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 hindustantimes.com PUNE/METRO
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n n Sunday, July 30, 2023

CBI to probe assault on NEP has ended slave

LAWMAKERS ASK
U.S. GOVT TO CUT
WAIT TIMES FOR
GREEN CARDS mindset, says Modi
3 women in Manipur Press Trust of India
letters@hindustantimes.com

WASHINGTON: A group of US law-

makers has urged the Biden
administration to take executive
Fareeha Iftikhar
letters@hindustantimes.com

NEW DELHI: The push for using

Neeraj Chauhan
letters@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau
of Investigation (CBI) has taken
over the probe into the May 4
sexual violence incident in Mani-
pur, where three women were
stripped and paraded naked, and
one was raped, people familiar
with the development said on
Saturday.
In an affidavit submitted in
the Supreme Court on July 27,
the Centre said that the case has
been transferred to the CBI, and
that the trial should be shifted
outside the state and completed
within six months of filing the
charge sheet. The federal
agency’s special investigation
team (SIT) is already probing six
other cases related to violence
and loot of weapons from the
armories in the ethnic violence-
hit state since June 10.
action to make priority dates cur-
rent for Green Card applicants
from India to reduce the 195-year-
long wait period which has left
them in a state of limbo.
Led by Congressmen Raja
Krishnamoorthi and Larry Buc-
shon, the bipartisan group of 56
lawmakers sent a letter to secre-
tary of state Antony Blinken and
department of homeland security
secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
requesting the administration take
executive action to provide relief to
high-skilled employment-based
visa holders.
continued on →4
DAMS 73% FULL;
PMC WITHDRAWS
DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, TMC MP Sushmita Dev, and Congress MP Adhir Ranjan
Chowdhury with other INDIA MPs in Bishnupur on Saturday. PTI WATER CUT IN CITY
mother tongue in education
under the National Education
Policy (2020) has initiated a
“new form of justice” in the
country, which will help create
a new generation that is free
from “mentality of slavery”,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
said on Saturday.
Inaugurating the Akhil Bhar-
tiya Shiksha Samagam at the
newly-inaugurated Bharat Man-
dapam in Delhi, the PM said the
world is looking at India as a
“nursery of new possibilities”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union education minister
“Education in the mother Dharmendra Pradhan in New Delhi on Saturday. HT PHOTO
tongue is initiating a new form
of justice for the students in world have an edge because of backwardness, and those who
India. It is a very significant step their local languages, the PM could not speak English were
towards social justice,” he said said, citing the example of most neglected and their talents were
as he emphasised that judging European nations that use their not recognised. As a result, the
students on the basis of lan-
guage instead of capabilities
native languages.
“Although India has an array
children of the rural areas
remained most affected,” Modi
was the “biggest injustice”. of established languages, they said.
Developed nations of the were presented as a sign of
continued on →4

The CBI took over the case
documents from the Manipur
Police late on Friday and re-reg-
istered the first information
report (FIR) against “unidenti-
fied persons” under sections
related to abduction, gang-rape
and murder, officials familiar
with the matter said.
According to procedure, CBI
usually re-registers cases taken
up based on references from the
Centre and state governments
and, if any new charges are to be
added, they are included while
filing a charge sheet.
“We will soon take the cus-
tody of accused persons arrested
by Manipur police and interro-
gate them, besides recording the
statements of the victims, their
continued on →4
Oppn delegation reaches Manipur to
express solidarity; ‘tourism’, says BJP
Utpal Parashar
letters@hindustantimes.com
GUWAHATI: A delegation of 21
lawmakers from the newly
formed opposition bloc, Indian
National Developmental Inclu-
sive Alliance (INDIA), on Satur-
day embarked on a two-day visit
to ethnic strife-torn Manipur
and visited relief camps housing
displaced people to take stock of
the situation.
At least 150 people have been
killed and nearly 50,000 dis-
placed in Manipur since May 3,
when ethnic violence erupted in
the northeastern state between
numerically dominant Meitei
community — which forms 53%
of the state population and
mostly inhabit Imphal Valley —
and tribal Kukis, who live prima-
rily in the hill districts.
“Both the Centre and state
government should wake up
from their stupor regarding the
situation in Manipur. People
have lost trust in the govern-
ment,” said Congress MP Adhir
Ranjan Chowdhury, who is part
of the delegation. “We are with
all the people of the state and
want peace and normalcy to be
restored.”
BJP leader and Union minister
Anurag Thakur hit out at the
MPs, saying that the “leaders
who have gone to Manipur are
political tourists”, and asked if
the same delegation will visit
TMC-ruled West Bengal and
Rajasthan, ruled by the Congress,
where, he said, “atrocities against
continued on →4
PUNE: With storage in five dams
that supply water to the city
crossing the 73%-mark, PMC
withdraws once-a-week water
cuts implemented across areas.
Pune district guardian minister
Chandrakant Patil made the
announcement on Saturday. →P2
→Two drown as car falls into Nira-Deoghar
dam’s backwaters, P2
TERROR CASE: 4TH
PERSON IN ATS NET
PUNE: The ATS arrested a sus-
pect from Ratnagiri for allegedly
providing “financial assistance”
to another person arrested by
the agency for helping two terror
suspects held in Pune. →P2
BJP effects organisational rejig
with an eye on 2024 outreach
Smriti Kak Ramachandran
letters@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: Effecting an organi-
sational change ahead of assem-
bly polls in five states later this
year and the 2024 general elec-
tions, Bharatiya Janata Party
president JP Nadda on Saturday
announced a new national team,
members of which have been
picked to balance regional aspi-
rations in line with the party’s
social engineering strategy of
giving a prominent role to lead-
ers from various castes.
For instance, from the poll-
bound Telangana, former state
unit president Bandi Sanjay, a
firebrand leader at the forefront
of taking on the Bharat Rashtra
Samithi (BRS) government in the
state, has been included as
national general secretary. The
inclusion of former Aligarh
Muslim University vice-chancel-
lor Tariq Mansoor, and Anil
Antony, son of former Congress
minister AK Antony, as national
secretaries is being seen as the
party’s effort to burnish its cre-
dentials as an inclusive party.
The reshuffle comes ahead of
Assembly elections in states
including Rajasthan, Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Tel-
angana before the end of this
year, as well as Lok Sabha elec-
tions in 2024. →P5

BISCUITS

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 02 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023

My Pune

Ghost town gets new lease of life

After the DPIL takeover of the
private Lavasa hill city,
investors see a ray of hope
Nadeem Inamdar and Yogesh Joshi
htmumbai@hindustantimes.com

PUNE: Once envisioned as a hilltop para-

dise for the rich, the private city of Lav-
asa in Pune district has over the years
slid into the depths of uncertainty
thanks to a plethora of impediments.
The July 21 verdict by the National Com-
pany Law Tribunal (NCLT), which
approved a proposal by Darwin Platform
Infrastructure Limited (DPIL) to take it
over, has rekindled the hopes of thou-
sands of home buyers and investors.
Despite several conditions and a com-
plex resolution plan approved by India’s
bankruptcy court, which can only be
executed subject to environmental clear-
ances, those who have put their money
into the hill city are daring to hope. “The
NCLT decision will revive the project, as
it promises fresh investment, which we
believe will change the current course of
events in Lavasa,” said Zal Eranee, 80, a
businessman from Mumbai who booked
four properties in 2011. Eranee is eagerly
awaiting the turnaround.
Rohington Darukhanwala, 78, is also
optimistic. The London-based business-
man invested in a Lavasa home over a
decade ago, hoping to spend his twilight
years with other family members in his
home country. “The NCLT order has
raised our hopes,” he said. “We are sure
the new entrant will give us the apart-
ment at the earliest.”
The new entrant, as of now, is
gung-ho about attending to the needs of
the home buyers and investors whose
money has been stuck for so many years.
Ajay Harinath Singh, group chairman of
DPIL, welcomed the NCLT verdict and
said his company was “very eager to
revitalise the ambitious project”. “The
plight of homebuyers, along with the
concerns of secured financial creditors,
will not go unnoticed by DPIL,” he said.
“The company promises to include the
stakeholders in the revival process and
prioritise their needs.”
Vineet Tulsyan of R3 Corporate Advis-
ors, the strategic advisor to DPIL, said
the NCLT order, though delayed, was
better late than never. “The initial task
will be to understand the ground situa-
tion, problems of the residents and other
complexities,” he said. “Revival of the
city and getting an environmental clear-
ance should be the priority. We are very
confident that the Darwin group will not
only revive Lavasa but create a beautiful
landmark destination.”
The story of Lavasa began as a gleam in
the eye of NCP leader Sharad Pawar and
Hindustan Construction Company (HCC)
The buildings that were once a vibrant red and yellow have lost their Mediterranean lustre and their appeal, overshadowed as they
are by concrete skeletons.
The township, a four-hour ride from Mumbai, was modelled on the lines of the cotton-candy harbour of Italy’s Portofino.
chairman and managing director (CMD)
Ajit Gulabchand in the 1990s. Pawar,
while flying by helicopter over a large
tract of vacant land in the Mulshi valley,
came up with the idea of developing the
space into a privately built and managed
city. To do his bidding, Gulabchand and a
few other businessmen formed an entity
called Lavasa Corporation.
The township, a four-hour ride away
from Mumbai, was modelled on the
lines of the cotton-candy harbour of
Italy’s Portofino. Originally planned
across 25,000 acres covering 18 villages,
its area was revised to 12,500 acres
under the Mulshi tehsil when it took off
in 2010. The first private project in
Maharashtra to receive Special Planning
Authority (SPA) status—which granted it
the power to draw up land use plans,
develop land in its jurisdiction and sanc-
tion construction—it was, all in all, an
overarching and wildly ambitious
project.
Buyers were instantly attracted to the
concept of an idyllic private city. “We
read about Lavasa in the newspapers,”
said Darukhanwala, who put down
roughly 80 % of the amount for his flat,
imagining that it would be a quick and
easy property buy. “We never imagined
that the project would be a disaster.”
Between 2010 and 2012, a one-bedroom
apartment in Lavasa cost about ₹30
lakh, while the bungalows went for
between ₹2 crore and ₹4 crore.
Darukhanwala’s sentiments resonate
with around 2,000 property buyers still
awaiting delivery of their homes. Mum-
bai-based Supreme Court advocate Jam-
shed Kama, 75, invested in two proper-
ties in the hill city in 2011 after being
lured by advertisements promising
world-class living standards for buyers.
“Later, the project floundered and we
were left in the lurch,” he said. Many
SANKET WANKHADE/HT PHOTO
buyers, who took hefty loans from banks
or sank their life savings into a Lavasa
property, were worse off than the
wealthy buyers.
How and why did things go
south so quickly?
As work began, the Lavasa project got
embroiled in numerous controversies,
ranging from allegations of forcible land
acquisition to violation of environmental
norms. By 2010, the project was dealt a
massive blow, as the central environ-
ment ministry, then led by Congress
leader Jairam Ramesh, issued a stop-
work notice, citing destruction of the
environment.
“In a way, the project was almost
killed by that order. It was unjust in
nature, as the ministry blocked the con-
struction on unreasonable grounds,”
said Vitthal Maniar, a long-time associ-
ate of Sharad Pawar and a stakeholder in
Lavasa Corporation, with 6.5% share-
holding.
The setback prompted promoters to
postpone the initial public offering that
would have allowed raising funds from
the market. It took one year for the min-
istry to revoke the stop-work notice,
although by this time a crucial period
had lapsed, adding to the promoters’
financial woes.
A further blow was to come in 2017,
when the then Devendra Fadnavis-led
government revoked Lavasa’s SPA tag. It
coincided with the Lavasa Corporation,
a subsidiary of HCC, filing for bank-
ruptcy in 2018 due to the large sums of
money it owed a consortium of banks.
From then on, the township began to
slowly slip into disrepair.
Today, the many unfinished buildings
resemble a ghost town where, instead of
the envisioned 400,000, only around
3,000 people, including native villagers,
live. The buildings that were once a
vibrant red and yellow have lost their
Mediterranean lustre and their appeal,
SANKET WANKHADE/HT PHOTO
overshadowed as they are by concrete
skeletons. The lakeside promenade,
which tourists thronged till 2017, now
wears a deserted look. The utter neglect
of the hill city and zero monitoring has
resulted in theft of construction material
after the project was stalled in 2017 due
to a financial crunch.
As marketed by its promoters, Lavasa
was suitable for industries such as hos-
pitality, tourism, health, education and
IT & ITES. A few hotels, a hospital and
educational institutions did set up their
establishments. As things began to turn
adverse and the flow of people waned,
many of them shut shop. The villagers
who originally owned the land had
invested the money they got in busi-
nesses such as heavy vehicles and cabs,
which were roped in by Lavasa Corpora-
tion during the construction phase.
Many others set up small eateries to
serve construction workers and tourists.
All of them are now at a loose end.
While buyers waiting interminably
for their houses have been suffering, life
for the few living in Lavasa is no cake-
walk either. Power cuts have become
frequent, garbage collection is negligi-
ble, and maintenance of the common
utilities is nearly non-existent. Accord-
ing to Minoo Wadia, president of the
Apex Association of Lavasa Property
Owners, things have come to a standstill
for the past few years. “All the common
amenities here have crumbled,” said
Wadia, 80, a retired Air Force officer
who bought two flats 12 years ago. “At
times, those living here have to pitch in
with their own funds to get some com-
mon utilities up and running.”
In September 2022, power supply to
the hill city was disconnected after the
Lavasa administration failed to pay its
₹22.78-crore dues to the power utility
company of the state government. The
power cut impacted the sewage and
water treatment plants. Eventually, the
supply was restored after payment of a
P
The NCLT order has raised our
hopes. The plight of
homebuyers, along with the
concerns of secured financial
creditors, will not go unnoticed
by DPIL
ROHINGTON DARUKHANWALA,
London-based businessman
P
All the common amenities here
have crumbled. At times, those
living here have to pitch in with
their own funds to get common
utilities up and running
MINOO WADIA, retired Air Force officer
partial sum, but it highlighted the deep
financial mess Lavasa was in.
Rajgopal Nogja, who was CEO of Lav-
asa Corporation, declined to answer
questions on how the Lavasa dream col-
lapsed and why attempts to revive the
project failed. Gulabchand could not be
contacted.
Today after six years, when the reso-
lution process has been concluded, rows
of buildings with ready apartments are
empty for want of new buyers. These
apartments, along with under-construc-
tion structures, await proactive meas-
ures from DPIL, which won the ₹1,864-
crore bid to acquire Lavasa Corporation.
However, it will not be that easy.
DPIL’s resolution plan envisages the
delivery of fully constructed properties
to home buyers within five years of get-
ting environmental clearance. At the
same time, home buyers will be able to
get delivery of their incomplete houses
only when they pay the actual future
cost. Those looking to exit the project
will get only back 40% of the amount
they had paid, within 24 months of the
receipt of environment clearance for the
first phase.
As of now, hopes are high on the part
of house owners and investors. Whether
their dissipated dreams can be resur-
rected remains to be seen.

ATS arrests man from
Ratnagiri for assisting
2 suspects held in Pune
Shrinivas Deshpande
shrinivas.deshpande@htlive.com
PUNE: The Anti-Terrorism
Squad (ATS) has arrested a sus-
pect from Ratnagiri for alleg-
edly providing “financial assist-
ance” to another person already
arrested by the agency, officials
said on Saturday.
According to the probe offi-
cials, the arrested man offered
financial help to another sus-
pect who in turn had offered
shelter to two terror suspects
arrested by the Kothrud police
on July 18.
A senior ATS official said,
“This is the fourth arrest in the
case. During investigation, it
was found that the suspect from
Ratnagiri was providing finan-
cial assistance to arrested
accused number 3.”
The central agency had ear-
lier detained and questioned the
Ratnagiri-based suspect for two
days, he is now been sent to
police custody till August 5.
The identity of the person
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arrested on Friday has not been
disclosed by the agency. Earlier,
the ATS arrested Kadir Dastagir
Pathan (33) from Gondia area of
the Maharashtra for giving shel-
ter to Mohammad Imran
Mohammad Yunus Khan (23)
and Mohammad Yunus
Mohammad Yakub Saki (24).
Khan and Saki, members of
the ISIS inspired outfit Sufa,
were arrested by the Kothrud
police earlier this month in bike
theft case. As the terror links of
Khan and Saki emerged, the
ATS took over probe and
invoked Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act (UAPA) in case.
According to the ATS, the duo
had fled Ratlam after coming to
know that their names cropped
up in the investigation in the
terror case in which some sus-
pected members of the Al-Sufa
outfit were apprehended by the
Rajasthan police from the Mad-
hya Pradesh town.
They landed in Mumbai,
where they stayed at the Bhendi
Bazaar area for two to three
days and then came to Pune’s
Kondhwa area.
They befriended a third per-
son, a resident of Jharkhand,
who managed to escape when
the police nabbed the duo. The
ATS said that they recovered a
tent which the two terror sus-
pects had procured to live in
forest areas.
After arrest, officials recov-
ered items such as laptops, tab-
lets, weighing machines, parts
of drones, maps, electric cir-
cuits, a soldering gun, black
powder, and books written in
Arabic, from them.
“During the analysis of black
powder, it came to light that it
was an explosive substance,”
the ATS officials claimed.
Sources said that the two ter-
ror suspects were exploring
possible hideouts in the jungle
areas surrounding Pune district
in a bid to escape the eyes of the
investigation agencies. The ATS
had said in its statement that
multiple teams were working to
trace the other suspect.
Two drown after car
falls into Nira-Deoghar
dam’s backwaters
Shrinivas Deshpande
shrinivas.deshpande@htlive.com
PUNE: Bodies of two passengers
were recovered from the back-
waters of Nira-Deoghar Dam
after the car they were travel-
ling in with two others fell in
the waterbody from Varandha
Ghat on Saturday morning.
The deceased have been iden-
tified as Akshay Ramesh Dhade
(27) of Aqua Mist in Ravet and
Harshpreet Harpreetsingh
Bamba (30), resident of Pashan
and hailing from Jabalpur in
Madhya Pradesh. Dhade’s
friend Swapnil Parshuram
Shinde (27) of Hadapsar, who
was also in the car, is missing.
The fourth passenger, Sanket
Viresh Joshi (28) of Pashan and
hailing from Gujarat, survived
the accident and filed a first
information report (FIR) at
Bhor police station.
According to the police,
Akshay and Harpreet were to
marry each other soon. Dhade
and Shinde were working at an
IT firm since last five years.
The four persons had gath-
ered at Joshi’s house on Friday
The deceased, Akshay Dhade
and Harshpreet Bamba (L). HT
night for a weekend trip to
Mahad via Bhor. Akshay was
driving the car at the ghat sec-
tion of Varawand village area
and the speeding vehicle lost
balance and fell from 50-metre
deep valley. Joshi managed to
open door of the car and sur-
vived the accident. He sustained
injuries on his hands and legs.
A Bhor police team and other
emergency services were
pressed for rescue operation.
Baliram Sangale, sub-inspec-
tor, Bhor police station, said,
“Both Pune and Raigad district
administration had banned
travel on Varandha Ghat route
during monsoon season.”
Later, the team fished out
bodies of Dhade and Harsh-
preet, and recovered the car.
PMC withdraws water cut
as levels in dams cross 73%
HT Correspondent
puneletters@htlive.com
Incessant rainfall in catchments
PUNE: With storage in five dams boosts dam stock
that supply water to the city Water storage (TMC) per cent
crossing the 73 per cent mark,
the Pune Municipal Corpora-
tion (PMC) has decided to can-
cel the once-a-week water cuts
implemented across areas. Pune
district guardian minister Chan- 1.94 8.45 9.34 7.67 2.03
drakant Patil made the
announcement on Saturday. 98.41
Patil, after taking review of
the water situation in the dis-
79.34 72.84 70.14
trict during the meeting at Cir-
cuit House on Friday, instructed
54.69
the administration and water
resource department to release
Khadakwasla Panshet Warasgaon Bhama Temghar
water for agricultural purpose.
Askhed
Earlier, considering low
water storage at dams and the TOTAL STORAGE IN DAMS
El Nino warning, PMC had
July 28, July 28,
introduced weekly cut on
Thursdays. Residents of some 2022 21.46 TMC 2023 27 TMC
areas had complained that the
water cut was stretched to three head Aniruddha Pawaskar were ment will release water to fill up
days to regularise supply. present at the meeting. small lakes in the district. “We
Pune municipal commis- “As there have been good will review water situation in
sioner Vikram Kumar, Pune dis- rains in catchment areas and the next few days and take deci-
trict collector Rajesh Desh- enough stock at dams, I have sion accordingly,” Patil said.
mukh, irrigation department instructed officials to withdraw As on Friday, the storage in
officer Prasanna Joshi, execu- water cuts,” said Patil. five dams stands at 27 TMC. On
tive engineer Shewata Kurhade According to the guardian the same day last year, it was
and PMC water department minister, the irrigation depart- 21.46 TMC.
 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023 My Pune 03
{ METRO EXTENSION LIKELY ON AUG 1 }
WOMAN SENIOR Police book three for
Incomplete infra raises worry
MANAGER LOSES
₹20.81 LAKH IN avoiding housing society
CUSTOMS FRAUD elevator maintenance

as Maha-Metro yet to fix FoBs

Shrinivas Deshpande
shrinivas.deshpande@htlive.com
PUNE: The Pune cyber police
have booked an unidentified
person for allegedly cheating a
HT Correspondent
puneletters@htlive.com
PUNE: Pimpri-Chinchwad police
booked three including a build-
using the elevator. However, the
elevator did not halt at their
desired floor but directly
stopped at the tenth floor. Even
when they stepped out of the

Hardikar replaces Karir woman resident of Karvenagar

The works on metro FoBs near Sambhaji Garden on JM Road and
Deccan Gymkhana (inset) are underway.
Siddharth Gadkari
puneletters@htlive.com
PUNE: The Maharashtra Metro
Rail Corporation Limited
(Maha-Metro) is eager to com-
mence service on two stretches
next week but is facing challen-
ges in completing essential
infrastructure, such as foot-over
bridges (FoBs) and separate
entry, exit points at the majority
of stations. This incomplete
work could yet lead to incon-
venience for commuters.
Maha-Metro is all set to
launch passenger services on
two stretches from 1 August
running from Garware College
to Ruby Hall Clinic and from
Phugewadi to Civil Court. The
inauguration event will be
graced by Prime Minister Nar-
endra Modi and marks a signifi-
KALPESH NUKTE/ HT
cant milestone in the city’s
transportation.
Vinod Agrawal, director
(Operations) of Maha-Metro,
acknowledged that currently,
most metro stations have only
one staircase serving as both the
entry and exit points.
Agrawal stated, “There is one
staircase ready on stations at
Deccan Gymkhana, Chhatrapati
Sambhaji Maharaj Park, and
Pune Municipal Corporation
(PMC), whereas separate entry
and exit points are available at
Mangalwar Peth, Ruby Hall,
and Pune station.”
For time being, Maha-Metro
is operating three-coach trains
on these stretches, making sin-
gle entry and exit points suffi-
cient. However, work to com-
plete two entry and exit points
per station is underway and
expected to be finished soon.
FoBs play a crucial role in
facilitating easy access to metro
stations for commuters coming
from Fergusson College Road,
Jangali Maharaj Road, and Peth
areas. However, incomplete
work may pose problems in
accessing the metro stations.
At Deccan Gymkhana, three
entry-exit points are planned
from JM Road. One entry point
will be near the PMPML bus
stop, equipped with an escalator
and staircase. The FoB will con-
nect to the concourse level of
the Metro station. Another
entry point will be near the
Z-bridge entrance, accessible
from both sides of the road, also
landing at the concourse level of
the station. However, the FoB
work at these locations is yet to
be completed.
as managing director
Siddharth Gadkari
puneletters@htlive.com
PUNE: IAS officer Shravan Har-
dikar assumed charge as man-
aging director (MD) of Maha-
rashtra Metro Rail Corporation
Limited (Maha-Metro) from
additional chief secretary
(Finance) Nitin Karir on Satur-
day.
Hardikar’s last stint was as
the additional municipal com-
missioner of Brihanmumbai
Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Karir took charge as Maha-
Metro managing director on
May 15, 2023, following the
completion of Brajesh Dixit’s
term. However, after two
months in charge, the state gov-
ernment decided to replace him
with Hardikar.
Dixit had served as the man-
aging director of Maha-Metro
for eight years, while Karir’s
tenure lasted for only two
months.
Hardikar, belonging to the
2005 batch of IAS officers, had
previously served as the com-
missioner of Nagpur Municipal
Corporation from 2015 January
to 2017 April.
His previous experience is
expected to provide insights
into the workings of the metro
system. Hardikar’s priority will
be to ensure the timely comple-
tion of Metro Phase II.
Outgoing MD Karir (L) welcome
Hardikar on Saturday. HT
HARDIKAR’S LAST
STINT WAS AS THE
ADDITIONAL
MUNICIPAL
COMMISSIONER OF
BRIHANMUMBAI
MUNICIPAL
CORPORATION
In May 2023, Dixit tendered
his resignation as the managing
director of Maha-Metro follow-
ing the Accountant General’s
report on Maha-metro’s work.
However, instead of appoint-
ing a new officer to succeed
Dixit, the State government
assigned the additional charge
of his post to Karir, additional
secretary, and finance, accord-
ing to state officials.
of ₹20.81 lakh on the pretext of
her parcel, containing six fake
ing contractor and an elevator
maintenance firm for providing
a faulty elevator to the Sai
elevator, it suddenly went
downward and collapsed.
As per the complainant, the
passports, credit cards and
drugs, being stuck with the cus-
Velocity phase II building in
Baner.
society residents have lodged
multiple complaints with the
toms department, said officials. The accused have been iden- elevator maintenance firm,
According to the police com- tified as contractor Prakash however, they have failed to
plaint filed on Friday, the Pandurang Chavan, resident of resolve the issue.
59-year-old senior-level man- Kothrud, Anil Ramchandra Jad- it has been alleged that the
ager working at the Aundh hav, and Retake Company, who accused deliberately ignored the
office of an Australia-based firm is responsible for the mainte- plaints and left society members
received a phone call from an nance of the elevator. to face the consequences.
unknown number on July 13 According to police, the inci- Immediately after the incident,
claiming to be representative of dent happened on Friday at 1:54 the complainant approached
an international courier com- pm. As per the complaint filed Hinjewadi police station and
pany. The caller said that her by Bharat Tatyaba Chaudhari, registered the case under IPC
confiscated parcel contains ille- he and his wife were headed to sections 336 and 34 and further
gal items. She gets next call the seventh floor of the building investigation is underway.
from another number claiming
to be an officer named “Swami”
from the Mumbai police cyber
crime unit. The caller also has a
video call with the victim telling
her that the parcel contained six
fake passports, five credit cards
and 40 gm MDMA drugs pow-
der. Claiming that suspicious
money transactions were
detected in her bank account,
the caller demanded transfer of
money to accused’s account.
Chandrashekhar Swant,
inspector, cyber police station,
said, “To avoid police action, the
complainant transferred ₹20.81
lakh in 15 online transactions in
three hours. The caller claimed
to return the money after verifi-
cation by authorities, but she
later found that the caller had
switched off cellphone.”
Cyber police station has filed
a case under IPC sections 419,
420, 506 and 34 and Sections 66
C and D of the Information
Technolgy Act.

