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Regional

- INDIA bloc wins 10 of 13 seats in Assembly bypolls; BJP gets 2

- Chance treasure discovery sparks frenzy

- Italian police free 33 Indian farm workers from ‘slavery’

- DMK gets thumping victory in Vikravandi

- Indian man among 3 dead in Nepal twin bus tragedy

- Young woman killed after bike hits water-filled pothole

- ‘M.P. Narasimhan was keen on spreading knowledge of culture, civilisational values’

- Interrogation of suspects in BSP leader Armstrong’s murder case under way: police

- Ilaiyaraaja concert-goers will get exclusive passes: CMRL

- Delay in flight to Bengaluru due to bad weather irks flyers

- Woman killed after iron barricade falls on her in Taramani

- Truck driver killed after container falls on vehicle at port in Ennore

- Politics, gang rivalries and revenge murders

- Many parts of Tamil Nadu will continue to receive evening showers till July 19

- Madras High Court Chief Justice’s post to regain its lost credence after a six-year hiatus

- ICAR-CIBA denies claims of CRZ violations at Muttukadu station

- Human rights awareness lacking among citizens: Thirumavalavan

- ‘Complete flood mitigation works before NE monsoon’

- Increase budget allocation for effective implementation of NEP, urges ex-V-C

- Rally taken out in city to mark World Population Day

- Quaide Milleth Award presented to N. Ram and Abusaleh Shariff

- AIADMK’s decision to boycott largely benefits the DMK this byelection

- Bypoll result proves Tamil Nadu will need DMK forever: Stalin

- CEO Sahoo should resign for failing to do his job, says Anbumani

- Illicit liquor offences: amended law making punishment more strict comes into force

- Vikravandi bypoll: DMK wins by a thumping margin

- ‘Savukku’ Shankar remanded in judicial custody till July 23

- EPS decries searches at premises of party cadre

- CM to expand breakfast scheme tomorrow

INDIA bloc wins 10 of 13 seats in Assembly bypolls; BJP gets 2

Sreeparna Chakrabarty

NEW DELHI

Congress and Trinamool win four seats each ; BJP wins in Hamirpur of Himachal Pradesh, Amarwara of Madhya Pradesh; AAP retains Jalandhar West of Punjab; Independent candidate pulls off an upset over RJD and JD(U) in Bihar’s Rupauli seat

INDIA bloc parties won 10 out of 13 Assembly seats where bypolls were held, while the BJP managed to wrest only two, the Election Commission declared on Saturday. The results of the July 10 Assembly bypolls, which were held just over a month after the Lok Sabha election, were encouraging for the Opposition coalition, which had restricted the BJP to 240 seats in the Lok Sabha.

While the Congress and Trinamool Congress won four seats each, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and an Independent won one seat each.

The best news for the Congress came from Himachal Pradesh, where it won two constituencies — Dehra and Nalagarh — while only Hamirpur went to the BJP. With this, the Congress has returned to its original strength of 40 MLAs in the State.

The bypoll in Himachal Pradesh had been necessitated after three Independents withdrew support to the Congress and joined the BJP. The position of Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu was further strengthened with his wife Kamlesh Thakur winning from Dehra.

There was also good news for the Congress in Uttarakhand, with the party retaining the Badrinath seat. The sitting MLA from the seat Rajendra Singh Bhandari, who had defected to the ruling BJP, was defeated by the Congress’s Lakhapat Singh Butola. Trying to project a larger political message in the Badrinath victory, Congress MP Manickam Tagore posted on X, saying, “Hate defeated & love won in Ayodhya in Loksabha... Again Hate defeated & love won in Badrinath today.”

The party also wrested the Manglaur seat in Uttarakhand from the Bahujan Samaj Party; the bypoll was held after the death of sitting MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari.

In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress continued to reign supreme, wresting three seats from BJP, namely Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Bagda. In all three seats, BJP MLAs had switched sides.

Chance treasure discovery sparks frenzy

C.P. Sajit

Kannur

An 18th-century pot with gold and silver coins was found by labourers digging a rainwater pit in Kannur; as the news generated excitement, police cordoned off the site for possible excavations

Hidden fortune: The 18th-century gold and silver coins found in a pot at Chengalai in Kannur district of Kerala. Special arrangement

The chance discovery of a pot containing 18th-century gold and silver coins, and other period artefacts has suddenly elevated the profile of the sleepy village of Chengalai in Kannur district of Kerala.

Captivated by news of buried treasure, scores of people, possibly including fortune-seekers, are making a beeline for the leafy suburb dotted with rubber plantations.

The excitement generated by the news of the find has prompted the police to cordon off the spot for possible future excavations by the State Archaeology Department.

A group of local women labourers engaged in digging a rainwater harvesting pit for the Parappai Government School on Friday were the first to experience the exhilaration of discovering the buried treasure.

The homemakers, all beneficiaries of the rural employment guarantee scheme, said they approached the “strange object” with trepidation.

Some feared sorcery and wondered if the pot contained dark magic artefacts. Others worried the orb-shaped object could be an unexploded crude bomb, often used to settle political scores in Kannur. Nevertheless, their fear turned into excitement when they discovered the pot held a fortune from the past.

Italian police free 33 Indian farm workers from ‘slavery’

Reuters

ROME

Members of the Indian community in Italy seek justice for the Indian worker who died in an accident in June. AP AP

Italian police said on Saturday they had freed 33 Indian farm labourers from slave-like working conditions in the northern Verona Province and seized almost €500,000 (about ₹4.5 crore) from their two alleged abusers.

Labour exploitation is in the spotlight in Italy following an accident in June in which an Indian fruit picker died after his arm was severed by machinery.

In the latest case, police said the alleged gangmasters, also from India, brought fellow nationals to Italy on seasonal work permits, asking them to pay €17,000 (about ₹15 lakh) each and promising them a better future.

The migrants were given farm jobs, working seven days a week and 10-12 hours a day for just €4 (about ₹360) per hour, which was entirely docked from them until they settled all their debts, police said, describing their treatment as “slavery”.

Some were asked to continue working for free to pay an additional €13,000 (about ₹12 lakh) for a permanent work permit “which, in reality, would have never been given to them”, the police statement said.

The alleged abusers were charged with crimes connected to slavery and labour exploitation, while the victims will be offered protection, work opportunities and legal residency papers, the police said.

Italy has growing labour shortages often filled via immigration, and has a migrant work visa system that has faced cases of fraud.

DMK gets thumping victory in Vikravandi

S. Prasad

VILLUPURAM

DMK candidate Anniyur Siva receiving his winning certificate from the Returning Officer on Saturday. S.S. Kumar

The DMK’s Anniyur Siva secured a decisive win in the byelection to the Vikravandi Assembly seat by a wide margin of 67,757 votes.

As per the final results announced after 21 rounds of counting of votes on Saturday, Mr. Siva polled 1,24,053 votes, while his nearest rival C. Anbumani of the PMK, contesting as an NDA candidate, mustered only 56,296 votes.

There were 2,37,031 voters in the constituency of whom 1,96,269 had exercised their franchise.

Early lead

Mr. Siva had established an early lead and polled 5,564 votes after the first round of counting against 2,894 votes secured by Mr. Anbumani.

The DMK candidate never appeared to trail and extended his lead in subsequent rounds as well, though the margin varied.

At the end of the fifth round, Mr. Siva had polled 31,151 votes, while Mr. Anbumani had secured 11,483 votes. But after the ninth round, Mr. Siva was sitting pretty at 57,483 votes, while Mr. Anbumani had secured only 24,130 votes.

