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National

- Protesters, Kolkata police clash; BJP calls bandh

- SC stays AYUSH Ministry’s notification omitting key rule prohibiting misleading advertisements

- Mohanlal resigns, AMMA panel dissolved over plaints

- Festive rivalry

- SC grants bail to Kavitha, criticises central bodies

- Bodies of two girls found hanging from tree in U.P.

- Kolkata protests take a political turn, become a turf war between BJP and the Trinamool

- New task force on hospital safety gets 400 suggestions

- After phone call with Biden, Modi discusses Ukraine trip with Putin

- Eight fishermen from T.N. held by Sri Lankan Navy, boat impounded

- SC notice to Gujarat on Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea against conviction

- BJP condemns police action against protest by Kolkata students

- EPS appears before special court in a defamation case filed by Dayanidhi Maran

- Satish Kumar named new Chairman of Railway Board

- In U-turn, Omar decides to contest polls from Ganderbal

- At Lucknow meeting, Mayawati re-elected BSP chief unanimously

- AAP got ₹45 cr. in bribe, CM promised ₹90 lakh to party nominees in Goa: CBI

- Himachal Assembly passes Bill raising marriage age for women to 21 from 18

- Have decided to trust Modi and join BJP, says Champai Soren

- JJP forges alliance with Azad’s ASP for Haryana elections

- Devendra Prasad Yadav joins Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj

- BJP names 29 more candidates for J&K polls

- Ex-members of banned Jamaat file papers

- Manjhi targets NC-Congress alliance in J&K

- Court orders release of Shabir Shah in terror funding case

- Minister to hold meeting with trade unions today

- ‘India-Brazil strategic partnership deepened and diversified over years’

- 14265

- CDSCO grants approval for making RT-PCR testing kits to detect Mpox in India

- IIL, Australian varsity develop needle-free COVID-19 vaccine

- Devotion with sincerity

- Cheetah dies in Kuno park from suspected ‘drowning’

- SGPC sends legal notice to producers of Emergency

- Heavy rain continues to lash Gujarat; IMD issues red alert

Protesters, Kolkata police clash; BJP calls bandh

Shiv Sahay Singh

Kolkata

They engage in pitched battles on roads leading to State Secretariat during ‘March to Nabanna’ Police use water cannons and tear gas to disperse crowd marching through Kolkata and Howrah Protesters throw stones back at police; 126 under arrest while 15 police personnel sustain injuries

High alert: RAF personnel attempt to disperse protesters in Howrah on Tuesday. PTISwapan Mahapatra

Violence erupted on the streets of the twin cities of Howrah and Kolkata on Tuesday during the “March to Nabanna” in which protesters demanded the resignation of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the rape and murder of a doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital. Nabanna is the State Secretariat.

For several hours, the police and protesters engaged in pitched battles. Scores of water cannons were used to disperse the crowd that marched through different roads in Howrah and Kolkata towards the Secretariat. The police fired hundreds of tear gas shells to keep the protesters away as they tried to breach the barricades. Despite widespread violence, the police prevented protesters from reaching within 100 metres of the Secretariat.

‘Police excesses’

Even though the march was called by an apolitical student group, the Paschimbango Chhatro Samaj, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership in the State called for a 12-hour Bengal bandh on Wednesday, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., for the ‘police excesses’ on the protesters. “This bandh is to protect the people of the State from an autocratic government and restore democracy in the State,” State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said.

Governor C.V. Ananda Bose said the police action on the protesters left “the national flag, national sentiments and the nation insulted”. “What we saw on the streets of Kolkata is the worst one can expect from a democratically elected government,” he said.

The State government said all measures would be taken to ensure that life remained unaffected on Wednesday. “The government will not allow any bandh on Wednesday. We urge people not to participate in it,” said Alapan Bandopadhyay, chief advisor to the Chief Minister.

Urging all government employees to attend office, Mr. Bandyopadhyay said transport services would remain operational, and shops, marketplaces and other business establishments were asked to remain open. Four Ministers of the government, led by Chandrima Bhattacharya, said that since the BJP’s plot of “getting dead bodies during the March to Nabanna” did not work as the police had exercised restraint, the party had called for a bandh so that economic activities would be affected.

Tuesday’s violence started at Santragachi in Howrah when protesters tried to breach barricades. The situation turned volatile on the Howrah Bridge and at Howrah-Maidan where protesters tried to climb over barricades. The police had fixed guard rails to the ground with cement and in certain areas, used containers to block the mob.

The protesters, which included a number of elderly people and women, regrouped and pelted stones at the police. While many were seen with banners and posters seeking justice for the victim, some were carrying the national flag. The police resorted to baton charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.

Widespread violence

In Kolkata, violence erupted near Hastings, where the police had set up barricades preventing protesters from taking the Vidyasagar Setu, a bridge across the Hooghly river, to Nabanna. Violence spilled in areas surrounding Howrah Bridge and M. G. Road where the protesters kept regrouping after police tried to disperse them. The confrontation between the police and protesters continued till the evening.

Additional Director General (South Bengal) Supratim Sarkar said the protesters went on “tandaav (rampage)” for three hours in an attempt to disrupt normal life and tried to damage public property. Mr. Sarkar said 25 persons were detained overnight and 126 persons, 103 men and 23 women, were arrested on Tuesday.

“Had we not made these preventive arrests, the situation could have been infinitely worse,” the police officer said. Mr. Sarkar said police personnel sustained injuries but exercised restraint and did not fall into the “trap” of protesters. 15 police personnel were injured, he said.

SC stays AYUSH Ministry’s notification omitting key rule prohibiting misleading advertisements

The Hindu Bureau

NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed a July 1 notification issued by the AYUSH Ministry in which Rule 170 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 was “omitted”. The Rule deals with the power to take action against objectionable or misleading advertisements about Ayurvedic, Siddha, and Unani drugs.

A Bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta told Additional Solicitor General K. Nataraj that the notification was in the teeth of a May 7 order passed by the Supreme Court in a contempt case against Patanjali Ayurved Limited, a company co-founded by yoga guru Baba Ramdev.

The May 7 order had directed the Ministry to withdraw its August 29, 2023 letter sent to drug licensing authorities across States and Union Territories informing them that Rule 170 was no longer operational on the basis of a recommendation made by the Ayurvedic, Siddha, and Unani Drugs Technical Advisory Board (ASUDTAB) to omit the provision. The Ministry had agreed to comply with the court’s order.

However, the Ministry went on to issue the July 1 notification, which did not withdraw the August 2023 letter, while omitting to bring Rule 170 back into play. “The intention of the May 7 order was to enforce Rule 170. Now, in view of this omission, any manufacturer can with impunity go around advertising its drugs,” Justice Mehta said.

‘Violation order’

Mr. Nataraj said he would file an affidavit to explain. “This flies in the teeth. No affidavit. We are quashing your notification here and now. How could you file this with an affidavit explaining it? We are really surprised. You are violating our order. This is not appreciated,” Justice Kohli noted.

In its order, the court recorded that the Centre “instead of withdrawing the letter dated August 29, 2023, for reasons best known to the Ministry, a notification dated July 1 to omit Rule 170 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 has been issued which runs contrary to directions issued by this court”.

Meanwhile, the Bench found the unconditional apology published in 20 editions of the print version of The Hindu by Indian Medical Association (IMA) president R.V. Asokan was illegible as the font was minuscule.

The IMA, which had filed the contempt case against Patanjali Ayurved, saw a reversal of fortune when the court took serious exception to remarks made by Dr. Asokan about a Supreme Court order in the case during a media interview.

Mohanlal resigns, AMMA executive panel dissolved

The Hindu Bureau

KOCHI

Members of the Women Justice Movement protest in front of the Superintendent of Police’s office in Palakkad. K.K. MustafahK K Mustafah

The executive committee of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) was on Tuesday dissolved amid growing allegations of sexual assault and misbehaviour against its members.

All the 17 members of the committee, including president and senior actor Mohanlal, have submitted their resignation after an emergency online meeting of the actors’ body decided that the committee should be disbanded over such allegations. The committee was elected in June and it had a tenure up to 2027.

Actor Joy Mathew told The Hindu that this was a unanimous decision. The decision comes two days after actor Siddique, former general secretary of the association, had resigned after actor Revathy Sampath accused him of sexually assaulting her when she had been a minor.

Moral responsibility

The committee decided to step down taking moral responsibility for the developments since the release of the K. Hema Committee report on the problems faced by women in the Malayalam film industry.

Besides Mohanlal, committee vice-presidents Jagadish and R. Jayan, treasurer Unni Mukundan, joint secretary Baburaj, and executive committee members Kalabhavan Shajon, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Joy Mathew, Suresh Krishna, Tini Tom, Ananya, Vinu Mohan, Tovino Thomas, Sarayu Mohan and Anseeba also resigned.

There were rumblings of discontent within the association as a few actors, had demanded that those facing allegations must step down from their posts.

A new executive committee is expected to be formed within two months after a general body election.

However, the existing committee will continue as an ad hoc arrangement to ensure that AMMA’s welfare measures for its members are not disrupted.

(with inputs fromThiruvananthapuram Bureau)

Festive rivalry

Sky high: Devotees help a man jump as he tries to reach the dahi handi (curd pot) suspended in the air above a water well during Janmashtami celebrations in Kurdus village near Alibaug in Raigad district of Maharashtra. EMMANUAL YOGINIEMMANUAL YOGINI

SC grants bail to Kavitha, criticises central bodies

Krishnadas Rajagopal

NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K. Kavitha’s release on bail “forthwith” in the Delhi liquor policy case, which saw high-profile arrests including of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwaldays ahead of the Lok Sabha election. A Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan accused the Central agencies of following a “pick and choose” policy on whom to be dropped and whom to be made accused.

Bodies of two girls found hanging from tree in U.P.

The Hindu Bureau

Lucknow

The bodies of two teenage girls were found hanging from a tree in a mango orchard outside Bhagautipur village in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

The girls, aged 15 and 18, left their homes in a neighbouring village on Monday evening to attend Janmashtami celebrations but did not return, the family said. “The post-mortem report matched with initial police findings and FSL findings. It is a case of suicide with no external assault or injury found on the body,” Alok Priyadarshi, Superintendent of Police, said.

Kolkata protests take a political turn, become a turf war between BJP and the Trinamool

Shrabana Chatterjee

Kolkata

The police fire tear-gas shells to disperse demonstrators protesting against the rape-murder of a doctor in Kolkata on Tuesday. APBIKAS DAS

Eighteen days after the rape and murder of a doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, the protests for justice took a political turn as the BJP called for a 12-hour bandh in the State on Wednesday following violence during a protest march to the State Secretariat on Tuesday.

Doctors and social activists who have been taking to the streets demanding justice, said they felt “cheated” as the protest had become a turf war between the Opposition BJP and the ruling Trinamool Congress.

“It is very upsetting in the sense that where was all this police [deployed to stop the marchers] when we needed them? I think we have managed to keep the movement apolitical, even after this [march]. People are looking up to us, it’s hard to maintain this but let’s see,” Hassan Mushtaq, a protesting doctor the R.G. Kar Hospital, told The Hindu.

During the build-up to the march, the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF) put out an official statement on Monday and distanced itself from it. “We have heard about the August 27 rally from media outlets. We, the people of WBJDF, want to clarify that this rally is not organised or called by us. We are not participating in this rally in any form,” it said.

Within hours of the clashes, the BJP State unit shared a post on its X handle writing, “Mamata Banerjee, do you think deploying your police force can silence West Bengal’s students? Thousands are marching to Nabanna demanding justice, yet you use police to harass peaceful protestors. Where was this police force when rapes and brutal crimes were happening?”

BJP State president Sukanta Majumdar slammed the police action on the protesters. “Why did police use force on unarmed and peaceful protesters? Even old people and women were not spared,” he said. Mr. Majumdar said many students complained that police used water laced with chemicals on them. He shared a helpline number for medical and legal aid for the protesting students. The BJP took to the streets in the evening and sat in a demonstration near Lalbazar, the Kolkata Police headquarters, demanding release of the detained protesters.

Calling the march “a plot”, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said, “People cannot randomly go and tour Nabanna, it is the State Secretariat.”

Additional Director-General (South Bengal), West Bengal Police, Supratim Sarkar saw the hand of external forces behind the protest. “No true students of West Bengal would ever do such vandalism in the name of protests. There were other forces behind it,” he said.

Analysts said the protests might have been organised with political backing. Biswanath Chakraborty, a Professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University, said the protest may have been covertly organised by the BJP. “Common people will still stay on the roads protesting for the victim,” he said.

New task force on hospital safety gets 400 suggestions

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI

The committee formed by the Supreme Court will have wider consultations on the safety of medical professionals soon; States requested to provide information on security measures taken

Students stage a protest against the rape-murder of a resident doctor at a Kolkata medical college, in Bengaluru on Monday. ANIANI

The first meeting of the National Task Force (NTF), set up to ensure the safety of medical professionals at the workplace in accordance with directions of the Supreme Court, was held on Tuesday. The members said they had been approached directly by various stakeholders and received 300 to 400 suggestions.

A national portal — created by the Health Ministry to receive suggestions from stakeholders — became operational on Tuesday. According to the Ministry, suggestions from major stakeholders and those received on the portal would be collated for further consideration of NTF members.

“Secretary (Health), along with NTF members, will have wider consultations with various major stakeholders. States have also been requested to provide information on the security measures available in medical institutions in the State,” the Ministry said.

It added that a meeting will be held on Wednesday with State Chief Secretaries and other senior officials to discuss short-term measures regarding the security of medical professionals.

Safety concerns

Earlier, representatives of the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA), Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Resident Doctors’ Associations of Governmental Medical Colleges & Hospitals of Delhi had a series of meetings with the Union Health Ministry in the aftermath of the rape and murder of a resident doctor in R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.

The associations had put forth their demands regarding concerns over the safety and security of healthcare workers at the workplace.

“The Health Ministry had then assured them of all possible efforts to ensure the security of healthcare professionals. The representatives of all the Associations were informed that the government is aware of the situation and is sensitive to their demands. It was also observed that 26 States have already passed the legislation for protection of healthcare workers in their respective States,’’ the Ministry said.

After phone call with Biden, Modi discusses Ukraine trip with Putin

Suhasini Haidar

NEW DELHI

Narendra Modi’s recent travel to Moscow and Kyiv have raised speculation that New Delhi is working on a peace initiative. ReutersGavriil Grigorov

Three days after his return from Ukraine, and a day after he “briefed” U.S. President Joseph Biden about his visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and “shared insights” from his trip to Kyiv where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to a Kremlin readout, Mr. Modi also confirmed his participation at the BRICS summit to be hosted by Mr. Putin in the Russian city of Kazan from October 22 to 24.

Mr. Modi’s recent travel to Moscow and Kyiv, and calls with Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden, have raised speculation that New Delhi is working on a peace initiative that would bring the Russian and Ukrainian leaders together for talks, but the government has not so far confirmed it.

“The two leaders exchanged views on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Prime Minister [Modi] shared insights from his recent visit to Ukraine,” the Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday about Mr. Modi’s discussions with Mr. Putin. “[Mr. Modi] underlined the importance of dialogue and diplomacy as well as sincere and practical engagement between all stakeholders to achieve an abiding and peaceful resolution of the conflict,” it added.

The readout made no specific mention of Russia’s large-scale assault on Ukraine on Monday, in which it rained approximately 200 missiles and drones on targets from Kyiv to Odesa, one of the largest such coordinated attacks during the war, which Washington condemned.

In its statement, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Mr. Modi had “informed [Mr. Putin] about his recent visit to Kiev [Kyiv], and stressed his commitment to bringing about a settlement for Ukraine by political and diplomatic means”.

It said Mr. Putin had shared his “principled assessment of the destructive policies of the Kiev [Kyiv] authorities and their Western patrons, and went on to highlight Russia’s approaches to resolving this conflict”, adding that the two leaders had discussed implementing the new economic agreements signed by India and Russia in July.

Meanwhile, the U.S. White House released its readout of the call between Mr. Modi and Mr. Biden on Monday, and said that Mr. Biden had “commended” Mr. Modi for his “historic visits to Poland and Ukraine, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in decades, and for his message of peace and ongoing humanitarian support for Ukraine, including its energy sector.” While the White House readout made no mention of a peace proposal by India, it said both leaders had affirmed their support for a peaceful resolution to the conflict on the basis of international law and the UN charter.

Ministry officials have declined to comment explicitly on whether India is playing mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.

Eight fishermen from T.N. held by Sri Lankan Navy, boat impounded

The Hindu Bureau

RAMESWARAM

Festering issue: T.N. CM M.K. Stalin pointed out that 116 fishermen and 184 boats were in Sri Lankan custody.File photo L. Balachandar

Eight fishermen from Rameswaram and Thangachimadam in Tamil Nadu were arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy on charges of poaching in the early hours of Tuesday. A mechanised boat was impounded.

The arrested persons were reportedly fishing in the waters between Dhanushkodi and Talaimannar when the Sri Lankan naval personnel captured them and took them to Mannar district.

Tamil Nadu Fisheries Department officials said that 430 tokens were issued and nearly 2,500 fishermen had ventured into the sea on Monday.

Leaders from the fishing community in the State condemned the fishermen’s arrest and demanded that the Union government intervene and bring them home.

With elections fast approaching in Sri Lanka, government had stepped up surveillance, particularly on the Palk Bay, as the fishermen in the Northern Province had raised concerns about poaching, the authorities said.

CM writes to Centre

In the wake of the fishermen’s arrest, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Tuesday wrote to Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar, urging him to secure the release of all fishermen arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy along with their boats.

Mr. Stalin pointed out that 116 fishermen and 184 boats were in Sri Lankan custody. “The alarming recurrence of such incidents has caused immense distress to the families of the fishermen, and exacerbated the livelihood problems faced by Indian fishermen,” he said in his letter.

Three fishers attacked

Meanwhile, three fishermen from Nagapattinam district were allegedly assaulted by a group of nine persons, suspected to be Sri Lankan nationals, while they were fishing on Monday. They were allegedly robbed of their fishing gear and other belongings, Coastal Security Group (CSG) sources said.

The fishermen, S. Thangadurai, 55, T. Manikanda Prabhu, 25, and T. Gangadharan, 38, from the coastal village of Serudhur, had set sail on a fibre boat on Monday.

They were fishing around 15 nautical miles east off the Kodiakarai coast at 5.30 p.m. when the other group intercepted their boat and allegedly assaulted them.

The group allegedly took away one of the boat’s engines, a GPS gadget, a mobile phone, a walkie-talkie, a battery, around 200 kg of fish, and fishing gear, CSG sources said.

The fishermen managed to return to Serudhur on Tuesday, and narrated the incident to the CSG personnel.

While Mr. Prabhu sustained a minor injury on his left thigh, the others showed no signs of external injury. The fishermen were sent to the Nagapattinam Government Hospital for examination, CSG personnel said.

SC notice to Gujarat on Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea against conviction

Press Trust of India

New Delhi

Sanjiv Bhatt VIJAY SONEJI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the Gujarat government’s response on former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea against his conviction in a 1990 custodial death case in which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

“Issue notice returnable in four weeks,” a Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B. Varale said. The court also tagged the appeal with other matters related to the case.

Bhatt has moved the top court challenging the Gujarat High Court’s January 9 order dismissing his appeal. The court also upheld the conviction of Bhatt and co-accused Pravinsinh Zala under Sections 302, 323 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code.

Plea dismissed

The High Court had dismissed the State government’s appeal seeking to enhance the sentences of five other accused who were acquitted of murder but convicted under Sections 323 and 506.

While Bhatt and Zala are behind bars, the court cancelled the bail bonds of the five other accused who are out of jail.

Bhatt and Zala, both police officers, were convicted for murder by Jamnagar sessions court on June 20, 2019.

He is also an accused in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots cases along with activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat Director General of Police R.B. Sreekumar.

BJP condemns police action against protest by Kolkata students

The Hindu Bureau

NEW DELHI

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday condemned the police action against students protesting in Kolkata demanding justice in the case involving the rape and murder of a doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital. Calling West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee a “dictator”, the party accused her of shielding the perpetrators of the heinous crime.

“The images of police high-handedness from Kolkata have angered every person who values democratic principles. In Didi’s West Bengal, to help rapists and criminals is valued but it is a crime to speak for women’s safety,” BJP president J.P. Nadda posted on X.

Speaking at a press conference, BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said Constitutional institutions, including the Supreme Court, the Kolkata High Court, and the West Bengal Governor, had made serious remarks on the lax functioning of the government in the State. The High Court had said the State machinery had failed. He said the Chief Minister should side with the peaceful protesters who were asking for justice in accordance with the Constitution rather than “shielding and protecting perpetrators of crime just because they have affiliation” with the Trinamool Congress.

The BJP has also demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into an alleged ‘Hi-tech Defence and Aerospace Park’ scam in the allocation of five acres of land to a trust purportedly run by the family of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in Karnataka.

EPS appears before court in defamation case filed by DMK MP

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Tuesday appeared before the special court for exclusive trial of cases related to elected representatives, in connection with a defamation case filed by DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran.

Mr. Maran filed the complaint seeking punishment for Mr. Palaniswami, for defaming his service to the people of the Central Chennai constituency by stating that he had not spent his MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) funds. The complainant said Mr. Palaniswami had made the defamatory speech while campaigning for DMDK candidate Parthasarathy on April 15 at Purasawalkam.

Taking his complaint on file, the court had ordered the issuance of summons to Mr. Palaniswami. Complying with the order, the AIADMK leader, accompanied by his lawyers, appeared before G. Jayavelu, Assistant Sessions Judge, Additional Special Court for Trial of Cases related to MPs and MLAs in Singaravelar Maligai.

Denying all charges, Mr. Palaniswami filed a petition seeking to dispense with his personal appearance in further hearings of the case on grounds of ill health. The judge adjourned further hearing to September 19.

Satish Kumar named new Chairman of Railway Board

The Hindu Bureau

New Delhi

Satish Kumar

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) approved the appointment of Satish Kumar as the Chairman and CEO of Railway Board on Tuesday.

Mr. Kumar will assume charge from September 1, till the date of his superannuation and his re-employment on a contract basis, from January 1 till August 31, 2025, said the DoPT notification.

In U-turn, Omar decides to contest polls from Ganderbal

The Hindu Bureau

Srinagar

NC vice-president had earlier vowed not to contest Assembly election till restoration of Statehood ; he says the seat-sharing arrangement with Congress is to take on the BJP as a consolidated front

Major decision: National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah after filing the nomination papers on Tuesday.IMRAN NISSAR

The seat-sharing between the National Conference (NC) and the Congress has been done with the aim of taking on the BJP as a consolidated front in the Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), NC vice-president Omar Abdullah said on Tuesday.

Making a U-turn from his earlier stated position that he would not contest the election until Statehood is restored to J&K, the party included his name on the list of 32 candidates.

Mr. Abdullah will contest the Ganderbal seat, which he represented from 2009 to 2014 when he was the Chief Minister of the NC-Congress coalition government.

Speaking to presspersons at Bijbehara, Mr. Abdullah said, “The seat-sharing agreement with the Congress has been done. The effort was to raise a consolidated front against the BJP and its supporting parties and contest election against them and increase the chances of success further.”

‘Good decision’

Speaking about the alliance with the Congress, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah said in a coalition, the constituents had to accommodate each other so that they can form a government that will address people’s problems.

“We believe that the final decision taken by the coalition was a very good one. God willing, the coalition will be successful and will form the government here which will try to address the problems faced by the people,” NC chief told presspersons in Awantipora of Pulwama district.

The Assembly polls are being held in J&K after a gap of 10 years and for the first time since abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Tuesday was the last day of filing nominations for the 24 seats that go to the polls in the first phase on September 18.

The second phase of polling is on September 25 and the last phase is on October 1.

Counting will take place on October 4.

The Congress also announced nine candidates including two former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chiefs, Ghulam Ahmad Mir and Vikar Rasool Wani. Mr. Mir, who is contesting the Dooru Assembly seat in Anantnag district, filed his nomination.

He said parties that were part of the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance but did not join the Congress-NC alliance may not be willing to fight the BJP.

(With PTI inputs)

At Lucknow meeting, Mayawati re-elected BSP chief unanimously

The Hindu Bureau

Lucknow

BSP Chief Mayawati and party national coordinator Akash Anand arriving for the central executive committee meeting. ANI

Mayawati has been unanimously re-elected the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) national president at a special meeting here on Tuesday. Akash Anand, BSP’s national coordinator and Ms. Mayawati’s nephew, was given responsibilities in poll-bound States.

Ms. Mayawati thanked the party for giving her responsibility, and added that despite recent electoral defeats, the BSP is pursuing the goal of ‘Bahujan Hitaye and Bahujan Sukhaye’.

“I am once again unanimously elected as the national president of the BSP and I also thank from my heart all the people who congratulated me from every corner of the country for this. We are ready to make any sacrifice for the humanitarian mission of Dalit, tribal and OBC communities, through the BSP movement,” she said.

The event was attended by the BSP central executive committee, senior office-bearers at both national and State levels and representatives from across the country, a statement said.

On electoral setbacks

“Moreover, despite electoral reverses, the BSP is not disappointed. It is stoutly pursuing the goal and welfare principle of ‘Bahujan Hitaye and Bahujan Sukhaye’ (progress and prosperity of bahujans) on the strength of the bahujan samaj of all the exploited, oppressed poor and toiling masses,” the statement added.

BSP founder Kanshi Ram had declared Mayawati as his political successor more than two decades ago. She was elected the party president for the first time in 2003.

Mr. Anand, the heir apparent, said that under Ms. Mayawati’s guidance, youths will take the BSP’s movement forward.

“In the meeting of the National Executive of BSP, respected Mayawati ji was unanimously re-elected as the National President. The work done by Behenji (Mayawati) during her four terms in office for the interest and welfare of the Bahujan Samaj is an example in itself. Under your leadership, the self-respect and self-esteem movement of BSP will be established with more intensity throughout India. Under your guidance, we youth will take this movement forward with full hard work,” Mr. Anand wrote on social media platform X.

The BSP, a Dalit-centric party, remained a formidable player in the political landscape of Uttar Pradesh and formed the government in the State on its own in 2007 by winning 206 out of 403 seats in the election. But it has witnessed a sharp decline over the last decade.

It lost vote share and polled only 9.39% votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, failing to win a single seat. In the 2009 Lok Sabha, the BSP had polled 27.42% votes winning 20 seats.

AAP got ₹45 cr. in bribe, CM promised ₹90 lakh to party nominees in Goa: CBI

The Hindu Bureau

NEW DELHI

More charges: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the CBI in June this year in the liquor policy case. PTIRahul Devesh _11996@Delhi

The Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday told a court here that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had promised to pay ₹90 lakh to each of the 40 candidates of his party in the 2021 Goa Assembly election.

The amount, which was supposed to be used as campaigning fund by the AAP nominees, was provided by the “South Group” in exchange for the favours granted to it by the Delhi government through the now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22, the agency claimed.

Mr. Kejriwal was arrested by the CBI in June this year in a case based on the complaint of Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena, alleging multiple irregularities in the implementation of the liquor policy.

The court scheduled the next hearing for September 3. It also extended the AAP chief’s judicial custody by a week.