{ CONG, SENA TO JOIN AGITATION }

Pench Tiger Reserve gets
NTCA’s ‘excellent’ rating NCP to protest against PM Modi
Gayatri Vajpeyee
puneletters@htlive.com

PUNE: For its effective manage-

ment of the reserve area, the
Pench Tiger Reserve in Maha-
rashtra has achieved an ‘excel-
lent’ rating of 90.91 per cent
scores. Five other tiger reserves
in the state, Tadoba - Andhari,
Navegaon- Nagzira, Melghat,
Sahyadri, and Bor tiger reserve
have achieved a ‘very good’ rat-
ing with an effective score
between 77 to 87 per cent,
revealed the latest report by the
National Tiger Conservation
Authority (NTCA).
management perspectives of
Tiger Reserves and their associ-
ated landscape connectivity, the
NTCA and the Wildlife Institute
of India (WII) jointly conduct a
Management Effectiveness
Evaluation (MEE)- 2022. On the
occasion of Global Tiger Day on
Saturday, July 29, a final report
of the fifth cycle of MEE was
published by NTCA.
For the assessment of each of
the six elements of the MEE
Framework, 33 criteria have
been developed for the MEE of
Tiger Reserves in India.
In this assessment, Periyar
Tiger Reserve achieved the top
during award function on Aug 1
Abhay Khairnar
abhay.khairnar@htlive.com
PUNE: Even though Nationalist
Congress Party supremo Sharad
Pawar is expected to attend an
event where Prime Minister
Narendra Modi will be pre-
sented with the Lokmanya Tilak
Award on August 1, opposition
parties including the Congress,
NCP (Sharad Pawar camp), and
some social organisations have
decided to stage a joint protest
past had acknowledged that the
{ PRASHANT JAGTAP } NCP PUNE UNIT CHIEF call to Prime Minister Modi for
confirmation for attending the
P award ceremony was made by
himself days before his nephew
Ajit rebelled and took away the
When there is majority of party MLAs on July
2.
unrest in Congress vice president for
Maharashtra unit Mohan Joshi
Manipur, we said, “Prime Minister has time
demand that PM to visit foreign countries but no
time to visit Manipur. He
should visit doesn’t even have time to speak

A
To assist and improve the score of 94.53. against the Prime Minister. about Manipur in parliament.
When PM Modi visits Pune,
members of various political the state first. To condemn this, we have
decided to protest, and senior
Tiger reserves in state parties will wave black flags, led
by prominent social activist
activist Baba Adhav will lead
the agitation.”
AREA SCORE (%) RATING Baba Adhav. the issue but coming to Pune to fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak and The Shiv Sena (Uddhav
When asked about agitation accept the award. We demand vice president of Tilak Smarak Thackeray) faction has also
Pench 90.91 Excellent against the Prime Minister that the PM should visit Mani- Mandir Trust, which organises decided to participate in the
when Sharad Pawar will also be pur first.” the award ceremony, Pawar has protest. “PM is doing Maan Ki
Tadoba 87.88 Very Good present at the event as chief In Pune, Modi will be con- confirmed his presence at the Baat but not speaking at a con-
Melghat 84.85 Very Good guest, NCP city unit president ferred with Lokmanya Tilak function. stitutional platform like parlia-
Prashant Jagtap said their pro- National Award for 2023 in rec- “Even as the Lok Sabha’s ment. It is an insult to democ-
Nagzira 83.33 Very Good test is limited to PM Modi not ognition of his ‘supreme leader- monsoon session is underway, racy,” said the party’s city unit
visiting Manipur despite being ship’ and for ‘awakening the Pawar will be attending the chief Sanjay More.
Sahyadri 78.79 Very Good affected by conflict. feeling of patriotism among citi- event and may leave for Delhi Communist Party of India’s
“When there is unrest in zens’. immediately,” Tilak said. Ajit Abhyankar said, “Workers
Bor 77.27 Very Good
Manipur, the Prime Minister is According to Rohit Tilak, While Pawar has not spoken unions supported these agita-
(Source: National Tiger Conservation Authority) not showing any concern over great-grandson of freedom about his presence, he in the tions.”

Common Management Admission Committee 2023

CMAC - 2023
(www.cmacadmissions.com)
Admission Announcement for BBA Program-2023
Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW), Delhi Technological University
(DTU) and Netaji Subhas University of Technology (NSUT) invite online applications for the
common admission process of full-time Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) Program
offered at the following Universities/Institutes established by Govt. of NCT of Delhi:
• Department of Management Studies, NSUT - 120 Seats
• University School of Management & Entrepreneurship, DTU - 180 Seats
• Department of Management, IGDTUW - 75 Seats (Only for Female Candidates)
Eligibility Conditions: The candidate must have scored at least 50% marks for
IGDTUW and DTU (60% marks for NSUT) in 12th board examination from a recognized board
and must also have passed English (Core/Elective/Functional) as a subject in the 12th Board
Examination. The reserve category candidates are eligible for relaxation in minimum marks as
per applicable norms.
Selection Criteria: The merit list shall be drawn on the basis of CUET UG 2023 percentile in
paper 1 A (English Language, Code 101) and paper 3 (General Test, Code 501).

Apply online on www.cmacadmissions.com

Opening Date: 19.07.2023 Closing Date: 08.08.2023

www.igdtuw.ac.in www.dtu.ac.in www.nsut.ac.in
Helpdesk E-mail ID: cmacbba@igdtuw.ac.in
DIP/Shabdarth/Classified/0098/23-24

This PDF was uploade To Telegram channel_ LBS Newspaper platform (https://t.me/LBSNEWSPAPER):@LBSNEWSPAPER
 04 My Pune
PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023

197 public servants held

{ }
PM ON NEP
But the country has now
begun to shun this belief, he
OPPN DELEGATION...
women are happening”.
Soon after arriving at the
Imphal airport around noon, the
opposition delegation left for
Churachandpur, where they
pur, I will request Adhir Ranjan
Chowdhury to bring them to
West Bengal as well. I want to
ask him if he supports the atroci-
ties on women in West Bengal,”
Thakur said.
Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
However, the backlog has cre-
ated a significant barrier, hinder-
ing these talented individuals from
contributing meaningfully to the