The byelection to the Vikravandi constituency was necessitated by the death of DMK MLA N. Pugazhenthi.

Indian man among 3 dead in Nepal twin bus accident

Press Trust of India

Kathmandu

The body of a 40-year-old Indian national working in Nepal was among three corpses recovered by rescuers on Saturday from the wreckage of two buses that were swept by a mudslide into a rain-swollen river with more than 50 passengers on Friday.

The two buses carrying 54 passengers, including seven Indians, went missing in the Trishuli in the landslips in Chitwan district on Friday. Three people swam to safety later.

Woman killed after bike hits pothole in Thirumangalam

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

The police say she was riding pillion with her brother when their bike hit the pothole filled with stagnant water. In the impact, they both fell, and she was run over by another vehicle

1 of 2 Temporary solution: The pothole on a road in Thirumangalam that was repaired after the accident on Friday. At right, K. Hemamalini, the victim.M. Vedhan, Special arrangement Vedhan M

2 of 2 Temporary solution: The pothole on a road in Thirumangalam that was repaired after the accident on Friday. At right, K. Hemamalini, the victim.M. Vedhan, Special arrangement Vedhan M

A 24-year-old woman pillion rider was killed after falling from her brother’s motorbike when the vehicle hit a water-filled pothole on a road in Thirumangalam. The accident occurred late on Friday.

The police identified the victim as K. Hemamalini, a resident of Dr. Ambedkar Nagar in the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) area. The police said she had completed her undergraduate degree and was looking for a job.

Around 11.30 p.m. on Friday, she was riding pillion on the motorbike with her brother Venkatesh, 28, an air-conditioner mechanic, and they were heading from ICF to Thirumangalam.

At Thirumangalam, the vehicle accidentally hit a pothole filled with stagnant water. In the impact, Mr. Venkatesh lost control of the motorbike, causing both of them to fall in different directions.

An unidentified vehicle, suspected to be a lorry, that was coming behind them ran over Hemamalini. She died on the spot. Her brother Venkatesh sustained injuries.

On being informed, the Traffic Investigation Police, Thirumangalam, reached the spot and conducted an investigation.

The body was sent to the Government Kilpauk Hospital for a post-mortem, while her brother was admitted there for treatment.

The pothole was subsequently patched.

‘M.P. Narasimhan was keen on spreading knowledge of culture, civilisational values’

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

Both the library and the academy were close to his heart. He brought several eminent personalities to speak at the academy Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti Vice-president of The Triplicane Cultural Academy

Enthusiastic, unassuming, selfless, and dedicated — this was how people described M.P. Narasimhan, founder and secretary of The Triplicane Cultural Academy and The Kasturi Srinivasan Library, at a memorial meeting held here on Saturday to pay homage to him.

Sudha Seshayyan, former Vice-Chancellor of The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, said Narasimhan’s enthusiasm was what left an impression on her the most. At the age of 90, he exuded a lot of zeal, she said, adding: “He was very keen on spreading knowledge of our culture and civilisational values.”

R.K. Raghavan, president of The Triplicane Cultural Academy, said Narasimhan was a selfless person and his services could never be forgotten. Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti, industrialist and vice-president of the academy, said Narasimhan was a voracious reader. ”Both the library and the academy were close to his heart. He brought several eminent personalities to speak at the academy,” he added.

T.S. Krishnamurthy, former Chief Election Commissioner, said Narasimhan never asked for financial assistance and ran the organisation for several years.

“Such institutions should be protected and encouraged. I urge the organisers to expand it too,” he added.

N. Parthasarathy, son of Narasimhan, said his father’s attention to detail and dedication was incredible. “I would wonder how someone could keenly pursue a passion that had no monetary benefit. It is very rare to see such a quality,” he added.

K.V.S. Gopalakrishnan, vice-president of the academy, Achal Krishnaswamy, former secretary of the academy, and his family members spoke.

Interrogation of suspects in BSP leader Armstrong’s murder case under way: police

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

A special team of police personnel has been interrogating the 11 suspects arrested in connection with the recent murder of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader K. Armstrong.

Sources said the interrogation was on to find out whether the murder was committed following any rivalry relating to the defunct Aarudhra Gold Trading firm, which cheated many depositors by promising good returns.

Collection of evidence

“Investigation is on. They are being questioned to collect further evidence,” a police officer said. After a court permitted the custodial interrogation of the 11 suspects for five days, the police took them from the Central Prison in Puzhal to an undisclosed destination.

Dismissing allegations of a few political parties that the arrested men were not the real culprits, a senior police officer categorically said: “We have clearly ascertained through electronic evidence that the arrested men are the real suspects in the case. We have scrutinised hours of closed-circuit television camera footage, which showed the suspects’ movement from the scene of the crime.”

Ilaiyaraaja concert-goers will get exclusive passes: CMRL

Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) will provide exclusive passes to those with tickets to Ilaiyaraaja - Live In Concert, which will be held at the YMCA Grounds in Nandanam on Sunday. The passes will allow for a round-trip to the Nandanam Metro Rail station from any of the other stations. This applies only to those who booked their tickets through Paytm Insider. “Attendees need only scan the unique QR codes on their digital Metro passes at the ticketing gates to enter and exit,” a press release said.

Delay in flight to Bengaluru due to bad weather irks flyers

Many air passengers were inconvenienced on Friday night as an Air India Express flight from Chennai to Bengaluru was delayed by almost five hours. The flight had to originally depart by 10.05 p.m. but left only by 3 a.m. on Saturday. Airline officials said since it rained heavily in Chennai, the flight, which had to come from Guwahati, was diverted to Bengaluru. It could return only after a few hours and then departed back to Bengaluru. “Due to the inclement weather in the cities on July 12, there was a cascading delay in our flight inbound to Chennai. We regret the inconvenience caused,” a statement said.

Woman killed after iron barricade falls on her

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

A 30-year-old woman was killed after an iron barricade fell on her at a construction site owing to gusty winds in Taramani on Friday night.

The police identified the victim as Renuka of Assam, who was a conservancy worker. She lived with her family on the site adjacent to 100 Feet Road.

When she was returning home, the iron barricade fell on her due to the gusty winds. She was injured grievously and was rushed to a nearby private hospital, where she died.

The Taramani police have registered a case.

Truck driver killed after container falls on vehicle at port in Ennore

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

A truck driver was killed at the Kamarajar Port in Ennore on Saturday after a container being moved by a crane accidentally fell on his vehicle.

The police identified the victim as Nagaraj, who was at the port to load the container on his truck. The accident occurred when the crane was moving the container to his vehicle. Following the accident, other truck drivers staged a flash protest, alleging that safety guidelines for handling containers were not followed at the port.

The Minjur police registered a case and investigated. The truck drivers later dispersed from the site following talks, and port operations resumed.

Politics, gang rivalries and revenge murders

After the killing of BSP leader K. Armstrong on a busy street in north Chennai on July 5, R. Sivaraman takes a walk down history lane to trace some of the murders of prominent political leaders or their close associates in Tamil Nadu

1 of 3 Brutal killing: BSP members blocking a road at Perambur after party State president K. Armstrong was murdered in cold blood by a gang on July 5. Political parties have urged the government to identify the real reasons for the murder. B. Jothi Ramalingam The Hindu

2 of 3 In cold blood: In the most high-profile assassination of a politician on Indian soil, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated at a political rally at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, by a woman suicide bomber on the night of May 21, 1991. At right is Aladi Aruna, who was hacked to death on the secluded Puthupatti Road near Alangulam in the composite Tirunelveli district on December 31, 2004.AFP & PTI AFP & PTI

3 of 3

On July 5, a group of men wearing the uniform of a food delivery app walked up to a man standing and chatting with a few people on a busy street in north Chennai and hacked him down with machetes. The man who was cut down was K. Armstrong, an Ambedkarite and Bahujan Samaj Party Tamil Nadu president. Eleven people were arrested for the murder. Based on the confessions of the accused, the police said the murder was to avenge the killing of history-sheeter Arcot Suresh last year. Political party representatives have dismissed this explanation and urged the government to identify the real reasons for the murder. At this juncture, here is a look at some of the major cases of murder of political leaders in Tamil Nadu — whether for political motives or as a result of gang rivalry or one-upmanship — and the status of investigation into them.