In a statement issued later in the day, the AAP alleged that the BJP “through its agencies, continues to concoct unsubstantiated stories” with the sole aim to “manage headlines”.

“All corrupt politicians of the country have joined the BJP. However, the security deposits of all its candidates will be forfeited in the upcoming elections,” it read.

Additional chargesheet

The submissions were made by the CBI during the hearing of the arguments for the consideration of the fourth supplementary chargesheet in which Mr. Kejriwal and five other persons, including AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak, businessman Amit Arora, and Aurobindo Pharma director P. Sarath Reddy, have been named.

“The entire bribe money, amounting to ₹45 crore against the favours given to them in the excise policy, was sent to AAP and spent as per the wish of Arvind Kejriwal,” said senior advocate and Special Public Prosecutor D.P. Singh.

Mr. Singh added that Vijay Nair, the former communications in-charge of the AAP, negotiated the deal with the “South Group” and that the instructions for the election-related expenditure were shared by Mr. Pathak, who was in charge of the Assembly election.

The CBI also told the court that the agency required no further investigation into the matter and was ready for the trial.

Himachal Assembly passes Bill raising marriage age for women to 21 from 18

Vikas Vasudeva

CHANDIGARH

1 of 2

2 of 2 We are the first State to enact legislation to increase the marriage age of girls. The Congress has always been at the forefront to work towards the betterment of women Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu Chief Minister

The Himachal Pradesh Assembly on Tuesday passed a Bill increasing the minimum age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 in order to support equality and higher education.

The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Himachal Pradesh Amendment) Bill, 2024 was introduced by Women Empowerment Minister Dhani Ram Shandil. The Bill was passed by voice vote. It states that the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 was enacted to prohibit solemnisation of child marriage and matters related to it.

“In today’s world the women are progressing in every field. The early marriages, however, act as a hindrance not only in the progress of their career but also in their physical development. In order to provide for gender equality and opportunities of obtaining higher education, it has become necessary to increase the minimum age of marriage for the girls. Thus, it is proposed to amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 and other related Acts in their application to the State of Himachal Pradesh and increase the minimum age for marriage for girls to 21 years,” the Bill states.

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu told The Hindu the Bill clearly showed the intent of the government to focus on serving the best interests of women. “We are the first State in the country to enact the legislation to increase the marriage age of girls to 21. The Congress has always been at the forefront to work towards the betterment of women,” he said.

Have decided to trust Modi and join BJP, says Champai Soren

The Hindu Bureau

Patna

Champai Soren, former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, announced on Tuesday that he has placed his “trust in Prime Minister Narendra Modi” and decided to join the BJP.

The announcement puts an end to days of speculation about the move. Mr. Champai, who is still an MLA of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, is yet to quit his Cabinet post.

Late on Monday, Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP’s Jharkhand election co-incharge and Assam Chief Minister, had announced that Mr. Champai would join the BJP on Friday. Mr. Sarma also shared a photo of Mr. Soren and him meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

On August 18, Mr. Champai had posted on X that on several occasions, he was insulted and humiliated by JMM when he served as Chief Minister for a brief period. Mr. Champai was removed from the post after Chief Minister Hemant Soren walked out of jail last month, and his frustration seemed to be directed at the latter.

Talking to presspersons in Delhi, Mr. Champai said, “The situation of Jharkhand is totally different now and after thinking deeply, I have decided to trust Modi ji and my trust on Amit Shah too has increased. Therefore, I have decided to join the BJP. My struggle for Jharkhand is as clear as a mirror and I do not pay attention to what others say about me.”

Sources said that Mr. Champai will return to Ranchi from New Delhi on Wednesday. He will resign from all posts on Wednesday.

JJP forges alliance with Azad’s ASP for Haryana elections

The Hindu Bureau

New Delhi

Joining hands: JJP chief Dushyant Chautala and ASP chief Chandra Shekhar Azad in New Delhi on Tuesday. SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

Ahead of the coming Assembly election, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) on Tuesday announced the decision to forge a pre-poll alliance in Haryana.

Speaking to presspersons here, JJP chief Dushyant Chautala, a former ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the State, said the alliance will be guided by the vision of the State’s tallest Jat leader and his great grandfather, Chaudhary Devi Lal, and Dalit icon Kanshi Ram. “With this alliance, we’ll take Haryana forward,” the former Deputy Chief Minister said.

The elections to the 90- member Haryana Assembly will be held on October 1. After the previous Assembly election, the BJP had formed the government in the State with the support of the 10 JJP MLAS.

With a 70-20 seat share for the JJP and the ASP, respectively, the parties are eyeing “the poor, farmers, local shop owners, women, and younger generations,” ASP chief Chandra Shekhar Aazad said.

Devendra Prasad Yadav joins Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj

Devendra Prasad Yadav, veteran socialist leader and former Rahstriya Janata Dal MP, on Tuesday joined Jan Suraaj, a political organisation in Bihar spearheaded by former election-strategist-cum-political activist Prashant Kishor. Jan Suraaj is likely to be a formed as a party on October 2 in Patna. Mr. Kishor had earlier announced that Jan Suraaj would contest all 243 seats in Bihar in the Assembly election scheduled to be held in October- November 2025.

BJP names 29 more candidates for J&K polls

The Hindu Bureau

SRINAGAR

The BJP on Tuesday named 29 more candidates for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election, taking to 45 the number of seats for which it has announced its nominees.

The party has fielded Devender Singh Rana from Nagrota and named Satish Sharma as its candidate from Billawar, which was won by former Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh in the 2014 election.

The BJP has made one change from the now-rescinded list, which was put out on Monday, as it has named Baldev Raj Sharma from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi seat in place of Rohit Dubey. All other names are same for the same set of constituencies in the list announced on Monday before being withdrawn. The latest list has 10 candidates for the second phase of polls and 19 for the third phase. It has not named a nominee for Nowshera.

(With PTI inputs)

Ex-members of banned Jamaat file papers

Press Trust of India

Srinagar

Several former members of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami J&K on Tuesday filed nomination papers to contest the Assembly polls as Independent candidates.

Sugra Barkati, daughter of jailed separatist worker Sarjan Barkati, also filed papers on behalf of her father. While Jamaat cannot take part in the elections due to the ban imposed on it by the Home Ministry, it had shown interest in participating in the polls during the Lok Sabha elections if the ban were removed. It has not taken part in any polls after 1987 and had been a part of separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference, which advocated for poll boycotts from 1993 to 2003.

“In view of the prevalent geopolitical scenario, I felt that time had come for us to take part in the political process,” Talat Majeed, former ameer of Jamaat, said. He filed his papers from Pulwama.

Manjhi targets NC-Congress alliance in J&K

The Hindu Bureau

Patna

Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Tuesday targeted the National Conference-Congress alliance in J&K. He said if the two parties form the government in the Union Territory, they will “merge Kashmir with Pakistan”. He said they wanted to reintroduce Article 370 in J&K.

On Monday, Mr. Manjhi posted on X that the Congress can form an alliance with Pakistan and Hizbul Mujahideen to win the election in Kashmir.

“Congress has joined hands with Farooq Abdullah. It knows what the customs and policies of the Abdullahs. It has become clear that the Congress wants to bring back Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. All these people are against Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes,” Mr. Manjhi said in Gaya.

Court orders release of Shabir Shah in terror funding case

A Delhi court on Tuesday ordered the release of Kashmiri separatist Shabir Shah, accused in a money laundering case related to alleged terror funding in Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. Shah will continue to remain in jail in two other cases lodged against him by the NIA and the ED. Noting that Mr. Shah has already undergone incarnation of seven years which is the maximum punishment for the offence he is accused of, the court ordered his release on Tuesday.

Minister to hold meeting with trade unions today

A.M. Jigeesh

New Delhi

Centre leaves out INTUC and TUCC from the meet; it may discuss implementation of the ELI, UPS; however, unions have decided to oppose those discussions; Labour Codes may also be on agenda

Union members under the banner of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation stage a protest for the restoration of the OPS. FILE PHOTOANI

Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has invited all Central trade unions (CTUs) for an “introductory meeting” on Wednesday, in which issues such as the implementation of the Employment Linked Incentive (ELI) announced in the Union Budget and the implementation of the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) are likely to come up.

Ten unions in the Opposition camp have sent a letter to Mr. Mandaviya objecting to the Centre’s decision not to invite the Congress-backed Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and the Trade Union Coordination Centre (TUCC) of the All India Forward Bloc for the meeting.

The unions have also decided to oppose any discussions on the ELI and the UPS in the meeting.

‘Never discussed’

Talking to The Hindu, senior trade union leader Amarjeet Kaur said the ELI scheme was never discussed with the trade unions.

“The Centre has announced it in the Budget without any discussion. So we do not know why the Labour Minister wants to discuss a scheme that has already been implemented,” Ms. Kaur said adding that the decision not to invite INTUC and TUCC is a continuation of the unilateral behaviour the Centre has been showing.

Mr. Mandaviya had started meeting the trade unions after taking over charge of the Labour Ministry. It is for the first time that he has convened a meeting of all trade unions. He is also keen to get the consent of unions on implementing the four Labour Codes. The announcement of the UPS had also invited criticism from the unions. They, including the Sangh Parivar’s trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), has raised doubts over the continuation of contribution from the government employees under the UPS too.

The INTUC, protesting the Centre’s stand of leaving it out from the meetings, said it will try to forge unity among all trade unions on issues such as UPS and restoration of the old pension scheme.

“The Centre has been claiming that India is becoming an economic world power. If that is the case, why the Centre needs a contribution from poor employees to give them pension,” INTUC national vice-president R. Chandrasekharan asked.

Mr. Chandrasekharan said the UPS was neither discussed in Parliament nor with trade unions, and the unions had opposed it. “There are certain nuances such as increasing the minimum pension or assuring 50% of the basic as pension which some of us may approve. But the fact that UPS is still a contributory pension scheme will not be approved by any employee,” he said adding that pension is a right for an employee who rendered his or her service for the development of the country and pension acts as a security at the time of old age. “All social supportive systems are purposefully dismantled by this government. Their concept of economic policy is totally anti-labour,” he said.

‘India-Brazil strategic partnership deepened and diversified over years’

Press Trust of India

New Delhi

Close partners: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira in New Delhi on Tuesday. ANIANI

The India-Brazil strategic partnership has “deepened and diversified” over the years and now spans a very wide range of domains, including defence, space, security, technology and people-to-people relations, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Tuesday.

In his opening remarks at the ninth India-Brazil Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) in Delhi, Mr. Jaishankar congratulated the Latin American country for conducting the G-20 meetings successfully and, also on the first Ministerial consensus document released during a key meeting.

“I would like to reiterate India’s full support to the Brazilian G-20 presidency and also recall that we got your fullest support during our own presidency. We appreciate various unique initiatives centred on the theme of building a just world and a sustainable planet,” he said.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who arrived here on August 25, said in his opening remarks that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be glad to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G-20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro in November.

Brazil is currently the chair of the influential bloc. The G-20 presidency was relayed to Brazil by India last year.

Mr. Jaishankar, in his address, welcomed his Brazilian counterpart and the delegation and said he looks forward to a “very productive Joint Commission Meeting”.

“Our strategic partnership, which was established in 2006, has deepened and diversified over the years,” he said. India and Brazil have a “substantial bilateral trade basket” and it has by and large gone up, adding that in the last year, “we have had some challenges” and that is something he looks forward to discuss with Mr. Vieira, he said.

Mr. Vieira said Brazil and India, as “vibrant and multi-ethnic democracies” from the developing world, represent a “positive drive” to international affairs. “Both our governments work towards achieving sustainable development and prosperity for our societies. We hold a common view on many pressing issues on the global agenda,” he said.

(set by Saral)

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4 of 4 Scan to play

Across

7 Refuse to assume position? That's stupidity (7)

8 Staff bringing back grain for animal (6)

9 Abandon wasteland (6)

10 Record by one medic about plague, say (8)

11 Loyalty, for example in partnership (10)

13 Carry short tribal emblem (4)

14 From the beginning jokingly express sarcastic thoughts (4)

16 Times carrying insignificant post on social media (5)

18 Browse online - mostly accurate and fine (4)

19 Opening of competition without introduction (4)

21 Shout following others against a union eatery (10)

23 Engineer searches estates (8)

25 Guards covering royal courses (6)

26 Zambians initially playing their instrument (6)

27 Government official in predicament over operations primarily (7)

Down

1 It's shocking. Corrupt enticed, trapped nationalist (8)

2 Firm headed by Indian director is coming up in region (8)

3 Often they opted for publicity (4)

4 Aspire crazily for compliment (6)

5 Missing dancing beats, tunes essentially (6)

6 Disturbing letters from assassin is terrifying (8)

7 Settle daughter properly (5)

12 State presses demands (5)

15 Critical examination of six geese is arranged (8)

17 Miscreants' property and gold seized at first (8)

18 Doctors and force aboard ship (8)

20 Tap with epee's tip to acknowledge hit in fencing (6)

21 Saint taking time for turning prayer beads (6)

22 Notice institute checking near the bottom (5)

24 Take out a piece of nut from refreshment bag (4)

CDSCO grants approval for making RT-PCR testing kits to detect Mpox in India

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

New Delhi

The Union Health Ministry said the approval for the testing kit was given last week. Vikram Goud G 2104@Hyderabad

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has granted approval to Siemens Healthineers for the manufacture of RT-PCR testing kits for detection of Mpox, a senior Health Ministry official said on Tuesday.

The kits will be manufactured by the company’s molecular diagnostics manufacturing unit in Vadodara, with a production capacity of one million a year.

With the RT-PCR kits, the test results will be available in 40 minutes, which is significantly faster than traditional methods. This will help reduce the turnaround time for reporting, leading to quicker responses, the company said.

“The IMDX Monkeypox Detection RT-PCR Assay is a molecular diagnostic test that targets two distinct regions in the viral genome, spanning both clade I and clade II variants of the virus. This ensures thorough detection across various viral strains, providing comprehensive results. This assay is platform-agnostic and seamlessly fits into existing lab workflows with standard PCR setups, eliminating the need for new instruments. The ability to use existing COVID testing infrastructure would enhance the efficiency,’’ Hariharan Subramanian, managing director, Siemens Healthcare, said.

“By providing India with advanced assay kits tailored to combat Mpox, we are taking a proactive stance in battling this disease and prioritising prompt and precise detection that can truly make a difference in saving lives,’’ he added.

Clinically validated by the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Virology, Pune, the assay boasts 100% sensitivity and specificity.

The Union Health Ministry said the approval for the kit was given last week.

IIL, Australian varsity develop needle-free COVID-19 vaccine

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

The Hyderabad-headquartered vaccine manufacturer Indian Immunologicals Ltd (IIL), in partnership with Griffith University, Australia has developed a needle-free intranasal booster vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, a press release from the company has said.

The company said the live-attenuated booster has been developed using “codon de-optimisation” technology. Its work on this vaccine has been published in the science journal Nature Communications.

According to the press release, codon de-optimisation involves decreasing the frequency of under-represented codon pairs (genetic determinants for amino acids) without changing the amino acid sequences. This method, the release said, is an efficient virus attenuation strategy, where the degree of attenuation can be regulated as required. It is extremely safe and takes less time than the conventional way of attenuating viruses, which usually takes several years, the release said.

K. Anand Kumar, managing director, Indian Immunologicals Ltd., said, “This accomplishment signifies a major step forward in our battle against COVID-19. We are enthusiastic about the codon de-optimisation technology, and its use in targeted attenuation of microorganisms to be used as vaccine candidates.”

Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda told the Lok Sabha earlier this month that two strains, namely KP.1 and KP.2, were responsible for the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in India.

He said these strains evolved from the JN1 Omicron variant and were highly transmissible, and while there has been no associated increase in hospitalisations or severe cases reported thus far, both strains are being monitored.

As of December 2023, a total of 220.67 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered across the country. However, only 22.88 crore precautionary or booster doses have been administered across the country among the eligible adult population.

Devotion with sincerity

God likes simplicity, and it is simple to worship Him. What He expects from us is an unremitting devotion. Valayapettai Sri Ramachariar said in a discourse that Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that whoever offers Him with true devotion, a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or some water (patram, pushpam, phalam, Ttoyam — Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9, Verse 26), He accepts the same with all delight.

Untainted devotion

The verse tells the order of leaf, flower, and fruit, as in a plant’s natural growth. If any of these are not available, even water can be offered. These are presumed readily available. What is essential is an untainted devotion and not vain showmanship.

Draupadi offered a leaf. The elephant Gajendra submitted a lotus. With all humility, Sabari gave fruits, and Acharya Sri Ramanuja fetched water for His poojas.

He is the refuge for all. Those who worship Him with devotion abide in Him, and He abides in them. He does not differentiate by birth, form, nature or knowledge. No one is discarded as an object of odium. He does not distinguish or exercise any partiality between high or low, poor or rich, learned or uneducated, handsome or ugly, tall or short.

Lord Krishna said He was warm-hearted with Akrura and disgusted with Kamsa. Pandavas were His life air, and Duryodhana was His foe. The prime reason was that Pandavas were affectionate towards the Lord and His devotees, while Duryodhana and his men were hateful to Him.

Cheetah dies in Kuno park from suspected ‘drowning’

One more cheetah, Pavan, has died, forest officials from Madhya Pradesh confirmed on Tuesday. This is the eighth cheetah, part of the 20 brought from South Africa and Namibia, to have died in India. While cheetahs have died from a variety of causes, the latest is an unusual instance of an animal dying from ‘drowning.’ “...Male cheetah Pawan was found lying near the edge of a nalah [drain] amidst bushes without any movement. Vets were informed and on closer inspection, it was found that the front half of the body including head was inside the water,” said a press note from forest officials.

SGPC sends legal notice to producers of

The Hindu Bureau

CHANDIGARH

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the body responsible for the management of historical gurdwaras, has sent a legal notice to the producers of actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut’s upcoming movie, Emergency, alleging misrepresentation of the history of Sikhs, and has demanded the removal of objectionable scenes that it asserted have hurt Sikh sentiments.

A public interest litigation petition was filed seeking a revocation of the certificate of the movie for its public release.

In the notice, the producers of the movie have been asked to seek an apology from the Sikh community.

Heavy rain continues to lash Gujarat; IMD issues red alert

Heavy downpour continued to batter Gujarat on Tuesday. Around 15 people have died in rain related incidents since Sunday while more than 23,000 people have been shifted to safety. While 2,000 were rescued or evacuated by different agencies from the affected districts, 11 persons are missing in rain related accidents across the State. The Centre on Tuesday allotted six columns of the Army which have been deployed in the worst affected districts of Vadodara, Kheda, Anand, Morbi, Devbhumi Dwarka, and Rajkot. Several districts received record breaking rainfall on Tuesday with India Meteorological Department (IMD) issuing red alert for as many as 28 districts for the next two days.

Regional

- The invisible lives of sanitation workers who clean Mumbai’s drains to keep them functional

- Case against contractor, structural consultant over collapse of Shivaji statue

- Badlapur hearing: HC asks govt. to constitute panel for gender sensitisation of boys

- BSP in Tamil Nadu raises objection to flag unveiled by actor Vijay for his new party

- Bittu, Kurian enter Rajya Sabha, Kiran Choudhry also elected

- Prime accused in M.P. police station attack case arrested

- H.P. House adopts resolution to condemn actor’s remarks

- Bombay HC judge recuses from hearing Waze’s plea

- Kerala SIT gears up to probe sexual abuse in film industry

- Dwindling chilli prices and stiff competition force farmers to cut down cultivation in Andhra Pradesh

- Getting into the field

- SC grants bail to Kavitha, questions fairness of probe

- Court allows to shift Darshan to Ballari jail Darshan to be shifted to Ballari prison

- SC asks Kerala to give details of witnesses in 2017 actor assault case

- SC differs with Delhi HC’s reasoning on granting bail to BRS leader

- A.P. Ministers to hold first paperless meeting today

- Premium liquor prices come down in Karnataka

- In a formal gesture, Pinarayi meets Prime Minister

- Malayalam filmmaker M. Mohan passes away

- It’s blackmail tactics against me: Mukesh

- ‘Allegations are media fabrications’

The invisible lives of sanitation workers who clean Mumbai’s drains to keep them functional

Snehal Mutha

Mumbai

A seasonal sanitation worker desilting the stormwater drains in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Snehal Mutha9165

Shankara Colony, a slum in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar, serves as a temporary home to thousands of seasonal sanitation workers who travel from remote areas of Maharashtra to take part in the yearly ritual of desilting the stormwater drains before the dreaded monsoon arrives.

Squatting on the footpath adjacent to the slum, Laxman Kale, 55, says they do whatever is asked of them. “We do all that we are told to do. That could be cleaning drains, getting into nullahs, climbing down manholes — whatever the job requires.”

The cleaning of the 2,200-km-long drain network, which consists of both major and minor nullahs, was recommended by the Madhav Chitale committee after the calamitous 2005 Mumbai floods and falls under the ambit of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). It involves the removal of mud deposits carried by nullahs, and waterbodies like the Mithi river, which flows through Mumbai’s suburbs.

This year, the BMC has allocated ₹243 crore and appointed 31 agencies to oversee the desilting process. But the real work, typically done from March to May by 4,000-odd sanitation workers who are hired by the agencies through contractors, can be potentially fatal.

“The migrants are asked to get into drains where sewer water is present. They clean it with their bare hands, but all of this goes unnoticed, because manual scavenging in stormwater drains is not recognised,” says Shubham Kothari, member of Mumbai-based NGO Loktantrik Kamgar Union.

He explains that the city has failed to separate its sewers from stormwater drains, which, as per Section 239 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, should not be connected in the first place. This causes the waste from public toilets and septic tanks to be discharged into the main drain, leaving the workers to deal with toilet sludge.

Thin line

“The government calls the migrants ‘seasonal sanitation workers’ to get around the ban on manual scavenging, and when deaths happen, the government never acknowledges them,” Mr. Kothari says, adding that the workers’ issues remain largely unaddressed due to the transitory nature of the job.

Cleaning sewers and drains comes under the purview of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (PEMSR). According to the Act, employing any person for the “hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks” is a punishable offence, entitling the worker to various forms of rehabilitation, including cash assistance.

Workers’ unions have been demanding that the BMC declare all stormwater drains and rivers as sewer lines so as to be able to add the sanitation workers to the list of manual scavengers and entitle them to rehabilitation.

But the BMC has denied that these workers could be classified as manual scavengers. “BMC issues tenders for desilting work. We have instructed contractors not to let workers enter drains and tanks, and follow all safety rules, such as wearing gloves and boots, but if they don’t listen to us, what can we do?” says BMC Additional Commissioner Sudhakar Shinde.

Unforgiving work

Mr. Kale says that his source of income keeps changing through the year. From September to February, he and his wife work as sugarcane cutters in the village of Kherawadi in Parbhani district, earning about ₹60,000 for six months of work.

They then migrate to Mumbai until May, cleaning drains for about ₹30,000 each, return to their hometown for the remaining three months of the year with barely any savings, which they will use for subsistence farming, covering healthcare expenses, and maintaining their home.

The couple has been coming to Mumbai for the last 20 years, sometimes bringing along their son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. Together they earn about ₹800 a day cleaning the drains. Mr. Kale, who gets inside the drains, earns ₹450, while his wife receives ₹350 to collect and transfer waste.

Never-ending cycle

Both Mr. Kale and Ms. Sakubai hail from the lowest rung of the caste hierarchy, restricting their job opportunities.Theircircumstances have forced generations offamilies into a never-ending cycle of doing the same work.

Fifteen-year-old Kavita Kale, for instance, follows in her mother Sakubai’s footsteps, unclogging the arteries of the city. She was born in the slum of Ghatkopar andaspires to becomea nurse. Chinnapoorna Kale, 13, too assists his father Rustom Kale, getting paid ₹300every dayto clean drains.

Children like Kavita and Chinnapoorna, and many others in the slum pockets, work as daily wagers when they are not attending school.

According to a 2022 report by the Rehabilitation Research Initiative and South Asian Labour Network, Maharashtra is home to 12,562 child labourers, the highest number in India. Of these, most boys aged 8-13 are employed as manhole cleaning assistants.

Sanitation activist Pragya Akhilesh says the generational curse will never be broken if no proper tracking is done. “When there is no record of a person’s existence, anyone can make them do anything. Trafficked children are also used for this work, but without records, nothing can be proved,” she says.

Case against contractor, structural consultant over collapse of Shivaji statue

Abhinay Deshpande

Mumbai

PWD had flagged rusting nuts and bolts as a threat to the statue’s stability , but the concerns were ignored; Navy deputes team; Fadnavis says Maharashtra govt. will install bigger statue at the spot

File picture of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Sindhudurg in 2023.

A case has been registered against the contractor and structural consultant whose services were sought for raising the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue at Rajkot Fort in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg, which collapsed on Monday, eight months after its unveiling by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Opposition parties have targeted the State government saying the statue was installed in haste before the Lok Sabha election. They pointed out that while the forts built by Shivaji Maharaj have stood strong for centuries, the statue unveiled by the PM, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, has crumbled.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut alleged a scam, quipping that even Aurangzeb and the Mughals did not insult Shivaji Maharaj in such a manner. “We need the resignation of the Chief Minister for hurting the feelings of [the people of] Maharashtra. PWD Minister Ravindra Chavan should be sacked. They did not even spare Shivaji Maharaj and indulged in graft,” he added.

Meanwhile, Indian Navy officials said a team has been deputed, along with the Maharashtra government and specialists, to investigate the cause of the collapse and initiate steps to repair, restore and reinstate the statue. “The Indian Navy notes with deep concern the damage caused to the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj that was unveiled on Navy Day on December 4, 2023,” the Navy said.

Collusion, fraud

Following a complaint lodged by the PWD, which alleged poor construction quality, with rusted nuts and bolts discovered in the structure, a case was registered against contractor Jaydeep Apte and structural consultant Chetan Patil. They were booked under several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for collusion, fraud and endangering public safety.

The 35-foot statue collapsed around 1 p.m. on Monday. Though no one was injured, a portion of the fort was damaged. The officials told police that despite multiple warnings, including an alert from the assistant engineer of the Malvan division of the PWD on August 20, preventive measures were not taken.

Mr. Fadnavis said the Navy built the statue, but the State government has now decided to install a bigger statue at the same place. “The construction of the statue was not overseen by the State government but by the Navy. The individuals responsible for the fabrication and installation of the statue might have overlooked important local factors, such as high wind speed and the quality of the iron used. The statue might have become more prone to rust due to its exposure to ocean winds,” he said.

Badlapur hearing: HC asks govt. to constitute panel for gender sensitisation of boys

The Hindu Bureau

Mumbai

We talk about victims but don’t convey to the boys what is wrong and what is right. The committee needs to work on changing the mindset of boys at a young age Bombay HC Bench

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday raised grave concerns over lapses in the implementation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and asked for a committee to be constituted for gender sensitisation of boys in schools.

Hearing a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) in the sexual assault case of two four-year-old girls in Badlapur town of Maharashtra’s Thane district, a Division Bench of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice Prithviraj K. Chavan asked Advocate General Birendra Saraf for State to submit names for the panel.

“We talk about victims but don’t convey to the boys what is wrong and what is right. The committee needs to work on changing the mindset of boys at a young age. The Education Department needs to help with gender sensitisation,” the Bench orally observed.