in ’23 not suspended yet against the public servants

said.
“The country has now begun
to shun this belief with the
advent of the National Educa-
tional Policy…Even at the UN, I
speak in Indian language,” he
visited two relief camps housing
Kukis who had fled the Imphal
Valley after clashes broke out.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi,
also part of the delegation, when
about the BJP’s allegations of
He added whether the INDIA
bloc will also visit Rajasthan
where “crimes against women
are taking place” and submit
reports on West Bengal and
Rajasthan.
country’s growth and innovation,
FIIDS observed.
This year, FIIDS has made
efforts in addressing the concerns
of the immigrant Indian commu-
nity, in particular those related to
Vinay Dalvi
booked and/or arrested in the said. politicisation of the Manipur Union minister Arjun Ram Green Card and H-1B visas. “We
vinay.dalvi@hindustantimes.com Corruption charges corruption cases, mostly involv- Under the new policy, even issue, said: “We would have been Meghwal, too, accused the started efforts to get relief to
ing bribery charges.” subjects like social science and very happy to be a part of an all- Opposition of trying to politicise Indian H-1Bs who are stuck in
Accused Cases 668
MUMBAI: Around 197 public ser- Department-wise break-up of “Of the 276 cases, the outer engineering will be taught in party delegation led by the prime the issue. Green Card processing. We
vants arrested this year on cor- limit for the authorities to decide Indian languages, he said. minister. But he is completely “We are ready for discussion launched a change petition, we are
197 public servants arrested
ruption/bribery charges are yet 568 proposals for granting sanction “When the students are confi- missing from the scene. He has in Parliament. Defence Minister approaching representatives,
to be suspended. this year for corruption: to prosecute public servants/gov- dent in a language, their skills not uttered a single word about Rajnath Singh and Union Home other organisations and influen-
Similarly, 15 public servants ernment employees booked in and talent will emerge without Manipur in Parliament.” Minister Amit Shah have also cers. We are reaching out to the
despite being convicted in vari-
ous bribery cases are yet to be
402 476
53 Rural development
department corruption cases, but we haven’t
heard from their departments
any restrictions,” he said after
releasing education and skill
The delegation also met rep-
resentatives from Indigenous
said that they want to have dis-
cussions on the situation in
bureau of consular services in the
state department as well as USCIS
dismissed. In 276 cases, charge-
sheet could not be filed by the
2022
NO. OF CASES REGISTERED
2023
47 School education yet,” added the official.
Jeetendra Ghadge, RTI activ-
curriculum books translated
into 12 Indian languages at the
Tribal Leaders Forum, an
umbrella group of Kukis in Chu-
Manipur, but the Opposition is
trying to politicise the issue. This
in the DHS to take administrative
action to make the priority dates
ACB officials as the matter is ist, who has been consistently event held to mark the third rachandpur, who submitted a should not be done,” Meghwal current for green card applicants,”
either pending before the state
or the competent authority for
DIVISION-WISE
(2023, till mid-July) 26 Urban education
department following cases registered under
the PC Act and the ACB losely,
anniversary of the introduction
of NEP 2020.
memorandum asking the MPs to
highlight their demands. “We
told reporters in Chandigarh.
BJP MP Manoj Tiwari criti-
Khanderao Kand from FIIDS said.
H-1B visa is a non-immigrant
sanction.
“The number of cases regis-
Nashik 101 20 Revenue department said the statutory provisions
requiring sanction before prose-
The new policy advocates
imparting education in regional
implore you to help us survive
this onslaught by supporting our
cised the Opposition for doing
“political tourism” under the
visa that allows US companies to
employ foreign workers in special-
tered this year have gone up Pune 83 cution either under Section 197 Indian languages at both the demand for a separate adminis- garb of Manipur visit..” ity occupations that require
around 17% as compared to the
last year. Till mid-July of 2022, Aurangabad 80
17 Home department of the Criminal Procedure Code
or under Section 97 of the PC Act
school and higher education
levels.
tration from Manipur and to
urge the central government to ‘’Inhumane incidents
expertise. Technology companies
depend on it to hire tens of thou-
the Maharashtra ACB had regis-
tered 402 cases in which 568 Thane 56 15 State government
employees
intend to serve the purpose of
protecting a public servant.
At the event, the PM
announced that new books for
introduce President rule imme-
diately in Manipur to end the
painful’: LS Speaker Birla
calls for peace
sands of employees each year
from countries like India.
accused were involved, whereas “These protections are not about 130 subjects will soon be violence,” the ITLF said. SHILLONG: Lok Sabha Speaker
this year, so far, we have regis-
tered 476 cases against 668 per-
Mumbai 24 19 Others available to other citizens
because of the inherent vulnera-
launched for classes 3 to 12 in 22
different languages.
The delegation is expected to
visit Imphal on Sunday. A meet-
Om Birla on Saturday called for
peace in Manipur, saying the CBI PROBE IN MANIPUR
sons,” an ACB official said. bilities of a public servant and “National Educational Policy ing of the visiting delegation incidents the state witnessed families, and witnesses,” said an
The official said Nashik divi- “We have arrested 197 public department, followed by 47 from the need to protect them,” said will give due respect and credit with Governor Anusuiya Uikey since the outbreak of violence on officer, who didn’t want to be
sion has registered the highest servants red-handed while the school education and sports Ghadge. “However, the said pro- to every language in the coun- is also scheduled on Sunday. May 3 are “painful”. named.
number of cases (101), followed accepting bribes, but they are yet department, 26 from the urban tection is neither a shield against try,” the PM said, adding that it Uikey also visited relief camps Only peace can bring prosper- The video of a mob parading
by Pune (83), Aurangabad (80). to be suspended by their depart- development department, 20 dereliction of duty nor an abso- will “shut shops” of those who in Churachandpur on Saturday ity in the state and the region, he and assaulting three women after
He said the Mumbai and Thane ment heads,” said the official. from the revenue department lute immunity against corrupt try to “politicise language for — her second trip to the district said after inaugurating the 20th stripping them two months ago
divisions have registered 24 and “Most of them – 53 in all — and 17 from the home depart- practices. If they are protected their selfish interests”. since violence started. “...I have annual conference of the Com- in Manipur surfaced on July 19,
56 cases this year respectively. belong to rural development ment, which comprise police- and not suspended or dismissed In the next 25 years of Amrit instructed the district authorities monwealth Parliamentary Asso- almost three months after the
men/home-guards etc.,” added this will only boost their confi- Kaal, the PM said, the country to ensure that residents get ciation (CPA), India Region, incident, fanning fresh tension in
the official. dence and increase corruption,” needs an energetic new genera- essentials...,” Uikey said. organised at the Meghalaya the state and a nationwide outcry.
IYF¹FFÊ»F¹F ³F¦FSX d½FIYFÀF ³¹FFÀF, IYûMXF Similarly, despite being con- Ghadge added. tion that is free from “mentality assembly complex. According to the first infor-
IiY¸FFaIY: ERY.9/A.A.-´Fiû0/2023-24/195 dQ³FFaIY: 28.07.2023 victed of graft charges, 15 state Praveen Dixit, former director of slavery”, and eager to skill ‘Show-off, political “I have been pained by what- mation report (FIR) filed in the
Corrigendum government employees have not general of police (DGP), Maha- itself according to the needs of tourism’: BJP targets Oppn ever inhumane incidents have case, one of the three women of a
³F¦FSX d½FIYFÀF ³¹FFÀF, IYûMXF õXFSXF AF¸FadÂF°F d½FÄFd´°F ÀFc¨F³FF IiY¸FFaIY ERY.9/A.A.-´Fiû0/2023-24/174 dQ³FFaIY been dismissed from service by rashtra, who has also served as the 21st Century. delegation happened in the recent past. We family was gang raped while a
17.07.2023 ÀFZ kk¨F¸¶F»F dSX½FSX RiY³MX, IYûMXF (SXFªFÀ±FF³F) ¸FZÔ d½FIYdÀF°F ½FFd¯Fdª¹FIY À±FF³FûÔ, QbIYF³FûÔ, SmXÀ°FSXFa AüSX their respective departments. the DGP, ACB, had started a sys- “NEP will play a big role in As a team of the Opposition bloc are all hurt by them. The whole mob of 800-1,000 men killed her
A³¹F ¦Fd°Fd½Fd²F AFCXMX»FZMX IYû dIYSXF¹FZ ´FSX ÀFa¨FF»F³Fll IZY d»FE ´FiÀ°FF½F/AF½FZQ³F AF¸FadÂF°F IYSX³FZ IYe Aad°F¸F d°Fd±F IYû “In some cases, after they tem to upload names and even this,” he said. INDIA reached Manipur on Sat- society, states and the entire brother and father on May 4 in
ÀFaVFûd²F°F IYSX°FZ WbXE dQ³FFaIY 07.08.2023 °FIY dIY¹FF ªFF°FF W`XÜ Vû¿F VF°FZË ¹F±FF½F°F SXWZÔX¦FeÜ were convicted, they could not photos of the people who were Emphasising that among the urday to meet the victims of eth- country should tread the path of Thoubal district of Manipur.
Ad²FVFFÀFe Ad·F¹F³°FF be dismissed as they went in caught by the ACB on the various parameters of quality nic violence at relief camps, the peace. We should all make The family of five had fled to a
³F¦FSX d½FIYFÀF ³¹FFÀF, IYûMXF appeal and the matters have bureau’s website and further education, India’s big effort is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dis- efforts for the restoration of forest to escape the armed mob
been pending before courts,” details regarding the authority for “equality”, the PM said, “Pri- missed the visit as a “show-off” peace,” Birla said. that entered their village and
Rajasthan State Road Development And Construction Corporation Ltd., JAIPUR said the official. “The ACB has with whom proposal for sanc- ority of NEP is that every youth and an attempt at “political tour- vandalised houses. Police later
A»´FIYF»Fe³F BÊX-d³Fd½FQF ÀFc¨F³FF ÀFa£¹FF: 301/2023-24 sent proposals to various depart- tion was pending to put pressure of India should get the same ism”. With inputs from Agencies rescued the family. The mob sur-
d³F¸³Fd»Fd£F°F ´FdSX¹FûªF³FF ´FSX SXFªFÀ±FF³F SXFª¹F ÀFOÞXIY d½FIYFÀF E½Fa d³F¸FFʯF d³F¦F¸F d»F0 (RSRDC Ltd.) ¸FZÔ ´FaªFeIÈY°F MXFZ»F IY»FZ¢VF³F NZXIZYQFSXûÔ ÀFZ ments for attaching properties on the authorities to clear the education and the same oppor- A 21-member delegation, from rounded the family and took
´F±FIYSX ½FÀFc»Fe WZX°Fb BÊX-MZX³OXdSaX¦F ´FidIiY¹FF ÀFZ AFG³F»FFBX³F d³Fd½FQF AF¸FadÂF°F IYe ªFF°Fe W`X:-
IYF¹FÊ IYF d½F½FSX¯F AFSXdÃF°F SXFdVF (÷Y.)
worth ₹14 crore belonging to the proposals at the earliest. “We tunity for education… And this at least 20 political parties, them from police custody,
Collection of Toll Tax on "Salumber-Keer Ki Chowki & Debari-Kurabad- 863.46 Lakh public servants apprehended on used to send reminders to con- is not limited to opening arrived in Imphal early on Satur- GREEN CARD according to the FIR. They first
Bambora Road" for a period of 01 year. UBN: RRC2324SLOB00606 bribery charges this year,,” said cerned departments to decide on schools. Equality should be day as part of a two-day visit to In their letter, the US lawmak- killed a 56-year-old man on the
d³Fd½FQF ÀFZ ÀFa¶Fad²F°F ´Fi´FÂF ¸FZÔ d³Fd½FQF VFb»IY, ²FSXûWXSX SXFdVF, OXFCX³F»FûOX IYSX³FZ ½F £Fû»F³FZ IYe °FFSXe£F ÀFdWX°F ÀF¸´Fc¯FÊ d½F½FSX¯F E½Fa ÀFaVFû²F³F ½FZ¶FÀFFBXMX the ACB official. “In around 276 suspension or dismissal or for extended to resources along help resolve the ethnic conflict ers also appealed to the adminis- spot, and then assaulted the
http://eproc.rajasthan.gov.in, http://sppp.rajasthan.nic.in °F±FF http://roads.rajasthan.gov.in/rsrdc ´FSX
QZ£FF ªFF ÀFIY°FF W`XÜ BX¨LbXIY ÀFa½FZQIYûÔ IYû A´F³FZ dOXdªFMX»F WXÀ°FFÃFSX IZY ¸FF²¹F¸F ÀFZ ½FZ¶FÀFFBXMX http://eproc.rajasthan.gov.in ´FSX SXdªFÀMXOÊX matters, the ACB is waiting for decision relating to sanctions to with education. It means that that has roiled the northeastern tration to mark all dates for filing three women, the FIR added.
IYSX½FF³FF AF½FV¹FIY W`XÜ sanctions to file chargesheets filing of charges,” said Dixit. every child should get options state since May 3. The leaders of employment-based visa applica- Amid uproar, the Centre on
¸FWXF´Fi¶Fa²FIY
as per choice and capacity. No said the purpose of their visit tions in the Bureau of Consular Thursday filed an affidavit in the
child is deprived of education was to “represent the demands Affairs’ published Employment- Supreme Court stating that the
due to place, class, region.” of the people”. The delegation Based Visa Bulletin as “current”. case has been transferred to CBI.
SAMBHAJI BHIDE “In the age of 5G, these mod-
ern schools will be a medium of
will visit both the valley and hill
areas, and also call on Manipur
A Green Card, known officially
as a Permanent Resident Card, is a
“The central government consid-
ers the offences like the present
BOOKED FOR modern education,” he said. governor Anusuiya Uikey on document issued to immigrants to one to be too heinous which
Citing the example of Eklavya Sunday. the US as evidence that the bearer deserve to be taken not only with
REMARKS ON Schools, where internet facili- Hours before the delegation has been granted the privilege of the seriousness it deserves but
MAHATMA GANDHI ties in villages have helped stu-
dents receive education through
reached Manipur, Union infor-
mation and broadcasting minis-
residing permanently.
The current situation surround-
justice should be seen to be done
so that it has a deterrent effect
MUMBAI: Right-wing activist modes like DIKSHA, SWAYAM ter Anurag Thakur alleged that ing 7% country cap on employ- throughout the nation with
Sambhaji Bhide was booked on and Swayamprabha, the PM the visit was a “mere show-off”. ment-based Green Card allocation respect to crimes against
Saturday for allegedly making said, “Now, in India, the gap of “This visit is just an eyewash. is causing severe repercussions, women,” the affidavit filed by
objectionable remarks about resources needed for education The Opposition alliance never particularly for countries such as Union home secretary Ajay
Mahatma Gandhi in Amravati. is being covered rapidly.” spoke up when Manipur burned India, where the backlog has Kumar Bhalla said.
The development came a day At the event, Modi also under previous governments,” reached 195 years, said Founda- The Manipur police have, so
after the Congress raised the released the first installment of Thakur told ANI in West Bengal. tion for India and Indian Diaspora far, arrested seven people in the
issue in the assembly. ₹630 crore for the upgradation He also hit out at Congress Studies (FIIDS USA) in a separate sexual assault case, including
Bhide, who heads Shiv Prat- of 6,207 existing schools under Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan appeal to US President Joe Biden. some of those seen in the viral
ishthan Hindustan, in a public the Pradhan Mantri Schools for Chowdhury, who is part of the This backlog disproportionately video, while the hunt is on for
function said, “Mahatma Gan- Rising India (PM-SHRI). delegation visiting Manipur, and affects Indian tech professionals, others, said a senior police officer,
dhi’s name is Mohandas Karam- On steps taken to integrate asked if Chowdhury was willing who constitute a significant por- who didn’t wish to be named.
chand Gandhi, but Karamchand vocational education with gen- to take the fellow Opposition tion of the highly skilled STEM tal- Since May 3, Manipur has
Gandhi was not his father. A eral education under the NEP leaders to a similar visit to Ben- ent and US-educated graduates, been gripped by ethnic clashes —
Muslim landlord was the real 2020, the Prime Minister cited gal, where panchayat poll vio- playing a crucial role in maintain- primarily between the Kukis,
father of Mahatma Gandhi. Atal Tinkering Labs where over lence earlier this month has left ing the United States’ competitive who mostly reside in the hill dis-
There is evidence to support that 7.5 million students are learn- at least 29 dead. edge in the technology industries, tricts, and Meiteis, the dominant
Mohandas was raised and edu- ing about science and innova- “Once they return from Mani- it said. STEM stands for Science, community in Imphal Valley.
cated by Muslim parents.” “We tion.
have registered a case against “Science is simplifying itself
Bhide and are investigating the for everyone. It is these young { THE CROSSWORDS }
matter,” Seema Datalkar, inspec- scientists that will shape the
tor, Rajapeth police station. HTC future of the country by leading CRYPTIC CLUES PUZZLE 16559 ©Gemini Crosswords 2018 All rights reserved
significant projects and turn
Across
India into a research hub of the
1 Lip is part of one’s face (5)
world,” he said.
“Any reform requires cour- 4 Speech impediment? (7)
age, and the presence of cour- 8 It’s by way of being an extract of caviare (3)
age leads to the birth of new 9 Sure could be unsuspecting (9)
possibilities,” the Prime Minis- 10 Two ways to regard an informal survey (4-3)
ter said. 11 Sorts of riddles? (5)
The world is now viewing 13 Annual holiday ends too soon (6)
Indian education system with 15 Napping, the general is swallowed by a
renewed respect alongside snake (6)
industry and start-up ecosys- 18 Check about a source of power (5)
tems, the PM said. 19 He doesn’t believe he needs endless foreign
“Many countries are urging capital (7)
us to open IIT campuses in their 21 Very well do better friend (9)
own countries... Many global 23 Girl Friday; no cook (3)
universities are willing to open 24 Takes good steps not to have to walk in
their campuses in India due to the streets (7) QUICK CLUES
the positive changes coming in
{Sunday}
25 Teams that can’t be taken objectively (5) Across Down
the education ecosystem. Two
Australian universities are Down 1 Form a judgment of (3,2) 1 Speak haltingly (7)
www.htclassifieds.com about to open their campuses in
Gujarat’s GIFT City,” he said. On
1 Soldiers shout about naval lack of
leadership (7)
4 Seer (7)
8 Invite (3)
2 Cause trouble (4,5)
3 Ancient Greek
July 6, the government 2 Complicated to work out (9)
BUSINESS announced that the first inter-
9 In control (2,3,4) philosopher (5)
3 Thrills footballers may get on the field (5) 10 Kill wholesale by 4 Obvious (6)
national campus of the Indian
MACHINERY/ 4 Angled and he’d caught fish (6)
Institute of Technology will be gunfire (3,4) 5 Exceed a fixed limit (7)
TOOLS & PLANTS set up in Tanzania; an
5 Crusoe’s disguised tracks (7)
11 Hazardous (5) 6 Gradation of colour (3)
6 Stars in a couple of films (3)
PLYBOARD MACHINERY, announcement which was soon 13 To show (6) 7 British soldier (5)
Complete Set-up For Sale. followed by a similar one on the 7 One can never be quite sure if they’re there (5)
Contact : 9215000920, 12 Air which can invigorate the long-distance 15 Relax (6) 12 In good order (9)
9812016040 second campus being set up in
Abu Dhabi, on July 10. Appeal- runner (5,4) 18 Mean grasping person (5) 14 A dirigible (7)
ing to teachers and parents to 14 Restricted to one sort of company (7) 19 Quick sharp reply (7) 16 A visionary (7)
LOAN/FINANCE 16 Modern type of rock has peculiar fans (7)
prepare students for confident 21 Unexpected 17 Wild excitement (6)
BUSINESS FINANCE, Project Loan, curiosity and flights of imagina- 17 They bring work to doctors, misfortunes to transformation (3,6) 18 Pleasing sound (5)
Secured Loan, Unsecure Loan . tion, the PM said, “We have to the church (6)
23 Purpose (3) 20 Make insistent
Contact # 9004363265 keep an eye on the future and 18 Casks recycled as new containers (5)
think with a futuristic mindset. 24 At no great cost (7) demand (5)
20 In the bay wrecked ship sunk deep (5)
LOAN AGAINST Property/ Business/ We have to free the children 22 Mean as Dad sounds (3) 25 Absolute (5) 22 Grow old (3)
Peojects. +918754809650
babainvestments7@gmail.com from the pressure of books.”
SOLUTIONS FOR 16558
AT THE EVENT,
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RELEASED THE
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 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023
After 24% surge, India is now
home to 75% of tigers in world
Chetan Chauhan and
Neeraj Santoshi
letters@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI/DEHRADUN: India
recorded a 23.5% increase in tiger
population between 2018 and
2022, taking the number of big cats
in the wild to 3,682, more than the
initially estimated 3,167 and
accounting for 75% of the tigers in
the world. In April, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi had released an
interim estimation of 3,167 tigers.
India had 2,197 tigers in 2018, up
from 1,411 tigers in 2006.
The increase shows the success
of the country’s 20-year-old sci-
ence-based tiger conservation pro-
gramme, experts said. Around
80% of the tigers (2,885) now
reside in eight of the 18 tiger states,
including Madhya Pradesh, Kar-
nataka, Uttarakhand, Maharash-
tra, Tamil Nadu and Assam. MP
has the highest tiger population of
785, followed by 563 in Karnataka
and 444 in Maharashtra.
The central Indian and Western
Ghats landscapes have contrib-
uted 2,526 tigers to the total num-
ber, making them the most dense
tiger regions in the world, accord-
ing to state-wise estimation
reported on Saturday.
On the individual score, Cor-
bett National Park in Uttarakhand
and Kaziranga National Park in
Assam continue to be most
densely populated tiger reserves,
with 260 and 104 tiger, respec-
tively, with Bandhavgarh in Mad-
hya Pradesh and Bandipur in Kar-
nataka in close pursuit.
Globally, the number of tigers
increased from 3,890 in 2016 to
5,575 in 2023, with India and
Nepal doubling the numbers, said
a statement from the Global Tiger
Forum on Saturday. The
GTF counts vary slightly for the
overall global figure, due to which
India’s share according to this total
does not amount to the share
released by the government.
Rajesh Gopal, GTF secretary
general and former member sec-
retary of National Tiger Conserva-
tion Authority, attributed the
increase in tiger population in
India and range countries to the
philosophy of Project Tiger aimed
at protecting the feline in “core-
critical” parts of tiger habitats.
“The protection of tiger in core-
critical parts has been compli-
mented equally by multi-stake-
holder peripheral management of
buffer and beyond to address
interference problem with NTCA
feedback taken positively for pro-
jects in and around tiger habitats.
This has worked well,” he said.
In a paradigm shift on consider-
ing projects in and around tiger
habitats, the government takes
inputs from NTCA and tries to
include the NTCA recommenda-
tions in the final approval condi-
tions for projects. In some cases on
the basis of NTCA recommenda-
tion, projects have either been
altered or not allowed in and
around tiger habitats, most of
which are mineral- rich areas.
The rise in tiger numbers, espe-
cially in states like Uttarakhand,
Madhya Pradesh and Maharash-
tra reflects good health of the tiger
habitats, fruition of incentivised
scheme for relocation of villagers
{ ENDING BRITISH-ERA CUSTOMS }
Navy abandons colonial practice,
personnel to stop carrying batons
Rahul Singh
rahul.singh@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: In the latest step
towards shedding colonial prac-
tices, the Indian Navy has decided
that its personnel will no longer
carry ceremonial batons, officials
aware of the matter said on Satur-
day. Senior officers in command
roles, commanding officers of
warships, naval bases and other
establishments, and provost per-
sonnel responsible for policing,
vigilance and enforcement of dis-
cipline thus far carried batons.
The navy said the symbolism of
power portrayed by holding such
batons is a colonial legacy.
“With the passage of time,
carrying of batons by naval per-
sonnel has gradually become a
norm,” a naval headquarters let-
ter dated July 28 said. “The sym-
bolism of power or authority
portrayed through holding the
baton is a colonial legacy that is
out of place in a transformed
navy of the Amrit Kaal.”
Amrit Kaal refers to the 25
years leading to India’s Independ-
ence centenary in 2047.
The carrying of batons has
been discontinued with immedi-
ate effect. From now onwards,
the baton will find a place only in
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Decoding the key tiger report
The upper limit of the tiger population is now estimated to be 3,925 and the average number is 3,682
Big cat
numbers in
2,967
2018
the country
States with highest tiger numbers
2018 2022
Madhya Pradesh
Karnataka
Uttarakhand
Maharashtra
Tamil Nadu
States with lowest tiger numbers
2018 2022 Jharkhand
Nagaland 0 0 Goa
Mizoram 0 0 Arunachal
Reserves with highest
tiger population
Jim Corbett,
1 While Purandeswari was
Uttarakhand
Bandipur, 126
2 Andhra Pradesh to help shore up
Karnataka 150
Nagarhole, 127
3 Karnataka
141
Bandhavgarh, 104
4 MP 135
Dudhwa, 82
5 Uttar Pradesh
135
6 Mudumalai, 103
Tamil Nadu 114
7 Kaziranga, 104
Assam 104
Kanha, 88
8 Reserves with
MP 105
9 Sunderban,
West Bengal
88
100
from core areas and compara-
tively less poaching activities,
unlike in areas like northeastern
states, where the tiger population
has not risen like the rest of the
country, said YV Jhala, former
dean of Wildlife Institute of India
(WII). “Overall, northern states
have shown good progress, but
many southern states like Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana have
shown declining trends, which is
worrying,” Jhala said.
The reason for the increase in
tiger population in Madhya Pra-
desh and Maharashtra was an
increase in the area surveyed in
2022 compared to 2018, but that is
not a bad thing, said Anish Andhe-
ria, chief executive officer of Wild-
life Conservation Trust.
In Madhya Pradesh, 137 of the
785 tigers were found outside the
six reserves. In Maharashtra, of
the 444 tigers, at least 80 were
found to be outside the six notified
tiger habitats. In Karnataka, 136 of
the 563 tigers were found outside
the five tiger reserves.
Similarly, in Uttarakhand, 73
tigers were found outside the two
reserves — Corbett and Rajaji
National Park — of the total 560.
That was not the case in Odisha,
Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana
and Chhattisgarh, where either the
tigers’ numbers have declined or
have not increased substantially.
In Rajasthan, which is famous
PM Narendra Modi unveils the
new Naval Ensign ‘Nishaan’, in
Kochi in September 2022. ANI
offices. “A ceremonial baton may
be placed appropriately in the
office of the head of the organisa-
tion of every unit. A ceremonial
handing over of the baton may be
undertaken within the office, as a
part of Change of Command
only,” the letter added.
Last year, Prime Minister Nar-
endra Modi unveiled a naval
ensign at the commissioning
ceremony of aircraft carrier INS
Vikrant, with the new flag draw-
ing inspiration from the seal of
Maratha king Shivaji Maharaj
and the Cross of St George being
dropped, a move that the PM
described as getting rid of the
burden of a colonial past.
The army is also reviewing its
British-era customs and will dis-
3,682
2022
526
524
563
442
560
312
444
264
306
3 1
3 5
29 9
1 Uttrakhand
231
260
Pradesh
Madhya 8 4
Pradesh
I N D I A
karnataka
3 Reserves
2 Dampa, Mizoram, Kamlang, Arunachal
highest tiger
6 Tamil
Nadu
population
for Ranthambore and Sariska
tiger reserves, the big cats outside
the reserves were not found to be
many. “The number of tigers out-
side the reserve is an indicator of
the health of the corridors. For
instance, the green connectivity
between Kanha and Pench tiger
reserves is very good and there-
fore the entire landscape has seen
a good rise in tiger population,”
said Andheria.
The reserves, where the tiger
number has improved, have mini-
mised human conflict by shifting
villages out the reserve. Jhala said
the Central government pays ₹ 15
lakh as an incentive to a family
(husband-wife unit) for relocation.
“India is the only country in the
world with such a scheme. This
has lessened human intervention
and man-tiger conflicts in the core
areas,” said Jhala, who is credited
with introducing the modern tiger
estimation methodology.
VB Mathur, former director
Wildlife Institute, said the report
reflects three things. “First, it is a
reflection of better wildlife man-
agement in tiger reserves. Second,
it is a reflection of the good health
of the prey base and tiger habitats,
which is helping tigers to flourish.
Third, it shows that poaching
activities have been checked com-
pared to the past. All these factors
combined have led to a surge in
tiger numbers,” he said.
card some practices without
diluting its rich legacy.
The call for doing away with
colonial customs in the armed for-
ces was made by the PM in March
2021 during the Combined Com-
manders’ Conference at Kevadia
in Gujarat when he asked the
three services to rid themselves of
legacy systems and practices that
are no longer relevant.
The PM’s remarks at the top
conference were the first indica-
tion that colonial practices in the
armed forces were on their way
out. He had then underlined the
importance of enhancing indigeni-
sation in the national security sys-
tem, not just in sourcing equip-
ment and weapons but also in doc-
trines, procedures and customs.
In his Independence Day
speech last year, Modi spoke of the
“panch pran” or five pledges for
India to become a developed coun-
try by its 100th year of Independ-
ence — one of those resolutions
was to uproot all signs of colonial
slavery from mindset and habits.
The defence ministry has also
begun a drive to rename British-
era cantonments as military sta-
tions. Yol in Himachal Pradesh
was the first cantonment to shed
the colonial tag and be renamed as
a military station in April 2023.
My India
785
5 deswari, Dilip Saikia and CT Ravi.
Uttar
7 Assam
9
West
Bengal
with no Pradesh, Kawal, Telangana, Satkosia, Odisha,
tigers Sahyadri, Maharashtra
Odisha looks to conduct
own tiger census in Oct
Debabrata Mohanty
letters@hindustantimes.com
BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha gov-
ernment is planning to hold its
own census of tigers in October
this year, after the All India Tiger
Estimation 2022 report released
on Saturday revealed that the
number of big cats in the state
have dropped from 28 in 2018 to
20 in 2022. The government is also
planning an elephant census in
May next year.
The tiger count in Odisha stood
at 28 as per the census conducted
jointly by the National Tiger Con-
servation Authority (NTCA) and
Wildlife Institute of India in 2014
and in 2018 as well. In 2006, the
figure was 45 in 2006 and 32 in
2010, showing a downward curve
in the tiger population in the state.
Chief wildlife warden SK Popli
said the tiger census exercise
will begin in October this year
through transect analysis and
camera traps. “The department
will adopt two methods for the
tiger census; one is the line-
transact and the other one is the
camera trap,” said Popli.
In transect analysis, the tigers
MP rape survivor brutalised, in critical condition: Cops
Shruti Tomar
letters@hindustantimes.com
BHOPAL: A joint team of local
administration and police in
Satna district of Madhya Pradesh
on Saturday demolished the
houses of two men arrested for
raping and brutalising an 11-year-
old girl in Maihar, officials said.
The minor survivor, who
underwent a surgery at Rewa
Medical College on Friday even-
ing, continued to be in critical
condition, with doctors saying
the accused gangraped her, bit
her and inserted wood in her pri-
vate parts.
“The whole body of the girl
Ayodhya’s Janmabhoomi Path set to open for public today
HT Correspondent
letters@hindustantimes.com
LUCKNOW: The 850-metre-long
Janmabhoomi Path in Ayodhya,
one of the three road projects
launched by the Uttar Pradesh
government to ensure better
connectivity to the upcoming
Ram Temple, will be opened to
public from Sunday, officials
familiar with the matter said.
Starting from Birla Mandir,
the Path leads to the Ram Jan-
mabhoomi via Sugreev Qila and
is adorned by sweetmeat shops
will be counted on the basis of
footprints and scratch marks, an
official said. The state now has
around 800 cameras and efforts
are on to procure more.
The Satkosia tiger reserve,
where the country’s first interstate
tiger translocation exercise was
attempted in 2018 with transfer of
a tiger and tigress from Madhya
Pradesh but failed, reported no
presence of tigers.
The report, however, had a sil-
ver lining for Odisha as Simlipal
Tiger Reserve reported an increase
in tiger numbers from eight to 16.
“The genetically unique and small
population of tigers in Similipal is
also of high conservation priority
in the landscape,” the report said.
Wildlife conservationist Biswa-
jit Mohanty said the fall in tigerdip
numbers was no surprise as
poachers continue to operate
freely across the state. “Odisha is
the only state that reported con-
stant figures revealing failure of
tiger protection... We should have
added at least 12-15 tigers between
2014 and 2022. The forest depart-
ment has miserably failed to con-
trol poaching in the wild even in
tiger reserves like Similipal...”
turned blue and red due to bite
marks and the physical assault,”
said one of the doctors treating
the survivor, requesting ano-
nymity.
Dean of medical college
Manoj Indelkar said, “The girl is
under monitoring at the inten-
sive care unit after signs of infec-
tion in her intestine and uterus
were seen. She is recovering
slowly and is now conscious.”
Additional director general
(ADG) of police, Rewa, KP Ven-
kateshwar said, “An air ambu-
lance is on standby to airlift her
to Delhi, if required.”
On Saturday morning, a joint
team of police and district
on both sides of the road. While
around 650 metres of the road is
outside the Ram Janmabhoomi
campus, the remaining 200
metres is inside it.
“The Janmabhoomi Path will be
opened for devotees from Sun-
day,” said Sri Ram Janmabhoomi
Teerth Kshetra Trust general sec-
retary Champat Rai, who will
inaugurate the road and lead the
first batch of devotees to the Ram
temple on this pathway.
Janmabhoomi Path is among
the three road projects underway
in Ayodhya. The 13-km Ram Path
Eye on 2024 polls, BJP
revamps national team
Smriti Kak Ramachandran
letters@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: Effecting an organi-
sational rejig ahead of assembly
polls in five states later this year
and the 2024 general elections,
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) presi-
dent JP Nadda on Saturday
announced a new national team,
members of which have been
picked to balance regional aspira-
tions, and in line with the party’s
social engineering strategy of giv-
ing a prominent role to leaders
from various castes.
From the poll-bound Telan-
gana, former state unit chief Bandi
Sanjay has been included as
national general secretary, along
with Uttar Pradesh lawmaker
Radha Mohan Agarwal. Bandi, a
firebrand leader at the forefront of
taking on the Bharat Rashtra Sam-
ithi government in the state, on
several occasions courted contro-
versies with his comments, which
did not sit well with the central
leadership. A section of leaders in
the state unit had complained to
the central leadership to replace
Bandi ahead of the polls scheduled
for later in the year. Earlier this
month, he was replaced by union
minister G Kishen Reddy.
Three general secretaries
dropped from the list are D Puran-
appointed as state president of
the party’s fortunes in the state,
Ravi is expected to find a slot in
the Karnataka unit. Considered as
a protégé of BL Santhosh, national
general secretary (organisation),
Ravi was accused of stoking con-
troversies with his comments
about wearing the hijab and love
jihad conspiracy theory, and was
chided by the high command
when he spoke about BJP strong-
man BS Yediyurappa’s son BY
Vijayendra’s candidature ahead of
the state polls.
The team of eight national gen-
eral secretaries includes Arun
Singh, Kailash Vijayvargiya,
Dushyant Kumar Gautam, Tarun
Chugh, Vinod Tawde, Sunil Ban-
sal, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Rad-
hamohan Agarwal. Santhosh con-
tinues to remain a national gen-
eral secretary (organisation) and
A look at BJP after
organisational rejig
KEY INCLUSIONS
BANDI SANJAY
(former Telangana unit president)
appointed national general secretary
TARIQ MANSOOR
(former Aligarh Muslim University V-C)
appointed vice president
OTHER ADDITIONS
SAROJ RADHAMOHAN KAMAKHYA
PANDEY AGARWAL PRASAD TASA
(Chhattisgarh) (Uttar Pradesh)
appointed named national
national general
vice-president secretary
KEY REMOVALS
CT RAVI, Former general secretary
DILIP SAIKIA, Former general secretary
D PURANDESHWARI, (ex-gen secy):
Appointed Andhra Pradesh unit's president
THE POLICE HAVE
RAZED HOUSES
OF THE TWO
ACCUSED, WHO
WORKED AT A
FAMOUS TEMPLE
administration demolished the
illegally constructed houses of
both the accused — Ravi Chaud-
hary (31) and Atul Bhadholiya
(30) — in the temple town of
Maihar in Satna district, said
Venkateshwar.
When the officials reached
Bhadholiya’s house on Saturday,
Janmabhoomi Path is among
the three road projects
underway in Ayodhya. PTI
from Naya Ghat to Sahadatganj is
the longest while 570-metre-long
Bhakti Path is the shortest.
Shiv Prakash continues to be joint
general secretary (organisation).
Eye on polls
With an eye on polls in Chhattis-
garh, the BJP had included Saroj
Pandey, who was dropped as
national general secretary in 2020,
and former state minister, Lata
Usendi, as national vice-presi-
dents. “Both these women leaders
have their ear to the ground and
have been long time karyakartas
(workers). Their inclusion is an
indication that the party has
stepped up efforts to reinvigorate
state unit to put up a fight against
the Congress,” a state leader said.
Saudan Singh, who was joint
general secretary, organisation,
Rekha Verma and Laxmikant Baj-
pai, both MPs from Uttar Pradesh,
and Tariq Mansoor, member of
the Uttar Pradesh legislative coun-
cil, have also been included in the
team of national vice-presidents.
Former chief ministers of
Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, Vas-
undhara Raje and Raman Singh,
respectively, were retained in the
list of national vice-presidents. The
team of 13 vice-presidents also has
former Jharkhand chief mionister
Raghubar Das, Bijayant Panda, DK
Aruna and M Chuba Aao.
Minority outreach
The inclusion of former Aligarh
Muslim University vice-chancellor
Mansoor, and Anil Antony, son of
former Congress minister AK
Antony, as national secretaries is
being seen as the party’s effort to
burnish its credentials as an inclu-
sive party. “There has been a lot of
criticism that the party does not
have Muslims and other minori-
ties in its national team, as legisla-
tors or MPs. The BJP is an inclu-
sive party. The PM has explicitly
said we must expand our outreach
towards the communities without
any expectation of support during
elections,” a second leader said.
While Mansoor is seen as the
face of the party’s outreach
towards the Pasmanda Muslims,
particularly in UP, with Antony’s
inclusion the party is hoping to
woo the Christian community in
Kerala. The party had earlier
deputed P Abdullakutty, a Muslim
from Kerala as vice-president; he
continues to hold the post.
ANIL ANTONY
(son of former
Congress minister
AK Antony) named
national
secretary
(Assam)
named national
secretary SAROJ
PANDEY
his family members staged a
protest and demanded a fair
inquiry before the demolition.
Both the men were arrested on
Friday and booked under sections
366 (kidnapping), 376(g) (gang
rape), and 323 (voluntarily causing
hurt) of the Indian Penal Code
(IPC) and relevant sections of the
Protection of Children from Sexual
Offences (Pocso) Act. They were
sent to 14-day police remand.
Both have confessed to the
crime, said Maihar town inspec-
tor Animesh Dwivedi.
“The girl was going to take
water from a temple [on Thursday
afternoon] when the accused
stopped her. They took her to a
“The Janmabhoomi Path is the
first pathway to be opened for
devotees. Around half of the
13-km Ram Path will be completed
by the end of this year. Bhakti Path
will also be completed by year-
end,” an official of the district
administration said.
Along with the construction
of a grand Ram temple, which is
to be opened in January 2024,
Ayodhya is bracing for a major
transformation.
The enormity of the ongoing
development in the erstwhile tem-
ple town that wants to become a
05
Rajya Sabha MPs Kamakhya
Prasad Tasa (Assam) and Suren-
dra Nagar (UP) have been
appointed as national secretaries.
There could be some more
changes announced soon since
some of the states have not been
represented, said the first leader
cited earlier. “The team is always a
healthy mix of regional leaders
and caste groups. Of late, there has
been a complaint that the so-called
upper castes are moving away
from the BJP, but with the inclu-
sion of Pandey, Agarwal and Baj-
pai, the party has addressed that
concern as well,” he said.
Among those who have been
dropped from the reconstituted
team after Nadda was given a
year’s extension in January
include former West Bengal BJP
unit president Dilip Ghosh and
Gujarat Lok Sabha MP Bhartiben
Shyal from the posts of national
vice-presidents, and Sunil Deo-
dhar, who was co-incharge of
Andhra Pradesh; and Lok Sabha
MPs Vinod Sonkar and Harish
Dwivedi as national secretaries.
Those retained in the list of
national secretaries are Pankaja
Munde and Vijaya Rahatkar
(Maharashtra); Satya Kumar
(Andhra Pradesh); Arvind Menon
(Delhi); OP Dhruve (Madhya Pra-
desh); Anupam Hazra (West Ben-
gal); Alka Gurjar (Rajasthan);
Asha Lakra (Jharkhand); Rituraj
Sinha (Bihar); and Narendra
Singh Raina (Punjab).
Among those who have been
dropped from the reconstituted
team after Nadda was given a
year’s extension in January
include former Bengal BJP unit
president Dilip Ghosh and Gujarat
Lok Sabha MP Bhartiben Shyal
from the posts of national vice-
presidents, and Sunil Deodhar,
who was co-incharge of Andhra
Pradesh; and Lok Sabha MPs
Vinod Sonkar and Harish Dwivedi
as national secretaries.
Those retained as national sec-
retaries are Pankaja Munde and
Vijaya Rahatkar (Maharashtra);
Satya Kumar (Andhra Pradesh);
Arvind Menon (Delhi); OP Dhruve
(Madhya Pradesh); Anupam
Hazra (West Bengal); Alka Gurjar
(Rajasthan); Asha Lakra (Jhark-
hand); Rituraj Sinha (Bihar); and
Narendra Singh Raina (Punjab).
CT RAVI
nearby forest and raped her. They
inserted wooden logs in her pri-
vate parts and also bit her. Later,
they abandoned her in a nearby
forest where she fought for life for
more than 15 hours,” said Dwivedi.
“The family members of the survi-
vor found her 1km away from the
house around 9am.”
The two accused, who worked
for the trust managing a famous
temple in Maihar, have been
sacked after the incident.
The district collector also
handed a cheque of ₹50,000 to
the survivor’s family.
(With inputs from Amit
Singh from Satna)
pre-eminent city on the Hindu pil-
grimage circuit — one estimated to
cost ₹32,000 crore approx — is evi-
dent as one enters Ayodhya from
the Naya Ghat crossing, which is
now called the Lata Mangeshkar
crossing, where around 900
labourers are working around-the-
clock to complete a ₹1,000-crore
project for widening three roads.
The Yogi Adityanath govern-
ment has also approved widen-
ing of the Panch Kosi, which
passes through Ayodhya city and
14-Kosi Parikrama Marg that
covers the outskirts of the city.
 06 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023

Reflections
{ CHANAKYA }

India’s economy can scale

new highs. Here’s a plan
India can become the world’s
third-largest economy within
the next few years. To achieve
true prosperity for all, India
must keep its GDP growth
high, generate mass
employment, overhaul
both these questions is an unqualified no.
But it is worth engaging with them in detail.
When India became independent 75
years ago, it was ravaged by the scars of Par-
tition, with a very small industrial base of its
own. When rains played truant, even food
security became a challenge, and the nation
had to resort to what is infamously remem-
bered as the ship-to-mouth existence, a ref-
erence to the excessive dependence on over-
seas grain exports.
opulence is much bigger than the entire
populations of some developed countries,
and there is no evidence to suggest that even
people at the bottom of the pyramid are
worse off than they were before the reforms.
The mismatch between rightful aspirations,
and the distribution of the fruits of growth,
has manifested itself in increasing political
pressure to use our fiscal resources to pro-
vide relief to people. The swirling contro-
versy around the so-called culture of free- India will need to generate mass employment that guarantees a base minimum income. RAJ K RAJ/HT ARCHIVE

education, focus on
environmental sustainability,
and safeguard its social fabric
The journey from economic precarity to
becoming a global economic power while
keeping its democratic core intact — the two
years of Emergency notwithstanding — is a
unique achievement, and the result of the
collective endeavours of the Indian people.
bies — which its backers term as legitimate
welfare measures — is nothing but a reflec-
tion of this tension.
But to stay on this course of growth and
prosperity will need more work and deter-
mination. Here are five things that India
Second, generate mass employment that
guarantees a base minimum income. There
is more than enough data to show that
income levels for most Indians are far from
adequate to guarantee a decent living.
might mutate into a demographic liability
within the next couple of decades.
Fourth, make sure that our pursuit of
economic prosperity does not breach the
non-negotiable boundaries of environmen-
dence to suggest that climate extremes will
exact large economic costs. More sustaina-
ble attitudes will need to be engendered
across the board, from governments and
private firms to individuals and relatively

A
t an event in the Capital this
week, Prime Minister (PM)
Narendra Modi promised that
India will become the world’s
third largest economy if he gets
a third term (2024-2029). Cha-
nakya believes that this goal is eminently
achievable. The International Monetary
Fund’s World Economic Outlook database
shows that India will overtake both Japan
and Germany, currently the third and
fourth largest economies respectively, in
2026-27 to become the third largest econ-
omy in the world, behind only the United
States and China.
But two larger questions linger. Is the
PM’s statement just a political reiteration of
the inevitable? And, should becoming the
third largest economy make us complacent
on the economic front? The short answer to
Of course, there have been ups and downs,
and course corrections in this economic
march. The biggest milestone in this path
came in 1991, when the government for-
mally launched a raft of economic reforms
that unleashed animal spirits in the econ-
omy. The growth surge we see today would
not have been possible without that leap of
faith.
Has this journey been smooth? Far from
it. The fruits of economic growth, especially
after 1991, have increasingly accrued to a
small share of the population. The biggest
reason for this is the absence of a manufac-
turing revolution in India. Its share in the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is, by and
large, still at the pre-reform level, hovering
around 15%-16%.
Lest there be confusion, it needs to be
said upfront that even this small island of
must do to make sure that our economic
future remains perceptibly better than our
present.
First, maintain a high GDP growth rate,
especially in the next two to three decades.
While a GDP growth rate in the ballpark of
6% is enough to keep India the fastest-grow-
ing economy in the world, it is not enough
to give a boost to our per-capita GDP, a sta-
tistic that matters the most in improving liv-
ing standards.
This is where Modi’s statement about
India becoming the third largest economy
matters. It is important that the political
class also invests in the political optics of
growth, and not just banks on welfare. This
is a crucial and onerous task. There are
many democracies, including in our neigh-
bourhood, that have slipped in balancing
economy and politics.
While the biggest challenge on this front is
in agriculture, which still employs 40% of
the workforce, even new-age sectors such as
the gig economy have their own pitfalls in
terms of security of income and labour con-
ditions. This will need a hands on policy
approach.
Third, effect an overhaul of the education
system to ensure that it directly feeds into
employability. While the country has done
an impressive job in terms of increasing
school and higher-education enrolment, an
overwhelming share of our educated young
labour force is still fixated on securing even
low-paying government jobs. The demand-
supply mismatch is only going to become
worse in the future. While the New Educa-
tion Policy has recognised the problem,
things need to move at a faster pace. Unless
this is done, our demographic dividend
tal sustainability. There are two aspects to
this problem. The first is the question of the
climate crisis and reducing emissions,
which will require a global consensus in
terms of committing resources and finan-
ces.
New Delhi must continue its efforts to
push the global agenda towards a just but
adequate path for reducing carbon emis-
sions. To be sure, this is not a given at the
moment. The second issue is about resisting
the temptation to sideline concerns around
environmental protection — biodiversity
and fragile ecosystems — to maximise eco-
nomic gains from building infrastructure or
industries.
Not only will such an approach inflict
irreversible ecological damage, thereby
depriving our future generations of these
ecosystems, but there is also a trove of evi-
poor economic actors such as farmers, so
that environmentally damaging practices
can be eschewed.
And, finally, be careful that economic
prowess doesn’t inure the country to the
importance of protecting our social cohe-
sion.
India is a country of great religious, lin-
guistic, regional and demographic diversity.
Political competition might sometimes gen-
erate a strong reason to pit an identity
against another for short-term gain. But pol-
iticians and the people must remember that
social conflict beyond a threshold can derail
an economy and investor confidence.
For a country such as India, becoming an
economic giant and a model of democratic
prosperity is within grasp. Our policymak-
ers and people must do all they can to fulfil
this new tryst with destiny.

