English Daily
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www.indianhorizon.org RNI No: Deleng/2013/51507
Volume No: 3 Issue No: 180
In memory of Dr Asima Kemal and Prof. Dr. Salim W Kemal
Published from New Delhi and Hyderabad
New Delhi, Saturday, July 4, 2015
Jaitley refused comment on Gajendra
Chauhan: FTII students
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Greece declared in default ahead of
knife-edge referendum
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‘BJP MP Hema Malini never
enquired about our child’
Briefs
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with Dy CM
Manish Sisodia eating mangoes at the ongoing Annual Mango
Festival 2015 at Janakpuri Dilli Haat in New Delhi on Friday. PTI
Govt clears 16 defence licence
proposals worth Rs 613 crore
NEW DELHI, July 3 (PTI) The commerce and industry
ministry has cleared 16 defence licence proposals with investments worth Rs 613 crore, a move aimed at boosting
defence manufacturing in the country.
The department of industrial policy and promotion
(DIPP), which comes under the commerce and industry
ministry, has so far issued 73 industrial licences in the defence sector in the last one year (since June 2014), against
50 licence granted during 2011 to May 2014, the ministry
said in a statement. “These (73) include 16 proposals with
proposed investment of Rs 613 crore, cleared in recent licensing committee meeting,” it said.
The proposals cleared in last meeting, held on June 10,
included applications from major players like Pipavav, Tata’s, Samtel Thales, Solar Industries, Titagarh, Wagons and
Premier Explosives.
“Many of these proposals were pending with the government for last several years,” it added.
Centre notifies rules for
valuation of black money
stashed away abroad
New Delhi, July 3 (PTI) The law
provides for a total of tax and penalty of 120% on the income or assets held abroad after the expiry of a
one-time 90-day “compliance window”, which expires on September
30. The Centre has notified the rules
for calculating overseas income and
assets under the stringent foreign
black money law that came into
force on July 1, 2015.
The value of the overseas assets,
including immovable property,
jewellery and precious stones,
archaeological collections and
paintings, shares and securities and shares in unlisted firms
abroad will be calculated at the
fair market value, the rules notified by the CBDT said on Friday.
The value of an overseas bank account will be the sum of all deposits made in the account since its
opening, the rules said.
The Black Money (Undisclosed
Foreign Income and Assets) and
Imposition of Tax Act, 2015, provides for a total of tax and penalty
of 120 per cent on the income or
assets held abroad after the expiry
of a one-time 90-day “compliance
window” provided for persons to
come clean.
Any income or asset declared during this period, which ends on September 30, would attract a total of
60 per cent tax and penalty, without
penal provisions like jail term. They
will have time till December 31 to
pay the levies.
The rules notified on Friday provide for the way foreign income
and assets would be valued for
Dhaka to open more diplomatic
missions in northeast India
AGARTALA, July 3 (IANS) Bangladesh will expand its diplomatic
presence in India’s northeast to
improve trade, people-to-people
contacts and cultural ties with the
eight states in the region, of which
four share a common border with it.
Dhaka now has a diplomatic mission in Tripura’s capital Agartala.
“New Delhi has accepted Dhaka’s
proposal to open a new Bangladesh deputy high commission in
Guwahati in Assam,” a Bangladesh
foreign ministry official told IANS.
The official, who requested not to
be named, said the Agartala mission would also be upgraded as an
assistant high commission.
“The proposed deputy high
commission in Guwahati will
have consular jurisdiction over
Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal
Pradesh,” the official said. The
new deputy high commission in
Guwahati was likely to open next
New Delhi, July 3 (PTI) The
car crash victim’s family is bitter that the BJP MP did not enquire about them after the accident. The distraught father
of the two-year-old girl, who
died in a car crash with actor
Hema Malini’s sedan, is inconsolable, while the injured
mother is constantly asking “Chinni kahan hai?”, not
knowing her daughter is dead.
The family is even more hurt
that neither the actor nor her
aides bothered to ask about
their well-being though, they
say, the accident was caused
by her speeding car.
The mother’s uncle, who
did not wish to be identified by
name, said: “We have told the
father, Hanuman Khandelwal,
of the death of the child in the
accident. He was shocked and
has been crying since yesterday night. We try to console
him but fail to do so. “But we
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them kindly. The BJP has an ingrained habit of brazening out
their own misdeeds, which they
are again repeating in this (Narendra) Modi sarkar,” Congress
spokesperson Tom Vadakkan told
the media here.
“The Congress demands that the
prime minister and the BJP apologise unconditionally to the nation
for having aided, abetted and favoured anti-India elements, terrorists and criminals. They should
cident but she did not do so.
“We know she (Hema Malini)
was also hurt but at least she
could have enquired about the
well being of the family... (She
could have) asked the doctors to give (the family) proper
treatment,” said the relative.
Doctors at the SMS Hospital said the family was doing
“well”. Rajasthan Medical
and Health Minister Rajendra Rathore visited them on
Thursday night and directed
the hospital to provide free
treatment. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje also visited the
accident victims.
Uncertainty over Modi-Sharif meet in Russia: MEA
New Delhi, July 3 (PTI)
Uncertainty prevailed over
whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani
counterpart Nawaz Sharif
will meet in Ufa in Russia on
the sidelines of SCO Summit
next week, with the External
Affairs Ministry on Friday refusing to confirm or deny the
possibility.
“The schedule (of Modi’s
bilateral meetings) is yet to be
finalised. So I cannot say anything on this,” said External
Affairs Ministry spokesman
year. According to the official, the
process for upgrading the mission
in Agartala would be completed
by September.
Bangladesh already has diplomatic missions in New Delhi,
Kolkata and Mumbai. In return,
Dhaka has allowed New Delhi to
open assistant high commissions
in Khulna and Sylhet, the official
added. “Extension and upgradation of the Bangladesh missions
in northeast India will boost trade
and economy, people-to-people
contact and cultural relations between Bangladesh and the northeastern region,” the official said.
Congress asks PM, BJP for
apology over IC-814 hijacking
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Targeting the then NDA government
over former RAW chief A.S. Dulat’s revelations, the Congress
on Friday demanded an apology
from Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and the BJP over the release
of terrorists during the IC-814 hijacking in 1999.
“If the BJP still does not accept
that the NDA government was
blissfully soft on terror, then the
people of India will never judge
have not told the mother as she
is still in a bad condition after
the accident,” the relative said.
The family was travelling in an
Alto car when it was smashed
by Ms. Malini’s Mercedes car
coming from the opposite
direction. The car was being
driven by the BJP MP’s driver
Mahesh Thakur, with the film
actor seated inside. The accident took place on Thursday
night near Dausa, over 50 km
from here.
“We only tell her that she is
fine and with us. We do not
have the guts to tell her about
the death as we are afraid how
she will react. Chinni was the
most lovable daughter in the
family,” the relative said. He
said Hema Malini’s car was
speeding, and this caused the
accident. The family is bitter
that the BJP MP could have at
least checked up on the condition of the family after the ac-
apologise for having ensured that
terrorists were released and flown to
safe havens in Pakistan so that they
continue to bleed India,” he said.
Former Research and Analysis
Wing (RAW) chief A.S. Dulat on
Thursday said no clear instructions were given to police on
December 24, 1999, when the hijacked Indian Airlines plane landed in Amritsar, because of which
the hijackers took the plane to
Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Vikas Swarup when asked at
a press conference about the
possibility of the meeting.
Modi will be in Ufa from
July 8 to 10 to attend BRICS
and SCO Summits. Sharif is
also expected to attend SCO
Summit. Both India and Pakistan are Observers in the sixnation SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation), which
comprises China, Russia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Pakistan on Thursday indicated
the possibility of a meeting
between the two Prime Ministers, saying such meetings
in a multilateral setting are a
“normal feature”.
“No side has contacted
the other for a meeting so
far. However, as you would
be aware, in any multilateral setting, meetings among
Heads of State and Government is a normal feature,”
Pakistan Foreign Office
Spokesperson Qazi Khalilullah said when asked about
the possibility of a SharifModi meeting in Russia.
BSF court acquits
trooper in Felani
shooting case
Kolkata, July 3 (IANS)
Upholding its previous verdict, a special BSF court has
acquitted a trooper who
was accused of shooting
dead a minor Bangladeshi
girl while she was crossing
the border illegally, an officer said on Friday.
“The court in its verdict
on Thursday acquitted
constable Amiya Ghosh of
181 Battalion after founding him not guilty,” said a
Border Security Force officer. “The verdict, however,
is subject to approval by an
additional director general
rank officer,” the officer
added. Felani Khatun, 15,
was shot dead on January
7, 2011, allegedly by Ghosh
while crossing over to
Bangladesh at the international border checkpoint at
Chaudharihat in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district.
The body allegedly
hung on the fence for
hours
before
border
troops of both the countries brought it down.
Ghosh was charged with
culpable homicide and the
BSF launched a General Security Force Court (GSFC)
trial against him which, on
September 6, 2013, found
him not guilty following “inconclusive and insufficient”
evidence against him.
Not agreeing with the
court’s findings, the BSF
higher authorities subsequently ordered a revision
trial. Describing the latest
verdict as a farce, statebased human rights group
Manabadhikar Suraksha
Mancha (MASUM), said it
was mulling to approach
the Supreme Court.
“Ghosh’s acquittal was a
foregone conclusion, this
revision trial was also an
eyewash. We are in touch
with Felani’s father and
collecting necessary documents to ensure justice.
Unless the matter is taken
to a court, preferably, the
Supreme Court, nothing
will happen,” MASUM
chief Kiriti Roy said.
Indian Horizon, Delhi
Delhi metro begins trial runs
in new section
Short Takes
Robbery at executive’s
house in Ghaziabad
Ghaziabad, July 3 (IANS) Unidentified
robbers looted cash, jewellery and
other valuables worth Rs.3 lakh from
an executive’s house here, police said
on Friday.At least a dozen robbers,
armed with pistols, iron rods and knives
barged into the house of Sandeep, 35, on
Thursday midnight, police said.
When he and his mother Rajbala, 55,
tried to resist the robbers, they opened
fire at them.On being refused the
cupboard’s keys, the robbers pointed a
pistol at Sandeep’s son and eventually
took away cash, jewellery and other
valuables. On hearing the gun shots,
the neighbours started throwing stones
at the dacoits. However, the robbers
opened fire at them and managed to
escape.Sandeep and his mother were
rushed to hospital and their condition is
said to be critical, police said.
“We have registered a case against
unidentified criminals. Teams have been
constituted to work out the case at the
earliest,” said R.K. Pandey, SP (Rural),
Ghaziabad.
SC moved against
mandatory Aadhaar
card for digital
locker
Gurgaon, July 3 (IANS) A Gurgaon based
Right to Information activist on Friday
filed a petition in the Supreme Court
challenging the government’s directive
making Aadhaar card mandatory for
creating digital locker.
The central government on July 1
announced the service of digital locker for
the safekeeping of valuable documents
while launching Digital India Week.
Petitioner Sudhir Yadav in his petition
has alleged that despite the clear order of
the Supreme Court, the Narendra’s Modi
government has announced a new service
based on Aadhaar card.If any person
wants to create an account on the website
digitallocker.gov.in, he has to provide the
Aadhaar card number. This is clearly a
violation of the Supreme court ruling that
Aadhaar card is not mandatory, Yadav
said. The petitioner has alleged that due to
this directive of the central government,
the right of equality guaranteed by the
constitution is under threat.
Re-evaluation of Delhi
Judicial Services exam
papers demanded
2
City
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Road in Madipur locality.According to
police, the people gathered there were
staging protest and obstructing traffic
over the custodial death of one Sushil
Kumar.
Later, the crowd started damaging
various Delhi Transport Corporation
buses and police motorcycles. They
also hurled stones at police officials,
the police alleged.One of the accused
Madan Lal Suryavanshi, a local leader,
had claimed that he had contested
assembly election twice and had made
several complaints against senior police
officials and Congress leaders. He said
he had been falsely implicated in this
case due to his previous complaints.
Seven people were acquitted by
court for want of sufficient evidence
against them.One accused Raju alias
Handa is on the run while four accused
died during the course of the trial and
proceedings against them stood abated.
While delivering the verdict, the court
said the “mob staging protest are free to
express their anguish but not by causing
extensive damage to property and
attacking) police officials”.
Three held for
stealing twowheelers
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Three
members of a gang of auto thieves have
been arrested here and nine stolen
two-wheelers seized from them, police
said on Friday.Abhishek, 25, Jugal, 20,
and Irfan, 19, were taken into custody
on Wednesday after failing to produce
documents of the motorcycles they were
riding.
While Jugal is from Delhi, Abhishek
and Irfan hail from Uttar Pradesh. They
were arrested from GTB Enclave.
Two scooties and seven motorcycles
stolen by them were recovered from
the parking lot of Gagan Cinema and
Jag Parvesh Chandra Hospital at Shastri
Park, police said.“The vehicles were
concealed by parking them in public
parking places till they were sold,”
Deputy Commissioner of Police Veenu
Bansal said.The trio confessed to stealing
vehicles in and around Delhi.
NDMC gears up to
check waterlogging
during monsoon
New Delhi:, June 3 (PTI) Gearing up
for the monsoon season, the New Delhi
Municipal Council (NDMC) has set
up four control rooms in areas under
its jurisdiction to check the menace
of waterlogging.“Five control rooms
have been set up at Sangli Mess, Khan
Market, Netaji Nagar, Malcha Marg,
Mandir Marg and at Connaught Place,
which will work round the clock till
September 30 to receive complaints
and avoid waterlogging during the
period,” NDMC spokesperson Jagjivan
Bakshi said.“These control rooms will
be manned by senior executive engineer
level officers and are equipped with
trucks, portable pumps and other
required equipments,” he added.
The civic-body has identified certain
vulnerable points in areas under its
jurisdiction as per past experience and
also on the basis of feedback received
from police and traffic officials.
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Alleging
irregularities in the Delhi Judicial
Services examination, Janata DalUnited
president
Sharad
Yadav
demanded re-evaluation of answer
sheets of all successful candidates in
2015.“Some unsuccessful candidates
have approached me to request for reevaluation of their exam sheets alleging
favouritism in this exam,” Yadav said in
a letter written to union Law Minister
Sadanand Gowda.“I am informed that
the answer sheets were evaluated by
those sitting judges whose close relatives
took the exam,” added Yadav.Terming
it a “very serious issue”, Yadav said that
corruption has spread its wings in the
judicial exams.
“The issue of corruption in judiciary
needs to be debated for some concrete
solutions otherwise it will be a great
Four held for looting
threat to our democracy,” he said.
courier shop
“In view of this, I shall be grateful if the
re-evaluation of answer sheets of all 600
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) With the arrest
successful candidates be ordered so that of four persons, police today claimed
justice is done with these candidates,” to have solved the Madhu Vihar loot
Yadav said in his letter.
case in which three motorcycle-borne
Six convicted of rioting persons had escaped with over Rs one
lakh in cash from a courier company.
in Delhi in 2003
A cash amount of Rs 1.10 lakh was
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) A Delhi looted at gunpoint from a courier
court has convicted six people of agency in Madhu Vihar market by three
rioting, causing injuries to various unidentified robbers on June 21.
Police made frequent raids and
public persons and police officials, and
arrested four persons arrested yesterday
damaging public property in 2003.
Additional sessions judge Manoj from Sultanpuri and Begumpur areas of
Jain convicted Madan Lal Suryavanshi, East Delhi, said Ajay Kumar, DCP East
Radhey Shyam, Ashok Kumar Dudhiya, district.Those arrested were identified,
Nand Kishore, Suresh Kumar alias as Dipak Gupta, Sarfuddin, Dipak aka
Pappu and Prem Chand for rioting in Tappu and Mukesh.On examining
west Delhi in the verdict delivered on the CCTV Footage placed at the lane
July 1.A case was registered against 18 where the courier agency is situated
people in west Delhi’s Punjabi Bagh for and nearby areas by the police, some
damaging public property while staging suspects roaming around there for
a protest on October 21, 2003 at Rohtak over an hour, were identified, he said.
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) The Delhi Metro on
Friday began trial runs on the JahangirpuriSamaypur Badli section, which is likely to be
operational by the end of this month, officials
said.Built under Phase 3 of the Delhi Metro Rail
Corporation (DMRC), the first trial train on the
4.3 km long elevated stretch commenced from
the Jahangirpuri station and covered the Badli
Mor and Rohini Sector 18 stations before ending
at Samaypur Badli station.
“The section is almost complete and is expected
to be opened for commuter operations by next
month after successful trials and mandatory
approvals,” DMRC Managing Director Mangu
Singh told reporters.
“Residents of north Delhi who travel to different
parts of the national capital region will benefit
from this new stretch,” he added.
According to the DMRC, 95 percent work
has been completed at all the three stations -Samaypur Badli, Rohini Sector 18 and Badli Mor.
Speaking about the challenges faced by the
corporation while constructing the extension
route, Singh said steel bridges had to be built at
various points to avoid railway tracks or the busy
outer ring road.“One of the challenges was to
construct the elevated bridge over the busy DelhiAmbala line between Adarsh Nagar and Badli
stations. We used a 45 metre steel bridge resting
on piers that are 12 metres above the track,” Singh
said.Similarly, five more steel spans were used on
various stretches on the outer ring road so as not
to affect the traffic movement.
Besides, the Badli Mor station has been
designed in such a way that the structure will have
provision for expansion in Phase 4 as well.
With the addition of the new stretch, the
trains on Delhi Metro’s yellow line will run from
HUDA City Centre to Samaypur Badli, covering a
distance of 49 km.
Congress takes on AAP
over fake degree row
New Delhi, June 3 (PTI) The Congress party
on Friday took on the Aam Aadmi Party over
the fake degree row, this time involving Palam
MLA Bhavna Gaur.
“Every few days, a new controversy
involving the fake degrees of AAP ministers
comes to light. Today, Palam MLA Bhavna
Gaur is under the scanner for her degree.
In 2013, she showed that she had a Class 12
certificate and in 2015, she showed a BA and
a B.Ed degree. Which degree can be gained
so fast? This is beyond our understanding,”
Congress leader Ajay Maken said at a press
briefing here.
Three feared dead as
hospital wall collapses
in Delhi
New Delhi, June 3 (PTI) Three workers
were feared dead while another was
injured when a basement wall of an underconstruction hospital collapsed here this
afternoon in South West Delhi’s Dwarka
sector 6. According to Fire Department,
they got a call about the incident at 11:55
PM following which five fire tenders were
rushed to the spot. Fire fighters and police
personnel soon launched the rescue efforts.
“The basement being built is around
40 feet deep. A makeshift wall was erected
to keep the mud from collapsing, but that
wall cracked and the debris fell on the four
workers who were working on the spot,”
said R A Sanjeev, Deputy Commissioner of
Police (South-West). One of them managed
to come out of the rubble while by the time
two persons were brought out, they were
dead. Rescue efforts are on to find the
fourth one but the chances of his survival
are bleak, police said. “We have registered a
case against the construction company for
causing death due to negligence and other
relevant sections of IPC,” the officer said.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with Dy CM Manish Sisodia
having a look of varieties mangoes at the ongoing Annual Mango Festival
2015 at Janakpuri Dilli Haat in New Delhi on Friday. PTI
Govt releases first Socio-Economic and
Caste Census in 8 decades
New Delhi, June 3 (PTI) Just 4.6
percent of all rural households in the
country pay income tax while such
households with salaried income are
close to 10 percent, the first Socio
Economic and Caste Census released
in eight decades said today.The
percentage of Scheduled Caste (SC)
households paying income tax was
3.49 percent while Scheduled Tribe
(ST) tax-paying rural households were
mere 3.34 percent, the Socio Economic
and Caste Census 2011 said.Releasing
the Census, Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley said the data will help in better
targeting of government policies.
“The enormity of schemes and
reaches that all governments have,
this document will form a basis of
helping us target groups for support
in terms of policy planning,” he told
reporters here.He said the document
will reflect the reality of India and
be a very important input for all
policymakers both for the central and
state governments.
This is the first Census released
after 1932 and contains various
details with regard to specific regions,
communities, caste and economic
groups and measures the progress of
the households in India. “It is after 7-8
decades that we have this document
after 1932 of the caste census. It is also
a document which contains various
details ... Who are the ones who have
qualitatively moved up in terms of life,
which are the ones both in terms of
geographical regions, social groupings
which in future planning needs to
be targeted,” Jaitley said.The census
survey, which was carried out in all
the 640 districts of the country, pegged
rural households at 17.91 crore. The
total households in the country -- rural
plus urban -- stand at 24.39 crore.
Of all the rural households, 7.05
crore, or 39.39 percent, was termed
as ‘Excluded Households’ which did
not have an income of over Rs 10,000
per month, or did not own either an
automobile, fishing boat or kisan credit
card.While 5.39 crore (30.10 percent)
out of total rural households depended
on crop cultivation for sustenance,
9.16 crore (51.14 percent) earned
income through manual casual labour.