K.V.K. Samy

The brutal murder of DMK leader K.V.K. Samy is, by and large, counted as the first political murder in the State. He was a municipal councillor and president of the salt workers’ union. On the night of September, 20,1956, he was attacked by his adversaries on North Cotton Road, Tuticorin, and left to die. The murder was reported to be the result of enmity between him and another DMK leader R.S. Thangapalam and lorry owner Perumal Nadar. The Tirunelveli Sessions Court acquitted Thangapalam and four of his associates, but convicted four others of the charge of murder and sentenced them to death. The High Court later set aside the acquittal.

Immanuel Sekaran

A freedom fighter, Immanuel was a member of the Indian National Congress. He emerged as a key Dalit leader, fighting for the rights of his people. His rivalry with a caste Hindu group, associated with Muthuramalinga Thevar, was said to be behind his assassination. A group waylaid and killed him on September 11, 1957. Thevar himself was arrested, but released without any charge.

EPRLF members

On June 19, 1990, 15-20 men, armed with light machine guns and other automatic weapons, came in two cars around 7 p.m. to a three-storey apartment at Zachariah Colony, Kodambakkam, where a large number of men of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and their families were staying. Their leader K. Padmanabha, 38, and other prominent functionaries of the militant group were into an informal meeting in a flat on the second floor. The armed men sprinted up the narrow staircase and stormed their way to the flat with their guns blazing. In the next four minutes, the armed men belonging to the rival group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), sprayed bullets on the EPRLF leaders and cadre and lobbed five grenades. Fourteen of them, including Padmanabha and Finance Minister in the defunct North-Eastern Provincial Council P. Kirubakaran, were killed. In November 1997, a designated court acquitted 15 of the 17 accused persons on the ground that the prosecution had “not proved beyond any reasonable doubt” the allegations against them. Judge Arumuga Perumal Adithan convicted Chinna Santhan and Anandaraj of offences under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). Among those acquitted were former DMK Minister Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan; her husband Jagadeesan; former Home Secretary R. Nagarajan; MDMK leader V. Gopalsamy’s brother V. Ravichandran; and advocate D. Veerasekaran.

Rajiv Gandhi

This is perhaps the most high-profile murder of a politician on Indian soil. On the night of May 21, 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated at a political rally at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, by a woman suicide bomber. Thenmozhi Rajaratnam, alias Dhanu, a member of the LTTE, activated the bomb wrapped around her body while pretending to touch Gandhi’s feet. At least 14 others, including the assassin, were killed. The Special Investigation Team confirmed the role of the LTTE in the assassination. In 1998, the special court for TADA cases sentenced all 26 accused to death. However, on appeal, the Supreme Court sentenced only four accused persons to death and the others were awarded various jail terms. The death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2022, the court ordered the premature release of all seven convicts: Nalini Sriharan; A.G. Perarivalan; Ravichandran; Santhan; Murugan; Robert Payas; and Jayakumar.

Elumalai Naicker

Elumalai Naicker, a front-ranking leader of the MDMK, was assigned police security. Yet, he was attacked by an armed gang when he was talking to a friend at Royapuram in April 1994. The murder was the fallout of a fight between two gangs for controlling truck operations in the harbour, the media reported. Subsequently, DMK MLA R. Mathivanan and three others were discharged from the case.

Leelavathi

On April, 23,1997, Leelavathi, a CPI(M) councillor of the Madurai Corporation, was returning from a ration shop, while her husband was discussing with a few others how to celebrate May Day. Hearing a commotion a few metres away, they rushed there to find Leelavathi’s throat slashed. There was no possibility of survival from the wound. In September 1996, Leelavathi was elected the councillor for Ward 59 at Villapuram. She had mobilised residents of the neighbourhood and raised her voice against the extortion from petty shop-owners by political parties. The police arrested six DMK men in the case. Maradu, alias Nallamarudu, the prime accused, was sentenced to life imprisonment. Maradu was released, along with 1,404 others, in 2008 to mark the birth centenary of DMK founder C.N. Annadurai.

Tha. Kiruttinan

Former DMK Minister ‘Pasumpon’ T. Kiruttinan, 66, known as Tha. Kiruttinan, was stabbed near his residence by unidentified assailants on the busy K.K. Nagar-Vandiyur Lake Road on May 20, 2003. The murder was a sequel to a factional feud in the party, the police alleged. The next day, M.K. Alagiri, the elder son of former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, was arrested in connection with the crime. A few others, including P.M. Mannan, who later became the Deputy Mayor; Mubarak Manthiri, who later became a councillor; Essar Gobi; and Siva, alias ‘Karate’ Siva, were arrested. However, five years later, Mr. Alagiri and a dozen others were acquitted by a trial court in Chittoor for lack of reliable evidence.

Aladi Aruna

Former Law Minister Aladi Aruna, alias V. Arunachalam, of the DMK, was waylaid by assailants during his morning walk and hacked to death on the secluded Puthupatti Road near Alangulam in the composite Tirunelveli district on December 31, 2004. A rivalry in establishing educational institutions in the district allegedly led to his murder. S.A. Raja, who owned the Raja group of institutions, was arrested. While the trial court sentenced two of the accused to death and acquitted Raja, the High Court handed double life imprisonment to Raja. However, the Supreme Court acquitted Raja, holding that the prosecution had failed to prove the case.

Thalamuthu Natarajan and Sudarsanam

On the night of September, 12, 2002, the inter-State bandits, calling themselves Bawaria gang, gained entry into the house of Congress functionary Thalamuthu Natarajan. It killed him and his watchman Gopal and injured six other inmates, some of them seriously. When the police reached the spot, a sub-inspector saw the culprits walking away. They reportedly walked about 2 km towards a lorry on which they escaped. Ahead of the Pongal celebrations, the gang struck terror in the house of AIADMK MLA K. Sudarsanam near Periyapalayam around 2.30 a.m. on January 8, 2005. As one of them stood outside holding a gun, the other members broke open the front door with an axe and began attacking the inmates with rods. Sudarsanam, who rushed out of his room, was shot dead. The gang escaped with cash, jewels, and mobile phones, after firing at neighbours who had gathered in front of the house hearing the screams. A couple of years later, a special team nabbed the gang in Rajasthan and the trial ended in conviction.

Pasupathy Pandian

A murder which shook Dindigul was that of Dalit leader C. Pasupathy Pandian in 2012. Pandian was a controversial leader, who faced criminal cases, including murder. He floated his own party, called Tamizhar Arasu, after quitting the PMK. The associates of Venkatesa Pannaiyar, a rival, were cited as the accused in the case.

Ramajeyam

K.N. Ramajeyam, 50, the younger brother of DMK Minister K.N. Nehru, was brutally murdered, apparently after he was abducted by unidentified assailants from Thillai Nagar in Tiruchi on March, 29, 2012. A police patrol spotted his body in a bush on the banks of the Cauvery near Thiruvalarsolai. There is no breakthrough yet in this case, and it remains an unsolved mystery.

