school education
system prepares to gradually re-
open after more than three
months of remaining closed,
Bridget Long of the Harvard
GraduateSchoolofEducationhas
cautioned about children return-
ing to school with sizeable differ-
encesinlearninglevelsbecauseof
thedifferentcircumstancesofre-
motelearning,andpointedtothe
needofadaptingsystemstowhat
theneedsofstudentswillbeatthe
end of this period.
THE CRUELLEST SUMMER
PUNE:6PM
KARNATAKA
GUIDELINES FOR
TEMPLE VISITS
Bengaluru: With temples
scheduledtoopen forpub-
lic from June 8, the
Karnataka government on
Saturday asked people
above 65, those below 10
yearsandpregnantwomen
to cooperate by staying at
home until further orders,
and banned entry of those
ill. There are over 34,000
temples in the state that
come under the depart-
mentof Hindureligiousin-
stitutions and charitable
endowments (Muzrai).
PLACES OF WORSHIP
SHUT TILL JUNE 30
IN ARUNACHAL
Itanagar: The Arunachal
Pradesh government has
decidedtokeepallplacesof
worship closed in the state
till June 30 to contain the
spreadof Covid-19,accord-
ing to an order issued on
Saturday by Arunachal
Health Secretary P THE GUJARAT government on
Parthiban. The state till
Fridayrecordedatotalof 47
Covidcasesof which 46 are
active. PTI
shall be punishable under sec-
tions51to60oftheDisasterman-
agementAct,2005andundersec-
tion188ofIPC,theguidelinessay.
filed on June 5, was based on a
complaint by Deputy Secretary
(Health) Amit Kumar Pamasi.
The development came on a
day Delhi Chief Minister Arvind
Kejriwaltookaimat“someprivate
hospitals” in the capital without
naminganyparticularfacility,say-
ing they were “lying” about not
havingvacantbeds,andindulging
in “black marketeering”.
“A few days ago, a person
Schools and education au-
thorities have tried to arrange
different methods of remote
learning for children. The HRD
Ministry is now working with
the National Council of
Educational Research and
Training(NCERT)ondevisingba-
sic guidelines for reopening of
schools,wheneveritisapproved
by the Home Ministry.
Speakingatanationalconfer-
ence on ‘Future of Schools:
OvercomingtheCOVIDChallenge
andBeyond’organisedbyAshoka
University, Bridget Long, Dean of
the Harvard Graduate School of
Education,raisedtheissueofvar-
Pavan Khengre
Priests spray disinfectant in a temple ahead of its reopening, in Bengaluru. PTI
Gujarat to heed Centre SOPs, places
of worship to open ‘only for viewing’
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, JUNE 6
Saturday decided to follow the
Centre’s Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs) for all malls,
restaurants and hotels which are
expected to open from June 8.
TheSOPswillbeapplicableto
all malls and hotels outside con-
tainment zones. For their imple-
mentation, the government has
empowered municipal commis-
came to me and informed me he
wasdeniedabedbyaprivatehos-
pital, and after many requests,
they gave him admission after
charging him Rs 2 lakh... I am not
sayingallprivatehospitalsarebad.
Private hospitals in the city have
played an important role in our
battle against coronavirus. But
there are some hospitals which
are asking for money from pa-
tientstoprovidethemabed.This
ied levels of remote learning
among students.
“Studentsaregoingtoarriveat
vastlydifferentlevelsofacademic
learning. For some, they had par-
ents who were able to provide
support or they were at an age at
whichtheycouldhaveworkedin-
dependently and were able to
continue with their learning. For
others, learning stopped at
home… not just in terms of con-
tentbutalsolearninglossofbeing
outside the constant routine that
supportstheirmemoryandlearn-
ing…Somestudentswillbeabout
a half-grade level behind their
peers,” she said.
sioners in municipal areas. At
other places, the district magis-
trateorlocalbodywillberespon-
sible for the implementation.
For religious places, the gov-
ernmentdecidedtheycouldopen
in “non-containment zones, but
only for viewing”. The decision
came after Chief Minister Vijay
Rupani and Minister of State,
Home, Pradeepsinh Jadeja on
Saturday held a video-confer-
ence with religious leaders.
The guidelines issued by the
government said, “The temple
is called black marketing of beds
andwewillnotallowit,”Kejriwal
said.Hiscommentscomeagainst
thebackdropofrisingCovidcases
in Delhi — 1,330 cases in the last
24 hours alone — and a flurry of
reportsandsocialmediapostsby
peoplehighlightingdifficultiesin
admitting Covid patients to hos-
pitals.
Filed under IPC Section 188
(disobedience to order duly
Long also pointed to gaps in
children’s emotional health due
to the crisis. “There have been
variations in how Covid has im-
pacted communities. There will
bechildrenwhohavetraumabe-
causeitaffectedsomeoneintheir
family… some have been home
inabusivefamilies,”shesaid.Long
also pointed to the need for data
analysis and research to prepare
fortheroadahead–whatworked
inthisperiod,whichtoolsparents
had at home and what support
they were able to give, the skills
and resources teachers have and
what they need.
Longemphasisedontheneed
Customers arebackat MuneeshKumar’s‘SadhuRamKachori
Wala’shop,started65yearsagobyhisgrandfather. Harmeet Sodhi
Acosmeticsstoreadds somefinishingtouchesbeforeits
reopeningatElanteMall,thebiggestinChandigarh.Mallsin
thecityaresettoopenfromMonday.
management and organisers
will have to ensure the devotees
observe the protocols issued
during the Covid-19 pandemic
to avoid crowding...”
Rupani has directed authori-
ties of places of worship to en-
sure no rituals, like offering
prasad and sprinkling holy wa-
ter, are performed. He asked
devotees not to take people
above the age of 65 and children
to religious places and also ap-
pealed to all groups not to hold
religious functions or fairs.
promulgated by public servant),
the FIR accuses Sir Ganga Ram
Hospital of not using RT PCR app
whilecollectingCovidsamplesas
is "mandatory".
When contacted, D S Rana,
chairmanofboard,SirGangaRam
Hospital,said,“Itisasimplecom-
munication gap which will be
sorted out soon.” The FIR has
drawn a sharp reaction from the
Delhi Medical Association.
to make adjustments based on
children’s experiences of the last
fewmonths.“Theimportantthing
is that we have to meet them
wheretheyareandwecan’tmake
assumptions about their learn-
ing... personalisation will be im-
portant,” she said.
CBSE chairperson Manoj
Ahuja said the national educa-
tion board is working to “ratio-
nalise”syllabusforthisacademic
session by “shaving off concepts
which are duplicated or super-
fluous”. He said the board is
working towards competency-
basedlearningfocusedonlearn-
ing outcomes rather than con-
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
CHANDIGARH:2:10PM
Kamleshwar Singh
UP police file
charges against
83 Tablighis, 57 of
them foreigners
MANISH SAHU
LUCKNOW, JUNE 6
UP POLICE on Saturday filed
chargesheet against 83 Tablighi
Jamaat members, including 57
foreign nationals, who were ar-
rested in six different cases regis-
teredagainsttheminSaharanpur
for allegedly spreading coron-
avirus, as also not informing the
districtadministrationabouttheir
participationintheJamaat'scon-
gregationinDelhiinearlyMarch.
More than 2,500 Tablighi
members, including 308 foreign
nationals, had earlier been
booked in approximately 300
casesfiledindifferentdistrictsof
the state. So far, an officer said,
chargesheet has been filed in
more than 200 of these cases.
Of those taken into custody,
300Tablighimembers,including
279 foreign nationals, are at
present lodged in different jails
in UP. The foreign nationals are
from Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand, Sudan and
France, among other countries.
71 test positive in
Goa, most from
containment zone
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
PANJIM, JUNE 6
GOA ON Saturday recorded its
highestnumberof casesinaday,
with71testresultsshowingpos-
itive, and the active case count
rising to 202.
Of the tested samples, 62
cases continue to be from
Mangor Hill, a key containment
zone in south Goa, and the rest
were from travellers to the state.
According to the daily govern-
ment bulletin, three of them
travelled by flight from New
Delhi, three by train, three by
road from Maharashtra and two
by road from Karnataka. All pa-
tients have been admitted to ESI
Hospital and are stable.
State Health Minister
Vishwajit Rane appealed to citi-
zens to remain calm, assuring
them that positive cases are all
from the containment zone due
tolocaltransmissionandnotdue
to “community transmission”.
tent learning, starting from the
current academic year, in an in-
cremental manner.
“Wearefinalisingthelearning
outcomes in a detailed manner
whichwillbefinalisedsoon.Alot
of teacher training programmes
are happening… This approach
wouldhelpidentifylearninggaps
at an early stage. These gaps are
cumulative,andidentifyingthem
will enable teachers to address
them… We want to roll this out
soon so that schools can start ap-
plyingit…Itwillleadtomoreau-
tonomy, more decentralisation,
andmorefreedomforeveryactor
in the system,” he said.
 नवी मब
ुं ई महानगरपा लका
आरो य वभाग
6 EXPRESS NETWORK WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020

जा हरात .002/2020, जा. .नमुंमपा/आरो य/4763/2020, द. 05/06/2020

को ह ड 19 तबंध अंतगत कं ाट (करार) प दतीने वै यक य / न म वैदयक य मनु यबळा या सेवा
घेणेबाबत.
Cong moves 65 MLAs to resorts ahead of RS polls
the RS polls were announced, to “safe locations” was to keep
Shah to hold virtual
नवी मुंबई महानगरपा लका े ातील
तबंधा मक उपाययोजना कर याकर ता नवी मुंबई महानगरपा लका
कोरोना वषाणू (को ह ड – 19) ादभ
ु ाव
े ात काम कर यासाठ पा
रोख यासाठ
इ छूक
ADITI RAJA &
GOPAL KATESHIYA
VADODARA, RAJKOT, JUNE 6
Congress leader Hardik Patel
spoke out against the “turn-
them away from pressures from
the BJP, which, according to the rally today, set to
sound Bihar poll bugle
उमेदवारांची ता परु या व पात तमहा ठोक मानधनावर कं ाट (करार) प दतीने सेवा घेणेबाबत दनांक coats” and said people should party, has been trying to “poach
“beat them with chappals” for MLAs”. As many as two more
10/06/2020 ते द. 20/06/2020 या कालावधीत थेट मल
ु ाखती (Walk in interview) आयोिजत कर यात FOLLOWINGTHEresignationsof betrayal, and also urged the MLAs are said to be on their way
आ या आहे त. three of its MLAs ahead of the Election Commission to act. So out, top party leaders said.
Rajya Sabha polls on June 19, the far eight MLAs have quit the Since March this year, when tional districts, 1,100 mandals,
अ. संवग शै णक अहता आव यक मा सक ठोक
state Congress Saturday shifted Congress since the elections the RS polls were to be first held, SANTOSHSINGH 9,000shaktikendrasand72,000
. मनु यबळाची एक त its remaining 65 MLAs to three were announced in March. as many as eight Congress MLAs PATNA,JUNE6 booths.
सं या मानधन पये differentresortsinthestateinan The party has divided its leg- have resigned. Karjan Anandsaid,“Whiileitwasnot
attempt to thwart any more res- islators in three groups, confin- (Vadodara) MLA Akshay Patel CATCHING ITS political oppo- possible to meet our workers
1 क न ठ वै यक य अ धकार
ignationsthatcouldfurtherjeop- ing them at resorts in Ambaji, and Kaprada (Valsad) MLA Jitu nents napping, the BJP has an- during lockdown, our cadres at
1.मा यता ा त व यापीठाची ardisetheparty’stallyinthestate. Rajkot and Vadodara. Senior Chaudhary resigned this week nounced that Union Home every level remained activated.
After the third MLA, Brijesh Congress leaders claimed that on Thursday and Morbi MLA Minister and former BJP chief There had been some
एम.बी.बी.एस. पदवी Merja, quit and fresh dates for the decision to move the MLAs Brijesh Merja on Friday. Amit Shah would address party activityortheotherthroughdig-
एम.बी.बी.एस. 2. महारा मे डकल कौि सल (M.M.C.)/ 60 65000/ workers at approximately ital channels (even) during the
मे डकल कौि सल ऑफ इं डया (M.C.I.)
कडील न दणी आव यक आहे.
SAALLUUTTEE TTHHEE SSOOLLDDIIEERR
S
72,000 booths to reach out to its
cadres and workers through a
virtual rally on Sunday.
lockdown.”
Asked what the focus of
Shah’s virtual rally would be,
1.मा यता ा त व यापीठाची बी.डी.एस. MARTYR OF 209 Bn, CoBRA The BJP claims nearly 5 lakh Anandsaidhecouldspeakonthe
(दं तश य च क सा) पदवी CT/GD UTPAL RABHA of 209, CoBRA made party workers will listen to achievements of the second
the supreme sacrifice during an operation in Shah's speech on YouTube, NarendraModigovernmentinits
बी.डी.एस. 2.महारा डटल कौि सल यांचेकडील न दणी 60 60000/
Jungle area of Karra and Kasrauli under PS:- Facebook Live and on the Namo firstyear,andhowtheCentrehas
आव यक आहे. Kuchai, Distt:- Saraikela Kharsawan, app.Theeventisbeingtoutedas tackled the Covid challenge.
Jharkhand on 07th June 2018. The CRPF a formal launch of the electoral Askedwhetheritisrighttogo
1.मा यता ा त व यापीठाची बी.ए.एम.एस. proudly remembers the braveheart who laid processinBihar,whichissched- into election mode at a time
पदवी down his life at the altar of duty while fighting
uled to go to the Assembly polls when Bihar is still in the grip of
with maoists. His courage and bravery would
2. महारा कौि सल ऑफ इं डयन मे डसीन CT/GD SHRI remain an abiding source of inspiration for the in October-November this year. the pandemic, Anand said, “The
बी.ए.एम.एस. 60 55000/ UTPAL RABHA Force. Opposition RJD and virtual rally is a bid to stay con-
(M.C.I.M.)/स ल कौि सल ऑफ इं डयन
IG & All Ranks of CoBRA Congress, however, took on the nectedwiththepartyatthebase
मे डसीन (C.C.I.M.) कडील न दणी saffron party for going in “elec- level.LettheOppositioninterpret
आव यक आहे. tion mode” at a time when the it the way they would like to.”
battle against coronavirus is yet RJDspokespersonMrityunjay
1.मा यता ा त व यापीठाची
to be won in a state where cases Tewarisaid:“OurleaderTejashwi
बी.एच.एम.एस.पदवी are still rising — as of Saturday PrasadYadavhasalsoheldZoom
बी.एच.एम.एस. 2. महारा कौि सल ऑफ हो मओपॅथी 60 50000/ evening, it had more than 4,500 meetings; we have WhatsApp
positive cases. groups, but we are not thinking
(M.C.H) कडील न दणी आव यक आहे .
BiharBJPpresidentDrSanjay ofelectionsliketheBJPis.Westay
1. महारा रा य मा य मक व उ च Jaiswal,however,saidShah'svir- connectedtohelpmigrantwork-
मा य मक मंडळाची 12 वी ची व ान tual rally is a way to digitally ad- ers,someof whomhavealsobe-
dress the cadres. come our party members.”
शाखेतील प र ा उ तीण. Bihar BJP spokesperson DenyingthatBJPistheonlyparty
महारा न सग कौि सलची जनरल न सग Nikhil Anand told The Sunday making a digital outreach,
2 टाफ नस व मडवाईफर या वषयाची पदवीका कं वा 100 30000/ Express, “Sunday’s virtual rally RashrtriyaLokSamataPartypres-
would be a culmination of our identUpendraKushwahaadded
बी. ए सी. नस ग two-month-longeffortstomake he,too,didFacebookLivesessions
2. महारा न सग कौि सलकडील न दणी our cadre – down to the booth to take up the issue of migrants.
आव यक आहे . level–tech-savvy.Almostallour Congress secretary Chandan
key functionaries use smart- Yadav said, “While the BJP has
1.महारा रा य मा य मक व उ च phonesandarenowfamilarwith gone in election mode, as is re-
मा य मक शालांत प र ा उ तीण. Zoom meetings and party flectedthroughitsdigitalconnec-
ऑि झलर WhatsApp groups. Our state tivity, our top leaders are con-
2.शासन मा यता ा त सं थेचा ऑि झलर
3 नस मडवाईफ presidenthadheldavideomeet- nected(withthepeople)through
नस मडवाईफ (ANM) अ यास म पण 150 25000/
ू . ing at levels of mandals and WhatsApp,andwehaverunsev-
(ANM)
3.महारा न सग कौि सलकडील न दणी shakti kendra in groups.” eralcampaignsagainstmisman-
In Bihar, BJP's organisational agementofthecoronaviruscrisis
आव यक.
structure includes 45 organisa- by the Bihar government.”
बेड साईड Certificate in Bedside Assistant –
4 50 20000/

Railway Board monitoring

सहा यक One Year Course
न सग Nursing Assistant – One Year

5
सहा यक Course
Diploma in Medical Nursing punctuality of trains
Assistant (CMNA) 50 20000/
ality is not justifiable."
Or IRAMSIDDIQUE On Saturday, the worst per-
General Duty Assistant (DGDA) MUMBAI,JUNE6 forming zonal railways were
asked to identify reasons for the
अट व शत : AFTER DRAWING flak over delays with the Chairman of
1. वयोमयादा : उमेदवाराचे वय दनांक 31/05/2020 रोजी 50 वषापे ा जा त नसावे. Shramik Specials for delays and RailwayBoard,VinodYadavhim-
2. उमेदवार हा महारा ाचा र हवासी असावा आ ण याने याबाबत स म ा धका याने दलेले अ धवास माणप routes, which caused inconven- self looking into assisting the
ience to passengers, Indian zonesinresolvingtheglitchesaf-
सादर करणे आव यक राह ल.
Railwayshastakenupclosemon- fecting the running of trains.
3. उपरो त पदाक रंता सेवा दे णेचा हा 3 म हने कं वा कोरोना (को ह ड 19) चा ादभ
ु ाव संपेपयत यापैक जे आधी itoringofpunctualityofthe200- Punctuality of trains under
घडेल तोपयत असेल. oddspecialtrainsthatitnowruns usualcircumstancesismonitored
4. उमेदवार स यि थतीत शासक य/खाजगी सेवेत कायरत अस यास यांनी संब धत कायालयाचे ना हरकत daily. The 17 zonal railways have at the divisional level and at the
beenaskedtoensure"nearly100 zonallevel.However,itisnowbe-
माणप (NOC) सादर करणे आव यक राह ल. percent"punctualityconsidering ingmappedbytheRailwayBoard
5. नवड झाले या उमेदवाराने कामावर हजर होणेपव
ू व हत केले या नमु यातील घोषणाप महानगरपा लकेकडे that fewer number of trains are (RB) on a day to day basis.
beingoperated,andthetrainsare Of the 17 zonal railways, the
सादर करणे आव यक राह ल. being monitored by the Railway worst performing was Eastern
6. उमेदवारांनी पा ता व अनुभवा या मूळ कागदप ासह एक पासपोट आकाराचा फोटो व आव यक मूळ Board chairman. Railway(ER)withitspunctuality
Nearly two months after the merely 46 percent, while North
कागदप ा या छायां कत स य तीचा एक संच घेऊन थेट मुलाखतीस हजर राहणे आव यक आहे . कागदप ां या lockdown,IndianRailwaysbegan Frontier Railway was at 60 per-
ाथ मक छाननी नंतर पा ठरणा या उमेदवारां या मुलाखती घे यात येतील. operating200trainsfromJune1, cent. The third worst perform-
with halts and schedules as per ancewasbyCentralRailway(CR)
7. उमेदवारांची ज म तारखे या पुरा यासाठ ज मतारखेचा दाखला कं वा शाळा सोड याचा दाख याची व सा ां कत the regular timetable. Of these which has about 67 percent of
(self attested) त अथवा ज मतारखेची न द असलेल शालांत प र े या उ तीण स ट फकेटची व सा ां कत nearly 52 trains were running punctuality.
withdelaysonthefirstdayitself. CR has had to divert trains
(self attested) त जोडणे आव यक राह ल.
Of the trains that operated in with cyclone Nisarga hitting
8. उमेदवार मागासवग य अस यास जातीचा प ट उ लेख क न कोण या वगात मोडत आहे याचा उ लेख करावा. thefirstfivedaysbetweenJune1 Mumbai on June 3 and moving
toJune5,over400trainswerede- north-eastwards. Most of the
9. उमेदवाराचे नाव बदलले असेल तर नाव बदलासाठ उमेदवाराने ववाह न दणी माणप कं वा राजप ातील त
layed.Aseniorofficialexplained, zonal railways have imposed a
सादर करावी. उमेदवार मूळ नावाने (Maiden Name) दे खील अज क शकतात. "On a regular basis, punctuality speed limitation with mainte-
10. जा हरातमधील व हत पा ता धारण न करणा या उमेदवारांचे अज कं वा चुक चे भरलेले अज, वय, शै णक
of a train less than 90 percent is nanceactivitiesbeingcarriedout.
considered bad and monitored AseniorofficialfromCRsaid,"We
अहता, गुणप क इ याद संदभातील आव यक या माणप ा या व सा ां कत (self attested) ती नसलेले closely. In the given circum- are working to ensure that none
अज अपा समज यात येतील. stances where trains are much of the train are delayed with ex-
feweranyzonalrailwaysnothav- tended blocks of six hours that
11. मुलाखतीस येणा या उमेदवारांना मल
ु ाखतीसाठ वखचाने उपि थत राहावे लागेल. inganearly100percentpunctu- are being taken in the section.
12. नयु त उमेदवारांना कोि हड 19 संबं धत सव कत य पार पाडावे लागेल.
The Indian EXPRESS
13. नवडी या कोण याह ट यावर अजदाराने खोट कागदप े सादर के याचे आढळ यास, गैरवतन करतांना
आढळ यास, दबाबतं ाचा वापर करतांना आढळ यास याची उमेदवार र केल जाईल. तसेच नयु ती झाल
अस यास कोणतीह पूवसूचना न दे ता याची सदर सेवा समा त कर यात येईल.
BUSINESS GROOMS WANTED
14. अपा ठरले या उमेदवारां या बाबतीत कोणताह प यवहार केला जाणार नाह .
Sikh / Panjabi
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ू ाव रोख याकर ता Express (P.) Limited cannot be
held responsible for such
तातडीची उपायोजना करणे आव यक अस याने, उमेदवारांची नवड ह थम येणा यास थम ाधा य (First come contents, nor for any loss or
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companies, associations or
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ू शै णक पा ते या अं तम वषा या पर ेत individuals advertising in its
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मळाले या गण
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ं पा/जसं/जा हरात/1819/2020 नवी मुंबई महानगरपा लका whatsoever.