Some 44.84 lakh worked as domestic
helps, 4.08 lakh were rag pickers and
6.68 lakh beggars.“The data addresses
the multi dimensionality of poverty
and provides a unique opportunity for
a convergent, evidence based planning
with a Gram Panchayat as unit,” Rural
Development Minister Chaudhary
Birendra Singh said.Of all the rural
salaried households, 5 percent earned
salaries from the government while
those employed in the private sector
constituted 3.57 percent of the total
households.Public
sector-employed
households made up 1.11 percent of
the total. The Census said 94 percent
of the rural households owned a house
with 54 percent having 1-2 room
dwellings.
ABVP protests at St.Stephen’s College
over sexual harassment
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) The Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on
Friday staged protests at St. Stephen’s
College in the north campus here over the
alleged sexual harassment of a doctoral
student by an assistant professor of the
college.Waving flags, members of the RSS’s
students wing entered the college premises
and sat outside college principal Valson
Thampu’s office while raising slogans and
demanding his resignation.
Speaking during the protest, ABVP’s
Delhi state secretary Saket Bahuguna said:
“We condemn the attempts of Stephen’s
principal to mislead the victim and to
impose his view on her.”
“The audio recording made public by
the victim today (Friday) clearly shows his
involvement in trying to cover up the crime.”
“We demand his immediate resignation.
Also, the university administration should
take adequate steps to ensure that such
cases are dealt with in the right manner
by the HoDs (heads of department) and
college principal.” “In this case, the DU
administration should also initiate inquiry
against the principal,” he said.“We will stand
by the girl student till she gets justice,” ABVP
state secretary Rohit Chahal told IANS.Delhi
University Students’ Union president Mohit
Nagar, vice president Parvesh Malik, joint
secretary Ashutosh Mathur also participated
in the protest.
The research scholar has alleged that
Satish Kumar, an assistant professor of
chemistry, harassed her for two years.
The alleged victim, from a rural
background, said her harassment started
soon after her course began in 2013. Later,
her parents spoke to the assistant professor
and college principal Valson Thampu.
But to no avail. In her First Information
Report (FIR) with police, she also alleged
that Thampu made her sign declarations
suppressing the incident, a charge he has
rejected.Earlier, the Delhi High Court put
on hold the arrest of Satish Kumar. Justice
Indermeet Kaur also issued notice to Delhi
Police on Kumar’s plea directing them to file
a status report with regard to the progress
made in the investigation of the case before
the next date of hearing.
Delhiites witness hot,
humid morning today
New Delhi, june 3 (PTI) Delhiites woke up to
a hot and humid morning with the minimum
temperature settling at 27.6 degrees Celsius.
The maximum temperature, according to
MeT department officials, is expected to settle
at 40 degrees Celsius today.The humidity in
air was recorded 61 per cent at 8.30 AM, said
a MeT department official.The weatherman
has predicted overcast conditions for the rest
of the day.“The skies will be partly cloudy
sky. Maximum temperature is expected to
settle at 40 degrees Celsius,” an official of the
department said.Yesterday, the maximum
temperature had settled at 38.9 degrees Celsius
while the minimum temperature was recorded
at 27 degrees Celsius.
Muslims offer Friday prayes in a mosque in Allahabad during the month of
Ramadan. PTI
3
Indian Horizon, Delhi
City
Manish Sisodia inspects govt school
after drug complaint
New Delhi, June 3 (PTI) Deputy Chief
Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday
made a surprise visit at a government
school in South Delhi’s Bhati Mines
area after he received a complaint that
drugs were allegedly being supplied
inside it.
Sisodia paid a visit after he received
the complaint from local residents last
night.“During the Deputy CM’s visit,
locals nabbed a person whom they
called a drug peddler who supplied
drugs inside the school. Around 18
pouches of ganja were recovered
from him,” said a Delhi government
spokesperson.
The accused was handed over to
police, the spokesman said.Later in the
day, Sisodia shared a tweet of one of
government’s media advisors “Deputy
Chief Minister Manish Sisodia received
a complaint that some students take
drug. Vice principal also accepted this.”
However, the government spokesman
said that as per initial probe, school
management was not at fault.
Delhi to be developed into
tourism hub: Kejriwal
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) Delhi will soon be developed into a tourism hub at par
with developed global cities, chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said here today.
“In the coming five years we will work towards developing Delhi into a
tourism hub at par with developed global cities.Various festivals held to
celebrate our heritage are good opportunities to attract tourists and more
and more people should visit them,” he said while inaugurating the 27th
Mango festival here.Delhi’s Mango lovers flocked at Delhi Haat, Janakpuri
to see a fascinating display of lip smacking varieties of the fruit at the festival
which will be on till July 5.Kejriwal who was accompanied by Deputy Chief
Minister Manish Sisodia and Delhi Law Minister Kapil Mishra, could not
address the public as the stage set at the venue, collapsed minutes before
the inauguration due to a dust storm.
Delhi Tourism department organises the Mango Festival every year with
an aim to provide exposure to the domestic mango industry. The festival
also provides agro and food processing industries the opportunity to display
their products.Thirteen farmers and nine government institutions including
Rajya Krishi Utpadan Mandi Parishad (UP), Indian Agricultural Research
Institute, Directorate of Horticulture and Food Processing (UP), Bihar
Agricultural University and Mother Dairy (New Delhi), are taking part in this
edition of the festival.
While over 500 varieties of rare as well as commercially popular mangoes
are on display, visitors will also be able to enjoy other activities including
cultural performances like mango-eating competition and quizzes on the
king of fruits.The various types of Mangoes which the visitors will be able to
relish at the festival include Langra, Chausa, Rataul, Hussainara, Ramkela,
Kesar, Fazri, Mallika and Amrapali, among others.Delhi Tourism department
organises the Mango Festival every year with an aim to provide exposure
to the domestic mango industry. The festival also provides agro and food
processing industries the opportunity to display their products.
NCR airport: Raju
steers clear of Sharma
claim of Ministry nod
New Delhi, June 3 (PTI) A week after his junior
minister announced that the Civil Aviation
Ministry has cleared a proposal for NCR’s second
airport, Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Thursday refused
to confirm such a move, merely saying “both state
and the Centre have to come on board”.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Raju evaded a direct
reply to a question on the matter even as his
junior colleague Mahesh Sharma had last week
announced that the Ministry had given its nod
for setting up of the second airport in the national
capital region.Sharma had also hinted that the
new airport could come up at Uttar Pradesh’s
Jewar, which comes under his parliamentary
constituency of Gautam Buddha Nagar.
Responding to repeated queries on whether the
Ministry has cleared the project, Raju said, “for
setting up a new airport, both state and the Centre
have to come on board” and evaded a direct reply.
“It takes two hands (to clap)... State governments
generally make requests for having an airport in
their respective state,” he said.
Reminded about Sharma’s announcement that
the proposal has been cleared by the Ministry and
would soon be taken to the Cabinet, Raju only
said, “Please ask Mr Sharma... Anybody can give
suggestion, anybody can write (to the Ministry)”.
“I don’t even know whether it (proposal for a new
airport) should go to the Cabinet,” Raju noted.
Sharma had made the announcement about the
new airport last week after a high-level meeting
that was attended by top Ministry officials, Air
India CMD Rohit Nandan and AAI Chairman R K
Srivastava, among others. At that time Raju was
away.
Of late, Raju and Sharma have been talking in
different voices over many issues. While there is
no clarity about the Ministry’s stance on the new
airport, the two ministers have expressed different
opinion on the issue of allowing airlines’ to charge
for check-in baggage.
Raju has opined a decision on a proposal to charge
passengers for check-in baggage should be left to
aviation regulator DGCA whereas Sharma has
gone ahead asking DGCA not to consider such a
proposal.
Expressway set to flood again as rains arrive
GURGAON, June 3 (Agencies)
The
problem of waterlogging may plague the
Delhi-Gurgaon expressway this year too
as the NHAI is still working on building a
longitudinal drain. The NHAI is in a race
against time as the next court hearing in
a related case is in September. The NHAI
has arranged five mobile pumps to suck
out excess water from the drains during
the monsoon as there are inadequate
outlets in the existing stormwater drains
along the service lanes of the expressway.
Apart from this, there will also be eight
stationary pumps. The excess water will
be stored in four tankers that have a
combined capacity of 72,000 litres.
“We have two tankers of 24,000-litre
capacity each while the other two are
of 12,000 litres each. These tankers
will release water into the Najafgarh
drain,” said an NHAI official. The NHAI
has also urged MCEPL, the expressway
concessionaire, to fix the potholes that
develop because of accumulation of
rainwater on the service lanes. “Traffic
jams happen because of potholes or
waterlogging. We have asked MCEPL to
repair the road to avoid waterlogging,”
the official said.
The Punjab and Haryana high court,
which is monitoring the expressway
project in a PIL filed in 2009, had said
on May 26 that the longitudinal project
should be completed before the next
hearing on September 17.
A K Sharma, project director (Gurgaon)
of NHAI, said the work on the drain could
begin next month. “Online tenders were
called recently and we will open the
tender on August 3,” he said. However,
Sharma said that during the monsoon,
the work would get stalled as the
construction involved RCC (reinforced
cement concrete). “The work should get
completed by November-December,” he
said. The construction work was delayed
firstly because the MCG, which was
supposed to bear the cost amounting to
Rs 22.62 crore, had to get approval from
the head office (ministry of urban local
bodies in Chandigarh) that finally came
through in mid-May. Following this, the
head office of the NHAI in New Delhi gave
the green light for the project on June
11The Punjab and Haryana high court,
which is monitoring the expressway
project in a PIL filed in 2009, had said
on May 26 that the longitudinal project
should be completed before the next
hearing on September 17.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Woman found in Palam Vihar was
murdered
GURGAON, June 3 (Agencies) The
woman whose body was found in
a plastic sack near Rezang La war
memorial in Palam Vihar was murdered,
according to her autopsy report.
However, the woman has not yet been
identified, police said on Thursday.
Though the postmortem report revealed
strangulation as the cause of her death,
it could not confirm whether she was
raped. Cops said viscera samples
of the woman have been sent for
further analysis to Madhuban forensic
laboratory and the body was handed
over to the MCG for funeral.
“The woman could not be identified.
We finally handed her body over to the
MCG for funeral after the autopsy on
Thursday. As per procedure, we waited
for 72 hours for somebody to claim her
body but nobody came forward. The
cause of death was strangulation. We
have sent the swabs to the laboratory
for further examination,” said Rajesh
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley with Minister for Rural Development
Birender Singh at the release of the New Socio-Economic and Caste Census
(SECC) at North Block in New Delhi on Friday. PTI
Schools can be mapped with skill
centres, says Kalam
New Delhi, June
3 (Agencies)
Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
administered a 12-point pledge to
principals and teachers of government
schools here on Thursday.
The programme, organised by the
Directorate of Education at Delhi
Secretariat, was attended by Chief
Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy
Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, among
others. As part of a pilot programme,
50 principals and teachers have
volunteered themselves for developing
their schools as model schools.
Dr. Kalam called upon the teachers
to ignite the minds of students by
becoming a “burning candle”. The
former
President
suggested
that
government schools could be mapped
with the skill and training centres
which are close by. Students can then
Snatcher who took drugs for
daredevilry arrested
Communal tension
rocks Atali
New Delhi, June 3 (Agencies) A notorious snatcher, who was in the habit of
consuming drugs prior to committing crimes, has been arrested by the north-west
district police.Sandeep (28) was involved in around 40 cases of snatching, robbery,
and bootlegging. However, he has so far been linked to 13 registered cases. “It was
routine for him to take drugs before proceeding with any crime. He believed it
increased his daredevilry. But that turned him into a drug addict,” said the police
on Thursday.Thorough knowledge of areas in north and west Delhi helped him take
strategic positions before targeting mainly women commuters. It also helped him
escape easily through various routes.
To keep the police at bay, Sandeep allegedly changed his crime partners frequently.
He used a high-power Pulsar motorcycle while committing snatchings.
The police had also booked him under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime
Act (MCOCA) recently after he was linked to a notorious gang involved in snatchings.
He was nabbed in Haiderpur on Tuesday.
New Delhi, June 3 (Agencies) A day after eight people were
injured in clashes that broke out between members of two
communities at Atali village, more than 70 Muslims fled
the village on Thursday. Earlier, on May 25, several people
had been injured and scores of houses and vehicles were
set afire when a Hindu mob had allegedly attacked the
Muslim families following a dispute over the construction
of a mosque in the village.Accusing the administration
of having failed to ensure their safety, Zahid, a Muslim
youth, said: “When our families could be attacked in the
presence of senior police officers and civil administration
officials — as it happened on Wednesday — how can we
consider ourselves safe in the village?”
Though the exodus of the Muslim families had begun soon
after the May 25 attack, it was mostly women and children
who had then left the villages to go and stay with their
relatives. “Now, after this fresh spell of violence, even the
heads of the families staying behind have left. The exodus
is almost complete, with just two families choosing to
stay behind,” said 31-year-old Zahid, who teaches at the
Education Department in Al-falah University.
Things turned from bad to worse after the May 25 attack
with the Hindus ostracising us, said Ahsaan, another
Muslim youth. “Our children were not allowed to board
the auto-rickshaws and the shopkeepers refused to sell
us even items of daily need. The majority community
members had announced to impose the fine on anyone
defying their directions on ostracisation. We were then
left with no option, but to leave the place,” said Ahsaan,
who has taken shelter at Madrasa Afzalul Uloom Islamia
Arabia in Ballabgarh.
Senior police officers, however, tried to downplay the
exodus. “They left fearing for their lives. But we are trying
to instil confidence in them,” said Commissioner of Police
(Faridabad) Subhash Yadav.
Police arrest students at a protest against the appointment of Gajendra
Chauhan as the chairman of the FTII governing council, in New Delhi on
Friday. PTI
Kumar, ACP (crime), Gurgaon. Cops
said they had scanned all missing
persons report to identify the woman,
over the last two days, but failed to get
any lead.
Dr Pankaj Mathur, a part of the team
of doctors that conducted the autopsy,
said the report was inconclusive in
determining if the victim was raped, and
samples have been sent to Madhuban’s
forensic lab for further analysis.
The woman, said to be in her mid-20s,
was found inside a polythene sack on
Monday afternoon. There were no
clothes on the body, except for a couple
of neckties with which it had been tied
in a fetal position. The face was swollen
and had injury marks on it.
“The woman could not be identified.
We finally handed her body over to the
MCG for funeral after the autopsy on
Thursday. As per procedure, we waited
for 72 hours for somebody to claim her
body but nobody came forward.
be given short trainings every week in
the academic calendar. These centres
could be industrial training institutes,
polytechnic
colleges
or
private
workshops and electronic labs.
If a system can be worked out by the
government with the cooperation of
schools, the mission of imparting skills
to the youths from the school level could
be realised and the state of education in
the Capital will improve within the next
three to four years, said Dr. Kalam.
Mr. Kejriwal said his government had
given top priority to education and
health sectors and doubled the budget
for education. Mr. Sisodia, who also
holds the education portfolio, said
while the government could provide
budget, infrastructure and facilities, the
transformation in education was the
ultimate responsibility of teachers.
30 kg ganja seized, 2 arrested
New Delhi, June 3 (Agencies) Two kg heroin and 30 kg ganja have been seized
and four persons have been arrested in two separate incidents, the police said on
Thursday.
The heroin was seized by a Special Cell team. The police had learnt about a gang
supplying heroin from Delhi to places in Punjab. A trap was laid near Yamuna
Bazar on Sunday and one of the suspects, Paramjit Singh, was nabbed with 1.5 kg
heroin.Based on information provided by him, the syndicate’s kingpin, Deepak
Pandey, was arrested in Ludhiana the next day. A search of his house led to the
recovery of 500 gram of the same drug.In the other case, two drivers were held
with over 30 kg ganja on Wednesday. Some policemen were patrolling in East
Delhi region when they were tipped off about an Eeco van carrying the drug.A
search of vehicles was initiated in Nand Nagri. The suspected vehicle was spotted
at 7.20 p.m. and signalled to stop.A bag lying beside the driver’s seat was found
containing 10.2 kg ganja. Another person seated at the back was found carrying
20.2 kg ganja in a plastic bag.
Train engine catches fire near
Basai, no one hurt
GURGAON, June 3 (Agencies) The engine of a Delhi-Rewari passenger
train caught fire between Gurgaon and Garhi-Harsaru stations on Thursday
afternoon, but no passenger or railway crew was hurt, railway officials said.
The fire broke out in the train’s engine around 3.20pm after it had just crossed
Basai. The driver was the first one to spot smoke coming from the engine
and initially tried to put out the fire himself, but when he failed, he informed
officials at the railway control room.
The fire department was notified about the blaze and it rushed three fire
tenders to the spot. The first fire tender reached there at 3.44pm and the
fire was contained by 4.25pm. “The fire was contained to the train’s engine,
and our team managed to douse the flames in one hour”, said Isham Singh
Kashyap, Gurgaon fire officer. Officials said that the train was stopped
when the fire was noticed and the engine was detached to stop the fire
from spreading to the rest of the train. However, panic soon spread among
passengers when they learnt that the engine had caught fire.
It was when the train had just reached the Garhi-Harsaru station when I
noticed smoke coming from the engine and got really scared.
Indian Horizon Delhi
Police prevents Syed Ali Shah
Geelani from addressing rally
Protesters pelting stones at the police during clashes following the arrest of Hurriyat Conference Chairman Syed Ali Shah
Geelani at Nowhatta in Srinagar on Friday. PTI
Srinagar July 3 (PTI): Police
on Friday foiled separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s plan
to address a public gathering in
Anantnag district of south Kash-
mir by detaining him near his
residence here.
“As Geelani tried to leave for
south Kashmir, he was detained
by a large posse of police who
Amit Shah reshuffles
incharge of state BJP
units, cells
were stationed outside his residence at Hyderpora,” a Hurriyat
spokesperson said.
Hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Geelani had announced to offer Friday prayers
in Anantnag and was scheduled
to address a public gathering
there after the prayers. The
spokesperson said that dozens
of Hurriyat leaders were also detained along with Geelani.The
separatist leader continues to
be under arrest since his arrival
from New Delhi on April 15 this
year barring on two occasions,
first when he was allowed to go
to Tral to address a rally on May
1 and then on June 5 when he
visited Passport Office here for
filing his passport application.
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party
president Amit Shah on Friday retained 19 incharge of
state party units and appointed/reshuffled 17 others,
apart from appointing incharge of seven party cells/
morchas.
Among the new appointees were Kailash Vijayvargiya as incharge of West Bengal and Murlidhar
Rao of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.Shah also
appointed D. Purandeshwari Devi, a former union
minister and daughter of actor-turned-politician N.T.
Ramarao, as incharge of BJP Mahila Morcha. She resigned from the Congress in March to join the BJP.The
announcement of new responsibilities for the leaders
came after Amit Shah’s meeting with office-bearers.
The most significant appointment is of general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya as ‘prabhari’ (incharge) of
a poll-bound state like West Bengal. Vijayvargiya was
recently appointed as general secretary.Vijayvargiya
replaces Sidharth Nath Singh, who has been given
charge of Andhra Pradesh. S.N. Singh will however
continue to work in West Bengal as co-incharge.
Jaitley refused comment on
Gajendra Chauhan: FTII students
New Delhi, July 3
(IANS) Information and
Broadcasting
Minister
Arun Jaitley on Friday
“denied to comment” on
the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the
chairperson of FTII, said
a delegation of students
after a meeting with the
minister.
“The minister refused
to comment on the appointment of Chauhan
as the chairperson but
instead assured that in
future there won’t be issues that hamper the curriculum of the students,”
Prateek, a student who
was part of the delegation, told IANS.Earlier in
the day, the group, who
had come from Pune also
met K. Sanjay Murti, joint
secretary of the film division, to discuss the issue.
However, sources said
there was no “conclusive
outcome” due to which
the group sought an appointment with Jaitley.
The delegation also
said that Jaitley during
the meeting assured of
proper
infrastructure
and exposure for the
students.“We need to discuss the issue with other
students first and only
then will we take a call on
whether we will return (to
Pune) or not. However,
the assurance by the minister has given us some
relief,” Prateek said.The
delegation is demanding
the removal of Chauhan
from the chairmanship
of the Film and Television
Institute of India (FTII)
and also reconstitution
of the entire governing
council of the institute.
However,
Chauhan
urged the students to end
their agitation and return
to their classes.“Whatever
the government says, I
will follow. I wasn’t aware
about the meetings but
I urge the students to
call off the protests and
start attending their
classes otherwise, it will
be a great loss for them,”
Chauhan told reporters in
Pune.
A total of 200 students
protesting against Chauhan’s appointment were
detained by the Delhi Police on Friday afternoon
here.Besides
students
from FTII, others from
Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University
and Delhi Technological
University also joined the
protest.
Patients heave sigh of relief as
Maharashtra doctors end strike
Mumbai, July 3 (IANS) Resident doctors posted at state
government and municipal
hospitals across Maharashtra
called off their two-day strike
following an amicable settlement of a majority of their demands, a top leader of the doctors said here on Friday.
The development comes as
a welcome relief to thousands
of patients at the strike-hit 14
government medical colleges-
cum-hospitals and three run by
the BrihanMumbai Municipal
Corporation across Maharashtra.Accordingly, around 4,500
resident doctors from these 17
medical colleges-cum-hospitals
will resume duties from 8 p.m.
on Friday.Particularly affected
for two days were medical services such as Outdoor Patients
Departments,
emergencies,
surgeries and routine procedures, which were temporarily
Hema Malini’s driver
arrested, family
mourns girl’s death
Jaipur, July 3 (IANS) Veteran film actor and
BJP MP Hema Malini, injured in a car crash in
Rajasthan that killed a girl child, remained in
hospital on Friday even as her driver was arrested for rash driving.