Mr. Saraf informed the Bench of a Government Resolution passed on August 23 regarding the same, but was told to see if the panel could include a retired judge and a representative from Parent Teacher Associations, among others.

Police pulled up

The court, after going through the investigation report, pulled up Maharashtra Police for not adhering to the POCSO Act by calling the victim and her family to record their statements at the police station, and omitting the name of the victim’s class teacher. It directed that a female prosecutor be appointed to the case.

The court also slammed the media for being insensitive and revealing the name of the school and victims.

BSP in Tamil Nadu raises objection to flag unveiled by actor Vijay for his new party

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

Actor-turned-politician and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam president Vijay with the flag of his newly formed party.File Photo

A functionary of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Tuesday submitted a representation to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) objecting to certain features in the flag of actor Vijay’snewly formed Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).

In the representation, the BSP’s D. Tamizh Madhi referred to the recent launch of the TVK party flag and pointed out that one of its features was an elephant.

‘Elephant symbol’

Observing that the colour blue and its official symbol elephant symbolised the BSP, the plea underlined that the connection was sentimental.

The plea added that the BSP had expressed its objections on multiple occasions since it was unveiled last week but they were not addressed by Mr. Vijay.

The plea also requested the CEO to “remove the elephant from the party flag launched by Mr. Vijay” and “take appropriate action against him”.

Bittu, Kurian among six NDA candidates elected to Rajya Sabha

The Hindu Bureau

New Delhi

Kiran ChoudhryMOORTHY RV

Union Ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were among the BJP candidates elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha after the deadline for withdrawal of nominations for the bypolls ended on Tuesday. Of the six who were declared elected, former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha, who heads the Rashtriya Lok Morcha, was fielded by the ruling NDA in Bihar.

Mr. Bittu was elected from Rajasthan where the bypoll was necessitated after the resignation of Congress MP K.C. Venugopal.

Of the 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan, the BJP and the Congress now have five each. Mr. Bittu, a three-time Lok Sabha MP and grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, switched over from Congress to the BJP in March this year, ahead of the Lok Sabha election.

Mr. Kurian was elected from Madhya Pradesh after the seat became vacant following Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia’s election to the Lok Sabha in June.

Of the 11 RS seats in Madhya Pradesh, three were with the opposition Congress, seven with the ruling BJP and one was vacant which now has been filled. Mr. Kurian, a leader from Kerala, is currently the Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.

Kiran Choudhry, who in June switched from the Congress to the BJP, was elected to the lone RS seat from Haryana where the bypoll was necessitated after Deepender Singh Hooda (Congress) was elected to the Lok Sabha.

Mamata Mohanata returned to the Rajya Sabha after winning the bypoll necessitated by her resignation as a BJD MP and joining the BJP.

Mr. Kushwaha and Supreme Court lawyer Manan Kumar Mishra (BJP), were both fielded by the NDA. (With PTI inputs)

Prime accused in M.P. police station attack case arrested

Mehul Malpani

Bhopal

Almost a week after a police station was allegedly attacked with stones in Chhatarpur district, Madhya Pradesh Police on Tuesday arrested the prime accused in the incident, Haji Shehzad Ali.

According to the police, Mr. Ali, an influential local politician, was nabbed when he was going to surrender himself at the district court. The police had earlier issued a lookout circular against him to prevent him from fleeing the country.

Mr. Ali is an accused in an incident that took place on August 21 when members of the Muslim community gathered in large numbers outside the Kotwali police station to protest against alleged derogatory remarks made by a Hindu seer against Prophet Mohammad and Islam.

However, when barred from entering the police station, a section of the mob turned violent and hurled stones, injuring at least four police personnel.

In the days following the incident, the police bulldozed the properties of various accused, including a lavish bungalow of Mr. Ali, allegedly built without permission. The police had also booked over 150 people in the case.

Superintendent of Police Agam Jain told The Hindu that 37 people had been arrested in the case so far, and several teams had been working to identify and nab more.

H.P. House adopts resolution to condemn actor’s remarks

The Opposition on Tuesday stepped up attack on BJP MP Kangana Ranaut over her remarks on farmers protest with the Himachal Pradesh Assembly adopting a Congress-backed resolution to condemn her comments and AAP holding protests at several places in Haryana. The MP from Mandi had posted a clip of her interview with Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar in which she suggested that a “Bangladesh-like situation” could have erupted in India but for the country’s strong leadership. She then alleged that bodies were hanging and rapes were taking place during the farmers’ protest against the now-repealed farm laws. PTI

Bombay HC judge recuses from hearing Waze’s plea

Justice Bharati Dangre of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday recused from passing orders or further hearing of the habeas corpus petition filed by former Mumbai police officer, Sachin Hindurao Waze. On August 19, a Division Bench of Justices, Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande, after hearing the case at length had directed the NIA to file its affidavit in response to Mr. Waze’s petition seeking immediate release. He is an accused in a case related to corruption charges that also involves the name of former Minister and NCP (Sharad Pawar) leader Anil Deshmukh — who is out on bail.

G. Anand

Thiruvananthapuram

Probe team will have to rely on survivors’ statements to friends , text messages, e-mails, personal journals, and others to build a watertight case; police order transfer of all related cases to SIT

Congress workers demanding prosecution based on the Hema Committee report in Kochi on Friday. THULASI KAKKAT

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted to investigate the alleged sexual exploitation in the Malayalam film industry has reportedly prepared a road map for what portends to be a highly complex, legally challenging, public attention-rivetting and politically sensitive probe.

The criminal inquiry could draw top stars, producers, directors, and at least one ruling front legislator to its centre, potentially putting them at risk of severe legal jeopardy.

A senior official said the current investigation was anything but an open-and-shut case. Given the behind-time nature of the alleged sexual offences, he said, the police would have to get a fix on dates, locations, and records of past financial transactions, including receipts, to build a timeline for effective prosecution. The SIT might rely on survivors’ contemporaneous statements to friends, text messages, e-mails, personal journals, voice and video clips and social media accounts to build a watertight case. The probe might entail discretely interviewing high-profile industry figures, chiefly women, possibly also as character witnesses, to mine the past propensities of victims and perpetrators to gauge credibility.

For now, the police have commenced the investigation based on the first-person accounts of “coercive” sexual acts at workplaces, unwelcome sexual comments and advances on film sets and at least one alleged instance of trafficking a junior woman artist to a producer for sex that emerged on social and mainstream media following the release of the damning K. Hema Committee report last week.

By some accounts, the survivors who went public with their grievances last weekend have expressed willingness to have their statements recorded in camera by magistrate courts, potentially giving investigators considerable latitude in fixing responsibility.

The incriminating testimonies and evidence recorded by the committee, which flagged endemic sexual exploitation and gender discrimination in the industry, remained classified and did not fall under the SIT’s mandate at present. The Kerala High Court will likely take a call on the matter soon.

A survivor told reporters that a woman IPS officer in the SIT had contacted her. “The officer sounded sympathetic and protective,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Kerala Police ordered local police stations to transfer cases related to the scandal to the SIT. They have also reinforced the unit with more women officers.

Opposition pressure

The Congress and the BJP sought to mount pressure on the ruling LDF for the resignation of CPI(M) MLA and actor M. Mukesh.

BJP State chief K. Surendran seemed openly at variance with Suresh Gopi. “As actor and Union Minister, Mr. Gopi is entitled to his personal opinion. However, the BJP has called for Mr. Mukesh’s resignation, which is the party line,” he added.

Dwindling chilli prices and stiff competition force farmers to cut down cultivation in Andhra Pradesh

Sambasiva Rao M.

AMARAVATI

No longer hot: Farmers packing chilli at Asia’s largest market yard in Guntur. File photo

Dwindling prices at Asia’s biggest chilli market yard in Guntur have become a cause of worry for the farmers who are now mulling over alternative crops.

Seed companies in Guntur say that they have not sold even half of the quantity of chilli seeds this year compared with the previous year. This means the farmers are reluctant to cultivate chilli this year. Experts observe that the downward chilli prices are forcing the farmers to consider alternative options.

“As of August 27, chilli acreage has not reached the optimum level compared with that of previous years. The normal sowing area of chilli in Andhra Pradesh is estimated to be around 4.9 lakh acres per annum. But the acreage was around 5.5 lakh in the 2023-24 financial year. The figure has plummeted further this financial year,” M. Venkateswarulu, Additional Director of Horticulture (State Plan and Publicity) told The Hindu.

However, he hoped that traditional chilli farmers would continue showing and transplanting operations until the end of September, and it may stretch up to mid-October in certain cases. He said it would be premature to predict the exact acreage now.

Problems of plenty

Thota Rama Krishna, general secretary of Chilli Exporters’ Association of India, said that they had purchased chilli at higher prices from the farmers, but were forced to sell the same at lower prices, causing losses this year.

“During January and February, we purchased Teja variety of chilli at ₹210 to ₹220 per kg. We spent more than ₹20 per kg on labourers, transportation, storage and other components. Now, we are selling chilli between ₹170 and ₹200 per kg, depending upon the quality of the produce,” Mr. Rama Krishna explained.

He said India, Bangladesh, Africa, China and other countries started producing excess chilli, leading to stiff competitions in the global market.

“If heavy stocks are not disposed of now, the chilli prices will reduce further due to two main reasons — the old stocks get damaged and the new stocks would be of high quality,” Mr. Rama Krishna said.

Chitteti Amara Lingeswara Rao of Guntur said that the sale of chilli seeds has decreased drastically. “I have never seen such a slump in sales in the last two decades,” he said.

Learning grounds

Field trip: Students release snakehead murrel fish into a paddy field as they learn integrated farming with rice and fish on the college campus in Vijayawada on Tuesday.K.V.S. GIRI

SC grants bail to Kavitha, questions fairness of probe

Krishnadas Rajagopal

NEW DELHI

K. KavithaANI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K. Kavitha’s release on bail “forthwith” in the Delhi liquor policy case, which saw high-profile arrests including of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal just days ahead of the Lok Sabha election in April.

Though a bail hearing, oral comments made by the judges managed to cast a shadow over the fairness of the probe, conducted by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case.

A Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan accused the Central agencies of following a “pick and choose” policy on who to be dropped and whom to be made accused.

The court was referring to the prosecution’s move to make Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy, currently an MP of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner Telugu Desam Party, only a witness in the case while his son, Raghav Magunta Reddy, turned from an accused into an approver.

“This is a sorry state of affairs. If he has a role, his role is almost equal to that of Kavitha... According to you, the first meeting was with Kejriwal... Kejriwal tells that Kavitha is also interested, so you coordinate with her. Everything was finalised at his residence... Yet, he is not made an accused. He is a witness,” Justice Gavai remarked orally in the hearing.

The court asked if the prosecution had been fair in the excise policy case.

“You cannot pick and choose. A person who incriminates himself is a witness... So you pick anyone you choose and leave anyone you choose as an accused,” Justice Gavai asked Additional Solicitor-General S.V. Raju, appearing for the investigative agencies.

But the court’s oral comments were not recorded in the formal dictation of the order after Mr. Raju raised the apprehension that they may influence the trial in future.

The Single Judge of the Delhi High Court had not found Ms. Kavitha “vulnerable” enough to get the “special treatment”. The top court found it fantastic that it had refused bail to Ms. Kavitha on July 1 for the reason that she was an “educated, sophisticated woman”.

“The process should not become a punishment by itself for an undertrial,” urged Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi.

Court allows to shift Darshan to Ballari jail

The Hindu Bureau

Bengaluru

Jailed Kannada actor Darshan will be shifted to Ballari District Prison, even as other co-accused in the Renukaswamy murder case will be dispersed across various prisons across the State. Darshan will be the only accused in the case to be lodged in the Ballari prison. Meanwhile, the prime accused in the case and Darshan’s partner, Pavithra Gowda, will stay in Bengaluru.

Acting on a petition by the Prisons and Correctional Services Department, the Bengaluru court issued orders to the effect on Tuesday.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ordered the police to take measures to disperse the accused in the case across various prisons in the State in the aftermath of a photograph and video exposing preferential treatment to Darshan went viral on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Home Minister G. Parameshwara announced a review of security measures at all prisons across the State led by a senior IPS officer. The government also transferred out Somashekhar, who was Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), Prisons and Correctional Services, and was overseeing Parappana Agrahara Central Prison and replaced him with Divyashree Khushi.

This comes a day after nine prison officials were suspended on Monday.

SC asks Kerala to give details of witnesses in 2017 actor assault case

The Hindu Bureau

NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Kerala government to confirm the number of witnesses waiting to be examined in a case of sexual assault of a Malayalam actor inside a moving car in 2017. A Bench headed by Justice A.S. Oka sought the information from the State while hearing a petition for bail by the main accused, Sunil N.S., who is in jail for the past seven years.

Sunil had approached the court after the Kerala High Court dismissed his bail on June 3.

Advocate Sriram Parakkat, appearing for Sunil, produced medical records to prove that his client was unwell. The bail petition said the accused’s mother was also undergoing medical treatment. Mr. Parakkat said only one prosecution witness was examined in the past 95 days.

Sunil has complained that the past years have seen a lot of twists and turns. The Bench directed the State to produce the witness deposition records in two weeks and listed the case then.

The court had declined bail to Sunil, also known as Pulsar Suni, in April last year.

The Supreme Court had extended the time for the completion of the trial in the case multiple times. In August last year, the top court gave time till March 31, 2024, to finish the trial.

SC differs with Delhi HC’s reasoning on granting bail to BRS leader

Krishnadas Rajagopal

NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday found Delhi High Court's reasoning that educated, sophisticated women do not deserve the rare leeway afforded by the anti-money laundering law in bail cases to be simply erroneous.

A proviso to Clause (1) of Section 45 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 allows courts discretion to exempt persons aged below 16, women, the sick or the infirm from stringent conditions for bail.

In its July 1 bail order, the Delhi High Court refused BRS leader K. Kavitha bail in the excise policy case on grounds that she did not answer to the description of a “vulnerable woman”. She was educated with accomplishments in politics and social work. She was a Member of the Legislative Council, the court had reasoned.

In appeal, the top court orally remarked the High Court’s take was “fantastic”. “Are we now to read categories of women into the provision? How do we proceed in law like that? A woman is a woman,” Justice K.V. Viswanathan observed. Justice Gavai said the High Court “misapplied” the Saumya Chaurasia judgment. The top court had, in fact, urged judges to be “more sympathetic towards women, the very young and the sick or infirm”.

A.P. Ministers to hold first paperless meeting today

The first paperless meeting of the Andhra Pradesh Ministers, e-Cabinet meeting, will be held on Wednesday through a dedicated application developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). The Ministers and Secretaries are expected to attend the virtual meeting. “The application not only enhances operational efficiency but also aligns with eco-friendly practices. It provides real-time access to documents and digitises all records. It also helps in assessing the implementation status of Cabinet decisions,” officials said.

Premium liquor prices come down in Karnataka

The Hindu Bureau

Bengaluru

In a mixed bag of news for tipplers in Karnataka, the rates of some of the premium liquor brands in the State have come down, while some lower-end brands have become expensive from Tuesday. The revision of rates follows rationalisation of slabs, a long-pending demand.

Under the rationalisation, the government had asked distillers to keep the declared price less than or equal to that offered by the manufacturer to nearby States. This is also expected to increase the excise revenue.

In a formal gesture, Pinarayi meets Prime Minister

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Tuesday. Official sources said that the meeting was a formal gesture after Mr. Modi assumed office as the Prime Minister for a third consecutive term.“Chief Minister of Kerala, @pinarayivijayan, met PM @narendramodi,” the PMO said in its X handle. A photo released by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in Thiruvananthapuram showed the Chief Minister presenting an idol of Lord Sree Padmanabhaswamy to the Prime Minister. PTI

Malayalam filmmaker M. Mohan passes away

Veteran filmmaker M. Mohan, 76, who was part of the new wave in the Malayalam film industry in the late 1970s and 80s, passed away in Kochi on Tuesday. A member of the golden period of the film industry, he had closely associated with his contemporary filmmakers and scriptwriters, including P. Padmarajan and John Paul. The cremation will be held at the crematorium at Ravipuram in Kochi at 12 noon on Wednesday. He is survived by noted Kuchipudi dancer Anupama Mohan and two sons.

It’s blackmail tactics against me: Mukesh

The Hindu Bureau

Kollam

M. Mukesh, CPI(M) MLA, has denied allegations of sexual harassment raised against him by actor Minu Muneer tagging it as “blackmail tactics”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the actor-turned-politician said he had first met Ms. Muneer in 2009 when she contacted him over the phone introducing herself as an aspiring actor.

‘Allegations are media fabrications’

The Hindu Bureau

Thrissur

Firing back at the media, actor and Union MoS for Petroleum and Natural Gas Suresh Gopi has said the scandals plaguing the film industry are “media fabrications”. “Media are disrupting a major system. The court will address the complaints, which are now in the form of allegations. Are you the court?” he asked the mediapersons.

Science

- Vinesh Phogat versus the complex biochemistry of losing weight

- Northern bald ibis returns from near extinction

Vinesh Phogat versus the complex biochemistry of losing weight

Sayantan Datta

Sri City

While weight loss is on the face of it equal to energy expenditure minus intake, it is mediated by the brain, the gut, and some other physical components of the body. It is also complicated by the metabolic set-point, an individual’s innate weight range that the body endeavours to preserve

1 of 3 Even though there are medicines that can induce weight loss, most of them would amount to doping in sports contexts Dr. Sanjay Kalra endocrinologist

2 of 3

3 of 3 Vinesh tried a combination of sauna visits, static cycling, running, and exercising at night to avoid being disqualified at the Paris Olympics.PTI-

On August 7, Vinesh Phogat was set to become the first Indian woman to compete in a wrestling final at the Olympics. At the 2024 games in Paris, she had defeated defending Olympic champion Yui Sasaki (Japan) and European and Pan-American champions Oksana Livach (Ukraine) and Yusneylis Guzman (Cuba) in that order, guaranteeing herself at least a silver medal.

That morning, however, Vinesh’s weight was found to be about a hundred grams more than 50 kg — the maximum permitted in the category she was competing in. The game’s rules demanded that she be disqualified. The silver medal, initially seen as a consolation in case she lost the final, was now out of her reach.

The next day Vinesh retired from wrestling, although media reports have said she may reconsider.

Physically a hundred grams isn’t much, but biologically it’s a lot. The things Vinesh tried to bring her weight under 50 kg left her unwell and requiring medical care, speaking to the difficulties of gaining and losing weight. But why are they so difficult?

The physiology of weight

Losing or gaining weight is on the face of it a function of “one’s energy intake and expenditure,” Sanjay Kalra, an endocrinologist in Karnal, Haryana, said. If an individual intends to lose weight, it should ideally suffice for them to reduce the amount of energy they take in as food and increase the amount of energy they lose through exercise.

There is more to the story, however.

It plays out on at least three levels, according to Dr. Kalra:

(i) The brain: The hypothalamus, a small part of the brain, produces two kinds of hormones: orexigenic hormones increase appetite and anorexigenic hormones lower appetite and increase satiety.

Hormones are molecules produced in one part of the body that exert their effects on a different and often distant part. The orexigenic and anorexigenic hormones are produced in the hypothalamus and show their effects on other parts of the brain and in the gut.

(ii) The bowels: The gut produces hormones that can directly communicate with the brain to regulate appetite; it also regulates the rate at which food flows through the gut, which affects body weight.

A 1976 paper in the journal Gut reported that when food moved faster from the stomach to the small intestine, the intestine had more time to absorb calories from the food, leading to higher body weight. Conversely, lower body weight was associated with slower food movement from the stomach to the small intestine.

(iii) The brawn:“The brawn refers to the physical build of the body,” Dr. Kalra said. It has two kinds of hormones that he called “burners” and “builders”. Burners, including hormones produced by the thyroid, increase metabolism and lead to weight loss. Builders, like insulin, help incorporate glucose from the bloodstream into liver and fat cells and skeletal muscles, leading to weight gain.

Complicating the story further is a person’s “metabolic set-point”. A term proposed in 1982 by American nutrition researchers William Bennett and Joel Gurin in their book ‘The Dieter’s Dilemma’, the set-point refers to an individual’s innate weight range that the body attempts to preserve.

When the individual tries to lose weight by, say, regulating their diet, the body kicks in mechanisms that lead to weight gain.

“This makes weight loss incredibly challenging,” Dr. Kalra said.

Losing weight rapidly

Christianez Ratna Kiruba, a general medicine physician in Guwahati, said every human’s weight has three main contributions: from skeletal muscles, fat, and water. The exact contribution of each varies from one individual to the next, but in all bodies the biggest contributor is water.

Thus rapid weight gain or loss targets the fluid content of a body. According to Dr. Kiruba, “The methods Vinesh Phogat was using to reduce her weight appeared to target water weight.”

According to media reports, Vinesh tried a combination of sauna visits, static cycling, running, and exercising in the gym the night before her weighing.

Gaining or losing water leads to an overall increase or reduction in body weight because of carbohydrates. Dr. Kalra said the body stores carbohydrates mainly as glycogen (a polymer of glucose molecules), most of which goes to the skeletal muscles and the liver.

But whenever glycogen is shuttled into muscles, it is stored in a hydrated form, so water gets in as well. According to one estimate, every gram of glycogen brings about 3 grams of water along.

This is why rapid weight loss protocols target carbohydrates by reducing their intake as well as storage. As the amount of carbohydrates drops in the body, so does the amount of water, leading to weight loss.

“This is why people see rapid weight loss in the initial few days of dieting and exercise,” Dr. Kiruba said.

In addition to carbohydrates, other factors including salt intake also affect body weight by involving water. In 2021, a group of scientists in the U.S. compared the beverage hydration index of electrolyte-, protein- or carbohydrate-rich fluids against plain water.

This index is used to measure the amount of water a body retains after consuming a fluid. They found electrolyte-rich fluids led to the highest amount of water retention.

Consuming excess salt increases the concentration of sodium ions — a type of electrolyte — in the body. In response, the body reduces the amount of water excreted through urine to ensure the sodium-to-water ratio is constant. This in turn leads to water retention and a higher body weight.

Sex matters

After Vinesh’s disqualification, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) appealed to the Lausanne-based Court for Arbitration of Sports (CAS), an international body that adjudicates in sports-related disputes. One of the IOA’s arguments was: “The biological difference in the bodies of male and female wrestlers, particularly in light of the menstruation of women, needs to be taken into account whilst determining the eligibility of female wrestlers on the second day of the weigh-in.”

The IOA also provided medical certificates highlighting Vinesh was close to her menstrual period. CAS replied that such differences are “speculative and unsupported by evidence”. Both Dr. Kalra and Dr. Kiruba said some women might gain body weight during the latter part of their menstrual cycle, closer to their periods. In this time, women are in the luteal phase of the cycle: the time when the levels of the hormone progesterone are high in the body. According to Dr. Kalra, about 25% of women experience bloating and water retention in this time and may gain weight. That said, evidence of progesterone’s impact on body weight is controversial.

In 1967, researchers reported that progesterone could increase the body weight of female rats, but subsequent evidence suggested the hormone in human females may either not lead to a change in body weight or lead to its reduction. Even in human males, where the adrenal glands produce low levels of progesterone, researchers have associated the hormone with lower body weight.

The contradictory observations can be explained by the metabolic effects of progesterone. It can increase the amount of insulin, which leads to more glycogen being stored in the liver along with water. On the other hand, according to a 1982 study, progesterone “antagonises the effects of insulin” in fat tissue and skeletal muscle, leads to larger fat deposits, and a faster rate of protein breakdown.

Weight v. athletic advantage

Dr. Kalra said that, in Vinesh’s case, he believes little could have been done to lower her weight further. One option he said could have been to medically regulate her menstrual cycle to ensure she was in the low-progesterone phase, together with a stricter weight monitoring regime. As controversial as menstrual regulation sounds, Dr. Kalra said it is a “regular reality for many women athletes”. “Even though there are medicines that can induce weight loss, most of them would amount to doping in sports contexts,” he added.

Vinesh’s inability to make the required weight may have stemmed from being compelled to compete in the ‘wrong’ category. Most wrestlers compete in categories where the maximum weight limit is slightly less than their regular weight. Vinesh’s regular weight was around 55 kg, so the more appropriate category might have been 53 kg. But another wrestler had already been selected to represent India in that category, so Vinesh was slotted into the 50-kg group. Dr. Kiruba said Vinesh’s case shines light on the potential need for Olympic rules to consider whether small increases in weight correspond to athletic advantage. According to her, athletic advantages stem mostly from skeletal muscle mass and not from water weight, which she suspected was the cause of Vinesh’s higher weight on August 7 morning. By fixating more on the weight instead of whether the athlete acquired any actual advantages, the sports might be misjudging the eligibility of an individual to compete, she added.

(Sayantan Datta is a science journalist and a faculty member at Krea University. dattasayantan95@gmail.com)

Northern bald ibis returns from near extinction

Associated Press

Northern bald ibises during a flight supported by their ‘foster parents’ on a microlight aircraft. AP AP

The northern bald ibis, hunted virtually to extinction by the 17th century, was revived by breeding and rewilding efforts over the last two decades.

But the birds — known for their distinctive black-and-iridescent green plumage, bald red head and long curved beak — do not instinctively know which direction to fly to migrate without the guidance of wild-born elders. So a team of scientists and conservationists stepped in as foster parents and flight instructors.

The northern bald ibis once soared over North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and much of Europe. The birds were also considered a delicacy and disappeared from Europe.

The efforts of biologist Johannes Fritz and the Waldrappteam, a conservation group in Austria, brought the Central European population from zero to almost 300 since the start of their project in 2002. The feat moved the species from a “critically endangered” classification to “endangered” and, Mr. Fritz says, is the first attempt to reintroduce a continentally extinct migratory bird species.

Though northern bald ibises still display the natural urge to migrate, they do not know which way to fly without the guidance of wild-born elders. The Waldrappteam’s early reintroduction attempts were largely unsuccessful because, without teaching the birds the migration route, most disappeared soon after release. Instead of returning to suitable wintering grounds in Italy, they flew in different directions and ultimately died. So the Waldrappteam stepped in as foster parents and flight instructors for the Central European population, which was made up of descendants from multiple zoo colonies and released into the wild in the hopes of creating a migratory group.

To prepare them for travel, the chicks are removed from their breeding colonies when they are just a few days old. They are taken to an aviary overseen by the foster parents in the hopes of “imprinting” — when the birds will bond with those humans to ultimately trust them along the migration route.

Barbara Steininger, a Waldrapp team foster mother, said she acts like “their bird mom.” “We feed them, we clean them, we clean their nests. We take good care of them and see that they are healthy birds,” she said. “But also we interact with them.”

Ms. Steininger and the other foster parents then sit on the back of a microlight aircraft, waving and shouting encouragement through a bullhorn as it flies through the air. The aircraft looks like a flying go-kart with a giant fan on the back and a yellow parachute keeping it aloft. Still, three dozen birds follow the contraption, piloted by Mr. Fritz, as it sails over alpine meadows and foothills.

The first bird independently migrated back to Bavaria in 2011 from Tuscany. More have flown the route longer than 550 km each year, and the team hopes the Central European population will be more than 350 birds by 2028 and become self-sustaining.