7 ECONOMY
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020
RESERVES AT $493.48 BILLION FOR WEEK ENDED MAY 29
StrongFPIinflows,risingforeigncurrency
assetspropelforexreservestorecordhigh
ENSECONOMICBUREAU
NEWDELHI,JUNE6
THECOUNTRY’Sforeignexchange
reservessurged$3.43billiontoan
all-timehighof$493.48billionfor
the week ended May 29 on the
back of strong inflow of funds by
foreignportfolioinvestors.InMay
alone, forex reserves jumped by a
sharp$12.4billion.
Data released by the Reserve
Bank of India shows that in the
week ended May 29, foreign cur-
rency assets, a major component
of the overall reserves, increased
by$3.50billionto$455.21billion.
During the week ended May
29, FPIs invested a net of Rs 5,480
croreintoIndianequities.Withfor-
eigninvestorslookingtobuystake
in Indian companies, the FDI in-
flowhasalsostoodstrongleading
to a rise in forex reserves amidst
thepandemic.
BRIEFLY
‘Govttoinvest
`1Lcrtoramp
upcoaloutput’
New Delhi: Coal Minister
Pralhad Joshi Saturday an-
nounced the Centre would
investoverRs1lakhcrorein
the next three to four years
toincreasecoalproduction.
Karnataka
Bankreports
`285crfraud
New Delhi: Karnataka Bank
hasreportedtoRBIithasbeen
defrauded of over Rs 285
crore consequent to loans
gonebadtofourentities.
YatraOnline
cancelsmerger
pactwithEbix
New Delhi: Yatra Online Inc
said it is terminating pend-
ing merger deal with Ebix
Inc. PTI
Trumpthreatens
EU,Chinawith
tariffs
Bangor: US President
Donald Trump has threat-
ened to impose tariffs on
European Union cars if the
bloc does not drop its tariff
onAmericanlobsters,nam-
ing White House trade ad-
viser Peter Navarro the
“lobster king” in charge of
talks. REUTERS
CRISILaffirms
YesBankbonds
ratingatBBB
New Delhi: Crisil has reaf-
firmed BBB rating on Yes
Bank’s over Rs 18,000 crore
bondsonthebackofcontin-
ued support by SBI. PTI
OPEC, allied nations extend nearly Amul Twitter
10 million barrel cut by a month handle briefly
ASSOCIATEDPRESS
DUBAI,JUNE6
OPEC AND allied nations agreed
on Saturday to extend a produc-
tion cut of nearly 10 million bar-
relsof oiladaythroughtheendof
July,hopingtoboostenergyprices.
Ministersofthecartelandout-
side nations like Russia met via
video conference to adopt the
measure,aimedatcuttingoutthe
excess production depressing
prices as global aviation remains
largely grounded due to the pan-
demic. It represents some 10 per
Reddit co-founder resigns from board
REUTERS
BENGALURU,JUNE6
REDDIT CO-FOUNDER Alexis
Ohanian on Friday resigned from
the social network firm’s board
and sought to be replaced by a
Highlevelsof
reservesprovide
stability torupee
ASHARPriseinforeignexchangereservesbyover$12billion
inMaytohit$493billionreflectsinflowof FDIandFPImoney
intoIndianeconomyamidstthepandemic.Highlevelsof
reservesnotonlyareequivalenttoIndia’soneyearof import
bill,butalsoprovidestabilitytorupeeagainstthedollar.
As a result of rising inflow of
fundsandgrowingforexreserves,
the rupee has also strengthened
againstthedollar.Whileitcloseat
75.56 on Friday, it rose 34 paise in
the week ended May 29 against
theUSdollar.
Experts say in times of dwin-
dling economic activity and
growth, the rising forex reserves
provide a lot of strength as they
‘Construction sector to
see 12-16% decline in
investment in FY21’
Investment in the construction industry is likely to witness a
12-16 per cent decline to nearly Rs 7.3 lakh crore during the
current fiscal year, as COVID-19 pandemic has severely
impacted the economy and liquidity scenario, Crisil said
KEYCHALLENGES:
■ Factoryshutdown
■ Reduceddiscretionaryspending
■ Delayedcapexcycle
OUTLOOK:
Theconstructionindustry,which
mirrorstheeconomy,isexpected
totakeahugeblowfromallthis.As
aresult,a12-16percent
BACKGROUND: Thisisatatimewhentheirfinancesarealready
strainedandgrossbudgetarysupporttoinfrastructureisexpected
todeclineduetolowerrevenuereceipts
CCI rules Tata Steel, SKF, Schaeffler
units colluded on bearings prices
REUTERS
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
THE COMPETITION Comm-
ission of India (CCI) has ruled
that units of Sweden’s AB SKF,
Germany’s Schaeffler AG and
Tata Steel Ltd, along with local
firm National Engineering
Industries, are guilty of collud-
ing and fixing prices of vehicle
Vedanta posts `12,521 cr loss on ‘exceptional loss’
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU
MUMBAI,JUNE6
VEDANTA LTD on Saturday re-
ported a consolidated net loss of
Rs 12,521 crore for the quarter
ended March 2020 as against
profit of Rs 2,615 crore in the
same period of last year. The loss
was due to exceptional loss of Rs
17,132crore,primarilyduetoim-
pairment of assets in oil and gas,
centof theworld'soverallsupply.
However,dangerstilllurksfor
the market. Algerian Oil Minister
Mohamed Arkab, the current
OPECpresident,warnedattendees
thattheglobaloilinventorywould
soar to 1.5 billion barrels by the
mid-pointof thisyear.
Despite the progress to date,
wecannotaffordtorestonourlau-
rels,Arkabsaid.Thechallengeswe
face remain daunting. That was a
message echoed by Saudi Oil
Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman,
who acknowledged we all have
made sacrifices to make it where
wearetoday.
blackcandidate.
Following Ohanian’s post on
Reddit, the company’s Chief
ExecutiveSteveHuffmansaidthe
company would “honor” his re-
questandisworkingtostrengthen
itscontentpolicytocombatracist
speechonitsplatform.
now cover one year of import ex-
penditure.
In his monetary policy state-
ment on May 22, RBI Governor
Shaktikanta Das said, “India’s for-
eign exchange reserves have in-
creasedby$9.2billionin2020-21
so far (up to May 15) to US$ 487.0
billion—equivalentto12months
of imports.”
Expressed in dollar terms, the
contractioninconstruction
investmentisexpectedthisfiscal
toRs7.3lakhcrorefromRs8.6
lakhcroreinFY20
REASON:
Thedeclineininvestmentfactors
inlowercapexbycentralandstate
governmentsduetodiversionof
fundstowardshealthcare
The CCI began a probe
into the matter in 2017
ball bearings.
The CCI began a probe into
the matter in 2017 after receiv-
ing information that the entities
had been colluding on bearings
prices from 2009-2014, to pass
on higher raw material costs to
copper and iron ore business.
Revenue for the fourth quar-
terof FY2020waslowerby15.49
per cent at Rs 19,513 crore on a
year-on-year basis, primarily
due to lower commodity prices
further impacted by Covid-19,
lower volumes at zinc, oil & gas,
steel business and lower power
sales at TSPL partially offset by
higher volume at aluminium
and iron ore business and rupee
depreciation.
blocked, citing
security processes;
account restored
PRESSTRUSTOFINDIA
NEWDELHI/AHMEDABAD,JUNE6
THE TWITTER account of Amul
wasbrieflyblocked,sparkingpub-
licoutrage,butthesocialnetwork-
ing and microblogging firm on
Saturdaysaidtheaccountwasre-
stricted after being caught in the
platform’ssecurityprocesses.
Gujarat Cooperative Milk
MarketingFederation(GCMMF)-
whichmakesAmulbrandof food
products - found its Twitter ac-
count blocked on June 4 evening.
TheaccountwasrestoredonJune
5. Some sought to link the block-
age to Amul advertising for use of
itsMakeinIndiaproductandboy-
cott Chinese products. Amul had
posted ‘Exit the Dragon’ tweet on
June3afternoon.
foreigncurrencyassetsincludethe
effectofappreciationordeprecia-
tionof non-USunitsliketheeuro,
poundandyenheldintheforeign
exchangereserves.
Totalvalueofthegoldreserves
continued to decline and were at
$32.682billion,lowerby$97mil-
lion as compared with the previ-
ousweek,thecentralbanksaid.
While the pandemic has
pushedinvestorstoseekrefugein
saferinvestmentdestinationsand
instruments,leadingtooutflowof
funds in March and April, there
had been a relative calm on that
front in May. The continuing low
levelsofBrentcrudeoilpriceshave
alsobenefittedIndiaanditsforeign
exchangereserves.
Earlier, India’s foreign ex-
changereserveshadasmoothrun
fornearlysix-monthsastheyrose
week-on-week between
September20,2019andMarch6,
2020.
THEBUDGETARYALLOCATION
bytheCentreforfiscal2020-21for
thesectorwitnesseda7percent
declineovertherevisedestimatefor
fiscal2019-20,evenasthe
proportionofgrossbudgetary
supportincreasedto41percentof
thetotalbudgetaryallocationin
FY21from35percentinFY20
THEPANDEMICandthe
subsequentlockdownwillimpact
governmentrevenuereceiptsas
customers in the auto sector.
In a 36-page order issued on
Friday, the CCI said it “holds NEI,
Schaeffler, SKF and Tata Bearing
guilty” of contravening the
country’s antitrust laws.
However, it added that it had
decided not to impose a penalty,
saying the “ends of justice
would be met if the parties
cease such cartel behaviour and
desist from indulging in it.”
Sunil Duggal, CEO, Vedanta,
said “the Covid pandemic has hit
theworld and usinthe last quar-
ter of the year. We have taken a
pro-active approach to keep our
assets and people safe while en-
suring optimumoperationsdur-
ing these difficult times. During
these difficult times, our efforts
are aligned to the singular vision
of making our communities, the
state and nation self-reliant and
self-sufficient.”
Hit hard by lockdown, brass parts industry in Jamnagar
receives a fresh lease of life from imports by China
GOPALKATESHIYA
JAMNAGAR,JUNE6
WITH THE lockdown due to
COVID-19 keeping businesses in
thecountryclosedforalmosttwo
months, brass parts manufactur-
ing industry in Jamnagar is facing
a double whammy of raw mate-
rial import sucking up liquidity in
time of no demand in domestic
market and China importing at
‘lessattractive’prices.
With approximately 5,000
units,Jamnagaristhelargestbrass
partsmanufacturingclusterinAsia
and has annual turnover totalling
to around Rs 2,000 crore. The in-
dustry imports scrap from coun-
triesliketheUS,Europe,Gulfregion
etc, melts it into brass and manu-
facturesbrassbillets,barsandbrass
parts. The industry is known to
manufacture hinges for spectacle
frames to aircraft parts and em-
ONASTEADYRISING
TRAJECTORY
Weekly Reserves in
$ billion
Mar 6 487.237
Mar 13 481.892
Mar 20 469.9
Mar 27 475.6
Apr 3 474.6
Apr 10 476.5
Apr 17 479.6
Apr 24 479.5
May 1 481.08
May 8 485.3
May 15 487.03
May 22 490.04
May 29 493.48
Source : RBI
Amit Mehra
directandindirecttaxcollections
areexpectedtobehitwiththe
reductionineconomicactivity
STATES’INFRAALLOCATIONS
hadfallenevenbeforethe
pandemicstruck.Theturmoilin
theglobaleconomyandfinancial
marketswouldalsoimpactthe
externalborrowingcapabilityofthe
centralandstategovernments
Source: Crisil/PTI
AM Naik
reappointed
L&T chairman
ENSECONOMICBUREAU
MUMBAI,JUNE6
THE BOARD of engineering and
construction giant Larsen &
Toubro (L&T) on Saturday said it
has given nod for reappointment
of AM Naik as non-executive
chairmanofthecompanyforape-
riod of three years from October
1, 2020.
Naik’s present tenure is
scheduled to end on September
30, the companysaid in a regula-
tory filing to the BSE. The board
also gave approval for extending
the tenure of whole-time direc-
tor Dip Kishore Sen.
Naik has been reappointed
non-executive chairman for
three years with effect from
October 1, 2020 and up to
September 30, 2023, it said. Dip
Kishore Sen has been reap-
pointedasawhole-timedirector
with effect from October 1, 2020
and up to April 7, 2023.
With approximately
5,000 units, Jamnagar
is the largest brass parts
manufacturing
cluster in Asia
ploysabout1.5lakhpeopledirectly
and an equal number indirectly,
says Lakhabhai Keshwala, presi-
dentof JamnagarFactoryOnwer’s
Association (JFAO). The Jamnagar
clusterhas95percentshareindo-
mestic market of brass parts and
alsoexportstoEurope,US,Gulfre-
gionandAfrica.
“But the lockdown has dis-
rupted the business wheel. Brass
being a high-value metal, the in-
dustry requires liquidity. But due
to lockdown, Delhi, Mumbai,
Chennai and Kolkata, the biggest
markets for our products shut
down. On the other hand, around
Global Watch
POWELL TO APPEAR BEFORE US CONGRESS
Washington: US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will testify before
the US Congress on June 16 and 17 in hearings on the central bank’s semi-
annual monetary policy report. By statute, the Fed delivers the report
providing an overview of the economy twice a year. REUTERS
INTERVIEW WITH CRISIL MD & CEO
We are leaning more on monetary
policy, whereas fiscal policy would
have been more effective: Suyash
LIKE THE rest of the world, India
has seen a significant slowdown
initseconomicactivityonaccount
of the coronavirus pandemic.
While the government has an-
nounced a Rs 20 lakh crore stim-
ulus package to revive the econ-
omy and get the growth back on
track, ASHU SUYASH, MD & CEO,
CRISIL told SANDEEP SINGH that
direct fiscal spending from the
overallpackageisaboutRs2.6lakh
crore, or 1.2 per cent of GDP this
year. Stating that the current ex-
tent of economic decline would
demand stepping the scale and
scope of fiscal measures, she said
thatwithoutastrongfiscalstimu-
lus, recovery is unlikely to be a V-
shapedone.Editedexcerpts:
HowdoyouseetheRs20lakh
crorestimuluspackage
announcedbythegovernment
intermsof itsimpactonthe
fiscanditsabilitytoprovidea
filliptotheeconomy?
Many steps in the
AatmanirbharBharatpackageare
orientedtowardsraisingthelong-
term‘trend’rateofgrowth.IfIhave
to pick out a standout facet, it
would be the agriculture-related
measures such as dismantling of
agriculture produce and market-
ingcommittees.Theamendment
to the Essential Commodities Act
to deregulate food items (food
grains,oilseeds,onionandpotato),
too,isaimedtoimprovepricereal-
isationatthefarmgate.Themeas-
ures towards MSMEs and NBFCs
arealsoacriticalpartwhichwould
helpalleviatesomestress.
We would have liked to see
targetedmeasurestoaddressnear
termstresssuchasscalingupcash
transfers to the poor; direct cash
supportformicroandsmallenter-
prises which are facing acute liq-
uidity problems; permitting re-
structuring of loans for viable
businessesandformalclarification
onapplicabilityofmoratoriumon
bank loans to NBFCs/HFCs/MFIs
whichprovidetheverycriticallast
mileconnect.
Fromtheoverallfiscalpackage,
direct fiscal spending is expected
to be about Rs 2.6 lakh crore, or
about1.2percentof thegrossdo-
mestic product (GDP) this year.
The balance is mostly in the form
ofgovernmentguaranteesandfa-
cilitating credit growth through
thebankingsector.Sowearelean-
ing more on monetary policy,
whereas fiscal policy would have
beenmoreeffectiveinthecurrent
situation where the near-term
worriesareimmense.Thatsaid,no
amountofstimuluscanoffsetthe
widespread economic impact
from the pandemic, it can only
minimise the blow. So it makes
sensethatthegovernmentisalso
tryingtopushreformsnow,these
willpayoff inthemediumrun.
Doyouthinkthegovernment
couldhavedonemore,orwas
itconstrained?
Lack of fiscal space is a huge
constraint. India’s fiscal position
was already strained even before
the pandemic, with fiscal deficit
wellabovetheFRBMlimitinfiscal
2020. Recent data shows fiscal
deficitoftheCentreat4.6percent
of GDP against the revised esti-
mateof 3.8percent.
That, coupled with expecta-
tionoflowertaxandnon-taxrev-
enues amid the ongoing lock-
down, has held the government
from giving a direct push to the
800 containers of scrap landed at
Mundra and Kandla ports. As fac-
tories were closed and there was
no demand for finishedproducts,
factory-owners couldn’t take de-
livery of the containers. But ports
and shipping companies have
beenchargingashighdemurrage
asRs18,000perdaypercontainer.
Factoryownersareleftwithnoop-
tion but to divert their cash credit
andevenborrowmoneyfrompri-
vate moneylenders to take deliv-
ery of scrap containers, thus ex-
haustingtheirliquiditypoolinthe
process,”saysKeshwala.
ManufacturerssayChinaisthe
only market which is active these
days. “We can’t afford to pay de-
murrage nor do we have storage
capacitybeyondalimit.Therefore,
we have to take delivery of scrap,
manufactureproductsoutofthem
offload it into the market to min-
imise losses. But, presently,
Bengaluru and Ambala are the
UNLOCKING THE
ECONOMY
WISHLIST & ROADMAP
AN EXPRESS INTERVIEW SERIES
ASHU SUYASH
MD & CEO, CRISIL
We, therefore,
believe that sans
strong fiscal stimulus —
which we don’t foresee —
recovery is unlikely to be
a V-shaped one”
economy.Thisisinsharpcontrast
to the period preceding the 2008
crisis when Centre’s fiscal deficit
was under 3 per cent, which gave
itspacetoboostspending.
However,thecurrentextentof
economicdeclinewoulddemand
that fiscal measures are stepped
upinscaleandscope.
Whatareyourfirstthoughts
ontherelaxationsto
restrictionsbeingannounced
bythegovernment?Canthis
advancerecovery?
Every day of lockdown has
only magnified the ‘life vs liveli-
hood’quandaryforpolicymakers.
It is only prudent to open up in a
calibratedmannerwhathasbeen
the most stringent lockdown in
theworld.
With measured relaxation,
economicactivityisalreadystart-
ing to come back as proxy indica-
torssuchasGooglemobilitycharts
and power consumption show.
For example, ‘all India mobility
trendtoworkplaces’hasimproved
from a trough of -72 per cent in
Marchendtoaround-40percent
inthethirdweekofMay.Similarly,
power demand has recovered
smartly from a 30 per cent fall y-
o-y to almost zero decline in the
sametwomonthperiod.
However, with a large part of
the economic activity in ‘Red
Zones’ – in our estimate, over 40
percent– the uphillclimbwillbe
farfromsmooth.
We,therefore,believethatsans
strongfiscal stimulus– which we
don’tforesee–recoveryisunlikely
to be a V-shaped one. Our 5 per
cent GDP contraction forecast is
predicatedonthis.
WhileCRISILhasestimateda
GDPcontractionof 5percent
thisfiscaland10percent
permanentloss,whatarethe
downsideriskstothis
estimate?
Therewouldbefurtherdown-
sideifthreerisksmaterialise:One,
if globalGDPdeclinesatasteeper
pace than expected (2.4 per cent
declineprojectedbyS&PGlobalfor
2020 calendar year). Two, a sec-
ond wave of COVID-19 cases
emerges, adding to the uncer-
tainty and stringency of contain-
ment measures; and three, agri-
only brass parts markets in India
which are open. That effectively
leavesChina,whichimportsbrass
billets,astheonlybusinessavenue
available.Therefore,thoughman-
ufacturing brass rods is our main
business, we are manufacturing
brassbilletsthesedaysandexport-
ingthemtoChina.Thatcountryis
the only overseas market where
thereissomedemand,maybebe-
cause of quota system in import-
ing scraps there or because mar-
ketsarereopeningafterCOVID-19
outbreak,”saidJineshShah,direc-
torof RajhansMetalsPrivateLtd.
Patel,whoisalsoformerpres-
ident of JFOA, says that Jamnagar
factoriesareshipping average100
to150containersofbilletstoChina
every day for the past week or so.
From billets, brass bars are ex-
truded and further and then ma-
chinedintobrasspartsproducts.
The factories manufacturing
brass parts in Jamnagar fall in the
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
culture, the beacon of hope this
year,facesasetbackonaccountof
rains–thelackorexcessof it.
WilltheRBI’smovetocutthe
reporateandpushliquidity
helpcreditgrowth?
It may not lead to a material
uptick in credit growth. Two fac-
tors are expected to keep credit
growthsubduedthisfiscal.Oneis
thechallengingmacro-economic
undercurrents leading to an ex-
pected 5 per cent contraction in
GDP, and two, risk-averseness
amonglenders.
Till such time banks are com-
fortable with the credit quality of
borrowers, they may not loosen
purse strings. That said, the gov-
ernment’sRs3lakhcrorescheme
to extend credit to MSMEs –
backedbygovernmentguarantee
–shouldprovidesometailwindto
creditgrowthinthissegment.
Whichsectorsdoyousee
impactedthemostbythe
lockdown?
Theconsumptionsector—es-
pecially discretionary — will feel
directandimmediateheat.
Whileassessingconsumerin-
come impact is difficult in India,
given the large proportion of un-
organised labour and self-em-
ployed people, our analysis of
employee cost for over 40,000
companies, with total employee
wage bill of Rs 12 lakh crore,
paintsagloomypicture.Itshows
thatabout52percentofwagebill
pertains to companies that will
be materially impacted by the
downturn.
By number of companies, the
scenario is worse. Given that
smalleronesaremorevulnerable,
overtwo-thirdsarelikelytobeim-
pacted,whichiswhydemandwill
takeabighitthisfiscal.
Consumers may prefer pre-
cautionary savings, curbing sales
ofdiscretionaryservicesandprod-
uctssuchasairlines,hotels,restau-
rants, automobiles and durables.
In automobiles, overall sales of
passenger vehicles may be at a
decadal low, and for two-wheel-
ers,onaparwithfiscal2012. Apart
from telecom, it is difficult to find
asectorthatmaydowell.
Whileinvestorconfidence
remainslow,whatisthe
impactof thepandemiconthe
corporatebondmarketand
howwillithurttheabilityof
companiestoraisefunds?
Mutualfunds,whichwereac-
tive investors in corporate bonds,
havebeenseeingoutflows,which
limitstheirabilitytoparticipatein
new issuances. Further, risk aver-
sionhasresultedinashiftinpref-
erenceforovernightandgiltfunds,
as compared to credit opportuni-
ties, short duration and medium
durationfundsthatinvestintocor-
poratebonds.
Heightened risk aversion has
resulted in increased preference,
across investor types, for public
sector and very highly rated pri-
vate sector papers. Spreads have
increased significantly for almost
all other issuers, despite the RBI’s
liquidity measures. For instance,
evenincaseofAAAbonds(barring
benchmark issuers such as
NABARD), median spreads have
increasedbyabout30bpsinApril
alone. The widening is more pro-
nouncedinthenon-AAAspace.
Full interview on
www.indianexpress.com
category of micro, small and
mediumenterprises(MSMEs)and
dependonimportofscraptomeet
90 per cent of their raw-material
requirements.Keshwalasaysthat
there are around 250 foundries
which melt scrap into brass and
manufacturebrassbilletsroads.
TheJFOApresidentsaid60per
centof brasspartsproductsman-
ufactured in Jamnagar goes to
Delhi,another25percentinother
markets of the country while 15
percentisexported.“Weurgethe
central government to direct
banks to give us additional loans
as announced in economic pack-
age, else our industry will be fac-
ing an existential threat,” said
Keshwala.AsperKeshwala,China
isthelargestimporterofscrapbut
its brass and brass parts are per-
ceived to be of inferior quality,
comparedtotheirIndianrivals.
Full report on
www.indianexpress.com
 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM

8 SUNDAY STORY
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020

A long recess
Every year about this time, India’s coaching industry starts admitting lakhs of students aspiring for
entrance to premier institutes. In the wake of coronavirus, numbers are down to half as institutes try to
reinvent their classrooms for a post-pandemic world. RITIKA CHOPRA reports

A
PRIL, MAY and June are the 12 around the same time last year,” a teacher Maheshwari said — he is confident that their “Nextweek,coachingindustrymemberswill
months when India’s coaching at the centre said on condition of anonymity. online programme will make up the deficit. joinmeinawebinartodiscussfurthersteps.”
industrygetsreadytowelcome “This will remain a bad year for us,” said a However, CareerPoint is an exception, Recently,KotaNorthMLAandstateUrban
a new batch through its doors. teacheratAakashInstitute’sNagpurcentre.“I along with Aakash and PACE, in its foray into Development Minister Shanti Dhariwal also
Every year, lakhs of students don’tthinkparentswillbecomfortablesend- online coaching. For traditional centres, con- held a meeting with seven coaching centres
walkthroughthem,fuellingtheindustry’san- ing their children to crowded classrooms.” tact classes remain the main revenue source. to discuss the way forward. “The coaching
nualrevenuestoupwardsof Rs24,000crore, Desperate for students, institutes have In the long term now, Maheshwari said, neighbourhoodsinthetowncouldbeturned
the estimate in 2015 by a government-ap- lowered the initial amounts for freezing of coaching institutes may have to rationalise into restricted zones. No outsiders will be al-
pointedcommittee,anditsannualgrowthto seats.AResonancecentreinDelhi,forinstance, theirofflineinfrastructure.“Institutesmaylay lowed to enter these areas. We have to make
double digits, as aspirations outpace seats. is accepting advance payments of Rs 10,000, off people on the administration side and familiesbelieveagainthatKotaissafe,”hesays.
A large many of them make their way to as opposed to Rs 60,000 in 2019. This centre those renting space may vacate partially. Sincethemid-’90s,neighbourhoodssuch
India’s coaching capital of Kota, the Rajasthan charges Rs 1 lakh for one student per year. Whilewehaven’tvacatedanyspaceyet,some as Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Indra Vihar, Kunadi,
town whose economy revolves around its Teacherscomplaintheyarebeingpaidless of our franchises are considering it,” he said. Jawahar Nagar, Indraprastha Industrial Area,
coaching institutes. However, a month after and late even as they now provide individu- Ashifttoonlinethoughisworryingforan and Talwadi in Kota have emerged as coach-
mostofits1.5lakhstudentsleftfortheirhomes alised attention to students, holding online industryalreadylosingstudentstoestablished A student undergoes thermal screening at an Allen centre in Kota; (top) in Kunadi, inghubs,whichovertimespawnedamyriad
in other states in the wake of the coronavirus classes,recordinglectures,administeringtests, online players. “Tutoring platforms such as a coaching neighbourhood in the town, most hostels are empty. Maqsood Ahmad ofbusinesses—hostels,canteens,restaurants,
lockdown,thetownhaswornadesertedlook, andclearingdoubtsoverWhatsAppandZoom. Byjus,UnacademyandVedantuhavebeendo- stationery shops, photo-copy stores, cyber-
itscoachingcentres,hostels, AteacherattheNagpur ingthisforquitesometimeandtheiruserex- cafes, gaming zones, among others.
marketsandmallsshut,and
its once bustling haunts
nowempty.
INDIA’S COACHING
INDUSTRY
franchise centre of Aakash
talks of 20% to 25% salary
cuts, but Aakash denies it.
perience is much smoother. If online coach-
ingisgoingtobethenewnormal,wemaylose
our students to them,” admitted a teacher
In deserted Kota, AtRajivGandhiNagar,wherehotels,studio
apartments and hostels flank coaching cen-
tres,everysectorlinkedtotheindustryisfeel-
Witheducationalinsti-
tutions prematurely shut,
entrance exams post- `24,000 cr
“Revenues have been im-
pacted as most of our
branches are closed for of-
withacentreofVidyamandirClassesinDelhi.
According to its CEO Vamsi Krishna,
Vedantuhaswitnesseda150%increaseinpaid
problems real and virtual ing the heat, says Naveen Mittal. “There are
about 2,500 hostels in Kota, and a majority of
these owners had taken loans to build them.
poned, and uncertainty annual revenue of coaching flineprogrammeswhilewe users for competitive exam preparation dur- We had about 50,000 students and most of
hanging over the next aca- industry* continuetohaveoutlaysfor ing the lockdown. The slump in the offline neeringcolleges,Kota’sbiggestcoachingcen- themhaveleft.EachstudentspentRs80,000
demic year, the Covid-19 salaries,rentals,overheads. coachingindustry“isthecontributingfactor”, ANKITADWIVEDIJOHRI trehasalsohadtoresetits30-year-oldcoach- a year on accommodation — now you do the