IMAGINE WHAT WOULD

EV adoption guidelines
{ SUNDAY SENTIMENTS } Jogendra Nath Mandal, who came to
Ambedkar’s aid. Mandal sacrificed his
seat and with help from “one or two inde-
HAVE HAPPENED IF
Karan Thapar AMBEDKAR HADN’T
pendent SC MLAs and one or perhaps two
Anglo-Indian votes”, Ambedkar got
elected from Bengal.
MADE IT? WHAT SORT OF
CONSTITUTION MIGHT must be more practical
The intriguing twists In July 1947 he was in trouble again.
After the British Parliament passed the
Act of Indian Independence, the Constitu-
WE HAVE ENDED UP
WITH? THE MOTHER OF he electrification of cabs and bikes and subsidies is key.

of Ambedkar’s career
ent Assembly was divided into two, one
for India, one for Pakistan. Consequently,
many members from Bengal lost their
membership of the Constituent Assembly
of India. Ambedkar was one.
DEMOCRACY WOULD
HAVE LOST THE FATHER
OF ITS CONSTITUTION.
T for transportation is undoubtedly Fourth, the performance of EVs remains
desirable for reducing pollution. As inferior to their ICE counterparts. An auto
the world grapples with the climate or bike taxi driver would normally drive
crisis, the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) roughly 100 kilometres a day. However,
holds immense potential, but must be tem- most current EVs have a sub-100 kilometre
o we really know our heroes? We I’ve gleaned this from Ashok Lahiri’s Once again, fortuitous good fortune pered by ground realities. The range. Lack of easy access for

D place them on pedestals and

revere them. We talk about them
frequently and eloquently. We
even quote from them. But that’s different
to knowing them. It’s certainly not the
same as understanding them. A book I’ve
recently read has revealed aspects of BR
Ambedkar I was unaware of. These are
not contested facts. Many could even be
well-known. But they’re not part of the
popular image of the man.
For instance, did you know he wasn’t
really a champion of Independence?
From 1942 until 1946, he was a member of
the Viceroy’s Executive Council, effec-
tively as minister of labour. Earlier, in
1931, this is what he said, “The depressed
classes (as the scheduled castes at the
time were called) are not anxious, they
are not clamorous, they have not started
any movement for claiming that there
shall be an immediate transfer of power
from the British to the Indian people.”
India in Search of Glory. He writes,
“Ambedkar’s role in the freedom struggle
has been the most controversial aspect of
his otherwise brilliant career.” I have to
admit, that took me by surprise. However,
it’s not the only incredible revelation
Lahiri’s book contains. Ambedkar, it
seems, almost never made it to the Con-
stituent Assembly. In the 1945-46 elec-
tions his party, the All India Scheduled
Caste Federation (SCF), won only two of
the 151 reserved seats. As a result, Ambed-
kar “could not be elected to (the Constitu-
ent Assembly) from the Provincial
Assembly of Bombay, as the SCF had won
only one seat.”
Worse, no one was willing to help. In
fact, Sardar Patel proclaimed “...apart
from the doors even the windows of the
Constituent Assembly are closed for Dr
Ambedkar”, adding “let us see how he
enters the Constituent Assembly”.
It was a Muslim League legislator,
came to his rescue. MR Jayakar resigned
his seat, following disagreements with the
Congress, thus creating a vacancy. This
time India’s leading politicians were will-
ing to help.
One of them was Rajendra Prasad, the
chairman of the Constituent Assembly.
He wrote to BG Kher, then prime minister
of Bombay. “Apart from any other consid-
eration we have found Dr Ambedkar’s
work both in the Constituent Assembly
and the various committees to which he
was appointed to be of such an order as to
require that we should not be deprived of
his services. As you know, he was elected
from Bengal and after the division of the
province he has ceased to be a member of
the Constituent Assembly commencing
from the 14th July 1947 and it is therefore
necessary that he should be elected
immediately.”
Even Patel changed his attitude. Lahiri
says he played a role in persuading Kher
as well as dissuading GV Mavalankar,
“who was otherwise slated to fill in the
vacancy caused by Jayakar”.
So, it was a close-run thing. Imagine
Capital recently completed the
feedback process for the fifth draft
of the aggregator guidelines. The
draft, however, seems to have sev-
eral kinks that need to be
charging on-the-go, and the time
taken to charge a battery, make
the proposition impractical. Delhi
government identifies charging
stations at 1,919 locations, 232 bat-
what would have happened if Ambedkar smoothed out. Dhanendra tery-swapping stations, and 2,452
hadn’t made it? What sort of Constitution First, there is a yawning gap charging points. However, many
might we have ended up with? The between electrification targets, Kumar of these charging stations are non-
mother of democracy, as we call ourselves and current adoption rates. EVs functional, some are in locations
today, would have lost the father of its constitute a mere 0.16% of all vehi- that will require a significant
Constitution. cles in Delhi. As per NASSCOM, the market detour for drivers, and still others are
Let me end by raising a question that share of EVs in the two-wheeler, passenger packed during peak hours, leading to long
may have occurred to you as well. So three-wheeler, and four-wheeler segments delays. It is critical to prioritise growth, and
incredible are the facts I’ve related, was stands at 0.74%, 30.3% and 0.16% respec- strengthening of charging infrastructure
there a hand guiding Ambedkar and, per- tively. If we extrapolate the number of four- for the draft targets to be met.
haps, India itself? It seems someone or wheelers in the ridesharing space across A successful and speedy transition to EVs
something was determined to ensure platforms such as Ola and Uber, each aggre- in Delhi requires a comprehensive and
Ambedkar was part of the Constituent gator would need approximately well-sequenced approach with collabora-
Assembly. The question is who or what? 8,000-9,000 EV cars to meet the first year tion among various stakeholders. To
target. The total EV sales in 2022, according achieve this, it is essential to re-evaluate
Karan Thapar is the author of Devil’s Advo- to the government’s Vahan portal, was and align the targets outlined in the draft
cate: The Untold Story. 5,642 — of which only 2,515 were cab regis- guidelines with the ground reality of the EV
The views expressed are personal trations. The draft target will require sales ecosystem. The targets set for electrification
to more than double, and all new vehicles to in the ridesharing space should be in
be attached with aggregators. accordance with the availability of EVs and
Second, the suggestions for bike taxis the corresponding charging infrastructure.

The life and times of

seem impractical. Data says 24% of all bike If we push aggressive electrification targets
taxis in India operate in Delhi, totalling without charging infrastructure, it will neg-
nearly a million rides per week. The draft atively impact tens of thousands of drivers,
guidelines differentiate between a bike taxi throwing many out of business, and hurt

Inder Kumar Gujral carrying goods, and those carrying passen- consumer mobility. A phased approach
gers, and put an unrealistic target of 100% may be more practical, prioritising infra-
EVs for the latter. Unfortunately, none of structure development, promoting cost-ef-
the two-wheeler EV makers can support fective EV models, and catering to the spe-
estiny is unpredictable, and it can helped in my posting to Delhi. Soon, there- such an expansion in EV bike taxi opera- cific requirements of different transporta-

D smile or frown on anyone in the after, NN Vohra, a highly-respected

best and worst of circumstances. bureaucrat and principal secretary to the
During my diplomatic career, I PM, called with the same request. The PM
had the opportunity of working closely then spoke to me himself, and I accepted
with IK Gujral, who was the external the assignment.
tion. Moreover, drivers often use the same tion segments. It would also be important to
bike for goods and passengers, making the foster collaboration among authorities,
differentiation impractical. aggregators and manufacturers. That could
Third, the cost differential between EVs engender a greener and more sustainable
and their internal combustion engine (ICE) future for Delhi’s transportation landscape.
affairs minister (EAM) in 1996 and became Even his enemies would agree that IK counterparts remains steep. Industry data
the Prime Minister (PM) on April was a thorough gentleman. says two-wheeler, three-wheeler, and four- Dhanendra Kumar is former transport secre-
21, 1997. Always urbane, well-dressed, wheeler EVs are roughly 25%, 40%, and 60% tary, founding chairman of CCI and India’s exec-
I don’t think IK, as he was soft-spoken, erudite and cultured, more expensive than their ICE counter- utive director at World Bank. He is currently
known, ever thought he would he was the quintessential Pun- parts. To make EVs economically viable, chairman of Competition Advisory Services.
become PM. His son, Naresh Guj- jabi, having arrived in India as a bridging the cost gap through incentives The views expressed are personal
ral, a former member of the Rajya refugee from Pakistan. His accent Even his enemies would agree that Gujral was a thorough gentleman. HT ARCHIVE
Sabha (RS), and a good friend,
told me that his father retired to
bed on that life-changing night
Pavan K
Varma
could not escape his Punjabi
roots. I remember a speech I
wrote for him for the Asia Society
mind of his own. When Emergency was
declared in 1975, he was the minister for
him to a studio in Noida. Normally, a PM
would have said no. But IK agreed and
{ SUNDAY LETTERS }
A
l
when Harkishan Singh Surjeet, in New York. He complimented information and broadcasting. However, asked me to accompany him. We drove to
leader of the Communist Party of me for it but put a noticeable he was not willing to be Sanjay Gandhi’s Safdarjung airport where a chopper took
India (Marxist), and the chanakya of the Punjabi twist in the delivery. As I watched doormat. Indira Gandhi then shunted him us to Noida. Since it was technically a visit Majoritarianism Honouring the civil rights movement
precarious United Front (UF) government, with some dismay, Raghunath, normally out as ambassador to Moscow, where he by the PM to Uttar Pradesh, a senior cabi- will hurt India
called to say that IK was the coalition’s undemonstrative, came to me and whis- did an excellent job. net minister received him. After the inter- This is with reference to Frank Islam’s ‘Indian
choice for PM, following HD Deve Gowda’s pered: “Remember, a PM’s speech is meant He could also be a tough negotiator. I view, we flew back to Safdarjung. The This is with reference to Americans must back affirmative action’ (July 23). It is
resignation. to be read, not heard.” remember, in particular, a brilliantly argu- whole operation took hardly an hour. Avinash Paliwal’s time for Indian Americans to repay their debts to the
I joined IK as his speech writer and aide. IK had been arrested during the Quit mentative discussion he had (to which P His tenure lasted till March 1998 — less ‘Manipur’s implosion will civil right movement in the United States.
Before that, I was on leave in Delhi as my India Movement in 1942 but was never a Chidambaram was a witness) with then US than a year. He died on November 30, 2012, hurt the India story’ (July
mother was unwell. However, the govern- mass leader. He won only one Lok Sabha secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, just four days short of his 93rd birthday. 23). Majoritarianism may Manohar Yadav
ment had reneged on its promise to post (LS) election from Jalandhar in 1989, but where she was completely outclassed. He His wife, Sheila Gujral, an accomplished help in electoral gains
me from Moscow to Delhi. I used this was a three-term member of the RS. In will be remembered too for the Gujral Doc- poet and writer, had died a year earlier. but social fabric will A failure of police and politics in Manipur
break to write The Great Indian Middle 1991, he contested the LS elections, trine, where as a matter of strategy, he irreparably get torn. Its This is with reference to Karan Thapar’s ‘Troubling
Class. One day, in July 1997, when I was improbably enough, from Patna. The story gave priority to improving relations with Pavan K Varma is author, diplomat, and former time to introspect and questions on a wrenching video’ (July 23). Recent events
about to finish the book, I got a call from goes that Lalu Prasad Yadav backed his our neighbours, although his alleged deci- Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). step back and change the in Manipur are a stark reminder of the regrettable
the then newly appointed foreign secre- candidacy by saying that Gujral stood for sion to wind up our counter-intelligence Just Like That is a weekly column where Varma narrative. failure of institutions of police and politics.
tary, K Raghunath, under whom I had Gujjar, a backward class community. IK network in Pakistan has been rightly criti- shares nuggets from the world of history,
worked. He said that the PM wanted my won that election, but it was later counter- cised. culture, literature, and personal reminiscences DRM Sridhar Deepak Bist
services. I listened but remained non-com- manded for irregularities. IK loved to interact with the media. with HT Premium readers.
mittal because Gujral as EAM had not Yet, he was an astute politician with a Once, noted journalist Vir Sanghvi invited The views expressed are personal Write to us at: letters@hindustantimes.com

RNI No. : MAHENG/2017/73012

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 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023 07

Igor Stimac

Goal
standard
1
Igor Stimac, 55,
With the 55-yr-old Croatian as head coach, the Indian men’s football was part of
team is showing a kind of aggression they were not known for. He can the first
generation of
get them into the Top 10 in Asia, Stimac says. They are already winning players
more. They have the right ambition. What they need is the right support representing a
newly independent
Croatia after the break-up
Dhiman Sarkar As in 2019, they will be at the 2024 Asian Cup, the of Yugoslavia in 1991-92.
high table of the continent’s football. The Croatian team
dhiman@htlive.com India also pulled off an 0-0 draw against Asian finished third in the 1998
champions Qatar in 2019 and have been unbeaten in World Cup.

I
gor Stimac is in Metkovic, on the Croa- 11 games this year, a run that included winning a
tian coast. “I’m in a place with 15 houses,” three-nation meet in March, the Intercontinental

2
he says, flipping the camera to show a Cup in June and the SAFF Championship this He had
sliver of road, a small beach just beyond month. On the way to those titles, India have shown wanted to join
it, and an emerald sea. a kind of aggression they were not previously known the army,
It’s a bright afternoon, and the head for. “The mindset, approach to the game and style of Stimac has
coach of the Indian men’s football team play have changed. No more timid football,” he says. said, but the
is visiting his hometown, his parents, As 25-year-old Indian midfielder Anirudh Thapa country’s
brothers and their families. No such trip is complete said during the SAFF Championship: “We are done leaders felt its footballers
without a visit to NK Neretva, his first football club. with sitting back. If you are hitting us, we will also served better by staying
Stimac, 55, says he can’t live without football. He hit you.” on the field. After retiring
calls it “a kind of professional illness”. This attitude starts with the head coach, and as a player, Stimac turned
It’s why he took coaching badges soon after retir- that’s a lesson Stimac learnt in 1987. He and Zvon- coach because he “can’t
ing as a player, along with former Croatia team- imir Boban, his closest friend on the U-20 World live without football”.
mates Slaven Bilic and Aljosa Asanovic. “We knew Cup squad, were caught breaking curfew, back then. It’s a kind of professional
this would be our lives.” They had met Miss Chile, Yasna Vukasovic, and illness, he says, laughing.
By 2001, aged 35, Stimac was managing the acad- she and a friend had asked if they’d like to go out for
emy team at Hajduk Split. Bilic, 33, was in charge of a drink. Head coach Mirko Jozic told them they
the club’s first team. couldn’t go. They went anyway. Since 2005,
They were all part of the golden first generation
of Croatian players. Representing a new country
after the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991-92, they fin-
ished an exhilarating third in the 1998 World Cup.
That was, Stimac says, “the brightest of our great
teams, the one that paved the way for our players to
When they were caught, Jozic announced that he
was going to send the two men home; this was
before the semi-final. The team rallied, saying they
would all go home from Chile if the two were sent
away.
“I think it was a smart move by the coach to
3 Stimac has
managed the
Croatian
national team
and clubs in
Iran and Qatar.
go to top clubs”. unify the team. I am not sure he ever wanted He has been head coach
In 1987, four years before his country became a to send us home,” Stimac says. He went on to with the Indian team
country, Stimac was also on the Yugoslavian team score in the semi-final, Boban in the final. since 2019. “Nowhere else
that won the Under-20 World Cup. “We had six Cro- “What you see of me today is what I have in the world is there such
ats in the starting line-up, playing with Bosnians, learnt from some great coaches.” He men- a huge gap [between
Montenegrins and Serbians. It wasn’t difficult tions his manager at West Ham, Harry Red- reality and dreams]. And
blending in,” says the former central defender. “We knapp, and former Croatia coach the late Miro- that is what attracted
were growing up together. Also, any kind of nation- slav Blazevic, among these. me,” he says.
alism was immediately killed.”
Croatia was independent by the time Stimac hen Croatia was born, Stimac had wanted
made a big-ticket move of £1.5 million to Derby W to join its army. But the country’s leaders

County, in 1995. He was named captain after helping
the club qualify for the Premier League, and
remains an icon at the club. Since 2005, he has man-
aged Hajduk Split, the Croatia national team, and
clubs in the Asian powerhouses of Iran and Qatar.
So why India? “That was the first approach I
received when I decided to go back to manage-
ment (after a two-year sabbatical that began in
2017),” he says.
Initially sceptical, the coach says he learnt of a
new tournament, the Indian Super League (ISL),
where the broadcast was good and games were
beamed around the world. He read that the football
federation had a commercial partner (Football
Sports Development Limited, a subsidiary of Reli-
ance Industries). “Things were happening,” he says.
The other half of what attracted him was the
enormity of the task. “The size of the challenge… you
can’t find that anywhere in the world,” he says, smil-
ing his broad smile. “For a coach at the top level, you
know you are going to work with players with great
basic skills. But in India, the difference between real-
ity and dreams…” he trails off on the Zoom call, lift-
ing his left arm above his head. “Nowhere else in the
world is there such a huge gap. And that is what
attracted me.”
This challenge is “far more difficult”, he says,
than anything he’s done on the field. And he has
played against Juergen Klinsmann, Zinedine Zidane,
Dennis Bergkamp and Matthias Sammer, to say
nothing of two games against Diego Maradona.
“Football in India is still at a low level and has
very little support,” Stimac says. “That is sometimes
frustrating. But as people from a country born of
long civil war, we don’t know how to give up.”
U nder Stimac, India, 99th in the FIFA rankings,
have ticked quite a few new boxes.
a
felt its footballers served better by staying on the
field. Behind his easy manner, he remains a
man committed to his role in battle.
He speaks about the state of football as he
sees it. He takes dissent to the field. It is about
standing up for one’s rights, he says several
times.
During the SAFF Championship, Stimac was
shown the red card twice in three games. After
the first, he sat out a one-match ban. He was
expelled again, in the group league game LISTEN as HT’s Vivek
against Kuwait. That fetched a two-game sus- Krishnan and Dhiman
pension and meant he was banished to the Sarkar interview Igor
stands for the semi-final and final. Stimac, on the
“The red cards produced a great reaction from HTSmartcast Kicks
the team. Earlier, we were accepting every deci- for Free podcast
sion from the referee. Now, we are not,” he says.
His immediate “fight” today is to get All India
Football Federation (AIFF) to agree to a “bare mini-
mum” of four weeks for the training camp ahead of
the Asian Cup in January. Ideally, it should be six, he
says. AIFF says ISL — which is likely to stretch from
P
October to March — cannot be paused for that long. Anything less than a
Anything less than four weeks and we need to
ask “whether you want us to sit in front of our goal- four-week training camp
keeper for 90 minutes and get over the half-line ahead of the Asian Cup
maybe two or three times. Or, do you want us to be
brave Blue Tigers and fight,” Stimac says. and we need to ask: Do
“Saudi Arabia, Oman, Uzbekistan (all ranked
higher than India) will have long camps, so what is
you want us to sit in front
stopping India?” of our goalkeeper for 90
What he and the team have achieved so far, he minutes... Or do you want
adds, is only phase one of the puzzle.
“Now, we can work on playing attractive football. us to be brave Blue Tigers
You want to get to the top 80 in FIFA rankings and
top 10 in Asia, I will take you there in four years.”
and fight?
India are 18th in Asia now. “But you need to trust
me, otherwise we can part as friends.”
IGOR STIMAC
HT ILLUSTRATION: MOHIT SUNEJA

inside LIFESTYLE
To be continued...
No good tale unfolds on just one platform, today.
A game becomes a TV series; a film sparks a
P08
CULTURE
Read the
room P09
MIND
Spot the differences
How do AI programs
create art? How are
P10

podcast. The term for it is transmedia storytelling. And Subtitles are freeing up they getting so much
while the phenomenon is ancient – the Mahabharata, filmmakers. Creators can better, so fast? Peek
after all, has leapt effortlessly across platforms for now darken the frame, under the hood to see
millennia – it is only now that the markets are make the music louder, how two halves of a
moving in. Could today’s deliberate search blend in dialects, knowing neural network
for tangents change how such sagas are all the while that the viewer collaborate, one telling the other: That’s
framed to begin with? can read to keep up. not good enough. Over and over. Until it is.
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 08 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023

wknd lifestyle

To be
EXTENSION CORDS: ONE TALE, MANY LIVES
THE MATRIX
has expanded beyond
the films, through an

continued...
anthology of animated
shorts, as well as comics
and videogames,
over 24 years.

No good tale unfolds on just one platform, today. A game becomes a TV series; a
film sparks a podcast. The term for it is transmedia storytelling. And while the
phenomenon is ancient – the Mahabharata, after all, has leapt across platforms
for millennia – it is only now that the markets are moving in. Could today’s
deliberate search for tangents change how such sagas are framed to begin with?

own characters and locations and lore.

K Narayanan On Wookieepedia, the online Star Wars
narayan.krishnaswami@gmail.com encyclopaedia launched in 2005, you can
find yourself on the planet Manaan, home to
the Glumbrig eel and the amphibious

I
n December, the prestigious film
magazine Sight and Sound asked
director SS Rajamouli to list the
10 greatest films of all time,
according to him. Rajamouli’s
list was controversial, ignoring
art cinema for the unabashedly
popular. It featured films such as
the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost
Ark, and Kung Fu Panda. He had one Indian
film on his list, Kadiri Venkata Reddy’s 1957
Telugu classic Mayabazar.
Mayabazar is the telling of an episode of
the Mahabharata, but it’s not an episode
that is found in standard tellings of the epic.
It is based on the Sasirekha Parinayam, a
folktale popular in Andhra Pradesh and Tel-
angana. In it, Sasirekha, the daughter of Bal-
arama, falls in love with Arjuna’s son Abhi-
manyu. Balarama wants Sasirekha to marry
Duryodhana’s son Lakshmana Kumara.
Sasirekha and Abhimanyu finally get
together, after the intervention of two
Cupids, the deity Krishna and Abhimanyu’s
cousin, the demon Ghatotkacha.
The story of Sasirekha has been re-
enacted in Kuchipudi performances over
time, been a staple of roving shadow-puppet
performers and Yakshagana dance theatre
groups. It is a prime example of transmedia
storytelling.
The term “transmedia storytelling” was
coined by Henry Jenkins, an American
media scholar and professor of communica-
tion, journalism and cinematic art at the
University of Southern California. He first
used the term in his book Convergence Cul-
ture: Where Old and New Media Collide.
Jenkins defines it as “represent(ing) a
process where integral elements of a fiction
get dispersed systematically across multiple
delivery channels for the purpose of creat-
ing a unified and coordinated entertain-
ment experience. Ideally, each medium
makes its own unique contribution to the
unfolding of the story.”
Jenkins points out that transmedia story-
telling has been around as long as storytel-
ling itself (see more on this, in the interview
alongside). What has changed today is the
deliberate deployment of transmedia strate-
gies to build longevity.
One reason for the growing importance
of transmedia storytelling, says Rosemary
Lokhorst, CEO of Badass Studios, could be
that “people’s attention spans have changed
and we need to work harder to keep them
interested.” Badass Studios creates content
at the intersection of virtual reality, gaming,
sports and esports. Lokhorst is a tech entre-
preneur, videogame writer and author.
Technology has changed people’s atten-
tion spans, but it has also created an incred-
ible number of platforms on which to keep
audiences engaged. There are podcasts dis-
cussing films and TV series; livestreamed
gameplay sessions; an explosion of interest
in popular culture, with a generation that
grew up watching Star Wars and Indiana
Jones and reading about Marvel and DC
superheroes. Whole extended universes are
fleshed out by tie-in novels, games, car-
toons, podcasts and comics.
The Matrix is also a game and an ani-
mated series. Quentin Tarantino is offering
updates on the fictional actors in Once
Upon a Time… in Hollywood, via his pod-
cast. In a recent death notice, he announced
that one of the protagonists had died.
Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings
and The Last of Us have extended their run-
times, as it were, by teasing out new threads
on a range of platforms (games, books, pod-
casts, spin-off TV series, and more). These
new threads unfold over decades.
This extended life of fictional characters
isn’t new, of course. Frankenstein and Drac-
ula, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond have
all experienced incredible longevity as a
result of transmedia storytelling. But while
the older properties extended their lifetimes
more or less organically, these days, the lon-
gevity is built in.
Selkath species; or you can read about
Jorus C’baoth, a Jedi Master from the
planet Bortras, betrayed by his friend Sena-
tor Palpatine.
Look up Lilith, the main antagonist in the
game Diablo IV, on Fandom.com (set up in
2004 by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales),
and you can soon be lost in stories about the
world of Sanctuary, the overgod Anu and
his battle with the goddess Tathamet — sto-
ries that add depth and weight to what
began as a hack-and-slash game.
As storytelling expanded across media,
the level of interaction with the audience
has grown. As Lokhorst puts it: “The people
formerly known as the audience… these
people expect more.”
The concept of authorship itself has
changed, she adds. “I think that authorship
starts with an idea. That can, but does not TITANIC
have to, come from one person. I believe encompasses a film, multiple documentaries
that no one person can be proficient in all and a book, across 26 years.
types of storytelling, so naturally, more sto-
rytellers will become involved in a project THE LAST OF US
when it gets complex. You may need visual began as a videogame 10
art, which impacts the story; or you change years ago, and is
the type of screen it is shown on, from page now also a TV
to mobile, which has implications and series, and a
opportunities.” podcast.
And then the audience steps in and
makes choices, and the story changes again.
Audience-choice driven storytelling can
likely be traced back to oral histories per-
formed before crowds. What elements of
ancient lore were determined by audience
reaction? It’s something we can never
know, but if the bawdiness of Shake-
speare is any indication, playing to the
gallery is centuries if not millennia
old.
Even Arthur Conan Doyle gave in
to his audience, and resurrected
his detective in The Return of
Sherlock Holmes (1905) after
intending to end the series by
throwing him of a cliff, in The
Final Problem (1893).
More recently, the interactive Net-
flix film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
(2018) offered millions of possible plot
changes, based on the combination of choi-
ces each viewer made with their remote, HT IMAGING:
leading to five possible endings. This is a key PUNEET KUMAR
way in which transmedia storytelling differs
from adaptation. The goal of transmedia as
he views it, Jenkins says, is to extend
authorship to as many others as possible. THE MAHABHARAT
This is also where fan fiction comes in. “I Few epics in history have had
think the goal of each franchise is to get big this kind of longevity and
enough and popular enough that people wide scale of influence. In a
believe in the storyworld and can make remarkable example of
their own stories within it,” says Hailey Aus- transmedia storytelling, this
tin, a lecturer in visual media and culture at saga from thousands of
Scotland’s Abertay University. “Increas- years ago has morphed from
ingly, fans feel like they have more control oral tradition to poetry, TV
over characters, and if they don’t like some- shows, novels, films, comic
thing the writers have done, they are vocal books, plays. Elements
and can write their own version.” resurface in ways we don’t
Austin points out that this involvement always recognise, inspiring
“can get tricky”. “By extending ownership, movies such as Baahubali
franchises open themselves up to some and quests in videogames.
more toxic sides of fandom,” she says.
Racist Star Wars fans, for instance, were
enraged by the major role played by a
woman of colour, Kelly Marie Tran, in The
Last Jedi (2017). Some of these fans
mounted a campaign so hateful and vicious
on Instagram that Tran felt compelled to
leave the platform. { Q&A } HENRY JENKINS, MEDIA SCHOLAR
Extreme opposition like this can shape a
story. Gaming studio BioWare, for instance,
added a patch to the videogame Mass Effect
3, to offer upset fans a more acceptable end-
Inside the multi-
ing to the trilogy. Warner Bros eventually
released Zack Snyder’s Justice League
(2021), after fans insisted they wanted to see
story building
it (the studio had had a falling out with the
filmmaker and switched directors for the K Narayanan
official version).
Today’s fans have turned into consumers, enry Jenkins, 65, coined the term