Edit

- Advancing equity, from COVID-19 to Mpox

- The continuing churn in the Chinese military

- letters to the editor

- Coordinated attacks

- Reasonable cuts restrictions

- More female students enter traditional engineering courses

- India needs to develop a care ecosystem

- Countering an ‘anti-Hindu’ image

- B.D. Jatti elected with big majority

- A new anti-malarial device

- On SEBI chairperson’s conflicts of interests

- Correcting rumours can reduce support for vigilantes

- The March on Washington was held on August 28, 1963. Here is a quiz on the movement

- Know your English

Advancing equity, from COVID-19 to Mpox

Less than five years after the COVID-19 pandemic, the world faces the threat of another global health crisis. The World Health Organization (WHO) has, once again, declared mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), following its outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Africa, and subsequently spreading to over a dozen African countries. This comes on the heels of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s (AfricaCDC) declaration of a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security (PHECS), marking the first instance where both regional and global health emergencies have been declared concurrently for the same disease. In the days following the PHEIC declaration, cases of mpox were identified in Sweden, Pakistan and the Philippines, indicating that the virus has likely spread beyond the African continent.

This WHO declaration is significant as it is the first PHEIC announced since the May 2024 amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR). And of all the IHR reforms, the inclusion of equity as a core principle was perhaps the most important. Although these amendments will not take effect until 2025, it is crucial that the global response to the mpox outbreak is grounded in this principle from the outset. Those amendments further expand WHO’s role as a facilitator of essential medical products during emergencies.

A PHEIC is intended to foster international cooperation. Countries, international organisations, and non-governmental organisations must collaborate to coordinate their responses, share information, and provide mutual assistance. The declaration should trigger the rapid mobilisation of financial and technical resources, including emergency funding, deployment of trained health-care workers, and provision of medical supplies.

Mirroring the COVID-19 pandemic response

One of the most glaring shortcomings exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic was the inadequacy of vaccine manufacturing capabilities in the Global South, exacerbated by the lack of technology transfers and the know-how to produce vaccines developed in the West. So far, the global response to the mpox outbreak appears to be following a similar trajectory.

However, the present response to mpox differs significantly from COVID-19 in one key aspect: the availability of a vaccine. The Modified Vaccinia Ankara-Bavarian Nordic (MVA-BN), also known as Jynneos, is already in production by Danish manufacturer Bavarian Nordic. This vaccine, produced using primary chick embryo fibroblast (CEF) cell cultures, shares its production process with several other vaccines, including those for measles, mumps, rabies, and tick-borne encephalitis. Regulatory authorities in the European Union and United Kingdom (marketed as Imvanex®), United States and Switzerland (marketed as Jynneos®), and Canada (marketed as Imvamune®) have already approved the vaccine.

The mpox outbreak presents an opportunity to apply lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic by ramping up vaccine production in the Global South, and leveraging the existing MVA-BN vaccine. Indian manufacturers, in particular, have the potential to play a critical role in ensuring equitable access to this vaccine, ensuring it reaches the populations that need it the most, at the right time. Indeed, India was a critical partner during COVID-19, facilitating the mass production of the vaccine largely credited with saving the most lives — Oxford/AstraZeneca’s vaccine marketed in India as Covishield.

Ensuring technology transfers

As countries closely monitor the mpox outbreak, the demand for vaccines is expected to surge. The AfricaCDC estimates that 10 million doses are needed to stem the outbreak, yet only about 0.21 million doses may be available immediately. Bavarian Nordic has informed the AfricaCDC that it has the capacity to manufacture 10 million doses by the end of 2025. The price of an mpox shot has been estimated at $100. This underscores the need for sustainable, low-cost production of the MVA-BN vaccine.

India is well-positioned to meet this challenge. Three major vaccine manufacturers — the Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech, and Zydus Cadila — already have the experience of producing vaccines using CEF cells. Notably, the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech played pivotal roles in both the national and global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These manufacturers likely have the expertise to quickly scale up MVA production in CEF cells. Additionally, they may already have established supply chains for key materials, such as SPF eggs, which could be leveraged to expand production. The lower cost structure of manufacturers in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) could also reduce the price of vaccines, increasing demand and making doses more accessible.

Rapidly scaling up MVA-BN production will require comprehensive technology transfer, including the sharing of biological resources, know-how, and patents. Often overlooked, the transfer of the relevant know-how is crucial and has historically been a major hurdle in outbreak responses. It is the sharing of knowledge, rather than just doses, that distinguishes charity from justice. Writing on the key contentious issues in the ongoing negotiations for the WHO Pandemic Treaty in this daily (Editorial page, “The global struggle for a pandemic treaty”, August 1, 2024), these writers argued that technology transfers “are needed to ensure diverse manufacturing capacities globally so that LMICs are no longer reliant on ‘charity’ from high-income countries and can maintain self-sufficiency”.

The Indian government, along with regulators, should collaborate with the United States, the European Union, and key international organisations such as WHO, Gavi, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), to negotiate with Bavarian Nordic for the transfer of technology. By leveraging the expertise and the experiences of these organisations and working with manufacturers in developing countries, these efforts can help scale low-cost production and ensure equitable access to the MVA-BN vaccine, thereby curtailing the epidemic and preventing further outbreaks. That would benefit countries both in the Global North and South.

A move with impact

In a recent significant move, on August 7, India’s drug regulatory agency, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), waived the requirement for clinical trials in India for drugs approved in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the European Union. This waiver, which includes ‘new drugs used in pandemic situations,’ will expedite the availability of critical vaccines such as MVA-BN in the country.

In the face of the mpox outbreak, the global community has a critical opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to equitable prevention and health care by ensuring widespread access to a mpox vaccine, targeted to those most in need. By fostering international cooperation, prioritising technology transfers, and leveraging the manufacturing capabilities of countries such as India, we can not only address the current crisis but also strengthen our preparedness for future public health emergencies. The time to act is now, before history repeats itself.

The continuing churn in the Chinese military

Anushka Saxena Staff Research Analyst, The Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru

August 1, 2024 marked the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the week was celebrated with pomp and show. But there were also sombre inspections and clandestine changes in the military leadership. More specifically, the Southern and Northern Theaters of the PLA witnessed a change in commanders, with General Wu Yanan and General Huang Ming, respectively, taking charge sometime in the last month. These new appointments, revealed rather silently in the provincial coverage of August 1 ceremonies, are the latest in a line of dismissals and replacements in the PLA, and are stirring the pot of speculations over potential reasons and implications.

Tumult in the Southern Theater

In recent months, China has been embroiled in skirmishes with the Philippines in the South China Sea. It has drawn critique from regional powers such as Japan and the United States, and has caused the overall security situation to deteriorate. With China’s external environment becoming increasingly hostile, as expressed in President Xi Jinping’s oft-repeated words, “profound changes unseen in a century”, the PLA is expected to transform into a “world class” military force prepared to take on diverse regional conflicts.

Hence, the surreptitious removal of General Wang Xiubin as commander of the Southern Theater may signal his perceived inefficiencies in solidifying China’s ambitious and belligerent vision of naval power. However, beyond these obvious factors, internal politics within the Theater Command may also have something to do with Wang’s replacement.

In June 2024, the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s highest decision-making body on defence matters, organised its Political Work Conference. Soon after, the Southern Theater command organised a study session to “understand and implement the Conference’s spirit”. It was revealed then that a joint training exercise had been recently conducted between the theatre’s various naval units, and that the results were dismal. More specifically, during this exercise, some political officers were found to be very inefficient in fulfilling their wartime mobilisation duties.

In April 2024, various military officers in the theatre also met to discuss tensions between older veterans and new leading officers. It was concluded that the common goal for all theatre personnel was to evolve from “mutual discontent” to “mutual support”. And as the theatre grappled with issues pertaining to cohesion and efficiency, it had to establish a “fault tolerance” mechanism to allow personnel to make mistakes, report errors without the fear of reprimand, and enable rectification upon inspection.

When sweeping reforms in the PLA were first initiated in 2015, they promised to create a perfect military force. The emphases on achieving flawless interoperability, creating a seamless hierarchy where younger personnel had the freedom to innovate, and building an exquisite mechanism for wartime mobilisation, have also barely wavered. But in less than a decade, these developments in the Southern Theater have shown the faultlines in the reform vision.

Implications for the PLA

In this light, it is important to assess what General Wu Yanan’s leadership may mean for the Southern Theater command. To begin with, a potential reason for Wu’s appointment as theatre commander may be that he has extensive experience working side-by-side with party bosses.

Wu is a veteran of the CMC Joint Staff Department, having served as its deputy chief of staff. He has previously also served as Commander of the Central Theater, working closely with officials in Beijing on critical national security issues. In this regard, his appointment to the Southern Theater may well be about implementing the Chinese Communist Party’s reform agenda to a T. Achieving “jointness” between various forces attached to the theatre is vital, and Wu’s experience may be helpful here.

Within a week of his appointment making the news, the Southern Theater command has sprung back on its feet, and has declared that it has “everything under control”. In fact, the joint maritime and aerial patrols conducted by the theatre’s forces on August 7 near the Scarborough islands, show that the theatre is already testing its reconnaissance and early warning capabilities, rapid manoeuvrability, and joint strike proficiency in the disputed region. With Wu in charge, it is likely that both combat preparedness and political cohesion in the theatre will be subject to more pressure tests, and frequent demonstrations of military might in the South China Sea may become a vital parameter of efficiency.

On a broader level, the changes reveal that the PLA’s reform bucket list is nowhere near fulfilled. It also indicates that this period of flux in the PLA, which is marked by purges and replacements motivated by corruption scandals and inefficiencies in reform, is nowhere near over. However, the new leadership is expected to put the internal affairs of the theatres concerned in order, so that the military force can inch closer to its goal of becoming a “world class” one by mid-century.

Lessons for India

From the Indian perspective, it is important that it is able to gather much from these changes as far as the nature of leadership in the PLA is concerned. As the CCP’s army, military commanders are not just assigned based on merit or experience but also on loyalty to the party-state’s goals and priorities. Given that China is both India’s principal rival and its most significant military challenger, India must strive to study the doctrinal evolution of reforms in the PLA, and place the leadership changes in that context.

Look at the root cause

It would be hypocritical to believe that Kerala was unaware of the murky goings-on in the Malayalam film industry before the release of the Justice K. Hema Committee report. Television channels are doing incalculable damage to the future of the Malayalam film industry through their cavalier and insensitive attitude. All and sundry are being allowed air their views on screen and take pot shots. Sensationalism and voyeurism rule the roost. It is illusory to believe that the film industry will be cleaned up in the aftermath of the revelations in the Hema Committee report. The root cause of the malady lies in the feudalistic and patriarchal male psyche in Kerala. Those who express concern over the revelations in the report should open their eyes to the pitiful and helpless state of women workers in malls, textile shops and even hospitals to understand the generic dimension of issues being brought to the fore.

Manohar Alembath,

Kannur, Kerala

‘Extradite Sheikh Hasina’

The demand put forth by the general secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party for the extradition of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has landed New Delhi in a sticky situation (‘World’ page, “India should extradite Hasina: BNP leader”, August 27). The only saving grace is that such a demand has not been voiced by the interim government in Dhaka. If it does, it could call for adroit diplomacy and tact by New Delhi.

C.G. Kuriakose,

Kothamangalam, Kerala

On pension

That the burden of statutory pension for government employees is a tax on the vast majority of the unemployed/self-employed, cannot be swept under the carpet of convenient politics. Government employees, being a unionised force, wield much more power. The voice of the larger society — with no social security in its sunset years — is feeble. It can be easily ignored or pacified with some ‘petty doles’ during election time. The notion of pension at a higher percentage of the last drawn salary for longer service decimates the very principle of equity, fair play and natural justice. Longer service and higher emoluments thereon should have been used to build a large retirement nest egg. If at all any guarantee of a minimum assured pension is to be thought of, it should be for all citizens above a fixed age.

Jose Abraham,

Vaikom, Kottayam, Kerala

Coordinated attacks

Pakistan cannot take a militaristic approach to the Baloch conflict

Ever since the Taliban, hosted by Pakistan’s security forces, recaptured Kabul in August 2021, Pakistan, especially in its Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces neighbouring Afghanistan, has seen a surge in terrorist attacks. In 2023 alone, there were over 650 recorded attacks, with 23% occurring in Balochistan, which is Pakistan’s largest province by landmass and a hotbed of separatist insurgency. But even in this new normal, Monday was one of the bloodiest days for Balochistan and Pakistan. On the eighteenth death anniversary of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a Baloch nationalist leader killed by the Pakistani military in 2006, separatists carried out coordinated attacks across the province. The Baloch Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the many deaths. According to security officials, the separatists damaged infrastructure and executed migrant labourers from Punjab. That the attacks occurred in different parts of Balochistan show the growing reach and capability of the insurgency. Bugti’s death anniversaries have seen violent incidents in the past, but Pakistan’s military and intelligence services were caught off guard on August 26.

Historically, Pakistan has taken a ruthless, militarist approach towards the Baloch problem. Balochistan, despite its wealth of natural resources, is the country’s most impoverished region. Pakistan has historically neglected the province. Punjab, on the other hand, grew to be influential in national politics and economically prosperous, leading to strong anti-Punjab tendencies within sections of the Baloch community. This, along with the poor living conditions, was exploited by the separatists to drum up support for their cause. They often attack the federal government “for extracting” resources without offering any help to the local economy. Baloch separatists have cited the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which goes through the province, as an example of this exploitation, and targeted Chinese interests. The Pakistani establishment has also failed to engage with the civil rights movements in Balochistan, such as the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, which organised several sit-ins in Islamabad and Baloch cities this year to draw the attention of the federal authorities to widespread human rights abuses in the province. Such activists were often painted as “enemies of Pakistan”, which left the military with the only option of using force against the separatists. But state violence has only strengthened the separatists — as the latest attacks underscore. If Pakistan is serious about stability and security in its largest province, it should take measures to address the developmental concerns of the locals, stop the rights violations and engage with the peaceful civil rights voices to reset ties with the Balochis.

Reasonable limits

Laissez-faire approach to content hosting, not commitment to free speech

That free speech is not absolute and is subject to certain restrictions for public order, morals and public health is something that has been codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The founder and chief executive officer of Telegram, Pavel Durov, is a technology creator who has emphasised absolute free speech on his platform and has built an anti-establishmentarian image by risking the wrath of nation-states in allowing dissidents to use the messaging application. His detention and arrest by French authorities, in connection with investigations related to criminal activity on the app, has raised the question if this has been done to provide a chilling effect on freedom of expression on the Internet. But the answer is more complicated. His laissez-faire approach to content on the app has meant that it is host also to extremism, drug dealers, scammers and, according to France, child pornography as well. Mr. Durov has said, “privacy...is more important than our fear of bad things happening ...and that, to be truly free, you should be ready to risk everything for freedom”. But can it be done to override the responsibility to prevent consequences which could endanger people’s safety and freedom? This is a key question to ask about messaging apps and “free speech absolutists” such as Mr. Durov.

Telegram is more than just a messaging app given some of its social networking features. While its encryption mechanisms allow for ease of access for dissidents and anti-state actors to use the app without scrutiny, it does not fully use “end to end” encryption — something that apps such as Signal do. This means that some messages related to criminal activity, disinformation, and child pornography can be read by Telegram; it can act on requests from law enforcement agencies if needed. Telegram, in response to Mr. Durov’s arrest, has said that its moderation “is within industry standards” and has questioned whether the platform/owner are liable or responsible for “abuse of that platform”. That may well be the case, but if in investigations by France, the platform is seen to have wilfully refused to act upon requests to curb hate speech, disinformation and contents related to criminal activity, Mr. Durov cannot and should not escape the long arm of the law. In India, the baleful effects of misinformation on platforms such as WhatsApp were visible some years ago, before the application came up with certain restrictions. These helped tamp down the spread of misinformation. For Telegram to remain a free speech advocate and a platform, it must eschew absolutism and become more responsible in moderating content.

More female students enter traditional engineering courses

R. Amanda Miriam Fernandez Nitika Francis, Vignesh Radhakrishnan

The share of female students in mechanical, civil, mining, and marine engineering undergraduate courses rose notably in the recent decade

The number of students enrolled in undergraduate engineering courses in India steadily declined from 2016, despite the increase in the overall number of students pursuing college education, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE). In recent years, the number of students enrolled in India was highest in the arts, science, and commerce streams, followed by engineering. Engineering was also the only discipline in which the number of students enrolled consistently declined between 2016 and 2022. There was a slight uptick in 2022 in enrolment in undergraduate engineering courses, which may have been due to the introduction of several new courses in the survey, which were previously not tracked by AISHE. This bump did not alter the trend, however.

The decline in enrolment in engineering courses was more pronounced among male students than female. Chart 1 shows the number of male and female students who enrolled for undergraduate engineering courses between FY13 and FY22.

Chart 2 shows the number of female students enrolled in specific undergraduate engineering courses and their share in the overall intake, between FY13 and FY22. In 2013, large numbers of female students took up electronics engineering, computer engineering, and information technology (IT). In computer engineering and information technology, female students comprised more than 45% of all students in 2013. As the decade progressed, the presence of female students in these disciplines dropped by some 10% points each.

However, with a possible sway in societal attitudes and the introduction of new courses, female students started enrolling in disciplines where they were previously had little presence. For instance, in mining engineering, the share of female students was 1.2% in 2013 and increased to 8% in 2022. Similarly, in marine engineering, the share of female students jumped from 1.5% to 6.4%. The share of female students also increased significantly in mechanical engineering and civil engineering, from 4.2% to 7.6% and 18.2% to 23%, respectively, in the same period.

Male students continued to dominate the field of mechanical engineering, with their share declining only slightly from 95.8% in 2013 to 92.4% in 2022. The absolute number of students enrolling in the field dropped significantly though, almost halving from over 10 lakh in 2016 to 5.4 lakh in 2022. On the other hand, there was a drastic increase in the number of male students enrolling in computer engineering courses, from about 3.5 lakh in 2013 to 8.25 lakh in 2023.

Chart 3 shows the share of student enrolments in undergraduate engineering courses from Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The share of OBC students who enrolled in these courses steadily rose from 33% in 2013 to 38% in 2022. The share of ST students increased slightly from 2.1% to 3.3% in the same period (Chart 3). Among SC students, the increase was inconsistent. It slightly declined during some years, settling at 11% in 2022 compared with 8.7% in 2013. The share of students from the general category dropped over time.

Mechanical and civil engineering courses seem to have lost their appeal over the years among men, pointing towards a decline in employability, while courses such as computer engineering have continued to draw students.

Inputs from Muhammad Ubaidullah A. L. and Mohamed Althamish N.A.

India needs to develop a care ecosystem

1 of 2 Rama V. Baru Retired Professor of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

2 of 2 Pallavi Gupta Specialist, Health Systems Governance, Health Systems Transformation Platform, New Delhi

A low female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) has been the focus of the bulk of the discussion around women’s empowerment. According to the Economic Survey 2023-24, against a world average of 47.8% (2022), the FLFPR in India was 37% (2022-23). Although it increased from 23.3% in 2017-18, 37.5% of this share comprises “unpaid helpers in household enterprises”, that is, women who are not paid for the work they do, which is separate from domestic work.

Women’s active participation in the economy is crucial for reducing gender inequality. A key reason for women’s low economic participation is the disproportionately high burden of care that they shoulder within the family. This ranges from childcare to the care of other household members, including the elderly, sick, and disabled. Added to these care responsibilities is other domestic work. In India, women aged 15-64 years spend about three times more time daily than men on unpaid domestic work.

Responding to childcare needs

To increase women’s participation in the labour force, attention is now being paid to childcare. Some State governments have focused on building support services through the existing Anganwadi network. In the 2024-25 Budget, there has been a 3% increase in the Ministry of Women and Child Development’s budget for the integrated childcare and nutrition programme (Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 scheme). The Ministry has been working towards a policy framework to address the need for childcare. Different models of community-based creches for children are operational in parts of some States, with partnership between government and non-government bodies. It would be worthwhile to review these models for replicability, financial sustainability, and scalability. A more widespread network of creches suitable to the local context and populace is required in rural, tribal, and urban areas to facilitate the participation of women in the workforce.

However, recognising only childcare needs is a limiting perspective. Women are primary caregivers across the life course of household members. Hence, for women to participate in the economy, their care responsibilities need to shift elsewhere. The demand for external support in the form of hired caregivers is rising in urban and peri-urban areas. However, there are no standardised processes for employment of such workers. Domestic workers often double up as caregivers without any training or protection for themselves. There are no minimum wages, employment standards, safety and security measures, and quality standards for care by hired workers.

Offloading responsibilities

To offload women’s care responsibilities, it is crucial to create an ecosystem that responds to the household’s care needs while protecting the rights of care workers. This ecosystem must provide for safe, quality, and affordable care by care workers who are well-trained, earn decent wages, and command dignity and respect for their work.

From the demand side, developing a needs-based assessment of the mix of care services required across age groups, socio-economic status, and geographies would be a first step. A mapping of supply-side actors and institutions must include the public, private, and non-profit sectors.

With demand for care on the rise across a family’s life course, given rising incidence of ill-health and disabilities, the availability and quality of care workers have emerged as a major policy concern. Care workers are hired directly by families or through placement agencies, nursing bureaus, hospitals, home healthcare companies, and not-for-profit organisations, among others. The more organised ones train their workers and have a multidisciplinary team to attend to the varied needs, including specialised nursing, palliative, and end-of-life care at home. However, in the absence of any standards and regulations, the availability, accessibility, affordability, and quality of these services vary across regions.

Need for policy intervention

The gap in the training, skilling, and certification of a mix of care workers required to meet the growing demand needs to be addressed. The Domestic Workers Sector Skill Council (rechristened as the Home Management and Care Givers Sector Skill Council), the Healthcare Sector Skill Council, and the National Skill Development Corporation are the apex bodies involved in the skilling and certification of different cadres of care workers. It is unfortunate that the labour-intensive and emotionally exacting care sector does not command commensurate respect, remuneration, and dignity. This is a crucial area for policy intervention.

The World Economic Forum’s report on the ‘Future of Care Economy’ highlights three perspectives. The first is seeing the care economy as an engine for increasing economic productivity. The second is from a business perspective: organisations can relate to the care economy as investors and employers. The third is from a human rights perspective that focuses on gender equality and disability inclusion.

We need a comprehensive policy that defines the care ecosystem from a life course perspective. A committee of the Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Family Welfare, Labour and Employment, Social Justice and Empowerment, and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship would be ideal to initiate the process.

Countering an ‘anti-Hindu’ image

B. Kolappan

The DMK’s antidote to the BJP’s Rama cult is Lord Muruga, the god of Tamils

Has the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government invoked Muruga, the god of Tamils, as an antidote to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Rama cult? This is the question being asked in Tamil Nadu after certain resolutions were adopted at the just-concluded Muthamizh Murugan International Conference, organised by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department.

The resolutions include holding a competition for students of schools and colleges run by the HR&CE Department on Murugan bhakti literature; and getting students to recite the Kantha Sasti Kavasam, a devotional song on Muruga, during the six-day Kantha Sasti festival.

Muruga, an ancient deity of Tamils since the Sangam period, who was worshipped as Seyon, has become an integral part of Hinduism. He is worshipped as the son of Shiva and Parvathi and the nephew of Vishnu. He is no longer just a Tamil god.

The allies of the DMK, particularly the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, criticised the conference and the resolutions. Only R. Mutharasan, the State secretary of the CPI, supported the event, saying it cannot be seen as an affront to secularism. He pointed out that the HR&CE Department had existed since the days of the Justice Party, the predecessor of the Dravidar Kazhagam and other Dravidian parties.

Ever since the DMK came to power and P.K. Sekarbabu, an ardent devotee who regularly visits Sabarimala, was appointed as Minister of HR&CE, the Department began working overtime. The DMK needed a Minister like Mr. Sekarbabu to counter its anti-Hindu and atheist image. This need became all the more urgent after the BJP won the Lok Sabha elections again in 2019, and the number of people flocking to the national party in Tamil Nadu surged. Those who were earlier silent about their faith started becoming more vocal. The DMK also had to keep in mind that its arch rival, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), is a party of believers.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, who had ridiculed certain Hindu customs, also sought to do some damage control by saying that the DMK is not anti-Hindu. “There is no truth to the allegation that this party is anti-Hindu. The BJP, the RSS, and the Hindu Munnani seek to portray the DMK as anti-Hindu. That is not the truth. In fact, there is no temple which is not visited by my wife. Many district secretaries of the DMK sport kumkumam on their forehead and we do not criticise their faith,” he said, while participating in the Pongal festival in 2021. His argument is supported by the fact that several DMK leaders regularly visit temples and wear their faith on their sleeve. Nowadays, more and more DMK MLAs go to the Assembly sporting religious symbols, which was more common among the AIADMK MLAs.

However, some DMK leaders, such as A. Raja, continue to be critical of Hindu religion and the Sanathana Dharma that is espoused by the BJP. Mr. Stalin’s son, Udhayanidhi Stalin, who is the Minister of Youth Welfare and Sports Development, found himself in the midst of a massive controversy last year for his comments on Sanathana Dharma and faces a slew of cases in various States for his remarks.

The DMK, an offshoot of the atheist Dravidar Kazhagam, is having to walk a tightrope between its core ideology and its leaders and supporters who are believers. Earlier, its leaders could castigate Hindu religious faith, among others, and walk away. They can no longer do that, with the emergence of the BJP on the national scene. Ridiculing Hindu gods is no longer tolerated in films and literature: lyricist Vairamuthu, for instance, faced a backlash for his comments in 2018 on Andal, a Vaishnavite minstrel.

A secular government cannot afford to identify itself with any religion. However, as long as the Tamil Nadu government keeps the management and administration of temples under its control through the HR&CE Department, it is obligated to fulfill certain responsibilities. That is why Mr. Stalin and Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin, despite their personal beliefs, participated in the Conference. The DMK is not the Dravidar Kazhagam. DMK founder C.N. Annadurai had said, ‘Ontre Kulam Oruvane Devan (One community, one god)’. At the end of the day, the DMK is a political party and requires the votes of every section of society.

B.D. Jatti elected with big majority

New Delhi, Aug, 27: The Congress nominee, Mr. B.D. Jatti, was elected Vice-President of India to-day defeating the Opposition candidate, Mr. N.E. Horo, by an overwhelming majority of 521 to 141 votes in a straight contest.

Since the electoral college for electing the Vice-President consisted of only the members of the two Houses of Parliament, the result was announced after a simple count of the votes cast by the 672 MPs who participated in the election.

The present membership of the Lok Sabha is 524 and the Rajya Sabha 243, a total of 767 for both Houses. With five vacancies in the Lok Sabha and three in the Rajya Sabha, the number of MPs entitled to vote in this Vice-Presidential election was 759 out of whom only 672 had actually participated in the polling to-day. The CPI and Muslim League with a combined strength of 44 in the two Houses abstained from voting, while another 43 belonging to different parties did not take part in the polling for various reasons.

Otherwise the voting to-day in the Vice-Presidential election, as was the case in the preceding Presidential election, was more or less on well-defined party lines with no evidence of any cross-voting worth the name. Of the 759 MPs who were entitled to vote in this election, the Congress Party had a strength of nearly 500, which automatically ensured for Mr. Jatti a very comfortable two-third margin.