12 lakh
O
pandemic hangs over the However, as a responsible he told The Sunday Express. ing grammar in the past three months. math,”saysMittal,whoownstwohostelsand
coaching world. Institutes company... we have not Theirplatformsoffermuchmorethanthe N APRIL 1, R K Verma, popular “Wehaveupgradedourinternalportal,the heads the hostel association in the town.
areseeingfallinadmissions students enrol for coaching made any salary reduction hastyshiftoftraditionalcoachinginstitutesto among students as ‘RKV Sir’, put BatchProgressMonitoringSystem.Itnowpro- The group has suggested guidelines for
to half, budgets that are for 2 years; pay Rs 1 lakh per or delay in payment of onlinelectures,headded.“Ourcontentishy- up a 17-minute video on vides lectures, notes, everything... We have hostels to follow once students return.
straining to pay for rented year* salaries,”AakashChaudhry, per-animated and visualised, and our plat- YouTubetoannouncethelaunch partnered with Test My Prep application for “Thermalscreeningattheentrance,oneroom
spaces, and fear of online *Ashok Misra committee, 2015 Director and CEO, Aakash form is interactive. Teachers can launch of the digital learning platform ‘ResoSir’. assessments,”saysPankajBirla,vice-president per student, and only 30 per cent of the hos-
competitors crowding EducationalServices,wrote quizzes,pollsandevensolvedoubts.It’sadif- Studymaterial,practicetests,andrecorded at the Allen coaching centre that has approx- tel’s strength at the mess during meal times
them out.
Coaching institutes 25 lakh in an email.
VidyamandirClassesin
ferent user experience.”
Krishna is confident of retaining his new
and live lectures can all be accessed through imately 50,000 students in Kota.
the portal, Verma, the managing director of Theyarealsograduallyovercomingsome
— are some of our suggestions,” he says.
ABJPMPfromRajasthansaidhehasbeen
have been reaching out to students appear for JEE Delhi has released only students once the crisis eases. “I understand Resonance coaching institute, said. of the initial hiccups. “We had to re-shoot receiving representations from people wor-
both the government and (Main), JEE (Advanced) about 60% of the salary for thebiasforcontactclasses,buttheCovidout- Ithadbeenaweeksincethefirstlockdown videosintheearlydaysbecauseof poorlight, riedaboutheftyloanstakentobuildhostels.
nervous parents reluctant and NEET every year April for teachers above a break has forced students to experience on- to check the spread of coronavirus was an- sound, and technical glitches. Now, our R&D Tenkilometresaway,inKunadi,alongrow
to send wards to class- certain salary bracket, said linelearning.Oncestudentsarehabituatedto nounced,andKota,thethrummingnervecen- team goes through them with a fine-tooth of‘hometuition’centresthathadcroppedup
rooms. On May 29, coach-
ing centres in Kota, led by
KOTA one of its teachers em-
ployed at a Dwarka centre.
the Vedantu experience, I doubt we will lose
them… unless they are in a remote region,
treofthecountry’scoachingindustry,hadbe- comb,andmostofthemaregoodtogoinone
gun to feel the first effects of a slump. shot,” he says.
intheshadowofthecoachinggiantshaveseen
“zero” business since March. “No one wants
one of its biggest players,
Allen Career Institute, re- 1.3-1.5 lakh
leased a list of “security students
An email to Vidyamandir
founder Brij Mohan Gupta
went unanswered.
with poor Internet connectivity.”
Coachinginstitutesargueinturnthatwhat
they bring to the table can’t be replicated by
Overnight, the classrooms of its 300 big and
small centres cleared out,
and, in little over a month,
However, as they race to set up their vir-
tual infrastructure, most
coaching centres admit to
tocallourteachershomedespitethefactthat
therehasbeennoCovidcaseinanyof coach-
ing neighbourhoods,” says Y K Jain, owner of
standards for classroom Teachers at FIITJEE, online firms. “Yes, students can be coached the1.5lakhmedicalanden- challenges.“In-depthclass- Y K Jain Classes in the area.
coaching”to“maintainthe
trust of parents”. These in-
`3,000 cr among the biggest players
in engineering coaching,
online, but it won’t get you selected to an in-
stitute. It won’t get you a qualifying rank,” a
gineering aspirants who
greased the wheels of the
roomteachingandone-on-
one problem-solving ses-
“I had 1,000 teachers registered with me
whochargedRs8,000for25hours.Ithought
clude masks in class, sani- estimated worth of Kota’s too spoke of pay cuts. An teacher with Allen’s Indore centre said. town’s coaching economy, sions brought students to students would prefer tuition classes to big
tisation of campuses twice coaching industry employee who had been A teacher with Allen’s Kota centre, which peggedatRs3,000crore,re- us. In online classes, most coachingclassroomsnow,butthathasn’tbeen
a day, special seating serving his notice period, hasseena10%dipinenrolment,saide-learn- turnedhome. students keep their videos thecase.Ifthiscontinues,Imighthavetomove
arrangements, and the use 300 shared an official email in- ingsuffersfrommajorlimitationslike“lackof “The digital platform off to save data. The teach- to another business,” he adds.
ofumbrellasbystudentsas
theyentercampusestoen- coaching institutes in Kota
forming him that he was
being relieved early be-
discipline” and “lack of peer learning”.
“Studentslearnfromoneanotherwhilesolv-
was supposed to be
launched in June, but we Anew ers can’t see them, there is
no reaction. Interaction is
Thefearisreal,saysDrZafarMohammed,
chairperson of Pragati Group of Academies
sure social distancing.
Back in April, the 2,500
cause of “huge loss of busi-
ness” due to coronavirus.
ing problems in a classroom,” he said. “Also,
it’s difficult to enforce discipline. Some stu-
had to take urgent steps to
ensure that students’ blueprint difficult,” says Verma, ex-
plaining why, eventually,
that runs three schools in Kota. “Most of the
students at the 1,500 schools in Kota are out-
Maharashtra Coaching Kumar Anshul, of FIITJEE’s dents clearly cheat in mock tests at home.” preparation was not hin- thestudentshavetoreturn station students, especially from Classes 7 to
hostels (fee: Rs 80,000 per
Classes Association wrote marketingdivision,saidthe To academics who accuse the coaching dered. So, we launched on PEGGEDATRs24,000 to classrooms. 12. Parents trusted us and left children as
year per student for a room)
to Chief Minister Uddhav company did not wish to centres of encouraging rote learning, to the April 1 and gave the stu- crore,thecoachingindus- Also,whilemostcoach- youngas13here.Theyhaveallgonebackand
Thackerayseekingsupport respond to queries. detrimentofallelsethatinvolvesaschooled- dents a week’s time to tryisstrugglingtokeep ingcentresrefusedtoquote students of Classes 11 and 12 are unlikely to
for over 98,000 members While teachers at the ucation,thismaysoundironical.However,it’s arrangeforlaptops,phones uprevenues.Ownersof a figure, by most estimates return,” says Mohammed, who has nearly
in the form of rent waive-offs, as well as con- Maharashtra-basedPACEIIT&Medicalhaven’t flexibility above all else that has kept the and Internet,” says Verma. bigcoachinginstitutes, the industry in Kota is star- 3,000 students in his schools. “I still have to
cessionsinpayingsalariestoemployees,GST, receivedsalariessinceApril,MDPraveenTyagi coaching industry thriving, despite attempts Resonance, among the whostandtolosethe ing at an 80 per cent rev- pay150staffmembers.Thefateofeverybusi-
income tax and Copyright Act charges. claimedthiswasbecausehehadn’tbeenable by successive governments to rein them in. fivebigcoachingcentresin mostevenastheymakea enue loss if students don’t ness linked to coaching is in danger.”
The story is the same across Kota, Delhi, toaccessandsignchequesduringlockdown. Inthemostsignificantattempt,in2013,the Kota, has 25,000 students. hurriedtransitiontoon- return by July. Mohammed also worries about the in-
Mumbai, Nagpur, Raipur and Indore. When asked about pay cuts, R K Verma, IITs — the Mecca of coaching — had changed Over the next few line,havereachedoutto “Inourmeetings,ourfo- creasedscreentimeforstudents.“Mostinsti-
EnrolmentsusuallypeakafterClass10results MD of Resonance said, “Sab samajdaar hain their entrance eligibility criteria to give more weeks, the centre bought thegovernmenttode- cus is to keep the coaching tutesdidn’tallowstudentsphones,andama-
andtheendofcompetitiveexamslikeJEEand (Our staff is smart). We will take steps based weightage to Board results. However, the in- and rented cameras, velopablueprinttoregain going through online plat- jority of hostels did not have Wi-Fi to avoid
NEET.Thistime,whiletheClass10examsare on how things unfold in future.” stituteshadprovedonestepahead,addingpro- tripods and monitors, and trustof students,parents. forms so that everything distraction. And now, the same teachers are
tobecompletedinthefirsttwoweeksof July, Career Point CEO Pramod Maheshwari grammestoimproveClass12scoresaswell. distributedthoseamongits seems normal for our stu- tellingthemtostaygluedtotheirphonesand
JEE (Main) is to be held between July 18 and said the disruption due to the pandemic was Then, in 2015, an expert committee set 600 teachers. “It took us a dents. But this is only for computers for hours!” he says.
23 (from April 1 and April 7 originally) while permanentandthat,atleastthisyear,parents up by the Centre to find ways to reduce “the monthtogetaccustomedtotheonlineclass- now.It’snotthatenrollmentshavebeencan- Also,saysJain,accesstoaphoneandhigh-
NEET is scheduled for July 26 (earlier, May 3). wouldprefercoachingonline.TheKota-based dependence of students on coaching cen- roomandholdliveclasses,”saysVerma,who celled, they have only been deferred,” says speedInternetisdifficultinruralareaswhere
AfterthelockdownbeganlateMarch,the institute,incidentally,hadgotontothee-learn- tres”,hadrecommendedanationalregulator also teaches physics. “We now have classes Allen’s Birla. manystudentscomefrom.“3Gdoesn’twork
coaching institutes had moved to online ad- ingbandwagonlastyear,andhasmanagedto for the industry. In 2017, in a similar move, from 7 am to 7 pm. I have a high-definition FortheRajasthangovernmenttoo,getting well here, how will it work in villages?”
missions. But, the numbers remain low. The hold on to its overall enrollment numbers. theMaharashtragovernmenthadproposed cameraand boardathome,and Ihold fourto Kota’s coaching economy back on its feet is a However, Resonance’s Verma hopes for a
new and existing batches are attending vir- “We had 9,000 students last year, of a Bill to regulate private coaching institutes. fiveclassesaday,eachattendedbynearly100 priority. “Livelihoods of many people in Kota middle road. “Right now, we must focus on
tual classes on the promise that these will be whom 90% were enrolled for classroom Both were given a quiet burial. students,” he says. are attached to the coaching industry. I have making this system work. Students who are
converted into physical ones soon. teaching. We have 11,000 this time, but 80% Now the final draft of the long-delayed Inanotherpartofthecoachingdistrict,the beenreceivingcallsfromcoachingcentresand appearing for the 2020 JEE have completed
ResonancecentresinMumbaiandRaipur of them haven’t shown interest in convert- National Education Policy calls for Board and 500-odd staff members of Allen institute, discussionsarebeingheldonwaystoopenup their course. Those going from Class 11 to 12
and the Indore centre of Allen are seeing half ing their online classes to offline once the entrance examination reforms, to “eliminate spreadacross13centresinthetown,havealso Kota. About 40 students per class as opposed haveenrolled,andonlyafewClass10students
the numbers compared to last year. At the lockdowneases,”hetoldTheSundayExpress. the need for undertaking coaching classes”. beentransitioningtothisnewnormal.Known to 120, and adhering to the government’s whoseexamshasbeendeferredhavenot.But
ResonanceEastDelhicentre,freshenrolment While this still translates into loss of rev- Says Nitesh Sharma, the head of media at for its large classrooms, bundles of detailed healthadvisoryaresomeofthemeasuresthat even they are making inquiries about online
is just 30% of 2019. “We got less than 10 stu- enue—“Forouronlineprogrammewecharge Allen, “Kota has always accepted challenges notes, and mic-wielding teachers that guar- havebeendiscussed,”saysRajasthan’sHigher classes.So,inthefuture,wewillhaveamixof
dentsinMayagainstthedailyaverageof10to 25% of the fees for contact classes,” andchanged.Wewillchangeagainifneeded.” anteed a seat at the country’s premier engi- Education Minister Bhanwar Singh Bhati. both virtual and physical classes,” he says.
 9 OPINION
Across
THEAISLE
PCHIDAMBARAM
Website:pchidambaram.in
Twitter @Pchidambaram_IN
Even allowing that Prime
Ministers must keep the
spirits high, Mr Modi’s
speech was typical of the
person. The PM said, “Trust
me, getting growth back is
not so difficult.” Is that
correct? If getting growth
back was not so difficult, why
did the government not stop
the slide in the GDP growth
rate in 2017-18? Why did the
government stand by
helplessly when the growth
rate declined for eight
successive quarters till Q4 of
2019-20?
inside
TRACK
COOMIKAPOOR
NO HOUSE CALLS
ANAND SHARMA tried unsuccessfully to
force the ruling party’s hand to set an
early date for the Monsoon Session of
Parliament. The excuse cited for a prob-
able delay in summoning Parliament is
that the 24 parliamentary standing com-
mittees must first meet and submit their
reports. Sharma, as chairperson of the
parliamentary committee on home af-
fairs, invited members to meet at
Parliament House on June 3. He felt that
those MPs unable to attend in person due
to lockdown protocols could participate
through an Internet platform. Even
Britain’s venerable House of Commons,
on which our Parliament is modeled,
conducted a virtual session because of
the pandemic, with 120 MPs participat-
ing through a Zoom platform.
Parliaments across the world have
adopted such strategies. But Sharma’s
proposal was scuttled claiming that it
would violate the secrecy of the commit-
tee’s proceedings. Strangely, this con-
straint did not prevent BJP MP Rita
Bahuguna Joshi from summoning a vir-
tual meeting of the salaries and al-
lowances committee to take a decision
on a 30 per cent allowance cut just be-
fore the lockdown. An early session of
Parliament to discuss the prevailing cri-
sis in the country is surely imperative in
these troubled times.
BELATED RESPONSE
During the Doklam standoff with the
Chinese in 2017, discussions took place
between then home minister Rajnath
Singh, then army chief Bipin Rawat and
NSA Ajit Doval. The trio were once again
key participants in the meeting of the
PM’s study group on May 18 to discuss
the Chinese advances in Ladakh, even if
they had different designations. The un-
usual build-up along the LAC was ob-
served from April 19, and finally around
May 1, the People’s Liberation Army
moved forward across the barren hilltops.
It was only on May 17 that alarm bells
started ringing in New Delhi.
COOL WELCOME
While the general impression is that
Mamata Banerjee invited Prime
Out of
MYMIND
MEGHNADDESAI
LASTWEDNESDAY,therewasacommem-
orative meeting for George Fernandes, the
last democratic Socialist leader in India. Of
courseinIndianopoliticiancandenybeing
socialist since the Preamble (thanks to
IndiraGandhi)declaresIndiatobeaSocialist
Republic, and the People’s Representation
Act(thankstoRajivGandhi)requiresevery
candidate fighting an election to declare
that S/He is a Socialist!
Even Jana Sangh, the older avatar of
the BJP, used to swear by Gandhian
Socialism. Nehruvian Socialism, which
was the Congress’s brand, was patterned
on British Fabian Socialism. The
“Getting growth back not difficult”
PRIME MINISTER Modi knows the knack
of moving away from the hot seat and
finding a limelight for himself. After
promising that he will win the war
against coronavirus in 21 days and im-
posing Lockdown 1.0 and 2.0, he quickly
distancedhimself fromsubsequentlock-
downs. Near the end of Lockdown 2.0,
he quietly passed the buck to the state
governments and the chief ministers.
Until then, his word was the iron law,
now it is left to the Home Secretary to is-
sue ambiguous notifications and to the
ICMR to blithely announce, on the day
the number of infected persons crossed
2 lakh, that the “peak is very far away”.
The Rs 20-lakh-crore Economic
Stimulus Package was Mr Modi’s brain-
child. No economist would have put her
signature to a khichdi of more liquidity,
grand five-year plans and little actual
money, and called it a Stimulus Package.
Withthepackageexpectedtofallflat,Mr
Modileftitto theFinance Ministerto “fill
the details”. The FM ran out of steam on
the second day.
PM DISTANCES
HIMSELF
Mr Modi no longer speaks on Jammu
& Kashmir; that is left to the bureaucrats
in Srinagar. He does not speak on the
cross-borderviolationsorthelossof lives
of jawans; that is left to the generals. He
has not spoken so far on the confronta-
tion with China; he has left it to the
Defence Minister to read the handouts
Minister Narendra Modi to visit cyclone-
hit West Bengal, actually the initiative
came from the Prime Minister’s side.
Bhaskar Kulbe, adviser to the PM, who
is from the West Bengal cadre, ap-
proached the CM’s principal secretary
Gautam Sanyal. Mamata Banerjee had
little option but to invite Modi, after she
was informed of the PM’s desire to tour
the areas devastated by the cyclone. The
BJP’s Bengal unit got full mileage out of
the visuals of the PM’s trip and his prom-
ise of Rs 1,000 crore aid to the state,
which goes to polls next year. Banerjee
wanted to make clear that she was not
overwhelmed by Modi’s visit. At the air-
port, while the BJP state leaders led by
Dilip Ghosh bent over while greeting
Modi, Banerjee, carrying some files in
her hand, gave a rather perfunctory na-
maskar and kept her distance on the air-
craft. Later, she upped the ante and de-
manded Rs 5,000 crore for the damage.
NORTHERNERS DIKTAT
The DMK’s M K Stalin is the latest provin-
cial leader to seek the advice of Prashant
Kishor, who has emerged as the most
popular poll consultant in India. Stalin
tweeted three months ago that he was
hiring Kishor. Now, the pollster may have
conceived the broad outlines for the
DMK’s Assembly campaign next year. He
has drawn up a concept which proposes
that only Stalin be projected and the
smaller anti-AIADMK groups play a sec-
ondary role. The slogans coined by
Kishor include: “Tomorrow is Ours” and
“Stalin as CM”. The DMK plans to contest
around 170 of the total of 234 Assembly
seats. The rest is to be divided among the
eight-party alliance. The Congress’s
share is pegged at 30 seats. Some DMK
veterans are unhappy with Kishor’s in-
duction. They feel he and his workers are
highly overpriced and he should, in fact,
be subservient to the party’s district sec-
retaries. They point out that it is also em-
barrassing from an ideological point of
view that the chief adviser of the
Dravidian party should be a north Indian
and a Brahmin to boot. Kishor’s full name
is Prashant Kishor Pandey.
BACK IN FAVOUR?
Ram Madhav, who was the man to turn
toforgovernmentthinkingonforeignpol-
icy issues concerning our neighbours and
thediaspora,wassilenttowardstheendof
Modi’s first term in office. He was miss-
ing from both the Howdy Modi conven-
tion and the Namaste Trump rally in
Ahmedabad earlier this year. But, of late,
Madhav is back in the forefront, even as
relationswithNepalandChinatakeaturn
for the worse.
The last socialist?
Communist parties were modelled on
Leninist Socialism. Once Indira Gandhi
embraced the Communists and neutered
them, George Fernandes was the only op-
position on the Left for Indira Gandhi.
Nehruvian Socialism initiated state
ownership of ‘commanding heights’ of
the economy. The enclave was occupied
by workers of nationalised industries en-
sconced in protective labour laws which
keep the manufacturing sector small.
India’s world-class textile industry was
destroyed by the policy of discouraging
factory-made textiles. When the global
textile trade was liberalised in the 1990s,
Asian countries rushed in with big textile
factories, except India.
And then there is the government bu-
of the Army HQ and to the Foreign
Minister to negotiate with China.
Mr Modi did not utter a word on the
migrant workers’ mass reverse migra-
tion for a whole month in April. When
the issue became uncontrollably explo-
sive, it was the Railway Minister who
came forward not to take the blame but
to accuse the state governments.
Thousands of migrant workers are still
stranded at railway stations and bus sta-
tionsnotknowingwhentheywillbeable
to find public transport.
ThePrimeMinister,lookingforalime-
light, grabbed the invitation of the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to
address their General Body. I understand
no PM had addressed their general body
before,whichcameasabigsurprisetome.
NOT DIFFICULT —
TRUE OR FALSE?
What he said to the general body, of
course, came as no surprise. Even allow-
ing that Prime Ministers must keep the
spirits high, Mr Modi’s speech was typi-
cal of the person. The PM said,“Trust me,
getting growth back is not so difficult.” Is
that correct? If getting growth back was
not so difficult, why did the government
not stop the slide in the GDP growth rate
in 2017-18? Why did the government
standbyhelplesslywhenthegrowthrate
declined for eightsuccessivequarters till
Q4 of 2019-20?
Surely,thePMknowsthatthegrowth
rate of 3.1 per cent in Q4 of 2019-20 was
Life
&WORK
SATHYANARAYANAN
MUNDAYOOR
unclemoosa@gmail.com
“ONLINE CLASSES from April 7? Won’t
the schools let them enjoy even a bit of this
unexpected freedom?”
“Freedom? They already have too much
of it. Online classes are only for two hours.”
SUCH REMARKS are common in these co-
rona times. All of a sudden, students and
parentsarestruckwitharangeoffeelingsat
the unexpected entry of an intruder into
theirlives:digitaltechnologyforliveclasses.
A panorama of memories unfold
before me.
In 1973, as students of journalism, we
were on a visit to the I&B Ministry’s
Overseas Communications Services (OCS)
centre in then Bombay. Doordarshan tele-
casts in the four metros had commenced
onAugust15,1972,withonlyeveningpro-
grammes on black and white TVs. It was
only at OCS that we first saw a colour TV
telecast. When would we get colour TV in
India, we asked. Promptly, we were re-
minded of prime minister Indira Gandhi’s
words as Doordarshan got launched —
‘colour TV programmes are not a priority
for a poor country as ours; we would first
makesurethewholenationreceivestelevi-
sionservices’.Also,thattelevisionwouldbe
usedtoimproveschooleducation.Itmade
sense to us that urban India must feel for
their less privileged rural masses, and wait
before we expect more.
This vision of television for school edu-
cation soon came true in 1975. Satellite
Instructional Television Experiment (SITE)
startedbeamingprogrammesontospecial
satellite-linkedTVsetsinstalledinselected
villagesandtownsincentralIndia.Thecom-
mon people there had free and direct ac-
cesstoarangeofTVtelecastsrelatedtotheir
life: agriculture, weather, environment,
school education and also entertainment.
ThepublicresponsetoSITEwasenthu-
siastic,despitethefrequentfailuresincon-
nectivity and equipment breakdown.
When the programme was discontinued
after1976andnotextendedtootherstates,
many of us felt deeply disappointed. Alas,
it was dependent on an American satellite
provided to India for only one year.
By October 2, 1982, colour TV had ar-
rived in majorIndiancities. Atmanyother
places,likeintheNortheast,onecouldstill
access DD programmes, though it meant
a large expensive ‘disc’ and a lot of acro-
batic manoeuvres with long wires.
But with frequent power cuts and high
maintenancecosts,TVwasstillbeyondthe
reaucracy, the only place with life-time
jobs with guaranteed rising incomes, in-
terest-bearing provident funds and pen-
sions. These islands are protected by the
politicians who also enjoy privileges.
Socialism for the few, Indian style.
George Fernandes was an outsider in
thisworld.In1974,heledtherailwaywork-
ers’ national strike which was unique for a
nationalised industry. (The Rail Workers’
Union had its offices inside the Rail
Bhavan!). Indira Gandhi was furious and
putthestrikedowninthemostbrutalman-
ner.ThensheimposedEmergency.George
led the fight against the Emergency.
SocialisminIndiahasneverlookedafter
the poorer workers in the private informal
sector. They are the overwhelming major-
the lowest since Q3 of 2002-03, when
BJP was in power. Also, that the growth
rate of 4.2 per cent for the year 2019-20
was the lowest in 17 years. Not even the
2008internationalfinancialcrisiscaused
such a hit on India’s growth rate. The FM
is often quoted as ridiculing the UPA’s
performance in 2012-13 and 2013-14,
deliberately ignoring the numbers put
out officially by the CSO: 5.2 per cent in
2011-12, (I returned as FM on August 1,
2012), 5.5 per cent in 2012-13 and 6.4
per cent in 2013-14 (see graph). To re-
mindtheFM again,theUPAhandedover
an economy on the upswing to the NDA.
Tobefair,theNDAmaintainedthepace
in 2014-15, 2015-16 and for most part of
2016-17, when, consumed by hubris, the
governmentannounceddemonetisation
on November 8, 2016. That is when the
slide began and, despite the PM’s decla-
ration that “getting growth back is not so
difficult”, NDA I and NDA II have proved
that the task was beyond their capacity.
THE MISSING ‘I’
Industry, trade and commerce know
that.Exportersknowthat.MSMEsknow
that. Construction sector knows that.
Economists, except government’s own,
knowthat.Now,evendailywageearners
and migrant workers know that. Hope
has faded every day; now, hope is lost
completely that the Modi government
will be able to revive economic growth.
The PM has shown unwillingness to
listentogoodadvice,butIshallnotgiveup.
The PM’s latest talisman, the “five I” (in-
Before online classes,
lessons on a TV screen
reach of the common man. Many residen-
tialschoolsdidsetupTVsets,showingonly
a Sunday film or a serial. Even if a school in
theNortheastthoughtofscreeningevening
news to give students an exposure to spo-
kenEnglish,itwasattoolateanhour—9.30
pm in rural Northeast is almost midnight!
AgroupofschoolsinArunachalPradesh,
of which I too was a managing committee
member, decided that we would not buy
TVs—andahead-loadofproblemsforour-
selves. “Let Doordarshan start educational
programmes”, we said firmly.
Come 1987-88, and there was talk of
TV everywhere!
Ramayana startedgetting serialisedon
DD on Sunday mornings, and later the
Mahabharata. Overnight, everything —
friendships,partnerships,teamwork—de-
pended on whether you owned a TV set.
Never were residential schools in such a
dilemma!Eventually,wefollowedsuit,per-
mitting all our schools to set up TVs.
WealsodiscoveredtheEMRCPunetele-
casts from 1-2 pm, Monday to Friday. And,
whollyeducational!TheEducationalMedia
Research Centre’s telecasts targetted col-
legestudents,and,likeSITE,itcoveredsev-
eral subjects. Many were interesting to
school students and useful to teachers.
Excited, we ordered our schools to
screen EMRC programmes as the students
hadtheirlunch.Herewasclassroomlearn-
ingmadeappealingintheremotestcorners
ofArunachal,wherestudentshadnoteven
seen a train! We brushed aside all objec-
tions and went on screening, trying not to
ity, but they do notcount. Theplightof mi-
grantinformalsectorworkersinthelastfew
weekswouldnothavegoneunchampioned
if George Fernandes had been around. He
would have led them and won battles for
their health and welfare. Instead, we wit-
nessed a most disorganised and heartless
interventionbyvariousstateshelping‘their’
workers in a tragic spectacle.
The pandemic has exposed the sorry
state of India. Early on, the package an-
nounced made sure that the public sector
andgovernmentemployeeswouldbepro-
tected. Dearness allowances postponed
but not reduced. No one thought of the
millions outside the ‘Socialist enclave.’
Indeed, in discussing the plight of the
economy even last July in the First Budget
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020
tent,inclusion,infrastructure,investment
and innovation) misses at least one, if not
two,crucial‘I’words.Themissingelement
is “income”. Nearly 125 million persons
lost their jobs in the last three months.
AIMOsurveyshows35percentofMSMEs
and 37 per cent of self-employed busi-
nesspersons have lost hope of recovery
and will close down their businesses.
It is elementary economics that in-
come alone — money in people’s hands
— will revive demand;demandwill spur
supply and production; production will
bring back jobs and incentivise invest-
ment;and allof thesewillrevivegrowth.
This economic principle is doubly valid
in a time of recession which is where
India is headed in 2020-21.
My final submission to the
Honourable Prime Minister: Axe your
currenteconomicadvisersandbringina
new team that will give you sound
advice.
GROWTH OVER THE YEARS
GDP growth (%)
10
7.9 8.5 8.3
8 7.4 8.0
5.5 7.0 6.1
6 6.4
4
5.2 4.2
3.1
2 stopped being an important story. I have
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
2016-17
2014-15
2015-16
2017-18
2018-19
2019-20
Source:NSO
Illustration: Suvajit Dey
missinterestingshows.Thisroutinelasted
a few years. I watched the programmes
with students, whenever I visited a school.
Our schools did benefit in an unex-
pected way. We watched with curiosity
as (now late) Prof M R Bhide demon-
strated “vermicompositng”, and soon in-
vited him to Arunachal to teach us the
process and help us grow better vegeta-
bles. He came over and did a series of
successful training sessions for our staff
and the nearby villagers. That year, we
got a handsome increase in our crops.
And, we had introduced an agricultural
innovation in our state, all from just
watching TV!
Did children benefit from educational
TV like the EMRC shows? It would be in-
teresting to find out, after three decades.
As we listen to the government an-
nouncements promoting online learning
during the corona crisis, a call for using TV
for learning sounds feeble. One hears little
about TVchannelscateringtostudentsand
teachers.Today,cableTVhasthelargestnet-
work providing content across India. Have
schooleducationagenciesevertriedtorope
themintelecastinglearningmaterial?Have
ourgovernmentstakenanymeasurestoen-
surethatthecableoperatorsdidtheiroblig-
atory CSR bit?
Indira Gandhi in 1972 did gift us a
dream. Where did we forget to chase it?
The author is an education and library
activist, with four decades of close association
with the youth of Arunachal Pradesh
of the new government, there was more
worryaboutboostingsalesof Maruticars,
providingcredittothemiddleclasstobuy
consumer durables, and cutting corpora-
tiontaxesandincometaxesfortheminor-
ity who pay it. If the total amount in Non-
Performing Assets of public sector banks
hadbeendistributedtothecrorestoopoor
to pay income-tax, let alone afford a loan
from the nationalised banks, their life
wouldhaveimproved.Bankswerenotna-
tionalised to benefit the poor.
Indiahasthechanceevennowofbegin-
ninganewtobuildaneconomywhichpro-
vides full employment for the many, and
supportforthefewwhoareoutofwork.To
build a Socialist society for everyone.
George would like that.
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
Fifth
COLUMN
TAVLEENSINGH
Twitter@tavleen_singh
A letter
from Bharat
CYCLONE NISARGA came to my village
last week and swept away all links to the
modern world. So, as I write these words
I find myself wondering if I will be able
to file this column in time for my dead-
line. There is no electricity in the village,
no telephone lines and no Internet.
When I enquired why everything col-
lapsed altogether, I discovered that fibre
optic cables are not buried underground
as they should be but dangle from the
same poles from which dangle a twisted
web of electricity and phone lines. These
fragile links to the modern world could
not withstand the fury of the cyclone.
Most villages along the Konkan coast are
as cut off as we are and, of course, this
does not make national news because
Nisarga was kind enough to spare
Mumbai.
It is a tribute to Tata Sky that it man-
aged to continue its services except dur-
ing the worst moments of the cyclone,
so it was from TV news that I discovered
that the havoc wreaked by Nisarga in
this village was no longer important.
Once Mumbai was safe, the cyclone
been locked down in this village by the
sea since the first lockdown began, so
this makes it the longest unbroken pe-
riod I have spent in rural India. This has
made me more than ordinarily sensitive
to how insensitive we in the media are to
the problems that the vast majority of
Indians face. Nothing brought this out
more painfully than our insensitivity to
the horrible journeys that migrant
workers have made since that first lock-
down began at four hours notice. Had
they been middle class city people, we
in the media would have covered every
step of their journeys and this would
have made our political leaders pay at-
tention sooner than they did.
It is because we in the media care so
little about Gandhiji’s ‘real India’ that our
political leaders and officials care even
less. Officials are forced to do some
spells of duty in rural areas but political
leaders once they get elected return only
at election time. It has always been this
way but for a while after Narendra Modi
first became prime minister it seemed
that things would really change.
Remember how he ordered his MPs and
MLAs to adopt villages and make them
into ‘model villages’? What happened
to that story? Remember how he or-
dered his senior bureaucrats to return to
the villages in which they had their first
posting and report to him the changes
they saw? What happened to that story?
As a city hack who travels a little
more than my brethren, but not nearly
enough, I confess that living in a village
for such a long period has taught me
more about the real India than I ever
knew. The lesson that has left the deep-
est impression on me is that rural life is
fragile and uncertain in the best of times
and breaks down totally when bad times
come. When the pandemic came, every-
one realised that if someone got seri-
ously sick with this mysterious new
sickness, they would die because the
nearest hospital, in a town that is 20
kilometres away, was not equipped to
deal with Covid-19. People became so
fearful that they began to shun out-
siders. But, then they showed extraor-
dinary humanity by helping Bihari
workers in the fishing industry return to
their homes. The buses that took them
home were paid for by local people.
Everyone had barely accepted the
hardship caused by these lockdowns
when the cyclone came. It arrived
stealthily. I woke on Wednesday morn-
ing to an ominous stillness in the air.
The sea was silent, there was not a
breath of wind and even the birds were
silent. Then a steady rain began that
lasted till news came that the cyclone
had landed in a town not far from this
village. Then suddenly huge, angry
winds swept into the village tearing
down coconut trees and ripping tin
roofs off houses and tossing them
around. I tried for the first moments to
take pictures on my phone but quickly
realised that this was dangerous and so
I spent the rest of the day indoors lis-
tening to the violence of the storm that
seemed to go on for an eternity. When it
finally passed and a fragile sort of calm
descended, I emerged to find roads cov-
ered in broken trees and debris every-
where. They say it will take a few days
more for the electricity to come back
and a few more days for Internet and
phone services to be restored.
In the aftermath of the cyclone, with-
out phones, emails and digital newspa-
pers, I have found time to dwell on the
absurdity of political leaders and high
officials sitting in distant cities deciding
the future of people who live in what can
only be described as another country. I
have always sneered at the distinction
people make between India and Bharat
but have discovered the hard way that
the distinction is real. And, now I have
to end because the Internet has returned
on account of some ‘jugaad’ by my local
service provider but he tells me he is not
sure how long it will stay.
It really is time for our politicians
and high officials to rediscover what life
is like in the backwaters of the ‘real
India.’