‘Pottu’ Suresh

On January 31, 2013, N. Suresh Babu, alias ‘Pottu’ Suresh, a confidant of the then Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers M.K. Alagiri, was murdered by a gang 200 metres from Mr. Alagiri’s residence in Madurai. Suresh was driving when a two-wheeler hit his vehicle. Even as he was trying to get out of the car, he was pulled out and attacked from behind with sickles by a six-member gang. The murder was allegedly committed by ‘Attack’ Pandi, another confidant of Mr. Alagiri, and others owing to intra-party rivalry.

V. Ramalingam

Five years ago, V. Ramalingam, 48, of Kumbakonam, the PMK’s Thirubhuvanam town secretary, was hacked to death by a gang of Muslims after he allegedly interfered in their religious propagation activities. The National Investigation Agency filed a charge sheet against 19 men who were involved in this murder and is yet to trace five other suspects.

Jeyakumar Dhanasingh

The half-burnt body of K.P.K. Jeyakumar Dhanasingh, the head of the Congress Tirunelveli (East) unit, was found on May 4 this year at his farm at Karaichuthupudur near Tisayanvilai. Jeyakumar disappeared from his house on May 2 and a man-missing complaint was filed. He had left a couple of letters about death threats and alleging that senior Congress leaders had asked him to spend money for elections, but he was not compensated. The leaders named in the letter were interrogated. His death prompted speculation since it was alleged that Jeyakumar’s body was found bound with ropes. The investigation is still under way.

Parts of city may get light to moderate rain till tomorrow

The Hindu Bureau

Chennai

On Saturday, Kilacheruvai in Cuddalore district recorded 23 cm of rain . A cyclonic circulation over west-central Bay of Bengal is another reason for rain in places such as Chennai, says RMC official

Unseasonal downpour: Two-wheeler riders on Anna Salai were caught in the sudden rain that lashed the city on Friday.M. VedhanVEDHAN M

Evening thunderstorms are set to continue in various parts of Tamil Nadu till July 19. The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) has forecast rain may intensify in some districts on July 15 and 16.

Chennai, which experienced gusty winds and overnight rainfall of 4 cm, too has chances of light to moderate rain in some areas till Monday. P. Senthamarai Kannan, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, RMC, said those districts along the Western Ghats felt the impact of the monsoon that was active in Kerala. A cyclonic circulation over west-central Bay of Bengal off coastal Andhra Pradesh was another reason for the evening thunderstorm activity in places such as Chennai.

The State continues to maintain its surplus rainfall this southwest monsoon as wet weather has prevailed in most districts since the start of the season. The State has recorded an overall 14.4 cm of rainfall against its seasonal normal of 8 cm so far. Most districts, barring Thoothukudi and Nagapattinam, have registered surplus or normal rainfall. The RMC has predicted that light to moderate rain along with thunderstorms will continue over parts of the State for another week. Districts along the Western Ghats and north-interior parts, including Coimbatore, Erode, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Salem, and Tirupattur, have chances of heavy rainfall on Monday and Tuesday.

Light rainfall, which has become an almost daily occurrence in the State, covered various parts, including Kanniyakumari, Valparai, Tirunelveli, and Yercaud, on Saturday between 8.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. On Saturday, Kilacheruvai in Cuddalore district recorded 23 cm of rain, the highest in the State over the past 24-hours ending 8.30 a.m.

With the weather system likely to move to the interior parts on Monday, some places in north-interior Tamil Nadu will receive rainfall of heavy intensity. Such minor weather systems, forming during the monsoon, may bring rainfall over the State, Mr. Senthamarai Kannan added.

Madras High Court Chief Justice’s post to regain its lost credence after a six-year hiatus

Mohamed Imranullah S.

CHENNAI

R. Mahadevan

The Madras High Court Chief Justice’s post was once considered a springboard for elevation to the Supreme Court. All those who occupied the position between 2008 and 2018 had reached the apex court. After a six-year hiatus, the proposed elevation of Acting Chief Justice R. Mahadevan is expected to restore the credence attached to the post.

Beginning from A.K. Ganguly in December 2008, his successors H.L. Gokhale, M.Y. Eqbal (since dead), R.K. Agrawal, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Indira Banerjee made it to the Supreme Court in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.

The spate of elevations stopped in September 2019, when the then Chief Justice V.K. Tahilramani resigned the post. Thereafter, none of her successors in the High Court made it to the Supreme Court. However, the recent recommendation to elevate the ACJ has come at a time when a judge whose parent High Court also happens to be the Madras High Court is holding the post.

Born in Chennai on June 10, 1963, Justice Mahadevan was appointed as an additional judge of the Madras High Court on October 25, 2013 after 24 years of standing in the Bar since his enrolment with the Bar Council in 1989. He was made a permanent judge on April 14, 2015 and got appointed as the ACJ on May 24, 2024. He had delivered several notable judgements. In Periyanambi Narasimha Gopalan versus Director, Archaeological Survey of India (2021), he had issued a slew of directions and guidelines for preservation and conservation of ancient monuments as well as temples and the heritage sites recognised by UNESCO. In 2016, he had upheld the validity of the declaration of Telugu as a classical language in R. Gandhi versus the State.

He headed a special Division Bench, along with Justice P.D. Audikesavalu, to hear idol theft cases and passed orders for recovering them from foreign countries. He had also dealt with a host of cases related to retrieval of temple properties from encroachers. He had also ruled against involvement of politicians in sports bodies. During his tenure in the Madurai Bench, he had ordered inclusion of Tirukkural in the syllabus for Classes VI to XII for the uplift of the moral standards of society. He had rendered several important verdicts in taxation and company law too and had been a part of five-judge Benches, three-judge Benches, and Division Benches and resolved legal conundrums.

Justice Mahadevan had disposed of over 96,000 cases during his 11-year stint as a High Court Judge. Among them, 6,512 cases were disposed of in 55 days when he presided over the Madurai Bench.

No CRZ violations at Muttukadu centre, ICAR-CIBA tells NGT

The Hindu Bureau

Chennai

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (ICAR-CIBA), the nodal agency for the development of brackishwater aquaculture in India, has informed the Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal that its Muttukadu Experimental Station is not operating in violation of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules.

In a status report submitted to the Bench, the ICAR-CIBA has countered claims made in a petition by R. Narayanan, a resident of Kovalam, that the Institute, which runs a field station with shrimp, crab, and fin fish hatchery facilities in Muttukadu, has illegally erected structures at the mouth of the Kovalam estuary, thereby obstructing water flow and contravening the CRZ Notification, 2011.

According to the petitioner, ICAR-CIBA has erected a circular structure and fences inside CRZ IB and CRZ IVB areas, where such concrete constructions were not permitted. The fences, built in land classified as ‘Buckingham Canal’ in revenue records, have restricted the access to the area, the petitioner stated.

The ICAR-CIBA, in its response, said its field station encompasses 121.6 acres, spanning both Muttukadu and Kovalam villages, in land categorised as CRZ-III, on which agricultural and several other ‘non-destructive’ activities are permitted. The area where the circular structures and fences have been constructed also comes under CRZ-III, as marked in the coastal zone maps, prepared during 2017-18, and they do not obstruct the natural flow of water, it said.

“The barbed wire fencing is located within the land allotted to the ICAR-CIBA to safeguard experimental setups from livestock menace, biosecurity to live research materials and poachers,” the report said.