A new anti-malarial device

The “Pioneer” writes: Experiments have been proceeding with a new anti-malarial device which takes the form of a mosquito trap. The invention is an ingenious one, depending for its success on the attraction which light has for insects. It consist of a searchlight throwing a broad field of light through an inverted cone with a small hole at the base to which is connected a suction tube. Mosquitoes are attracted by the light and are sucked down the tube by the indraught. Experiments with the trap have given satisfactory results and plans are being made to send some of these devices to Central and West Africa to combat not only mosquitoes but also the tsetse fly which causes sleeping sickness.

On SEBI chairperson’s conflicts of interests

Prasenjit Bose

The actions and statements of SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch are in conflict with regulatory integrity; the SEBI’s citation of Hindenburg’s own conflict of interest in the matter as a short-seller, does not hold much water

Myriad questions: SEBI chairperson, Madhabi Puri Buch, interacts with the media during a press conference at the SEBI office, in Mumbai, on July 24. PTIKUNAL PATIL

It has been over two weeks since a Hindenburg Research report revealed serious conflicts of interests vis-a-vis the chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Two separate responses to the report were issued on August 11 — an unsigned statement from SEBI and a joint statement issued by Madhabi and Dhaval Buch. These statements in effect confirmed the veracity of Hindenburg’s revelations, casting more doubts over the regulator’s integrity. As the appointing authority of SEBI’s whole-time members, the Central government owes explanations to all stakeholders.

Did the government know?

The first conflict of interest revealed by Hindenburg relates to an investment worth $8,72,762 (over ₹5.6 crore at the 2015 exchange rate) made by Madhabi and Dhaval Buch in Bermuda based Global Dynamic Opportunities Fund [GDOF Cell 90 (IPEplus Fund 1)] through Mumbai-headquartered IIFL Wealth & Asset Management Limited (now renamed 360 One).

Madhabi and Dhaval Buch’s joint statement confirms the investment made in 2015 and clarifies that it was driven by the fund’s Chief Investment Officer (CIO), Anil Ahuja, who was “Dhaval’s childhood friend from school and IIT Delhi and, being an ex-employee of Citibank, J.P. Morgan and 3i Group plc, had many decades of a strong investing career”. The statement says that the investment was redeemed in 2018 when Anil Ahuja left his position as CIO of the fund. The joint statement, however, fails to mention that Anil Ahuja also served as a director of Adani Enterprises Limited when that investment was made, and remained in that position until May 31, 2017. An email revealed by Hindenburg shows that it was Madhabi Buch who sent the redemption request to GDOF on behalf of Dhaval Buch on February 25, 2018, when she was already a whole-time member of SEBI (appointed on April 5, 2017).

Therefore, two obvious questions arise: first, was Madhabi Buch’s investment in an offshore fund operated by a director of Adani Enterprises disclosed to the Central government prior to her appointment as a whole-time member of SEBI? Second, did her shareholding in the offshore fund after her appointment in April 2017, till its redemption in February 2018, have the approval of the Board? The Central government must clarify this.

Relevance to the Adani Group probe

The Hindenburg revelations are of vital consequence to the ongoing SEBI investigation into the Adani group companies as well as the Supreme Court order of January 3, 2024. While ruling that the investigation into the Adani group companies did not warrant a transfer from SEBI to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) or the CBI, the Supreme Court had held that the “threshold for such a transfer of investigation has not been demonstrated to exist”. The Supreme Court appointed Expert Committee had elaborated in its report on how the SEBI (Foreign Portfolio Investors) Regulations, 2014 were diluted in 2018 and 2019 to enable the concealment of “ultimate beneficial owners” of offshore funds. The Expert Committee demonstrated that these regulatory amendments made it difficult to establish the ultimate beneficial owners of the 13 offshore funds that were suspected by SEBI for being fronts of the Adani promoter group.

The funds under the SEBI investigation include the Emerging India Focus Funds and EM Resurgent Fund, which were managed by IIFL Wealth & Asset Management Limited (360 One), as revealed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Was the Expert Committee made aware of Madhabi Buch’s investment in such an opaque offshore fund through IIFL Wealth & Asset Management Limited (360 One), which was also managed by a director of Adani Enterprises, even after joining SEBI as a whole-time member? This evident conflict of interest remained unreported in the Expert Committee report as well as the top court order.

Moreover, SEBI had approved the acquisition of Ambuja Cements and ACC by the Adani group in August 2022 during Madhabi Buch’s tenure as chairperson. In response to a RTI query in April 2023, SEBI disclosed that its chairperson had a meeting with the Adani group Chairman on August 11, 2022 at the SEBI headquarters to “discuss open offer applications of Ambuja Cements and ACC”. There was a second meeting between the two on October 3, 2022 on an unspecified agenda.

The Adani group disclosed on August 23, 2022 that the acquirer of the controlling stakes in these cement companies was a Mauritius based company whose ultimate beneficial owner was Vinod Adani, establishing him as part of the promoter group. Despite this, the Adani group has continued to maintain that Vinod Adani is not a “related party” when it comes to the suspicious transactions in Adani shares by FPIs or offshore funds linked to him.

This obfuscation by the Adani group was enabled by successive amendments to the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 (LODR) since 2018, redefining “related party” and “related party transactions”. While the Expert Committee flagged the LODR amendments as regulatory dilutions, SEBI’s approval of the Adani group’s acquisitions of Ambuja Cements and ACC acquisitions was never examined.

SEBI’s investigation into the violation of promoter shareholding regulations by listed Adani group companies had started in October 2020. Despite the Supreme Court prodding it to complete the probe by April 2024, SEBI’s statement on August 11, 2024 describes the probe status as “close to completion”.

In the light of the SEBI chairperson’s conflict of interests, it not only appears to be a “glaring, wilful and deliberate inaction” on the part of the regulator but a calculated cover up operation. This warrants a transfer of the investigation to a SIT or the CBI. The role of the current SEBI chairperson and IIFL Wealth & Asset Management Limited (360 One) in all investigative matters related to the Adani group companies since 2018 also needs to be brought under the probe’s ambit.

Other conflicts

Hindenburg has also raised concerns over the SEBI chairperson’s shareholding in two consulting companies, namely India-based Agora Advisory and Singapore-based Agora Partners. Madhabi and Dhaval Buch’s clarification that these companies “became immediately dormant on her appointment with SEBI”, is prima facie false. The statement itself makes the self-contradictory claim that “after Dhaval retired from Unilever in 2019, he started his own consultancy practice through these companies” which allowed him to “work with prominent clients in the Indian industry”.

Madhabi Puri Buch had served as a whole time member of SEBI between April, 2017 and October, 2021 and was subsequently appointed as its chairperson in March 2022. Documents from India’s Corporate Affairs Ministry show Ms. Buch as the owner of 99% shares of Agora Advisory Private Limited as on March 31, 2024. This private company, active as on date, made over ₹3.6 crore in revenues between 2017 and 2024. The SEBI chairperson, who was a whole-time board member since 2017, has continued to occupy another office of profit, in violation of SEBI’s “Code on Conflict of Interests for Members of Board” (Section 5.1). This not only makes her position as SEBI chairperson untenable but also implicates the entire Board along with its appointing authority, for allowing such subversion of its own code of conduct. There should be an immediate disclosure of all the clients of the Agora Advisory Private Limited and Agora Partners and a probe into probable quid pro quo.

Hindenburg has also revealed that Dhaval Buch’s current employer, multinational private equity firm Blackstone, directly benefited from the SEBI chairperson’s aggressive promotion and regulatory decisions vis-a-vis Real Estate Investment Funds (REITs). In response, SEBI states that “the claim that promoting REITs...among various other asset classes by SEBI was only for benefiting one large multinational financial conglomerate, is inappropriate”.

Thus, there is neither a denial of SEBI chairperson’s promotion of REITs nor of the fact that her husband’s employer, Blackstone, made thousands of crores in profit through three out of four REIT IPOs, that have been approved by SEBI till date. The Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992 mandates SEBI to protect the interests of the investors, and promote the development of and regulate the securities market. Promoting individual asset classes like REITs is not a function of SEBI, as defined under the laws. Rather, such favouritism towards a specific asset class by SEBI chairperson, particularly when her spouse is employed in a major player benefiting from such preferential treatment, amounts to a possible violation of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Terms and Conditions of Service of Chairman and Members) Rules, 1992.

The SEBI Rules prohibit the chairperson or whole-time members to have any financial or other interests which are likely to prejudicially affect their functioning.

What next?

The conflicts of interests vis-a-vis the SEBI chairperson are borne out through her own statements and actions, which is why SEBI’s citation of Hindenburg’s own conflict of interest in the matter as a short-seller in order to undermine the latter’s revelations, does not hold much water. They must be addressed systemically in order to restore the regulator’s credibility.

There has been a surge in retail investor participation in the Indian securities market in the past few years. The latest Economic Survey estimated that around 20% of Indian households may now be channelling their household savings into the financial markets. A compromised securities market regulator only enhances the risks to their financial security and overall financial stability.

Prasenjit Bose is an economist and activist.

Correcting rumours can reduce support for vigilantes

G. Sampath

A new paper seeks to find an answer to a critical question — if misinformation can lead to vigilante violence, then “can reducing the credibility of rumours via corrections decrease support for vigilante violence?

MURALI KUMAR. KMURALI KUMAR K

Badrinathan, Sumitra, Simon Chauchard & Niloufer Siddiqui (2024). Misinformation and Support for Vigilantism: An Experiment in India and Pakistan, American Political Science Review (2024) 1-19.

Vigilante violence against minorities has been growing in recent years, especially in South Asia. It is well documented that such violence is often preceded by misinformation. In India, for instance, allegations of ‘love jihad’ or false rumours of cow meat transportation have culminated in public lynchings. Yet empirical studies on the link between misinformation and vigilante violence are scarce. This paper seeks to plug this gap by posing a critical question: if misinformation is an essential component of the circumstances leading to vigilante violence, then “can reducing the credibility of rumours via corrections decrease support for vigilante violence?”

The experiment

The study is based on simultaneous in-person experiments in India’s Uttar Pradesh and Pakistan’s Punjab province. The experiment consisted of making respondents — numbering 1,500 in Pakistan and 1,800 in India — listen “to a series of professionally produced newscasts describing acts of vigilantism modelled on real incidents.”

In India, the sample was limited to Hindu respondents since the victims of vigilantism were largely Muslim. In Pakistan, “the large majority of the sample belonged to the majority Sunni sect of Islam”. While the ‘out-group’ (minority) in India was Muslim, in Pakistan, it was non-Muslims. “In both countries,” the authors write, “we see that citizens trust their in-group (majority) to a much larger extent than the out-group”. This remains an important factor in the power of rumours to incite vigilante violence. For the purpose of this study, rumours are understood as “statements that lack specific standards of evidence” and are a subcategory of misinformation.

In the experiment, respondents were provided three vignette scenarios, each describing a vigilante act. In India, the vignettes detailed vigilante acts in response to three alleged crimes: forced interfaith marriage or ‘love jihad’, cow meat transportation, and a conspiracy that Muslims were deliberately spreading COVID-19. In Pakistan, the alleged crimes were “sharing blasphemous speech online, burning the Quran, and tearing down religious posters.”

The vignettes were delivered to respondents via audio clips which they listened to using headphones. Each respondent listened to all three vignette scenarios consecutively. But each vignette contained “a number of randomly varied attributes that we hypothesised might affect support for vigilantism.” These variables included varying the credibility of the rumours via corrections (the ‘treatment’ or manipulation of the experiment), how state police reacted to the vigilantism, and whether political elites condemned the violence.

Each vignette, delivered like a newscast, started by describing an act of vigilante violence, and followed it up with additional information based on the different variables being tested by the researchers. In the treatment condition, the respondents were provided “corrective information stating that investigative reporting found the rumour to be baseless.” For instance, after describing the vigilante violence and the rumour that preceded it — say, that a Muslim man had abducted a Hindu woman — the newscaster would add a segment detailing investigative reporting by different media platforms establishing that “mob violence took place because of false information.” In the ‘control’ group, no such information was provided.

The experiment was also designed to test the impact of two other variables deemed critical for support of vigilantism: state positionality and elite rhetoric. The state positionality attribute was varied at three levels: police investigates the crime/sides with vigilantes, police prosecutes vigilantes/sides with mob, and no information provided about police’s reaction to vigilantism. The elite rhetoric attribute had two levels: an elite message (treatment) and no message (control). In India, the elite message used was a real tweet by Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling citizens that “killing people in the name of Gau Bhakti is not acceptable”, while in Pakistan it was a message from former Prime Minister Imran Khan condemning vigilante violence over the tearing down of religious posters.

The results

The experiment yielded three major findings. Firstly, the authors found that corrections on average significantly reduce support for vigilantism, even in polarised settings. In India, corrections shifted public opinion by 8%-10% and in Pakistan, by 17%-19%. Second, this reduction in support for vigilantism post-correction occurred “regardless of respondents’ prior attitudes towards out-groups” (the minority group at the receiving end of vigilante violence). Third, the behaviour of the state did not systematically shape support for vigilante violence. In neither India nor in Pakistan did respondents decrease their support for vigilante acts “when given information that police authorities investigated victims or arrested vigilantes.”

There were also intriguing differences between India and Pakistan with regard to the effect of corrections. For instance, corrections did not alter support for vigilantism “for the most salient type of crime in this context — beef smuggling rumours in India.” The authors interpret this as indicating a “limited efficacy of corrections in shifting attitudes more overtly linked to partisanship”. Another difference was with regard to the impact of elite messaging — “it reduced support for vigilantism in Pakistan, but it did not move attitudes in India with regard to cow transportation rumours.” The authors note that this is a surprising finding as “scholarship on public opinion has repeatedly demonstrated that elite rhetoric is influential in altering opinion and that elites have the capacity to set public discourse and agenda.”

Broadly, the paper situates its findings amid the framework developed by the scholarship on vigilantism as well as the literature on ethnic conflict and riots in South Asia. Traditional scholarship sees vigilante violence as a distinct form of collective punishment, perpetrated ostensibly “to maintain law and order” in response to a perceived crime. The role of the state is a key factor in this approach, as a state’s explicit or tacit ethnocentric policy could facilitate, and be buttressed by, vigilantism, defined as “extralegal prevention, investigation, or punishment of offenses.”

Vigilantism research has tended to group together identity-based forms of vigilantism — which target members of “social out-groups”, whether ethnic, racial or religious — with vigilantism that addresses petty crimes and may not necessarily be targeted at specific communities. The authors argue that while these two forms of “extralegal violence have much in common, violence which takes place explicitly on the basis of religious sensibilities, notions of ethnic or racial superiority, or in relation to majoritarian norms is likely to be distinct in both its causes and consequences.”

This experiment and its findings, concerned specifically with identity-based vigilantism, point to the criticality of interventions aimed at correcting rumours in real time. “Because rumours are distinct from other forms of misinformation — they tend to ‘materialise suddenly’ — their correction necessitates distinct strategies,” the paper notes.

The role of the state

The study also casts interesting sidelights on the role of state institutions in preventing collective violence, and the relationship between democracy and the rule of law. As the authors note, “our surveys find greater willingness to support vigilantism among our Indian sample and a smaller effect of corrections relative to Pakistan, suggesting that the existence of ostensibly democratic institutions may not have a straightforward relationship to extralegal violence.”

Having underscored the centrality of curbing misinformation to combat vigilantism, the paper concludes by flagging the need for further research on the “psychological and systemic mechanisms — such as perceptions of the legitimacy of vigilantism, the role of religious appeals, or the role of agency and status — through which correcting misinformation may affect support for vigilantism.”

The March on Washington was held on August 28, 1963. Here is a quiz on the movement

Sindhu Nagaraj

Visual question: Identify this speaker and name his speech, one of the most famous moments of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history.

Question 1

What was the purpose of this march?

Question 2

African Americans were legally freed from slavery under which amendment of the U.S. Constitution?

Question 3

This author was prevented from speaking at the March because his comments would be too inflammatory. Name the writer.

Question 4

The march is credited with helping to pass a landmark civil rights and labour law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex and national origin. What is it called?

Question 5

Folk singer Joan Baez led a crowd of 3,000 in singing this song during the march. The song is heavily associated with protests, especially with the U.S. civil rights movement. Name the song.

Questions and Answers to the previous day’s daily quiz: 1. Donald Bradman was called ‘The Boy from _____’. Ans: Bowral

2. Donald Bradman played Test matches against England, India and these countries. Ans: South Africa and West Indies

3. Donald Bradman scored these many double centuries. Ans: 12 (including two triple centuries)

4. The connection between Ivan Barrow and Wally Hammond to Bradman. Ans: They are the two Test wickets taken by Bradman

5. It is well-known that if the Don had got four runs in his final Test innings, his career average would have been a perfect 100. This player denied him the feat. Ans: England spinner Eric Hollies

6. This Indian bowler dismissed the Don ‘hit-wicket’. Ans: Lala Amarnath

7. This cricketer was called the ‘Little Bonzer’. Ans: Sachin Tendulkar

Visual: Name the two Indian cricketers flanking the Don. Ans: K.S. Duleepsinhji and Lala Amarnath

Early Birds: Bharath Viswanathan| Varghese Joseph| Arvind Tillway| Aadish Jain| Rajat Kothari

Know your English

K. Subrahmanian

1 of 2

2 of 2

“Hello, care for an orange?”

“No fruit please. I had enough of fruit last week. Please do me a favour.”

“What can I do for you?”

“There are some difficult problems in chemistry. I can’t solve them.”

“Tough nuts to crack, eh?”

“What?”

“Your problems, they’re tough nuts to crack. That is they are difficult to solve.”

“They are difficult to solve all right. Real tough nuts to crack.”

“Why don’t you come this evening? We’ll see if we can solve them.”

“But this evening will be too late. You see, I have a test this afternoon.”

“Then why didn’t you come to me yesterday?”

“I went to see a film yesterday.”

“Are you nuts? You have a test today and you went and saw a film.”

“But I had to see the film. Yesterday was the last day. You should have come too. It was a nice film. All about a blind man who kills people...”

“I am not one of those movie nuts..”

“Movie nuts?”

“Yes. One of the meanings of ‘nuts’ is someone who is very enthusiastic about some-subject or activity. My father, for example, is a tennis nut”

“And I’m no chemistry nut, I can assure you. So will you please help me?”

“No, I certainly won’t”

“Why?”

“Because you were nutty enough to see a film when you should have been studying.”

“Nutty? What do you mean nutty?”

“Nutty means someone who is insane or foolish.”

“Which one am I? Insane or foolish?”

“Both.”

“Oh come on! Help me this time. And I won’t do anything nutty like this again.”

“Sorry.”

“You are being very difficult today.”

“There are times when one has to be a tough nut”

“When did you become crazy?”

“ ‘Tough nut’ doesn’t mean crazy.”

“It doesn’t? But I thought ‘nut’ meant a mad or crazy person.”

“Nut means a crazy or eccentric person all right. But a tough nut is someone who is obstinate or difficult to deal with.”

“You certainly are being very difficult to deal with now. So, why don’t you stop being a tough nut and help me out”

“No.”

“Please! I need your help. I’m willing to pay you.”

“Really? How much will you pay me?”

“Fifteen rupees.”

“Fifteen rupees! That’s peanuts.”

“Peanuts! It is not peanuts but money I want to give you.”

“In informal English, peanuts means a very small amount”

“You mean fifteen rupees is a small amount?”

“Yes. It’s peanuts.”

“But that’s all I have.”

“Too bad.”

Published in The Hindu on March 9, 1993.

Business

- Scrapping unemployment dole sparks protests, unrest in Rajasthan

- OPEC+ output cut may push Indian refiners to source oil from Americas

- Automakers to offer discount for scrapped old vehicles

- ZF Wind Power to add capacity in TN for ₹450 crore

- India faces challenges to lift non-farm jobs: Moody’s

- Zee, Sony agree to settle merger row

- ‘Govt. eyes 3 cr. new basic bank accounts’

- ‘Indian consumers looking for AI-driven washing machines’

- ‘Realty needs more transparency’

- Apple names Indian-origin Kevan Parekh as new CFO

- BoB raises₹5,000 crore via 10-year infrastructure bonds

- Korea’s birth rate drive struggles to sway country’s ‘YOLO’ generation

- Canada imposes 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made EVs

- Tech-tonic shift

- ‘U.S. Latinas add $1.3 trillion to U.S. GDP, about as much as Florida’

- Cement firms go for gradual price increases

Scrapping unemployment dole sparks protests, unrest in Rajasthan

Mohammed Iqbal

Jaipur

Jobless crisis: Prolonged protests forced the State to replace two job schemes with a new one - CM’s Fellowship Programme. AFPIDREES MOHAMMED

A decision by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Rajasthan, shortly after it came to power in December 2023, to discontinue the previous Congress regime’s Rajiv Gandhi Yuva Mitra Internship Scheme and halt the recruitment of Mahatma Gandhi Seva Preraks has left more than 5,000 youths unemployed. The move has worsened the unemployment situation in Rajasthan, which is among the top five States with joblessness.

Ending both schemes has directly impacted those who were getting honorariums for their work, raising concerns about the decision’s potential social and economic repercussions. The Rajiv Gandhi Yuva Mitras were young graduates placed in various government departments to publicise their welfare schemes. They received a monthly stipend of ₹17,500.

New jobs scheme

After prolonged protests by those who lost their jobs, supported by the Opposition Congress, the government recently agreed to replace the two schemes with a new one - the Chief Minister’s Fellowship Programme. But this episode highlighted Rajasthan’s grim unemployment situation.

Data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), shows Rajasthan’s unemployment rate among those 15 years and older to have reduced marginally from 4.7% in 2020-21 and 2021-22 to4.4% in 2022-23. More than 18.40 lakh unemployed candidates are registered with the government’s Department of Skill, Employment and Entrepreneurship.

While the department’s FY24 annual report states that 6.38 lakh candidates were paid a monthly unemployment dole of ₹4,500 between February 1, 2019, when the scheme was introduced and December 31, 2023, recipients have disputed it, saying payments were irregular and were conditional on meeting several difficult criteria.

Democratic Youth Federation of India’s State Committee member Ritansh Azad toldThe Hinduthat jobless youth were not only deprived of their allowance, but there was not enough work for them in the urban employment guarantee scheme, which was introduced with much fanfare in 2022. “There is hardly any work available in the informal sector even for less than statutory minimum wages. Construction workers wait endlessly daily at pick-up points in cities,” he added.

Mr. Azad said the budget for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was gradually being reduced, which has had an adverse impact on villagers. Besides, as many as 20 incidents of paper leaks in the government recruitment exams since 2021, and the cancellation of the exams, had dampened candidates’ spirits who are struggling to find jobs.

Women’s reservation

The State government’s recent decision to reserve 50% jobs for women in the recruitment of grade III teachers has also led to unrest among unemployed youths, who claim joblessness among men is much higher than among women and the quota will further reduce the scope for men. There are currently 25,000 vacant posts for grade III teachers in the State.

Employers’ Association of Rajasthan secretary S.K. Patni said demand for employment in unorganised sectors like mining, manufacturing and construction was rising, but there was not enough capacity utilisation. “The organised sectors of textiles, tourism and handicrafts must be strengthened to create more jobs. They have recovered significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr. Patni said.

The bleak situation was apparent at a walk-in interview in July-end for helper posts at Jaipur’s Sanganer international airport, when thousands turned up to fill 66 vacancies. These were low-paying private jobs, as the airport is operated by the Adani Group.

M. Hasan, retired professor at Rajasthan State Institute of Public Administration said labour reforms that now allow corporates to fire workers without cause and restrict unionising, have wreaked havoc on urban employment conditions. “There is a dismal picture of urban employment, with rural populations migrating to urban labour mandis and aspirants for institutional jobs crowding coaching centres,” he said.

‘New corporate culture’

“It is not a happy scenario when urbanisation, unemployment and crime rates rise. When corporate culture overtakes the idiom of governance, overlooking the Preamble of the Constitution, it gives an impression that youths from SCs, STs, minorities and OBCs are being edged out from formal sectors like education, health and government,” Dr. Hasan added.

Some experts in the State think promoting an investor-friendly environment could lead to job creation, while rural infrastructure development and promotion of agriculture-based industries could create jobs in the villages. Other suggestions include partnerships between industries and academia, to create skill development centres and changes in school curriculum to increase employability.

OPEC+ output cut may push Indian refiners to source oil from Americas

Rishi Ranjan Kala

New Delhi

Rising consumption of liquid fuels in India, which is expected to touch 6.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) by 2028, and declining crude-oil exports from West Asia due to production cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) could force Indian refiners to tap resources in the Americas, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has said.

The U.S. EIA pointed out rising domestic consumption in India will drive the need for more crude-oil imports alongside expanding refinery capacity.

“Similar to China, decreasing Middle East [West Asia] crude-oil exports because of OPEC+ production restraint may lead refiners in India to secure crude oil supplies from other sources, such as the Americas,” it added.

Although West Asia remains the largest source of crude-oil imports for India, the quantity declined from 2.6 mb/d in 2022 to 2 mb/d in 2023, as the country imported significantly more from Russia, it pointed out.

Oil-producing countries in the Americas include the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Guyana, and Argentina, among others.

Non-OPEC+ cargoes

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Oil 2024 report in June, “Rising non-OPEC+ crude supply, in tandem with sanctions on Russian crude exports and OPEC+ voluntary cuts, will push higher volumes from the Atlantic Basin to East of Suez over the outlook period.”

The loss of medium sour crudes from West Asia amid OPEC+ cuts is partially offset by rising supplies from Brazil, Guyana and Canada. Asian markets have been opened to Canadian crude through the expanded Trans-Mountain pipeline to the Pacific Coast. Light and sweet U.S. crude oil will increasingly move to Europe and Africa as well as to India and other Asian refiners, it added.

Trade sources said rising crude-oil production from non-OPEC+ countries, particularly the U.S., Guyana, Brazil and Canada, is already challenging OPEC’s ability to reverse production cuts.

The IEA’s latest oil market report for August forecast non-OPEC+ production may rise by 1.5 mb/d in 2024 and 2025, while OPEC+ output may fall by 7,60,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 2024, but rise by 4,00,000 b/d in 2025, if voluntary cuts stay in place.

“Our current balance suggests even if those cuts remain in place, global inventories could build by an average 8,60,000 b/d next year (2025) as non-OPEC+ supply increased around 1.5 mb/d in 2024 and again in 2025 more than the expected demand growth. The Americas quartet of the U.S., Guyana, Canada and Brazil account for three-quarters, or roughly 1.1 mb/d, of non-OPEC+ supply gains in every two years,” it added.

India added 1.3 mb/d refinery distillation capacity between 2011 and 2023, the U.S. EIA added.

(The writer is with The Hindu businessline)

Automakers to offer discount for scrapping old vehicles

Jagriti Chandra

NEW DELHI

Price cuts to be offered in the range of 1.5%-3% on commercial vehicles and PVs for limited period; decision comes after manufacturers’ meeting with Road Transport Minister Gadkari

Cash for junk: PV makers will offer a discount of 1.5% on the ex-showroom price of a new car, or ₹20,000, whichever is less. PTI PTI

Auto manufacturers have agreed to offer discounts between 1.5% and 3% on commercial and passenger vehicles (PVs) against a scrappage certificate of an old vehicle for a limited period of one or two years.