Doctors at the Fortis Escorts Hospital said
Hema Malini, 66, was stable and on liquid diet
after undergoing a two-hour surgery here late
Thursday following the accident near Dausa,
over 50 km from Jaipur.
Her apparently speeding sedan rammed
into another car coming from the opposite
direction, leaving a two-year-old child in that
vehicle dead and four others injured, including the parents of the dead girl.Hema Malini
-- one of Bollywood’s best known actors -- “is
4
Nation
Saturday June 4, 2015
being manned by junior doctors and professors.“We held
fruitful negotiations with Medical Education Minister Vinod
Tawde on our pending issues.
The government has conceded
nearly 90 percent of our demands and will give a written,
time-bound commitment to
implement them,” Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) president Sagar
Mundada said.
fine and conscious”, said Prateem Tamboli of
the Fortis Hospital. “She is under our post operative intensive care unit.”Doctors said earlier
that may be discharged on Friday evening. But
they told IANS later that the actor-politician
will remain warded till Saturday morning.
Earlier, Hema Malini’s car driver, Mahesh
Thakur, was arrested on charges of rash driving and causing death by negligence besides
other offences, police said. ”We have arrested
the driver, a resident of Vrindavan in Uttar
Pradesh,” a police officer at Dausa told IANS
over phone.
At the SMS Hospital in Jaipur, the distraught
father of the girl who died was inconsolable
while the injured mother kept asking “Chinni
kahan hai?”, not knowing that her daughter
was dead. The family was even more hurt that
neither the actor nor her aides bothered to ask
about their well-being though, they say, the
accident was caused by her speeding car.
Man gets
Aadhar card for
dog, arrested
Bhind (Madhya Pradesh), July 3
(IANS) A computer operator at an
Aadhar centre has been arrested in
Madhya Pradesh for getting an Aadhar
card made for his dog, police said on
Friday.Bhind Superintendent of Police
Navneet Bhasin told IANS that Azam
Khan was arrested on Thursday night.
Khan got the card for his dog in
April. It carries the photo of the dog,
Tomy Singh, and lists the date of birth
as 26.11.2009. The “Father” column
reads: Sheru Singh.
Complications in OROP sorted out, Parrikar tells veterans
New Delhi, July 3
(IANS) Complications in
the “One Rank, One Pension” (OROP) scheme for
the armed forces personnel have been sorted out,
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told protesting ex-servicemen here on
Friday.“The defence min-
ister said the file of OROP
has come back to his ministry.
He said the complications have been sorted
but no date has been given,” Col. (retd) Anil Kaul,
spokesman of the United
Front of Ex-Servicemen,
told IANS.Kaul said their
agitation would continue
and if they don’t get a response from the government by July 15, the protest will be stepped up.
“MPs want to raise their
own salary.
While it was raised by
300 percent in 2010, they
want a treasure again now.
PDP hails Amnesty recommendation for
removal of AFSPA from J&K
SRINAGAR july 3 (PTI): Hailing
Amnesty International’s recommendation for removal of controversial Armed Forces Special Powers
Act (AFSPA) from Jammu and Kashmir, ruling PDP on Friday said it has
vindicated the party’s stand on the
issue. PDP spokesperson Mehboob
Beg, in a statement, appealed to the
Central government to consider the
recommendation made by the international human rights body in
its report ‘Denied: Failures in accountability for human rights violations by security force personnel in
Jammu and Kashmir’ and said it is a
“vindication of PDP’s stand on the
issue”. “It does not behove a demo-
1,400 school teachers resign
in fake degree probe
Patna july 3 (PTI): Some 1,400
primary school teachers have quit
in an eastern Indian state in recent
months amid an ongoing investigation into fake qualifications, an education official said Friday.
More resignations are likely before the end of an amnesty period
that allows teachers in Bihar to quit
to avoid legal action for falsifying
their degrees, state education department principal secretary R.K
Mahajan said. The High Court or-
dered an investigation in May into
the state’s 350,000 primary teachers on concerns that up to 25,000
had joined government schools
without proper training. Resignations poured in as the probe got
underway, with officials scrutinising teacher CVs, before the court
ordered the amnesty last month,
which ends on July 9.
“The 1,400 resignations have
come before the court order on an
amnesty,” Mahajan said. “We will
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Over 40
percent people living in India’s rural areas prefer not to marry and live
single, according to Socio-Economic
and Caste Census (SECC) data released here on Friday.
The data said 41.64 percent people
have never married and stayed single
in rural areas. Nagaland, Meghalaya
and Jammu and Kashmir led the tally
for being home to such people.Nagaland has the maximum 55.88 percent
people preferring not to marry fol-
lowed by Meghalaya and Jammu and
Kashmir with 53.33 and 51.64 percent
respectively, the data said.
The SECC data said Daman and
Diu was home to the largest number of married people with 52.73
percent followed by Andaman and
Nicobar and Kerala with 49.35 and
47.86 percent respectively.Mizoram
(1.08 percent), Lakshadweep (0.51)
and Meghalaya (0.35) were the states
having the maximum number of divorced people, it said.
A usual public servant gets
30 percent increase in salary,” he said.“But OROP
is difficult for them to implement,” he said.
The ex-servicemen have
been sitting on relay hunger strike since June 15.
On Friday, 56 veterans sat
on hunger strike.
cratic country like India to have a
draconian law like AFSPA exist in
any part,” he added.
Calling AFSPA as one of the “primary facilitators of impunity” by
security forces, Amnesty International had Wednesday demanded
its repeal and sought investigation
into cases of human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir by an
“independent and impartial” authority.
know the final number of teachers
who took advantage of the reprieve
after the completion of the amnesty
period.” Mahajan said he did not
think the final number of departures would be problematic, saying “there will be no vacuum in the
education system”.
But he warned of severe action
against teachers who decided to
stay put with fake certificates, saying “this is a criminal act.
They may face even jail”. “The
investigation is verifying qualifications of all teachers in the state who
joined since 2006”, following a mass
recruitment drive by the state gov-
India’s 40 percent rural people
prefer to stay single: Census
ernment. The issue made headlines
last month after Delhi’s law minister, Jitendra Singh Tomar, was arrested for allegedly lying about his
degrees. The quality of education,
particularly in rural areas, is a major
problem in India. Many teachers
also fail to show up to class regularly, leaving colleagues overburdened.
More than half of children in
rural areas are still unable to read
basic text in their own language after completing five years of government schooling, an annual survey
by leading Indian education and
research group Pratham reported.
Youth arrested for ‘objectionable’
Facebook post against SP leader
Sambhal July 3 (PTI): A youth has been arrested for sharing “objectionable” post on social networking site Facebook against Samajwadi
Party leader Shafiqur Rehman Burq in Nakhasa police station area
here, an official said.
One Navneet Varshney was arrested two days back for his objectionable post on Facebook against and former MP Shafiqur Rehman
Burq.
A complaint in this connection was lodged by one of the Burq’s
supporter Wasim. Nakhasa Police Station In-charge Rajvir Singh Yadav on Friday said that based on the complaint, police registered a
case against the accused under sections 153 A, 505, and 504 of the IPC.
Varshney has been to sent to jail and the further investigation is going
on, Yadav added.
Dulat remarks on Gujarat riots trigger
Cong-BJP war of words
Army foils infiltration bid in also died in the operation.
encounter began this
Uri; militant, jawan killed The
morning near the Line of
Control in Bonyar area in
Baramulla district after the
army launched an operation following inputs about
the presence of three to
four militants in the area, an
army official said.
He said as the army zeroed in on the hiding militants, they fired upon the
forces and in the ensuing
gun battle, one militant was
killed.One jawan was also
Army personnel take positions during an encounter
with militants near the Line of Control in Uri sector of
killed while another susnorth Kashmir on Friday. PTI
tained minor injuries, the
Srinagar: Army on Friday Uri sector of Kashmir, killing official said. The operation
foiled an infiltration bid in one militant, but one jawan is still in progress, he added.
Devotees offering namaz outside Jama Masjid at Johari Bazar in Jaipur
on Friday. PTI
Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New &
Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal interacts with cancer affected children during the inauguration of
Premashraya(Dharmshala) of Tata Medical Cancer centre in Kolkata on Friday. PTI
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) Former RAW chief
A S Dulat’s remarks on the 2002 Gujarat riots triggered a fresh war of words between
Congress and BJP, with the former demanding an apology from Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and the latter terming the
issue as “totally irrelevant”.
BJP today accused Congress of raking
up “dead issues” for its “political survival”
and said it raises the 2002 riots issue whenever it cannot find anything else to say.
The political slug-fest erupted in the
wake of Congress latching on to claims
by former RAW chief AS Dulat to demand
that Modi “respect the words” of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and offer an apology to the
country.BJP, however, insisted that every
court had investigated Modi’s role and
found nothing against him and added that
the opposition party raises the 2002 riots
issue when it can find nothing else to say.
“I think time as well as all that has happened have made that question completely irrelevant. Congress has used every
method and every strata of the administration, as well as the courts and every court,
including Supreme Court, has done 10
years or more of the most thorough investigation... and found nothing against the
present honourable Prime Minister.“In
fact, Congress should apologise for raising questions about his integrity,” said BJP
spokesperson M J Akbar.Congress spokesman Ajoy Kumar launched a scathing attack on Modi, saying “Dulat says that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
believed that he lost the 2004 elections in
view of the Gujarat riots.
Indian Horizon, Delhi
Short Takes
DMK demands
convening of
assembly session
Chennai, Jul 3 (PTI): DMK
treasurer M K Stalin today
urged the Tamil Nadu government to convene the assembly
session and table the Demands
for Grants to various departments.
“The Demands for Grants
to various departments have
not been tabled in the House
though it has been 100 days
since the Budget was presented,” he said in a Facebook post.
The Budget was presented on
March 25 by former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and the
House met for five days.
Stalin alleged that the opposition was not given an opportunity to raise people’s issues at
that time.
“The government administration is going on without tabling the Demands for Grants,”
he said.
Balaji appointed
chief of ADA
Bengaluru, Jul 2 (PTI): Cmde
C D Balaji (Retd), Project Director, Light Combat Aircraft
(Navy), today took over as the
Director of Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADA)
and Programme Director of
LCA.
He succeeds P S Subramanyam who superannuated on
June 30.
Balaji, commissioned into the
Indian Navy in September 1978
in the Engineering Branch, has
specialised in the Naval Aviation Arm, according to a Defence Research and Development Organisation release.
He joined ADA on deputation
in 2002 involved with the first
time development of a Naval
version of the LCA (Navy).
As a Project Director LCA
(Navy), he has been responsible
for the maiden flight of the first
Naval variant of LCA (NP1) on
April 27, 2012 followed by the
maiden ski jump launch.
From December 1, 2006, he
left the Navy and moved on permanent absorption to ADA, the
release said.
CPI(M) demands
separate legislation
for honour killing
Coimbatore, Jul 3 (PTI): Expressing concern on incidents
of ‘honour killings’ in Tamil
Nadu, CPI(M) today demanded
that a separate legislation be
brought forward by the state
government to deal with it.
There had been 60 honour
killings in the past three years in
the state. The most recent was
that of the murder of a Dalit engineer, whose body was found
on a railway track near Namakkal, party’s state secretary G Ramakrishnan told reporters here.
A Lokayukta should also be
set up immediately to tackle
corruption and bribe, he said.
Indian fishermen
attacked by SL
fishermen; Rs 6 cr
nets damaged
Nagapattinam (TN), Jul 3
(PTI): About 30 to 40 fishermen
were attacked allegedly by their
Sri Lankan counterparts off Kodiakarai coast, who damaged
their nets worth Rs 6 crore and
threw the catch into the sea, a
fisheries department official
said.
However, none of them were
injured in the attack and the
group of 180 fishermen returned to shore safely today,
District Assistant Director of
Fisheries Sivakumar said.
Quoting one of the fishermen who returned, he said 15
Sri Lankan fishermen in five fast
craft surrounded their boats, attacked them with wooden logs
and threatened to blow up the
boats with some petrol bombs
they were carrying
The Sri Lankan fishermen
threw the entire catch into
the sea, damaged 15 tonnes of
fishing nets worth Rs 6 crore
and also snatched their mobile
phones and GPS equipment, he
said.
Stray dog
menace in Kerala:
KPCC asks for
all-party meet
Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 3
(PTI): Taking a serious view of
problems caused by stray dogs
in the state, Kerala Pradesh
Congress Committee today
asked the government to convene an all-party meeting to
come up with a solution.
In a letter to Chief Minister
Oommen Chandy, KPCC President V M Sudheeran said urgent
steps are needed to end the
street dog menace as it has assumed ‘alarming proportions.’
“People of the state are finding it difficult to walk on public
roads due to the threat posed by
stray dogs”, he said.
A permanent solution to end
this menace has to be worked
out, he said.
CoimbatoreMettupalayam
electric train
service commences
Coimbatore, July 3 (PTI): The
long awaited electric train service between Coimbatore and
Mettupalayam commenced operations today.
The 32 KM stretch from Coimbatore North to Mettupalayam, electrified at a cost of
Rs 28 crore, was a long pending
demand of passengers of the
district, including a large number of tourists visiting nearby
Nilgiris district.
Eleven bogies of Blue Mountain Nilgiris Express were attached to the train, which made
its maiden trip to Mettupalayam.
The electrified service had
been delayed due to technical
snags and two trial runs were
carried out last month before
before the service commenced
today, railway sources said.
Six trains operate between the
two destinations daily, covering
the distance in 45 minutes.
‘Bus terminals to
have rooms for
lactating mothers’
Chennai, Jul 3 (PTI): In an
initiative aimed at helping
lactating mothers who travel,
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister
Jayalalithaa today ordered setting up of separate rooms in
bus terminals across the state
to help them feed their babies
in privacy.
The new scheme will be
launched on August 1 this year,
the day ‘World Breast Feeding
Week’.
Lactating mothers who commute for work or other travel
purposes may have to wait in
bus terminals, she said in a release here.
This year’s theme for the
seven-day breast feeding week
is about the difficulties faced
by working women in lactating
their babies, she said.
“Hence, I have ordered setting up separate rooms in bus
terminals. “This new scheme
will be inaugurated on August 1,
which is the world breast feeding week,” the CM said.
5
Nation
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Govt mulling new, independent
act to improve admn in Bengaluru
Belagavi (Karna), Jul 3
(PTI): Karnataka government is mulling a new and
independent act for Bengaluru city to improve the
quality of administration in
the IT capital, Law Minister
T B Jayachandra said today.
“...We are interested in
restructuring. Bengaluru is
one of the biggest cities in
the world governed under
municipality act; we don’t
have any independent act.
We must have an independent act for Bengaluru itself,” he told reporters here.
He was speaking after the
Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu
today asked the government
to complete by October 5 the
process of elections to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara
Palike, the city civic body,
for which polls were scheduled for July 28 by the State
Election Commission.
The apex Court set aside
a single bench order of
the Karnataka High Court,
which directed the State
Election Commission (SEC)
to conduct the polls by August 5, on an appeal by the
government to postpone the
election to re-draw the corporation map and form five
municipal corporations.
Jayachandra said Bengaluru cannot be governed
under municipality act and
“you can’t compare it with
other municipality.....the new
act will be in our interest. Our
priorities are restructuring,
bringing a new law.”
On today’s Supreme Court
verdict, he said government’s
priority is delimitation and to
conduct elections on the basis
of the 2011 census...”We will
try to hold elections within
that time frame”.
“Congress is ready for elections, ours is a party with 125
years history, we will never
fear for elections,” he said, as
government was accused of
running away from polls fearing deafeat by the Opposition.
Reacting to the verdict,
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Jagadish Shettar said
Congress is scared of defeat
and so they want to postpone
elections by “hook or crook”.
“It is a Supreme Court verdict, it is binding on all.... So
whatever be the verdict we
will have to accept it and fight
the election,” Shettar said.
We don’t endorse
live-in relationships:
Soha-Kunal
Lokayukta corruption row: Oppn
demands ombudsman’s removal
Bengaluru, Jul 3 (PTI): The concept of
live-in did wonders to their relationship
but newly married Bollywood couple
Soha Ali Khan and Kunal Khemu are
not sure if it will work well for others and
they feel people should figure out their
own way rather than copying anyone.
“We don’t endorse live-in relationship
for people, but it has worked wonderfully
well for both of us before we got married
to each other,” they told PTI here in an
interview. Kunal said live-in relationship
helped him know and understand Soha
better, but people should chart out their
own course of life.
“Live-in relationship helped me to
know and understand my partner better, which eventually helped my marriage with Soha,” he said, adding, “But
having said that... you have to figure out
your way. There is no one proper recipe.
Everybody has ups and downs, and everybody should figure their way out.”
The 32-year-old “Go Goa Gone” actor
said living in a city like Mumbai is beneficial for live-in partners because here
people have much broader and independent views.
Belagavi/Bengaluru, Jul 3 (PTI):
Troubles mounted for Karnataka Lokayukta Bhaskar Rao as Opposition
parties today initiated the process for
moving a motion in the Assembly to
remove the ombudsman who is immersed in row over an alleged bribery
scandal involving his son.
Escalating their campaign, BJP and
JDS today submitted a petition to
Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa for moving a motion to remove Rao, whose son
has been accused of being part of an alleged extortion racket along with some
Lokayukta officials and agents.
Acting in concert, the two parties
have already submitted a similar petition to the Legislative Council Chairman D H Shankara Murthy, seeking a
motion in the Opposition-dominated
upper house to vote out Rao.
“In a democracy, controlling corruption in public administration is an
important issue; allegations of direct involvement of Lokayukta and his family
in corruption is an insult to democracy,” the petition signed by 57 MLAs said.
Alleging that Lokayukta had not
taken steps to stop graft, it said his
asking for a probe by an investigation
agency suggested by him “is really
unfortunate and this reflects ‘incompetency’ and ‘misbehaviour on the
part of the Lokayukta.”
As requested by the Lokayukta, the
State government has constituted a
Special Investigation team (SIT) with
ADGP Kamal Panth as its head.
The letter said, “we the undersigned
members request you (Speaker) to
give permission to move a motion to
initiate the process for removal of Lokayukta from his post.”
BJP leader Jagadish Shettar said the
government had not responded to their
demand for a CBI probe and the Lokayukta was also refusing to step down. “If
he (Rao) had any morality left in him, he
should have quit. The public trust in the
institution is eroding,” he said.
The Opposition is seeking the recourse under Section 6 of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1984, relating to
the process for removal of a Lokayukta or Upalokayukta for “proved misbehaviour or incompetency.”
CPI MLA
assaults
Idukki
ADM
Thodupuzha (Ker), Jul 3
(PTI): CPI MLA E S Bijimol today courted controversy when
she allegedly assaulted the Additional District Magistrate as
he tried to implement a court
order in a remote rubber plantation in high range Idukki district following which police has
registered a case against her.
Bijimol, however, denied
that she had attacked Moncy P
Alaexander.
The ADM sustained injuries
on his right knee and has been
admitted to the Kottayam Medical College Hospital.
Police said the case was registered under Section 353 of IPC
(assault or criminal force to deter
public servant from discharge of
duty) and on charges of unlawful assembly against the MLA
and at least 300 others who were
protesting the re-installation of a
gate in the property.
Locals have been protesting
for the last few days against closure of a pathway used by them
to go to a nearby place of worship following which the State
Human Rights Commission
directed revenue officials to remove the gate.
However, the plantation owner got a stay order on the Commission’s decision.
Trouble started when a team
of revenue officials led by Alaexander tried to reinstall the gate.
The protesters led by the MLA
pushed the revenue officials,
including the ADM, who told
the agitators that he was only
implementing the court order.
Not satisfied, they continued to
push him. Revenue staff of the
district protested against the
MLAs’ action.
Mullaperiyar dam: SC notice to
Kerala for CISF deployment
Volvo Auto India Managing Director Tom von Bonsdorff along with Artemis
Cars COO Nrithya Shetty at the launch of the “Volvo Car S60 T6” in Chennai
on Friday. (PTI Photo)
Cong MLA seeks to move
adjournment motion,
colleagues protest
Belagavi (Karna), Jul 3 (PTI):
In an unusual move, a ruling
Congress member in the Assembly today sought to move
an adjournment motion, amidst
opposition from his own party
members.
As A S Patil Nadahalli tried to
press for an adjournment motion on the alleged failure in
implementation of the Nanjudappa committee report and
Article 371 (J) of the Constitution on development of North
Karnataka, Congress members
objected to it.
“How can a ruling party member try to move an adjournment
motion, this is not the practice,”
senior Congress member Ramesh Kumar said.
Congress chief whip Ashok
Pattan requested the chair not to
give Nadahalli an opportunity for
adjournment motion; “he has no
backing by party for this”.
Reacting to this, Nadahalli
said “it may be your opinion;
I’m seeking it as a member of
the House.”
J T Patil, also from the party,
objecting to Nadahalli’s move
said, “he lied to me and took my
signature, I was not aware he
would press for adjournment.
Please don?t allow him.”