key aspect of transmedia storytelling,

insisting that creative works give them what
they want. Marketers are looking at ways
they can use this too. Christopher Nolan
used alternate reality to promote The Dark
Knight (2008), with a Why So Serious? mar-
A Jenkins says, is the importance of
world-making. Each media form brings its
keting campaign that let 11 million users
around the world live as citizens in the vir-
own characteristics to the story world; its tual world of Gotham City.
“These new story types — from immer-
sive to augmented to mixed — bring a lot of
HOW LONG UNTIL A NEW new opportunities for brands to reach
young audiences who are not looking at
STORY IS MORE AN printed ads or billboards,” says Lokhorst.
EXTENSION OF A “An example of that is what is happening in
MARKETING CAMPAIGN fashion, where brands launch online collec-
tions. Not for you, but for your avatar. I bet
THAN AN OFFERING IN Dior had never thought they would create a
ITSELF? THAT’S A HARD virtual designer handbag.”
QUESTION TO ANSWER, How long, then, until a new story is more
an extension of a marketing campaign than
AND A HARD ONE TO a standalone offering in itself? That’s a hard
HAVE TO ANSWER question to answer, and a hard one to have
to answer.
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H “transmedia storytelling”, in his
2006 book, Convergence Culture:
Where Old and New Media Col-
lide. The media scholar — and professor of
communication, journalism and cinematic
art, among other things, at the University of
Southern California — traces the phenome-
non, in its current, intensified form, to the
turn of the century and the Matrix.
The first Matrix film was released in
1999, and by 2003, amid the sequels,
there were comic book tie-ins, an ani-
mated series called The Animatrix, and
a range of videogames.
In his book, Jenkins (above) defines
transmedia storytelling as a sort of hunt-
er-gatherer model. It is “a new aesthetic
that… places new demands on consum-
ers and depends on the active participa-
tion of knowledge communities,” he
says, adding that it is “the art of world
making. To fully experience any fic-
tional world, consumers must assume
the role of hunters and gatherers, chasing
down bits of the story across media channels,
comparing notes with each other via online
discussion groups, and collaborating to archaeologists believe were mirrored in per- Glimpses of the
ensure that everyone who invests time and formances — perhaps dances? — of the hunt future: A still
effort will come away with a richer entertain- being depicted. from the fan-
ment experience.” More recent scholarship suggests that produced short
How far back does this kind of approach these paintings were often created in acous- film titled Lord
go? What’s next for storytellers, and for us, tic hotspots in the caves, suggesting that per- of the Rings by
watching and creating in the audience? formances built around them were accompa- Wes Anderson.
Excerpts from an interview. nied by sound; perhaps verbal narration, Made with the
depending on the state of language develop- help of AI tools,
In a sense, is all storytelling transme- ment at the time; perhaps people imitating it was released
dia storytelling? Would an ancient animal noises. Really, what has shifted over as a ‘trailer’,
oral narrative that later became a time are the media deployed, and the ways in went viral, and
book, a play and a movie, qualify? which stories are consumed. has had 4
Yes… as far back as we can go, stories have million views
been told across multiple mediums. I would How has digital distribution shaped in less than two
cite the example of cave paintings, which transmedia storytelling? months.
 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023
A key point of transmedia is that story
material is dispersed, spread out across the
media landscape, yet often accessible via
digital networks. Here’s where the idea of
modern culture as grounded in hunting and
gathering comes in.
We search for meaningful material, which
allow us to dig deeper into real and fictional
worlds. We are, like someone at a cocktail
party, always looking over our shoulder for
something more interesting. We share infor-
mation with each other as cultural currency.
And our acts of circulation increase the pri-
ority given to a particular bit of media.
We are not simply audiences that pay
attention. We are publics that direct atten-
tion towards things we think matter.
You wrote on your blog, in 2009, that
this was shifting “the underlying logic
of commercial entertainment”…
Yes… each new experiment teaches us
something new. Certain stories, for instance,
have been absorbed into different genres
across the cultural hierarchy.
I am struck by how many of the primary
examples in my 2006 book — Survivor, Idol,
Harry Potter, The Matrix — still have cultural
pertinence more than 15 years later. This is
not accident. Their deployment of transme-
dia strategies, their embrace of active audi-
ence engagement, are part of what has
allowed them to endure over time.
They became so deeply embedded in our
culture that they simply do not disappear.
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STAR WARS
encompasses films, live-action series,
animated TV shows, comic books,
videogames, and an online encyclo-
paedia called Wookieepedia, across a
still-evolving timeline of 46 years.
THE MARVEL UNIVERSE
consists of comic books, films, TV series
and videogames, with the first of these
dating to 1939. In addition, a vibrant
world of fan fiction takes stories in
new directions.
a
Savvy media producers have found ways to
keep them relevant and meaningful to a
committed segment of the market.
I am often asked which new franchises I
would add to the book and, clearly, Marvel is
what has driven development in transmedia
over the past decade, and is apt to remain a
force, at least as long as Disney has a virtual
monopoly over the popular imagination.
Another example that particularly inter-
SCAN the
ests me right now is the way Quentin Taran- QR code for
tino has been expanding Once Upon a Time...
HT podcasts
in Hollywood (2019) across multiple media, by Sunetra
most recently through a mock death notice
Choudhury,
and a retrospective of the film’s fictional pro- Samarth Goyal
tagonist’s work, via his podcast.
and more
Where would you say the lines is,
between adaptation and transmedia
storytelling?
This is a question we have struggled with.
The first impulse was to say that adaptation
was not enough to make something transme-
dia, because adaptation depends on the faith-
ful reproduction of an existing text, whereas
transmedia storytelling depends on expan-
sion and extension. But the more you look at
adaptation across media, the more it is clear
that it always adds some new information as
it absorbs new media properties. As a conse-
quence, the distinction between adaptation
and extension is a matter of degree and not a
fundamental difference in kind.
How do you see the future of storytel-
Wknd Culture
{ HEAR & NOW } THE PODCAST
Companion
pods pitch in
Anesha George
anesha.george@hindustantimes.com
ess, from The Last of Us, is clearly
T hiding immense pain. She’s all
sharp edges and indifference. Then
she stays back in a house full of
the man-eating Cordyceps, to buy Joel
(Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) time
to escape.
She is gone from the series (2023-) in the
second episode; viewers never know her
story. But listeners do.
A day after that episode aired, showrun-
ners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann
revealed her backstory, which was written
but never shot, on the official The Last of Us
podcast. Tess was once married, with a son.
She was forced to kill her infected husband,
but couldn’t bring herself to kill her child.
She locked him in a basement, and fled.
The Last of Us is based on a survival hor-
ror videogame co-created by Mazin and
Druckmann. Their podcast takes the series
forward. It expands on the fictional land-
scape in ways that the show, with its limited
canvas, cannot.
In the world of transmedia storytelling,
this is why the podcast has become key.
It’s where Quentin Tarantino has
expanded the world of his 2019 film about
films, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.
Over the past four years, on Video Archives,
he and Roger Avary, his collaborator on Pulp
Fiction, have talked about the fictional pro-
jects and lives of that film’s protagonists,
Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff
Booth (Brad Pitt).
This May, Tarantino announced on the
podcast that Dalton had died; a subsequent
episode was designed as a memorial / retro-
spective of his work.
Elsewhere, the Chernobyl podcast, which
builds on the 2019 HBO mini-series, reported
more than 10 million plays across platforms,
by the end of that year.
And the official Succession podcast,
launched in 2020 (the show ran from 2018 to
2023), is now a case study of the prime use of
this medium. American journalist Kara
Swisher took over from British-American
journalist Roger Bennett in 2021. Her show,
which concluded in May, analysed what the
popularity of Succession — a series about the
dysfunctional family of an obscenely wealthy
media mogul — said about our attitudes to
family dynamics, the media, capitalism and
the “1% of the 1%”.
A good companion podcast serves, then,
as a spin-off that unfolds in real time. This
isn’t a phenomenon restricted to the worlds
of fiction. If anything, news lends itself even
more powerfully to the immediacy of stories
about what’s happening just out of view.
What did escaping a war zone entail, for
Indian students in Ukraine? How exactly did
a specific team of cops track down a specific
pair of killers?
At HT Smartcast, the podcasting arm of
HT Media (which also owns the Hindustan
Times), over 240 shows across six languages
and 20 genres (business, culture, govern-
ment, true crime and more) cater to millions
of listeners, dissecting stories of the day, add-
ing layers of humanity and empathy to sto-
ries from the front pages.
“It feels a lot like the radio revolution, in
terms of reach and access. Podcasts are
affordable and inclusive, allowing people to
shift between mediums with ease,” says
Deepti Ahuja, head of content and produc-
tion at HT Smartcast.
First Voice, Last Word, the weekly show by
Sunetra Choudhury, national political editor
at Hindustan Times, delves into the dramatic
personalities and strategic moves of politi-
cians, the history of padyatras as a form of
political expression, the dynamics of political
families, in a narrative documentary style.
On Metronome, music journalist Samarth
Goyal interviews independent artists,
explores the stories and symbolism behind
trending tracks.
As Ahuja puts it: “Once you start looking
for creative ways to say more about a story,
the story unravels in the most exciting ways.”
ling changing?
Right now, what interests me most is
visual generative AI. I believe it has the
potential to democratise visual storytelling
but it also has the potential to seriously dis-
rupt the industry.
Consider the widespread interest in some-
thing like “Lord of the Rings by Wes Ander-
son”, a fan-produced short film crafted as a
“trailer”, that has acquired nearly 4 million
views in under two months. Created by Curi-
ous Refuge, using AI filmmaking tools
(though the frames are largely still), its com-
edy comes from our recognition of both the
source material and its reworking.
Many people are now experiencing what
it is like to communicate how they see the
world in ways that an artist or designer
might. This is going to be experienced as a
new power. Is this merely a mechanical art-
form? In the early 20th century, people called
photography a mechanical art that allowed
little room for human expression. We now
know otherwise.
Photography expanded our creative
resources, and these new AI tools are doing
the same, changing who gets to create art as
well as the processes by which art is created.
Professional artists feel threatened that
they are going to be displaced, but it is
already clear that some have more skill at
creating AI images than others, so these new
tools are simply altering the range of resour-
ces available to artists, both professional and
(for now) amateur.
culture
Reading the room: Subtitles
are unlocking new features
The text at the bottom of the screen is freeing up filmmakers, who can now darken the
frame, make the music louder, blend in dialects, knowing the viewer can read to keep up
Challenges Natasha Rego
remain. Some
subtitles from natasha.rego@htlive.com
Season 4
“T
of Stranger entacles squelching
Things went wetly” is our
viral for their favourite here at
odd descrip- HT Wknd. (It’s
tions of from Season 4 of
sounds. On Stranger Things).
the other You can laugh at them, revel in them, or
hand, imagine turn them off, but same-language subtitles
deciphering are altering not just the viewing experience
this line from but the storytelling one too.
the Irish hit The audience is often reading as they
series Derry watch. How is this a good thing? Let us
Girls, without count the ways.
the text Perhaps the most significant thing same-
to help. language subtitling has done is allow film-
makers to alter the soundscape. Characters
can now mumble or whisper, lapse into a
dialect or another language, mutter to
themselves during an explosive event, or
mouth iconic lines amid soaring music.
Enunciation was crucial before the same-
language subtitle. Music was modulated
around speech. The most dramatic
moments in cinematic sound — think of the
shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960) — had to be devoid of words.
Add subtitles and the field breaks wide
open. Dialects can be embraced. Unfamiliar
accents take centrestage (imagine trying to
watch the series Derry Girls without the text
to help).
Reality can be restored. People can be
snide, soft, sotto voce.
In the mini-series White House Plumbers
(2023; based on the illegal Watergate wire-
tap operation), the opening scene features
muttering and Spanish. Viewers needn’t
worry they’ve missed anything. The subti-
tles more or less confirm that it’s frustrated
muttering in Spanish (as an inept burglar
attempts to pick a lock).
In Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer
(2023), as the Trinity nuclear test unfolds in
P “tense music intensifies” are not ideal
I find subtitles oddly liberating. I
enjoy them as a kind of anticipated
entity that’s a subset of the broader
film that one is making.
SHAUNAK SEN, director, All That Breathes
{ ALWAYS AT THE MOVIES }
Anupama Chopra
Returning
champions
It is marvellous to see Hindi films dominate
the box office again. Blockbusters are good
news. But could smart, small films land too?
s Bollywood back? Judging by Ormax
I Media’s India Box Office Report for the
first half of this year, it would certainly
seem so.
Cumulative box office earnings for the
months from January through June in India
stand at Rs 4,868 crore, the report says,
which is 15% less than the same period last
year. But Hindi cinema’s share is 37%, up
from 33% in this period in 2022.
An increase of four percentage points
might seem like a slim margin to celebrate,
but last year, 32% of those Hindi box-office
earnings came from dubbed South films
Pathaan such as RRR, KGF: Chapter 2 and Kantara.
(below) has This year, Pathaan is the top-grossing film
swept the box across India, accounting for 13% of total col-
office, but
lections. The other Hindi films in the top 10
streaming so far include Adipurush, The Kerala Story,
platforms are
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar and Kisi Ka Bhai
still doing a Kisi Ki Jaan. All films made in Hindi.
better job of
More potential blockbusters are coming.
nourishing There’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani
good writers,
(directed by Karan Johar; starring Ranveer
as gems Singh and Alia Bhatt), due out this weekend.
like Kohrra Jawan (directed by Atlee; starring Shah Rukh
(below Khan) in September. Tiger 3 (directed by
right) show. Maneesh Sharma; starring Salman Khan and
09
the New Mexico desert, the lead character
(Cillian Murphy) looks through a window
and whispers. One would never get the cru-
cial lines, in their realistic awe-struck tone,
without the text at the bottom of the screen.
“Filmmakers are conscious of the fact
that people of all backgrounds will be read-
ing as they watch,” says Nasreen Munni
Kabir, a producer and director who also
serves as a subtitler and has worked, in this
capacity, on more than 800 films, including
Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan (2023) and Pon-
niyin Selvan: 1 and 2 (2022-23).
Documentary filmmaker Shaunak Sen of
the Oscar-nominated documentary All That
Breathes (2022), considers the text so vital
to his storytelling that he subtitles all his
own work.
“It gives a filmmaker greater confidence
to know that quick chatter and pacy dia-
logue, which would otherwise be lost on the
viewer, is being conveyed,” he says. Along
with the colour palette, textures of sound
and lens magnification, “one smaller
weapon in your arsenal, is the subtitle,” he
says, adding, “I find subtitles oddly liberat-
ing. I enjoy them as a kind of anticipated
entity that’s a subset of the broader film that
one is making. It helps me hone in on the
particularities in the situated, cultural
details of the story, while knowing that
there will be a universally accessible regis-
ter because of the subtitles.”
The text builds a deeper relationship with
the audience. The screen may go black for
effect; the notes for music tell us we’re still
in the story. A hazy figure may lumber into
view; we know we can focus on watching
until the text tells us it’s time to listen too.
Additionally, subtitles free the viewer to
watch in the settings most easily available to
them. They can watch-listen-read during a
noisy commute, or in a crowded room; on
headphones or despite indifferent audio.
The struggles that remain include work-
ing out how to put sounds into words, and
avoid, for instance, unintentional hilarity in
a tense scene. “Wet footsteps squelch” and
accompaniments to a scenario filled with
suspense and fear.
These oddities have become a kind of
idiom in themselves. As the focus on subti-
tles as a key element and aid in storytelling
grows, perhaps they will cease, and those
already out there will live on as curiosities.
We’ll certainly never forget “Tentacles
squelching wetly”.
Katrina Kaif) in November. Dunki (directed
by Rajkumar Hirani; starring Shah Rukh
Khan and Taapsee Pannu) in December.
There is reason to hope that the box office
will cross the coveted Rs 10,000 crore mark,
with Hindi cinema grabbing the lion’s share.
This is indeed cause for celebration. I am
a lover of the theatrical experience and of
Hindi films, and it is thrilling to see viewers
thronging halls again, for Hindi hits made in
Hindi. As a Hollywood studio executive said
to me earlier this year, if the pandemic
couldn’t kill the movies, then nothing will.
But there are still lessons to learn. When I
compare the artistry and storytelling of
Hindi content on streaming platforms and
Hindi content in cinemas, there is little doubt
that streaming is far ahead.
Take Trial by Fire, co-written and co-di-
rected by Prashant Nair; School of Lies,
directed by Avinash Arun; Kohrra, directed
by Randeep Jha; Farzi directed by Raj Nidim-
oru and Krishna DK; Scoop directed by Han-
sal Mehta; Dahaad directed by Reema Kagti
and Ruchika Oberoi; and Konkona Sen
Sharma’s short in Lust Stories 2. Each of
these narratives offers complex characters,
and a layered and gripping story.
From the non-linear screenplay of Trial by
Fire to the atmospheric cinematography of
School of Lies, the craft is impeccable. As are
the performances. Is there anything in thea-
tres so far that has matched the searing
intensity of Rajshri Deshpande as a grieving
mother in Trial by Fire, or Suvinder Vicky as
the scarred police officer in Kohrra, or Manoj
Bajpayee, heartbreaking in both Gulmohar
and Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai?
Pathaan delivered that crazy movie high
that only a movie on the big screen can. One
of my favourite scenes of the year is the end-
credits sequence in which Shah Rukh and
Salman, only marginally pretending to be
Pathaan and Tiger, decide they will continue
to do what they do because
“desh ka sawaal hai (we’re
doing it for the country)”.
But these superstar-driven
event films cannot carry thea-
tres through the year. We also
need smart, small films to land.
In the end, success will boil
down to writers and how each
format nourishes them. Right
now, it looks like streaming is
doing a better job. I hope Hindi
cinema, as it gets back on its
feet, takes its cue.
 10
Spotthe
differences
How do AI programs create art? How are they getting so much better, so fast?
Peek under the hood to see how two halves of a neural network collaborate,
one telling the other: That’s not good enough. Over and over. Until it is
Vishal Mathur
vishal.mathur@hindustantimes.com
T
hink about it, and it
could soon be a picture.
On the newest frontiers
of generative AI image-
making, the user inputs
neither text nor image;
just thought.
What does that mean
for the future of storytelling, art, and the
human-AI relationship? We’ll get to that.
First, a bit of recap.
Algorithm-generated art isn’t, of course,
new. Computer programs have been creating
patterns and shapes since the 1960s. The
Matrix Multiplication series is an early
The two AI-
generated
images that made
example. Created by a German mathemati-
cian Frieder Nake in 1967, these 12 art works
feature lines and geometric shapes, created
by feeding mathematical operations into an
news in March. algorithm.
One slipped past A few years later came computer-aided
judges to win a design (CAD), where complex algorithms
global photo such as Aaron, created by artist Harold
award; the other Cohen in 1973, created accurate design
fooled most drafts. Adobe Photoshop, released commer-
viewers into cially in 1990, made it possible to alter an
thinking Pope existing image, and merge images. It became
Francis had harder to tell fact from imagination.
stepped out in a Computer-generated imagery (CGI) and
puffy white coat. special effects, geared towards moving visu-
DALL-E 2; MIDJOURNEY als and filmmaking, emerged.
{ LIFE HACKS }
Charles Assisi
Why going uphill
takes you further
The aim in taking on a challenge is not just to
surmount it, but to learn what one is capable
of. Doing this in youth lets one acquire skills
that can be vital in the storms to come
hoose what is harder. Youth is
“C a time to prove you have it in
you.” The advice was offered
by a lecturer at a Chennai-
based college to my older teen, after we
arrived at a stalemate on what course she
ought to pursue in college.
She is enamoured by an option that I think
isn’t worth investing three years of one’s life
in. I have suggested that it could serve as a
side hustle, or an elective.
That is how we ended up on a conference
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wknd mind
The next big leap for still images occurred
in 2015, with the first artificial intelligence or
AI-driven generative networks for art: Goo-
gle’s DeepDream. It used real images to cre-
ate surreal art.
In 2021, this niche tool was replaced by an
overnight sensation: OpenAI’s Dall-E. Within
months, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion was
out, and so was Microsoft’s Nuwa-Infinity.
By 2022, Midjourney, NightCafe and Star-
ryAI had been added to the list.
Dall-E 2 now forms part of the foundation
of the Microsoft Designer app and the Bing
AI suite. This month, Stability AI released its
newest tool, Stable Doodle, which can turn a
rough sketch into a realistic image inspired
either by a style of drawing or photography.
Meanwhile, this year was marked by two
significant inflection points (both in March).
First, Pope Francis was depicted in a puffy
white coat, on social-media platforms, in an
image that most viewers thought was real.
And an AI-made image fooled judges at the
Sony World Photography Awards and
walked away with a prize; it was submit-
ted by Berlin-based Boris Eldagsen, to prove
a point.
Those two works were created using Mid-
journey and Dall-E 2 respectively.
The latter allows the user to “control” set-
tings for a virtual lens and aperture, which is
partly why the fake photo that won the con-
test — a 1950s-style vintage-look portrait of
two women — looked so real.
While that image was the work of a pro-
fessional photo-artist,
the image of the pope
was created by a
31-year-old construc-
tion worker named
Pablo Xavier (last
name withheld), from
Chicago. Without tak-
ing away from the lat-
ter’s viral achievement,
that’s how easy it is.
Quick draw
So, how does AI create
images with such high
levels of visual authen-
ticity?
Well, these pro-
grams run on what are
called Generative
Adversarial Networks,
call with a professional teacher. After he had
made his stance clear, he went on to explain
it. The pursuit of the easy, when one is
young, keeps one from exploring and under-
standing one’s boundaries, he said.
I agree. This is precisely why the joke
about calculus has never made sense to me.
Of course one doesn’t use it “when adding
things up at the grocery store”; that was
never its purpose. One uses it as a compo-
nent of various other fields (engineering,
chemistry, biochemistry). One studies it to
explore a frontier of human knowledge; and
explore the extents of one’s own mind. One
does this to build a culture of effort, and to
set a high bar at which one might later aim.
This holds true for in-depth study across
disciplines, whether they are the pure scien-
ces or literature, history or dance.
A few hours after the call, the young one
threw me an interesting question: Does it still
make sense to choose what is hard over an
easier option, in a time when the world is
geared towards making life easier? We work
hard today so tomorrow can be better, she
pointed out. Why not simply take an easy
route to that destination, if one is available?
This is a theme I’ve exchanged notes on
with Krishna Jha, a Bengaluru-based venture
capital and equity investor. He has a deep
interest in biology and philosophy. A while
Images generated by Midjourney, based
on a text prompt from HT designer Puneet
Kumar. Kumar accessed six versions of
the program — from V1 (launched last
year) to V5.2 (launched last month) — and
offered each the same cue: Woman at
India Gate, with windblown hair.
or GANs. And GANs work a bit like a live
digital-art class.
Say a user types in a text cue: photograph-
style image of woman at India Gate, with
windblown hair. Two neural networks
now get to work (they’re called neural net-
works because they’re modelled on the
human brain’s rapid-fire input and response
mechanisms).
The first neural network is the generator.
Its job is to create the image it has been asked
for. Behind the scenes, the second neural net-
work acts as the discriminator.
As the image takes shape, it essentially
scans it for inaccuracies, points them out to
the generative program and says: That’s not
good enough.
How does the discriminator network
know? It analyses the created image against
elements from a pre-learned database —
woman, India Gate, windblown, hair. It
examines each version created by the gener-
ator network for misrepresentations or inac-
curacies in object, aesthetics, lighting, style.
When there is nothing left that it considers
worth challenging or flagging, the result is
sent out to the screen, and the user.
As with all AI-driven models, the more it is
used, the more it learns. In recent months,
the programs have received millions of new
data sets on what went wrong, and this has
helped too. Which images were tagged as
fake? Why? It learns from the answers.
Incidentally, as the program continues to
be trained, such information is released to
the two halves separately.
“We keep the generator constant during
the discriminator training phase. As discrim-
inator training tries to figure out how to dis-
tinguish real data from fake, it has to learn
how to recognize the generator’s flaws. Simi-
larly, we keep the discriminator constant
during the generator training phase. Other-
wise the generator would be trying to hit a
moving target,” is how Google explained it, in
a blog from last year.
Next up: A possible “thought” model, in
which an AI-driven art program reproduces
what the user is thinking.
In a pre-print research paper released in
December, systems neuroscientists Yu Tak-
agi and Shinji Nishimoto from Osaka Univer-
sity say they have created a model that can
capture neural activity with about 80% accu-
racy, to reproduce thoughts. Among other
tools, the researchers used an advanced logi-
cal data model paired with Stable Diffusion.
For now, there are no regulations in place
to govern the use of these technological
innovations. Applications that can help
detect AI-generated images are still being
built; it is unlikely these will ever achieve
100% accuracy.
The world is sailing into uncharted terri-
tory. Europol, the European Union’s law
enforcement agency, predicts that as much
as 90% of content on the internet may be cre-
ated or edited with the use of AI, by 2026.
What would a future in this world look
like? Just think about the implications, let
the image take shape, and say when.
ago, Jha suggested I look up the Canadian
clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson’s most
recent book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for
Life (2021).
One of the most interesting rules he has to
offer is to imagine the best you could be, and
then aim single-mindedly for that. Peterson
admits that this isn’t easy, for various rea-
sons. Most people are not motivated to do
w { NOW I GET IT } ODD SHAPES IN THE NEWS
The trick of the hat and spectre
Kabir Firaque
kabir.firaque@hindustantimes.com
READ: n April, an unusual discovery made
‘ChatGPT, what
is the Markov
Process?’: See
how a 19th-
century trick
I news. Researchers had identified a two-
dimensional shape with 13 sides, not
particularly pretty, which they called
the “Hat”. Copies could be used to tile an infi-
nite plane, leaving no gaps, with no pattern
helps AI ‘decide’ repeating. This is called aperiodicity.
Within months, the same team discovered
another shape that not only tiled an indefi-
nite plane without repeating a pattern, but
did this without the use of its mirror image.
The researchers named it the “Spectre”.
The Hat is an “einstein”, or “one stone”,
because the single shape (and its reflection)
enables the infinite tiling. The Spectre is
being called a “vampire einstein”, because
vampires supposedly do not reflect them-
selves in the mirror. All this does not, how-
ever, explain why this is such a big deal.
Well, here goes. The Hat and the Spectre
are the first single shapes ever found to
exhibit aperiodicity, in a search that has been
underway since the 1960s. These shapes may
find practical use in the making of quasicrys-
tals (structures that can fill all of an available
The Hat may space without repeating a pattern). Quasi-
find use in the crystals are used, for instance, as coatings on
making of frying pans and surgical equipment.
quasicrystals, What makes the new discoveries signifi-
used as cant, however, is not the promise of practical
coatings on application. In mathematics, as in any
frying pans branch of science, the thrill of solving a puz-
and surgical zle is the reward. The significance of the two
equipment. shapes boils down to a story of discovery.
UNIVERSITY OF The idea of aperiodicity has its genesis at
WATERLOO least four centuries ago. In 1611, Johannes
{ CAPITAL LETTERS } COCKNEY RHYMING SLANG
How egg got to borrow and beg
Adam Jacot
de Boinod
w H
ow did we get the phrase “use
your loaf”, meaning “use your
head”? Well, it dates to the late-
19th century, and is drawn from
Cockney rhyming slang; in which head, is
“loaf of bread”.
The Cockneys are a trading community
(traditionally, they sold produce), and are
native residents of London, specifically the
READ: Tom, East End. The slang began as a code that let
Dick and them communicate in front of outsiders,
geography: other traders or customers, without being
How places get understood. It then became a key element of
their names, identity (along with a distinct accent; and a
by Adam Jacot plain dislike of pomp and pretentiousness).
de Boinod Rhyming slang is created by replacing a
common word with a rhyming phrase of
two or three words, and then usually omit-
ting the secondary
rhyming word too.
For example, “going
upstairs” was “apples
and pears” and now it’s,
“I’m going up the
apples”.
How did the specific
terms evolve? This is
where the story gets
really interesting. The
best examples to draw
from are more contem-
Cockney
vendors in
London.
COURTESY THE
ORIGINAL COCKNEY SOMETHING’S MISSING...
MUSEUM ...but not for long. Swetha Sivakumar is on a break. Sound Bites will return next week.
GETTY IMAGES
Record-setter
Taylor Swift,
33, on her Eras
anything of consequence. In order to feel
motivated, one must be driven by passion,
and this is a rare resource.
Tour. Success, Assuming that the individual wishes to
in all its forms, live a life of consequence, is there a way to
is defined by unearth or generate passion? The answer,
the ability to Peterson suggests, is to step outside oneself.
set new limits This is how love operates, whether for a per-
for the self. son, a sports team, a scientific question to be
PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023
Kepler, the German astronomer and mathe-
matician best known for his laws on planet-
ary motion, published an article wondering
why every snowflake shows a six-sided sym-
metry. Why not four or five sides?
Kepler assumed that the hexagonal shape
allows for the tightest possible way of pack-
ing the snowflakes together. This is known as
the Kepler Conjecture, formally proven only
in 2011. His work, in fact, formed the founda-
tion of modern crystallography.
Now, as anyone who has tiled a floor
knows, it is possible to pack a two-dimen-
sional plane with a single shape. In all these
tilings, however, various patterns will repeat
periodically. An abiding question in crystal-
lography became: Could there be shapes that
could pack a two-dimensional plane aperiod-
ically (with no repetitions)?
In the 1960s, the Chinese-American logi-
cian Hao Wang articulated the idea of aperio-
dicity, but he dismissed it as an impossibility,
says Craig S Kaplan of the University of
Waterloo, one of the researchers who
described the two new shapes.
Wang was wrong. In 1974, the British
mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose
— who would win the 2020 Physics Nobel —
published a paper describing aperiodic tiling
using a set of different shapes. But a single
aperiodic tile, or monotile, remained elusive.
“In truth, it’s not clear why aperiodic mon-
otiles were so hard to find. It really came
down to luck,” Kaplan says. “The universe of
shapes we might consider as candidates is
infinitely vast, and there was no clear indica-
tion of where we might start looking for ape-
riodic monotiles.”
The Hat eventually emerged last Novem-
ber, when David Smith, a hobbyist mathema-
tician in Brighton, constructed it with soft-
ware. Noticing that it could aperiodically fill
a plane, he contacted Kaplan. Smith, Kaplan
and two other mathematicians described it
in a preprint paper in March, followed by
another on the Spectre in May.
“As is turns out, we spent 50 years looking
in the wrong places,” Kaplan says. He is cer-
tain there are more such shapes out there.
“There’s nothing remarkable about the
Hat as a shape. It’s just a boring, unassuming
polygonal blob. There’s every reason to
believe that we’ll be able to find many more
aperiodic monotiles.” he says. Once again,
though, “we just don’t know where to look!”
porary, from the middle of the last century,
because the arc was visible as it formed.
Egg, for instance, became “borrow and
beg” — because that’s what one did for such
wares amid the intense food-rationing of
World War 2. Gravy became “army and
navy”, because both were plentiful and
everywhere. Port, in an absolutely smashing
example, became “didn’t ought” (based on
the simpering of ladies who, when asked to
“have another”, replied that they “really
didn’t ought”).
By the 1950s, working-class Londoners, in
a city inordinately fond of wordplay, were
adopting some of these phrases and making
them their own. So, “taking the mickey
bliss”, for “taking the piss”, became simply
“taking the mickey”.
Recently, a Museum of London survey
found that Cockney rhyming slang is dying
out, replaced by contemporary youth slang,
borrowed largely from rap or hip-hop lyrics.
New local dialects include “Jafaican”, or
“fake Jamaican”. Th, in Jafaican, becomes t
— so thing is ting (or fing); thanks is tanks
(or fanks). Twists include “blud” for bud or
blood brother; “long” for too much effort.
Jafaican is itself part of the new tapestry the
survey referred to, collectively called Multi-
cultural London English or MLE.
We could say tanks for this ting. Or just
sigh and sit down to some didn’t ought with
a bit of borrow and beg.
(Adam Jacot de Boinod is the
author of The Meaning of Tingo)
resolved, or an economic or sociological
problem that faces society. Step outside the
self, and identify a larger cause.
In an age of relative self-centeredness, I
feel compelled to add an additional motive.
Step outside the self and make the effort; see
what you can do on the hard road; because
no life is uninterruptedly easy.
Every good story has a start that isn’t good
enough, and ends at a point that is better
than that start. That journey is what makes
the story worth telling. “Without it, every-
thing sinks into meaninglessness and bore-
dom or degenerates and spirals into terror,
anxiety and pain,” Peterson writes.
Along the way, it is possible that the story
as it was originally imagined may have to be
entirely rewritten. The hero may have to rei-
magine themselves altogether, in an alto-
gether different narrative. How are they to do
that, without a varied set of tools?
And so, in youth, choose what is hard,
because that is pragmatic. As arguments go,
this fits in with a personal belief as well: you