The decision was announced after a meeting between Indian automobile manufacturers and Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday.

However, this scrappage discount will replace the discount customers were getting from dealers for exchanging their vehicles. Further, manufacturers are free to offer these discounts on select models within their vehicle portfolio. The benefits were envisaged in the Scrappage Policy, 2021.

Manufacturers of PVs such as Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, and Mahindra & Mahindra will offer a discount of 1.5% on the ex-showroom price of a new car, or ₹20,000, whichever is less. This is against a PV scrapped by the owner in the last six months.

Manufacturers of commercial vehicles such as Tata Motors, Volvo Eicher and Isuzu Motors have offered a discount of 3% on the ex-showroom price for a commercial cargo vehicle with more than 3.5 tonne gross vehicle weight, and a discount of 1.5% for a commercial cargo vehicle with less than 3.5 tonne gross vehicle weight. The benefit can be claimed by only the owner of the vehicle.

ZF Wind Power to add capacity in TN for ₹450 crore

The Hindu Bureau

COIMBATORE

ZF Wind Power, part of the ZF Group that makes wind turbine gear boxes, will expand annual gear-box manufacturing capacity at the Coimbatore plant to 12 GW from the current nine GW.

The plant, the firm’s largest, excluding China, made 50 GW gearbox capacity in the last 15 years and plans to supply 50 GW in the next five years.

The capacity addition will be coupled with the installation of a 13 MW test rig, said Felix Henseler, CEO of ZF Wind Power. Total investments in Coimbatore will be ₹450 crore to create the additional capacity and the project will be completed by the end of next year. “We are fully booked (for 12 GW).”

The government had announced policy on repowering low-capacity wind turbines and ZF can meet this demand when the projects are commissioned.

ZF had supplied to offshore projects in other countries and had the capacity to do so in India when projects took off, said Peter Laier, Member, Board of Management, ZF Group. ZF also wanted to expand local supply and hence, was asking some of its suppliers to invest in India, said Mr. Henseler.

India faces challenges to lift non-farm jobs: Moody’s

The Hindu Bureau

NEW DELHI

India’s continued thrust on infrastructure, with planned public spending of ₹11.11 lakh crore this year, would help improve the business environment, attract private investments and create jobs in sectors with higher salaries, but low participation in higher education, with pronounced gender gaps, remains a challenge for boosting non-agriculture jobs, Moody’s Ratings said on Tuesday.

Noting that India’s farm sector employment was still high compared to other large and fast-growing G-20 emerging markets, the rating major said: “Typically, if service and manufacturing sectors create more jobs to absorb the surplus labour supply in the agricultural sector, productivity in the agricultural sector will naturally increase as a result of the reduced labour base, and the new supply/demand equilibrium will lead to higher income for the agricultural sector”.

Terming the low participation in higher education and gender gap in education attainment as a limiting factor to create a large workforce ready to take on higher value-added jobs, Moody’s said this also posed a restraint on household income growth.

Also, “the elevated unemployment rate, which averaged 8.1% in 2023... combined with weak real wage growth” would hold back consumption growth.

Zee, Sony agree to settle merger row

The Hindu Bureau

MUMBAI

More than seven months after Sony Pictures called off the $10-billion merger with Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL) on account of the latter’s ‘delay’ in completing merger, the firms said they were settling the dispute.

ZEE, Sony Pictures Networks India and group firm Bangla Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. said they had arrived at a comprehensive non-cash settlement, resolving all disputes concerning the the merger.

The entities mutually agreed to withdraw all claims against each other, in the arbitration proceedings at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and related legal proceedings initiated in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and other fora.

‘Govt. eyes 3 cr. new basic bank accounts’

The Hindu Bureau

NEW DELHI

The government is aiming at opening three crore new no-frills bank accounts under the PM Jan Dhan Yojana through 2024-25 to bring in all adults and ‘neo-adults’ into the banking system, a top official said.

As many as 53.13 crore bank accounts were opened as of August 14 under the scheme, unveiled 10 years ago, with two-thirds of them in rural and semi-urban areas. “About 80% of the accounts are operative, 55.6% belong to women, and only 8.4% accounts have zero balance. With ₹2.3 lakh crore in deposits, the average balance has risen from ₹1,065 in March 2015 to ₹4,352,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The accounts form a huge chunk of the 173 crore operative CASA [Current Account Savings Account] numbers in India’s banking system. “We believe that most of the adults in the country have been covered with bank accounts and our focus is to cover left-out adults and neo-adults,” the official added.

‘Indian consumers looking for AI-driven washing machines’

Indian consumers are looking for AI-driven washing machines, said Saurabh Baishakhia, Senior Director, Digital Appliances, Samsung India. To cater to this emerging trend, Samsung on Tuesday introduced a new range of 10 front load, AI-powered bespoke washing machines with capacity of washing bigger laundry loads of 12 kg each. The new washing machines come with flat glass doors with special AI features and are priced between ₹52,990-₹74,990.

‘Realty needs more transparency’

The Hindu Bureau

Mumbai

India’s tier-1 real estate market needs to improve in terms of ‘consistent availability of information on legal issues and enforceability of regulations,’ as per Global Real Estate Transparency Index 2024, released by real estate management firm JLL.

India ranked 43 among 89 countries surveyed with a 2.26 transparency score.

According to the JLL report, India needs to use more of GIS and drone mapping to compile land records data, improve the consistency of land-record availability and quicken dispute redressal.

Apple names Indian-origin Kevan Parekh as new CFO

iPhone maker Apple has named Kevan Parekh as its new chief financial officer in a move that adds to the growing roster of Indian-origin executives at C-suites of global firms. Mr. Parekh, 52, will take over the baton from veteran Luca Maestri, who will transition from his role on January 1, 2025. Mr. Maestri will continue to lead the Corporate Services teams, including information systems and technology, and real estate and development, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. pti

BoB raises₹5,000 crore via 10-year infrastructure bonds

Bank of Baroda (BoB) on Tuesday said it had raised ₹5,000 crore via long-term 10-year infrastructure bonds at 7.30% per annum. BoB said it accepted bids for ₹5,000 crore against a total received demand of ₹15,020 crore through 146 bids. The bonds are senior, unsecured, listed, rated, taxable bonds, with a fixed maturity of 10 years from the date of allotment, the bank said. The bonds are rated ‘AAA’ with stable outlook by CRISIL and India Ratings, the lender added.

Korea’s birth rate drive struggles to sway country’s ‘YOLO’ generation

Reuters

SEOUL

South Korea continues to break its own record for having the world’s lowest birth rate, which hit a fresh low last year ; sociologists say the lifestyle priorities of Koreans in their 20s and 30s—considered Generations Y and Z—mean they focus on buying luxury rather than on building a family

1 of 2 Family last: South Korea was the only country where material well-being topped family or health as people’s priority.REUTERSJIHOON LEE

2 of 2 Young people are working on their own success rather than focusing on having children Jung Jae-hoon Professor, Seoul Women’s University

As South Korea scrambles to halt the sharp decline in its birth rate, policymakers are having a hard time convincing many in their 20s and 30s that parenthood is a better investment than stylish clothes or fancy restaurants.

Asia’s fourth-largest economy plans to launch a new government ministry dedicated to demographic challenges after years of incentives failed to ease the baby crisis.

But for Park Yeon, a 28-year-old fashion Instagrammer and aspiring singer, spending choices are guided mostly by her appetites for clothing and travel, leaving little budget for marriage and babies.

“I’m all about YOLO (you only live once),” said Ms. Park as she sells her Supreme T-shirts at a thrift fashion festival in Seoul’s high-fashion enclave of Seongsu-dong.

“There isn’t enough left to save each month after I do things to reward myself. Getting married might happen at some point but being happy right now—that’s more important, right?” South Korea continues to break its own record for having the world’s lowest birth rate, which hit a fresh low last year.

Sociologists say the lifestyle priorities of Koreans in their 20s and 30s—considered Generations Y and Z—mean they spend more and save less on average than the wider population or their peers in other countries, neither of which are conducive to nest building.

“They are status hunting. Their high spending habits show young people are working on their own emblems of success online rather than focusing on the impossible goals of settling down and have children,” said Jung Jae-hoon, a sociology professor at Seoul Women’s University.

Not even South Korea’s aggressive interest rate hikes over the past three years have been able to rein in youthful spending.

The savings rate for those in their 30s declined to 28.5% in the first quarter from 29.4% five years ago, while that for all other age groups increased in the same period, central bank data shows.

At the same time, people in their 20s and 30s make up the biggest spenders at department stores and top-tier hotels while their travel spending rose to 40.1% from 33.3% in the past three years.

Last year alone, revenue at pricey buffet restaurants jumped 30.3%, versus a gain of 10.5% at fast food restaurants and 9% for the entire dining industry, according to market research firm Euromonitor.

In one example, sales at Seoul Dragon City Hotel—a popular Instagram spot—for its 90,000 won ($68) all-you-can-eat seasonal strawberry dessert jumped 150% from last winter, even after the hotel hiked the price by 12.5%.

In contrast, 25- to 29-year-olds in Australia slashed spending 3.5% in the first quarter of 2024 from a year earlier due to cost-of-living pressure, a report by Commonwealth Bank of Australia shows.

Koreans’ fancy tastes have made them the world’s biggest per-capita spenders on luxury brands, Morgan Stanley’s research showed last year, and a hot destination for the biggest luxury brands.

Chanel, Celine and Dior have all signed deals with teen-focused K-pop groups such as Blackpink and NewJeans as global brand ambassadors.

Pleasure and pain

To be sure, financial hardship is by far the biggest reason South Koreans cited for not having children, according to a survey by research firm PMI Co. in May.

About 46% of 1,800 respondents blamed either job uncertainty or education costs for this decision.

That’s worsened by annual incomes only rising 2.0% for those in their 20s and 30s last year, slower than the 4.5% increase for all households, according to Statistics Korea.

But Mr. Jung added a youth focus on more immediate pleasures also explains why young people don’t respond to the government’s subsidy-based baby boosting policies. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration in May announced a plan to create a new ministry to focus on demographic issues, after dozens of policy measures including subsidies to reverse vasectomies, cash support for families with newborns, free taxi rides and longer paid childcare leave failed to reverse the plunging birth rates.

In a survey of 17 advanced countries by the U.S. Pew Research Center in 2021 asking what makes life meaningful, South Korea was the only country where material well-being was the top response. Elsewhere, family or health was the top answer.

For Ms. Park, having children is an add-on she may consider if her singing career takes off.

“If things work out well with what I do, savings and getting married and all those will follow. For now, enjoying my life and working on my dream job are my priorities,” she said.

Canada imposes 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made EVs

Associated Press

TORONTO

World’s factory: China may have enough capacity to meet much of the world’s EV demand.AFPLILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA

Canada announced Monday it is launching a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles, matching U.S. tariffs imposed over what Western governments say are China’s subsidies that give its industry an unfair advantage.

The announcement came after encouragement by U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Cabinet ministers Sunday. Mr. Sullivan is making his first visit to Beijing on Tuesday.

Mr. Trudeau said Canada also will impose a 25% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum. “Actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace,” he said.

One of the Chinese-made EVs imported into Canada is from Tesla, made at the company’s Shanghai factory, though the U.S. company could avoid the tariff by switching to supplying Canada from factories in the U.S. or Germany.

Chinese brands are not yet a player in Canada. However, Chinese EV giant BYD established a Canadian corporate entity last spring and has indicated it intends to try and enter the Canadian market as early as next year.

Chinese officials are likely to raise concerns about the American tariffs with Mr. Sullivan as Beijing continues to repair its economy after the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. President Joe Biden in May slapped major new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, advanced batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminum and medical equipment.

“The U.S. does believe that a united front, a coordinated approach on these issues benefits all of us,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters on Sunday. Mr. Biden has said Chinese government subsidies for EVs and other consumer goods ensure that Chinese companies don’t have to turn a profit, giving them an unfair advantage in global trade.

Chinese firms can sell EVs for as little as $12,000. China’s solar cell plants and steel and aluminum mills have enough capacity to meet much of the world’s demand. Chinese officials argue their production keeps prices low and would aid a transition to the green economy.

Common challenge

“We’re doing it in alignment, in parallel, with other economies around the world that recognize that this is a challenge that we are all facing,” Mr. Trudeau said of the new tariffs. “Unless we all want to get to a race to the bottom, we have to stand up.”

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada also will launch a 30-day consultation about possible tariffs on Chinese batteries, battery parts, semiconductors, critical minerals, metals, etc.

“China has an intentional state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply designed to cripple our own industry,” Ms. Freeland said. “We simply will not allow that to happen to our EV sector, which has shown such promise.”

The Chinese Embassy said Ottawa disregarded Beijing’s repeated objections and said the move will damage trade and economic cooperation.

“This move is typical trade protectionism and politically-motivated decision, which violates the World Trade Organization(WTO) rules and goes against Canada’s traditional image as a global champion for free trade and climate change mitigation,” the embassy said in an emailed statement.

Canada “had to go with the U.S. position, when you think about the economic integration that we have with the U.S. More than 75% of our exports go to the U.S.,” said a former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques.

Mr. Saint-Jacques said Canada can expect retaliation from China in other industries, adding that barley and pork are candidates because the Chinese can get it from other countries.

“China will want to send a message,” he said.

Tech-tonic shift

No tips, please: A young patron records a video of a robotic waiter using a phone as it delivers her order at the Robot Cafe, Kenya’s first restaurant to employ humanoid robots as waiters, in Nairobi. Working alongside human staff, the robots are programmed with AI and controlled remotely to provide services that include calling out welcomes to approaching patrons, serving up non-spillable orders and even belting out ‘happy birthday’ music on appropriate occassion.AFPTONY KARUMBA

‘U.S. Latinas add $1.3 trillion to U.S. GDP, about as much as Florida’

Associated Press

Latina power: Latinas outpace their peers in key measures such as workforce participation and income growth. REUTERSJOSE LUIS GONZALEZ

Latinas contributed $1.3 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2021, up from $661 billion in 2010 and at a growth rate nearly triple that of non-Latinos during the same time period, according to a new report funded by Bank of America and conducted by professors at California Lutheran University and UCLA.

The report was compiled using publicly available data from U.S. agencies and shows “that Latinas are drivers of economic vitality in the United States, giving life to the U.S. economy,” said economist Matthew Fienup, one of the study’s authors and executive director of California Lutheran University’s Center for Economic Research & ForecastiNG.

“Latinas outpace their gender and ethnic peers in key economic measures, including record levels of Latina workforce participation, educational attainment, and income growth,” he added.

The $1.3 trillion economic contribution by Latinas is about as much as the GDP of Florida, and only surpassed by California, Texas and New York, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Mr. Fienup says that Latinas’ increased economic output and labor force growth—nine times faster than that of non-Latinos—is translating to higher earnings and economic mobility for Latinas.

“We are moving in the right direction. And that wage gap is closing, despite Latinas facing certain disadvantages relative to non-Latinos in the U.S.,” Mr. Fienup said, adding that Latinas are outpacing other groups in investments toward starting businesses and homeownership, despite having less access to capital.

Cement firms go for gradual price increases

Abhishek Law

New Delhi

Step by step: The price revision comes amid a slowdown in construction activities.The HinduRAJU V

Cement makers in India are looking at increasing the price of cement phase wise, starting with a hike of ₹5 to ₹10 per bag that was initiated last week. An additional increase of ₹10–15 per bag is anticipated within the next 15 days, likely to extend through mid-September.

Price revision, expected earlier this year and thwarted by weak demand due to the Lok Sabha polls, comes amid a slowdown in construction activities. Attempts to increase prices were made in May and June, but were reversed after being faced with inadequate market acceptance. On an average, starting September, the anticipated price hikes may range between ₹10 and ₹15 per bag.

Demand slump

“Post mid-August, cement makers have initiated a hike of ₹5–₹10 per bag depending on the region and the cement category. But, so far, the acceptance of the hikes is unclear. Demand in general is slow, with July – September period generally being a seasonally slow quarter,” a market participant told businessline.

Price hikes vary according to regions. For instance, it is by ₹5 per bag in the East and around ₹20–₹25 per bag in the South. Currently, price (as of August) ranges between ₹305 per bag- in Eastern markets-and ₹370-odd per bag in Central India. The prices are 3-4% lower than the average prices seen in the first quarter. Prices are 6-7%-odd lower on a year-on-year basis.

(The writer is with The Hindu businessline)

Foreign

- Sharif reiterates ‘unwavering resolve’ to root out terrorism from Pakistan

- Braving the odds

- Khamenei opens door for discussions with U.S. over Iran’s nuclear programme

- U.S. and China working to avoid conflict, says Sullivan

- Maldives police probe an alleged attempt to topple government

- UN calls out China’s ‘problematic’ human rights policies in Xinjiang

- Israeli hostage rescued as Gaza war rages on

- UN's Guterres issues 'global SOS' over fast-rising Pacific ocean

- French judge extends police custody for Telegram CEO Durov

- China ‘biggest disruptor’ of peace in Southeast Asia, says Philippines

- Five killed as Russian strikes pound Ukraine for second day

- Hasina’s ouster opens a new chapter for student activism in Bangladesh

- Deadly Atlantic not a deterrent for Senegalese desperate to reach Europe

- Feeble and fragile

- Experts flag new crackdown on Rohingya in Myanmar

- Mpox outbreaks in Africa resulted from neglect, say experts

- S. Korea finds new border threat in mosquitoes

Sharif reiterates ‘unwavering resolve’ to root out terrorism from Pakistan

Press Trust of India

Islamabad

Prime Minister condemns the multiple attacks that took the lives of 37 civilians in the restive Balochistan province ; he says doors of dialogue are open for those who believe in Pakistan and its Constitution, not for the enemies and terrorists

Sad spectacle: A bus drives past a damaged vehicle, a day after the deadly attacks, in Bolan district of Pakistan's Balochistan.REUTERS

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday strongly condemned the terrorist attacks in the restive Balochistan province as he reiterated the “unwavering resolve” of his government to root out terrorism from the country.

Heavily armed Baloch gunmen killed at least 37 people in separate attacks in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province on Monday, as insurgent attacks spiked in the region bordering Iran and Afghanistan.

Chairing a Cabinet meeting a day after violence in Balochistan stunned the country, Mr. Sharif strongly condemned the terrorist incidents that resulted in the death of innocent Pakistanis including security personnel, state-run Radio Pakistan reported.

He said the sacrifices rendered by the people and the Armed Forces of Pakistan in the war against terrorism will not go waste. “The entire nation is committed for complete elimination of terrorism from the country,” he said.

He said doors of dialogue are open for those who believe in Pakistan and its Constitution. However, no talks will be held with the enemies and terrorists, he added.

Referring to the terrorist incidents, he said it is no secret now that the terrorists of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, operating from Afghanistan, are behind terrorist attacks. He said the government has already sensitised the Afghan government on the issue.

Baloch visits

He announced to soon visit Balochistan to hold in-depth deliberations on the situation and decide on immediate measures to deal with it.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visited Balochistan on Tuesday to support the provincial government in its efforts to tackle militancy.

Braving the odds

Afghan girls attend a class at a school in Helmand on Tuesday. Taliban authorities responded to criticism of recently codified morality rules. The laws said women must cover completely and not raise their voices in public, among other rules restricting women's behaviour .AFPWAKIL KOHSAR

Khamenei opens door for discussions with U.S. over Iran’s nuclear programme

Associated Press

DUBAI

Setting course: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Masoud Pezeshkian and his Cabinet in Tehran on Tuesday.REUTERSOFFICE OF THE IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER

Iran’s supreme leader opened the door on Tuesday to renewed negotiations with the U.S. over his country’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme, telling its civilian government there was “no harm” in engaging with its “enemy.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s remarks set clear red lines for any talks taking place under the government of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and renewed his warnings that Washington wasn’t to be trusted.

But his comments mirror those around the time of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Tehran’s nuclear programme greatly curtailed in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Yet it remains unclear just how much room Mr. Pezeshkian will have to manoeuvre, particularly as tensions remain high in West Asia over the Israel-Hamas war and as the U.S. prepares for a presidential election in November.

“This does not mean that we cannot interact with the same enemy in certain situations,” Khamenei said on his official website. “There is no harm in that, but do not place your hopes in them.”

‘No trusting enemy’

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, also warned Mr. Pezeshkian’s Cabinet, “Do not trust the enemy.”

Khamenei, 85, has occasionally called for talks or dismissed them with Washington after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2018.

Asked for comment, the U.S. State Department said: “We will judge Iran’s leadership by their actions, not their words.”

U.S. and China working to avoid conflict, says Sullivan

Associated Press

BEIJING

Last leg: Jake Sullivan told Wang Yi that the Biden administration is committed to managing U.S.-China ties responsibly.APNg Han Guan

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington and Beijing are working to ensure the competition between them does not veer into conflict, as the two sides started talks on a relationship that has been severely tested during President Joe Biden’s term in office.

Mr. Sullivan is meeting over two days with Wang Yi, a senior foreign policy official for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in a scenic lake area on the northern outskirts of Beijing.

“President Biden has been very clear in his conversations with President Xi that he is committed to managing this important relationship responsibly,” Mr. Sullivan told Mr. Wang.

No major announcements are expected, though Mr. Sullivan’s meetings could lay the groundwork for a possible final summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping before Biden steps down in January.

Wang, the director of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, noted that the China-U.S. relationship has gone through twists and turns in the past few years.

“The key,” he said, “is to keep to the overall direction of mutual respect, peaceful co-existence, and win-win cooperation.”

Maldives police probe an alleged attempt to topple government

Agence France-Presse

MALE

The police in the Maldives are investigating an alleged attempt to topple President Mohamed Muizzu by stirring anger over the Indian Ocean archipelago’s worsening financial woes.

Last week, the main commercial bank in the upmarket tourist destination drastically reduced the foreign exchange spending allowed for Maldivians, sparking widespread anger.

Mr. Muizzu has slammed the move as an “illegal attempt” to overthrow his government, by making him unpopular and encouraging street protests.

“An investigation has been launched into the alleged coup attempt,” the police said in a statement on Monday.

There have been no demonstrations in the capital Male, but scathing criticism of the government has erupted online.

‘Bot’ accounts

“Hundreds of ‘bot’ accounts have been used on social media to encourage people to take to the streets to overthrow the government and incite public unrest,” police said.

The bank said the changes, which they have since rescinded, came “in response to the escalating usage of foreign currency spend on cards and the static sale of foreign currency to the Bank”.

The international credit rating agency Fitch downgraded the Maldives in June and warned it could be headed for a sovereign default, after its foreign currency reserves dropped to $492 million in May.

The downgrade came weeks after the International Monetary Fund warned the Maldives against a looming “debt distress”, as the small but strategically placed country eyes further borrowing from main creditor China.

Official data showed the Maldives’ foreign debt reaching $4.038 billion last year, about 118% of gross domestic product, an increase of nearly $250 million from 2022.

UN calls out China’s ‘problematic’ human rights policies in Xinjiang

Agence France-Presse

Geneva

China is accused of incarcerating more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang region.APMark Schiefelbein

The UN Human Rights Office said on Tuesday “problematic” policies persist in China two years on from its major report citing possible “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang.

China has been accused of incarcerating more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region — charges Beijing vehemently rejects.

OHCHR revealed on Tuesday it had held a series of discussions in Geneva with Chinese officials since February 2023, which paved the way for UN human rights chief Volker Turk to send a team to Beijing from May 26 to June 1 this year.

The team held talks with the Chinese authorities, specifically on “counter-terrorism policies and the criminal justice system”, OHCHR spokeswoman said. “On Xinjiang, we understand that many problematic laws and policies remain in place,” she said.

OHCHR demanded that Chinese authorities “undertake a full review” of the legal requirements pertaining to national security and counter-terrorism, as well as guarding minorities against discrimination.

Israeli hostage rescued as Gaza war rages on

Agence France-Presse

Gaza Strip

The Israeli military said a hostage was rescued on Tuesday from a Gaza tunnel, more than 10 months after the 52-year-old Israeli Bedouin was seized during the Hamas attack that triggered a devastating war.

Kaid Farhan Alkadi is one 251 people abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack on southern Israel, 104 of whom are still captive in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.

The military said in a statement that “Alkadi was rescued... in a complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip”, with spokesman Daniel Hagari later telling a media briefing that forces had found him in “an underground tunnel”.

Violence meanwhile raged on in the war that has ravaged the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all of its 2.4 million people.

The civil defence agency in the Hamas-run territory said separate Israeli strikes killed at least 11 persons in two refugee camps in central Gaza and Khan Yunis in the south.

International mediators pushing for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal held talks in Cairo in recent days, as Israel and Hamas have publicly traded blame for delays in reaching an accord. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced growing criticism from protesters accusing him of blocking a deal and prolonging the war for political gain, said Israel was “working tirelessly to bring all our hostages back”. Relatives of hostages have piled pressure on the Israeli government in weekly protests demanding their return home.

UN’s Guterres issues ‘global SOS’ over fast-rising Pacific ocean

AFPTUPOU VAIPULU

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent out a global climate “SOS” at a Pacific islands summit in Tonga on Tuesday, unveiling research that shows the region’s seas rising much more swiftly than global averages. “A worldwide catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in peril” he said. afp

French judge extends police custody for Telegram CEO Durov

REUTERSAlbert Gea

A French investigative judge extended police custody for the CEO of the popular messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov. He was detained on Saturday at a Paris airport as part of a judicial inquiry opened last month involving 12 alleged criminal violations. Complicity in selling child sexual abuse material is one among them. ap

China ‘biggest disruptor’ of peace in Southeast Asia, says Philippines

APAaron Favila

China is the “biggest disruptor” of peace in Southeast Asia, the Philippine defence chief said on Tuesday, as tensions between Manila and Beijing over disputed reefs and waters in the South China Sea escalate. Gilberto Teodoro made the remarks at a conference of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. afp

Five killed as Russian strikes pound Ukraine for second day

AFPGENYA SAVILOV

Russia fired a wave of drones and missiles at Ukraine that killed at least five persons, after a second night of heavy strikes across the war-battered nation. Monday’s attack was one of Moscow’s largest ever on Ukraine, prompting Kyiv to push for permission from allies to use Western-provided weapons to strike deep inside Russia. afp

Hasina’s ouster opens a new chapter for student activism in Bangladesh

Press Trust of India

DHAKA

The recent toppling of Sheikh Hasina’s government is just the latest chapter in Bangladesh’s long history of student activism; for over seven decades, students have been at the forefront of social change in the country and the erstwhile East Pakistan, beginning with the 1952 Language Movement

Veteran politicians believe that the successful student movement could pave the way for a new generation of political leaders, challenging the dominance of traditional parties.REUTERSMOHAMMAD PONIR HOSSAIN

The recent student movement in Bangladesh marked a watershed moment in the nation’s political landscape.

Political analysts and observers are of the view that the protests, which many in Bangladesh have christened as the ‘Bangla Spring’ — taking a cue from the Arab Spring — or the ‘Monsoon Revolution’, were driven by the same spirit of activism that has characterised student movements in the country for over 70 years, even before its independence in 1971, when it was known as East Pakistan.