Responding to Patil’s claim,
Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa
said “it is your mistake, you
have to seek apology.”
BJP
Leader
Vishweshwar
Hegde Kageri questioned Ramesh Kumar and other Congress
MLA’s, stating there was no mention in the rule book that a ruling
party member cannot press for
adjournment motion. Kumar hit
back saying it was a practice.
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI): The
Supreme Court today sought response from the Kerala government on Tamil Nadu’s plea that
security of Mullaperiyar dam be
handed over to CISF.
A bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu issue notice on
the plea which also sought that
the Kerala government be not
allowed to seek environmental
clearance from the Ministry of
Environment and Forests (MoEF)
for constructing a new dam.
Tamil Nadu, in its one of the
applications, has sought a direction from the court that Kerala
be restrained from conducting
the environment impact assessment for its new proposed dam
at the site.
The counsel for the Tamil Nadu
government told the bench, also
comprising Justices Amitava Roy
and Arun Mishra, that as per the
previous judgement in the case,
any new dam can only be constructed at the site with consent
of both of the states.
The Tamil Nadu government
had on February 20 moved the
apex court seeking deployment
of CISF for protection of Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala.
War of words between DMK,
AIADMK over Metro Rail continues
Chennai, Jul 3 (PTI): The
war of words between archrivals DMK and AIADMK over
Metro Rail continued today with the former asking
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to
clarify when her government
had taken a decision about
the project. Responding to
Jayalalithaa’s statement that
the seeds for the project were
sown in 2003, DMK President M Karunanidhi asked
that if it were so, on what
date was the issue discussed
in the cabinet or when the
foundation stone was laid.
“Between 2003 and 2006,
Jayalalithaa was chief minister. Can she announce
what percentage of Metro
rail work was initiated during this three year period?”
he asked.
Listing out the efforts
taken by his government
in this regard, he said it had
ordered Detailed Project Report (DPR) and handed over
the work to the Delhi Metro
Rail Corporation.
The project was listed as
Special Initiative under his
direct supervision and later
transferred to his son and
then Deputy Chief Minister
M K Stalin, he said.
The DPR was later approved by the cabinet in
November 2007 and a Special Purpose Vehicle formed
the next month, he said in a
statement here.
Karunanidhi recalled that
after securing 59 per cent of
the total loan amount from
Japanese International Cooperation Agency, besides
share capitals and loans
from both the Centre and
state government, the Union
Cabinet had in January 2009
approved the project.
But soon after taking over
in 2011, the AIADMK government had not laid stress
on Metro Rail but instead
opted for Monorail, with
mention about it being made
in successive Governor’s addresses and budgets, before
the ruling party ‘changed its
mind.’ Countering Jayalalithaa on the launch of works
regarding Metro Rail construction, Karunanidhi said
Stalin had greenflagged it in
June 2009.
On Jayalalithaa’s contention that Karunanidhi had
given the nod for the Tamil
Nadu government to sign
an MoU on fixing fares and
“he does not have any locus
standi to talk” about rates, he
asked if he had approved the
present tariff of of Rs 40 for a
10 km journey.
6
Indian Horizon Delhi
EDIT
Indian Horizon
Why education does not interest child workers
BY PRACHI SALVE & AADYA SHARMA
A
Saturday July 4, 2015
All the secular parties have to form a
secular singular alliance to win the
forth-coming election
There is no doubt that the National Congress party, which is
the oldest among all the other parties and has been reduced to
the most negligible number in the Lok Sabha and little strength
is available in Rajya Sabha, has not been able to find a solution
for its loosing streak. We have been watching that in a crisis of
this magnitude, most effective steps have not been devised to
change the political atmosphere and effectively counteract the
BJP`s communal appeal. It is obvious that India is a multi-religious and multi-racial country in which, various groups of Hindu
and downtrodden put together make a majority but, there are
other sections which have their own parties under some or other
secular ideologies and they have to come together to fight the
BJP and win the elections. Then there is a large section of schedule caste and schedule tribes, which have decided to maintain
study by a rights group shows that
8,044 children (aged five to 17) are
estimated to be working in the
garment industry in eight wards of the
National Capital Territory of Delhi.
Of these, 87 percent were working in
household units and 13 percent at addas
(small-scale commercial units).
Of them, 82 percent said that given an
opportunity, they would not like to attend school.
These are some of the key findings of
a study conducted by Save the Children,
a child-rights organisation working with
socially-excluded children.
As many as 92 percent of children
working in household units were enrolled in schools, but 22 percent said
they were not interested in education.
In addas, children were either not enrolled or did not attend schools.
About 78 percent of children knew
about their right to free and compulsory
education, and they also knew that child
labour is illegal. Yet, 92 percent said they
were happy with their work. It is possible the children did not say what they
really felt, as the study noted, or they
knew little of a world they had never experienced or were happy to be earning
at that age.
But, more than 40 percent of the respondents did not want to continue in
the profession and said they would like
to pursue medicine, engineering and
law - if they ever got the chance. More
children work in India than anywhere
else With Kailash Satyarthi shareing the
minority and they do not wish to support BJP for various reasons that have become evident in BJP`s policy since they come
in power. The best and the only strategy to win the elections
is to form a solid secular front, which will be very effective in
the present situation. Somehow the Congress party`s policy is
directed to regain majority on its own strength, which seem to
be not easy way to damage the very base on which, a secular
united force could be organized. All the secular parties wish to
keep their own identity but can align as a secular force to face the
coming elections. In this situation, the Congress party could have
Nobel Peace Prize for his work against
child labour, there has been renewed attention on the issue in India, which has
11.7 million child workers, according to
Census 2011, the most of any country.
There are 168 million child labourers
aged 5-17 years worldwide, which is 11
percent of the world’s child population,
according to an International Labour
Organization report.
India accounts for the largest number
of child labourers worldwide with 11.7
million, according to the 2011 census.
The study found children working in
three districts: East Delhi, South Delhi
and South East Delhi. Children under
the age of 14 cannot be employed under
Indian law.
Most of the children who worked
in garment units had migrated from
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and
West Bengal. Of the 170 children surveyed, 102 were girls. More than 60
percent worked because their families
needed the money.
A childhood lost to skilled labour
Child labourers are exploited the most
in addas. They work for 12-14 hours a
day and mostly live at the work place.
They visit their families once in six
months or a year, depending upon the
adda owners.
Children in household units enjoy
a bit of liberty. They work for three to
four hours a day, if enrolled in schools.
If not enrolled, they work all day. The
study found that 92 percent of children working in household units were
enrolled in schools that they attended
Dhaka to open more diplomatic
missions in northeast India
BY SUJIT CHAKRABORTY
their separate identity. The Muslims are also form the largest
Saturday July 4, 2015
B
angladesh will expand its diplomatic presence in India’s northeast to improve trade, people-topeople contacts and cultural ties with the
eight states in the region, of which four
share a common border with it.
Dhaka now has a diplomatic mission
in Tripura capital Agartala.
“New Delhi has accepted Dhaka’s proposal to open a new Bangladesh deputy
high commission in Guwahati in Assam,”
a Bangladesh foreign ministry official
told IANS.
The official, who requested not to be
named, said the Agartala mission would
also be upgraded as an assistant high
commission.
“The proposed deputy high commission in Guwahati will have consular jurisdiction over Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and
Arunachal Pradesh,” the official said.
The new deputy high commission in
Guwahati was likely to open next year.
According to the official, the process for
upgrading the mission in Agartala would
be completed by September.
Bangladesh already has diplomatic
missions in New Delhi, Kolkata and
Mumbai. In return, Dhaka has allowed
New Delhi to open assistant high commissions in Khulna and Sylhet, the official added.
“Extension and upgradation of the
Bangladesh missions in northeast India
will boost trade and economy, peopleto-people contact and cultural relations
between Bangladesh and the northeastern region,” the official said.
Tripura and other states in the northeast are keen to improve trade and business with Bangladesh.
According to Tripura’s Commerce
Minister Tapan Chakraborty, trade between Dhaka and Agartala alone has
regularly. Children in the garment
industry worked at thread-cutting,
stone-pasting, embellishment, embroidery, zari work, packaging and delivery. This includes skill, semi-skilled
and unskilled work.
The majority of those in household
units are paid less than Rs.500 ($8) per
month. While their parents are paid,
children sometimes are given money for
their expenses. So, technically, children
don’t get paid for the work they do.
In addas, 45 percent of children get
between Rs 2,501-Rs.5,000 per month
and 45 percent get more than Rs.5,000
per month. Most of them get paid on
the basis of pieces they make or work
on. The risks and abuse that they do
not discuss
After 35 to 40 years, the body begins to
give up, adda owners told researchers,
with eyes and hands not as sharp as they
once were. Children complain of body
ache, back pain and weak eye sight, and
they are always at risk from the sharp
tools, cutters, needles and machines
that they work with.
There is no medical assistance at
household units or addas. The Save The
Children study reported some instances
of physical, verbal and sexual abuse
ataddas. While 11 percent children reported abuse at home workplaces, only
6 percent at addas complained of abuse.
That does not mean abuse is low. It is
likely that reporting of abuse is low, with
children possibly reluctant to even admit it to the research team.
IANS
increased from Rs.164 crore during
2009-10 to over Rs.300 crore in the last
financial year.
In the current fiscal (2015-16), it is expected to cross Rs.400 crore, an official
told IANS.
India and Bangladesh had earlier decided to upgrade the existing 27 custom
stations in Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya
and Mizoram.
“With the opening of more Bangladesh
diplomatic missions in northeast India,
trade and business will further improve,”
Tripura Chambers of Commerce and
Industries president M.L. Debnath told
IANS. Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of
India and Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh
discussed possible improvement in trade
and economic activities when the former
visited Dhaka on June 6-7.
India and Bangladesh have so far set
up four “border haats” or markets -- two
each in Meghalaya and Tripura frontiers
-- to boost trade in local produce on both
sides of the border. Tripura (856 km),
Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km)
and Assam (263 km) share an 1,880-km
border with Bangladesh.
IANS
taken a lead to form a secular alliance of all the non-communal
secular parties. As far as the communist parties are concerned,
it is too obvious that they are not prepared to align with any
communal party but, they had the opportunity to lead and unite
all the secular forces as a single body and fight the election effectively. It is possible that they might have some reasons for not
thinking of working with solid secular alliance. Even now there
is time enough to work for a single secular alliance. In this case,
some senior politicians who aspire to become Prime Ministership may not willing to align with the Congress party, who as a
single party facing elections with so many opposition in the field.
If the Congress reconsidered the Indian political situation, we
think there is no alternative but, to work as a secular alliance for
which no merger is required and it is easy to assess the chances
of winning candidates in all the states where the elections are
taking place. In Assam, there is already a threat of splitting the
Congress party. In order to avoid all these petty moods, which
are equally damaging to the political parties, we suggest that
they hold a convention immediately and work for a solid singular
secular alliance. It will certainly attract Muslim voters to support
such secular forces and even the other sections will also follow
them. There is not much time left, so every secular party big or
small and communities must take initiative and force the central
leadership in all parties to form a singular secular alliance. In
a situation that we are passing through and the communalism
seem to be raising its head everywhere, this is the only remedy
to get rid off the communal political parties chnages.
No intention to surround India in ‘string
of pearl’ bases: China
BY HARDEV SANOTRA
I
t’s not possible for China to surround
India in a ‘string of pearls’ bases as
has been stated by some commentators, according to a top PLA naval official.
Senior Captain Wei Xiao Dong, chief of
staff at the Shanghai Naval Garrison said
that there was no reason for India to “show
concern or worry about” Chinese navy vessels, including submarines, visiting countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh
or others. “China does not have a policy
of hegemony or is playing to be a military
power in the region,” Wei told a group of
visiting Indian journalists. “Our policy is
defensive in nature,” he said.
He said such visits were not as common as was sometimes made out. “I
have been in the navy since 1987 and I
have not sailed in a warship to the Indian Ocean.” He emphasised that there
was no possibility of China creating a
‘string of pearls’ around India. He said
one need only to refer to China’s white
paper on military strategy to realise that
china only believes in a defensive approach and had no intention of expand-
'Hema Malini
never inquired
about our child'
BY ANIL SHARMA
T
he distraught father of the two-yearold girl, who died in a car crash with
actor Hema Malini's sedan, is inconsolable, while the injured mother is constantly asking "Chinni kahan hai?", not
knowing her daughter is dead. The family
is even more hurt that neither the actor
nor her aides bothered to ask about their
well-being though, they say, the accident
ing its military influence to other countries. He said the visit to Pakistan has
been noted in India with concern. But
China, he added, had an enhanced level
of cooperation with India too.
“Looked at another way, should we reduce our visits to Pakistan and increase
them to India. In such a case will Pakistan fear our cooperation with India?” he
asked. He said the relations with the two
countries were only on a bilateral basis.
He said in the past four ships from
India had visited the Shanghai base together and he “always looks forward” to
Indian ships visiting there. He said he did
not have much information on the status
of China’s aircraft carrier. It was in Qindao region for training purpose. In any
case, he said the carrier was not under
the jurisdiction of East China Sea Fleet
which was his area of operation.
Wei said one of his mandates in Shanghai was to act as anti-terrorism force and
ensure peace and tranquillity in the region, including the area’s coastal cities.
He said they had not come under any
terrorism-related attack, but they study
such action around the world to gain
information on how to react. He was
responding to a question whether they
feared an attack of the kind that happened in Mumbai in 2008 when terrorists
came in boats from Karachi. The visiting
journalists were taken on a rare tour of a
guided missile frigate Tongling docked
at Shanghai and shown its fighting capabilities, including its anti-submarine and
anti-air attack capacity.
Talking of Indian navy’s presence in
South China Sea, which the country,
deems to be its region, Wei said that he
did not know what the “strategic intention” of India was in the region. Indian
ships had entered the sea a few years ago
when Indian public sector companies
were invited to explore oil in Vietnamese waters. On Diaoyu islands disputed
between China and Japan, Wei said they
were “part of” the Chinese territory and it
was responsibility of the navy to protect
its “sovereign areas”. He said it was “legal
for china to patrol the seas around the island in order to ensure peace”.
was caused by her speeding car. The
mother's uncle, who did not wish to be
identified by name, told IANS: "We have
told the father, Hanuman Khandelwal, of
the death of the child in the accident. He
was shocked and has been crying since
yesterday night. We try to console him
but fail to do so. "But we have not told the
mother as she is still in a bad condition
after the accident," the relative said. The
family was travelling in an Alto car when
it was smashed by a Mercedes car coming
from the opposite direction. The car was
being driven by BJP MP Hema Malini's
driver Mahesh Thakur, with the film actor
seated in the car. The accident took place
on Thursday night near Dausa, over 50
km from here. "The mother (Shikha) always asks us about her daughter... Chinni
kahan hai? Chinni kahan hai?" (Where is
Chinni?) "We only tell her that she is fine
and with us. We do not have the guts to tell
her about the death as we are afraid how
she will react. Chinni was the most lovable
daughter in the family," the relative said.
He said Hema Malini's car was speeding,
and this caused the accident. The family is
bitter that the BJP MP could have at least
checked up on the condition of the family after the accident but she did not do
so. "We know she (Hema Malini) was also
hurt but at least she could have inquired
about the well being of the family...
IANS
Readers Response and contribution Welcome
IANS
7
OP-ED
Indian Horizon Delhi
Saturday July 4, 2015
A EUROPEAN ROLE WEST’S ARAB ALLIES BEING HUNG OUT TO DRY
IN PALESTINE?
Without a serious military strategy, it will never be possible to defeat a dangerous enemy like Daesh
To put off talking makes violence
increasingly difficult to end, which means
that the sentiments that violence breeds
become increasingly difficult to change
BY CHRIS PATTEN
T
he international community’s attention in the
Middle East nowadays is inevitably focused on the
Islamic State’s military advances in Syria and Iraq,
the failed states of Yemen and Libya, the activities of
Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant) extremists everywhere and the continuing efforts
to complete a deal to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Meanwhile, the oldest dispute in the region — the subject
of a decades-long peace process that moves nowhere —
continues to fester and worsen in Palestine and Israel.
A report submitted earlier this month by the NGO Defence for Children International — Palestine (DCIP) to
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the
Palestine-Israel conflict’s toll on children in 2014 underscores some of the most damaging consequences of the
state of affairs. Its reception also serves as a reminder of
why we have made no progress towards peace.
Last year, according to the DCIP report, 561 children
were killed — 557 of them Palestinian, most as a result
of Israel’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’ in Gaza during the summer. In addition, almost 3,000 Palestinian
children were injured during that 50-day conflict, with
about 1,000 permanently disabled.
The report also details the destruction of schools,
the post-conflict mental health problems faced by the
young, and the imprisonment of children. According to
Ban, the number of Palestinian children killed in 2014
was higher than the numbers of child deaths in Syria
and Darfur, and was exceeded only in Afghanistan and
Iraq. The number of schools destroyed in Palestinian areas was the highest recorded anywhere.
Not surprisingly, the UN’s Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, recommended that Israel and its adversary in Gaza, Hamas
(which has a grim record, too), should be placed on the
UN’s annual list of states and groups that gravely violate
children’s rights. But the United States put pressure on
the Ban to leave Israel off the list. Ban acceded and decided to leave Hamas off the list as well.
Israel, frequently lauded in the US Congress as America’s most dependable ally in the region, is a signatory to
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is difficult to imagine that US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, who has a fine record on human-rights protection, had her heart in lobbying to whitewash Israel.
Many Europeans will conclude that this is further evidence (if any was needed) that the US will always — and
disastrously — protect Israel from the international and
reputational consequences of its actions. But this is not
enough. Israel and Palestine are trapped in a bloody
cul-de-sac, which is catastrophic for Palestinians and
increasingly dangerous for Israel’s prospects. As a group
of eminent European politicians recently noted, a twostate peace deal could be lost, leaving Israel to face a
stark choice: Become a non-Jewish democracy or a Jewish non-democracy.
This group, which included former presidents, prime
ministers, foreign ministers, European Union commissioners and senior diplomats, sent a set of proposals to
European Union (EU) leaders in May. Europe, according
to the group, should offset America’s evident withdrawal from the diplomatic process and play a serious role in
reviving prospects for peace.
At the heart of the proposals is EU support in the UN Security Council for a resolution that “either (1) calls for new
negotiations and sets a mandatory deadline for the completion of an agreement to establish a two-state solution,
or (2) creates a greater equivalence between the Israeli and
Palestinian parties, including through recognition of a Palestinian state and strong support for Palestine accession
to international treaties and organisations”.
The call for such a resolution reflects the impact of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s obnoxious
behaviour and the extremist views of several of his ministers, which have increased European countries’ sympathy for Palestinian statehood. There is also a growing clamour in the EU to enforce the correct labelling
of products made in Israel’s West Bank colonies. These
products are exported to Europe under bilateral trade
agreements between the EU and Israel. But the colonies
are not part of Israel under international law. Sooner or
later, someone will take EU countries to court over this.
The response to these sorts of proposals from Israel’s
government has been depressingly predictable. First,
Israeli spokesmen accuse Europeans of anti-Semitism
— that hateful blot on Europe’s history. But there is a
real danger in conflating criticism of Israeli intransigence and extremism with anti-Semitism. To say that it
is anti-Semitic to condemn the killing and maiming of
children in Gaza is to make a mockery of acts that really
are anti-Semitic and that deserve to be condemned by
every civilised persons.
Second, Israel repeats its claim that it has no potential
partner for peace. In fact, Israel is in deep denial, which
was reflected in Netanyahu’s contemptuous rejection of
a two-state solution in his successful re-election campaign. The fact is that every situation in which a dominant power confronts those it condemns as terrorists
sooner or later ends in negotiations.
In Algeria, South Africa, and Northern Ireland, those
in power invariably claimed that they had no partner for
peace – until they made peace with the very “terrorists”
they had spent decades vilifying.
To put off talking makes violence increasingly difficult
to end, which means that the sentiments that violence
breeds become increasingly difficult to change. To secure peace, Israel will one day have to talk seriously to
Hamas as well as Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. There is no alternative.
Until that happens, the children — the overwhelming
majority of them Palestinian — will continue to suffer.
How long will the rest of the world look the other way?
COURTESY : GULF NEWS
BY CON COUGHLIN
I
t is all very well for politicians to parade before the
cameras, offering their sympathies to the families
of those killed and injured during last month’s attack in Tunisia. But, as the first bodies of the murdered
British tourists were repatriated to RAF Brize Norton
last Wednesday, they should also have remembered
that they, too, had a hand in creating the conditions
that led to Britain suffering its worst attack since the
July 7 bombings in London 10 years ago. From British
Prime Minister David Cameron to Theresa May, all
the high-ranking Tory ministers who have expressed
their revulsion over the Sousse killings were also senior members of the previous government when it
launched its ill-considered military operation to overthrow the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
And, irrespective of whether or not that decision
was justified, having succeeded in toppling him, they
then failed completely to honour the moral obligation they had to stabilise the country after decades
of dictatorship. Furthermore, it is as a direct result
of that failure that Libya’s vast desert expanses have
now become a lawless vacuum occupied by roaming bands of Islamist militias, many directly linked
to Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant). The truth of the Tunisian authorities’ claim that Saif Al Deen Rezgui, the 24-year-old
responsible for last Friday’s shootings, was trained at
a Daesh camp across the border in Libya has yet to
be firmly established. But what is beyond any doubt
is that the lawless mess Britain and other members
of the anti-Gaddafi military coalition — such as the
US, France and Italy — have made of Libya has had a
deeply destabilising effect on the whole of North Africa. The government’s immediate priority may be to
prevent thousands of migrants being shipped illegally
from countries like Libya to southern Europe. The far
greater concern, however, should be to prevent militants based in Libya, exporting their perverse ideol-
ogy throughout the rest of the Maghreb, threatening
British interests as well as British lives. Moreover, the
Government’s inability to come up with a coherent
and effective strategy to counter the Daesh menace in
North Africa is replicated in its approach to tackling
Daesh’s heartland in Iraq and Syria.