become what you focus on. Whether the kid
will buy these arguments is a decision she
must take. I hope she gets to play a hero,
rather than a bystander, in the story of life.
(Charles Assisi is co-founder at Founding Fuel &
co-author of The Aadhaar Effect)
 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023
NORTH ATLANTIC
OCEAN TEMP
SETS RECORD
HIGH: US AGENCY
Agence France-Presse
letters@hindustantimes.com
WASHINGTON: On the heels of a
new record high in the Mediter-
ranean, the North Atlantic
reached its hottest-ever level this
week, several weeks earlier than
its usual annual peak, according
to preliminary data released Fri-
day by the US National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administra-
tion.
The news comes after scien-
tists confirmed that July is on
track to be the warmest month in
record history — searing heat
intensified by global warming
that has affected tens of millions
of people.
“Based on our analysis, the
record-high average sea surface
temperature in the North Atlan-
tic Ocean is 24.9 degrees C,”
observed Wednesday, Xungang
Yin, a scientist at NOAA’s
National Centers for Environ-
mental Information, told AFP.
The record is particularly star-
tling as it comes early in the year
— usually, the North Atlantic
reaches its peak temperature in
early September.
The previous record high was
recorded in September 2022, at
24.89 degrees Celsius, Yin said.
NOAA, which has been track-
ing sea temperatures since the
early 1980s, will need about two
weeks to confirm the preliminary
findings.
The Mediterranean Sea
reached its highest temperature
on record Monday, Spanish
researchers said — amid an
exceptional heat wave in Europe.
The record of 28.71 degrees
Celsius was announced by
Spain’s Institute of Marine Scien-
ces, which analysed data from
satellites used by the European
Earth observation program
Copernicus.
Those experts said they meas-
ure the daily median sea surface
temperature, rather than the
average, because it is less suscep-
tible to extreme spikes in temper-
ature in isolated areas of the sea.
The Mediterranean region, hit
by record temperatures in July,
has long been classified as a hot-
spot of climate change.
The sea surface temperature
in the North Atlantic is “expected
to continue to increase through
the month of August,” NOAA’s
Yin said, adding it was “highly
likely” the record would again be
broken.
The new high of 24.9 degrees
Celsius is “more than one degree
warmer than a 30-year climato-
logical normal, calculated from
1982 to 2011,” he added.
A residential building partially destroyed after a Russian missile
strike in Dnipro on Friday.
Nine hurt in Russian
air strike in Dnipro
Agencies
letters@hindustantimes.com
KYIV, UKRAINE: A Russian mis-
sile struck an apartment block
in the central Ukrainian city of
Dnipro on Friday, Kyiv officials
said, injuring at least nine peo-
ple including two children.
“Dnipro. Another terrorist
attack,” said Sergiy Kruk, head
of the Ukrainian State Emer-
gency Service, on Telegram.
“Currently, we know of 9
injured, including two chil-
dren. Work continues.”
Internal affairs minister Igor
Klymenko earlier reported “a
Russian strike on a multistorey
building in Dnipro”, saying five
people had been injured.
Videos posted on social
media showed smoke billowing
from the top floors of a residen-
tial building that had been
badly damaged.
President Volodymyr Zelen-
sky said: “Dnipro. Friday even-
ing. A high-rise building and
the Security Service of
Ukraine’s building were hit.
Russian missile terror again”.
“All necessary services are
on site... We keep the situation
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Niger loses aid as Western
countries condemn coup
Agencies
letters@hindustantimes.com
NIAMEY: The European Union
has cut off financial support to
Niger and the United States has
threatened to do the same after
military leaders this week
announced they had over-
thrown the democratically
elected president, Mohamed
Bazoum.
Niger is one of the poorest
countries in the world, receiving
close to $2 billion a year in offi-
cial development assistance,
according to the World Bank.
It is also a key security part-
ner of Western countries such as
France and the United States,
which use it as a base for their
efforts to contain an Islamist
insurgency in West and Central
Africa’s Sahel region. Previously
seen the most stable country
among several unstable neigh-
bours, Niger is the world’s sev-
enth-biggest producer of ura-
nium.
Niger’s foreign allies so far
have refused to recognise the
new military government led by
General Abdourahamane Tiani,
previously head of the presiden-
tial guard, who officers declared
head of state on Friday.
Bazoum has not been heard
from since early Thursday when
he was confined within the pres-
idential palace, although the
European Union, France and
others say they still recognize
him as the legitimate president.
US Secretary of State Anthony
Blinken, who is in Australia as
part of a Pacific tour, said on
Saturday that the continued
security and economic arrange-
ments that Niger has with the
US hinged on the release of
Bazoum and “the immediate
restoration of the democratic
order in Niger.”
“Our economic and security
partnership with Niger — which
is significant, hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars — depends on
the continuation of the demo-
cratic governance and constitu-
tional order that has been dis-
rupted by the actions in the last
few days,” Blinken said.
“So that assistance, that sup-
port, is in clear jeopardy as a
result of these actions, which is
another reason why they need to
be immediately reversed.”
Blinken stopped short of call-
ing the military actions in Niger
AFP
under control. We will do
everything to bring Russia to
full punishment for aggression
and terror against our people.”
Russian regions bordering
Ukraine have seen regular
drone strikes and shelling since
Moscow launched its military
campaign in February last year
but have hardly ever been tar-
geted by missiles.
On Saturday, Zelensky said
he was visiting “advanced posi-
tions” of Ukraine’s special for-
ces near the hotspot of Bakh-
mut as Kyiv ramps up its coun-
ter-offensive.
“The Bakhmut direction,
advanced positions of the Spe-
cial Operations Forces,” Zelen-
sky said on messaging app Tel-
egram.
“I am here to congratulate
our warriors on their profes-
sional day, to honour their
strength.”
Zelensky said he was not at
liberty to disclose details of the
special forces’ current opera-
tions.
He said he heard a com-
mander’s report and spoke
with the troops, praising their
“truly heroic” performance.
General Abdourahmane Tiani, who was declared as the new head of state of Niger by leaders of a coup, arrives to meet with ministers
in Niamey, Niger on Friday.
a coup, a designation that could
result in the African country los-
ing millions of dollars of mili-
tary aid and assistance.
Speaking in Brisbane, Blinken
said he had spoken with Presi-
dent Bazoum on Saturday but
did not provide details. He cited
the support of the African
Union, the Economic Commu-
nity of West African States and
other regional entities in trying
to bring an end to the unrest.
“In addition to the immediate
cessation of budget support, all
cooperation actions in the
domain of security are sus-
pended indefinitely with imme-
diate effect,” EU foreign policy
chief Josep Borrell said in a
statement.
Niger is a key partner of the
European Union in helping curb
the flow of irregular migrants
from sub-Saharan Africa. The
EU also has a small number of
troops in Niger for a military
training mission.
The EU allocated 503 million
euros ($554 million) from its
US announces $345 million
military aid package for Taiwan
Associated Press
letters@hindustantimes.com
WASHINGTON: The U.S. on Fri-
day announced $345 million in
military aid for Taiwan, in what
is the Biden administration’s
first major package drawing on
America’s own stockpiles to
help Taiwan counter China.
The White House’s
announcement said the pack-
age would include defence,
education and training for the
Taiwanese. Washington will
send man-portable air defense
systems, or MANPADS, intelli-
gence and surveillance capabil-
ities, firearms and missiles,
according to two US officials
who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss sensitive
matters ahead of the announce-
ment.
US lawmakers have been
{ TWITTER IN TROUBLE }
‘X’ logo atop Twitter building spurs permit violation investigation
Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter,
in downtown San Francisco, on Friday.
World
budget to improve governance,
education and sustainable
growth in Niger over 2021-2024,
according to its website.
The United States has two
military bases in Niger with
some 1,100 soldiers, and also
provides hundreds of millions of
dollars to the country in security
and development aid.
The United Nations said the
coup has not affected its deliver-
ies of humanitarian aid.
It is unclear how much sup-
port the military junta has
among Niger’s population. Some
crowds came out in support of
Bazoum on Wednesday, but the
following day coup supporters
also took to the streets.
The Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS)
will hold an emergency summit
in Nigeria on Sunday to discuss
the situation.
After an emergency meeting
on Friday, the African Union’s
Peace and Security Council
issued a statement demanding
the military return to their bar-
pressuring the Pentagon and
White House to speed weapons
to Taiwan. The goals are to help
it counter China and to deter
China from considering attack-
ing, by providing Taipei enough
weaponry that it would make
the price of invasion too high.
While Chinese diplomats
protested the move, Taiwan’s
trade office in Washington said
the U.S. decision to pull arms
and other materiel from its
stores provided “an important
tool to support Taiwan’s self-
defense.” In a statement, it
pledged to work with the
United States to maintain
“peace, stability and the status
quo across the Taiwan Strait.”
Taiwan’s ministry of
national defence also expressed
its appreciation in a statement
Saturday morning that thanked
“the US for its firm commit-
racks and restore constitutional
order within 15 days.
The AU’s Peace and Security
Council “demands the military
personnel to immediately and
unconditionally return to their
barracks and restore constitu-
tional authority, within a maxi-
mum period of fifteen (15) days”,
it said in a communique follow-
ing a meeting Friday on the
Niger coup. It did not say what
would happen after that.
Blinken said the US Embassy
in Niger had accounted for the
safety of all staff members and
their families, while issuing a
security alert advising US citi-
zens in the country to limit
unnecessary movements and
avoid areas impacted by the
coup.
The military group that con-
ducted the coup, calling itself
the National Council for the
Safeguarding of the Country,
said its members remained
committed to engaging with the
international and national com-
munity.
ment to Taiwan’s security.”
The package is in addition to
nearly $19 billion in military
sales of F-16s and other major
weapons systems that the US
has approved for Taiwan.
Delivery of those weapons has
been hampered by supply
chain issues that started during
the Covid-19 pandemic and
have been exacerbated by the
global defense industrial base
pressures created by Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine.
The difference is that this aid
is part of a presidential author-
ity approved by Congress last
year to draw weapons from
current US military stockpiles
— so Taiwan will not have to
wait for military production
and sales. This gets weapons
delivered faster than providing
funding for new weapons.
The Pentagon has used a
AP
REUTERS
“This is as a result of the con-
tinuing degradation of the secu-
rity situation, the bad economic
and social governance,” air force
Col. Major Amadou Abdramane
said in the video released by the
coup leaders Wednesday. He
said aerial and land borders
were closed and a curfew was in
place until the situation stabi-
lized.
Bazoum was elected two
years ago in Niger’s first peace-
ful, democratic transfer of
power since independence from
France.
Niger is seen as the last relia-
ble partner for the West in
efforts to battle jihadis linked to
al-Qaida and the Islamic State
group in Africa’s Sahel region,
where Russia and Western
countries have vied for influence
in the fight against extremism.
France has 1,500 soldiers in
the country who conduct joint
operations with Niger’s military,
while the US and other Euro-
pean countries have helped
train the nation’s troops.
similar authority to get billions
of dollars worth of munitions
to Ukraine.
Taiwan split from China in
1949 amid civil war. Chinese
President Xi Jinping maintains
China’s right to take over the
now self-ruled island, by force
if necessary. China has accused
the US of turning Taiwan into a
“powder keg” through the bil-
lions of dollars in weapons
sales it has pledged.
The US maintains a “One
China” policy under which it
does not recognise Taiwan’s as
an independent country and
has no formal diplomatic rela-
tions with the island in defer-
ence to Beijing.
However, US law requires a
credible defence for Taiwan
and for the US to treat all
threats to the island as matters
of “grave concern.”
Agencies
letters@hindustantimes.com
SAN FRANCISCO: The city of San
Francisco has opened a com-
plaint and launched an investi-
gation into a giant “X” sign that
was installed Friday on top of
the downtown building formerly
known as Twitter headquarters
as owner Elon Musk continues
his rebrand of the social media
platform.
City officials say replacing let-
ters or symbols on buildings, or
erecting a sign on top of one,
requires a permit for design and
safety reasons.
The X appeared after San
Francisco police stopped work-
ers on Monday from removing
the brand’s iconic bird and logo
from the side of the building,
saying they hadn’t taped off the
Flooding in Fuzhou after Typhoon Doksuri made landfall and
brought heavy rainfall, in Fujian province, China on Friday. REUTERS
Beijing on alert as
Typhoon Doksuri
sweeps inwards
Agence France-Presse
letters@hindustantimes.com
BEIJING: China’s weather service
on Saturday issued a red alert
for torrential rain in the capital
Beijing and surrounding provin-
ces, as Typhoon Doksuri swept
inland bringing hazardous
weather conditions to many
parts of the country.
Doksuri smashed into south-
ern Fujian province on Friday
morning with gusts of up to 175
kilometres per hour, and
China’s meteorological service
said Saturday its “influence”
was now being felt in the coun-
try’s north.
China has been experiencing
extreme weather conditions
and posting record tempera-
tures this summer, events that
scientists say are being exacer-
bated by climate change.
Experts have warned Satur-
day’s downpour could prompt
even worse flooding than in July
2012, when 79 people died and
tens of thousands were evacu-
ated, according to local media.
It is the first time since 2011
that such a heavy rainfall warn-
ing has been issued, local media
said.
The red alert will be in force
from 8pm local time, and covers
an area of several hundred mil-
lion inhabitants, including the
metropolis of Tianjin, and the
provinces of Hebei and Shand-
ong.
Several of Beijing’s parks,
lakes and riverside roads have
been closed out of precaution,
{ BANGLADESH }
Clashes between police
and protesters in Dhaka
DHAKA: Bangladesh police fired
rubber bullets and tear gas to dis-
perse stone-throwing crowds
blockading major roads in the
capital Dhaka on Saturday in the
latest protest demanding the
prime minister’s resignation.
The opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) and its
allies have staged a series of pro-
tests since last year demanding
Sheikh Hasina step down and
allow a caretaker government to
oversee elections due next Janu-
ary.
Clashes erupted in several loca-
tions when police moved in to
clear thousands of people who
gathered in the morning to block
traffic on key arterials around the
city.
“Some officers were injured,”
Dhaka Metropolitan Police
spokesman Faruk Hossain told
AFP. “We fired tear gas and rub-
sidewalk to keep pedestrians
safe if anything fell.
Any replacement letters or
symbols would require a permit
to ensure “consistency with the
historic nature of the building”
and to make sure additions are
safely attached to the sign, Pat-
rick Hannan, spokesperson for
the Department of Building
Inspection said earlier this week.
Erecting a sign on top of a
building also requires a permit,
Hannan said Friday.
“Planning review and
approval is also necessary for
the installation of this sign. The
city is opening a complaint and
initiating an investigation,” he
said in an email.
Musk unveiled a new “X” logo
to replace Twitter’s famous blue
bird as he remakes the social
media platform he bought for
11
the municipal authorities
announced on Saturday.
Heavy showers were reported
in the capital on Saturday after-
noon and are expected to last
through Tuesday.
In Fujian’s provincial capital
on Saturday authorities ordered
residents to only leave their
homes only if necessary.
Public transport has also
been suspended.
Doksuri had been a super
typhoon as it tore across the
Pacific Ocean earlier this week,
but lost some intensity as it
neared the Philippines.
The typhoon killed at least 13
people there, and caused land-
slides and floods before tracking
northwest to China and gradu-
ally weakening.
It still brought colossal waves
and howling winds to the coun-
try’s southeast on Friday, caus-
ing significant damage.
In Xiamen, a major port city
on the Taiwan Strait, heavy
weather appeared to have
ripped the roof off of a bus sta-
tion and pushed it up against a
nearby sign.
Pictures shared on social
media showed massive gusts of
wind pummelling residential
tower blocks on Friday in Jinji-
ang, a county-level urban area
south of the city of Quanzhou.
The stormy weather follows
weeks of record heat in China.
At the beginning of July, Bei-
jing and the surrounding region
broke temperature records,
with local temperatures in
excess of 40 degrees Celsius.
ber bullets.”
At least four protest sites
around the city saw clashes
between police and protesters,
Hossain said, with 20 officers
injured and 90 protesters
arrested. AFP journalists at one
protest site in Dholaikhal wit-
nessed protesters retaliate by
throwing rocks at riot police and
their vehicles.
Bacchu Mia, a police inspector
at the Dhaka Medical College
Hospital, told AFP that six pro-
testers had been admitted to the
hospital with injuries.
Senior BNP leaders Goyeshwar
Roy and Amanullah Aman had
been taken into police custody but
had not been formally arrested,
Hossain said.
Transport links between the
capital and other parts of the
country were badly disrupted,
with vehicles stuck in gridlock.AFP
$44 billion last year. The X
started appearing at the top of
the desktop version of Twitter
on Monday.
Elon Musk said on Friday
monthly users of social media
platform X, formerly known as
Twitter, reached a “new high”
and shared a graph that showed
the latest count as over 540 mil-
lion.
Musk, who is also CEO of
Tesla, has long been fascinated
with the letter X and had already
renamed Twitter’s corporate
name to X Corp. after he bought
it in October.
One of his children is called
“X.” The child’s actual name is a
collection of letters and symbols.
On Friday afternoon, a
worker on a lift machine made
adjustments to the sign and then
left.
 12
Ishan Kishan on his way to a run-a-ball 55 on Saturday.
India struggle as
changes continue
Aditya Chaturvedi
aditya.chaturvedi@hindustantimes.com
MUMBAI: India lost as many as
five wickets chasing 115 in the
first One-Day International
(ODI) against West Indies. In the
second ODI, the visitors were
bowled out for 181. While Rohit
Sharma and Virat Kohli decided
to bat down the order in the
opener, they were rested alto-
gether for the second ODI. Har-
dik Pandya stood in as captain
for Sharma in the second ODI in
Bridgetown on Saturday as India
continued to experiment. With
Kohli missing from the playing
XI, Sanju Samson and Axar Patel
were brought in on Saturday.
“It’s just that a few questions
have to be answered,” said Pan-
dya at the toss. “Rohit and Virat
have been playing constant
cricket, so they thought they
would rest in this game and be
fresh for the third ODI. So yeah,
they’re just resting and making
sure that opportunities are given
to the other guys.”
India received an impressive
opening stand in the second ODI
before things went downhill.
Ishan Kishan scored his second
successive half-century of the
series. Shubman Gill, back as
opener, scored a 49-ball 34.
Having enjoyed a 90-run
opening partnership, India
seemed on course for a solid
total but they ended up losing
five wickets for 23 runs. Gill and
Kishan fell in quick succession
before Patel was promoted to
No. 4. But the left-hander was
sent packing for one run, with
Pandya and Samson following
him to the pavilion soon after.
Ravindra Jadeja and Surya-
kumar Yadav put on a much-
needed 33-run stand for the
sixth wicket but they were dis-
missed in a span of five balls,
leaving India tottering at 148/7
after 32.1 overs. Five of these
A Chinese world title, with Indian help
Susan Ninan
sportsdesk@hindustantimes.com
entala Harikrishna,
P hands behind his back,
politely posing for the
camera in a white
Shanghai team jacket at the
Women’s World Chess Champi-
onship venue during Game 2
earlier this month was a much
grander reveal than it looked. At
least for Indian chess followers.
It was a surprise disclosure that
the Indian Grandmaster was
part of the newly crowned Chi-
nese women’s world champion
Ju Wenjun’s team for the match.
Harikrishna’s association
with Ju, perhaps not widely
known, goes back a long way.
They were Shanghai teammates
in the Chinese chess league for
the first time in 2008, finishing
as champions.
The 37-year-old has turned
out for the side a few more
times since. It was Ni Hua, his
former Shanghai teammate and
Ju’s trainer for previous
matches, who got in touch with
him, asking if he’d be up to
work as a second. Hua’s current
role as head of the Chinese
national team put him in an
awkward spot in an all-Chinese
title match between the defend-
ing champion and challenger
Lei Tingjie.
“I have occasionally assisted
a few players for tournaments,”
says Harikrishna, ranked 32 in
the world. “But a World Cham-
pionship match is nothing like
that.”
The magnitude and nature of
the match — preparing to face
one opponent over 12 classical
This PDF was uploade To Telegram channel_ LBS Newspaper platform (https://t.me/LBSNEWSPAPER):@LBSNEWSPAPER
AFP
seven wickets saw batters get-
ting caught in the outfield.
Even if India go on to win the
series, against a team that has
missed out on qualifying for the
upcoming ODI World Cup, it was
hardly a promising position to
be in. Including the ongoing
series, and if they make it to the
Asia Cup final, India have 12
ODIs ahead of the World Cup.
But as things stand, there seems
to be a familiar air of confusion
and a lot of work left to do.
Before the start of this series,
regular skipper Sharma had spo-
ken about how India want to
prepare for the World Cup.
“If we feel a certain player
could be a part of our World Cup
squad, we will try and give him a
chance in this series,” he had
said. “The ones who are playing
regularly could also get injured,
so we need to get the other guys
ready. We need to focus on the
entire squad, because injuries
can happen at any time.”
He added: “Even before last
year’s T20 World Cup, we had
given chances to the newer play-
ers to see how they play their
roles in the team. We’ll look to
do the same this time and make
a decision after the 10-12 ODIs.”
It’s worth remembering that
India didn’t really have a suc-
cessful campaign at the 2022
T20 World Cup Sharma was
referring to.
With premier pacers missing
the series, and with not much
time left for the World Cup,
would it have been more pru-
dent for India to aim for stabil-
ity? Don’t certainties like
Sharma and Kohli need game-
time in their positions too?
Pandya was right when he
said at the toss that some ques-
tions need to be answered. Per-
haps another question can be
added to the list: Till when can
India afford to keep chopping
and changing this way to get all
the answers they need?
games — can be a lot more
exacting for seconds. Hari-
krishna jumped right in and
joined Ju’s team — alongside
Chinese GM Wei Yi — sometime
around April, less than four
months before the match. They
had remote sessions and met
only days ahead of the match in
Shanghai.
“It was a team of three intro-
verts. Neither of us is express-
ive. Working together though
was a lot more fun than it
sounds,” he laughs. “I was per-
haps the most talkative person
in the group if you can imag-
ine.”
Ju and Harikrishna have a
common strength in endgame
understanding. Defending a
tricky endgame was what saw
Ju through in the topsy-turvy
final classical encounter, for her
fourth World Championship
win. “We weren’t sure which
way it would go, so Wei and I
began preparing for the tie-
breaks during the final game.”
Thankfully, Ju managed to
deftly marshal her pieces, purg-
ing Black’s d-pawn and steering
her d-pawn up the board for the
team to celebrate over a hot pot
dinner and call it a night.
After a gruelling couple of
weeks, Harikrishna is back
home in the quiet village of Vys-
oky Ujezd, around 26 km from
Prague. The soft-spoken, polite-
to-a-fault GM from Andhra Pra-
desh, who learned chess from
his maternal grandfather in
Prathipadu, near Guntur, has a
“love for trying new things”.
Lately, he has taken to play-
ing beach volleyball and even
joined a chess-boxing session
Clueless Aussies wilt under
England’s batting onslaught
The hosts make it
their day with an
impressive display,
but Australia weren’t
at their tactical best
Ashish Magotra
ashish.magotra@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: As Joe Root and
Jonny Bairstow were in the mid-
dle of putting together another
blistering partnership for
England on Day 3 of the fifth and
final Ashes Test at The Oval, the
television screen suddenly
flashed images of former Aussie
pacer Glenn McGrath and
former Aussie skipper Ricky
Ponting having a conversation.
It immediately made one
wonder if the Aussie teams led
by Ponting or one in which
McGrath, Jason Gillespie and
Shane Warne made up the bowl-
ing attack, would have allowed
England to just hammer away.
At close of play, England were
389/9, a lead of 377 runs. Joe
Root’s 91 was the top-score as
the hosts took control, and they
will now be eyeing a win that
will allow them to level the
series up at 2-2.
The home side started the day
12 runs behind but they wiped
that deficit off with little fuss and
a lot of flair. The openers, Ben
Duckett and Zak Crawley, put on
79 off 104 balls. Then, Crawley
and Ben Stokes (batting at No.3)
strung together 61 off 57 balls.
Stokes and Joe Root put on 73 off
79. Root and Harry Brook 9 (8).
Root and Bairstow added 110 of
148 balls. It was the kind of bat-
ting card we would see in an old-
school ODI. And you get it. At
one level, you get it. England’s
‘Bazball’ strategy means they
want to go hard at the bowling.
And they have the right batters
to do that as well. But does Aus-
tralia have to play along?
Would McGrath have allowed
the batters to just keep going
after him or would he have taken
a step back and tried to figure
how he could make things diffi-
cult for them? Would Warne
have tried to go around the
wicket and pack the leg-side
field?
This isn’t being defensive.
This is simply being smart. The
great Aussie teams would mind
giving a session to the opposi-
tion. Sometimes, you do get out-
played. Sometimes, you lose a
Test or even a series. The point,
though, is the tactical lethargy
that has been on display.
In commentary, Ponting kept
advocating a fifth-stump line to
Crawley (73 off 76). Australia
didn’t bowl that for the longest
time and when they did, they
finally got him. It wasn’t just
guess work from Ponting though
Pentala Harikrishna (right) was part of the newly crowned
women’s world champion Ju Wenjun’s team for the match.
P in the larger context of things,
I have occasionally assisted a few players
for tournaments. But a World
Championship match is nothing like that.
PENTALA HARIKRISHNA, Indian Grandmaster
on a lark, training with chess-
boxing champion Marcel Valen-
tin. “I’ve always liked boxing. I
was curious to see how it com-
bines with chess. I found it
pretty interesting. People tend
to associate boxing purely with
physical strength but there’s a
lot of strategy and presence of
mind involved.”
Before the tide of teen Indian
Super GMs arrived, Harikrishna
Sport
England's run rates in Ashes England’s scoring
Run Rate First innings
TEST 1ST 2ND
Total 393/8 325
5.03 4.25 4.51 5.49
(Overs 78) (76.2)
4.11 4.01 5.08
(66.2) (81.3)
Total 273 327
for that is the line that has dis-
missed the England opener most
times in the summer. So, why
not do that more?
Australia did nothing out of
the ordinary. They had started
the series off by employing a
short-ball strategy but that is
nowhere in sight. The runs were
being scored on both sides of the
wicket. It almost felt that Austra-
lia’s strategy was to wait for
England’s batters to make a mis-
take. And, at the highest level,
that often isn’t good enough.
Australia’s inability to create
pressure (either by taking wick-
ets or keeping the runs down)
meant England’s batters never
had to try anything different.
HT
snapped at Viswanathan
Anand’s heels briefly. Gukesh D
stands on the cusp of surpassing
Anand as India’s No 1 GM, but
Harikrishna was the first to do
so in the live ratings, in March
2016. Anand’s fourth-round loss
to Sergei Karjakin at the Candi-
dates that year saw Harikrishna
zoom ahead in the live ratings.
He recalls feeling conflicted.
It didn’t make enough sense
Second innings
3RD 4TH
237 592
5.17
(52.3) (107.4) (54.4)
DID
NOT 4.86*
(50)
BAT
254/7 - 289/9
*Innings in progress
There wasn’t much swing in the
first session but it did get better
in the second. However, the runs
kept flowing and the visitors
were backed into a corner — one
from where they could easily
lose the Test.
This isn’t just about what
McGrath and Warne would have
done though. In November 2008,
India were taking Australia on in
the final Test of the series at Nag-
pur. At the end of Day 2, Austra-
lia were 189/2 (49 overs). So
come Day 3, India decided to do
things differently. They
employed 8-1 fields, bowled wide
off the off-stump, frustrated the
batters and Australia only man-
aged to score 166 runs in 86.4
Harikrishna’s
chess feats
Age: 37
FIDE rating: 2708
Peak rating: 2770
(December 2016)
Current ranking: No. 32
Highest ranking: No. 9
(November 2016)
l Became Grandmaster in
2001. Was the youngest
GM from India at the
time of attaining the title
l Passed a FIDE rating of
2700 in February 2013 for
the first time
l Won gold in the mixed
team event at the 2006
Asian Games in Doha.
Won bronze in the men’s
team event at the 2010
Asian Games
he says.
Gukesh will overtake
Anand: Harikrishna
“At the time, I can’t say I didn’t
care for it (becoming India No.
1) but my bigger hope was
Anand faring well at the Candi-
dates. It’s a big deal to be in the
Candidates and try to qualify for
the match. Me going ahead in
the ratings then didn’t seem all
that important.”
Anand regained his position
as the top Indian with a draw
against Hikaru Nakamura in the
following round, after being dis-
placed for a day.
“I’m pretty certain Gukesh
will overtake Anand. I think he’s
a lot stronger than his ratings
rates since 2013
5TH
Run Rate
283 4
3.2
3.07
3
2.7
(80)
2
2013 ‘14 ‘15
overs before being bowled out.
In this series, Australia have
often tried to fight fire with fire.
But that isn’t the only way to go
about this. India’s plan in Nag-
pur was defensive but the entire
point was to frustrate the bat-
ters. By keeping the runs to a
minimum, they didn’t allow the
game to get away from them. If
you have five days, you might as
well make full use of them.
India won the Test by 172
runs. It only showed that the tar-
get of any bowling side is to
make the opposition uncomfort-
able and there are plenty of ways
to do that. Australia, in that
aspect at least, have appeared to
be clueless. This was the same
suggest.”
Ranked world No. 9 seven
years ago, Harikrishna touched
a peak of 2770 Elo and has made
his peace with not making it
bigger or beyond.
“For sure, I could have maybe
done a few things differently.
But I don’t want to look back
and wonder about them. Today
I’m still an active player but
there are no rating goals. I just
want to enjoy my chess and get
better at it.”
While he agrees that working
extensively with engines in the
role can lower one’s “sense of
danger” towards positions, he
doesn’t believe the job itself is
indicative of putting one’s
career on the back burner.
“In this era, any analysis you
do can be extrapolated to bene-
fit your own game. I did pretty
well in the French league and
the Prague Masters while work-
ing with Ju. The experience has
helped keep my chess in shape
and for sure I want to do this
again (be a second) if there are
offers in the future.”
He has a bunch of tourna-
ments ahead, including the
Asian Games in September.
Harikrishna’s life today in a
central Bohemian outpost
inhabited by less than 2000 peo-
ple revolves around his wife,
former Serbian chess player
Nadezda Stojanovic, and their
two-year-old daughter Maya.
When he’s not playing chess,
coaching, or goofing around
with his toddler, Harikrishna
could well be spiking in a sand-
pit, landing right-handed jabs in
the ring, and surprising himself
with his next move.
England opener
Zak Crawley
slammed 73 off
76 balls in their
second innings at
The Oval in
London. Reuters
4.62
3.88
3.11 3.19
3.1 3.18
2.67
2.76
Stats: CricViz
‘16 ‘17 ‘18 ‘19 ‘20 ‘21 ‘22 2023
wicket where Australia had
struggled to get their run-rate
going on Day 2. But as the lead
kept growing, the response from
Cummins and Co kept getting
flatter. They still ran in hard but
the sense of purpose seemed to
have gone missing.
A few quick wickets at the end
of the day lessened the damage
but Australia have left their bat-
ters with a lot of work to do in
the second innings. The urn will
stay with the Aussies but as
things stand, they won’t quite
feel like they’ve won it.
Brief scores: England 283 and
389/9 (J Root 91, J Bairstow 78, Z
Crawley 73; M Starc 4/94).
Australia 295 at stumps on Day 3.
Nepal’s Tribhuvan Army FC will take part in the Durand Cup.
Durand: IAF flies in
Nepal’s army team
HTC & Agencies
sportsdesk@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: In a mark of the
close cooperation between India
and Nepal, the Indian Air Force
flew down the Tribhuvan Army
Football Club team to Guwahati
on Saturday to take part in the
132nd Durand Cup tournament,
which starts on Thursday.
The squad was flown by an
IAF plane from their base to
Guwahati, from where it will
travel to Kokrajhar town where
the Group E teams will play in
the newly built Sports Authority
of India (SAI) stadium. Tribhu-
van Army, Chennaiyin FC,
Hyderabad FC and Delhi FC are
in Group E.
The Nepal army team is led by
Nawayug Shrestha, who has 43
caps for the national team, scor-
ing eight goals. They will open
their campaign against Delhi FC,
the newly promoted I-League
side, on August 9.
“It is a great honour for us to
participate in this prestigious
PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023
Stuart Broad. REUTERS
BROAD TO WALK
AWAY FROM
CRICKET AT THE
END OF ASHES
HTC and Agencies
sportsdesk@hindustantimes.com
LONDON: England pace bowler
Stuart Broad said on Saturday
he would retire from all cricket
following the conclusion of the
ongoing fifth Ashes Test against
Australia at The Oval in Lon-
don.
The 37-year-old seamer, the
fifth most successful bowler in
Test history with 602 wickets in
167 Tests, told Sky Sports after
stumps on the third day:
“Tomorrow (Sunday) or Mon-
day will be my last game of
cricket.
“It has been a wonderful ride
and a huge privilege to wear the
Nottinghamshire and England
badge as much as I have.”
Broad is also the second most
successful pacer in Test cricket,
behind only his long-time team-
mate James Anderson who has
690 wickets in 183 Tests.
Love affair with Aussies
“I decided at 8.30pm last night.
I told Stokesy last night and the
changing room this morning. It
just felt like the right time. I
didn’t want friends and team-
mates to see things that may
come out. I prefer just to say it
and give it a good crack in the
Australia innings. I have been
thinking about it for a couple of
weeks. England vs Australia has
always been the pinnacle for
me. I have loved the battles that
have come my way and the
team’s way.
“I have a love affair with
Ashes cricket. I think I wanted
my last bat and bowl to be in
Ashes cricket,” he said.
Broad is the only pacer from
the England side to have played
all five Tests in this series,
which is a glowing indication of
his consistency and durability.
He has been England’s high-
est wicket-taker in the series
with 20 scalps at an average of
28.15.
Broad’s move comes as a bit
of a surprise given how well he
has bowled in recent games. It’s
Anderson instead around
whom there has been mounting
pressure to call it a day.
Broad has taken the most
wickets for England in Tests
against Australia, surpassing
Ian Botham.
ANI
tournament and we look for-
ward to give our best,” Nepal
army team captain Shrestha said
in a release.
The Durand Cup, Asia’s oldest
club football tournament, will
feature 24 teams this edition.
After a gap of 27 years, teams
from outside India will partici-
pate in the competition staged by
the armed forces with support
from the All India Football Fed-
eration.
Bangladesh Army is the other
outside team, which is placed in
Group A with East Bengal,
Mohun Bagan Super Giant and
Punjab FC. The Indian Army,
Indian Air Force and Indian
Navy will be the teams repre-
senting the country’s three servi-
ces in the tournament organised
by the Indian armed forces. The
matches will be played across
four venues with Kolkata, Guwa-
hati and Shillong the others,
besides Kokrajhar. Mohun
Bagan face Bangladesh Army in
the opening game in Kolkata on
August 3.
 S-37895/26