The ICAR-CIBA denied involvement in the construction of breakwaters or groynes, as alleged by the petitioner, and said the works were undertaken the Public Works Department for deepening the bar-mouth and keeping it open during the monsoon.

Human rights awareness lacking among citizens: Thirumavalavan

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

As there is lack of awareness of human rights among citizens, harassment of human rights defenders by the implementing agencies continues to rise in the country, VCK president Thol. Thirumavalavan said here on Saturday.

Speaking at a seminar on the third death anniversary of human rights activist Father Stan Swamy, he said the killing of human rights defenders, such as Swamy, was an attack on democracy. “Human rights defenders, such as Father Stan Swamy, continue to sacrifice their lives. These human rights defenders did not oppose the implementation of the law. But they have been targeted by the officials of government agencies who follow a certain ideology. This ideology is based on right wing politics,” he said. “Right-wing politicians consider social justice as left-wing politics. They even consider democracy as left-wing politics. They don’t believe in democracy,” Mr. Thirumavalavan said.

DMK Rajya Sabha Member N.R. Elango said the government should become the defender of human rights. “The people should ensure such a government is formed. In addition to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, many statutory provisions have been made to deny human rights. Supreme Court judgments are expected to protect human rights defenders,” he said.

DMK MLA Inigo Irudayaraj said unity among all sections was crucial to protecting democracy and ensuring prosperity of the country, in a period of divisiveness promoted by certain ideologies. “We will voice these issues in the Assembly,” he said.

Henri Tiphagne, founder of human rights organisation People’s Watch, said the Tamil Nadu government should enact a law to protect human rights defenders, to prevent “institutional murders” similar to that of Father Stan Swamy.

‘Complete flood mitigation works before NE monsoon’

Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena reviewed the progress of various flood mitigation and infrastructure projects across the city on Saturday. An official release said he inspected the project to build a retaining wall on a stretch of the Adyar near Manapakkam, at a cost of ₹24.8 crore, and the work under way to improve the Kolapakkam and Gerugambakkam channels for ₹84.93 crore. Mr. Meena instructed Water Resources Department officials to complete the projects before the onset of the northeast monsoon. He also reviewed the progress of desilting and cleaning of waterways and waterbodies, including the Velachery lake.

Increase Budget allocation for effective implementation of NEP, urges ex-V-C

The Hindu Bureau

Chennai

The former vice-chancellor of Anna University E. Balagurusamy has urged the Union government to allocate more funds to education to enhance the quality of education and research in India. Lauding the objectives of the National Education Policy 2020, he stated, “The goal of doubling Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) from the current 26.3% to 50% by 2035 implies doubling the capacity of higher education in the country. This necessitates a huge increase in investment from both the Central and State governments.” In an appeal to the Union Finance Minister, which he shared with the media, he said, “While the spirit of NEP is in the right direction, without additional fund allocation, it is practically an impossible task to implement its recommendations across the country.”

Rally taken out in city to mark World Population Day

Tamil Nadu’s Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) stood at 13 per 1,000 live births, while the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) was 45.6 per one lakh live births, Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said on Saturday. At an event held to mark World Population Day, he said the country’s IMR was 28 per 1,000 live births and the MMR stood at 97 per one lakh live births. Tamil Nadu’s population growth rate, he said, was 7.7%, according to a press release.

A rally was taken out and a pledge was administered, as part of the event.

Quaide Milleth Award presented to N. Ram and Abusaleh Shariff

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

N. Ram, Director, The Hindu Group Publishing Private Limited, and Abusaleh Shariff, renowned economist, among other dignitaries, at the award ceremony in Chennai on Saturday. B. VELANKANNI RAJ B. VELANKANNI RAJ

N. Ram, senior journalist and Director, The Hindu Group Publishing Private Limited, and Abusaleh Shariff, renowned economist and Member-Secretary, Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee, were honoured with the Quaide Milleth Award for Probity in Political/Public Life at an event held here on Saturday.

Instituted by the Quaide Milleth Educational and Social Trust in 2015, the award is presented to eminent personalities who demonstrate a commitment towards constitutional values, secularism, pluralism, and inclusivity. M.G. Dawood Miakhan, the trust’s secretary, said the selection committee, which included V. Vasanthi Devi, former Vice-Chancellor, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University; senior journalist A.S. Panneerselvan; and retired CSI Bishop V. Devasahayam, chose Mr. Ram for his “fearless, independent journalism”. Describing him as a “crusader for the preservation of inclusivity, secularism, and democracy”, Mr. Miakhan said the award was presented to him for his outstanding contributions, and for upholding democratic principles.

Mr. Shariff was honoured for his pivotal contributions to the preparation of the Sachar Committee report on the social, economic, and educational status of the Muslim community in the country, and multifaceted contributions in various roles in the Indian government. He is the founder of the Centre for Research and Debates in Development Policy.

Presenting the awards, F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, former judge of the Supreme Court, said recipients of such awards motivated others to contribute to society’s uplift. The speakers recalled the contributions of Quaide Milleth Mohamed Ismail, one of the prominent leaders of modern India.

Mr. Ram said the trust and the award honoured the memory of a distinguished member of the Constituent Assembly. This was not the first time that constitutional values had come under pressure, he said, adding that people should fight peacefully within the framework of democratic, secular, and constitutional values. It would be difficult to overcome the challenges faced by journalists, civil activists, minority communities, and the Opposition parties without standing up to authoritarianism, he added.

Mr. Shariff said an equal opportunities commission should be formed at the State level, starting with Tamil Nadu. This would help collate data on the Muslim community to provide better opportunities, he added.

Datuk Seri Mohamed Iqbal, emeritus chairman, Business Advisory Council of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member G. Ramakrishnan felicitated the awardees. Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan felicitated the recipients in a video message.

AIADMK’s boycott largely benefits the DMK; NTK show belies expectations

T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI

The AIADMK’s decision to boycott the byelection to the Vikravandi Assembly constituency appears to have largely benefited the ruling DMK.

This was evident by the vote share secured by the DMK as against that of the VCK, the party’s ally, in the same Assembly segment (which falls under the Villupuram Lok Sabha constituency) during the 2024 general election, or even its own performance in the 2021 Assembly election.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the VCK netted a vote share of 39.57%. In the 2021 Assembly election, the DMK secured a vote share of 48.41%. The AIADMK’s vote share in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election (35.83%) can well be considered mostly its own, as it contested only with the support of the DMDK, which also refrained from contesting in this bypoll.

It is a common feature for winners of byelections to get a vote share of 60% and above, as seen in the Erode (East) Assembly constituency in February-March 2023, wherein the DMK-backed Congress secured 64.89% of the votes polled.

In Vikravandi too, in the 2019 byelection, this was the case when the AIADMK (then in power) secured 60.8% of the votes polled. In both these cases, the principal Opposition party — the AIADMK or the DMK — was in the fray.

In fact, in the last five years in the constituency, the vote share netted by the ruling party was the highest in this byelection, at 63.66%. Even during the 2019 byelection, the AIADMK secured a vote share of only 60.8%. Then, the PMK was an ally of the AIADMK. The PMK could draw solace from its performance this time, as its vote share rose by about 11%, which, in turn, could be attributed to the absence of the AIADMK from the fray.

The NTK’s performance, however, turned out to be anticlimactic. There were expectations that a portion of the AIADMK votes would go to the NTK. However, this did not happen.