As we report today, coalition efforts to destroy Daesh are being seriously undermined by the growing
frustration among our Arab allies at the failure of the
western powers — Britain included — to devise an
effective strategy for defeating Daesh. As one senior
Gulf official commented: “There is simply no strategic approach. There is a lack of coordination in selecting targets, and there is no overall plan.”
‘An existential threat’
The biting criticism of the effort by Britain and other western countries against Daesh certainly seems to
be at odds with Cameron’s promise last week to offer a “full-spectrum” response in dealing with what
he described as “an existential threat” to the West.
But, as the New York Times wryly observed, there was
little “in concrete policy terms” to suggest any dra-
matic change in direction by the government in the
war against Daesh, nor any suggestion that Britain
may increase its military involvement. There has, of
course, been much criticism in America, from senior
politicians as well as military officers, over the government’s plans to make further cuts to the defence
budget. But when it comes to managing its own campaign against Daesh, Washington is also, according
to its Arab allies, falling well short of the mark, with
senior officials accusing the Obama administration of
“refusing to take this conflict seriously”.
The most common gripe I hear from our Arab allies is that you cannot hope to defeat a fast-moving
and resourceful enemy like Daesh through air strikes
alone. If it is to be vanquished, then ground forces will
be required. To this end, the West has been attempting to train various militias, both in Iraq and Syria,
into an effective fighting force capable of defeating
Daesh. On this front, there has been some modest
progress, particularly with regard to Syrian opposition forces operating from northern Jordan.
But if Daesh is really to be put under pressure,
then, as Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, the former
head of the British army, suggested last week, the
US, Britain and other western nations need to give
serious consideration to deploying special forces
and other ground assets that can guide and support
locally-trained troops. They also need to ensure that
effective allies, such as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters,
have the equipment they need to defeat Daesh. To
date, Britain has donated a handful of heavy machine guns, a contribution one senior officer described to me as “woefully inadequate”. Certainly,
if Cameron and other western leaders are really
serious about preventing a repeat of the appalling
scenes last week at Sousse, then they need to come
up with a far more convincing strategy — one that
guarantees Daesh is destroyed.
COURTESY : GULF NEWS
RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM, REVISITED
Self-concocted creeds are most of the time, if not always, controlled by self-serving fanatics
BY AS’AD ABDUL RAHMAN
T
he monotheistic message has produced at least
three spiritual/anti-materialistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The fundamental
purpose of any spiritual message is to guide human
souls on a path to follow in order to attain ascendancy from this mundane world to the higher one of
‘everlasting life’. Here comes the paradox, where material human brains can only deal with worldly selfish thinking that only seeks to take and the spiritual
message whose nature is anti-materialistic that can
only be comprehended and heeded by noble selfless
thinking solely inclined to give.
Therefore, human minds either willingly accept to
be transformed from their materialistic nature into a
spiritual mode, thereby augmenting the gift of giving,
or that the spiritual message is altered by materialistic minds and narrow aims into a self-serving — not
God-serving — direction that solely benefits the interests of the group that fabricates it.
Self-concocted creeds are most of the time, if not
always, controlled by self-serving fundamentalists
who declare themselves “the true guardians” of “the
true faith”, while blaspheming all others who differ
in their beliefs. Their followers blindly observe the
diktats of such self-appointed fundamentalist leaders because they gave up their free will and ability to
think independently. Thus, they became imprisoned
within a ’herd mentality’. Religious extremism is the
very root cause of the takfiri (those who accuse others
of apostasy) militant doctrine that seeks to eradicate
all other beliefs that stand in its way.
Now and again, Jewish self-created religious fundamentalism is trying to bring into being a material
“Jewish state” in Palestine, contrary to the spiritual
message of the Torah which defines “the state of Israel” as the spiritual state of the Prophet Israel who
used to be known as Jacob. The first four letters,
i.e. ‘Isra’, means in Hebrew and Arabic “walking in
the night of this world”, while the remaining letters
‘el’ mean ‘the Lord’. In other words, it is a mental
migration to a higher spiritual state of mind and
definitely not to Palestine. So, are we witnessing a
Zionist project trying to repeat the catastrophe of
70 A.D. with a policy to attain the full Judaisation of
all historical Palestine?
The first thing Christian fundamentalists did on
their way to Jerusalem was the pillage of the “Jewel of
Christendom, Constantinople”, robbing and depriving it of its wealth and treasures that were shipped to
Europe. During the so-called liberation of Jerusalem,
a commander asked a priest what to do to avoid killing Christians whose attire was exactly like that of
the Muslims? The priest replied with what became a
famous quote: “Kill them all, God will sort His own.”
Another similar brand of the fundamentalists established in the past the “Courts of Inquisition”, which
sentenced thousands upon thousands of Christians
to be burned alive “in the Name of God”. The holy
Quran addressed Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) with
the words: “You are not to be a priest”, for no Muslim
in Islam has the religious authority to judge the faith
of another human being because such a judgement in
Islam belongs exclusively to God, the Most High, who
alone shall judge all on the “Day of Judgement”. The
sole right in Islam to judge whether a person is faithful or a blasphemer belongs to God only and whoever
claims religious authority blaspheming others will fall
in the trap of Shirk (to associate partners with God).
The first takfiri group in early Islam was known
as the outsiders or Al Khawarej. They sowed inner
conflicts among Muslims and shed much blood,
also, in “the Name of God”. According to Sahih
Bukhari’s record of Prophet Mohammad’s (PBUH)
sayings and teachings, in the collection called
Prophet of Islam (PBUH), had predicted the advent
of takfiris in this quote: “There would arise people,
who would recite the Quran, but it would not go
beyond their throat, they would kill without any
mercy the followers of Islam.”
Using military means only to eradicate the toxic
waste of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State
of Iraq and the Levant) and its mother group Al
Qaida will not do the job. Other means should be
employed (that will be tackled in a coming article)
to augment the military campaigns, while working
to establish political reforms and bringing about
cultural and socio-economic changes to eliminate
their poisonous threat to Arab societies.
COURTESY : GULF NEWS
Punishment is only reason to force Greek euro exit
Nobody ever imagined that a government default in Europe would dictate ejection from the Eurozone
BY CLIVE CROOK
I
n my more than 30 years writing about politics
and economics, I have never before witnessed
such an episode of sustained, self-righteous,
ruinous and dissembling incompetence — and I
am not talking about Greek Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras or his Syriza party. As the damage mounts,
the effort to rewrite the history of the European
Union’s (EU) abject failure over Greece is already
underway. Pending a fuller postmortem, a little
clarity on the immediate issues is in order.
Last Monday, European Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker said at a news conference that
he had been betrayed by the Greek government. The
creditor institutions, he said, had shown flexibility
and sought compromise. Their most recent offer involved no wage cuts, he emphasised, and no pension cuts; it was a package that created “more social
fairness”. Tsipras had misled Greeks about what the
creditors were asking. The talks were getting somewhere. Agreement on this package could have been
reached “easily” if Tsipras had not collapsed the process early last Saturday by calling a referendum.
What an outrageous passel of distortion. Since
these talks began five months ago, both sides have
budged, but Tsipras has given vastly more ground
than the creditors. In particular, he was ready to accede to more fiscal austerity — a huge climbdown on
his part. True, the last offer requires a slightly milder
profile of primary budget surpluses than the creditors initially demanded; nonetheless, it still calls for
severely (and irrationally) tight fiscal policy.
In contrast, the creditors have refused to climb
down on the question of including debt relief in
the current talks, absurdly insisting that this is an
issue for later. Last Tuesday, Tsipras made his most
desperate attempt yet to bring the issue forward.
Far from expressing any desire to compromise,
dominant voices among the creditors — notably
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble,
who often seemed to be calling the shots — have
maintained throughout that there is nothing to
discuss. The programme already in place had to be
completed, and that was that. Yes, the programme
had failed. No, it would not achieve debt sustainability. Absolutely, it was pointlessly grinding
down Greek living standards even further. What
did that have to do with it?
Juncker says the last offer made no demand for
wage cuts. Really? The offer says the “wage grid”
should be modernised, including “decompressing
the [public sector] wage distribution”. On the face
of it, decompressing involves cuts.
If the creditors were calling for public-sector
wages to be decompressed upward perhaps they
should have made this clear. Regardless, the increases in value-added taxes demanded by the
creditors mean lower real wages, public and private alike. As for no pension cuts, the creditors
called for phasing out new early-retirement penalties and the so-called social solidarity payment for
the poorest pensioners. Those are cuts.
The creditors called for a lot else, too. Remember that the Greek economy is on its knees. Living
standards have collapsed and the unemployment
rate is 25 per cent. Now read the offer document,
and see if you think the advance in “social fairness” that Juncker stressed at his news conference
shines through. But I have not mentioned the biggest distortion of all. Noticing for the first time that
Greece has EU citizens within its borders, Juncker
addressed them directly on the subject of Sunday’s
referendum. Greeks will be asked whether they accept the offer presented by the creditors — an offer,
by the way, that the creditors say no longer stands.
“No [to the offer that no longer exists] would mean
that Greece is saying no to Europe,” Juncker explained. President Francois Hollande of France
clarified: The vote would determine “whether the
Greeks want to stay in the Eurozone”.
Nonsense. There is no doubt that Greeks want to
stay in the euro system — though I find it increasingly difficult to see why. If Greece leaves the system, it will not be because Greeks decide to leave;
it will be because Europe decides to kick them out.
This is not just semantics. There is no reason, in
law or logic, why a Greek default necessitates an exit
from the euro. The European Central Bank (ECB)
pulls this trigger by choosing — choosing, please
note — to withhold its services as lender of last resort to the Greek banking system. That is what it did
this week. That is what shut the banks and, in short
order, will force the Greek authorities to start issuing a parallel currency in the form of IOUs.
A truly independent ECB, willing to do whatever
it takes to defend the euro system, could have announced that it would keep supplying Greek banks
with liquidity. If the Greek banks are deemed in due
course to be insolvent (which has not happened
yet), that does not have to trigger an exit, either.
Europe has the wherewithal and a bank-rescue
mechanism that would allow the banks to be taken over and recapitalised. These options are foreclosed because the supposedly apolitical ECB has
let Europe’s finance ministers use it as a hammer
to extract fiscal concessions from Greece. Nobody
ever imagined that a government default in Europe
would dictate ejection from the euro zone. The very
possibility would have been correctly recognized as
a fatal defect in the design of the system.
COURTESY : GULF NEWS
The views expressed in these columns are the writers’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indian Horizon or its management.-Editor
8
Congress demands
SC-monitored CBI probe
in cash-for-vote scam
Visakhapatnam, Jul 3
(PTI): The Congress today demanded a Supreme
Court-monitored CBI inquiry into the cash-forvote scam and the alleged
phone-tapping by the TRS
government.
Addressing a media
conference here, Andhra
Pradesh Congress Committee President N Raghuveera Reddy said a CBI inquiry should be conducted
under the supervision of
Supreme Court to know
the facts into the involvement of AP chief minister
N Chandrababu Naidu in
Indian Horizon, Delhi
Nation
the scam and cash offered
by TDP Legislator Revantha Reddy.
He also demanded CBI
inquiry into the involvement
of Telangana chief minister
K Chandrasekhar Rao over
the phone tapping issue.
The leader alleged that
Naidu is now raising the
issue of implementation of
Section 8 of AP Reorganisation Act to cover up his
misdeeds in the scam.
“There are 138 sections
in the Act and the government should implement
all the sections along with
Section 8 for the benefit of
the people and the state,”
he said.
On the issue of special
status for AP, Reddy said
the state government and
BJP should exert pressure
on Centre in the upcoming Parliament session
and also demand package
for backward areas of the
state as incorporated in
the AP Reorganisation Act.
He also alleged that
the state government has
neglected farmers in the
state and failed to waive
off loans as promised by
the TDP during the election campaigns.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
AP CM asks officials
to expedite Polavaram
canal work
Vijayawada, Jul 3 (PTI): Andhra Pradesh Chief
Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has asked officials to expedite the work of Polavaram right
canal in view of his commitment to divert water
of river Godavari to Krishna through Pattiseema
lift irrigation project by August this year.
Naidu was heading a review meeting of Polavaram right canal project with irrigation and
revenue department officials last night and
directed them to complete the work by end of
this month so that the plan to connect Godavari water to river Krishna through Pattiseema
lift project at West Godavari could be finished
by August 15. He asked officials that they should
complete the major works (of Polavaram canal)
at the earliest and if required, they can bring in
use heavy earth movers, deep rock cutters etc to
expedite the work. At the same time, measures
should be taken to divert flood waters from
Tammileru, Ramileru and Budameru streams to
Polavaram right canal in order to irri gate more
land in West Godavari, Naidu said.
Y S Congress President YS Jagan Mohan Reddy consoles a woman during his
Paramarsha Yatra in Kakinada on Friday. (PTI Photo)
TITA Facebook Page hits
the 10,000 Mark
Hyderabad,
July
3
(NSS): Telangana Information Technology Association (TITA) is celebrating a social media
milestone on their path
to achieve Golden Telangana with their maximum
contributions from Information Technology space.
Now, TITA has crossed10,
000 Facebook LIKEs from
68 different countries on
their official page (www.
facebook.com/TelanganaIT). TITA proudly says
that they never used Facebook’s paid ad platform or
other sources to increase
Facebook page likes.
TITA celebrated this
social media milestone
with style. TITA Founder
& President Sundeep Kumar Makthala presented
a Certificate Plaque to
Facebook user who made
10000th like on TITA Page.
That lucky Facebook user
ended up being Prof. Subhashini Rajpuri, an English
professor from Osmania
University,
Hyderabad.
While this was a sweet surprise for Prof. Subhashini,
it’ll be interesting to see
what TITA do when they
get to one lakh likes.
“Today, we realize that
every post on TITA official
Facebook page reaches
lakhs of Facebook users.
SC rejection of
ACB appeal against
Revanth is a slap on
govt’s face: TDP
Hyderabad, July 3 (NSS): TDP leader Ravula
Chandrasekhar Reddy today said the rejection
of ACB petition by Supreme Court is a slap on
the face of TRS government.
Speaking to media at NTR Trust Bhavan
here, the TDP leader alleged that the TRS
government has adopted “vengeance attitude” and cases are being foisted against
the TDP leaders. At least now, the government should not take condemnable decisions which sever relations, Ravula suggested. The police have filed cases against
supporters of Revanth Reddy, who gathered
to welcome and express solidarity with Revanth Reddy when he was released from the
jail, Chandrasekhar Reddy said.
The State government should concentrate
on developmental works instead of adopting witch-hunting Revanth Reddy as a single
point formula, he said, adding that the TRS
government should do self-introspection.
IRCTC pecial
package for
Rameshwaram
from AP
Hyderabad, July 3 (NSS):
Buoyed by the growing response
to its pilgrim tours, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Cor-
Shuttler Jwala Gutta with Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao
during a meeting in Hyderabad on Friday. (PTI Photo)
poration (IRCTC) has chalked
out a special charter coach package for its patrons in Andhra
Pradesh for a visit to Rameshwaram in neighbouring Tamil
Nadu. The five-night six-day
package will begin on July 29
from Kacheguda, Mahbubnagar,
Kurnool Town and Dhone.
The package cost is Rs 13,157
per person and it includes con-
firmed train tickets in 3-tier AC,
transportation by air-conditioned vehicle, cab facility and
accommodation. The accommodation arrangements have been
planned at Rameshwaram (night
stay) and Kanyakumari (day stay
with AC facility). Further, the
patrons will be made to stay in a
non-AC dharmasala/hotel (dormitory for four people in a room)
On-line booking made TTD
more pilgrim-friendly: EO
Tirumala, July 3 (NSS): TTD Executive Officer Dr D Sambasiva Rao
here on Friday said they have taken
an initiative to make on-line booking more pilgrim-friendly. Addressing
mediapersons at Annamaiah Bhavan
after “Dial Your EO” program, Sambasiva Rao said with an aim to provide
a hassle-free and comfortable Srivari
darshan to more number of pilgrims,
TTD brought about some amendments in the existing on-line booking
system of special entry darshan. “Now
the pilgrims can book tickets online till
midnight. The on-line quota of Rs 300
tickets was extended to 26,000 and Rs
50 tickets to 4000. The Lord’s darshan
for both the categories was provided
from 9 am to 9 pm every day in different slots”, he maintained. TTD’s
replica temple to be a major attraction
during Pushkarams: TTD EO said, the
replica temple which is going to be
erected in Rajamundry is going to be a
special attraction during Godavari Mahapushkaram. He said, all the works
will be completed by July 10. “The
muhurat for the opening of the temple
has been fixed on 13th July at 9:30am
by the pundits”, he maintained.
e-Publications By July 15: All the
2000 odd publications of TTD will be
placed on the TTD official website for
the sake of the netizens by July 15, said
TTD Executive Officer Dr D Samba
Siva Rao. While attending to the calls of
numerous pilgrim callers from across
the country and overseas on Friday
as a part of the monthly Dial Your
Programme at Annamaiah Bhavan in
Tirumala, the EO reacted to the query
of a caller Sri Koteswara Rao from Hyderabad saying that all the books will
be digitized and placed on the web by
mid of July. “We have already placed
Sapthagiri magazine in all six languages and now the process is under way to
keep all our publications on web. The
pilgrims also have the option to subscribe our magazine through on-line”,
he maintained.
Meanwhile over a dozen queries
poured in on how to get a comfortable,
hassle-free darshan including a caller
Smt Jayalakshmi from Texas, USA. Replying to these callers, the EO said TTD
has enabled Rs.300 on-line booking
by bringing some amendments in the
booking system. The pilgrims all over
the world can book these tickets with
ease and have a pleasant darshan of
Lord Venkateswara”, he maintained.
Answering pilgrims callers Charabandam Reddy and Kumara Swamy
from Krishna district, the EO said the
prime motto of TTD is to protect, preserve and promote Hindu Sanatana
Dharma. “For this we are planning
unique programmes with HDPP including the supply of short books on
epics, training programme to teachers and students on moral values
through famous fables and stories
from puranas etc.
for freshening up at Madurai.
The package also includes travel
insurance, guide service, sightseeing and excursion as per the itinerary, said Sandip Dutta, Manager,
Public Relations, IRCTC. More
information about the Rameshwaram package can be obtained
at toll-free no. 1800110139. Queries
can also be e-mailed at: tourism@
irctc.com or [email protected].
TDP grabs
Bhadrachalam
MPP post
Bhadrachalam, July 3 (NSS):
The TDP has won the Bhadrachalam Mandal Praja Parishath
(MPP) in the elections held here
on Friday. Shanthamma was
elected as MPP of the Bhadrachalam mandal. The TDP also
grabbed MPP vice-president
post and TDP MPTC Anuradha
captured the post. The election
was held amidst dramatic twists
and turns as 13 MPTC candidates were in the fray. TDP cadres celebrated the occasion.
‘Good riddance’,
VH on DS
leaving Cong
Hyderabad, July 3 (NSS):
Senior Telangana Congress
leader and
Rajya Sabha
member V. Hanumanth Rao
on Friday called on AICC
president Sonia Gandhi and
apprised her of the pros and
cons of the party in the State
following senior party leader
D. Srinivas defecting to TRS.
During his one-to-one discussions with Sonia Gandhi at
her residence in New Delhi, VH,
as Hanumnth Rao is popularly
known, is understood to have
Telangana
Information
Technology Association
(TITA) thanks each and
every user on Facebook
who supported them all
the time and shared TITA
page and about its consecutive events to thousands
of other Facebook users.” said TITA Founder &
President Sundeep Kumar
Makthala.
“Facebook is one among
the major social media
platform where we can
share information, news
or updates so quickly with
many people. Earlier, before state was bifurcated
there was so much negative propaganda aimed
at Hyderabad’s Information Technology growth.
There were many false
assumptions which were
sent to the people settled
in Hyderabad. That was
the tough time for Telangana Information Technology Association (TITA)
to defend those obstacles
which were created by
the counterparts. We used
Facebook as a platform to
defend the negative waves
which was spread on Hyderabad’s
Information
Technology. TITA succeeded in it and we had
a role in telling the world
about the positive development in Hyderabad and
6 missing Andhra fishermen,
rescued from WB after 18 days
Machilipatnam (AP),
Jul 3 (PTI): The six fishermen, who had gone missing from here on June 15,
were rescued today from
near the coast between
Odisha and West Bengal,
officials said.