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 Insulin Appreciation Day 2023
IN23DI00072

Issued in public interest by Novo Nordisk India.

References: https://diabetesjournals.org/clinical/article/25/1/39/1493/Insulin-Myths-and-Facts (Last accessed on: 20 July 2023).

Adapted from Clin Diabetes 2007;25(1):39–40 And Adapted from ElSayed NA, Aleppo G,

Aroda VR, et al., American Diabetes Association. Introduction and methodology: Standards of Care in Diabetes—2023.
Diabetes Care 2023;46(Suppl. 1):S1–S4

Reach out to us at Novo Nordisk India Pvt. Ltd, Plot no 32, 47-50, EPIP area, Whitefield, Bangalore – 560066
or write to us as INAgree@novonordisk.com or please contact +91-080-40303200.

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 Sunday,July 30,2023 f @HTCITY t @HTCITY i @HTCITY y /USER/HT. ENTERTAINMENT & PROMOTIONAL FEATURES

#Timeout #Lifestyle
{ WILL SMITH }
IS YOUR PARTNER GLUED TO THE ‘FACEKINI’ IS THE HOT NEW
P PHONE? YOU MIGHT BE A VICTIM FASHION TREND TO PROTECT
It’s a OF PHUBBING p 02 YOURSELF FROM THE SUN p 03

pivotal
moment

City
#Showbiz Aquarius
for our
profession. SONU NIGAM TURNS At work, positive developments can

On lending
support to
SAG-AFTRA
and writers’
strikes
50!
The singer, looking
back at his 45-year
journey in music,
reflects upon his
a
#Lifestyle
keep you upbeat. A property deal is
likely to be sealed.

REVISITING ROOTS
p 02

greatest learnings and

A experiences p 01 Designers JJ Valaya and Kunal Rawal brought their

Pune ethnic best to the ramp at ICW 2023 p 01

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 Sunday, July 30, 2023 n6 PAGES. f @HTCITY t @HTCITY i @HTCITY y /USER/HT. ENTERTAINMENT & PROMOTIONAL FEATURES

City Pune
PHOTOS: RAAJESSH KASHYAP/HT

AN Sonu turns
ODE TO 50: God has
INDIAN given me P
I definitely feel

ROOTS
I am 50. Not
Actor Ranbir Kapoor looked dapper as he turned
showstopper for designer Kunal Rawal in a black bandhgala
with lungi-style pants at Hyundai India Couture Week, an
FDCI initiative, in association with Reliance Brands.
much more biologically,
but spiritually.

than I I am truly
enjoying
growing older.
envisaged SONU NIGAM, Singer

Soumya Vajpayee
soumya.vajpayee@hindustantimes.com
usic has been an inseparable
National Film Award and Padma undermining the younger lot. Every
Shri to his credit? “God has given decade has had its ups and downs. I
me much more than I imagined or feel being regressive hampers one’s
envisaged,” says Nigam, adding, “I growth,” says the singer, who

M part of Sonu Nigam’s life.

The singer, who turns 50
today, has spent 45 years out of
these performing on stage. Ask
about his greatest learnings and he
says, “I’ve realised you’ve to always
keep your head bowed down to the
universe. I’ve also realised that I can
never take credit for anything I have
achieved. It’s only my good fortune
that I’ve enjoyed a glorious career
for the last 45 years.”
When he started out as a
musician, did he think he’d become
an established artiste with a
came to Mumbai to become a
singer. But, little did I know there
would come a time when they’d be
selling my posters all over India!”
With decades of experience,
Nigam has seen the Indian music
industry evolve — from the ups and
downs in the independent music
space to the changing sound of film
music. Is there a phase that stands
out for him? “I have seen a lot of
transitions in music and the
business of music, but I don’t
believe in glorifying a particular
time or group of artistes or
rang in his 50th birthday in the
presence of his family and friends.
Usually, most people have a
birthday ritual they look forward to
every year. Ask if he has one and the
singer shares, “When we were kids,
we never had the affluence to make
birthdays a grand affair like a lot of
other kids. The only ritual was to sit
with my parents and sisters and
listen to snippets from the
memories from our childhood.”
More on →p 04

Couturier JJ Valaya presented his collection, Baroda, embodying the rich and diverse culture of Gujarat at
Hyundai India Couture Week, an FDCI initiative, in association with Reliance Brands.

PHOTOS: INSTAGRAM AND AFP

Indian-
STOP PRESS British model
Neelam Gill is not actor
Leonardo DiCaprio’s “new
flame”, but is in a “committed
relationship” with his friend. “The
reason we have been pictured in
the same vicinity is because I
have been there with my
partner,” she said in her
Instagram Story.

‘Hindi projects have a

wider reach’ PHOTO: TWITTER/
AMRUTASUBHASH

Kavita Awaasthi
kavita.awaasthi@htlive.com

e used to be a production

H engineer and then did

theatre for years before
facing the camera. Actor
Shrikant Yadav, in his showbiz
career, has done a number of
Marathi films, including Killa and
Ek Hazarachi Note (both 2014)
and Valu (2008). He was also part
of the Hindi film Jalsa (2022), web
shows The Family Man and Inside
Edge 3. “Now, I am happy to get ash, Konkona
roles that get me noticed and are (L-R) Amruta Subh ant Yadav
rik
interesting,” he tells us. Sensharma and Sh
In his latest project, the
anthology film Lust Stories 2, he
starred alongside Amruta
Subhash, whose husband, director-
P
writer Sandesh Kulkarni, suggested Now, I’m happy
his name for the part. Talking about
his experience, he says, “Hindi
to get roles that
projects have a wider reach as they are get me noticed and
watched all over India. I have worked a
lot in Marathi projects, but since [doing]
are interesting.
web films and shows, especially in Hindi, SHRIKANT YADAV,
I have got responses from all over India. As Actor
for Lust Stories 2, it was a good change as
often, I get a cop’s role because makers say
it suits my personality. I have known
Amruta for years and even worked with her
in projects. I was glad to be a part of the film
as it was quite interesting.” NOTE TO READERS:
Yadav goes on to mention that there was a Some of the coverage
lot of comfort on set, even during intimate that appears on our
pages is paid for by
scenes. “I suggested to Koko (director
the concerned
Konkana Sensharma) that Amruta and I brands. No sponsored
should talk in Marathi when were are content does or shall
together, to add authenticity. In fact, I didn’t appear in any part of
know that Tillotama Shome (co-actor) was PHOTO: INSTAGRAM/ HT without it being
YADAVSHRIKANT
such a popular actor. I was in awe of her. declared as such to
Bahut maza aaya kaam karke,” he shares. our valued readers.