Bypoll result proves Tamil Nadu will need DMK forever: Stalin

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

The victory in Vikravandi is a crown for the DMK government, which has been implementing various welfare schemes, says the Chief Minister

Jubilant mood: Chief Minister M.K. Stalin distributing sweets to DMK cadre in Chennai on Saturday, following the party’s victory in the byelection to the Vikravandi Assembly constituency. PTIdÿÿýÿ

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said on Saturday that the victory of DMK candidate Anniyur Siva in the byelection to the Vikravandi Assembly constituency by a margin of over 67,000 votes proved that Tamil Nadu always required the DMK for development and people’s welfare.

In the byelections held to 13 constituencies across seven States, the INDIA bloc won in 10, he said in a statement. “The BJP, which could not form the government at the Centre on its own, is at the mercy of a few parties. Its defeat is continuing, and the party should learn its lesson. It should realise that it cannot run the party and the government without respecting the sentiments of the States,” the Chief Minister said.

Highlighting that the DMK-led alliance had been winning elections since 2019, he said, “This victory [in the Vikravandi byelection] is a crown for the DMK government, which has been implementing various welfare schemes. While it has encouraged us, it has also vested us with more responsibilities,” he said.

The Chief Minister further said the AIADMK could not recover from its defeat in the 2024 general election and chose not to contest in the byelection as it knew that it would be defeated again.

“The BJP fielded a candidate of its ally, the PMK. It is still a mystery why the PMK, which is against conducting byelections, fielded a candidate in Vikravandi,” he said.

The Chief Minister said the BJP-led alliance entered the fray knowing well that it would be defeated. “It spread canards and baseless allegations against me and the DMK. But the voters have rejected them,” he said.

CEO Sahoo should resign for failing to do his job, says Anbumani

The Hindu Bureau

Chennai

Anbumani RamadossVELANKANNI RAJ

Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Satyabrata Sahoo should resign from his post for failing to do his job and act as a “responsible officer” in the byelection to the Vikravandi Assembly constituency, PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss said on Saturday.

Addressing reporters here, after the defeat of his party in the byelection, Dr. Anbumani said he wouldn’t blame the voters “for taking money and voting” for the DMK. The DMK had erected sheds across the constituency, distributed money and gifts to voters, and operated thousands of vehicles. The party had also appointed Ministers to ensure the victory of its candidate, he said.

“The DMK spent about ₹250 crore, distributing gifts worth ₹4,000 and ₹6,000 in cash to the voters. For the voters, this is a significant amount as the constituency is one of the most backward regions in the State with a very low per capita income. Additionally, electors were threatened to return the money if they did not vote for the DMK. Everyone knew about this. Around 2,000 DMK vehicles were going around the constituency, and hundreds of sheds were erected. Is this the victory the Chief Minister is proud of,” he asked.

He said the bypoll outcome would not have any effect on the 2026 Assembly election.

Asked whether being an ally of the BJP proved to be a disadvantage, he said, “One cannot arrive at a conclusion based on just one election. In the 2014 [Lok Sabha] election, our alliance won two seats, while the DMK did not win even a single seat. Despite having been in power for 10 successive years, the AIADMK-led front won 75 seats in the 2021 Assembly election. The situation will change in 2026.”

He further said that had former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa been alive, not a single AIADMK vote would have gone to the DMK.

Asked why people’s anger following the Kallakurichi hooch tragedy, which killed over 65 persons, did not dent the DMK’s prospects, Dr. Anbumani said, “Had the byelection been conducted in an honest manner, the DMK would have lost its deposit.”

Illicit liquor offences: amended law making punishment more strict comes into force

The Hindu Bureau

Chennai

An amendment to the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, 1937, making punishment more stringent for offences related to brewing, possession, and sale of illicit liquor, has come into force. The amended Act has been notified in the gazette.

A Bill to amend the Act was passed in the Assembly on June 29 and sent to the Governor for assent. It has now been notified in the gazette after the Governor’s approval. The amendment mandates “rigorous imprisonment for a term not less than three years, which may extend to seven years, and a fine not less than ₹2 lakh, which may be extended to ₹3 lakh” for illegal bottling of liquor for purposes of sale. In cases of offences pertaining to liquor or an intoxicating drug, which contains ingredients that may cause death, the amendment calls for life imprisonment with a fine of ₹10 lakh. If grievous injuries are caused due to the consumption of liquor, there would be rigorous imprisonment (between five and seven years) with a fine of ₹5 lakh, which may be increased to ₹10 lakh.

If anyone “imports, exports, transports or possesses liquor exceeding 50 litres, but less than 100 litres”, the punishment would be imprisonment for not less than two years, which may extend to five years, and a fine not less than ₹1 lakh, which may be extended to ₹2 lakh.”

The punishment for rendering or attempting to render denatured spirit fit for human consumption would be seven years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine ranging from ₹2 lakh to ₹3 lakh.

Vikravandi bypoll: DMK wins by a big margin

The margin continued to increase in the subsequent rounds and after 18 rounds, the DMK candidate had polled 1,13,671 votes against 50,454 votes garnered by Mr. Anbumani.

At the end of the 21st round of counting, Mr. Siva romped home with 1,24,053 votes. NOTA was opted by 859 voters.

Though the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) was also in the fray, the battleground in Vikravandi was perceived to be a direct fight between the DMK and the PMK. The AIADMK and the DMDK had boycotted the polls.

Of the 29 candidates, 27, including the NTK’s Abinaya Ponnivalavan, forfeited their deposits.

The first round of the results was declared at 9.15 a.m., while the last round was announced at 3.06 p.m. At the end, Mr. Siva was declared the winner.

Counting of postal ballots began at 8 a.m. and the votes polled in electronic voting machines began at 8.30 a.m. in the presence of District Election Officer and Collector C. Palani, General Observer Amit Singh Bansal, and Returning Officer M. Chandrasekhar.

Votes were counted over 21 rounds across 14 tables by more than 100 counting officials.

The byelection was keenly contested amid serious allegations of large-scale bribery of voters.

Good governance

Addressing the media at the counting centre, Mr. Siva asserted that the outcome had been virtually guaranteed from the beginning of the election, and the victory was a result of the good governance of the DMK over the past three years.

As the counting of votes began on Saturday, DMK supporters had begun to trickle in at Vikravandi.

By afternoon, the crowed swelled into a massive gathering erupting into joyous celebrations over the bypoll victory.

‘Savukku’ Shankar remanded in judicial custody till July 23

YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar was produced before the Judicial Magistrate I in Karur on Saturday at the end of four-day police custody granted by the court in a cheating case. Mr. Shankar, who had been arrested in various cases, was arraigned as an accused in a case filed based on a complaint from one K. Krishnan, who had claimed that Vignesh of Chennai, said to be a former employee of the YouTube channel run by Mr. Shankar, cheated him of ₹7 lakh. The court has remanded him in judicial custody till July 23.

EPS decries searches on premises of party cadre

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Saturday condemned the searches being carried out on the premises of his party functionaries in Karur district.

In a statement, he said the functionaries had nothing to do with the case of alleged land grab filed against former AIADMK Minister M.R. Vijayabhaskar. He accused the DMK government of “intimidating” the Karur district office-bearers of the AIADMK and warned of an agitation, if this continued.

It may be recalled that the Vangal police had recently registered a case against Mr. Vijayabhaskar and his brother Sekar in connection with an alleged land grab incident. On July 8, CB-CID personnel searched the former Minister’s residence.

Mr. Vijayabhaskar has not appeared in public since he moved an anticipatory bail petition on June 12, which was rejected. His whereabouts remain unknown.