After 18 days of intense
search operations, a Coast
Guard team this morning
traced the fishermen about
200km off shore to the Haldia Port in West Bengal, a
senior official of the mari-
assured the Congress president
that the resignation of DS would
not have any impact on the
party in the State. Describing
DS as an “opportunist”, VH said
his leaving the party was only
“good riddance of bad rubbish”.
He assured Sonia Gandhi that
Congress has still many loyal
soldiers, who were relentlessly
striving to rebuild the party image in Telangana State.
Speaking to the media later,
Hanumanth Rao lambasted
DS for deserting the Congress
which had given him a political
recognition and also bestowed
upon him high positions and
power. As a matter of fact, DS
joining the TRS would only cre-
time security agency said.
The condition of one of
them is said to be serious,
while the remaining five
are fine, Coast Guard Commandant N K Ramba said.
While, S Nagur and T
Nagaraju hail from Machilipatnam and the remaining four - K Venkateswarlu,
K Chittibabu, K Jalaiah
and Katu Jalaiah belong to
Nellore district, Backward
Classes Welfare Minister
Kollu Ravindra told PTI.
ate problems for senior leaders
of the pink party, he opined and
hoped the party’s cadre would
see through the game plan of
this political opportunist.
Referring to Telangana CM
acquiring a Rs 5 crore high tech
vehicle for his tours in the district, VH wondered where was
the need for spending such
a huge amount, which could
have been well utilized for welfare schemes for the poor. As
regards the present controversies surrounding the ministers
in the Modi cabinet, VH demanded that the Prime Minister
dismiss them forthwith to prove
his sincerity in providing a clean
administration.
All of them had ventured
into the Bay of Bengal
from Machilipatnam fishing harbour on June 15 in
a mechanised boat. Two
days later, they sent a message to the boat owner informing him that they were
stuck in the sea and sought
his help, Ravindra said.
The boat owner then
sent another boat to rescue
the fishermen. The government also conducted
rescue and search opera-
Telangana after bifurcation and everyone is realizing that now especially
in Information Technology domain.” said Mr.
Makthala.
“Telangana Information
Technology Association
(TITA) says that they see
a unity and strong desire
among Telangana people
towards development of
the state. There is huge
response for our continuous skill development
program called ‘Telangana
Yuva Nirmaan’ because of
powerful social media tool
like Facebook. We even get
maximum participation
when we conduct ‘Telangana Yuva Nirmaan’ in
Tier II and Tier III cities.
We can just imagine how
Facebook reached to every
common man. We are also
cautious and always careful when it is about sharing the Information about
Hyderabad’s Information
Technology. ” said TITA
Vice President Naveen
Reddy Gaddam.
TITA Corporate Wing
President Vishnu Murthy
Kalagony, TITA Membership Committee ViceChair Swamy Deva, TITA
Executiv members Venkata Vanam, Sampath
Kumar and Madhavi were
present in the event.
tions with the help of Coast
Guard and Navy teams.
The Commandant requested the Andhra Government to send some officials to the Haldia port for
co-ordination.
“All the six fishermen
were shifted to a Coast
Guard rescue ship. The
condition of one fisherman is said to be serious,
while remaining five are
in healthy condition. We
are making efforts to hand
them over to the administrative officials as soon as
possible,” Ramba said.
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Saturday, June 4, 2015
Solar-powered plane arrives
in Honolulu, to land at dawn
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, shakes hands with
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a hotel where the Iran nuclear
talks meetings are being held in Vienna, Austria, Thursday, July 2,
2015. AP/PTI
IAEA closer to enhancing
transparency of Iran
Vienna/Tehran, July 3 (IANS)
The UN nuclear watchdog chief
on Friday said he now has “a
better understanding on some
ways forward” over enhancing
the transparency of Iran’s controversial nuclear activities.
International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) director general
Yukiya Amano met with Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani and
Ali Shamkhani, head of Iran’s
Supreme National Security
Council, in Tehran on Thursday,
Xinhua news agency reported.
Amano visited Iran in the context of the IAEA’s continued
engagement with Iran and the
EU+3 countries -- Britain, China,
France, Germany, Russia and
the US -- as they work toward a
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“I believe that both sides have
a better understanding on some
ways forward, though more work
will be needed,” Amano said.
It is believed that Amano’s Iran
visit aims to find a solution to the
past so-called “possible military
dimensions” of Iranian nuclear
activities and to enhance the
monitoring measures on Iran’s
current and future nuclear plan.
The EU+3 countries want
strengthened monitoring measures to ensure that Tehran
complies with the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT) and its commitment to the comprehensive deal
once the accord is agreed on.“In
the course of the meetings, the
two sides reached a general understanding about the timetable
(and) continuation of cooperation by taking into account Iran
and the agency’s considerations
for accelerating the settlement of
the past issues,” Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA Reza Najafi
was quoted by Iranian media
as saying.Najafi also noted that
“coordination meetings” would
be held soon to define the details
and the timetable for measures
the two sides would take at the
level of experts.
World Snipet
France rejects asylum request of
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
Paris , July 3 (IANS) France on Friday rejected a request for asylum, or more exactly of “protection”, made by WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange in a letter to French President Francois Hollande,
according to a statement from Elysee Palace.
“France has received the letter from Mr. Assange. After a thorough examination of the legal elements and the material situation of Mr. Assange, France cannot act on his request,” said the
French presidency in a statement.“The situation of Mr. Assange
poses no immediate danger. It is also the subject of a European
arrest warrant,” the document concluded.In a six-page letter
sent on Thursday to Francois Hollande, Assange asked France to
grant him political asylum, Xinhua news agency reported.
5 Indians killed in Saudi
road accident
Riyadh, Jul 3 (PTI) Five Indian workers were killed on the spot
when their vehicle was hit by a speeding trailer in Saudi Arabia’s
Eastern Province, days after four members of an Indian family returning from Makkah died in a similar accident.
The accident took place early yesterday when the workers, all
from Kerala, were returning from a work site and were hit by a
speeding trailer at Salwa near Dammam, 381 kilometres from
here.The deceased were identified as Santosh Kumar, Iqbal Noman, Tulsi Krishnan, Ravindra Nair and Shiva Kumar Bhagvati
Pillai, Arab News quoted Indian embassy official Manoj Kumar
as saying.“All of them died on the spot. The embassy is in contact
with the company and helping, with the aid of volunteers, to send
them to their families back in India,” Manoj said.They were all
employees of a private company in Dammam, capital of Saudi
Arabia’s Eastern Province, he said.Last week, four members of a
Riyadh-based Indian family, who were returning from Makkah,
died when their car collided with a truck, 150 kilometres from the
capital Riyadh.
Indian arrested in biggest
Malaysian drug bust
Kuala Lumpur, July 3 (IANS) A 36-year-old Indian man was arrested in a drug bust in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, media
reported on Friday.
Police seized 19 tonnes of white powder, believed to be ketamine, from a house in Rawang.Assistant Commisioner R.
Munusamy said the house was used as a storage facility for the
substance, estimated to be worth at least 290 million Malaysian
ringgits ($7.6 million).“When we arrested the suspect (on Thursday), we found two packets, each containing five kg of white
powder,” The Star Online quoted Munusamy as saying.The arrested Indian man was not identified.“Following the arrest, the
suspect led us to a house along Jalan Aman Sierra, Rawang,” he
said, adding that when they searched the house they found 762
gunny sacks, each containing 25 kg of the same white powder
that they found at the time of arrest.
Honolulu (US), July 3 (IANS) Solar Impulse 2 (SI2), the first solarpowered aircraft in an attempt to fly
around the world, arrived early Friday
morning in Honolulu, the capital city
of the US’s island state of Hawaii, and
will land at dawn.
At 2 a.m. local time (1200 GMT), the
SI2 finished the 8,200-km non-stop
solo flight from Nagoya in Japan, and
will land at Hawaii’s Kalaeloa airport
at 6 a.m. local time (1600 GMT), Xinhua news agency reported.
Flying around 2,000 metres above
Hawaii, the plane has its batteries
around half of their full energy level
and would support it for the next couple of hours, media reported.
Hawaii is the eighth leg of the
plane’s 35,000-km journey around
the world, which started from Abu
Dhabi on March 9. It is piloted solo
alternatively by Swiss explorers Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard.
During the trip from Japan to Hawaii,
Borschberg piloted alone for 114
hours - five days and nights -- in an
unheated and unpressurszed cockpit,
sleeping in bursts of 20 minutes while
on autopilot.Three records were set
during the trip -- the longest distance
of non-stop flying, the longest solo
flight and the longest solar-powered
flight without any fuel.Borshberg is in
good health, though very tired, media
reports said.“Can you imagine that a
solar-powered airplane without fuel
can now fly longer than a jet plan?”
Piccard said in a statement, “This is a
clear message that clean technologies
can achieve impossible goals.”
The plane weighs about as much
as a family sedan and has 17,000 solar
cells across its wingspan.The roundthe-world trip is expected to take
some 25 flight days, broken up into 12
legs at speeds between 50 and 100 km
per hour.
On the way to Hawaii, its average
speed was around 70 km per hour.The
SI2 initially left Nanjing, the capital of
east China’s Jiangsu province, on May
31 for Hawaii, but was forced to land
in the central Japanese city of Nagoya
due to “a wall of clouds” forming over
the Pacific.
Greece declared in default ahead
of knife-edge referendum
Athens, Jul 3 (AFP) Greece
was officially declared in default today, injecting even
more urgency into a makeor- break weekend referendum that new polls suggested was too close to call.
The
fund
providing
Greece’s financial lifeline
declared “an event of default
by Greece”.
The European Financial
Stability Facility added,
though, that it had decided
to not immediately demand
repayment of its loans - a
step that analysts say could
have triggered sudden
“Grexit”, or Greece’s exit
from the eurozone.
The news will come as
a fresh shock to Greece’s
11 million people, and will
hang over two major, rival
rallies taking place in Athens today seeking to galvanise ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ support
for Sunday’s referendum.
Stakes were already high
before the EFSF announcement, with EU leaders warning a ‘No’ in the plebiscite
would jeopardise Greece’s
place in the 19-nation eurozone.
But Greek Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras rejects that,
insisting a ‘No’ result would
strengthen his hand and
force international creditors
withholding bailout funds to
drop “humiliating” austerity
terms.
Only a last-minute challenge to the legality of the
ballot in Greece’s top administrative court, the
Council of State, might be
able derail it. The court is to
give its ruling today.
Confusion, however, is
widespread over the very
technical question posed in
the referendum.That, and
capital controls that have
reduced Greeks to lining up
Six killed in South
Korean chemical
factory explosion
UNHRC adopts resolution on
Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims
GENEVA July 3 (PTI): The
UN rights body on Friday
adopted without a vote a
resolution on addressing
the human rights situation
of Rohingya Muslims and
other minorities in Myanmar, nearly a month after a
regional crisis erupted with
hundreds of migrants from
the nation found adrift in the
Bay of Bengal.
The resolution, which
was to be considered yesterday but could not proceed
due to the absence of the
delegation of the country
concerned - Myanmar - in
a rare occurrence, was subsequently adopted in the
UNHRC without a vote.
India yesterday disassociated itself from the resolution, saying it is “highly prescriptive and not consistent
with the broad ethos” of the
work of the Council. “We
have serious concerns on the
draft resolution which focuses on issues that are sectarian in nature... With respect
to Rakhine State, we have
noted that the Government
of Myanmar has taken steps
towards restoration of law
and order and has expressed
readiness to cooperate with
UN and other humanitarian agencies regarding rehabilitation of those affected
by violence,” said the Permanent Representative of
India to the United Nations
Office at Geneva, Ajit Kumar.
“The draft resolution under
consideration is highly prescriptive and not consistent
with the broad ethos of the
work of this Council. My delegation will also disassociate
from the draft resolution and
its contents,” Kumar said in
a statement. Myanmar today
rubbished the “notion” that
the human rights of Muslims
in the country were violated.
Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations Office at Geneva,
Maung Wai, said: “The draft
resolution has nothing to
do with the promotion and
protection of human rights.
Rather its real purpose is to
raise the profile of a particular faith. Its adoption will do
nothing good it will only
prove counterproductive.
“The notion that human
rights of Muslims in Myanmar are violated upon is totally wrong.
Sirisena allows Rajapaksa to run for SL parliament
Colombo, Jul 3 (PTI) In a surprise
decision, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has allowed archrival Mahinda Rajapaksa - eyeing
the Prime Minister’s post to stage a
political comeback - to contest the
August general elections, the ruling
United People’s Freedom Alliance
said today.
Susil Premajayantha, the UPFA
general secretary, said that following the last night meeting of the alliance’s constituent party leaders,
Sirisena agreed to let Rajapaksa con-
test, six months after he vanquished
the 69-year-old former strongman in
the presidential polls.
Rajapaksa had publicly announced on Wednesday for the first
time since he lost to Sirisena in the
January polls that he wanted to run
for parliament in the August 17 election.His attempted return to UPFA
fold was being blocked by Sirisena
in keeping with the mandate he received against Rajapaksa.Till late last
night, the former Sri Lankan president’s attempt to stage a political
comeback and become the prime
minister had suffered a setback when
talks within the UPFA to let him lead
the campaign in the general elections
failed.Constituent party leaders of
the UPFA had met Sirisena to make a
last-ditch attempt to see if Rajapaksa
could be made the primeministerial
candidate in the parliamentary elections.Rajapaksa has vowed to eliminate corruption in public life though
his decade-long rule was marked
with corruption allegations, nepotism and disregard to rule of law.
Ukraine will be ready for EU
membership in 6 years: President
Kiev, July 3 (IANS) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Friday
that he felt Ukraine would be eligible
to apply for entry into the European
Union within five or six years, Efe news
agency reported.“I am convinced that
within five to six years Ukraine should
change and reach the required criteria
to submit a membership application
(to the EU),” Poroshenko told the press
shortly before meeting with President
of the European Parliament, Martin
Schulz.Reforms in the country provide
a “clear-cut and understandable goal
-- to prepare Ukraine to gain membership in the European Union”, the head
Syrian forces kill 100
rebels in Aleppo
Damascus, July 3 (IANS)
The Syrian government
forces killed at least 100
rebels in the northern city
of Aleppo, where intense
battles have flared up over
the past 24 hours, state-run
news agency SANA reported
on Friday.
The Syrian army killed
the rebels during separate
battles in several areas in
Aleppo, said the report,
adding that rebel vehicles
were also destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the
rebels fired over 400 mortar
shells into government-
controlled areas in Aleppo
over the past 24 hours,
killing at least four people
and wounding over 70 others.The toll is likely to rise
due to the high number of
critically wounded people,
SOHR added.
The Britain-based watchdog group, which relies
on a network of activists
on ground, said the most
violent battles were taking
place in the Jamiyet al-Zahra district and several areas
in the old quarters of Aleppo.So far, five rebel fighters
were documented killed
and others were wounded
during the battles.
at ATMs to make daily withdrawals capped at 60 euros
(USD 67), has prompted
many who formerly supported the government to
swap sides.
The two latest polls published today showed voter
intentions were effectively
tied.An Alco institute poll
found 44.8 per cent of
Greeks intend to vote ‘Yes’
and 43.4 per cent are for
‘No’. A Bloomberg survey
for Greece’s Macedonia
University was equally split,
showing 43 per cent to vote
‘No’ and 42.5 per cent ‘Yes’.
European
Commission
chief Jean-Claude Juncker
warned that Greece’s negotiating position with creditors would be “dramatically
weakened” in the event of
a ‘No’.Even if the ‘Yes’ vote
wins, there would still be
“difficult”
negotiations
ahead, he added.
Seoul, July 3 (IANS/EFE) Six workers were
killed and another was injured in an explosion
in a chemical plant in South Korea on Friday, the
country’s fire department said.
The accident happened when a storage tank
containing chemical waste in one of the factories exploded, a fire fighter told the Yonhap news
agency.
Fire fighters suspect the explosion occurred
when workers were carrying out welding work
inside the tank.The plant, owned by South Korean multinational Hanwa Chemical, is located
in the southeastern city of Ulsan, one of the main
industrial hubs of the country.After the incident,
authorities said four workers were killed and two
others, earlier listed missing, were later confirmed
dead.Authorities will launch an investigation to
determine the exact cause of the accident.
Britain mourns Tunisia
beach attack victims
London, July 3 (IANS) People across Britain observed a
minute’s silence on Friday to mourn the tourists who were
killed in a massacre on a Tunisian beach last week.
Dozens of British tourists lined up on the beach in Tunisian city of Sousse where Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid and British Ambassador, Hamish Cowell, laid wreaths at
the massacre spot, a report in The Guardian said.
In Britain, police forces and schools were asked to observe silence. In train stations, posters were put up and announcements were made to remind passengers and staff
of the event. Queen Elizabeth II paid tribute at Strathclyde
University, Glasgow, where she was inaugurating an innovation centre.
of state explained.Among the issues
Poroshenko will address with Schulz is
sending European Parliament observers to Ukraine for the local elections on
October 25.
Regarding the pro-Russian separatist
call for local elections in the disputed
territory in eastern Ukraine on October 18, Poroshenko said that attempts
to hold elections that defy Ukrainian
law and standards of the Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) is a blatant infringement on the
part of Russia on the Minsk accords.
Poroshenko further warned that if the
elections were held, there would be
“ruinous consequences” on the peace
process.The agreements reached in the
Belarusian capital called for local elections in the conflict zone, but dictated
that they must be agreed upon by the
Trilateral Contact Group comprising
representatives of Ukraine, Russia and
the OSCE.
Strong quake kills 6, damages 3,000
houses in China’’s Xinjiang
Beijing, Jul 3 (PTI) A powerful
earthquake of 6.5 magnitude today flattened about 3,000 houses
and buildings in China’s Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region, killing
at least six persons and injuring 48
others.
The quake struck Pishan County
of Hotan Prefecture at 9:07 AM
(local time), with the epicenter
recorded at a depth of 10 km,
China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) said.Six people have
been killed and 40 others injured
and about 3,000 houses and other
buildings collapsed or were damaged, the Bureau of Civil Affairs in
Xinjiang said.Following the quake,
the local administration issued a
grade-IV response, the lowest in
China’s emergency response system, means a 24-hour alert.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs and
the National Commission for Disaster Reduction has rushed teams
to assist relief work in the quakehit areas.
Around 1,000 tents have been
sent to the county.Over 500 soldiers and militia members from
Lanzhou military area command have been dispatched to
the quake-hit area. A 22-member
medical team was also sent to Pishan.
Shortly after the quake, several minor tremors measuring
between 3.0 and 4.6 magnitude
rocked the area, the CENC said.
Li Hua, a worker at a state-owned
farm in Pishan, told state-run Xinhua news agency that he was
left dizzied by a jolt that shook the
floor of his fourth-floor home and
lasted about a minute.
An airport in Hotan has been
closed, the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) said in a ?statement.
Located in southernmost Xinjiang, Pishan is about 1,800 km from
the regional capital of Urumqi and
covers 39,700 square km. The epicenter is 7.5 km from the county
seat.With a population of 258,000,
the county is mainly inhabited by
people of Muslim Uygur ethnicity.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Shoppers Stop targets 15% sales
from digital medium by 2020
Mumbai Jul 3 (PTI): Fashion
retailer Shoppers Stop is eyeing
15 per cent revenue through its
digital touch points by 2020, and
plans to invest Rs 60 crore over
the next three years to boost its
omni-channel strategy, a top executive has said.
“We plan to invest approximately Rs 60 crore in our omnichannel efforts over the next
three years, and target 15 per
cent revenues through the digital medium by 2020,” Shoppers
Stop Managing Director Govind
Shrikhande said here.
The retailer plans to be present
across channels, including physical stores, web, television and
online marketplaces. Over the
next three years, the retail chain
will extend its omni-channel
strategy to group companies HomeStop, Hypercity and Crossword, he added. Shrikhande detailed a three-pronged strategy
to be followed by the company
over the next few years. “We will
focus on our omni-channel shift.
Secondly, we will boost the First
Citizen loyalty programme, and
are also strengthening exclusive
brands, and private brands,”
10
Business
Indian Horizon Delhi
Shrikhande said. Shoppers Stop
has exclusive brand tie-ups with
cricketer Virat Kohli’s ‘Wrogn’,
‘Desigual’, and will launch few
more brands this year, including Sonam Kapoor and Rhea
Kapoor’s brand, ‘Rheason’. “We
plan to invest approximately Rs
60 crore in our omni-channel efforts over the next three years,
and target 15 per cent revenues
through the digital medium by
2020,” Shoppers Stop Managing
Director Govind Shrikhande said
here. The retailer plans to be
present across channels, including physical stores, web, television and online marketplaces.
Over the next three years, the
retail chain will extend its omnichannel strategy to group companies - HomeStop, Hypercity
and Crossword, he added.
“We expect to grow the sales of
exclusive clothing brands from 2
per cent to 10 per cent. For our
private labels or brands, we expect sales to grow from 15 per
cent to over 25 per cent,” he said.
The retailer has 72 stores operational currently and will expand to about 90 stores in the
next three years across the coun-
try, Shrikhande said, adding that
omni-channel will give Shoppers
Stop access to over 8000 pin codes
in India. In the second phase of
the company’s omni-channel
journey, it plans to invest in warehouse management systems to
strengthen its supply chain, and
subsequently in master data management. “We expect to grow the
sales of exclusive clothing brands
from 2 per cent to 10 per cent. For
our private labels or brands, we
expect sales to grow from 15 per
cent to over 25 per cent,” he said.