10 THE WORLD
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020
TOPOFTHE
WORLD
FACEBOOK
Zuckerberg
vowsreviewof
contentpolicies
afterbacklash
FACEBOOK CEO Mark
Zuckerberg on Friday said
he would consider
changes to the policy that
led the company to leave
up controversial posts by
US President Donald
Trump during recent
demonstrationsprotesting
the death of an unarmed
black man while in police
custody, a partial conces-
sion to critics. Zuckerberg
did not promise specific
policy changes in a
Facebook post, days after
staff members walked off
the job, some claiming he
kept finding new excuses
not to challenge Trump.
“We’regoingtoreviewour
policies allowing discus-
sion and threats of state
use of force to see if there
are any amendments we
should adopt,” he wrote.
HONG KONG DISPUTE
Francesaysit
backs‘1country,
2systems’for
HongKong
Paris: French President
Emmanuel Macron has
told Chinese counterpart
Xi Jinping he is following
events in Hong Kong
closely and continues to
backthe“onecountry,two
systems” principle for
Beijing’s rule over the city,
anElyseeofficialsaid.“The
President said he was
monitoring the (Hong
Kong)situationcloselyand
reiteratedFrance’ssupport
for the principle of ‘one
country,twosystems’,”the
official told Reuters on
Saturday. China has ap-
provedsecuritylegislation
for Hong Kong that
democracyactivists,diplo-
matsandsomeinbusiness
fear will jeopardise its
semi-autonomous status
and its role as a global fi-
nancial hub.
KOREAN PENINSULA
Norththreatens
toshutliaison
officewithSouth
Seoul:NorthKorealashed
out at South Korea for the
second day in a row on
Friday, threatening to
closeaninter-Koreanliai-
son office and calling the
South naive to think the
Northwantsdialogueand
negotiations right now. A
government spokesman
said North Korea would
“definitely withdraw”
fromtheliaisonofficeop-
eratedwithSouthKorean
officials to punish the
South for failing to stop
defectors from sending
leaflets across the border.
PANDEMIC HASTENS DEPARTURE OF WITNESSES TO WRENCHING CONFLICTS OF THE LAST CENTURY
Virus depletes keepers of Europe’s memory amid bid to recast history
JASON HOROWITZ
ROME, JUNE 6
FOR YEARS, Gildo Negri visited
schoolstosharehisstoriesabout
blowing up bridges and cutting
electricalwirestosabotageNazis
and fascists during World War II.
InJanuary,the89-year-oldmade
another visit, leaving his nursing
home outside Milan to help stu-
dents plant trees in honor of
Italians deported to concentra-
tion camps.
But at the end of February, as
Officials of US cities move to rein
in police as protest crowds grow
Minneapolis,Denver,Seattleactagainstchokeholds,rubberbullets;majorprotestsaroundtheworld
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JUNE 6
PROTESTERSACROSStheUnited
States, Australia and Europe
were staging major demonstra-
tions on Saturday, in the latest
sign that anger over police vio-
lence has not abated since the
killing of George Floyd in
Minnesota last month.
In response, some American
citiesarecrackingdownonover-
aggressive policing with an ur-
gency never seen before. On
Friday, city leaders and judges in
Minneapolis,DenverandSeattle
moved to rein in tactics like offi-
cers’ use of chokeholds, tear gas
or rubber bullets.
Inrecentyears,reformefforts
to curb police violence in were
aimed at accountability for offi-
cersorlegislativechanges,butthe
currentwaveof protestshasam-
plified calls across the country to
defund, downsize or abolish po-
lice departments altogether.
“We are going to dismantle
the Minneapolis Police
Department,” Jeremiah Ellison,
a member of the City Council,
said on Twitter this week. “And
whenwe’redone,we’renotsim-
ply gonna glue it back together,”
he added. “We are going to dra-
matically rethink how we ap-
proach public safety and emer-
gency response.”
After an 11th consecutive
nightof demonstrations,thesize
of the demonstrations are ex-
pected to grow in what is be-
cominganationwidemovement
against systemic racism and po-
lice brutality. In Washington,
where peoplehavebeengather-
ing this week to express outrage
at the White House, thousands
are expected to converge down-
town. The Police Department
said it would close many streets
from 6 am until midnight.
A memorial service for Floyd
will be held Saturday in Raeford,
N.C., near where he was born.
The nationwide anger over
Floyd’s death has led to largely
peaceful protests by daytime, in
some cases followed by looting
and violence later at night. In
some instances, the police have
responded by using batons, tear
gas, pepper spray and rubber
bullets on protesters, bystanders
and journalists. As videos of po-
lice aggression spread in recent
days, lawmakers, police officials
and judges have re-examined
police departments’ use-of-
force policies.
Joe Biden wins enough
delegates to clinch US
Democratic nomination
REUTERS
JUNE 6
FORMER US Vice President Joe
Bidensecuredenoughdelegates
toformallyclinchtheDemocratic
presidential nomination on
Friday,settingthestageforachal-
lengetoPresidentDonaldTrump
in the November election.
A candidate needs at least
1,991 delegates to secure the
nomination. Biden crossed the
threshold when results came
late on Friday after seven states
and the District of Columbia
held presidential primaries ear-
Europe’sfirstoutbreakofthecoro-
navirus spread through Negri’s
nursinghome,itinfectedhim,too.
Shut inside, he grew despon-
dentaboutmissingtheusualpa-
rades and public speeches on
Italy’s Liberation Day, grander
this year to mark the 75th an-
niversary. But the virus canceled
the April 25 commemorations.
Negri died that night.
“The memory is vanishing,
and the coronavirus is accelerat-
ing this process,” said Rita
Magnani, who worked with
Negri, at the local chapter of the
DC PAINTS HUGE ‘BLM’ MURAL NEAR WHITE HOUSE: A Black Lives Matter mural has been painted in bright yellow letters on
Washington DC’s 16th Street. AP
■ The city of Washington’s mural is a
highly visible display of the local
government’s embrace of protests that
put it further at odds with Donald Trump.
Protests across world embrace
Black Lives Matter movement
REUTERS
LONDON, JUNE 6
THOUSANDS TOOK to the
streets across Europe and
Australia on Saturday, as did
hundreds in Tokyo and Seoul, in
support of days of US protests
against police brutality.
The rolling, global protests re-
flectrisingangeroverpolicetreat-
mentofethnicminorities,sparked
by the May 25 killing of George
FloydinMinneapoliswhilehewas
inpolicecustody.
Europe has seen an unprece-
dented wave of anti-racism ral-
lies drawing tens of thousands
onto the streets.
In London, thousands of pro-
testers ignored the wet weather
tocrowdintoParliamentSquare,
wearing face masks amid the
coronavirus threat and waving
placards and chanting: “No jus-
tice, no peace, no racist police.”
In Berlin, demonstrators
lier in the week.
The achievement was a for-
mality after Biden became the
presumptive nominee when
his main rival, Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders, quit the race
in April.
National Association of Italian
Partisans.“Wearelosingthepeo-
ple who can tell us in first person
whathappened.Andit’sashame,
becausewhenwelosethehistor-
ical memory we lose ourselves.”
Time and its ravages have al-
ready cut down the lives and
blurredthememoriesofagener-
ation that saw close up the ide-
ologies and crimes that turned
Europe into a killing field.
Thevirus,whichissolethalto
the old, has hastened the depar-
ture of these last witnesses and
forced the cancellation of an-
■ Mayor Muriel Bowser said the painting
that spans two blocks is intended to send
a message of support to those outraged
over the killing of George Floyd by police.
Protesters gather in Sydney on Saturday. AP
filledthecentralAlexanderplatz,
while other protests were held
in Hamburg and Warsaw. In
Paris,theauthoritieshadbanned
demonstrationsplannedoutside
the US Embassy and on the
lawns near the Eiffel Tower.
In Brisbane, one of several
Australian cities where rallies
were held, police estimated
10,000 people joined a peaceful
Pakistan-based US
blogger accuses
PPP’s Rehman
Malik of rape
Islamabad: A Pakistan-based
American blogger has accused
threesenior leaders of theoppo-
sition Pakistan Peoples Party
(PPP) of raping and assaulting
her in 2011.
Cynthia D Ritchie made the
allegation through a video clip
posted on her Facebook page on
Friday. “In 2011, I was raped by
the former interior minister
Rehman Malik. That’s right, I’ll
say it again. I was raped by the
then interior minister Rehman
Malik,"sheclaimed.Shealsosaid
former PM Yousuf Raza Gilani
and former health minister
MakhdoomShahabuddin“phys-
ically manhandled” her. PTI
People mark Italy’s Liberation Day in Milan in April. NYT
■ The mural ends near the church, where
Trump staged a photo op Monday. A sign
now identifies that part of the street as
“Black Lives Matter Plaza”.
protest on Saturday.
InTokyo,marchers protested
against what they said was po-
lice mistreatment of a Kurdish
man who says he was stopped
while driving and shoved to the
ground. In Seoul, dozens of
South Korean activists and for-
eign residents gathered, some
wearing black masks with“can’t
breathe” in Korean.
US to substantially cut
number of troops in
Germany, official says
STEVE HOLLAND
BANGOR, JUNE 6
US President Donald Trump has
ordered the military to remove
9,500 troops from Germany, a
senior US official said on Friday,
amovelikelytoraiseconcernsin
Europe about the US commit-
ment to the continent.
The move would reduce US
troops numbers in Germany to
25,000, from the 34,500 cur-
rently there.
Theofficial,whodidnotwant
tobeidentified,saidthemovewas
the result of months of work by
FRANCE
D-DAY REMEMBRANCES HIT BY PANDEMIC
Compared to last year, when many tens of thousands came to the northern French
beaches of Normandy to cheer the dwindling number of veterans and celebrate three-quar-
ters of a century of liberation from Nazi oppression, the coronavirus lockdown turned this
year’s remembrance into one of the eeriest ever, with only a very few taking part.
57 cops quit unit to
protest suspension
of their colleagues
NATHAN LAYNE
JUNE 6
ALL 57 members of a police tac-
ticalunitinBuffalohaveresigned
from that team to protest the
suspension of two colleagues
who were filmed shoving a 75-
year-oldmantotheground,offi-
cials of the northern New York
city said on Friday.
Two members of the Buffalo
Police Department’s Emergency
ResponseTeamweresuspended
afteralocalradiostationreleased
videooftheincidentinvolvingthe
protester, Martin Gugino.
The video shows the white-
haired Gugino approaching a
line of officers in riot gear. One
officer pushes him with a baton
and a second one with his hand.
He falls, a crack is heard and
blood trickles from his head, as
officers walk by his still body.
Localmediaquotedapoliceas-
sociation chief as saying the offi-
cerswerejustdoingtheirjob. AP
America’s top military officer,
GeneralMarkMilley,chairmanof
the joint chiefs of staff, and had
nothing to do with tensions be-
tween Trump and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who
thwarted Trump’s plan to host a
G7 meeting this month.
A second senior administra-
tion official said the 9,500 troops
wouldbesentelsewhere,someto
Poland,sometootheralliedcoun-
tries, while some would return
home. This official said there was
less need for the large contingent
in Germany due to overall in-
creased defense spending by the
U.S.-ledNATOalliance. REUTERS
niversarycommemorationsthat
offered a final chance to tell their
stories to large audiences. It has
also created an opportunity for
risingpoliticalforceswhoseekto
recast the history of the last cen-
turyinordertoplayagreaterrole
in remaking the present one.
Throughout Europe, radical
right-wingpartieswithhistories
of Holocaust denial, Mussolini
infatuation and fascist motifs,
have gained traction in recent
years, moving from the fringes
and into parliaments and even
governing coalitions.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Trump says India,
China would have
more virus cases if
they did more tests
LALIT K JHA
WASHINGTON, JUNE 6
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump
has said countries like India and
China would have much more
coronavirus cases than America,
the worst-hit country in the
world,if theyconductmoretests.
Trump, in his remarks at
Puritan Medical Products in
Maine, said that the US has car-
ried out 20 million tests.
ComparedtotheUS,Germany
isatfourmillionandmuchtalked
about South Korea is about three
million tests, he said on Friday.
According to Johns Hopkins
Coronavirus Resource Center,
the US has reported nearly 1.9
million cases and over 1,09,000
deaths, making America the
worstaffectedcountry,whilethe
total number of coronavirus
cases in India and China stand at
2,36,184 and 84,177 respectively.
India has so far conducted
over 4 million coronavirus tests,
accordingto the health ministry.
Commenting on the Covid-
19 tests in the US, Trump said:
“We will be well over 20 million
tests. Remember this, when you
test more, you have more cases.”
“I say to my people every
time we test; you find cases be-
cause we do more testing. If we
havemorecases,if wewantedto
do testing in China or in India or
other places, Ipromise youthere
would be more cases... you are
doing a fantastic job in getting
out the swabs.”
“And every swab you make
at Puritan is proudly stamped
with the beautiful phrase made
in the USA.” PTI
French military says
it killed top Qaeda
leader in Africa
RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
& ERIC SCHMITT
JUNE 6
THE FRENCH military said on
Friday that its forces in Mali had
killed one of Al Qaeda’s longest-
serving commanders in Africa,
Abdelmalek Droukdal, who has
led an affiliate of the terror net-
work for more than a decade.
There was no immediate
confirmation from the terror
group, and France has erro-
neously announced the deaths
of Qaeda commanders in the
past. If true, however, the killing
of Droukdal would be a setback
for the group’s operations in
northwestern Africa.
“A very big loss for them,”
said Wassim Nasr, a French ex-
pert on the terrorist group who
has interviewed its leaders.
In a statement on Twitter,
DefenceMinisterFlorenceParlyof
France wrote: “On June 3, the
Frencharmedforces,withthesup-
portof theirpartners,neutralized
theemirofAlQaedaintheIslamic
Maghreb (AQIM), Abdelmalek
Droukdal and several of his close
associates, in the course of an op-
erationinnorthernMali.”
Col. Christopher Karns of US
AfricaCommandsaidtheUnited
States had provided the French
with intelligence and surveil-
lance aircraft to help with the
The Alternative for Germany
is looking to capitalize on the
economic frustration the coron-
avirus crisis has triggered. In
France, the hard-right National
Rallyhadthecountry’sstrongest
showing in the last European
Parliament elections. And in
Italy, the birthplace of fascism,
the descendants of post-fascist
parties have grown popular as
thestigmaaroundMussoliniand
strongman politics has faded.
Italyisespeciallyvulnerableto
thelossofmemory.Ithasendured
asevereepidemicandhastheold-
WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM
US still getting
over 20,000
new cases a day
THEUSreported21,614newinfec-
tionson Thursday, and while that
numberisbelowitsAprilpeak,the
daily average has been rising
slightly in recent days as the con-
tinuedimprovementinNortheast
is offset by new outbreaks in the
Southandpartsof theWest.
The uptick appears to repre-
sent a combination of increased
testing, the coronavirus taking
hold in more regions and out-
breaks in localised hotspots. It
comes during a convergence of
twodevelopmentsthathealthof-
ficialsarewatchingwarily:states
and cities pressing ahead with
planstoallowmorebusinessesto
reopen, and masses of people
gathering around the country in
large-scaleprotestsagainstpolice
brutality and racism. NYT
Brazil court halts
police raids on
Rio’s favelas
BRAZILIANSUPREMECourtmin-
isterprohibitedpoliceraidsinRio
de Janeiro’s favelas during the
novelcoronaviruspandemic,asa
groundswell of criticism of bru-
tal police tactics grows in the na-
tion. The decision forbid raids in
favelas—asBrazil’sshantytowns
are known — “except in ab-
solutelyexceptionalcases,”which
must be pre-approved by state
prosecutor’s office. REUTERS
Leaderof oneof
the mostlethal
Qaeda affiliates
DROUKDALTOOKovercom-
mand of a local insurgent
group in Algeria that was al-
mostcompleteddefeatedin
2004. He went on to merge
the group with Al Qaeda in
2006, forming Al Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb. This
groupquicklybecameoneof
theAlQaeda’smostloyaland
lethalaffiliates,carryingouta
numberofsuicidebombings
and expanding outside
Algeria. At one point the
group had captured half of
Mali. It also made over $90
million through kidnapping
foreigners. The killing of
Droukdaldeliversabigblow
tooneofthemostdangerous
Qaedaaffiliatesintheworld.
mission.Hedidnotcommenton
whether the raid had resulted in
Droukdal’s death.
Droukdal, 50, was born in
Algeria. NYT
estpopulationinEurope.Itisalso
apoliticallypolarizedplacewhere
areasofconsensusinothercoun-
tries are constantly relitigated,
withrecollectionsofNaziandfas-
cist atrocities countered with re-
torts of summary executions by
Communist partisans.
In the three quarters of a cen-
tury following Italy’s defeat and
defactocivilwarwithMussolini’s
short-lived Nazi puppet state in
the north, the people who lived
throughthewarandfascismhave
offered a living testimony that
shined through the muddle. NYT

THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT
The Big Little Things
Actor Amol Palekar on the bond he shared
with Basu Chatterjee, and why the filmmaker’s
work remains immortal
Black Death and Other Colours
How past pandemics have reshaped art and made space for loss and suffering on the canvas
Vandana Kalra
E
DVARD MUNCH, the artist
whose work so well expressed
theterrorandsolitudeof mod-
ernlife,spentalifetimebattling
anxiety. He was five when his
mother died of tuberculosis.
Nineyearslater,hisbelovedsistersuccumbed
tothedisease.Theartist’schildhoodwasalso
marred by ill-health. When he caught the
Spanish Flu at his country house in Ekely,
Norway,in1918,hischancesof survivalwere
slim. But he made it. That experience found
space in two works — Self Portrait with the
Spanish Flu (1919, oil on canvas) and Self
Portrait after the Spanish Flu (1919). In both,
heappearsemaciated,butthecolourreturns
tohisfaceinthesecond,andhelooksstraight
into the eyes of the viewer.
A century later, as the COVID-19 pan-
demic shuts down the world, Munch’s work
is being shared to sum up our present. The
experienceof beingbatteredbywavesof dis-
easeisnotnewtohumanity—andhasshown
up in the work of artists before. In looking at
the art of pandemics past,
we search for resonances
and answers that can
make sense of today.
■ ■ ■
Art has also been
shaped by the power of
pathogens. As early as the
2ndcentury,theoutbreak
of smallpoxacrosstheSilk
Roadledtotheworshipof
goddessHariti,believedto
have the power to cause
and thwart the disease —
andresultedinnumerous
sculptures of the deity in
the Gandhara region (present-day Pakistan
and Afghanistan). In India, the legends of
Shitala Mata, who had the powers to heal
feverandsmallpox,andOladevi,thegoddess
of cholera, have been painted by folk artists
for a long time.
Medieval Europe was radically altered by
thebubonicplaguethatlikelyarrivedinSicily
in1347withtheGenoesemerchantsonships
that sailed through the Black Sea. Its horrors
were reflected in the art of the times. It took
the lives of several prominent artists, includ-
ing Giotto di Bondone and Bernardo Daddi,
who were rejecting Italian-Byzantine tradi-
tions for more realistic figures. More impor-
tantly, it altered the course of art history. The
pestilencethatkilledaboutathirdofEurope’s
population coincided with the beginnings of
Renaissance. As existing rigid hierarchical
structuresbecamemoreflexiblewiththede-
cline of feudalism, there also emerged a new
classofpatronsandsupportforartistssuchas
FilippoLippi,LeonardoDaVinci,Raphaeland
Michelangelo.
The plague and its profound experiences
of suffering and loss led artists to create
haunting imageries. While initially plague
was feared as God’s punishment for sin, the
sufferers later began to be associated with
Christ. The Danse Macabre — dancing skele-
tonsaccompanyingkingsandcommoners—
becameamedievalallegoryfortheinevitabil-
ityof death.Oneof itsbest-knowndepictions
isbyGermanartistHansHolbeintheYounger
eye
JUNE 7, 2020 | WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM | PAGE 11
in a series of woodcuts that begins with the
appearance of Death in the Garden of Eden.
Holbein died of plague in 1543, as did the
ItalianmasterTitian,whopaintedPietawhen
the disease swept Venice. Italian baroque
artist Salvator Rosa’s L’Umana Fragilita
(Human Frailty, 1656) showed his newborn
son, who lost his life to plague, signing an
agreement with Death.
In 2005, the Worcester Art Museum in
Massachusetts, USA, attempted to “examine
the response of visual art to the plague”
through the exhibition “Hope and Healing:
Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague” through
37 paintings in the baroque style by masters
such as Van Dyck, Canaletto and Tintoretto,
who were active in Italy during the plague
years. One of the show’s objectives was to
“provokediscussionabouttheroleof today’s
art in providing a remedy against modern
‘plagues’.Howwillartcontinuetoinspireand
give perspective to the human condition in
times of disaster?”
Thoughartistsarestillgrapplingwiththat
question,inthelastfewmonthswehaveseen
Turner prize winner Damien Hirst pay trib-
ute to the United Kingdom’s National Health
Service with a Butterfly
Rainbow, and influential
British artist David
Hockney lift our spirits
with drawings of the
blooming spring flowers
in Normandy, France.
Many of us have been
amused by rats causing
mayhem in a bathroom
painted by street artist
Banksy.Delhi-basedartist
Pallavi Paul is collecting
sounds of the lockdown
from across the world —
the project Share Your
Quiethasbirdschirpingin
Lucknow, the UK and
Delhi, the sound of medical equipment at a
nursinghomeinMumbaiandof windblow-
ing in Auckland, New Zealand. Mumbai-
based Dhruvi Acharya, meanwhile, reflects
ontheisolationof lockdown,andtheplightof
migrant workers in her watercolour series
Painting in the Time of Corona.
“Every period produces works of art that
moves us in different ways. This time will be
no different…There are artists who work
morequicklyandofferamoreimmediatere-
sponse...Thereareseveralprojectsindiffer-
entplacesintheworldwherephotographers
have shot people in their homes, from out-
side their windows. Street and graffiti artists
are always quick to respond. There are also
artists who are looking at the pandemic
through a more politicised lens — protesting
the lack of planning and infrastructure that
has hampered our ability to respond to this
novelvirus.ButIammostcuriousaboutwhat
the slower artists will develop in the coming
years. Will they still be reflecting on the cre-
ative power of boredom, the intensity of iso-
lation and our deep human need to connect
with each other despite everything?” says
Trevor Smith, curator at Peabody Essex
Museum,US,andco-curatorof “SpitSpreads
Death”,anexhibitionthatopenedinOctober
2019 at Mütter Museum in Philadelphia to
commemorate the 101st anniversary of the
1918 pandemic. “We worked with various
forms of ephemera, patriotic and public
health posters, personal belongings, liberty
ART OF DYING loan parade buttons and so forth. One of the
(Clockwise from top) challenges was that there wasn’t a rich
archiveof objectstochoosefromintellingthe
John Singer Sargent’s
story,” says Smith.
Gassed; Dayanita The art that emerged from the 1918 pan-
Singh’s photograph demic proved that the losses were collective
of a nurse at an HIV but not the memories. “The Spanish Flu is
clinic; Egon Schiele’s rememberedpersonally,notcollectively.Not
The Family; Pieter as a historical disaster, but as millions of dis-
crete,privatetragedies,”writesLauraSpinney
Bruegel the Elder’s
inher2017bookPaleRider:TheSpanishFluof
Triumph of Death; 1918 and How It Changed the World.
Munch’s Self Portrait One such tragedy was recorded by
with the Spanish Flu; GermanartistEgonSchiele,whosketchedhis
and Hans Holbein friend and mentor Gustav Klimt in his dying
the Younger’s Danse days. Months later, in October 1918, Schiele
Macabre andhispregnantwife,too,haddiedof theflu
— like Klimt. His last unfinished canvas, The
Family, immortalised his cherished dream —
it is a portrait of him seated behind his wife
and their unborn infant. At the age of five,
Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil, who was in
● Review of Thomas Piketty’s
Capital and Ideology
● Fire on the Island: Children’s
writer Kiran Millwood Hargrave on her
first novel for adults
DAYANITASINGH
Hungaryatthetime,wasalsoinfectedbythe
virus but survived. Like Schiele, the flu took
the lives of several other masters of the pe-
riod, including Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso,
Niko Pirosmani and Morton Schamberg.
The impact of the 1918 flu on art might
not have been as evident as the plague, but
citiesravagedbythewaranddiseasesawthe
birth of great art movements. Spearheaded
bydesignerWalterGropius,Germanysawan
emphasis on minimalism in the Bauhaus
movement.ArtistssuchasMarcelBreuerand
Paul Klee were proponents of its rational ap-
proach. Across the great seas, in the US,
Dadaism challenged capitalism and existing
political and cultural norms, finding reso-
nance in the works of artists such as Marcel
Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia.
American art historian and critic Michael
LobelarguesthatsincetheSpanishFlu“over-
lapped” with the end of World War I, it is
probably difficult to clearly distinguish the
BOOKS
IMAGES:WIKIMEDIACOMMONS
anguishbroughtbyeither.Heascertainshow
John Singer Sargent’s 1919 oil painting
Gassed, which depicts the aftermath of a
mustard gas attack during the World War I,
probablyalsoborrowedfromtheartist’sown
battlewiththeSpanishFlu—hewasinfected
on the warfront. “Even those dressings over
the soldiers’ eyes can be regarded. . . as repo-
sitionings of the cloth masks that, covering
the nose and mouth, became a visual signi-
fier of the 1918 pandemic, much like they
have for us again today,” wrote Lobel in an
article in Artforum in April.
In more contemporary times, we have
seenartbeingusedasameanstofightforjus-
tice during the HIV epidemic. While several
prominent artists including Keith Haring,
Robert Mapplethorpe and Felix Gonzalez-
Torresdiedfromtheillness,thehomophobia
and stigma that prevailed became a subject
for several artists in America in the ’80s and
’90s, many of whom also addressed the gov-
ernment’sindifferencetoAIDSintheReagan
era. If Jenny Holzer’s 1983-85 series Untitled
(Protect Me From What I Want) comprised
packaged latex condoms with safe-sex mes-
sages, Keith Haring’s Ignorance = Fear/Silence
= Death was printed on T-shirts and posters,
andbecameapopularmotif toemphasisethe
urgency of AIDS awareness. “AIDS is the sin-
gle most potent force shaping the develop-
ment of American art over the last several
decades…,”saidcuratorJonathanKatzduring
a lecture in Vancouver in 2016.
Several Indian artists were part of the
2008 travelling exhibition “Make Art/Stop
AIDS” that debuted at Fowler Museum in
America. On display, among others, was
Gurugram-basedartistduoJitenThukraland
SumirTagra’soilpaintingLet'sPlaySafe,which
focussed on safe sex practices, and Dayanita
Singh’s photographs of caregivers working
with HIV/AIDS patients.
■ ■ ■
Loss and melancholy has found expres-
sion through art, but so has black humour.
EnglishcaricaturistIsaacCruikshankgotafew
laughs for his 1808 print that cast doubts on
physicianEdwardJenner’ssmallpoxvaccine,
with Jenner warding off his opponents with
a knife. The current crown-shaped virus ac-
quires an eye and long tongue in Bhaskar
Chitrakar’s Kalighat patuas, where it enters
the home of a Bengali babu. While Indian
artist Gagan Singh is sharing comic sketches
of hislockdownexperience,alsotrendingare
Turkish artist Ertan Atay’s re-imagined por-
traitsof mastersif theywerealiveinthepres-
ent. Each of them wears a mask — Klimt’s is
paintedwiththemotif of hisiconicwork,The
Kiss (c 1907), and Salvador Dali has his mus-
tache jutting out from it.
“Art being art will find a way to continue.
Atthesametime,itsscaleisboundtochange.
I think the book as a form will be something
many more artists will be forced to explore,
while we all think a lot more about the huge
shopping and travel costs of exhibitions.
Instead,wesendsomePDFsand3Ddrawings
over.Itmightbecomemoreaboutcollectives
rather than big individual artists. Art would
address the inner lives of people as it always
does—yet,neverbeforehavewerealisedthe
needforcommunity.SoIimagineartassmall,
aboutcare,community,collectives.Ithinkthe
gurudwara model of sewa might be a model
to look to for some artists," says Singh.

12
DOWN IN
JUNGLELAND
RanjitLal
Ranjit Lal is an author,
environmentalist and
bird watcher
The Fast and
the Furious
Wasps can be unreasonably
belligerent, besides having nasty
baby-rearing techniques
M
OTHER NATURE really seems to have it in
for us. As if letting loose COVID-19 on the
world was not enough, she decided that a
ferocious cyclone that would flatten and
flood large swathes of eastern India would also be in or-
der. But, probably feeling that north-west and central
India might feel left out, she upped the ante. And, so, here
come the locusts!
Locusts are basically grasshoppers with a gross eating
and breeding disorder (and are very crunchy and high in
protein — although, they need to be insecticide-free to
make a safe snack) and I’ve always liked their sprightly
green cousins. Grasshoppers have a remarkable catapult
sort of mechanism that enables those prodigious leaps. I’m
pretty tolerant of most creepy crawlies, although I would-
n’t want to share my dinner with a cockroach (which I was
once nearly made to do in a Mumbai hospital’s ICU ward,
years ago). But I like and admire spiders — even wolf spi-
ders camping on the potty lid — as well as scorpions which
remind me of medieval knights in armour, getting ready
for jousts. But leeches and ticks — no thanks. And cen-
tipedes that launch guerrilla attacks in the shower are im-
mediately neutralised with the toilet brush.
Then there are wasps: notorious, alien-eyed cousins
of bees. Many have a truly hideous way of feeding their
babies. While most adults innocently sip nectar (some do
go in for bodily fluids, including blood) and fruit juices —
their babies must get fresh meat. So wasp moms of sev-
eral species go around stinging plump caterpillars,
grasshoppers and crickets and other insects, even huge
tarantulas, anaesthetising and dragging them to burrows
and holes. Here, they lay their eggs on them and seal the
deal. When the grub hatches, it finds itself on the back of
its fresh meal (which cannot defend itself) and proceeds
to gorge, carefully bypassing (initially, at least) the vital
organs. I’ve pulled out nine or 10 zombie-like small spi-
ders from the den of a single spider wasp — and its
hideous yellow grub was attached to one. Wasp moms
are single parents and even if they do nest in a colony,
RANJITLAL
SHE’S GOT THE STING
Wasps are alien-eyed cousins of bees
each mom usually looks after only her own progeny —
they have none of the collective bonhomie of bees (ex-
cept while under attack). And, also unlike hara-kiri bees,
wasps do not die after stinging you — in fact, they can
sting you repeatedly. Their stingers are straight and slen-
der, not barbed like those of bees — which, alas, get
hooked into your flesh so that when the bee tries to pull
out, half its insides come out as well, killing it.
Wasps can be unreasonably belligerent. Relaxing in
the pool one summer, I noticed several orange wasps do-
ing the same thing — floating on the cool water with legs
splayed out. One of these was eyeballing me and then de-
cided to sunbathe on my neck. Before I could duck under
water, it stung me. The sting hurt for a good 45 minutes in
spite of the salves I applied. I was lucky: if that wasp had
sensed a threat, it would have emitted an “attack”
pheromone, summoning a crazed horde all over my head.
This was why I got a bit perturbed when I recently
saw these same orange wasps, sashaying into my room
and disappearing inside the air-conditioner. One morn-
ing there were about half a dozen, agitatedly buzzing on
the glass door, demanding to be let out. So I let them out
and they went — and then kept returning and vanishing
into a hole on one side of the AC grille. Something nefari-
ous was going on. The infiltrators were obviously build-
ing bunkers and cantonments inside.
At first, we tried the diplomatic approach. We
plugged the hole with a wad of cotton soaked in
kerosene. Oh, yes, that disturbed them — they flew
around a bit bewildered. But they returned once the
smell dispersed. Now, we had to launch a major
counter-offensive. Off came the grille — and this time
kerosene was sprayed — like the Americans spraying
Agent Orange. A whole squadron swarmed out to de-
fend its illegally occupied territory and we had to beat a
hasty retreat, fortunately suffering no casualties.
Matters quietened down, so we went in again. Stealthily,
this time, and armed with a long paper cutter. We had
spotted the illegal construction — the usual paper hon-
eycomb. With the help of the paper cutter it was
brought down and removed. The wasps appeared to
have temporarily vacated the place, probably waiting for
the fumes to disperse. And, no, not a single wasp died in
the operation — they all fled.
But have they got the message? This morning, I saw a
scout scuttle inside the AC grille from the middle and,
right now, as I write this, there is one investigating the
original hole again. Oh no, this war ain’t over yet!
EYE, THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE
S P O T L I G H T
Salaam Basuda
Actor AMOL PALEKAR on his bond with Basu Chatterjee, and why
the filmmaker’s work will remain immortal
W
OULDYOUliketochange
your name, Amol? Like
say ‘Anmol Kumar’?”
Basuda(BasuChatterjee)
had asked me immedi-
atelyafterRajnigandha(1974)wasreadyfora
release.Hewastaking thefilmtovariousdis-
tributors,whowerenotreadytotaketherisk
ofdistributingafilmwithunknownnewcom-
ers.Tillthen,VShantaram,CRamchandraand
Master Bhagwan were among the few lead-
ingMarathi/Maharashtriannamesinthefilm
industry.ProbablytosurvivethenorthIndian
onslaught of Kapoors and Kumars, they had
feltcompelledtochangetheiroriginalnames
— Vanakudre, Chitalkar and Bhagwan Abhaji
Palav, respectively.
My flat refusal to change my name was
not surprising to Basuda though. He was in-
troduced to my stubbornness right in our
firstinteractionwhenhehadapproachedme
with Piya ka Ghar (1972). I would have loved
to accept the offer but he asked me to meet
the producer first. Somehow, the image of
me holding a begging bowl in front of a pro-
ducerwasdisturbingtome.Irefusedtomeet
Mr Barjatya, and, of course, I lost the film.
Despite my mulishness, Basuda ap-
proached me with Rajnigandha just a year
later. I was very eager to hear the story and
Basudabeganthenarration.Butjustafterthe
introductory lines, he handed over a book
andaskedmetoreada shortstorybyMannu
Bhandari. I was incapable of extrapolating
thecinematicelementsfromthoseone-and-
a-half pages. Even then I said yes to him be-
cause I loved the simplicity in the story.
My co-actors, Vidya Sinha and Dinesh
Thakur, were new entrants as well. But
Dinesh and I at least had a theatre back-
Moveable
Feast
Chef Suvir Saran
on his new book, and
his journey into the
business of food
Pooja Pillai
SUVIRSARANtellsusthathe’sbeenpassion-
ateaboutfoodsincehewas“fourorfive”and
thensurprisesusbyrevealingthatasaschool-
boy,hehadabsolutelynoinclinationtowards
a career in food. A student of Modern School
inNewDelhi,hedidwellacademicallyaswell
as in artistic pursuits like music and sculp-
ture.“SoIthoughtthat if Icannot beadoctor,
then I should be an artist,” he says.
Instead, Saran, 47, ended up making a
name for himself in the culinary world,
helmingthekitchenof DeviinNewYorkCity,
the first North American restaurant serving
Indian food to be awarded a Michelin star.
Saran moved back to India in 2018 following
a major health crisis — a combination of
complications brought on by a mini stroke
andorthostatichypotension,whichincluded
concussions, memory loss, loss of vision and
motor skills. Not that it slowed him down.
Withinamonthortwoof beinghome,he
began planning his first restaurant in the
country. House of Celeste in Gurugram,
which had its “soft launch” in December
2019,wastohaveofficiallyopenedwithabig
bang in March this year, but like everyone
ground. Vidya was oblivious to acting. He
never showed us how to perform, so Vidya
had a hard time. Basuda asked me to re-
hearse the scenes with her. Even later, dur-
ing Chitchor (1976), he asked me to share the
hotel room with Vijendra Ghadge, specifi-
cally so that he could rehearse his scenes
with me. His subtle smile after the okay shot
used to be a pat on the back.
His fondness for me percolated right
else, Saran’s plans, too, were halted by the
coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime,
however, he’s out with a coffee-table book,
Instamatic (Milap Publications). This is his
fourth book; his three previous books were
allcookbooks—IndianHomeCooking(2004),
American Masala (2007) and Masala Farm
(2011) — while the latest one puts together
photographs and essays that Saran has pro-
duced over the last two-and-a-half years.
Taken with his iPhone, some of the pho-
tographs were originally posted on Saran’s
Instagram account, where they caught the
attention of a few friends who persuaded
EXPRESSARCHIVE
from the beginning. In Bombay, Basuda,
through the Film Society movement, had ex-
posed me to many foreign films. Thus, my
bond with him started even before we
started working together. He was a man of
few words. He used to work on his scripts
constantly. I used to be very charmed by his
down-to-earth, non-filmi personality. I don’t
recall a single incident when I had an argu-
ment with him, which is simply to his credit.
HAUTE AND him to compile them — along with other
SPICY photosandessays—intoabook.“Iwasilland
my friends said, ‘You’re not doing anything,
(Clockwise from
so why not work on a book?’” he says.
above) Suvir Saran; Persuaded, Saran looked over the photo-
the House of Celeste, graphshehadbeentakingasarecordof alife
his restaurant in that he had come to look on as a gift.
Gurugram had a soft The essays grew out of the entries he had
launch in December been making every day in a diary, musing on
his life in NYC and thefarm in thesmall town
of Hebron in New York State, where he lived
withhispartnerCharlieBurd.Instamatic also
includes photographs and essays that were
createdafterSaranreturnedtoIndiaanddur-
JUNE 7, 2020
THE BIG LITTLE THINGS
(Clockwise from above) Amol Palekar and
Ashok Kumar in Chhoti Si Baat; stills from
from Chitchor and Baton Baton Mein;
Palekar, with Basu Chatterjee (centre) and his
leading ladies (from left) Zarina Wahab,
Bindiya Goswami and Vidya Sinha;
a still from Rajnigandha; and Chatterjee
Someone asked me once who I liked to
work with more, Basuda or Hrishida
(Hrishikesh Mukherjee). It was not an easy
question. I did six films with Basuda and five
with Hrishida. I adored both equally; I loved
their styles equally. With a lot of dissection,
now in hindsight, I can say that I loved to
work with Hrishida more because he was
very warm and affectionate; I liked
Hrishida’s films more because those were
wholesome films with high emotional quo-
tient. His films were technically better than
Basuda’s films. Having said that, I feel that
Basuda’s narrative style was more authentic
and consistently devoid of any set cinematic
calculations. He would shy away from melo-
drama or theatrical twists and turns in his
screenplay. His cinematic treatment was
simple yet not simplistic. His humour was
pure, sans any adulteration. His characters
were vulnerable yet infallible. They had a
moral graph yet there was no attempt to be
judgmental.
I, as a director, am more influenced by
Basuda. His obsession to shoot on actual lo-
cations and not on studio sets influenced me
deeply, so much so that I never shot my films
on sets except some portions of Paheli
(2005). His discipline to have a bound script
with dialogues ready before the commence-
ment of the actual shooting was yet another
practice I always followed.
A few years ago, I visited Basuda and sur-
prised him (with me were Zarina Wahab,
Bindiya Goswami and Vidya Sinha). He was
ecstatic to meet all of us together. Sandhya,
my wife, blessed us with a memorable pic-
ture of those moments. Despite his frail
body, we could feel his sparkling soul.
While climbing down the staircase of his
house, I felt deeply sad, though. I always felt
that the film industry didn’t give him due
recognition for his everlasting contribution.
If we see the prevalent herd of self-pro-
claimed dazzlers with their Padma achieve-
ments, Basuda stands out as a loner, with-
ered away in the horizon. This is our
cumulative failure. But his work is immortal,
which no one can ever snatch away from
him. Time and again, when we see yet an-
other failed comedy film, the greatness of
Basuda’s films gets reconfirmed.
Basuda, now that you have left us, the
lines lingering in my mind are:
Salaam Basuda, from a boy-next-door.
inghistravelstootherpartsof theworldsuch
as Italy and Rwanda.
In a way, the book is a callback to Saran’s
early ambitions of a career in the arts. After
attending the Sir JJ School of Arts in Mumbai
for a degree in visual arts, he decided to
move to New York City to study at the School
of Visual Arts. Here, he balanced his classes
and a job on the side, with almost daily cook-
ing sessions, which ended with large groups
of friends and friends of friends gorging on
the homestyle food that he served. “Ten or
15 or 30 people every night,” he says. To
Saran, cooking was still only a creative ex-
pression, but word soon spread about a
young Indian man serving some of the most
delicious meals in the city. He soon started
catering to parties and before long, was in-
vited to run the kitchen of a new Indian
restaurant that was being launched by
Rakesh Aggarwal, president of the chain,
Baluchi’s Restaurants in NYC.
Therestaurant,Devi,describedbyTheNew
York Times as “arguably the most ambitious
and refined Indian restaurant in New York”,
launchedSaranintointernationalfame.“New
Yorkerswentcrazyoverthefood,becauseun-
til then Indian food, to them, had been 50
shades of nasty gloop dressed up with fancy
names. I cooked dishes like poriyal and kac-
che gosht ki biryani, food that took diners on
ajourneythroughallregionsofIndia,”hesays.
Saran left Devi in 2012, moving on to an-
other well-received restaurant Tapestry, be-
fore his illness struck and he moved back to
India.AndevenashemadeplansforHouseof
Celeste, he began planning a restaurant each
in Delhi and Goa which, he assures, are still
verymuchonthecards.“Thisisaveryuncer-
taintimeforallof us,includingthosewhorun
restaurants.Evenif therestrictionsarelifted,
people will be scared to come to restaurants
at least for a year or so, or until a vaccine is
found.Sowehavetobepreparedforthat.But
wearedefinitelynotshelvingourplans;once
thesituationhasimproved,wewillgoahead.”
 EYE, THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE

JUNE 7, 2020 B O O K S 13

Mind the Gap Conflict Zone

In his new book, Thomas Piketty examines the trajectory of inequality in the world, A sobering reminder of the overweening military
dominance in Pakistan’s civilian life
with optimistic suggestions on how to realise a better future for all
Rana Banerji mation of their sacrifice.
Pulin B Nayak CAPITAL AND Rashid shares with readers voices of
IDEOLOGY the next of kin of martyred non-com-

T
HOMAS PIKETTY shot into
prominencein2013withCapital
intheTwenty-FirstCenturywhich
unravelled,withgreatacuity,the
inherent nature of capitalism to
sharpen inequalities of income and wealth.
CapitalandIdeologybuildsonit,andisdecid-
edly more ambitious. It opens with the ar-
restingproclamation:“Every human society
mustjustifyitsinequalities”,ortheentireso-
cial and political construct could collapse.
Scholars look at income inequality in purely
economistic terms, but Piketty is among
those who look at such issues holistically, in
theireconomic,sociological,historical,polit-
ical and even cultural ramifications. Such
overarchingscholarsareararebreed,andare
usually indebted to Karl Marx. In the
Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx had as-
serted:“Thehistoryof allhithertoexistingso-
ciety is the history of class struggles.” Piketty
offersanothercompellingperspectivewhich
is in agreement: “The history of all hitherto
existing societies is the history of the strug-
gle of ideologies and the quest for justice.”
Capital and Ideology analyses data across
centuriesinWesternEurope,NorthAmerica,
India,China,Egypt,Mesopotamia,Iran,Africa
and Brazil. France looms large, because
Piketty is French. In 1789, when the world
lived in serfdom, slavery, colonialism or
hereditary monarchy, French revolutionar-
ieshaddaredtospeakof liberty,equalityand
fraternity.Pikettyhastriednottoneglectany
historical,sociologicalorpoliticaldetailof in-
equality regimes. This gives the book physi-
cal heft, and the intricate details are some-
times a bit too heavy on the mind. The first
regimestudiedisternarysocietyinmedieval
Europe, with three classes — the religious,
the warrior and the labouring. Piketty re-
minds us that from the 10th century to the
late 19th century in Europe, there was also a
distinct group of serfs.
India merits a full chapter with her an-
cient and unique formulation of social strat-
ification, caste. Despite the periodic resolve
to rid our polity of its implications, it dictates
India’scontemporary reality. British colonial
administratorsusedittotightengovernance,
anda decadalcensusenumeratingcastewas
initiatedin1871.Then,Pikettyexaminesslav-
ery and colonialism, where inequality
reached itspinnacle, and wasencoded in the
minds of the rulers and the ruled. Elaborate
ideological constructs justified these
regimes. Scholars expounded on the effi-
ciency of slavery andthe role, nay, the neces-
sity,of colonialismtocivilisethenatives.Even
some of the more humanistic European
philosophers believed in this myth.
Capitalism attained maturity in the sec-
ond half of the 19th century, about a hun-
dred years after the spinning jenny, but its
discreetcharmcameof agein1880-1914,the
BelleEpoque.The rich and the well-off could
live well, but inequalities of income and
wealthweregettingsharperandpeakedjust
before the beginning of World War I. The
wealthiest 10 per cent in the advanced
Western countries enjoyed 80 to 90 per cent
of all property.
The unprecedented destruction of life
and property in the Great War was followed
by the Great Depression of 1929-33. Huge
HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES
Manmohan Singh entering the
Parliament House to present the
Budget on July 24, 1991.
Liberalisation precipitously
widened disparities again
in India
EXPRESSARCHIVE
unemployment and human misery ques-
tioned the viability of the capitalist system.
The genius of John Maynard Keynes offered
a revolutionary fix but World War II inter-
vened, and the mature capitalist countries
put Keynesian prescriptions into practice
only afterwards.
Pikettyshowsthatin1950-80,Keynesian
management of the macro-economy and
progressive income taxes kept income in-
equalities in check. By the end of the
Seventies, with oil prices hardening and
BY THOMAS
PIKETTY, ARTHUR
GOLDHAMMER
(TR.)
The Belknap Press/
Harvard University
Press
1,104 pages
`2,250
labour squeezed with rising inflation, stag-
nant earnings and pockets of persistent un-
employment,thebloatedgovernmentlooked
liketheproblem.The1980ssawtheThatcher-
Reaganconfluenceoffree-marketfundamen-
talism,alongwiththecollapseof Sovietcom-
munism.Again,thiscreatedidealconditions
for the regeneration of inequalities.
The trajectory of inequality in India has
conformed to trends in mature capitalist
countries over the past century. In the late
1930s, the richest 1 per cent appropriated 21
per cent of the national income. After
Independence, while Nehruvian socialism
failed to breach the Hindu rate of growth of
3.5-4percent,progressivetaxationandother
statist measures kept a firm check on in-
equality. By the early 1980s, the share of the
top 1 per cent was a mere 6 per cent of na-
tionalincome.Butin1991, liberalisationpre-
cipitously wideneddisparitiesagain.Thetop
1 per cent now enjoys almost 22 per cent of
national income, and the richest 10 per cent
own 81 per cent of wealth, making India one
of the most unequal countries.
Extensive deregulations in the US and
major European economies in the past three
decades triggered an unprecedented rise in
inequality, beyond the levels of the Belle
Epoque. It also led to the deep financial crisis
triggered by the housing bubble in 2008.
Multitudes of informal workers faced long
periods of unemployment, and the unreli-
able gig economy was born. This provided
fodderfortheOccupyWallStreetmovement,
and the COVID-19 pandemic has now taken
US unemployment to incredible heights.
Dialectical materialism led Marx to con-
clude that the pauperisation of peasants and
workers would result in the violent over-
throw of the propertied class, as in the Reign
of Terror of 1789 and the 1917 October
Revolution. But Piketty believes that a just
society can be established through partici-
patory socialism, with explicit power-shar-
ing between workers and shareholders.
Piketty’s appeal lies in his unfaltering op-
timism to realise a better world for all. This
rests on three vital suggestions. First, a pro-
gressive tax on income and property (the
latter would secure a permanent circulation
of wealth). Second, universal capital endow-
ment to ensure a flow of income and a dig-
nified existence for all (not universal basic
income, though the two are linked). And,
third, on social inequality, Piketty believes
that the world has much to learn from the
Indian practice of reservation. It is gratify-
ing to learn that in his assessment, the Indian
state has played, on balance, a positive role
in promoting equality in this hierarchical
and fractured subcontinent.
PulinBNayakwasprofessorofEconomicsatthe
DelhiSchoolofEconomics
WHILE IT is well known that the missioned officers (and not only their
Pakistan Army relied heavily on the superiors).Duringherresearchtrips,she
Pothohar region of rural Punjab for re- sometimes found villagers sceptical
cruiting soldiers, Maria Rashid’s book aboutmilitaryoutreach,admittingtoac-
showsindepthhowithassystematically quiescent behaviour stemming from
cemented a military culture, building fear (“Aisa karna parta hai”). While she
bonds of affectation with men, their foundjubilationandprideatcovetedac-
wives and mothers in the famed ‘Land ceptance in the military, there was also
of the Valiant’, Chakwal. This was risinganxietywhensonswere postedto
achieved not only through benevolent combat areas, and the “numbness at
management of recruitment and train- death, awe at the grandeur of funerals
ing practices, but also a calculated ma- organised, raw grief afterwards”, when
nipulationof grief,deathandcompensa- military officers left the village. Though
tion to families. This may have become “the orchestrated rhetoric of continued
necessary to enable villagers to adjust to sacrifice invoked some cynicism among
a change in perception of the enemy, the next of kin”, overall, she found “an
from the “traditional” Indian to the new awareness that the institution must be
“internalMuslim”,confrontedespecially protected from those who wished to
in the Federally Administered Tribal malign it”.
Areas (FATA) in the last two decades. The army faced a controversy in
Perhaps, this revealing inquiry could 2010-13 over rightist Islamic parties
see the light of day because of the au- questioning the segregation of “military
thor’s lineage. Belonging to a third-gen- martyrs from other Muslim (militants)
eration military family, Maria dedicates killed”, but by adopting these practices,
her book to her father, Brigadier Rashid the author believes, the military “had
AliMalik,whoretiredin1996.Heappar- been able to largely override the chal-
ently contested her findings lenge brought by the shift
before his death in 2017 (she fromtheHinduenemytothe
admits to being “baffled by new Muslim”.
his acceptance”... he “loved Apart from the reception
me regardless”). Though of grief in villages, Rashid’s
Maria enjoyed unfettered book devotes specific chap-
access to officers in Army ters to recruitment and
Headquarters(GHQ)andthe training (‘Manufacturing
Inter Services’ Public Soldiers’),soldierdisabilities,
Relations (ISPR) during her religion and the “war on ter-
research she notes, rather ror”.Deliberatepolicyefforts
tongue-in-cheek, their ad- inthe post-Musharraf phase
monition not to reveal un- saw a reduction in recruit-
comfortable facts. DYING TO SERVE: ment quotas for Punjab. This
The author describes the MILITARISM, created resentment in
fanfare attendingthe annual
AFFECT AND THE Chakwal. Influential civilian
Youm-e-Shuhada (YeS) func-
POLITICS OF
SACRIFICE IN THE feudals found their sifarish
tion(April30),whichstarted PAKISTAN ARMY for entry less effective,
in 2010 but was discontin- though recommendations
BY MARIA RASHID
ued after 2015, which fo- from ex-serviceman held
cusedonmartyrsfromFATA. Stanford greater weightage.
This was different from the University Press The last chapter (‘A Post-
older Youm-e-Difa (YeD) 288 pages Military World?’) reaffirms
commemoration (October `2,120 how narratives of sacrifice
6), observed after the 1965 continuetoholdvalence,de-
war. In both, it had become customary spite strains during moments when the
for the army chief tomake“aState of the relationship is tested. “Avoidable death
Nation” type address, depicting the val- is turned meaningful” and the military
our and sacrifices made against the en- can“functionasamodernkinshipgroup
emy in “carefully crafted narratives of that rewards its subjects with pay, pen-
grief and mourning”. sions, and other benefits including land
Members of martyrs’ families, espe- grants”. These inducements “act as bar-
cially mothers of the shuhada, appeared gaining chips that permit continued
on the dais and ISPR officers carefully membership” in the kinship group. The
monitored their preparation during re- armyisacutelyconsciousof howitcrafts
hearsals,“toshowjusttherightemotion ties with its soldiers and their families.
and some acting”, while skillfully man- This “appeal of militarism” remains a
aging camera work to determine what “powerfulpoliticalact,usedtochallenge
was depicted. While the mother’s sacri- itssubjects”.Itcanalsobedisplayedas“a
ficewas often venerated, asitwas “pure, heady mix of grief and ceremony for the
even asexual”, the participation of asha- larger nation”, when needed.
heed’s wife was discouraged, as the “dis- Rashid’s book is a sobering reminder
play of romantic love” was considered that military dominance over civilians is
“tricky and could have un-Islamic” con- unlikelytochangeinPakistaninthefore-
notations. Women’s feelings of regret seeable future.
and anger about their lost sons differed
from the fathers’ reactions, who found Thewriterisformerspecialsecretary,
it easier to take solace from public affir- cabinetsecretariat

Fire on the Island

In her first novel for adults, children’s writer Kiran
Millwood Hargrave examines women’s struggle against
patriarchy through the prism of an infamous 17th
century witch-hunt
Paromita Chakrabarti
WHAT PROMPTS an award-winning chil-
dren’swriterto turnher gazetowardsfiction
foradults?ForBritishnovelist,poetandplay-
wright Kiran Millwood Hargrave, it was the
Steilneset Memorial, which drew her atten-
tion to a Scandinavian calamity and its terri-
ble aftermath — the Vardø storm of 1617 in
northern Norway, that nearly decimated the
island’s male population, and the witch tri-
als that followed in 1621, one of
the biggest in Scandinavian his-
tory.“Idiscoveredthestoryof the
1617 storm and the 1621 witch
trials through a piece of art — an
installation by (French-
American) artist Louise
Bourgeois. She created an ex-
traordinarycageof smokedglass,
inwhichsitsametalchair,onfire,
and surrounded by bronze mir-
rors.Itsaysalotaboutculpability,
voyeurism, horror, and beauty,”
says Hargrave, 30. The memorial, built by
BourgeoisandSwissarchitectPeterZumthor,
is a tribute to the victims of the witch trials.
The Mercies (Picador, Rs 699), Hargrave’s
firstnovelforadults,whichsawa13-waybid
for publishing rights, opens into a world
where the storm brings devastation and re-
silience,grief andjealousy,andagrowingre-
ligious hysteria, that will, inevitably, leave
desolation in its wake. In 1618, the Danish
king Christian IV, introduced anti-sorcery-
and-witchcraft laws, inspired by his Scottish
counterpart, King James VI. Aimed primarily
at the indigenous Sami population and their
pagan rituals, these laws soon encompassed
anyone considered deviant. In particular, it
was used against women who were uncon-
ventional— women likethose in Vardø, who
slipped into the shoes of their dead menfolk,
learningtofishandgrazereindeer,tobutcher
meat and to survive. Over 50 witch trials
were held in the region under the supervi-
sion of its governor, John Cunningham, and
many of the Vardø women were
burnt at the stake.
The characters Hargrave con-
structs — Maren, who loses her
father, brother and fiancé, but
who must renegotiate the rules
of survivalontheisland;Ursa,the
teenager from Bergen, in an un-
equal marriage with the fanati-
cal new governor of Vardø;
Karen, the outspoken woman
with a disregard for taboos, and
a host of others — are reminis-
cent of a long line of feminist heroines who
have to face up to systemic, structural patri-
archy. “I always react against the phrase
‘strong women’ because all women are
strong. But it’s still the case that women
struggletobeseenasempowered,beitphys-
ically,emotionally,financially…Ithinkequal-
ity scares those who see themselves having
the most to lose — people with power will
do anything to keep it,” she says.
In many ways, The Mercies is anextension
AGAINST ALL ofHargrave’swritingsforchildren,markedby
ODDS hersurefootedsenseofatmosphereandchar-
acter. Hargrave, whose childhood was full of
Writer Kiran books and travel, says she has always aspired
Millwood Hargrave for fluidity in her writing. “They (writing for
adultsandforchildren)aredifferentintheme
and tone, but my style is consistent through-
out. I’ve always admired writers like Philip
Pullman,EvaIbbotson,andMargaretAtwood,
who skip through genres and form and trust
their readers to follow them,” she says.
Readerswhohavefollowedhersteadyrise
have travelled on the wings of her words to
distant islands, set apart from the mainland
by their own ecosystems. Her debut novel —
TheGirlofInkandStars(2016)—thatwonher
the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2017
andtheBritishBookAward’sChildren’sBook
of the Year — is the story of another island
dweller, Isabella, a cartographer’s daughter,
whoembarksonamissiontofindhermissing
TOMDEFRESTON
best friend, disguised as a boy. In The Island at
the End of Everything (2017), her second book
for children, shortlisted for the 2017 Costa
BookAwards,Hargraveturnstohistoricalfic-
tion and tells the story of Ami, who lives on
Culion Island in the Philippines, once the
world’s biggest leper colony. The arrival of a
newgovernmentofficialmeanshealthychil-
dren like Ami have to leave behind their ail-
ing family members and move to an orphan-
age across the sea. In The Way Past Winter
(2018),Milaandhersistershavetofindaway
torescuetheirbrotherOskar,whodisappears
the morning after mysterious strangers land
up at their place asking for food and shelter
for the night.
In each of these books, Hargrave offers a
compelling view of the feminine experience
that mustovercome loss,discrimination and
injustice to own the relationships and iden-
tities they forge. To this end, the island as a
setting offers her a perfect microcosm of the
world.“I’malwaysinterestedbynationhood,
bywhatmakespeoplefeeltheyhaveowner-
ship over a piece of land, and this is so strong
on islands. It’s a dangerous thing, the suspi-
cionof outsiders,theintoleranceof incomers.
That way prejudice and bigotry lie,” she says.
If her books for children are lit up by em-
pathy and an independence of spirit, it is not
because she talks down to her readers but
because she refusestoairbrushoutthedark-
ness. Hargrave remembers being encour-
aged by her parents to ask questions and her
half-Indian mother instilling in her the im-
portance of believing in herself. “I valued au-
thenticity as a child. As adults, we forget that
children experience the world with as much
conflict and complication as grown-ups do.
Books can offer a safe space to negotiate
these experiences. Children encounter bul-
lies, loss, sadness — it’s important to speak
openly about these so they have the tools to
processthem...I’d rather a childencountered
them first in a book, so they feel better
equipped if they come across them in life,”
she says.
Her own resilience has been built on a
happy, stable childhood and her pushback
against depression that came on the heels of
a traumatic incident when she was 19. “It is
an illness, and has led to cancelling events,
pushing deadlines. But I’m tentatively hope-
ful that those days are behind me. I’ve
worked hard in therapy, and found the right
medication to manage my condition. It’s
something I can live with. Perhaps, it’s made
me more empathetic, but I’m very anti the
ideaof promotingmentalhealthasaroman-
tic thing, something writers and artists, in
particular, nobly wrestle with. The truth is
it’s debilitating, exhausting, ugly,” she says.
In Oxford, where she lives with her artist
husband and her cat, she has spent the lock-
down in industry, editing two shorter works
for children and writing her next novel for
adults — “another work of historical fiction,
based around an event of mass hysteria, set
in the hottest summer Europe ever knew,”
she says.
 14 SPORT
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS, JUNE 7, 2020
Former Bagan player dies of Covid
Former Mohun Bagan player , E Hamsakoya (61), who had
tested positive for COVID-19, succumbed to the virus early
Saturday at a hospital in Malappuram, taking the toll due to the
infection in Kerala to 15.