CM to expand breakfast scheme tomorrow

The Hindu Bureau

CHENNAI

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will launch his government’s flagship Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme at government-aided schools in Tiruvallur on Monday, an official release said on Saturday. The event will mark the birth anniversary of former Chief Minister K. Kamaraj. The scheme would benefit 2,23,536 students at 3,995 government-aided primary schools, the release added.

The scheme was first launched on September 15, 2022, in Chennai, for the benefit of 1.14 lakh students. Subsequently, it was launched at Tirukuvalai, the birthplace of late Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi. Under the initiative, students of Classes I-V are provided breakfast on all working days. It is aimed at improving the nutrition of students and increasing enrolment and attendance.

An announcement to expand the scheme to government-aided schools was made in the State Budget for the current year.

National

- High drama as CPI(M) expels leader accused of corruption

- Price cut of premium liquor in Karnataka put off by a few weeks as move hits roadblock

- Kerala chalks out master plan to end human-wildlife conflict at ₹645 cr.

- Off-roaders on prohibited trail in Idukki get stuck, police seize 22 vehicles

- Sanitation worker goes missing in Kerala canal

- One more BRS MLA joins Congress in Telangana

- Valmiki scam case: ex-Minister sent to ED custody for 6 days

- Telangana to host AI meet

- More migrant workers assaulted in Meghalaya

- 2000 cricket match-fixing scandal: Delhi court names Chawla as main conspirator

- Opposition asks Mohan Majhi govt. to take action against Governor’s son

- J&K parties decry ban on paying tributes at martyrs’ graveyard

- Police register FIR on lewd remarks made about wife of Kirti Chakra awardee

- Stage set for opening of Jagannath temple’s Ratna Bhandar today

- SC seeks report on gram nyayalayas from States, HCs

- INDIA bloc wins 10 seats in Assembly bypolls

- Indian among 3 dead in Nepal twin bus tragedy

- Chance treasure discovery sparks frenzy

- 2 J&K clerics booked over ‘inflammatory speeches’

- Bypoll results an indication of BJP’s decline: Congress leaders

- BJP loses in its Matua strongholds in Bengal as Trinamool sweeps all four seats in bypolls

- Congress and J&K parties oppose expanding administrative role of L-G

- Congress’s K.C. Venugopal receives spyware attack alert

- BJP wins Amarwara bypolls; Cong. alleges ‘misuse’ of power

- Parody account’s post on X lands YouTuber in legal trouble

- Independent candidate wins Rupauli Assembly seat

- Soren, wife Kalpana meet Sonia Gandhi

- Mumbai will be made global fintech capital, Maharashtra economic powerhouse: PM

- 6 lakh fake pollution-trading certificates unearthed in 3 States

- Villages along China border to get 4G, tourist circuits, all-weather roads, says Home Ministry

- Bangladesh team explores Kolkata port for transshipment

- Yogi Adityanath inaugurates Uttar Pradesh Mango Festival

- India to host a summit for entertainment sector in Nov.

- Chandipura virus: four children die in Gujarat

- Navi Mumbai airport to be operational by March 2025

- Cybercrimes can derail development, says Dhankhar

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High drama as CPI(M) expels leader accused of corruption

The Hindu Bureau

Kozhikode

Pramod Kottooli, alleged to have taken bribe, calls it a conspiracy ; he holds a sit-in along with his mother and son outside the house of the person who raised the charge, but later calls it off

K.V. Pramod, his mother Vishalakshi, and son Vishal Pramod, staging a sit-in at Kozhikode on Saturday. K. Ragesh

Disciplinary action against a local Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] functionary rarely ends up in dramatic scenes. The dismissal of K.V. Pramod, also known as Pramod Kottooli, a member of the party’s Kozhikode Town Area Committee, on Saturday, however, led to developments that were unexpected.

Mr. Pramod’s removal from the primary membership of the organisation comes a week after media reports emerged about a “youth leader from Kozhikode city” receiving bribe from a doctor by offering the plum post of a member in the Kerala Public Service Commission. It was claimed that the doctor was asked to pay ₹60 lakh for the purpose and the doctor’s family paid ₹22 lakh to the youth leader.

Opposition parties raised the issue in the Assembly. Thereafter, media reports pointed their fingers at Mr. Pramod.

On Saturday, a note from the party’s Kozhikode district secretariat said: “the party district committee decided to remove Mr. Pramod from the primary membership after being convinced that he had engaged in anti-party activities that brought disrepute to the organisation.”

Subsequently, Mr. Pramod addressed the media accompanied by his mother, Vishalakshi, and son, Vishal Pramod.

“I am now going to stage a sit-in, with my mother and my son, outside the house of the person who made the allegations against me. There seems to be a conspiracy behind this. I need to prove to my mother that my hands are clean,” he said.

However, he later called off the sit-in, claiming that his mother and son had health issues.

Price cut of premium liquor in Karnataka put off by a few weeks as move hits roadblock

Sharath S. Srivatsa

Bengaluru

Tipplers in Karnataka, who are expecting a reduction in the cost of premium brands of liquor, will have to wait for a few weeks more. This follows the State government’s move to rationalise rates of liquor, to bring it closer to the prevailing rates in neighbouring States, meeting opposition from stakeholders.

After rationalising the Excise slabs from the earlier 18 to 16 that was expected to bring down the cost of premium liquor, the new rates were expected to come into effect on July 1. Under the new slabs notified, the cost of some low-cost liquor at the bottom of the slab are expected to see minor correction.

Drop by 25%

Official estimates peg the drop in top-end liquor prices by as much as 25%, while mid-segment liquor prices could see a drop by up to 20%. In some slabs, liquor rates could come down by ₹2,000 to ₹1,000 per bottle, according to government estimates.

However, the stakeholders have objected to the draft notification issued to suppliers/distillers. They have been asked to revise the rates and provide their revised declared prices, sources familiar with the current deliberations told The Hindu.

A rationalisation of prices was mooted as Karnataka’s high Excise duty currently makes liquor most expensive in India. The move is expected to improve Excise duty collection and plug collection pilferage by preventing illegal transportation of premium brands.

“The idea is to bring liquor prices in Karnataka closer to other States. Once the new slabs come into force, the liquor price difference between Karnataka and other States would be so negligible that illegal transport becomes unremunerative for bootleggers,” said a source.

Sarath Babu George

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

The Kerala Forest Department aims at integrating cutting-edge technologies with traditional knowledge to effectively manage human-wildlife conflict in the State. The State government has green-lit an elaborate master plan comprising projects to the tune of ₹645 crore to mitigate the crisis which was recently declared a State-specific disaster.

The blueprint outlines 17 strategies to be implemented over three years, funded through Central-State allocations and schemes, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

The initiative includes setting up Artificial Intelligence-based alert systems for real-time updates, thermal sensor-equipped drones, and camera traps to enhance surveillance along forest fringes. Solar streetlights and high-mast lights will also be installed to observe wildlife from a safe distance and prevent conflicts.

The master plan also includes projects to erect barriers, both physical and biological, to thwart animal incursions into human habitations.

Beehive fencing, which has proved effective in Africa and various Southeast Asian countries in repelling elephants, will be set up along 6.6 km of forest boundaries.

Research will evaluate traditional knowledge from tribal communities such as ‘bio-fences’ using crops like chilli to prevent elephants from entering settlements. Habitat-management efforts will ensure adequate fodder in grasslands and interior forests, with new waterholes and check-dams to secure the water needs of the wildlife. The plan also involves increasing the number of Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) by 25 in conflict-prone areas, supplementing the existing 15 teams.