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 02 time out PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023

{ YOUR TAROT THIS WEEK } KOUSHIKMANISHA Manisha Koushik is a renowned tarot card reader and astrologer.
ASKMANISHA She can be contacted at: +91-9650015920
Manisha Koushik ASKMANISHA Email: support@askmanisha.com; Website: www.askmanisha.com

July 30-August 05, 2023

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM/END_SOOD

ARIES MAR 21-APR 20
Love: The Fool Mood: Two of Coins
Career: Devil
You may find things falling into place
in your favour throughout the week.
With excellent time management
skills, you can effectively juggle work
commitments. Trust, communication
may help overcome challenges in
your romatic relationships. Some can
enjoy satisfying road trips and
explore new destinations.
Lara Dutta Lucky Number: 15 Lucky Colour:
Bhupathi Blue
CANCER JUN 22-JUL 22
Love: Two of Coins Mood: The
Chariot Career: The Magician
The week offers a mix of
opportunities. By incorporating
strategic planning, you can navigate
professional challenges and progress.
Creating shared goals can strengthen
family bonds. Those longing to meet
a romantic partner can get lucky this
week. Students may get the full
support of mentors and guides.
Katrina Kaif Lucky Number: 22 Lucky Colour:
Green
LIBRA SEP 24-OCT 23
Love: The Hierophant Mood: Seven
of Cups Career: King of Wands
This week presents a range of
opportunities for you to explore and
grow. While your profession may be
challenging, it is an opportunity to
grow and learn. New investment
options like mutual funds or
dividend stocks can offer potential
rewards. Singles may be set up on
exciting dates by family and friends.
Parineeti Lucky Number: 11 Lucky Colour:
Chopra Pink
CAPRICORN DEC 22-JAN 21
Love: Two of Swords Mood: Eight of
Wands Career: The Sun
Welcome the week with positivity.
Seize the opportunity to enhance
financial stability with good
budgeting practices. Utilise project
management skills to excel in your
career. You may feel energetic by
incorporating yoga into your routine.
Practising forgiveness can help
foster understanding on love front.
Deepika Lucky Number: 1 Lucky Colour:
Padukone Yellow

TAURUS APR 21-MAY 20
Love: King of Coins Mood: Five of
Cups Career: Page of Wands
This week holds promising
opportunities for Taurus individuals.
Cultivating an entrepreneurial
mindset may lead to success in your
career. Consider exploring stock
market analysis to make informed
investment decisions. Navigating
complicated family dynamics with
tact can enhance harmony at home.
Madhuri Dixit Lucky Number: 17 Lucky Colour:
Nene Grey
LEO JUL 23-AUG 23
Love: The Moon Mood: Two of
Wands Career: Hanged Man
This week brings hearty
developments across various aspects
of life. In romance, expect a lovely
surprise from spouse or partner.
Finances may remain in good shape
with prudent management.
Exploring social media marketing
may prove profitable on the work
front. Focus on holistic well-being.
Sara Ali Khan Lucky Number: 1 Lucky Colour:
Brown
SCORPIO OCT 24-NOV 22
Love: Four of Swords Mood: The
Empress Career: Page of Cups
This week holds promising
opportunities for growth and
fulfilment. You continue to excel in
your profession with a strong focus
on targets. Exploring conservative
investment options may help you
progress towards financial goals.
Some can set goals for future home
improvement projects.
Aishwarya Rai Lucky Number: 7 Lucky Colour:
Bachchan Golden
AQUARIUS JAN 22-FEB 19
Love: Five of Swords Mood: Ace of
Wands Career: The Star
You may find fulfilment in various
aspects of life. Family bonds may
strengthen with some wise counsel
of elders and grandparents. Good
financial management practices,
such as frugal living, can improve
economic well-being. Cultivate
emotional intelligence in love to
resolve disputes.
Shruti Haasan Lucky Number: 7 Lucky Colour:
Peach

GEMINI MAY 21-JUN 21 VIRGO AUG 24-SEP 23 SAGITTARIUS NOV 23-DEC 21 PISCES FEB 20-MAR 20
Love: Five of Cups Mood: The Tower Love: Five of Cups Mood: Judgment Love: The High Priestess Mood: Ace Love: The World Mood: The Lovers
JULY 30, LEO Career: Three of Swords Career: Seven of Coins of Swords Career: The Tower Career: The Chariot

Sonu Sood
This week brings a mix of positive
aspects. Excellent health may allow
you to engage in various activities.
Expect good financial outcomes.
Nurturing emotional intelligence to
deepen the connection with your
partner will be important. Your
expertise in software development
can open new opportunities.
Sonam Kapoor Lucky Number: 4 Lucky Colour:
Ahuja Purple
This week promises positive
developments in several areas of life.
Health may remain excellent thanks
to regular cardio. Professionally, you
excel in teamwork, showcasing your
expertise and dedication. Romance is
stable, nurture it with compassion.
Embrace the week with enthusiasm,
make the most of opportunities.
Neha Dhupia Lucky Number: 5 Lucky Colour:
Orange
This week holds exciting possibilities.
Take charge of finances by practising
effective budgeting techniques.
Singles may get a proposal from a
known connection. Your profession
may be in an intermediate phase, but
seize opportunities to enhance
leadership skills. Some find solace in
mindful moments on a pilgrimage.
Esha Gupta Lucky Number: 18 Lucky Colour:
Red
Pisceans can expect a favourable
turn of events. The week brings
opportunities for entrepreneurship.
Some can harness intuitive skills and
creativity to create wealth. Engage
in self-reflection to gain insights. In
academics, set clear goals to achieve
success. Embracing vulnerability can
deepen the romantic connection.
Alia Bhatt Lucky Number: 15 Lucky Colour:
Cream

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK (FOR REPRESENTATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY)

{ DAILY HOROSCOPE }

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Dr Prem Kumar Sharma (Astrologer and Vaastu expert) can be contacted at: Delhi: 011-47033152, 40532026 (Sat
to Mon); Panchkula: 91-172-2562832, 2572874 (Tues to Thurs); Mumbai: 09716145644 (Last week of every month)
PREMASTROLOGER PREMASTROLOGER ASKPREMASTROLOGER

ARIES LEO SAGITTARIUS

MAR 21-APR 20 JUL 23-AUG 23 NOV 23-DEC 21

A L
A new situation proves
beneficial on the career
front. A persistent health
problem disappears.
Investing in property is indicated for
some, which may prove a financial
boon later. Plans for a vacation to
someplace exotic fructify.
LOVE FOCUS: This is the best day for
romance, so make the most of it!
LUCKY NUMBER: 1 LUCKY COLOUR: Blue
No point in arguing with
someone who just won’t
listen to logic. At work,
you may be kept busy even
beyond office hours. An outing will
help in calming your mind and
releasing tension.
LOVE FOCUS: Spending time with the
one you like is indicated today.
LUCKY NUMBER: 1 LUCKY COLOUR:
White
s
A promotion will not only
give you important
responsibilities, but perks
too! You can be praised
today at work for a job well done. An
overseas vacation is on the cards.
LOVE FOCUS: Your love life proceeds
smoothly as you complement each
other.
LUCKY NUMBER: 3 LUCKY COLOUR:
Purple

TAURUS VIRGO CAPRICORN

APR 21-MAY 20 AUG 24-SEP 23 DEC 22-JAN 21

T I
You may have to do the
balancing act in a man-
management situation.
Socially, this seems to be
an excellent day. You may have to be
a bit more aware of what is
happening around you at work.
LOVE FOCUS: There’s a strong
possibility of finding a suitable mate.
Some more effort will help
achieve what you’re after.
Suitable accommodation
can be expected by those
hunting for one. A brief journey with
family will prove most entertaining.
LOVE FOCUS: Someone you like may
give positive indications, ushering in
romance!
c
You manage to continue
your workout schedule.
Earning good money is
foretold in a venture you
are starting. Recognition on the work
front is in store for some. A family
trip overseas is on the cards for some.
LOVE FOCUS: An outing with lover is
on the cards and will prove most

Is phubbing hampering your LUCKY NUMBER: 5 LUCKY COLOUR:

Green
LUCKY NUMBER: 18 LUCKY COLOUR:
Brown
enjoyable.
LUCKY NUMBER: 9 LUCKY COLOUR: Red

GEMINI LIBRA AQUARIUS

bond? Here’s how to unplug MAY 21-JUN 21 SEP 24-OCT 23 JAN 22-FEB 19

G l
Academically, you are
likely to shine bright and
pale the competition. Your
Parmita Uniyal ideas on work front may
a
You find things moving in A healthy bank balance
a very positive way on the will give you added
financial front. Day is confidence. At work,
favourable to start a new positive developments can

hoosing to bury This practice can play havoc on your partner’s prove an asset for the organisation
and help make you indispensable.
project at work.
LOVE FOCUS: Love is in the air, so
keep you upbeat. A property deal is
likely to be sealed.

C yourself in your phone

instead of connecting
with a dear one is no
less than a punishment for
the latter. This habit of
mental health and impact long-term relationships.
An expert tells us how to address and sort the issue
LOVE FOCUS: Someone up there loves
you, so rejoice!
LUCKY NUMBER: 4 LUCKY COLOUR:
Dark Grey
expect to get totally surprised by the
one you love today!
LUCKY NUMBER: 7 LUCKY COLOUR:
Peach
LOVE FOCUS: Romantic ideas you have
been getting of late will have to wait!
LUCKY NUMBER: 22 LUCKY COLOUR:
Peach

staying glued to your

smartphone even as a partner
or a friend is sitting next to
‘CAN RUIN LONG-TERM
RELATIONSHIPS’
can cause feelings of
isolation, lowered relevance
ADDRESS THE PROBLEM
“With a combination of
CANCER SCORPIO PISCES
JUN 22-JUL 22 OCT 24-NOV 22 FEB 20-MAR 20
you, waiting to get your “Phubbing can harm your and a lack of intimacy. awareness, empathy, setting

attention, called phubbing, is
doing more damage to
relationships in the
technology-driven world.
According to a study by a pair
of psychologists at Niğde
Ömer Halisdemir University,
married couples who
regularly engage in phone
snubbing (phubbing) have
lower marriage satisfaction
than couples who do not.
Expert helps us decode the
phenomenon and provide tips
to steer clear of it in a
marriage or relationship.
WHAT IS PHUBBING?
It is the practise of ignoring a
companion in favour of a
mobile phone. An Australian
advertising firm introduced
the word phubbing in 2012 to
define the rising practice of
people neglecting those in
front of them and favouring
the phones in their hands.
When two people sitting
next to each other are glued
to their phones and ignore
each other’s presence, it’s
called double phubbing.
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own as well as your loved
ones’ mental health, even if it
may not seem like a major
concern [immediately]. This
act can make the other person
feel rejected. It hurts more
when the other person is your
spouse or a partner,” says
psychotherapist Dr Chandni
Tugnait, who goes on to
explain how the practice can
impact a marriage.
l Reduced marital
satisfaction
According to research,
phubbing consistently
results in decreased levels of
marital satisfaction in
relationships.
l Regular conflict
The practice frequently
causes disagreements
between partners regarding
excessive phone use. This
tension may be due to the
perception that the phone
takes precedence over the
relationship.
l Emotional distance
Phubbing prevents partners
from feeling emotionally
connected to one another. It
l Escapism
It can be a way of escaping
from marital stress or even
day-to-day responsibilities.
l Feeling of rejection
Phubbing can pose a threat
to a relationship’s basic
psychological requirements,
including self-esteem, a
sense of purpose, control
and belonging.
HELP YOUR PARTNER
PUT A PAUSE
l Talk to them about it.
Choose a comfortable space
and express how you feel
about this particular habit.
l Let your partner understand
the impact of their habits on
the relationship.
l Suggest other alternatives
that you both could enjoy
without your phones, like
going for walks, playing
games or going on a fun
date.
l Set certain boundaries so
that your partner does not
fall back into old habits.
UNDERSTAND AND
boundaries and consciously
changing behavioural
patterns, the issue can be
addressed,” says Dr Tugnait,
adding, “The first thing to do
is be self-aware of times you
are phubbing. Phubbing can
even become an addictive
habit. In such cases, reach out
to a mental health
professional.”
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
C S P
You may have to go the Taking a different You may keep the ball
extra mile in achieving approach to solving a rolling on the social front.
something significant. problem is a step in the A vacation is on the cards
You need to chart the right direction. You are and may take you to
future course of action on the career likely to enjoy a happening social life. someplace exotic. A much-awaited
front. Spending time at home with Setting out on a vacation appears to cheque is received. Love bestowed by
partner will give immense joy. be a distinct possibility. family keeps you feeling nice within.
LOVE FOCUS: Efforts get reciprocated LOVE FOCUS: Your romantic LOVE FOCUS: Romantic endeavours
fully by the person of your dreams. endeavours are likely to bear fruit. are likely to bring favourable results.
LUCKY NUMBER: 18 LUCKY COLOUR: LUCKY NUMBER: 11 LUCKY COLOUR: LUCKY NUMBER: 8 LUCKY COLOUR:
Yellow Saffron Magenta
a’s
Passport power: What does Indi ellers?
number of countries passport
improved ranking mean for trav holders can visit visa-free or
with a visa-on-arrival. The
claimed the top spot, while of accessing international improved ranking of the Indian
Sneha Chakraborty India witnessed a notable rise in investment and business passport provides holders
sneha.chakraborty@hindustantimes.com
its ranking, jumping five places opportunities. By the same access to 57 destinations
to the 80th spot. token, countries with more without a visa. Travellers from
assport power is crucial in open borders encourage greater India enjoy visa-free entry and
P determining a country’s
ability to facilitate hassle-
free international travel for its
WHAT IS PASSPORT
POWER?
The term refers to the strength
economic activity and tourism,
resulting in increased
entrepreneurship, innovation
visas on arrival in countries
such as Indonesia, Thailand and
Rwanda. But, India’s passport
citizens. The Henley Passport and flexibility of a nation’s and investment, ultimately power is still limited due to the
Index, a widely recognised passport in enabling its citizens driving economic growth.” high visa requirements imposed
ranking system, evaluates to travel internationally sans a by several countries. Citizens of
passports from around the visa. Dr Juerg Steffen, CEO of RANKING METHOD India need visas to enter 177
world based on the number of Henley & Partners, says: The Henley Passport Index destinations, including China,
visa-free destinations they grant “Powerful passports enhance assesses the travel freedom of Japan, Russia, the United States
access to. Recently, Singapore
our economic mobility in terms passports by analysing the and the EU.
 PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023
Face the sun with a ‘facekini’,
the hot new fashion trend
“ It’s very
logical and
interesting, and it shows
how people are up for
trying new fashion
accessories. I am totally up for
it and I feel it can look more
artistic with little additions
here and there.
Anvita Sharma, Fashion
designer
“
I like the
whole idea
and concept
since it’s about protecting
oneself from the harmful
UV radiations, which can lead
to various skin problems. But
if I would be asked to wear it,
that’d be a no as it’s a little
over the top for me.
Siddhartha Bansal,
Fashion designer
Ruchika Garg
ruchika.garg@hindustantimes.com
s the mercury
A soars in China,
reaching record-
breaking
temperatures
(touched 52.2 degrees
Celsius in mid-July), people
are resorting to innovative
and fashionable methods to
PHOTOS:
INSTAGRAM
These
masks
often come
with
separate
sleeves to
cover the
arms
PHOTOS: INSTAGRAM
Taylor Swift
wears her
iconic red lip
SOFT NUDES
Use soft nude lipsticks to create a
natural and carefree appearance
à la the 1990s. This classic look
emphasises natural characteristics
and oozes carefree charm. Consider
neutral hues like creamy beige, soft
mauves and dusty rose, which go with
every skin tone and are appropriate for
any event or attire.
KOREAN CORALS
If you like subdued colours and
stay away from strong or
provocative hues, coral tones are
ideal. The perfect choice for
Korean lips, these lovely hues
strike the perfect mix between
bold and bare. For a gentle, “just-
bitten” appearance, start by blending
a brilliant colour into the inner portion
of the lips.
BOLD LIPS
The return of red and berry hues is
great for creating a seductive yet
sophisticated appearance. These lip
colours are ideal if you want to try
daring and dramatic makeup. Red
lips, whether they are traditional
crimson or vivid scarlet, have come
to represent sexiness and glamour.
Whether you’re sporting a little black
dress or a power suit, a red lip will
instantly enhances your appearance.
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This UV-resistant coverup is emerging as a popular sun protectant
in China as people battle the scorching heat in style. We ask Indian
designers and influencers if they’d be up for it
shield themselves from
the sun’s harmful UV rays
and prevent tanning. And
this pursuit of ultimate sun
protection has led to the
re-entry of the ‘facekini’.
Much like a ski mask,
the facekini covers the entire
head except for the eyes,
nose and mouth, and is
generally made of stretchy,
UV-resistant fabric. These
How to
master the
lipstick
trends like
a pro
Shakira
has on a
glossy
pale pink
lipstick
Son
Ye-jin’s
coral lip is
refreshing
Rihanna
sports a
bold
plum lip
colour
lifestyle 03
PHOTOS: INSTAGRAM
#instastyle
PHOTO : AFP
Kartik Aaryan
with Katori
Kartik Aaryan was missing his pet doggo,
▲ Aleksandar Alex Ilic
.
and Disha Patani
Katori, and shared a cute photo of the two
lovingly looking at each other. While
Tamannaah Bhatia shared a series of BTS
pictures from a dance performance, Disha
Patani took to her Insta Story to share a selfie
with her friend. Birthdays are very special and
they become even more fun with celebrated
with family and friends. Karan Kundrra and his
girlfriend Tejasswi Prakash sandwiched
Kubbra Sait on her birthday in a friend hug.
Mrunal Thakur shared a special post to wish
her Sita Ramam co-star, “the super grounded,
super humble, super talented, superstar”
Dulquer Salmaan on his big day.
“
masks also come along It’s a trend to
with separate sleeves to protect against the
cover the arms, wide- harmful sunrays ▲ Tamannaah Bhatia
.
brimmed hats and and I like it only
lightweight jackets made
from UV-resistant fabric.
SOARING POPULARITY
The trend initially came
in vogue in the early 2000s,
primarily in coastal cities
because it’s
helping people
protect their skin
against the heat
wave. But, from a
fashion point of
view, I’d pass it big
▼ Dulquer Salmaan and
.
Mrunal Thakur
like Qingdao. As China time.
witnesses a scorching heat Urmi Daga,
’’
wave, it’s back in the Fashion
limelight again. Another influencer
reason behind the face
accessory’s rising popularity
is the cultural beauty
standard. In some Asian I think it’s great how people
cultures, particularly are coming up with such
in China, fair and innovative ideas to stay
unblemished skin is protected in the harsh
traditionally considered summer, but I don’t feel
ideal and a social status very comfortable wearing
symbol. A facekini helps it myself. I feel
people maintain their claustrophobic just
complexion by preventing looking at it. Rupali ▲ Tejasswi Prakash, Kubbra
.
tanning and sunspots. Hasija, Fashion influencer Sait and Karan Kundrra
Akanksha Agnihotri
ipsticks are one of the most popular
L and iconic cosmetic products. Bold
or glossy, it can be your best friend
with just one swipe you are ready to
take on the world. As National Lipstick
Day (July 29) has just gone by, Hitesh
Dewett, training and artistry manager
at Swiss Beauty shares some tips to
ace the lipstick trends that are
popping on social media.
GLOSSY LIPS
Glossy lips are back in style and make
the lips look youthful. Your image and
mood can immediately improve with
glossy lips.
FLAWLESS APPLICATION
Having sharp edges are essential for a
smooth lipstick application. Use a little
concealer on an angled brush to tidy
up the lip edges after application.
NO LIPSTICK ON YOUR TEETH
Lipstick stains on the teeth are the
worst. Try this hack the next time you
apply lipstick: Put your index finger into
your mouth and make an “O” shape with
your lips. Gently round your finger with
your lips. Any lipstick that may have
gotten on the inside of your lips will be
eliminated by doing this.
HOW TO GET FULLER LIPS
Prepare the lips for smooth application
by gently exfoliating and moisturising
them. Prime the lips with concealer to
make it last long. Apply lip liner at the
cupid’s bow and the centre of the
bottom lip to create the appearance of
bigger lips. Choose lighter hues like
nudes or pale pinks to make your lips
appear larger.
For more such stories, follow
healthshots.com
 04 showbiz PUNE
SUNDAY
JULY 30, 2023

SONU NIGAM’S
FANTASTIC SONU
NIGAM’S

FIFTY!
1998 SONG
TU KAB YEH
JANEGI
EARNED CULT
STATUS
Compiled by: Soumya Vajpayee
2007: His son, Nevaan Nigam, was
1973-1983 born on July 25.
1973: Born in Faridabad (Haryana) to 2007: Re-released his album Rafi Ki
Agam Kumar Nigam and Shobha Yaadein in late singer Mohammed
Nigam. Rafi’s memory as a six-disc collection
1977: First stage show at the age of of 100 songs, titled Kal Aaj Aur Kal.
four. Sang Kya Hua Tera Wada (Hum 2008: Released a Punjabi single,
Kisise Kum Naheen; 1977). Punjabi Please, and Rafi Resurrected,
1980: Marked his Bollywood debut a two-disc collection of Rafi songs
as a child artiste and shot for Ustadi with music by the Birmingham
Ustad Se (1982; played actor Mithun Symphony Orchestra.
Chakraborty’s childhood character) 2011: Collaborated with singer
and Pyaara Dushman (1980; played Britney Spears on a remix of her
actor Vinod Mehra’s childhood SONU STARTED HOSTING song I Wanna Go.
character). SA RE GA MA IN 1995 AND 2011: After the death of Michael
1983: Had three film releases HOSTED FOR FIVE YEARS Jackson (MJ) in 2009, he composed a
Taqdeer (actor Shatrughan Sinha’s song, This Is It, with MJ’s brother,
childhood), Betaab (actor Sunny singer Jermaine Jackson, as a tribute
Deol’s childhood) and Humse Hai to the late legend.
Zamana (Mithun Chakraborty’s 2012: Collaborated with
childhood). DJ Avicii on his song
Indian Levels.
2012-2015: After his hit
HIS FIRST PHOTO SHOOT song Abhi Mujh Mein
IN MUMBAI’S JUHU 1984-1993 Kahin (Agneepath; 2011),
GARDEN AT THE AGE OF 6 1991: Started his career as a singer many of his songs were
with the song Hum To Chhaila Ban redubbed in other singers’
Gaye for the TV show Talash. voices by music companies
1992: Released his first album, Rafi because of his fight for
Ki Yaadein. singers’ royalties.
1993: Marked his debut in 2013: Debuted as a
As the musician Bollywood with O Aasman Wale
from Aaja Meri Jaan (1993).
composer with Sooper Se
Ooper.
turns 50 today, 2013: He was ranked the No 1
artiste on the US Billboard
RECEIV
here are 1994-2003 FROM FEOD THE PADMA Uncharted charts for two
RAM NA RMER PRESIDSHRI consecutive months.
some of the 1995: Started hosting the
reality show Sa Re Ga Ma.
TH KOVIN E T
D LASTN
YEAR
greatest 2002: GOT
1997: His award-winning patriotic
song Sandese Aate Hai from Border 2014-2023
MARRIED TO
highlights MADHURIMA
and Yeh Dil Deewana from Pardes
became chartbusters.
1999: His pop albums Deewana
and Mausam were released and the
2014: Was nominated with
musician Bickram Ghosh in Oscars
MISHRA ON
of his FEBRUARY 15.
1998: His first pop hit Tu Kab Yeh
Janegi from the album Kismat was
song Bijuriya became a smashing hit.
2001-2004: Had hit Bollywood
2014 long list in the Best Original
Score Category for Jal (2013).
journey released. releases, including Suraj Hua
Maddham (Kabhi Khushi Kabhie
2017: Collaborated with DJ KSHMR
for a single, Underwater.
Gham; 2001), Tanhayee (Dil Chahta 2017: Former cricketer Sachin
SONU NIGAM Hai; 2001), Saathiya (Saathiya; 2002), Tendulkar collaborated with him for
WON A Kal Ho Naa Ho (Kal Ho Naa Ho; 2003) his debut single, Sachin’s Cricket Wali
NATIONAL and Main Hoon Na (Main Hoon Na; Beat.
FILM AWARD 2004). 2020: Launched his own music label,
FOR THE I Believe Music.
ASAD NIGAM
S: DAYA PRIG SONG KAL 2022: Was honoured with the
A TIO N (FATHER),
THE FOUR GENER
), AG AM K UMAR N AMN) HO NAA HO
2004-2013 Padma Shri.
ER NIGAM (SO
(GRANDFATH AND NEVAAN
2023: Sang the title song of
SONU NIGAM 2004: Won his first National Film Shehzada and Sang Ro Lain De in
Award for the song Kal Ho Naa Ho. Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani

PHOTOS: TWITTER

We miss Deepesh Positivity got

on set: Aasif me projects that
Aasif
Sheikh were best for me
(L-R) Brad
Pitt and Ines
Aasif Sheikh (centre) with Deepesh Bhan (second from left) de Ramon

S Farah Rizvi

uly 23 marked one year since the

J death of actor Deepesh Bhan. His
Bhabi Ji Ghar Par Hai! co-star
Aasif Sheikh remembers the “lively
personality” he had.
“It’s unbelievable how time flies,”
he tells us, adding, “Log chale jaate
hain, yaadein reh jaati hai. It feels as
if it was just a few days ago that I was
walking with him in the corridor.
Deepesh was exceptionally lively. On
set, we miss [having] him around.
We worked together for six to seven
years. He was like a younger brother
to me.”
Recalling this time last year, the
actor says, “It was really a tough
phase for his family. His child was
too young to understand anything,
and his wife was caught unaware.
Thankfully, things are sorted [now].
Our entire team is grateful to
Saumya Tandon (actor), who took
charge and did a remarkable job in
getting Deepesh’s home loan cleared
through a fund-raiser. Kahin na
kahin hum sab khush hain that his
family didn’t have to leave their
house and city forever.”
seen in the Salman Khan-starrer Kisi
Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (KKBKKJ). How
did he manage to take time out amid
Brad Pitt and
his hectic TV schedule? “Bhabi Ji
Ghar Par Hai! has been instrumental
in raising the graph of my career. So,
Ines de Ramon
it’s my duty to be with the show and
continue giving my best as a
performer. TV doesn’t leave us with
much time. Plus, I play multiple
are very into each
characters. But somehow, I managed
to take out time for KKBKKJ. Also,
just to keep the fire in me alive, I like
other: Report
to go back to the theatre. My play
Hum Deewane, Hum Parwane has ctor Brad Pitt and jewellery designer

PHOTOS: TWITTER
On the work front, Sheikh was last completed 50 shows,” he shares.
A Ines de Ramon reportedly enjoyed a
romantic summer together. An
insider close to de Ramon, 32, has revealed
to PEOPLE that the relationship is still
Camila Cabello “going very strong”.
“The two have been spending a lot of
time together this summer, as they truly Rahul
not dating enjoy each other’s company and are very
into each other. It’s apparent to anyone
Dev

Rauw Alejandro who sees them together,” added

the insider.
A source close to Pitt, 59, also told
PEOPLE that he spent the summer in
ingers Camila Cabello and Rauw Alejandro Europe, where he was filming a Formula S Farah Rizvi have seen people working rigorously

S are not seeing one another. The Puerto

Rican singer (30) and the Bam Bam
hitmaker (26) made headlines on Friday after a
One racing movie until the SAG-AFTRA
strike forced the production to go
on hold.
farah.rizvi@htlive.com

ahul Dev firmly believes that

Rauw Alejandro; (right) Camila Cabello
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report claimed they were dating.
Now, a source has dismissed the claims,
reports People. The insider shared that the
romance rumours are “100% not true”.
“They just happened to be at two of the same
events. They barely even spent time together at
either event,” the source adds, referencing the
Inter Miami football game last week where
Alejandro and Cabello were spotted with Sean
“Diddy” Combs and DJ Khaled.
The romance rumours came on the heels of
Alejandro’s split from Spanish singer Rosalía
and Cabello’s recent split from singer Shawn
Mendes, whom she dated on-and-off for a bit.
Alejandro and Rosalia called off their
engagement just four months after the
proposal. They were together for three years.
“He still keeps a residence at Chateau
Miraval and has been spending a lot of
time there and elsewhere in Europe. Ines
has been flying in to see him,” shares the
source.
Pitt dated models Emily Ratajkowski
and Nicole Poturalski in the years
following his split from actor Angelina
Jolie in 2016. Meanwhile, de Ramon and
her ex-husband, Vampire Diaries star Paul
Wesley, separated in May 2022 after three
years of marriage.
Pitt and de Ramon were first seen
together at a Los Angeles concert in
November last year. She reportedly met the
actor through a mutual friend.
R when you are “at peace with life”
and have “people who care for
you”, good things are bound to happen.
“Finally, I am in a phase where I have
some genuine relationships — be it with
my son, (partner) Mugdha (Godse,
actor) and some others,” shares the
actor.
He admits feeling “lost and shaken”
when he lost his wife. “But my spiritual
guru helped me. Now, I am spiritually
stronger than ever — professionally and
personally. I know how to strike the
right balance in life,” says the Empire
actor.
Dev believes that thinking positively
has been a “game changer” for him. “I
and devoting hours to their external
selves, but the problem lies deep within.
The day I realised this, I worked solely
on this aspect. Positivity has made me
get associated with the projects that are
best for me.”
The actor also believes in going the
extra mile to play a role. “For instance,
when the film Hunter Tootega Nai
Todega came to me, I felt that my
character would be best projected as a
Haryanvi cop. I managed to convince
my writer and maker to rework it. The
results are extremely rewarding. Now, I
can’t wait for the second part of the
series,” he says. “I don’t fear
experimenting and exploring; like,
currently, I am learning Marathi, and
who better than Mugdha to teach me
this sweet language,” ends the actor.