The retailer has 72 stores operational currently and will expand to about 90 stores in the
next three years across the country, Shrikhande said, adding that
omni-channel will give Shoppers
Stop access to over 8000 pin codes
in India. In a move to provide a
seamless shopping experience to
customers, Shoppers Stop today
announced a tie-up with commerce platform provider ‘Hybris’
software, which is a SAP company.
The Hybris software will enable
the retailer to deliver a real-time,
impactful and relevant customer
experience ‘across touch points,
channels and devices’, it said.
ONGC to cut gas production by 40%
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): State-owned
Oil and Natural Gas Corp will cut gas
production from its biggest fields
in the Arabian sea by about 40 per
cent as it carries out repair work on a
pipeline that carries the gas to shore.
ONGC produces 33 million standard
cubic meters per day of natural gas
from the Bassein field in the western
offshore. The gas is carried to shore
by two under-sea pipelines, a 42-inch
line and a 32-inch line.
The company plans to carry out
repair work on the 42-inch pipeline
that carries natural gas from the Bassein field to Hazira, from July 7 to 27.
“The repair work was to last 24
days but we have squeezed it in
less than three week,” a top official
said. “The repair work is to tentatively start from July 7 but could
be pushed back to July 8 or 9.” This
would lead to stoppage of production at some wells. “The output will
fall by 13-14 mmscmd during the
shutdown period,” he said. State
gas utility GAIL India Ltd, which
sells gas produced from the ONGC
fields to the customers, has been
intimated of the shutdown. GAIL
will supply liquefied natural gas
(LNG) purchased from spot market
to the fertiliser plants that will be
deprived of the ONGC gas. “Power
plants have said that they are not
in such a dire need and they can
manage without ONGC supplies.
However, fertiliser plants have
asked for alternate supplies. “They
do not want GAIL to give them LNG
procured from Qatar on long-term
contract as it costs most. Fertiliser
plants want GAIL to supply LNG
from spot market which is 40 per
cent cheaper than Qatar gas,” the
official said. The company plans
to carry out repair work on the 42inch pipeline that carries natural
gas from the Bassein field to Hazira,
from July 7 to 27.
“The repair work was to last 24
days but we have squeezed it in less
than three week,” a top official said.
“The repair work is to tentatively
start from July 7 but could be pushed
back to July 8 or 9.” This would lead
to stoppage of production at some
wells. “The output will fall by 13-14
mmscmd during the shutdown period,” he said. State gas utility GAIL
India Ltd, which sells gas produced
from the ONGC fields to the customers, has been intimated of the shutdown. GAIL will supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchased from spot
market to the fertiliser plants that
will be deprived of the ONGC gas.
GAIL has promised to look at procuring LNG from spot market and
supplying fertiliser plants. The official said the loss of gas to city gas
distribution (CGD) companies that
sell CNG to automobiles and piped
cooking gas to households in cities,
will be made good by GAIL without charging them anything extra.
While the domestic gas is priced at
USD 4.66 per million British thermal unit, LNG in the spot market
is available at USD 7-8 per mmBtu.
LNG from Qatar on a long-term
contract costs almost USD 13. “The
repair work was to last 24 days but
we have squeezed it in less than
three week,” a top official said. “The
repair work is to tentatively start
from July 7 but could be pushed
back to July 8 or 9.” This would lead
to stoppage of production at some
wells. “The output will fall by 13-14
mmscmd during the shutdown period,” he said.
Shares of ONGC and GAIL reversed
gains after reports of the shutdown.
ONGC fell 0.31 per cent to close at Rs
309.40 on BSE while GAIL dropped
0.52 per cent to close at Rs 385.40.
The official said the smaller 32-inch
line will continue to operate and
some gas is also being diverted to
an alternate line that goes to Uran in
Maharashtra. Gas from BG Group operated Panna/Mukta and Tapti fields
in the western offshore too was carried on to-be-repaired 42-inch pipeline but was last month shifted to the
32-inch line. So its 5.8 mmscmd output would not be impacted, he said.
Services sector contracts for Nestle India to resume Mobile users to get full number
portability from today
2nd straight month in June export of Maggi noodles
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): Services sector
contracted for the second consecutive
month in June as new orders declined for
the first time in 14 months, an HSBC survey said Friday. The contraction, coupled
with decline in manufacturing growth
rate, may add to the clamour for further
rate cuts by RBI. The HSBC India Services
Business Activity Index, which tracks
changes in activity at service companies,
fell to 47.7 in June, down from 49.6 in
May -- its lowest level since March 2014.
The index went below the crucial 50
mark, which separates growth from contraction, for the second straight month.
“June?s Indian service sector data disappointed, with reductions in both activity and new business accelerating since
May,” Pollyanna De Lima, economist at
Markit, which compiles the data, said.
Underlying the drop in services activity
was a further contraction in new business as respondents said competitive
pressures and extreme heat took a toll on
the services sector. “The heatwave and
competitive pressures were again reported to have weighed on service providers’
performance. However, companies are
hopeful of turning the corner in coming
months, with confidence regarding the
12-month outlook remaining strong,”
Lima added. Meanwhile, service providers raised employment further in June.
The rate of job creation was, however,
only marginal and slower than the longrun series average. Confidence among
Indian service providers remained strong
in June, with panelists on balance expecting activity to increase over the coming
12 months. Meanwhile, the Nikkei India
Composite PMI Output Index, which
maps both the manufacturing and services sectors, fell to 49.2 in June from 51.2
in May, below the crucial 50-level for the
first time since April 2014. On prices, it
said transmission of rising services costs
was reflected in a further increase in
output prices in June. However, charges
were raised only at a modest rate.
“On the positive side, inflation rates softened in June. Weaker rises in input costs
and output charges were seen across both
the manufacturing and service sectors,”
Lima said. Lima further said: “All in all, latest data suggest that RBI’s commitment
to support economic growth may result
in further rate cuts at its August meeting,
probably the last in 2015.” In June 2 policy
review, RBI had cut repo by 0.25 percent for
the third time this year to spur investment
and growth, but hinted that there may not
be any more cuts in the near term.
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): Nestle India is in the process of
resuming exports of its Maggi instant noodles to various
global markets after it got a go ahead from Bombay High
Court earlier this week. The company has started the logistical arrangements to resume the exports. Maggi noodles
were banned in India on June 5 by the central food safety
regulator FSSAI over presence of lead beyond permissible
limit as well as taste enhancer monosodium glutamate
(MSG). “The logistical arrangements to resume exports
have begun after Tuesday’s decision by the Bombay High
Court which clarified that the export of Maggi noodles
could continue,” Nestle said in a statement. The FSSAI order was later challenged by Nestle India before the Bombay
High Court. The ban, however, continues for Maggi instant
noodles in the domestic market. Nestle also said that Canadian authorities have given clean chit to its instant noddles brand after finding no health related hazard. “We welcome the fact that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s
investigation did not find any health risk associated with
the consumption of Maggi noodles sold in Canada,” Nestle
said. Earlier this week, food safety regulators in countries
including the UK, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand
which have also gave a clean chit to cleared the product,
said it was safe for consumption. Nestle further added that
noodles made for the export market are produced on the
same manufacturing lines as those for the Indian market.
“We use the same recipes and raw materials as we use for
domestic markets, although Canada requires a different
kind of salt to be used. Packaging materials are designed to
meet the regulatory requirements of each importing country,” Nestle said. Growth should improve steadily through
to 2017 for emerging Asia excluding China on aggregate.
Govt to spend Rs 50,000 crore
under new irrigation scheme
New Delhi Jul 2 (PTI): With an
eye on improving farm productivity, the government will spend
Rs 50,000 crore over the next five
years under the Pradhan Mantri
Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY). “It
has been decided that in 5 years, Rs
50,000 crore from the central Budget would be utilised for the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana.
States’ share will be over and above
this,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while communicating the
Cabinet decision.
He further said: “This can also be
utilised to help the material component in MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act).” The decision was
taken at the meeting of Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs
(CCEA) headed by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi yesterday. For the
current fiscal, he said the allocation
is Rs 5,300 crore. The spending this
year is expected to bring an additional 6 lakh hectares under irriga-
tion while 5 lakh hectares will benefit from drip irrigation. That apart,
1,300 watershed projects have been
marked for completion. Currently,
142 million hectares are used for
cultivation, of which only 45 percent farm land is under irrigation.
“The major objective of the
PMKSY is to achieve convergence of
investments in irrigation at the field
level, expand cultivable area under assured irrigation (har khet ko
pani), improve on-farm water use
efficiency to reduce wastage of water, enhance adoption of precisionirrigation and other water-saving
technologies (more crop per drop),”
he said. Besides, the FM said the
scheme is aimed at enhancing recharge of aquifers and introducing sustainable water conservation
practices by exploring feasibility of
re-using treated municipal water
for peri-urban agriculture and attracting greater private investment
in precision irrigation.
“The scheme also aims at bring-
ing
ministries,
departments,
agencies, research and financial
institutions engaged in creation/recycling/potential recycling of water
under a common platform so that a
comprehensive and holistic view of
the entire “water cycle” is taken into
account and proper water budgeting is done for all sectors,” he said.
With an eye on improving farm
productivity, the government will
spend Rs 50,000 crore over the next
five years under the Pradhan Mantri
Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY). “It
has been decided that in 5 years, Rs
50,000 crore from the central Budget would be utilised for the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana.
States’ share will be over and above
this,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while communicating the
Cabinet decision. The programme
architecture of PMKSY looks at a
‘decentralised state-level planning
and execution’ structure in order
to allow states to draw up a District
Irrigation Plan (DIP) and a State Ir-
rigation Plan (SIP), he said. “DIP will
have a holistic developmental perspective of the district outlining medium- to long-term developmental
plans integrating three components
namely, water sources, distribution
network and water use application
of the district to be prepared at two
levels - the block and the district,”
he said.
All structures created under the
schemes will be geo-tagged, he added. The programme will be supervised and monitored at the national
level by an Inter-Ministerial National Steering Committee (NSC) under
the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister with the Union Ministers concerned. A National Executive Committee (NEC) is to be constituted
under the Chairmanship of the ViceChairman, NITI Aayog, to oversee
programme implementation, allocation of resources, inter-ministerial
coordination, monitoring and performance assessment, addressing
administrative issues and the like.
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): Mobile users
will be able to retain their numbers
across the country with all operators
gearing to launch the full Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service Friday
to meet a deadline set by the government. All operators, including Airtel,
Vodafone, Idea and Reliance Communications, as also state-run MTNL and
BSNL, have announced they would be
rolling out the full MNP from July 3 to
enable their customers to retain their
mobile numbers even if they shift base
to a new place.
The national MNP service, the earlier deadline for which was May 3 but
got extended by two months as operators were not ready, will also facilitate
the users to choose the operator of
their choice without changing their
numbers. Among other private players, Uninor, Sistema Shyam Teleservices and Videocon also said they will
roll out the service to meet the July 3
deadline fixed by the government.In
a statement, Airtel said its customers
can also enjoy special offers like processing requests to port within Airtel’s
network within 24 hours and free incoming on roaming until the portability request is processed.
Vodafone said, “Customers looking
for the convenience of retaining their
existing number at the new location
can avail the benefits of national
MNP service.” “Vodafone has benefited from the intra-circle MNP that
was rolled out in 2011.
Infosys to invest $10
mn in Irish start-ups,
expand presence
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): Infosys on Friday said it will invest USD 10 million
(about Rs 63 crore) in Ireland-based
start-ups that are developing disruptive technologies and is expanding
presence there by setting up a unit in
Dublin. The Bangalore-based IT services firm has been selected as a strategic
partner by Allied Irish Banks (AIB), a
financial services group operating predominantly in Ireland and the UK, to
set up a 200-seater unit in Dublin.
“Infosys intends to set aside USD 10
million from its global Innovation Fund
for Ireland-based start-ups... Infosys is
keen to continue sharing its expertise to
assist start-ups that are developing and
enabling these (disruptive) technologies,” Infosys said in a statement. Earlier
this year, Infosys had announced the
USD 500 million Innovation Fund, earmarked for investments in the growth of
disruptive new technologies.
As a strategic partner to AIB, Infosys
will provide application development
and management, and transformation
and innovation services. “This exciting
partnership with AIB is a springboard
for Infosys to expand its services into
a new market,” it said. Infosys will also
set up a 200-seat facility in Dublin to
house the staff who will be transferring from AIB as well as any additional
staff who will be appointed locally following recent agreements that Infosys
has signed in the region, it added. “Our
investment in the Irish start-up community reflects our belief that Ireland
is a strong and vibrant nation, home to
entrepreneurs who share our vision of
technology as a way to drive growth,”
Infosys Executive Vice President Global
Head of Financial Services Mohit Joshi
said. Infosys will leverage its broad
experience in financial services and
other industries to support the digital
transformation journey and strategic
growth plans of AIB, he added.
Kotak Bank gets FIPB nod to raise
fgn investment limit to 55%
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): Kotak Mahindra Bank’s proposal to raise foreign
investment limit in the lender to 55 percent was cleared by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on Friday. After deferring a decision on
the proposal in the past, the FIPB cleared the application during on Friday’s
meeting after the Department of Financial Services gave its opinion on the
matter, sources said. FIPB is headed by Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi. Kotak Bank had approached the Board after the Reserve Bank barred overseas
investments in it as foreign shareholding hit the permissible threshold following the merger of ING Vysya Bank with Kotak Bank. Investments from FIIs.
11
Business
Commodity takes
Oil prices ease ahead
of Greece vote
Singapore, Jul 3 (AFP) Oil prices eased
in Asia today ahead of a weekend bailout
reform referendum in Greece that could
determine its future in the eurozone.
West Texas Intermediate for August delivery was down 21 cents at USD 56.72
while Brent North Sea crude was three
cents lower at USD 62.04. Greek voters
will be asked to vote either “Yes” to a bailout package offered by creditors in exchange for tougher austerity measures,
or “No” in support of the leftist government’s bid to gain better terms. Greek
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called the
poll on Saturday after breaking off debt
reform talks with its creditors -- leading it to default on a loan repayment on
Tuesday. European leaders have warned
that vote is effectively now an in-out vote
on Greece’s future in the eurozone. “Negotiations (between Greece and lenders)
appear to have grounded to a standstill
with everyone awaiting the results of
Sunday’s vote,” said analyst Nicholas
Teo of CMC Markets in Singapore. “With
either outcome, global markets continue
to remain on tenterhooks as any nearterm resolution of the situation there
remains a distant prospect.” The International Monetary Fund said today that
Greece needs 50 billion euros (USD 55
billion) over the next three years, while it
has also slashed 2015 economic growth
forecast to zero.
Gold ends steady;
silver recovers on
industrial demand
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) After three-day
losing run, gold prices held steady at
Rs 26,500 per ten grams at the bullion
market today on scattered buying activity by jewellers. Silver, however, recovered by Rs 250 to Rs 36,000 per kg on increased offtake by industrial units and
coin makers. Traders said some buying
by jewellers at prevailing levels helped
gold prices to end steady. In the national capital, gold of 99.9 and 99.5 per cent
purity ended steady at Rs 26,500 and Rs
26,350 per ten grams, respectively. Sovereign followed suit and closed flat at
Rs 23,300 per piece of eight gram. Globally, gold was up by 0.28 per cent to USD
1,169 an ounce in London in early trade
today. On the other hand, silver ready
recovered by Rs 250 to Rs 36,000 per
kg, supported by increased offtake by
industrial units and coin makers. Silver
weekly-based delivery rose by Rs 320 to
Rs 35,500 per kg. Silver coins also spurted by Rs 1,000 to Rs 54,000 for buying
and Rs 55,000 for selling of 100 pieces
upsurge in demand.
Select copra prices
down on reduced
demand, ample supplies
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) Copra office
Alapuzha, copra office Kozhikode and
copra edible prices fell further at the
spices market here today due to reduced demand from millers and exporters on the back of adequate supply
positions. While, rest all other spices
held steady in the absence of any large
scale buying. Copra office Alapuzha
and copra office Kozhikode dipped by
Rs 500 per quintal each to Rs 7,700 and
Rs 7,500 from Thursday’s closing level
of Rs 8,200 and Rs 8,000, respectively.
Copra edible Mumbai declined by Rs
100 per quintal to Rs 9,900 as against
Rs 10,000 yesterday. Following are today’s closing rates (in Rs with previous
rates in brackets): Black pepper (per
kg) 650/735 (650/735), ginger bleached
(per kg) 240 (240), ginger unbleached
(per kg) 260 (260), copra office Alapuzha
(per quintal) 7,700 (8,200), copra office
Kozhikode (per quintal) 7,500 (8,000),
copra Rajapur Mumbai (per quintal)
15,500 (15,500), copra edible Mumbai
(per quintal) 9,900 (10,000).
eased further at the Vashi wholesale
market here today due to lower demand
from stockists and retailers. Medium
sugar (M-30) fell by Rs 16 per quintal to
Rs 2,260/2,566 from overnight level of
Rs 2,260/2,582. Small sugar (S-30) also
moved down by Rs 14 per quintal to Rs
2,162/2,325 compared to Rs 2,176/2,325
yesterday. Following are today’s closing rates for sugar (per quintal) with the
previous rates given in brackets: Small
sugar (S-30) quality: Rs 2,162/2,325 (Rs
2,176/2,325). Medium sugar (M-30)
quality: Rs 2,260/2,566 (Rs 2,260/2,582).
Groundnut oil
prices rebound on
renewed demand
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) Groundnut oil
prices rebounded in an otherwise lacklustre Vashi oils and oilseeds wholesale market here today due to renewed
demand from stockists and retailers
amid restricted arrivals from producing regions. While, refined palmolein,
castorseeds bold, castor oil commercial and linseed oil ruled stable in the
absence of largescale buying activity. In the edible segment, groundnut
oil climbed by Rs 5 per 10kg to Rs 970
from Thursday’s closing level of Rs 965.
However,Refined palmolein closed unchanged at Rs 505 per 10kg. Moving to
non-edible section, castorseeds bold,
castor oil commercial and linseed oil
ended unaltered at Rs 3,965 per 100kg,
Rs 823 per 10kg and Rs 780 per 10kg, respectively. PTI
Nickel gains on
sustained demand
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) Nickel and brass
utensils prices gained further at the
non-ferrous metal market here today
on good buying by stockists amid persistent demand from alloy industries.
While, select copper, aluminium and
zinc prices slipped due to stockist selling following subdued offtake from
consumer industries. Globally, London
copper set for a second weekly rise in
early trade today, underpinned by prospects of a demand recovery later in the
year and as short holders closed positions, but traders said concerns over
Greece and slowing growth in China
would crimp gains. Nickel rose by Rs 5
per kg to Rs 955 from Thursday’s closing level of Rs 945. Brass utensils scrap
moved up by Rs 2 per kg to Rs 308 as
against Rs 306. However, copper scrap
heavy declined by Rs 3 per kg to Rs 431
from Rs 434. Copper utensils scrap, aluminium ingots and zinc moved down
by Rs 2 per kg each to Rs 400, Rs 142 and
Rs 170 from Rs 398, Rs 144 and Rs 172,
respectively. Copper armiture and aluminium utensils scrap softened by a Re
per kg each to Rs 425 and Rs 123.
Maize price may
remain stable during kharif harvest
Coimbatore, Jul 3 (PTI) The price of
good quality maize is expected to hover around Rs 1,300 -1,320 per quintal
during the kharif harvest, Tamil Nadu
Agricultural University has said in an
advisory to farmers. Maize prices are
prevailing at Rs 1,340-1,350 per quintal in Udumalpet regulated market,
where the university’s Agro Marketing
Intelligence and Business Promotion
Centre carried out the analysis of prices during the last 22 years. During harvest months of October-November,
poultry feed and industry demand
will be met by local maize production
in the state and prices would remain
stable and rule at Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,320,
the advisory said. In 2013-14, maize
cultivation area in India was 9.43 million hectares, producing 24.35 million tonnes, with Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and
Tamil Nadu being the major growing
states. The cultivation area in Tamil
Nadu was 0.30 million hectares with
a production of 1.64 million tonnes
in 2013-14. Arrivals from Tamil Nadu
have almost ended and Odisha arrivals have started coming to the market.
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) Prices of both Karnataka arrivals would start from
varieties of sugar, Medium and Small the second week of July, it said.
Sugar eases on
lower demand
Indian Horizon Delhi
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Super premium beers to contribute
25% to UBL sales by 2020
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): Liquor
firm United Breweries Ltd (UBL)
expects its super premium beer
brands to contribute 15 per cent
to its total sales by volume and 25
per cent by value in next five years,
a company official said. UBL’s super premium brands -- Heineken,
Kingfisher Ultra and Ultra Max
-- are witnessing highest growth
in beer segment and expected to
grow three folds in next five years.
“By 2020, super premium segment beer would contribute
around 15 per cent of volume and
around 25 per cent by value in its
total sales. Premium segment has
lot of potential in medium and
long run,” United Breweries Senior Vice President ? Marketing Samar Singh Sheikhawat told PTI.