Sammy alleges racist

abuse while playing IPL
FORMER WEST Indies captain Daren Sammy
alleged that he was at the receiving end of a
racial slur, “kalu”, while playing
for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the
Indian Premier League.
“I just learnt what that ‘kalu’
meant when I played for
Sunrisers in the IPL. They call
me and Perera by that name. I
thought it meant strong
Stallion. My previous post tells
me something different and I’m
angry,” Sammy posted on Instagram on
Saturday. His earlier post read: “Oh so that’s
what that meant when they called me and
@tp_perera kalu in India when we played for
Sunrisers. I just thought they were calling me
strong black man... I’m more piss (sic) now.”
Sammy has already taken his protest to the
International Cricket Council (ICC), urging
the game’s global body to open its eyes and
speak up against racism. Sammy is probably
We were wrong for not listening
to players earlier: NFL chief
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the
league was wrong for not listening to players
fighting for racial equality and encouraged
them to peacefully protest. One day after
2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes and several
of his peers released a video demanding the
league condemn racism, Goodell made his
strongest statement on the issues many
players passionately support. George Floyd's
death has ignited nationwide protests over
racial injustice and police brutality, issues
former San Francisco 49ers quarterback
Colin Kaepernick began speaking out against
in 2016 . "It has been a difficult time for our
country. In particular, black people in our
country," Goodell said in a video released
Friday. "..We, the National Football League,
condemn racism and the systematic oppres-
sion of black people. “We, the National
Football League, admit we were wrong for
not listening to NFL players earlier and en-
courage all to speak out and peacefully
protest. We, the National Football League,
believe Black Lives Matter. I personally
protest with you and want to be part of the
much needed change in this country.” AP
the first cricketer to put the ICC in the line of
fire, as the #BlackLivesMatter campaign
gathers steam by the day.
“@ICC and all the other boards
are you guys not seeing what’s
happening to ppl like me? Are
you not gonna speak against
the social injustice against my
kind. This is not only about
America. This happens every-
day #BlackLivesMatter now is
not the time to be silent. I
wanna hear u,” Sammy, who played 38 Tests,
126 ODIs and 68 T20 Internationals, posted
on Twitter.Sammy’s follow-up tweet said:
“For too long black people have suffered. I’m
all the way in St Lucia and I’m frustrated If
you see me as a teammate then you see
#GeorgeFloyd Can you be part of the change
by showing your support.
#BlackLivesMatter”. Sammy posted his
tweets on June 2. ENS
Jordan to donate $100 million
for racial equality and justice
Michael Jordan and the Jordan Brand are
giving $100 million to organizations dedi-
cated to promoting racial equality and so-
cial justice. In a joint statement Friday on
social media, Jordan and the Jordan Brand
said money will be paid over 10 years with
the goal of “ensuring racial equality, social
justice and greater access to education.”
“Black lives matter,” the statement said.
“This isn't a controversial statement. Until
the ingrained racism that allows our coun-
try's institutions to fail is completely eradi-
cated, we will remain committed to pro-
tecting and improving the lives of black
people.” Jordan, the 57-year-old former
Chicago Bulls great, is the owner of the
Charlotte Hornets. The Jordan Brand is a
subsidiary of Nike, the shoe giant that ear-
lier Friday committed $40 million over the
next four years to support the black com-
munity. Jordan also released a statement
Monday on George Floyd and the killings of
black people at the hands of police. “I am
deeply saddened, truly pained and plain an-
gry,” Jordan said. “I see and feel everyone's
pain, outrage and frustration...” AP
Before Kaepernick, there was Hodges
One of the finest shooters in the NBA, HODGES spoke
openly of racial oppression in the league in 90s, and
was subsequently ostracised. He talks to GAURAV
BHATT about the travails and turmoils of his time and
connects it with the present context in the US.
A SHARPSHOOTER, Craig Hodges helped
Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls to their first
two championships in 1991 and 1992. He
remains the only other player after Larry
Bird to win three successive three-point
contests at the All-Star weekend. But Hodges
was run out of the league for being politi-
cally outspoken, on issues ranging from
struggles of Chicago's black community to
the lack of black leadership in the NBA.
After the 1992 championship win,
Hodges went to the traditional White House
visit clad in a sparkling white 'dashiki' and
holding an eight-page letter for president
George Bush Sr detailing the ordeals of the
African-Americans. Bush never replied, and
Hodges was released by the Bulls, never to
be touched by another NBA team.
In a conversation with The Indian Express,
Hodges talks about the ongoing movement
in America, NFL's decision to back Colin
Kaepernick's protest, and why Jordan never
took him up on the offer to boycott an NBA
final game.
What are your views on the current
social unrest in America and do you see
any parallels with the Rodney King
beatdown in 1991?
It's been a recurring incident, the vio-
lence against black people by the police. In
1991, we were in the championship run
when Rodney King was beaten. Now we
have George Floyd being murdered. This
time around, it's a different energy because
young people all over the globe have spo-
ken and are looking at the oppression.
It was during that 1991 Championship
run when you walked up to the Michael
Jordan and Magic Johnson with the
boycott idea.
During the 1963 All-Star game, Jerry
West and Elgin Baylor voted to boycott the
All-Star weekend (the Lakers players, fight-
ing for a pension plan, were threatened with
their careers before the commissioner
agreed to a discussion).
I felt like the precedent had been set, as
far as being able to have a work stoppage to
get some type of solutions in terms of black
ownership, black management, coaches.
The day before the first game (of the NBA fi-
nals), we had our practice session and the
Lakers practiced after us. I approached MJ.
'Man, what you think about us boycotting
the finals?' And he looked at me almost like,
'man, that's crazy'. I understood he looked
at it in a cursory way while I looked at it
more of a critical opportunity.
IapproachedMagicthesamenightandhe
justlookedatmeasifIwastalkingfromMars.
Then there was the White House trip...
Before I even had a chance to meet
President, I met Bush Jr. I had put on my
African garment (dashiki). So when he ap-
proached me, he was talking really slow, try-
ing to make sure I understand. 'That's an
awesome garment. Where are you from?'
And I'm like, 'Oh, thanks man! I'm from
Chicago heights' (laughs).
My mom marched in 1963, the March on
Washington with Dr. (Martin Luther) King.
For me to get a chance to go to the White
House and meet the President... My mother
didn't get a chance to say what she wanted
to say. There, I had a chance to speak on be-
half of our disenfranchised people and give
the message to the President.
The late 60s had a number of strong,
outspoken role models. What
transpired in the next two decades that
suddenly your stance wasn't the
popular opinion?
My voice was drowned out basically
through endorsements. As opposed to a
A photo from the 20th-anniversary celebration of Chicago Bulls' first title win
during the 1990-91 season. Craig Hodges, centre, holds the trophy. Jordan and
Scottie Pippen are to his left.
player standing up on the principles of jus-
tice, we stood up on principles of econom-
ics. I can't really get mad at a player who did-
n't (speak up). You only have a certain
amount of time earning those dollars. But at
the same time, we have a certain platform
to speak from while we're earning that
money.
NFL has come out and said that they
were wrong in how they didn't back
Kaepernick.
It's rather interesting. People are carry-
ing so much weight today. The NFL, they un-
derstand that the sleeping giant is waking
up, the black people in America... Now you
see the NFL starting to see the swell of sup-
port for black lives and the reality of injus-
tices.
Do you wish NBA had done something
like that back in the day to acknowledge
your mistreatment?
I think it's coming and they don't have a
choice. It's one of those things where I will
continue to raise my voice. Hopefully, the
NBA can follow suit and we get a chance to
tell our story and tell how we were discrim-
inated against. How our ability to earn a liv-
ing for our family was taken away from us.
Michael Jordan's 'The Last Dance' has
brought a lot of ill-intent to the surface. A lot
of things in the past have been, you know,
privately spoken about that no one ever
brought it to the public forefront. You can't
hide it anymore, man, because young people
have had a chance to take a closer look.
Speaking of 'The Last Dance', did you
expect the makers to give you a call and
share stories about Michael?
The crazy thing is, I didn't even know
they were doing a documentary until a week
before it came out. And my son told me
about it. When they interview 106 people,
and you didn't take the time to interview
your teammate that was in the backcourt
with you when we fought against Cleveland
and Detroit... For me, it's funny, it's childish.
It's great entertainment during this time
of quarantine. It's Mike's opinion and point
of view to put himself on a pedestal and to
knock other people down... I'm doing a doc-
umentary based on my book. I'm definitely
going to interview him if he would like to,
I'm reaching out (laughs).

BRIDGE YOUR WEEK AHEAD

SUNDAY CROSSWORD 2272 If it’s your
DeclarerSouth(Contract6H)Teams
QUICK CLUES
ACROSS Birthday ARIES(Mar21-Apr20)
There’s nothing
wrong withputting
LIBRA(Sep24-Oct23)
Theanswers areon
theway,butnotjust
NORTH 7. Damage caused in transit,
yourself first.Afterall, yet.Youarestill
perhaps ? (8)
♠ J109873 9. A food store (6)
someonemusttake deeplyconcerned
theinitiativeornothing would overwhatisbecominga
❤9763 10. "Taxi" actor Kaufman (4) Sunday June7 everget done.However,you seeminglyendless roundof
♦ 10 11. Different (10) Havefaithinthefuture.Positivetrendsare don’t knoweverything,andeven domesticchanges,yet youwill
♣Q2 12. Priyanka or Parineeti of Bollywood wellindicatedbytheSun-Moon youmusttake time out to soonfindthatcertainproblems
(6) alignment.If youbelieveinyourself as investigatethefacts, whetherby disappear.Infact,anumberof
SOUTH 14. Clerisy (8) readingbooks,talkingtoother planetslineupinyoursupport,
muchasothersdothenyourplanscould
♠ AQ 15. Garden dwarfs from Zurich? (6)
turnoutevenbetterthanexpected.
peopleortravellingtheworldto includingJupiterandVenus,the
❤AKQ84 16. Packed in a wooden box or case (6) findoutfor yourself. ancientheralds of goodfortune.
♦ AQJ6 19. The automobile fuel (8)
Monday June8 TAURUS(Apr21-May21) SCORPIO(Oct24-Nov23)
21. Confess one’s sins (6)
♣AJ 23. Living (10) Today’s stars bring qualities which are at Youaresupposedto Youareprobably
be bornunderthe tiredof hearing how
Atrumpisledandyourright-handopponentplaysthejack.Yourplan? 24. Seven days (4) oncetheatricalandmagical.Lookingahead, materialisticsign,and Jupiter’shelpful
25. Lunatic (6) your year could work out best if you bring nowisyourchanceto movementsare
You can assume the trumps break 3-1; within that assumption, the con-
tractis100%certainonanylayout. 26. Bankrolls (8) yourcreativepowerstothefore. proveit.Atightgroupof planets, supposedtobebringingyou
Remember thatsincethisisaTeamsmatch,youshouldnotconcernyour- DOWN moving throughyourmonetary goodfortune.However,you
selfwithovertricks.
TheWestHand:S-K62 H-1052 D-K943 C-K97
1. Eat noisily ? (6) Tuesday June9 house,will callyouto should understandthatperiods
2. Dark blue (4) demonstratethat recent of advancementandexpansion
TheEastHand:S-54 H-j D-8752 C-1086543 Declareopenhouse,welcomeinfriendsand indicationsof revisedprosperity carrywiththemtheirown brand
3. The metal household utensils (8)
In7H,you'dneed todolotsoffinessing.In6H,your goal is tousedummy's 4. Lament (6)
family, and hone your powers as a host. aremorethan justa flashin of careasyoustruggletocope
spadesasasourceoftricks,withoutconcerningyourselfaboutthelocation 5. Judge; referee or umpire (10) There are people who would like nothing thepan. withchangeswhichmaynotbe
of any of the missing kings. You draw trumps in three rounds (LHO started
with H1052) and then lay down the SA and AQ. LHO eyes your AQ suspi- 6. Left (8) better than an argument, so leave them. of yourownchoosing.
GEMINI(May22-June21)
ciously,andeventuallyducks(RHOfollowinglow).Ohwell–itmightnotbe 8. Without difficulty (6)
After aperiodin SAGITTARIUS(Nov24-Dec23)
soeasy.HadWesttakentheking,you'dhaveclaimedtherest. 13. Luminiferous (10) 21. Unable to gamble, perhaps? 18. She’s concealed by a fag at Harrow Wednesday June10 which ratherdull That marvellous
Are you tempted to take a ruffing finesse in diamonds? If you lay down the 15. Air of dignity, authority (8) Impossible! (2,4) (6) At times like these you know that only the matters,likemoney, planetJupiterisstill
DAandplaytheDQ,youareslatedfordefeat.Westcovers,youruffindummy 17. Dwelling (8) 23. Gets agreed damages set aside (10) 20. In the street outside, gets fifty per best will do, and you should try to make havetendedto stirringupyour
andareatthemercyofthe(losing)clubfinessefordownone(youstillhave 18. Alight from (3,3) dominate your attention,Venus, desiresandideas,
adiamondtolose). 24. They may be used to take pot-shots cent to eat (6) others accept your high standards. With a
20. Stupidity (6) (4) 22. Officer capturing lady of the same goddessof loveanddesire,takes which meansthat,althoughthe
It is better to make use of the power of dummy's D10. In fact, you have a little luck you’ll reach number one after
100%playinthepositionabove.Simplyleadalowdiamondfromyourhand. 22. Looked at (6) 25. Has another look at some shows, it generation (6) upapowerfulaspect. Don’t scalesarestilltippedagainst you,
If the defence takes the king, you have the rest (throw a club from dummy 24. ___ at : purposefully avoid noticing anotheryearhaspassed. expectdramaticchangesright theywon’tbelikethisfor too
is said ? (6) 24. Studies jailbirds’ scams
on your good diamonds and ruff your CJ in dummy). What if the defence ? (4) away.Whatyoucando,though, muchlonger.Rightnow,agreat
ducks?Evenbetter!YouwintheD10andruffaspadetosetupthesuit.Now 26. The first man to wield a pen in (4)
youmakeall13tricks. Egypt’s lake district (5,3) Thursday June11 isbegintoschedulea deal dependsonhowyou
As long as you suppressed the finessing urge, you had a sure road to make CRYPTIC CLUES Youmustbelieveinyourself,you’lldobestif profitablefuture. respondtoadverse
yourheartslam. ACROSS
DOWN
Solutions to 2271 youencourageotherstofulfiltheirpotential. circumstances,for thereis
DeclarerSouth(Contract4H) 1. Gets down to work in an ocean-
7. Ma, Tom, Bob got together to create QUICKCLUESAcross: 1Laxity,4Feeble, CANCER(June 22-July23) nothingwhichmaynotbe
going vessel (6) You’llbeinspiredtoputforwardyourpoint Yoursisoneof the turnedtoyouradvantage.
NORTH SOUTH (YOU) an explosive ? (4,4) 2. Army NCO gets two English ducks 9Pnin,10Canaryseed,11Somali,12
Appealed,13Incidence,15Edit,16Axes,17 ofview,nomatterwhatotherpeopleclaim. famousdoublesigns
9. Going astray, arrives back in
♠ 742 ♠ 963 hospital department (6)
(4) Preparing,21Shortest,22Chatty,24 of thezodiac,which CAPRICORN(Dec23-Jan20)
3. See a quarter in the game and some This weekrepresents
❤ 1098 ❤AQJ732 10. Thrust in which pig is sold? (4) monstrous goings-on here (4,4)
Dimensions,25Reap,26Mutiny,27
Foodie.Down:1Lincoln,2Xenia,3Tactile,
Friday June12 meansthatyouhave
avaluableandnot-to-
twonatures.Ontheonehand
♦ AQ32 ♦6 11. It’s difficult on boats if they adopt 4. Place of rest starts lurching – am in 5Europa,6Bystander,7Element,8 The next twelve months could be easier
youarethrustingandambitious, be-missedchancefor
♣864 ♣AKQ such a tough attitude (4-6) a madhouse! (6) Incarceration,14Inearnest,16Atheism,18 than you imagine. The chance of a massive ontheotherretiringand youtomakeafresh
Picasso,19Nutcase,20Person,23Acrid.
12. Idiot warily observes sound upheavalisdisappearing,leavingyoumuch start. Rememberthatyoucannot
WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Scottish jury (6)
5. Switched model thrones (10) CRYPTICCLUESAcross:1Kindle,4
better-equippedtocontrolyourownaffairs.
sensitive.Rightnow,Mars is
afford tobeheadstrongorhasty
6. Rough nut, out of practice and so Revamp,9Lynx,10Quidproquo,11 commandingyouto slipinto
1♠ 2H Pass dbl 14. New palm pots designed to unreliable! (8) Bounce,12Chandler,13Aerodrome,15 youraggressivemode.Yet,you when dealing with otherpeople.
2♠ Pass Pass 3❤ brighten the road (8) 8. In the nude, but only just! (6) Snot,16Rode,17Messieurs,21Launched,
Saturday June 13 alwayshavetoworkoutexactly Theminuteyouforgetthat
partnershavefeelingsof their
Pass 3❤ Pass Pass. 15. Humble style associated with holy 13. Odours nice, distribution unseemly 22Mighty,24Somnolence,25Rook,26
Evelyn,27ByJove.Down:1Keynote,2 This must be a time of renewed optimism. howfarpartnerscanbepushed.
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Pass man (6) (10) Nixon,3Liqueur,5Espial,6Avoidance,7 Relationswithchildrenshouldimprove,and LEO(July24-Aug23) youcomeunstuck.
16. Can one bear the sound of anything 15. Made a big difference that it is dull Prudent,8Discommending,14Ordinance,
WestleadstheSK,overtakenwiththeSAbyEast,whothenreturnsaclub. the prospects for romance look more It’sverymuchaweek
so horrible ? (6) red (8) 16Reawoke,18Summery,19Rat-hole,20 AQUARIUS (Jan21-Feb19)
YouareatriskoflosingthreespadesandtheSK.Isthereanywaytoavoidone Chilly,23Garbo. promising. of decisionsand
19. There’s point to not going straight 17. Finds and reads quickly through Lifeshowssignsof
ofthoselosers? choices.Youarelikely
and making a pile (8) the list (4,4) settling down. You
tobedrawn into
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confusionontheworkfrontand
recoveringfromthe
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high pressurestormsof thelast
JUMBLED WORDS DifficultyLevel4s
However,thereisnoinevitability
fewmonths,andthe
SOLUTION SUDOKU 4131

aboutthis.Whiletheplanets’
Instructions implicationsof events thattook
natural tendencyistodraw you
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intoconfrontations,thesewill fullysunkin. Thisshouldbea
therespectivesquaresbelow.Selectthelettersintheshadedsquaresandjumblethemtoget everydigitfrom1to9 onlytakeplaceif youfailto heed weektosavour,forplanetary
SUDOKU 4132

theanswerforthegivenquip. mustappearineachofthe thewarningsigns.

Ifyoucan’tbea_______,thenyou’lljusthavetobeahorriblewarning.—CatherineAird(4,7) pressuresarebalancedby
nineverticalcolumns,in helpfulinfluences.
VIRGO(Aug24-Sep23)
eachoftheninehorizontal It’saweekof two PISCES(Feb20-Mar20)
DMAEE AEODMP rowsandineachofthe halves,onewhen you Muchhas beensaid
nineboxes. canfocusonfamily, abouttheneed for
theotherforwork. major domestic
This islikelytobeoneof those changes.Hopefully,
LOOFA AINTGX DifficultyLevel maddeningperiodswhen someprogress hasbeen
1s=Veryeasy;2s=Easy; colleaguesseemcompletely madeasfarasfamily
undecidedas to whattheywant relationshipsareconcerned.If
3s=Medium;4s=Hard;
fromyou.But there’snopointin youhavegonesofarasto move
5s=VeryHard;6s= soundingoff aboutotherpeople home,youarestill notattheend
Catherine Aird
Answer: If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning. — Genius letting youdown.
SOLUTION: EDEMA, ALOOF, POMADE, TAXING of yourjourney.

Vol. XVIII No. 64.

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