The reinstatement of the job quota system, which had been abolished in 2018 after an earlier set of protests by students, sparked widespread demonstrations led by students that ultimately led to the collapse of the government led by long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Over several weeks, the protests escalated, resulting in nearly 450 deaths and the detention of thousands, including hundreds of students.

Despite harsh government crackdowns, the persistent student-led movement forced Ms. Hasina to resign after 16 years in power, marking a historic victory for Bangladesh’s youth and highlighting the enduring impact of student activism in the nation’s history.

‘Vital role in history’

“The students’ movement has always played a vital role in charting the course of Bangladesh’s history and policies even before the Liberation War of 1971. But this time, the students’ movement was different and on a scale that had never been witnessed before,” former Major General Muniruzzaman, the president of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, a think tank, said. “The ‘Monsoon Revolution,’ as it is being called, marks a turning point in Bangladesh’s history, driven by the same spirit of resistance that has characterised student movements for over 70 years” .

He pointed out that the recipe for the success of student movements in Bangladesh lies in the “secular nature and ideology of the movement and the mass participation of people cutting across social, religious, and economic lines.”

“The students’ movement, be it the 1952 Language Movement or the recent Monsoon Revolution, would never have tasted success had they not been secular. Because if they had only catered to one community or creed, it would never have taken the shape of a mass movement,” he said.

Echoing similar sentiments, G. M. Quader, the chairman of the Jatiya Party, said the “students’ movement, which is free from narrow politics, has over the years changed and at times dictated the country’s politics.”

“There is a trust factor that works in favour of the students. People believe in them and support them wholeheartedly. This time too, we have seen how common people have come down to the streets to support the students,” he said.

Mr. Quader’s elder brother, the founder of the Jatiya Party and former President Hussain Muhammad Ershad, too had to step down in 1990 following a students’ protest.

The recent toppling of Ms. Hasina’s government is just the latest chapter in Bangladesh’s long history of student activism. For over seven decades, students have been at the forefront of social and political change in Bangladesh and the erstwhile East Pakistan, beginning with the 1952 Language Movement.

Fight for culture

In the early struggle for Bengali to be recognised as a state language, students in Dhaka faced a tragic climax on February 21, 1952, when police fired on demonstrators, killing several students and turning the event into a symbol of the fight for cultural and linguistic rights, now commemorated as International Mother Language Day.

The 1969 uprising against Pakistani rule, driven mainly by students, was a pivotal moment that helped mobilise the Bangladeshi people to fight for their independence in 1971.

During the Liberation War, students not only led protests but also joined the Liberation Army, and the brutal Pakistani military crackdown on Dhaka University on March 25, 1971, targeting students and intellectuals, remains one of the darkest chapters in Bangladesh’s history.

Student activism continued to shape the political landscape of Bangladesh in the decades that followed.

The anti-dictatorship movement of 1990, which led to the fall of President Hussain Muhammad Ershad, was driven by student protests and demonstrations. This movement eventually forced Ershad to step down, paving the way for the restoration of democracy in Bangladesh.

The 2024 protests have their roots in the 2018 student movements against the job quota system, which began with demands for fairer government job access and were intensified by the tragic deaths of two students in Dhaka.

The 2018 movement succeeded in pressuring the government to abolish the quota system, but its reintroduction in June 2024 reopened old wounds and led to a resurgence of protests.

Political observers note that the latest student movement reflects broader dissatisfaction with Ms. Hasina’s Awami League (AL).

Senior Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury asserted that the scale of the protests indicates deep-seated public resentment toward the government.

Veteran politicians believe that the successful student movement could pave the way for a new generation of political leaders, challenging the dominance of traditional parties like the BNP and AL and possibly leading to the rise of a strong new party in Bangladesh.

Deadly Atlantic not a deterrent for Senegalese desperate to reach Europe

Associated Press

THIAROYE-SUR-MER

Beating the odds: Migrants who arrived on the Canary Island of El Hierro in Spain on Monday, after a 13-day voyage from Senegal. APMaria Ximena

Salamba Ndiaye was 22 when she first tried to get to Spain, dreaming of a career as a real estate agent. Without her parents’ knowledge, she made it onto a small fishing boat known as a pirogue, but the Senegalese police intercepted the vessel before it could leave.

A year later Ms. Ndiaye tried again, successfully making it off the coast but this time a violent storm forced the boat to stop in Morocco and Ms. Ndiaye and the other passengers were sent back to Senegal.

Despite her two failed attempts, the 28-year-old is determined to try again.

Ms. Ndiaye is one of thousands of young Senegalese who try to leave the West African country each year to head to Spain, fleeing poverty and the lack of job opportunities.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 22,300 people have landed on the Canary Islands, 126% more than the same period last year, according to statistics released by Spain’s Interior Ministry.

Earlier this year, the EU signed a 210 million euro deal with Mauritania to stop smugglers from launching boats for Spain. But the deal has had little effect on migrant arrivals for now.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is set to visit Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia this week to tackle irregular migration.

The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Spanish archipelago Canary Islands is one of the deadliest in the world. While there is no accurate death toll because of the lack of information on departures from West Africa, The Spanish migrant rights group Walking Borders estimates the victims are in the thousands this year alone. Migrant boats that get lost or run into problems often vanish in the Atlantic, with some drifting across the ocean for months until they are found in the Caribbean and Latin America carrying only human remains.

But the danger of the route is not a deterrent for those like Ms. Ndiaye, who are desperate to make a better living for themselves and their families in Europe. Barsa wala Barsakh (Barcelona or die) in Wolof, one of Senegal’s national languages, is a common motto of those who brave the deadly route.

“Even if we stay here, we are in danger,” said Cheikh Gueye, 46, a fisherman from Thiaroye-sur-Mer, the same village on the outskirts of Senegal’s capital that Ms. Ndiaye is from.

Like many inhabitants of Thiaroye-sur-Mer, he used to make a decent living as a fisherman before fish stocks started to deplete a decade ago due to overfishing.

Mr. Gueye and Ms. Ndiaye blame the fishing agreements between Senegal and the European Union and China, which allow foreign industrial trawlers to fish in Senegalese waters.

The Senegalese and Spanish governments should focus on giving young people in the West African country job opportunities to deter them from migrating, said Ms. Ndiaye’s mother, Fatou Niang. “These kids do not know anything but the sea, and now the sea has nothing. If you do something for the youth, they will not leave,” Ms. Niang said.

“But if not, well, we cannot make them stay. There is no work here,” she said.

Feeble and fragile

Bundle of joy: Photo of a newborn panda at Germany’s Zoo Berlin released by zoo authorities on Tuesday.AP

Experts flag new crackdown on Rohingya in Myanmar

Agence France-Presse

COX’s BAZAR

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017 during a crackdown by the military.APMAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

The persecuted and stateless Rohingya minority is caught in a new violent crackdown in Myanmar, with children among those killed, two reports from influential expert groups said on Tuesday.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017 during a crackdown by the military that is now the subject of a UN genocide court case.

But around 6,00,000 remain in the country’s western State of Rakhine, where they have found themselves in the middle of an escalating conflict between junta-run Myanmar’s armed forces and the rebel Arakan Army (AA).

The situation has been inflamed further by the Myanmar military’s forced recruitment of Rohingya to battle the rebel group, including reportedly more than 2,000 from Bangladeshi refugee camps.

Watchdog Fortify Rights said its interviews with eyewitnesses established that the AA had this month launched a drone and mortar attack on Rohingya civilians. The bombardment killed more than 100 Rohingya men, women and children on the border with Bangladesh, Fortify Rights said.

The Arakan Army denied responsibility for the assault in an August 7 statement and again through its political wing 10 days later.

The reports come days after the UN Human Rights Office said it had information showing the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army had both committed serious abuses against the Rohingya.

“Recurrence of the crimes and horrors of the past must be prevented as a moral duty,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said.

Mpox outbreaks in Africa resulted from neglect, say experts

Associated Press

LONDON

Patients at an Mpox treatment centre in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.file photoARLETTE BASHIZI

The rising Mpox outbreaks in Africa that triggered the World Health Organization’s (WHO) emergency declaration are largely the result of decades of neglect, leading African scientists said on Tuesday. They also pointed out global community’s inability to stop sporadic epidemics among a population with little immunity against the smallpox-related disease.

According to Dr. Dimie Ogoina, who chaired WHO’s Mpox emergency committee, negligence had led to a new, more transmissible version of the virus emerging in countries with few resources to stop outbreaks. Mpox, also known as Monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Nigeria and elsewhere before the disease prompted the 2022 outbreak in more than 70 countries, Dr. Ogoina said at a virtual news conference.

“What we are witnessing in Africa now is different from the global outbreak in 2022,” he said. Mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups. And while most people over 50 were likely vaccinated against smallpox — which may provide some protection against Mpox — that is not the case for Africa’s mostly young population, who Dr. Ogoina said were mostly susceptible.

Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever and body aches. It spreads through close skin-to-skin contact. People with more serious cases can develop prominent blisters on their body.

S. Korea finds new border threat in mosquitoes

Agence France-Presse

PAJU

Near the heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea, a monitoring device is working round the clock — not tracking missiles or troop movements, but catching malaria-carrying mosquitoes that may cross the border.

Despite its advanced healthcare service and decades of determined efforts, achieving “malaria-free” status has remained elusive for South Korea, largely thanks to its proximity to the isolated North, where the disease is prevalent.

The South issued a nationwide malaria warning this year, and scientists say climate change, especially warmer springs and heavier rainfall, could bring more mosquito-borne diseases to the peninsula unless the two Koreas, which remain technically at war, cooperate. The core issue is the demilitarised zone (DMZ), a four-kilometre-wide no man’s land that runs the full length of the 250-kilometre border.

“The DMZ is not an area where pest control can be carried out,” Kim Dong-gun, an environmental biology professor at Sahmyook University in Seoul, told AFP.

North of the border, malaria is more widespread, with WHO data indicating nearly 4,500 cases between 2021 and 2022.

With the nuclear-armed North declaring Seoul its “principal enemy” this year and cutting off contact, as it rejects repeated offers of overseas aid, cooperation on malaria looks unlikely.

Sports

- Swiatek gets off to a wobbly start; Gauff and ‘rusty’ Djokovic breeze into second round

- India’s strong contingent eyes record medal tally

- Reeth begins revival before Manush and Szocs seal issue

- India keen to bury the ghosts of the past in T20 World Cup

- Jay Shah set to become youngest ICC chairperson

- Important results

- Around two million tickets sold: Paris Paralympics organisers

- Knight to lead England in ICC Women’s T20 World Cup

- ‘You don’t really get this feeling, in my case, in life outside of tennis’

- Spectators allowed to move in the stands during play at the US Open

- Pradosh, Indrajith, Boopathi’s knocks boost TNCA XI

- Strong field for India Legends golf championship

- Karthik clinches title after three-way tie for top spot

- Resilient Bagan bounces back to trump BFC, in final

- Anirudh & Hernandez in last eight

- Richter wins maiden u-17 World title

- Siraj to miss first round games, Jadeja allowed extended rest

- Huge following

- Gukesh holds Caruana; Firouzja consolidates lead

- Juventus rides on Vlahovic’s heroics to go top of Serie A

- Bairstow, Moeen out of England white-ball squads

- Patience still has a place in cricket’s changing landscape

- Michal Szubarczyk — Poland’s snooker prodigy aiming to take the world by storm

Swiatek gets off to a wobbly start; Gauff and ‘rusty’ Djokovic breeze into second round

Agence France-Presse

New York

Flying start: Gauff fired 10 aces and needed just 66 minutes to beat 66th-ranked Gracheva.Getty ImagesAL BELLO

Iga Swiatek began her bid to capture a second US Open title with an uneven straight-sets win over lucky loser Kamilla Rakhimova on Tuesday.

Swiatek saw off 104th-ranked Rakhimova of Russia 6-4, 7-6(6) to extend her season-leading record to 54 match wins.

However, it was an unconvincing display by the Pole who committed 41 unforced errors and had to fight off three set points in the second set before she steadied the ship.

Defending champion Novak Djokovic eased into the second round with a straight-sets victory over qualifier Radu Albot on Monday as Coco Gauff launched her defence of the women’s title with a convincing victory.

Djokovic, seeking his 25th Grand Slam title and his first since his victory at Flushing Meadows last year, wasn’t his sharpest self.

But he was more than a match for 138th-ranked Albot, breaking the Moldovan six times on the way to a 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 victory.

He notched a men’s record 78th match win on Arthur Ashe Stadium, where he said the “electric” energy of the night session was unlike any other.

“The night sessions here are best in the world,” said Djokovic, who capped the action on a day that drew a record 74,641 spectators according to the US Tennis Association.

That included a day-session crowd of 42,886 and a record-setting night-session crowd of 31,775.

Seeded second behind Jannik Sinner, Djokovic is vying to become the first man to repeat in New York since Roger Federer won five straight US Opens from 2004-2008.

He’s coming off an emotional triumph at the Paris Olympics, but Djokovic has yet to capture a Grand Slam title this year.

He had 10 double faults among 40 unforced errors, but was nevertheless in full control throughout the two hour, seven minute contest that ended shortly before midnight.

Gauff, meanwhile, powered into the second round with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over France’s Varvara Gracheva.

The 20-year-old American fired 10 aces and needed just 66 minutes to beat 66th-ranked Gracheva. She saved eight break points — including two with aces in the final game.

India’s top player Sumit Nagal crashed out after a 6-1, 6-3, 7-6(8) defeat against Dutch player Tallon Griekspoor.

India’s strong contingent eyes record medal tally

Press Trust of India

PARIS

Sumit and Avani will lead a balanced mix of youth and experience as the nation targets a double-digit haul in gold buoyed by the performances of its athletes in recent times

1 of 3 Defending gold: Sumit and Avani will spearhead India’s campaign in Paris 2024.FILE PHOTOSAlex Davidson

2 of 3

3 of 3

Battered by life but not beaten by its many challenges, an 84-strong contingent of Indian para-athletes, the largest ever in the country’s history and a heady mix of youth and experience, would be eyeing an unparalleled gold rush when the Paralympic Games begin here on Wednesday.

India won a record 19 medals, including five gold, in Tokyo in 2021 for a 24th-place finish.

Three years on, the country’s target is more than 25 medals with a double-digit haul in gold. India won a record 111 medals, including 29 gold, at the Hangzhou Asian Para Games last year.

This was followed by unprecedented success at the World Para Athletics Championships in May where the country snared 17 medals, including half a dozen gold for a sixth-place finish in the overall standings.

Several medal winners in Hangzhou are in this Paralympics team, including top stars like world record-holding javelin thrower Sumit Antil (F64) and rifle shooter Avani Lekhara (10m Air Rifle Standing SH1). Both of them would be defending their gold medals won in Tokyo.

The other top contenders are archer Sheetal Devi, Hokato Sema (shot put) and Narayana Konganapalle (rowing). India is competing in 12 sports this time, as against nine by a 54-member team in Tokyo.

Shooter Manish Narwal and shuttler Krishna Nagar are also among those who would look to defend their gold.

Deepthi Jeevanji (women’s 400m T20; intellectual disability), Rio Olympics gold-medallist Mariyappan Thangavelu (men’s high jump-T63), and Yogesh Kathuniya (men’s discus-F56), would also be aiming to add to their medal tally.

Shuttler Krishna Nagar (men’s singles SH6) is also looking good to defend his gold medal won in Tokyo, more so after winning the title in the World Para Badminton Championships in Thailand in February.

Suhas Yathiraj (men’s singles SL4 and mixed doubles SL3-SU5), who won a silver in Tokyo, will again be a medal contender.

Antil and shot putter Bhagyashri Jadhav, will be the joint flag-bearers at the Opening Ceremony.

Reeth begins revival before Manush and Szocs seal issue

K. Keerthivasan

CHENNAI

Turning it around: Reeth got the better of Sutirtha and recorded her first singles win of the season. R. RAVINDRANRAVINDRAN R

Debutant Ahmedabad SG Pipers outplayed U Mumba TT 9-6 and jumped to the top of the table with 24 points from three matches in the Ultimate Table Tennis League here on Tuesday.

U Mumba’s Manav Thakkar continued his winning streak in singles, defeating Manush Shah 2-1 in the opening rubber.

In a battle between friends, Manav kept neutralising Manush’s powerful forehand shots with his retrieving ability. The latter made quite a few unforced errors and went down in three games.

Reeth Rishya was under pressure as she took on Sutirtha Mukherjee. The 29-year-old, who had lost her singles contests against Goa Challengers and Puneri Paltan, fought back to prevail 2-1.

After losing the first game, she stormed into contention by taking the second 11-8. In the decider, Reeth matched her opponent shot for shot during the short and long rallies. Her win pulled Pipers level (4-4).

In mixed doubles, Manush and Bernadette Szocs proved too strong for Manav and Maria Xiao.

As Pipers’ Lilian Bardet and U Mumba’s Quadri Aruna took the stage, an exciting encounter was on the cards as both are known for their attacking style.

It was Aruna who put it across Bardet 2-1 in a match that witnesssed some thrilling rallies.

For Aruna, the victory would have been a huge relief after the losses to G. Sathiyan (Dabang Delhi) and Cho Seungmin (Jaipur Patriots).

With a healthy (7-5) lead in the bag, Ahmedabad needed just one game in the fifth rubber to seal the issue.

Szocs pulls up her socks

The women’s singles clash between Szocs and Xiao saw the latter win the first game before Szocs, world ranked 13th and the highest in the league, pulled up her socks and cruised home in the next two.

The results:

Ahmedabad SG Pipers bt U Mumba 9-6 (Manush Shah lost to Manav Thakkar 2-11, 9-11, 11-8; Reeth Rishya bt Sutirtha Mukherjee 5-11, 11-8, 11-7; Manush & Bernadette Szocs bt Manav & Maria Xiao 11-4, 11-8, 11-8; Lilian Bardet lost to Quadri Aruna 5-11, 11-9, 9-11; Szocs bt Maria 9-11, 11-4, 11-6).

India keen to bury the ghosts of the past in T20 World Cup

Press Trust of India

New Delhi

Belief: Harmanpreet will be optimistic about her team’s chances in the tournament. BCCIWomen@XANI

India on Tuesday named a tried and tested squad for the Women’s T20 World Cup under the leadership of Harmanpreet Kaur, hoping the experienced bunch takes the team to an elusive ICC trophy.

Barring Uma Chetry, all the squad members who were part of an Asia Cup campaign in July have been retained for the marquee event beginning in the UAE from October 3.

The women, who too have all the resources at their disposal, would be expected to cross the finish line on this occasion.

Harmanpreet first captained the team in the 2018 edition and since then India has reached one final but it has largely been a story of missed opportunities.

Its biggest challenge will be to beat Australia as usual. Both teams are in the same group which also includes Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (Capt.), Smriti Mandhana (Vice-capt.), Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh (wk), Yastika Bhatia (wk)*, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh, D. Hemalatha, Asha Sobhana, Radha Yadav, Shreyanka Patil* and Sajana Sajeevan (* subject to fitness clearance).

Travelling reserves: Uma Chetry (wk), Tanuja Kanwer and Saima Thakor.

Non-Travelling reserves: Raghvi Bist and Priya Mishra.

India’s fixtures: Oct. 4: vs. New Zealand, Dubai, 7.30 p.m. IST; Oct. 6: vs. Pakistan, Dubai, 3.30 p.m.; Oct. 9: Sri Lanka, 7.30 p.m.; Oct. 13: vs. Australia, Sharjah, 7.30 p.m.

Jay Shah set to become youngest ICC chairperson

Amol Karhadkar

CHENNAI

Jay Shah.EMMANUAL YOGINI

Jay Shah, the incumbent secretary of the Board of Cricket for Cricket in India (BCCI), is set to become the youngest chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

He will take over from New Zealand’s Greg Barclay on December 1.

An ICC statement confirmed that Shah’s was the only name proposed on Tuesday, the deadline for each of the 16 ICC Board of Directors to nominate their preferred candidate.

With Shah being the lone candidate in fray, he will be elected unopposed and will take over from Barclay, who will step down in November.

“We stand at a critical juncture where it is increasingly important to balance the coexistence of multiple formats, promote the adoption of advanced technologies, and introduce our marquee events to new global markets,” said Shah in the media release. “Our goal is to make cricket more inclusive and popular than ever before.”

August club

Shah, 35, will thus join an august club of Jagmohan Dalmiya, Sharad Pawar, N. Srinivasan and Shashank Manohar in the list of Indians who have headed the game’s governing body.

Shah’s elevation from the post of the BCCI secretary and ICC Director to the ICC Chair was a mere formality once Barclay announced his decision last week to not seek an extension.

Shah has been involved in cricket administration for a decade. Having served as the joint-secretary of the Gujarat Cricket Association, he was elected unopposed as the BCCI secretary in October 2019. Since 2021, he has also been serving as the Asian Cricket Council chairperson.

With the ICC rules prescribing an Independent Chair, Shah will have to give up his other posts. It will be interesting to see his successor as the BCCI secretary.

First round:

Men: Mensik (Cze) bt 19-Auger-Aliassime (Can) 6-2, 6-4, 6-2; Goffin (Bel) bt 22-Tabilo (Chi) 7-6(7), 6-1, 7-5; 7-Hurkacz (Pol) bt Skatov (Kaz) 6-3, 7-6(4), 7-6(3).

Shang (Chn) bt 27-Bublik (Kaz) 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4; 8-Ruud (Nor) bt Yunchaokete (Chn) 7-6(2), 6-2, 6-2; 28-Popyrin (Aus) bt Kwon (Kor) 7-5, 6-2, 6-3; 12-Fritz (USA) bt Carabelli (Arg) 7-5, 6-1, 6-2; 6-Rublev (Rus) bt Wild (Bra) 6-3, 7-6(3), 7-5; 32-Lehecka (Cze) bt Fucsovics (Hun) 1-6, 6-4, 6-3, 3-0, ret; ; 29-Cerundolo (Arg) bt Ofner (Aut) 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2; 9-Dimitrov (Bul) Jacquet (Fra) 6-3, 6-4, 6-2; 18-Musetti (Ita) bt Opelka (USA) 7-6(3), 1-6, 6-1, 7-5; Nakashima (USA) bt 15-Rune (Den) 6-2, 6-1, 6-4; 21-Baez (Arg) bt Darderi (Ita) 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-0, 7-6(4); Griekspoor (Ned) bt Nagal (Ind) 6-1, 6-3, 7-6(6); 20-Tiafoe (USA) bt Kovacevic (USA) 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5; 2-Djokovic (Srb) bt Albot (Mol) 6-2, 6-2, 6-4.

Women: 25-Pavlyuchenkova (Rus) bt Preston (Aus) 6-2, 6-0; Errani (Ita) bt Bucsa (Esp) 3-6, 6-0, 6-4; 31-Boulter (GBr) bt Sasnovich (Blr) 5-7, 6-2, 6-1; Dolehide (USA) bt 11-Collins (USA) 1-6, 7-5, 6-4; 1-Swiatek (Pol) bt Rakhimova (Rus) 6-4, 7-6(6); Shibahara (Jpn) bt Saville (Aus) 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(6).

Niemeier (Ger) bt 32-Yastremska (Ukr) 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-4; 26-Badosa (Esp) bt Golubic (Sui) 6-0, 6-3; 3-Gauff (USA) bt Gracheva (Rus) 6-2, 6-0; ; 14-Keys (USA) bt Siniakova (Cze) 6-4, 6-1; 19-Kostyuk (Ukr) bt Kessler (USA) 6-2, 6-3; 13-Navarro (USA) bt Blinkova (Rus) 6-1, 6-1; 8-Krejcikova (Cze) bt Bassols Ribera (Esp) 7-6(3), 6-2; 20-Azarenka (Blr) bt Starodubtseva (Ukr) 3-6, 6-1, 6-1; 29-Alexandrova (Rus) bt Tomova (Bul) 6-7(4), 6-0, 7-5; 2-Sabalenka (Blr) bt Hon (Aus) 6-3, 6-3.

Around two million tickets sold: Paris Paralympics organisers

Getty ImagesZac Goodwin - PA Images

The organisers of the Paralympics announced on Tuesday that over two million tickets have been sold as the Games prepare to open on Wednesday. “We have sold around two million tickets,” said Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet at a media interaction along with International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons.

Knight to lead England in ICC Women’s T20 World Cup

File Photo: EMMANUAL YOGINI

The England squad for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup was named on Tuesday. The team: Heather Knight (capt.), Danni Wyatt, Sophia Dunkley, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Alice Capsey, Amy Jones (wk), Sophie Ecclestone, Charlie Dean, Sarah Glenn, Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Linsey Smith, Freya Kemp, Dani Gibson and Bess Heath.

‘You don’t really get this feeling, in my case, in life outside of tennis’

REUTERSANDREW KELLY

It’s not really comparable to anything else. You don’t really get this feeling, in my case, in life outside of tennis, because it’s like a real high. It’s like being on drugs a little bit, I guess — 2020 US Open champion Dominic Thiem on missing the winning feeling when he retires from the sport in October.

Spectators allowed to move in the stands during play at the US Open

APMatt Rourke

Under a new policy instituted this year at the US Open, people with tickets for certain sections at every court can move around whenever they want, even during play. Spectators seemed to love it on day 1; might take some players a bit to get used to this, which also was tried at the Australian Open in January.

Pradosh, Indrajith, and Boopathi boost TNCA XI

Sankar Narayanan E.H.

Coimbatore

The three players score half-centuries as the hosts reach 294 for five at stumps ; Suryakumar obliges fans with autographs and pictures

Great attitude: Pradosh Ranjan played late and ran hard for his runs.M. Periasamy

TNCA XI had three half-centurions on day one of the Buchi Babu tournament fixture against Mumbai here on Tuesday.

While Pradosh Ranjan Paul (65, 87b, 4x4) and B. Indrajith (61, 115b, 7x4) engaged in a 74-run stand for the third wicket, No. 5 batter Boopathi Vaishna Kumar (63 batting, 121b, 6x4) played till stumps as the host reached 294 for five.

Pradosh played late and ran hard for his runs (seven twos and four threes) as his first boundary came off the 66th ball he faced. Just as he started to get expansive, Tanush Kotian trapped him in front.

Indrajith — who was in the middle of a chanceless knock and after notching up his third consecutive fifty-plus score — lost his stumps to off-spinner Himanshu Singh.

On a day that also saw a drizzle interrupting the proceedings in the afternoon, a compelling sequence of events happened at the boundary line as the players were about to call it a day.

Shreyas Iyer was bowling the 90th over in an action quite similar to Sunil Narine’s. Suryakumar Yadav was fielding in the deep mid-wicket boundary and had a quite a few young enthusiasts requesting for his autograph and picture. The India T20I captain obliged as many requests as possible in between Shreyas’ darting off-spinners. As if this was not enough, R. Sonu Yadav deposited the final ball of the day well over Suryakumar’s head before the fans rushed inside the ground to continue showering their love.

The scores: TNCA XI 294/5 in 90 overs (Pradosh 65, Indrajith 61, Boopathi 63 batting) vs. Mumbai; Toss: TNCA XI.

At Salem: Gujarat 321/7 in 90 overs (Kshitij Patel 62, Jaymeet Patel 125 batting, Dhrushant Soni 44, M. Siddharth 5/74) vs TNCA President’s XI. Toss: Gujarat.