United Breweries reported a
revenue of Rs 4,692.29 crore in
the fiscal 2014-15. He further
added: “This year, all three premium beer brands would contribute around 5 per cent by volume
and between 7 to 8 per cent by
value. It is growing between 40
to 50 per cent per annum as the
beer industry is witnessing premiumisation in the mild and strong
segment.” “For UBL, premium
beers are the fastest growing in
the market. Heineken is growing
about 75 per cent (in volume) and
Kingfisher Ultra beer is growing
by about 45 per cent,” Sheikhawat
added. UBL is also strengthening
the sales network of its premium
beers. Presently, beer is sold at
around 80,000 to 85,000 outlets
and its premium range of beer is
available at around 25 per cent of
those outlets.
“We are continuously increasing our distribution and increasing the number of cities where
our products are available. We
are a category leader in the premium segment,” Sheikhawat
said. The company has recently
launched ‘Ultra Max’ beer in the
super premium strong segment.
Rupee ends 2-mth high at 63.44
against dollar
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI)
Surging for the fourth
straight session, the rupee
gained 7 paise to end at
63.44 against the American currency on sustained
dollar selling by banks
and exporters in the face
of soft dollar overseas. Robost capital inflows and
rallying local equity markets further supported the
trading sentiment, a forex
dealer commented.
Overall sentiment was
largely optimistic following upbeat comments
from the Reserve Bank
Governor Raghuram Rajan that the economy is
picking up and was in a
recovery phase and also
the country can withstand
any crisis emerging from
the Greek fallout.
Extending its strong
up move, rupee resumed
firmly higher at 63.43 per
dollar against Thursday’s
close of 63.51 per dollar at
the Interbank Foreign Exchange (FOREX) market
and strengthend further
to hit fresh intra-day high
of 63.35 before finishing
at 63.44, registering a gain
of 7 paise, or 0.11 per cent
- the level not seen since
May 5 this year. It touched
a low of 63.49
in early trade.
Foreign investors
bought
shares
worth
Rs 575.3 crore
yesterday, according to provisional data.
The benchmark
Sensex jumped
by 146.99 points
to end at at
28,092.79.
In
overseas trade,
the dollar weakened
against
its major rivals
in holiday thin
trade after a
string of disappointing US
maco data fuelled uncertainty over the timing of
a rate hike and also investors caution ahead of much
awaited Sunday’s referendum in Greece. The US
dollar index down by 0.10
per cent at 96.19. Meanwhile, crude prices eased
after a brief overnight spike
amid a glut of oversupply
in global markets as well as
lacklustre US macro data. .
Pramit Brahmbhatt, Veracity Group CEO said,” rupee
traded strong and appreciated by over seven paise for
the day to close at 63.44.
The fresh selling of the US
currency by exporters supported the Rupee. Also the
local equities traded positively for theday which further supported the Rupee
to appreciate on weekly
basis. The trading range
for the Spot USD/INR pair
is expected to be within
63.00 to 63.80. In the forward market, the premium
for dollar ended weak on
sustained receivings from
exporters. The benchmark
six-month premium payable in December eased
to 218-220 paise from 219221 paise yesterday.
UBL will sell Ultra Max across
India in next 12 to 18 months, he
added. According to the All India Brewers Association (AIBA),
the beer industry is valued at Rs
25,000 crore, around 23 million
hectolitres beer was sold in the
country. The industry is growing at around 6 per cent. Earlier,
the industry was growing in the
range of 10 to 12 per cent between 2002 to 2012. When asked
about the reasons of premiumisation of the beer industry,
Sheikhawat said: “It happens
with every industry, if it does not
grow with volume, then grows in
value terms.”
Expect Cabinet approval
on spectrum sharing by
month-end: Secy
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): The Cabinet is likely to approve by month end the long-awaited guidelines on
spectrum trading and sharing, that will pave way for
merger and acquisitions in the telecom sector, a senior government official said on Friday. Speaking at
a FICCI event here, Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg
said the spectrum sharing and trading guidelines
have almost been finalised at the department level
and Cabinet note has been circulated. “Spectrum
sharing/trading guidelines have been almost finalised at department level and Cabinet note has been
circulated. We expect guidelines to be approved by
Cabinet by end of the month,” he said. Garg added
that this will consolidate spectrum and help both
telecom operators and subscribers. Spectrum sharing guidelines will allow telecom companies to share
their un-utilised airwaves with other service providers in the same telecom circle.
Department of Telecom had, in April, sought
clarifications from sectoral regulator TRAI regarding spectrum-sharing and trading guidelines. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had reiterated
its stand on most of the recommendations on spectrum-sharing and trading guidelines, while clarifying that radiowaves acquired through trading can
also be shared. It also stood by recommendations of
allowing operators to share all spectrum including
3G.s. Spectrum sharing guidelines will allow telecom companies to share their un-utilised airwaves
with other service providers in the same telecom
circle. The regulator also recommended allowing
the trading of spectrum. As of now, only government is allowed to allocate spectrum to telecom
firms through auctions. Once trading is allowed, it is
expected to increase efficient use of radiowaves by
enabling telecom operators, who have a lower subscriber base or un-utilised spectrum, to trade in it.
Sensex jumps 147 pts on FIIs
buying, govt spending boost
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) The benchmark BSE Sensex today rose by
147 points to regain 28,000-mark,
largely driven by gains in banking, capital goods and FMCG
stocks on renewed buying interest by foreign investors and higher government spending. Market
sentiment was largely optimistic
following upbeat comments from
the Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan.
In a statement yesterday, Rajan said the economy is picking
up and was in a recovery phase
and also the country can withstand any crisis emerging from
the Greek fallout. Strengthening of rupee, which climbed to
nearly two-month high also bolstered confidence. Meanwhile,
to improve farm productivity, the
government has decided to spend
Rs 50,000 crore over the next five
years under the Pradhan Mantri
Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY).
“Markets shut on a strong note
adding buying till the last leg on
the optimism that Greece crisis
will be resolved and it will not
impact much on Indian equities.
Renewed buying from foreign investors after the last month selling too boosted sentiment,” said
Gaurav Jain, Director of Hem Securities. As per provisional data,
foreign investors bought shares
worth Rs 575.3 crore yesterday.
Despite better start, bourses
turned rangebound amid bouts
of profit taking at higher levels
tracking weak Asian European
cues as well as some caution due
to Sunday’s Greek referendum
hovering the sentiment. After a
hesitant start, the 30-share Sensex
regained the 28,000-mark to hit
the day’s high of 28,135.43 before
settling at 28,092.79, a recovery of
146.99 points or 0.53 per cent.
The 50-share broader Nifty
surged 40.00 points or 0.47 per
cent to close at 8,484.90 after
hovering between 8,497.75 and
8424.15 during the session. On
weekly basis, Sensex and Nifty has
gone up by 280.95 points (1.01 per
cent) and 103.80 points (1.23 per
cent), respectively, completing
their third straight weekly gain.
“Government?s announcements
on agri sector caps cap a positive
week for Indian market, which
has seen economic data showing
improvement in capex and core
sector growth, and also key project announcements from the government,” said Anand James, Co
Head Technical Research Desk at
Geojit BNP Paribas. Asian equities
today ended mixed on the back of
dismal US employment data over-
night with Shanghai market tumbling 6 per cent on market regulatory probe following recent crash.
Stocks of housing finance firm,
HDFC, topped among Sensex
gainers by surging 2.53 per cent to
Rs 1,316.05, followed by Hero MotoCorp rising 1.77 per cent to Rs
2,577.80. Shares of Lupin gained
1.64 per cent after the company
announced acquisition of Russia’s
Biocom, marking its foray into the
Russian pharma market. Out of
30-share Sensex pack, 20 ended
higher. Among sectoral indices,
banking, capital goods, FMCG,
consumer durable, technology
and power ended firmly higher.
However, metal witnessed heavy
selling pressure, sliding 1.48 per
cent, along with realty, oil&gas
and auto. Major contributors to
index rise included HDFC (2.53
pc), Hero MotoCorp (1.77 pc),
Lupin (1.64 pc), HDFC Bank (1.61
pc), BHEL (1.08 pc), Dr Reddy’s
(0.96 pc), TCS (0.93 pc), NTPC
(0.87 pc), Bajaj Auto (0.79 pc), Cipla (0.77 pc), Axis Bank (0.61 pc),
L&T (0.60 pc) and SBI (0.54 pc).
12
CRICKET WORLD CUP 2015
Let s know more about it
12
Indian Horizon Delhi
Indian
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Horizon
Wimbledon: Nick Kyrgios downs Milos
Raonic, Stan Wawrinka advances
London Jul 3 (PTI): Australia`s
controversial Nick Kyrgios and
Frenchman Richard Gasquet setup a Wimbledon last-16 clash after
knocking out last year`s semi-finalists
Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov
on Friday. Kyrgios, who famously
defeated Rafael Nadal in 2014 when he
was ranked 144 in the world, avenged
his quarter-final loss of 12 months ago
to Raonic with a 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (7/3), 6-3
third round victory over the seventh
seed. The 20-year-old Kyrgios hit 34
aces and blasted 61 winners. “I lost
my focus a bit towards the end of the
first set, but I knew what my game
plan was and I stuck to it. I toughed it
out,” Kyrgios said.
“Last year I tried to hit too many
winners off his serve. This time I
went to the chipped approach and
it worked.” Kyrgios faces another
rematch in the fourth round against
Gasquet after beating the Frenchman
in a dramatic five-setter in the second
round last year. “Last year I came from
two sets down against him, but he is
a savvy veteran and beat Dimitrov
in straight sets today so he must be
playing well,” said the 26th seeded
Australian.
Gasquet, a semi-finalist in 2007 and
seeded 21 this year, beat 11th seeded
Dimitrov 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. Dimitrov
had defeated 2013 champion Andy
Murray on his way to the semi-finals
last year, but Friday`s defeat extended
a disappointing Grand Slam season
for the 24-year-old Bulgarian who
was beaten in the fourth round at the
Australian Open before a first round
exit at Roland Garros. Fourth seed
Stan Wawrinka reached the fourth
round with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over
Fernando Verdasco for his first win
over the Spaniard in 10 years. French
Open champion Wawrinka will take
on Belgium`s David Goffin for a place
in the quarter-finals.
Goffin, the 16th seed, became
only the fourth Belgian man to make
the fourth round in the Open Era by
defeating 2006 semi-finalist Marcos
Baghdatis 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
It was 24-year-old Goffin`s first
win over the Cypriot in four meetings
and he has now equalled his best
performance at the majors after also
making the last 16 at the 2012 French
Open as a lucky loser. “I knew I had
the game to make some results on
grass that I didn`t in the past. This
year I came from the clay, I came with
a lot of confidence on grass,” said
Goffin who made the final on grass
at `s-Hertogenbosch last month.
Later Friday, Novak Djokovic, Serena
Williams and Maria Sharapova target
last-16 places. It was a day which
began in sombre mood at the All
England Club where thousands of
fans joined officials and players in
observing a minute`s silence for the
victims of last week`s Tunisia beach
massacre, most of whom were British.
Defending champion and top seed
Djokovic takes on Australia`s Bernard
Tomic who he defeated in the quarterfinals in 2011. The Serb is bidding to
reach the round of 16 at Wimbledon
for the seventh straight year. Serena
Williams continues her bid for a sixth
Wimbledon and 21st major title by
taking on Heather Watson, the last
remaining British woman in the
tournament. Sharapova, the 2004
champion, tackles Romanian 29th
seed Irina-Camelia Begu who before
this year had never won a match at
Wimbledon. Coco Vandeweghe, one
of six American women in the third
Dimuth Karunaratne,
Yasir Shah light up final Test
Pallekele Jul 3 (PTI): Sri Lanka`s
Dimuth Karunaratne hit a century amid
another rich haul by Pakistani legspinner Yasir Shah as the decisive third
and final Test began on a rousing note in
Pallekele on Friday. The hosts, sent in to
bat after Pakistan captain Misbah-ul Haq
won the toss for the third time in a row,
stuttered to 272-8 in their first innings by
stumps on the opening day. Left-handed
Karunaratne anchored the innings with
a dogged 130, his second Test century
following the 152 against New Zealand in
Christchurch last December.
Yasir ended the day with four for 77,
taking his tally in the series to 21 wickets,
the most by a Pakistani bowler in a threeTest rubber in Sri Lanka. Yasir enabled
Pakistan to keep the runs in check despite
conditions favouring the batsmen on
the evenly-paced pitch after the initial
moisture on the wicket had dried up
under the hot sun. The series is locked
1-1 after Pakistan won the first Test by
10 wickets and Sri Lanka responded with
a seven-wicket victory in the second
match. Pakistan secured an early break
with the wicket of Kaushal Silva, who had
scored 125 in Galle and 80 in Colombo.
This time Silva made nine when he was
caught behind off left-arm seamer Rahat
Ali, who was picked alongside Ehsan
Ali and Imran Khan in a new-look pace
attack for the decider.
The left-handed pair of Karunaratne
and Upul Tharanga put on 91 for the
second wicket on either side of lunch
to lift the score to 106 for one, before
three wickets fell for 31 runs. Tharanga,
who replaced Kumar Sangakkara for the
match, made 46 when he edged Yasir to
slip where an alert Younis Khan took
a smart catch diving in front. Lahiru
Thirimanne (11) and skipper Angelo
Mathews (three) fell in successive overs
from Yasir to mistimed drives as Sri
Lanka slipped to 137-4. Jehan Mubarak,
recalled to the Test side after almost
eight years, helped Karunaratne add
67 for the fifth wicket before he was
stumped off Yasir for 25. Azhar Ali, who
had taken two wickets with his parttime spin bowling in 43 previous Tests,
doubled his tally with the wickets of
Karunaratne and Dhammika Prasad off
successive balls.
Karunaratne was stumped as he
attempted a big heave and Prasad holed
out to Yasir at deep square-leg to reduce
Sri Lanka to 248-7. Dinesh Chandimal
was leg-before to Rahat for 24, leaving
Tharindu Kaushal (17) and Suranga
Lakmal (one) unbeaten at stumps.
Both sides made four changes each for
the decider with Pakistan bringing in
batsman Shan Masood along with the
round, reached the last 16 at a Slam
for the first time with a 6-2, 6-0 stroll
past 2011 US Open champion Sam
Stosur of Australia. It was a second
Grand Slam win of the season for
world number 47 Vandeweghe against
Stosur after also coming out on top
at the Australian Open in January.
Stosur has yet to get beyond the third
round at Wimbledon in 13 years
of trying. Teenager Belinda Bencic
became the first Swiss woman into
the fourth round since Patty Schnyder
in 2007 when she defeated American
qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands 7-5,
7-5. Fresh from her first career title at
Eastbourne last week, the 18-year-old
30th seed, revitalised after a medical
time-out following the fifth game,
came back from 5-1 down in the first
set to see off the world number 158.
FIH Hockey World
League Semifinals: India
vs Belgium - Preview
Antwerp (Belgium) Jul 3
(PTI): India will face one of
their toughest tests in defence
when they square off against
the marauding Belgians in what
promises to be a robust semifinal
clash of the FIH Hockey World
League Semifinals here on
Friday. The encounter will test
the ability of India’s defence
to guard against the Belgian
strikers, who have tasted
enormous success in the past
couple of years to boost their
world ranking to No. 4 -- the
highest in their hockey history.
Ranked No. 9 in the world, India
faces a formidable side that has
enjoyed a slight edge in their
recent encounters since the
2011 Champions Challenge final
in Johannesburg.
The Belgian players have,
in fact, made giant strides in
international hockey. Starting
with the victory in the Champions
Challenge that earned Belgium
their maiden entry in the elite
Champions Trophy, the Red
Lions have emerged victorious
in their fixtures against India
in the 2012 Olympic Games
and the 2014 World Cup. India
have managed to overcome the
Belgian challenge in successive
Champions Trophy encounters
in Melbourne and Bhubaneswar.
“Playing Belgium suits our
game. Belgium play a structured
game and we’re ready for this
contest,” said India coach Paul
van Ass, bracing to take on the
higher-ranked Belgium.
Van Ass said his team usually
found Asian teams to be tougher
rivals. It was evident yesterday
when India were made to work
hard for the 3-2 victory by the
nippy Malaysian rivals. It was
only two late penalty corner
goals from youngster Jasjit Singh
that turned the tide in India’s
favour in the contest played in
soaring heat. “I thought I was
playing an afternoon game
during the Indian summer,” said
captain Sardar Singh, pleased
to have earned a place in the
World League Finals that India
will host later this year. Belgium
too had to overcome rising
temperature in the quarterfinals
yesterday, managing to hold off
a late resurgence from France
to clinch a 5-4 victory. Belgium,
served well by their star player
Tom Boon and captain JohnJohn Dohmen, were down to
nine players in the last minute
when they held back.
Lack of football culture harming India’s
growth: Indian coach Stephen Constantine
New Delhi Jul 3 (PTI): Indian
football team coach Stephen
Constantine has cited the absence
of a thriving football culture in the
country as a major impediment
in its quest for its first World
Cup appearance - despite a rich
football history and a population
of 1.2 billion people. He also
claimed that India’s woes was
not just technical or physical but
cultural. India, currently ranked
141 in the world rankings, recently
lost both their 2018 World Cup
qualifying
group’s
opening
matches against Guam and Oman
to all but end their slim chances
of advancing to the next round
of qualification. India, Guam,
Oman, Iran and Turkmenistan
are in Group D for the preliminary
league with the top two finishers
progressing to the next phase of
the competition. “There is no
football culture in India. It’s not
about a question of fitness, skill or
technique; rather it’s a question of
developing a football culture in the
Powell, Lavillenie and
Dibaba hope to star in
Bolt`s absence
Paris Jul 3 (PTI): Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell,
pole vault king Renaud Lavillenie and Ethiopian
middle distance star Genzebe Dibaba are set to
light up Paris` Diamond League meet on Saturday
in the absence of injured Usain Bolt. Bolt was a
late withdrawal from both the French capital`s
meet and that in Lausanne next week, pulling out
with a problematic pelvis injury that has left him
seeking treatment from world-renowned German
doctor Hans-Wilhelm Mueller-Wohlfahrt. “He`s
the best doctor in the world ...” said Bolt, who
is suffering from a blocked sacroiliac joint in
the pelvis which effects his left leg and could
potentially put in jeopardy his participation in
next month`s World Athletics Championships
in Beijing. So it falls to 32-year-old Powell to fill
Bolt`s shoes in Paris, while Jamaica`s double
world and Olympic champion Shelly-Ann FraserPryce also goes in what promises to be a very
competitive women`s 100m. “My personal best is
9.72sec (set in 2008), so at my best I know I can
run that. But I want to run another personal best,
that`s what I`m focused on, not anyone else,”
said Powell, who will be up against American duo
Michael Rodgers and Ryan Bailey, veteran Kim
Collins and teammate Nesta Carter.
country,” Constantine told IANS
in an interview on Wednesday.
Constantine, who is currently
enjoying his second stint as the
national coach, cited the example
of Germany, saying that their kids
start playing with the ball from the
age of two to three and pointed to
the difference in culture between
India and the world champions.
He said not much has developed
between his first stint as coach
from 2002-05 and now. “If you
look at the team that has won the
World Cup (Germany) what do
they all have in common? They
all have kids playing with the ball
from the age of two to three. It all
starts from there,” he said. The
Englishman said incorporating
Persons of Indian origin (PIO)
footballers in the national side
might yield positive results for
the country. He said even before
him joining the squad, he drew
up a list of 30 players who have
an Indian tie-up and said if two to
three of those boys.
Tom Westley follows Alastair
Cook`s lead as Australia toil
London Jul 3 (PTI): Essex opener Tom
Westley followed in the footsteps of
England captain Alastair Cook by making
an impressive century for Essex against
the touring Australians at Chelmsford
on Thursday. A decade ago, opening
batsman Cook -- before he`d made his
Test debut -- announced himself to the
cricket world with a century for Essex
against Australia at Chelmsford.
The 26-year-old Westley is no
unknown -- he has played over 100
first-class matches - but his 144 on
Wednesday against a high-class attack
boasting several bowlers with plenty of
international experience had to be one
of the peaks of his career. Westley`s
innings, which saw him blunt the newball attack of Mitchell Starc and Josh
Hazlewood, was the cornerstone of
Essex`s 299 for three on the second day
of four made in response to Australia`s
first innings 562 in what was the Ashesholders` final warm-up match before
next week`s first Test against England
in Cardiff. After stumps Westley, only
promoted to open the innings after Nick
Browne suffered a finger injury while
fielding, said Cook had been one of the
first to congratulate him. “I checked my
phone and I have had a message from
Cooky already, it was just `well done
and congrats, I will give you a call over
the next couple of days`,” said Westley.
“My father and uncle were here today,
so it is a fantastic feeling to score some
runs. “I thought I was lucky at some
times, it is a tough wicket to bowl on
with not much in it, but Australia have
all bases covered.”Australia paceman
Peter Siddle, a late replacement in this
side for Ryan Harris, whose latest bout
of knee trouble means he is unlikely to
feature. in the First Test, said: “It was
obviously disappointing not to get some
more wickets during the day, but it comes
back to our consistency with the ball, we
were a bit all over the shop. “But at times
the boys showed how they were getting
through, at the end of the day it was a
good blow out for us, we got some overs
under our belt.”
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