At Tirunelveli: Madhya Pradesh 207 in 74.5 overs (Shubham Kushwah 48) vs Hyderabad 52/0 in 13 overs. Toss: MP.

At Dindigul: Baroda 255/6 in 84.3 overs (Shaswat Rawat 41, Vishnu Solanki 52, Ninad Rathva 48 batting) vs Chhattisgarh. Toss: Baroda.

Strong field for India Legends golf championship

Sports Bureau

NEW DELHI

Champion trio: Randhawa, Campbell and Jeev at the launch of the HSBC India Legends Golf on Tuesday. Special Arrangement Special Arrangement

Jeev Milkha Singh will play the dual role of an organiser and player in the HSBC India Legends golf championship to be played at the Jaypee Greens in Greater Noida from August 30 to September 1.

The three-day competition, which boasts of participation from former US Open champion Michael Campbell among other luminaries, will offer a total prize purse of $5,00,000.

The champion will get $74,250, while the second and third places will fetch $49,000 and $32,700 respectively.

The strong field, with players from 17 countries, is also expected to feature nine Indian players.

The other Indians in the fray, apart from Jeev, are Jyoti Randhawa, Mukesh Kumar, Digvijay Singh, Harmeet Kahlon, Vijay Kumar, Amandeep Johl, Vishal Singh, and Sanjay Kumar.

“I hope all the players have a great experience and enjoy the Indian cuisine and culture,” said Jeev at a press conference here on Tuesday.

The tournament will be preceded by the Pro-Am event on August 28 and 29.

“I am coming to India after 15 years and looking forward to some good golf,” said Campbell.

“We are excited to partner with the Legends Tour as it makes its debut in India.

“This marks a historic moment for professional golf in India as it opens up new avenues for leading senior Indian professionals to compete against the best in the world,” said Uttam Singh Mundy, CEO of the PGTI.

“Jaypee Greens golf course has consistently upheld its reputation as a championship-level course. We are honoured to host India’s inaugural Legends Tour event,” said Dhruv Pal Singh, Senior General Manager of Jaypee Greens Golf Course.

Karthik clinches title after three-way tie for top spot

P.K. Ajith Kumar

GURUGRAM

Top three: The winner Karthik with second-placed Ganguly, left, and Saha, right, who finished third. SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP

In the end, Karthik Venkataraman proved more equal than the others. More equal than Surya Shekhar Ganguly, even.

Karthik, Ganguly and Neelash Saha ended with nine points from 11 rounds at the 61st National chess championship on Tuesday: when the tie was broken at the RPS International School using the Buchholz System, they finished in that order.

Karthik’s tie-break score was 78, against Ganguly’s 77.5. A win over Himal Gusain would have given Ganguly his seventh National championship but he had to be content with his fourth draw in a row; he had won his first seven games and been in the sole lead going into the final round.

Karthik had to win his game against Mitrabha Guha to entertain any hopes of winning his second Nationals. He employed Caro-Kann Defence against English Opening and won in 58 moves, converting a superior rook-and-pawn ending.

“I hadn’t even looked at the tie-breaker score before the game, but was determined to play for a win,” the 25-year-old from Tirupati said.

Important results (final round): Himal Gusain (RSPB) 8.5 drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (PSPB) 9; Aronyak Ghosh (RSPB) 8.5 drew with M.R. Lalith Babu (PSPB) 8.5; Mitrabha Guha (RSPB) 7.5 lost to Karthik Venkataraman (AP) 9; Neelash Saha (RSPB) 9 bt Sammed Shete (Mah) 7.5; Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) 8.5 bt N.R. Vignesh (RSPB) 7.5; Diptayan Ghosh (RSPB) 8.5 bt Sankalp Gupta (Mah) 7.5; P. Iniyan (TN) 7.5 drew with N.R. Visakh (RSPB) 8; Deep Sengupta (PSPB) 7 lost to P. Shyaam Nikhil (RSPB) 8.5; Ajay Karthikeyan (TN) 8 bt Swapnil Dhopade (Mah) 7.5.

Koustuv Dash (Odi) 7 lost to S.P. Sethuraman (PSPB) 8; Sayantan Das (RSPB) 8 bt Dinesh K. Sharma (LIC) 7; J. Deepan Chakravarthy (RSPB) 7.5 drew with Vignesh Advait Vemula (TS) 7.5; Shrayan Majumder (Mah) 8 w/o S. Ravi Teja (RSPB) 7; Arpith S. Bijoy (Ker) 7 lost to M.R. Venkatesh (PSPB) 8; Daksh Goyal (Del) 7 lost to Viani D’cunha (Kar) 8.

Final standings: 1-3. Karthik, Ganguly, Saha 9; 4-9. Diptayan, Aronyak, Gusain, Lalith, Abhijeet, Shyaam 8.5; 10-18. Sethuraman, Venkatesh, Sayantan, Ajay, D’cunha, Nitin, Arjun Adireddy, Vishakh, Shrayan 8.

Resilient Bagan bounces back to trump BFC, in final

Amitabha Das Sharma

KOLKATA

Hero! Bagan custodian Kaith comes up with one of his two saves in the tie-breaker.DEBASISH BHADURI

Mohun Bagan Super Giant made a spectacular comeback as it recovered from a two-goal deficit to hold Bengaluru FC (BFC) 2-2 in regulation time and then clinched the issue 4-3 via the tie-breaker to secure a passage into the final of the 133rd Durand Cup on Tuesday.

Bagan will take on NorthEast United FC in the final scheduled here on Saturday.

The tie-breakers saw the sides convert the first three chances before Bagan ’keeper Kaith made two saves by rightly judging the successive attempts of Halicharan Narzary and Aleksandar Jovanovic.

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu saved the final shot taken by Bagan’s Scottish striker Greg Stewart but that did not prove enough.

Jason Cummings, Manvir Singh, Liston Colaco, and Dimitri Petratos scored in the tie-breaker for Bagan, while Edgar Mendez, Rahul Bheke and Pedro Capo found the target for BFC.

Earlier, Sunil Chhetri converted a penalty in the 43rd minute and Vinith Venkatesh doubled the lead for BFC in the 51st.

Bagan, which mounted a serious comeback, reduced the margin when Dimitri Petratos struck from the spot in the 68th before Anirudh Thapa found the equaliser in the 84th.

Anirudh & Hernandez in last eight

Sports Bureau

Anirudh Chandrasekar and David Hernandez of Spain fought their way past Joan Nadal Vives and Abdullah Shelbayh 7-6(6), 6-7(5), [10-8] in the doubles pre-quarterfinals of the €74,825 Challenger tennis tournament at Manacor (Spain) on Tuesday.

The results: €74,825 Challenger, Manacor: Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Anirudh Chandrasekar & David Hernandez (Esp) bt Joan Nadal Vives (Esp) & Abdullah Shelbayh (Jor) 7-6(6), 6-7(5), [10-8].

$25,000 ITF men, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand: First round: S. Mukund bt Krittin Koaykul (Tha) 6-0, 6-4.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Sai Karteek Reddy & Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul (Tha) bt Tomohiro Masabayashi (Jpn) & Thantub Suksumrarn (Tha) 6-4, 6-4.

$15,000 ITF men, Tashkent, Uzbekistan: First round: Matthew Summers (GBR) bt Sidharth Rawat 7-5, 6-2.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Parth Aggarwal & Edison Ambarzumjan (Ger) bt Igor Panin & Pavel Shchaya-Zubrov 6-4, 6-4; Adil Kalyanpur & Vishnu Vardhan bt Dev Javia & Aryan Shah 6-3, 6-4.

$40,000 ITF women, Jinan, China: Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): I-Hsuan Cho & Yi Tsen Cho (Tpe) bt Riya Bhatia & Michika Ozeki (Jpn) 6-0, 6-4.

$25,000 ITF women, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand: Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Shrivalli Bhamidipaty & Vaidehi Chaudhari bt Watsachol Sawatdee & Tanuchaporn Yongmod (Tha) 2-6, 7-6(0), [10-8].

$15,000 ITF women, Valladolid, Spain: First round: Liu Min (Chn) bt Aaddi Gupta 6-1, 6-4.

$15,000 ITF women, Monastir, Tunisia: First round: Hanna Bougouffa (Fra) bt Himadri Kashyap 6-4, 6-3.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Zeel Desai & Celine Simunyu (Irl) bt Polina Kalbekova & Ralina Kalmulina 6-2, 6-0.

Richter wins maiden u-17 World title

Ashwin Achal

Bengaluru

Young champ: Richter with his big prize.K. MURALI KUMAR

Germany’s Christian Richter defeated Thailand’s Lomnaw Issarangkun in the final to emerge as the IBSF World under-17 boys’ snooker champion on Tuesday. Richter, who claimed his first international title, started well, making breaks of 44 and 67 to wrap up the first two frames.

Issarangkun managed to win the third frame, but went on to offer Richter plenty of chances to visit the table. Richter, less error prone than his rival, prevailed 4-1. Richter termed the triumph as the best of his young career. He had earlier reached the quarterfinals and last-16 stages in previous editions.

In the women’s under-21 semifinal, India’s Natasha Chethan overcame Chan Wai Lam 62-57, 69-29, 56-50.

The results: Under-17: Boys: Final: Christian Richter (Ger) bt Lomnaw Issarangkun (Thai) 78-20, 71-22, 14-78, 68-16, 82-21.

Under-21: Men: Group stage: Mahendra Chouhan bt Aaron Quinn (Ire) 41-54, 73-28, 65-15, 64-33; Michal Szubarczyk (Pol) bt Srikanth Gadda 83-36, 94-37, 46-71, 60-25; Sebastian Milewski (Pol) bt Tathya Sachdev 70-24, 34-67, 71-1, 73-31.

Women: Semifinals: Narucha Phoemphul (Tha) bt R.T. Mohitha 76-17, 65-48, 57-7; Natasha Chethan bt Chan Wai Lam (HK) 62-57, 69-29, 56-50.

Siraj to miss first round games, Jadeja allowed extended rest

Press Trust of India

Mumbai

Mohammed Siraj will miss the Duleep Trophy’s first round games due to illness and Ravindra Jadeja has been allowed an extended period of rest by the BCCI’s national selection committee, which announced a few changes to the squads on Tuesday.

The revised squads:

India-A: Shubman Gill (Capt.), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (wk), K.L. Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra and Shaswat Rawat.

India-B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (Capt.), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (wk), Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R. Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi and N. Jagadeesan (wk).

India-C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (Capt.), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, B. Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Gaurav Yadav, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (wk) and Sandeep Warrier.

India-D: Shreyas lyer (Capt.), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (wk), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, K.S. Bharat (wk) and Saurabh Kumar.

Huge following

Cynosure of all eyes: Fans thronged India star Suryakumar for autographs and selfies.M. Periasamy

Gukesh holds Caruana; Firouzja consolidates lead

D. Gukesh played out a hard-fought draw yet again, signing peace with top seed Fabiano Caruana, while Frenchman Alireza Firouzja (in pic) beat World champion Ding Liren to stretch his lead by a full point after the seventh round of Sinquefield Cup. R. Praggnanandhaa’s draw with Ian Nepomniachtchi was his seventh on the trot. The day, however, belonged to Firouzja, who came up with fine resources in a complicated middle game against Liren.

The results (round 7): Alireza Firouzja (5) bt Ding Liren (3); R. Praggnanandhaa (3.5) drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi (2.5); Nodirbek Abdusattorov (3.5) bt Wesley So (3.5); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (3.5) drew with Anish Giri (2.5); Fabiano Caruana (4) drew with D. Gukesh (3.5).

Juventus rides on Vlahovic’s heroics to go top of Serie A

Striker Dusan Vlahovic scored twice to help Juventus secure a comfortable 3-0 victory at Hellas Verona in Serie A on Monday, sending Thiago Motta’s side to the top of the table. Juventus is the only side which has kept its points tally at a maximum over the opening two match days of the Italian top flight.

The results: Serie A: Cagliari 1 (Piccoli 44) drew with Como 1 (Cutrone 54); Verona 0 lost to Juventusntus 3 (Vlahovic 28, 53-pen, Savona 39).

LaLiga: Villarreal 4 (Cardona 26, Barry 60, Jailson 64-og, Parejo 90+10) bt Celta Vigo 3 (Iglesias 12, Mingueza 31, Starfelt 80)

Bairstow, Moeen out of England white-ball squads

Associated Press

LONDON

Wicketkeeper-batter Jonny Bairstow and spinner Moeen Ali may have played their last games for England after being dropped on Monday in a shakeup of the white-ball squads to face Australia. England and Australia will play three T20Is — starting on Sept. 11 — followed by five ODIs.

The squads: ODI: Jos Buttler (capt.), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Ben Duckett, Josh Hull, Will Jacks, Matthew Potts, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Jamie Smith, Reece Topley, John Turner. T20I: Buttler (capt.), Archer, Bethell, Carse, Jordan Cox, Sam Curran, Hull, Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Saqib Mahmood, Dan Mousley, Rashid, Salt, Topley, Turner.

Patience still has a place in cricket’s changing landscape

Tarun Shastry

CHENNAI

Haryana batters Mayank Shandilya, Nishant Sindhu, Dheeru Singh, and Himanshu Rana dig deep on a spiteful pitch, turn the clock back to salvage a draw against TNCA XI

M. Periasamy

They came. They blocked. They drew. A game that was all but lost was salvaged.

Success often requires more than just talent. It demands hard work, resilience, patience, and a steely resolve to endure the grind day in and day out.

Test cricket is aptly named due to the rigours it poses for players over three sessions and 90 overs per day for five days. Endurance aside, the ability to stay calm and composed over extended periods is often the difference between

It is a game of endurance and mental strength for both sides, where the ability to stay calm and composed over long periods often determines the outcome between victory and defeat. Ask Haryana.

Haryana’s Mayank Shandilya (45, 235b), Nishant Sindhu (27, 64b) , Dheeru Singh (21, 58b), and Himanshu Rana (46 n.o, 151b) persevered in Coimbatore against TNCA XI on a vicious surface in one of the most prestigious domestic competitions, the All-India Buchi Babu tournament.

Haryana needed every drop of inspiration it could get. The side had a mountain to climb, with a daunting 353 needed against a spin-heavy bowling attack. The TNCA XI had every right to fancy its chances on the final day, conceding just 16 runs after taking two wickets already at the end of the third day.

They took a leaf out of current Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir's book. The left-hander played a marathon innings (643 minutes) in Napier to save a Test against a strong New Zealand attack on a pitch that favoured the bowlers.

Inspired effort

With the conditions being overcast and the bowlers swinging the ball both ways, Gambhir played an innings of a lifetime scoring 137 in 436 balls over a period of two days. He forged crucial partnerships with Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and V.V.S. Laxman which ultimately rescued India.

The batters got their basics right and stuck to what childhood coaches would drill into the systems of budding cricketers when they were starting out: Put your head down and play along the ground, leave the deliveries outside off, wait for the bad balls, and punish them.

On a final day surface that had spin, bounce, and bite, Mayank, Nishant, and Himanshu, with their backs to the wall, blocked...blocked...and blocked.

They stood tall, left well outside the off-stump and defended everything thrown at them by the tweakers over after over.

In a riveting display of batsmanship, while the spinners bowled on the rough created by the bowlers' footmarks throughout the day, they played one of the most mature knocks, filled with determination and grit. Some deliveries kicked up from the crack and spun a mile, while some literally rolled through to the keeper, which should have created a lot of doubt in the batters' minds. But unfazed, and with single-minded focus they knew the ones to leave and the ones to play and saved the game.

Haryana broke the game hour by hour, with batters periodically pausing play to tie their laces, change gloves or their helmets, call for medical attention for a pull in the leg and so on. The idea was to run the clock down with wickets intact.

The TNCA XI, to its credit, was relentless at the other end. Skipper R. Sai Kishore strategically brought in all his fielders to surround the batter to try and create an opportunity for a dismissal or at the very least unsettle the batter on strike. TNCA looked all set to shake hands but it looked like someone from the dugout urged them to keep going. Haryana was unfazed. They were happy to play it safe and not give the opponent an inch.

Hopeless situations can sometimes welcome haste but Haryana kept those itches to go all out at bay. They played for time with confidence in their ability to defend.

If TNCA XI’s B. Indrajith’s knock of 167 in the first innings under tough conditions was terrific, then Mayank, Dheeru, and Himanshu’s knocks in the fourth innings to save the match were gold dust.

Michal Szubarczyk — Poland’s snooker prodigy aiming to take the world by storm

Ashwin Achal

Bengaluru

K. Murali KumarMURALI KUMAR K

Michal Szubarczyk is calm and measured at the snooker table, save for the occasional annoyed grimace when things go awry. “When I miss a shot, I have a problem accepting it,” Michal says.

The 13-year-old from Poland had a good run in the IBSF World under-17 boys’ snooker championship at the Karnataka State Billiards Association (KSBA) here. Michal won all three of his group stage matches, before cruising past Saudi Arabia’s Ziyad Alqabbani in the quarterfinal. The youngest among the semifinalists, Michal went down to Thailand’s Lomnaw Issarangkun.

Michal was particularly impressive against Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz Alaswad, notching up breaks of 82, 48 and 84. A natural potter with good break-building nuance, Michal stands out as a natural talent.

His cue sport journey started at the age of six, when he saw multiple-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan on television. “My father was watching snooker on television. I saw Ronnie O’Sullivan play. I was inspired to go to the club with my dad to try snooker,” Michal says.

Michal is accompanied at this tournament by his father Kamil, who doubles up as a referee. “I am Michal’s father, coach, manager, driver… everything,” Kamil laughs and says.

Kamil is a pillar of support for his son. When it became apparent that Michal needed expert guidance to further his ambitions, Kamil enrolled himself in a coaching certification program in the European Billiards and Snooker Association.

Enduring hardships

Michal’s route to the professional snooker arena is not straightforward, given that Poland has not produced many world-class players. “When Michal was seven, we decided that he needs to work towards becoming a professional. People said we were crazy,” Kamil says.

Even finding a good practice facility in Poland is proving to be difficult. “There are very few tables available for us in Poland. Compare this to London, where I can search for a snooker club on my phone and I find more than 40 clubs available just in that area,” Kamil says.

Snooker is way down the popularity list when it comes to sports in Poland. Kamil hopes that Michal will be able to break all barriers on the world stage, which would raise the profile of the sport in the country. “For now, football, volleyball and basketball are popular in Poland. Snooker is not in the picture,” Kamil says.

There is a paucity of fund support that the duo can get from the Poland government, as snooker is not an Olympic sport. Michal’s presence in this tournament is sponsored by the Polish Billiards and Snooker Association, while Kamil supplements the income through payments made for his referee duties. “We received a donation from a Polish foundation last year, which was most useful,” Kamil says.

Michal also has to juggle his school work, which can be a challenge when he tours. Kamil is encouraged by Michal’s startling achievements in his fledgling career. The teenager took bronze in the European under-16 championship, won the six-red Poland Open senior nationals, and also claimed the national under-18 and under-21 titles. Michal dominated the six-red Poland Open senior nationals, going through the tournament without losing a single frame. The field included highly rated Antoni Kowalski, who earned a two-year card on the World Snooker Tour. Michal is poised to compete in the European six-red tournament soon.

This IBSF World under-17 boys’ snooker championship may not offer a professional card for winners, but for young talent like Michal, it is a chance to test themselves against the best in the world. “The high level of competition in these tournaments helps to develop players. There aren’t many teenagers in Poland who can practice with Michal. This is also a chance to travel and experience different cultures, different cuisines. All this is important to get a youngster ready for the professional world,” Kamil says.

Right mindset

Kamil stresses on the importance of having the right mindset in order to succeed. This is easier said than done, as Michal has other interests, like any other teenager. The phone and social media, for example, is a distraction one can do without, Kamil says. “Michal has not had a problem with his phone for the last three days, because I have kept his phone outside the window of our fourth floor hotel room. He also wants to play video games like every teenager, but we made a collective decision that we will not have these distractions come in the way of achieving the dream,” Kamil says.

Harsh as it may seem, this is the type of single-minded dedication that is required to break new ground.

Asked about his biggest dream, Michal says, “I want to play professional snooker.”

Kamil gently interrupts and prompts a correction. “Michal, playing professional snooker is not your biggest dream. Think bigger..,” Kamil says.

Michal pauses and clarifies. “I want to be the professional world champion,” Michal says, to a pat on the back from his father.

Table of Contents

The Hindu

National

Protesters, Kolkata police clash; BJP calls bandh

SC stays AYUSH Ministry’s notification omitting key rule prohibiting misleading advertisements

Mohanlal resigns, AMMA panel dissolved over plaints

Festive rivalry

SC grants bail to Kavitha, criticises central bodies

Bodies of two girls found hanging from tree in U.P.

Kolkata protests take a political turn, become a turf war between BJP and the Trinamool

New task force on hospital safety gets 400 suggestions

After phone call with Biden, Modi discusses Ukraine trip with Putin

Eight fishermen from T.N. held by Sri Lankan Navy, boat impounded

SC notice to Gujarat on Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea against conviction

BJP condemns police action against protest by Kolkata students

EPS appears before special court in a defamation case filed by Dayanidhi Maran

Satish Kumar named new Chairman of Railway Board

In U-turn, Omar decides to contest polls from Ganderbal

At Lucknow meeting, Mayawati re-elected BSP chief unanimously

AAP got ₹45 cr. in bribe, CM promised ₹90 lakh to party nominees in Goa: CBI

Himachal Assembly passes Bill raising marriage age for women to 21 from 18

Have decided to trust Modi and join BJP, says Champai Soren

JJP forges alliance with Azad’s ASP for Haryana elections

Devendra Prasad Yadav joins Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj

BJP names 29 more candidates for J&K polls

Ex-members of banned Jamaat file papers

Manjhi targets NC-Congress alliance in J&K

Court orders release of Shabir Shah in terror funding case

Minister to hold meeting with trade unions today

‘India-Brazil strategic partnership deepened and diversified over years’

14265

CDSCO grants approval for making RT-PCR testing kits to detect Mpox in India

IIL, Australian varsity develop needle-free COVID-19 vaccine

Devotion with sincerity

Cheetah dies in Kuno park from suspected ‘drowning’

SGPC sends legal notice to producers of Emergency

Heavy rain continues to lash Gujarat; IMD issues red alert

Regional

The invisible lives of sanitation workers who clean Mumbai’s drains to keep them functional

Case against contractor, structural consultant over collapse of Shivaji statue

Badlapur hearing: HC asks govt. to constitute panel for gender sensitisation of boys

BSP in Tamil Nadu raises objection to flag unveiled by actor Vijay for his new party

Bittu, Kurian enter Rajya Sabha, Kiran Choudhry also elected

Prime accused in M.P. police station attack case arrested

H.P. House adopts resolution to condemn actor’s remarks

Bombay HC judge recuses from hearing Waze’s plea

Kerala SIT gears up to probe sexual abuse in film industry

Dwindling chilli prices and stiff competition force farmers to cut down cultivation in Andhra Pradesh

Getting into the field

SC grants bail to Kavitha, questions fairness of probe

Court allows to shift Darshan to Ballari jail Darshan to be shifted to Ballari prison

SC asks Kerala to give details of witnesses in 2017 actor assault case

SC differs with Delhi HC’s reasoning on granting bail to BRS leader

A.P. Ministers to hold first paperless meeting today

Premium liquor prices come down in Karnataka

In a formal gesture, Pinarayi meets Prime Minister

Malayalam filmmaker M. Mohan passes away

It’s blackmail tactics against me: Mukesh

‘Allegations are media fabrications’

Science

Vinesh Phogat versus the complex biochemistry of losing weight

Northern bald ibis returns from near extinction

Edit

Advancing equity, from COVID-19 to Mpox

The continuing churn in the Chinese military

letters to the editor

Coordinated attacks

Reasonable cuts restrictions

More female students enter traditional engineering courses

India needs to develop a care ecosystem

Countering an ‘anti-Hindu’ image

B.D. Jatti elected with big majority

A new anti-malarial device

On SEBI chairperson’s conflicts of interests

Correcting rumours can reduce support for vigilantes

The March on Washington was held on August 28, 1963. Here is a quiz on the movement

Know your English

Business

Scrapping unemployment dole sparks protests, unrest in Rajasthan

OPEC+ output cut may push Indian refiners to source oil from Americas

Automakers to offer discount for scrapped old vehicles

ZF Wind Power to add capacity in TN for ₹450 crore

India faces challenges to lift non-farm jobs: Moody’s

Zee, Sony agree to settle merger row

‘Govt. eyes 3 cr. new basic bank accounts’

‘Indian consumers looking for AI-driven washing machines’

‘Realty needs more transparency’

Apple names Indian-origin Kevan Parekh as new CFO

BoB raises₹5,000 crore via 10-year infrastructure bonds

Korea’s birth rate drive struggles to sway country’s ‘YOLO’ generation

Canada imposes 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made EVs

Tech-tonic shift

‘U.S. Latinas add $1.3 trillion to U.S. GDP, about as much as Florida’

Cement firms go for gradual price increases

Foreign

Sharif reiterates ‘unwavering resolve’ to root out terrorism from Pakistan

Braving the odds

Khamenei opens door for discussions with U.S. over Iran’s nuclear programme

U.S. and China working to avoid conflict, says Sullivan

Maldives police probe an alleged attempt to topple government

UN calls out China’s ‘problematic’ human rights policies in Xinjiang

Israeli hostage rescued as Gaza war rages on

UN's Guterres issues 'global SOS' over fast-rising Pacific ocean

French judge extends police custody for Telegram CEO Durov

China ‘biggest disruptor’ of peace in Southeast Asia, says Philippines

Five killed as Russian strikes pound Ukraine for second day

Hasina’s ouster opens a new chapter for student activism in Bangladesh

Deadly Atlantic not a deterrent for Senegalese desperate to reach Europe

Feeble and fragile

Experts flag new crackdown on Rohingya in Myanmar

Mpox outbreaks in Africa resulted from neglect, say experts

S. Korea finds new border threat in mosquitoes

Sports

Swiatek gets off to a wobbly start; Gauff and ‘rusty’ Djokovic breeze into second round

India’s strong contingent eyes record medal tally

Reeth begins revival before Manush and Szocs seal issue

India keen to bury the ghosts of the past in T20 World Cup

Jay Shah set to become youngest ICC chairperson

Important results

Around two million tickets sold: Paris Paralympics organisers

Knight to lead England in ICC Women’s T20 World Cup

‘You don’t really get this feeling, in my case, in life outside of tennis’

Spectators allowed to move in the stands during play at the US Open

Pradosh, Indrajith, Boopathi’s knocks boost TNCA XI

Strong field for India Legends golf championship

Karthik clinches title after three-way tie for top spot

Resilient Bagan bounces back to trump BFC, in final

Anirudh & Hernandez in last eight

Richter wins maiden u-17 World title

Siraj to miss first round games, Jadeja allowed extended rest

Huge following

Gukesh holds Caruana; Firouzja consolidates lead

Juventus rides on Vlahovic’s heroics to go top of Serie A

Bairstow, Moeen out of England white-ball squads

Patience still has a place in cricket’s changing landscape

Michal Szubarczyk — Poland’s snooker prodigy aiming to take the world by storm