Off-roaders on prohibited trail get stuck, police seize vehicles

Thirty-eight off-roading enthusiasts who went on an unauthorised off-road trip on Naalumala Hills in Idukki, had to return by foot as their vehicles got stuck in muddy terrain following heavy rain on Friday. According to the police, the people from Bengaluru drove up the Nalumala hills on Friday. Following heavy rain, the vehicles got stuck. The group sought assistance from locals. The trekkers were then shifted to resorts. Though the 22 off-road vehicles were brought down with the help of Revenue and police officials on Saturday, the police seized them and booked a case against the drivers for trespass and acting in violation of the Disaster Management Act.

Sanitation worker goes missing in Kerala canal

The Hindu Bureau

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

A temporary sanitation worker went missing in the Amayizhanjan canal in Thiruvananthapuram. Even nine hours after the rescue efforts began, the worker could not be traced, with the accumulated waste and rain hampering the rescue efforts. The worker has been identified as Joy, 42.

Mayor Arya Rajendran said the Corporation has over the past few months sent reminders to the Railways to clean the section of the Amayizhanjan canal that passes through the Railway premises. Railway officials said the work was taken up following request from the Corporation.

One more BRS MLA joins Congress in Telangana

Serilingampally MLA of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Arekapudi Gandhi joined the Congress in the presence of Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy at his residence on Saturday. Mr. Gandhi’s association with Mr. Revanth Reddy goes back to his days in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) when both were elected as TDP MLAs in the 2014 Assembly election after the formation of Telangana. However, Mr. Gandhi shifted to the BRS immediately along with several TDP MLAs while Mr. Revanth Reddy remained in the TDP and later joined the Congress. Mr. Gandhi is the ninth BRS MLA to join the Congress.

Valmiki scam case: ex-Minister sent to ED custody for 6 days

Former Minister for Scheduled Tribes Welfare B. Nagendra, who was arrested by the Directorate of Enforcement on Friday, in connection with the Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation case, was remanded in ED custody for six days by the court on Saturday. Defending the arrest, ED brought to the notice of the court that Chandrashekharan, an employee of the corporation who ended his life, had claimed in his death note that the officials of the corporation pressured him to transfer the money, under the directions of the ex-Minister. ED said the former minister was not cooperating with the probe.

Telangana to host AI meet

The Hindu Bureau

HYDERABAD

The Telangana government will organise a Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit in Hyderabad on September 5 and 6.

The event is expected to feature more than 50 speakers and attract 2,000 delegates.

More migrant workers assaulted in Meghalaya

The Hindu Bureau

GUWAHATI

Pressure groups demanding implementation of the ILP system are allegedly behind the attacks ; labourers are refusing to work in Meghalaya after the assault, an official of NHIDCL says

Some groups that are for the Inner Line Permit have set up a ‘Check Gate’ saying the government should take measures to stop the “influx of outsiders” into Meghalaya. Facebook/KSU

Members of pressure groups in Meghalaya demanding the implementation of the British-era Inner Line Permit (ILP) system continue to assault migrant workers, threatening to stall several development projects across the State.

Officials of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (NHIDCL) said some youth wearing masks and helmets assaulted six labourers engaged in the maintenance of the Shillong-Umiam road at Mawiong near the State’s capital, Shillong, on July 12.

A critically injured worker was rushed to a hospital in Guwahati for treatment, they said. “All the labourers are refusing to work in Meghalaya after the assault,” an NHIDCL official involved with road projects in Meghalaya said.

The NHIDCL lodged a first information report at the local police station and wrote to the Deputy Commissioner of East Khasi Hills district seeking action against the assailants, and a safe environment for the project workers to execute their assignments.

The police said some Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) leaders were summoned to a police station in Shillong in connection with the organisation’s drives to check the “work permits” of non-tribal people and migrant labourers.

Defiant note

The KSU leaders struck a defiant note, asserting that its members would continue to “do the government’s job” if the ILP and the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act passed in 2020 were not implemented. The union claims these mechanisms would check the inflow of “illegal immigrants”, and protect indigenous communities. Union members also set up a temporary “ILP check gate” on an arterial highway in the State’s Ri-Bhoi district a few days ago to drive home their point.

The ILP is a temporary travel document currently needed for Indians to enter Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland. It is based on the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873.

Members of the KSU and other organisations were earlier accused of assaulting migrant workers in the Laitumkhrah and Polo areas of Shillong. One of those assaulted in the Polo area was a technician brought from New Delhi for specialised work at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium ahead of the Durand Cup football in August.

Some non-tribal workers were also bludgeoned to death. There were at least three such cases in East Khasi Hills district between March and April.

Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma, criticised by rights organisations for going “soft” on the violent pressure groups, said the government has been dealing firmly with those creating law and order problems. “There is no such thing as a work permit and nobody is authorised to check the documents of labourers except for the appropriate authorities. There is a process for the Labour Department to register the workers for their safety and to maintain records,” he said.

2000 cricket match-fixing scandal: Delhi court names Chawla as main conspirator

Press Trust of India

New Delhi

Twenty-four years after the cricket match-fixing scandal tainted the gentleman’s game, a court here has framed charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy against four accused, including Sanjeev Chawla, a London-based bookie and the “main conspirator”, and actor Krishan Kumar, brother of T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar.

The 68-page order by the Patiala House District Court, which has now paved the way for the start of the trial, noted the alleged role of the four — Mr. Chawla, Mr. Kumar, Delhi-based bookie Rajesh Kalra and Sunil Dara, alias Bittoo.

The Delhi Police had named them in a chargesheet filed in 2013 in connection with the 2000 cricket match-fixing scandal involving the late Hansie Cronje, who was the captain of the South African team.

Cronje died in a plane crash in 2002. Mr. Chawla was extradited to India in February 2020.

According to the investigation, Mr. Chawla had played the “most vital role by acting as a conduit between bookies and fixing matches in connivance with Hansie Cronje”, the court noted.

“All other accused persons remained in constant touch with Sanjeev Chawla and each other and conspired to fix the matches,” it said.

The King’s Commission was appointed by the South African government to look into the allegations of match-fixing against the country’s players. Cronje confessed to his role.

During the proceedings, Mr. Chawla’s advocate argued there was no prima facie evidence that the person appearing before the court as Sanjeev Chawla was the same as the person named in the chargesheet. Trashing the argument, the court said, “Accused no. 4 Sanjeev Chawla was absconding for nearly 20 years and could be apprehended only after painstakingly long extradition proceedings. To say he is not the same person as test identification parade was not conducted is absurd.”

Opposition asks Mohan Majhi govt. to take action against Governor’s son

The Hindu Bureau

BHUBANESWAR

Raghubar Das.PTI-

The Opposition Biju Janata Dal and Congress on Saturday mounted pressure on the Mohan Majhi government to initiate action against Odisha Governor Raghubar Das’s son Lalit Das, who was accused of assaulting an employee of the Raj Bhavan.

Baikunthanath Pradhan, an assistant section officer of the State Parliamentary Affairs Department deputed to the Raj Bhavan, had alleged that Mr. Lalit Das, on the night of July 7, slapped him and — accompanied by security officers — beat him up during President Droupadi Murmu’s visit. Mr. Pradhan’s wife told the media that her husband was forced to lick Mr. Lalit Das’s boot.

The youth and student wing of Congress staged demonstrations, protesting against the State government’s alleged inaction on a police complaint filed by Mr. Pradhan.

“The State government employee was tortured from 11 p.m. in the night to 4 a.m. in the morning in Suite Number 4 in the Raj Bhavan. Mr. Pradhan had written to Saswat Mishra, Secretary to Governor, describing the incident. But the accused is yet to be arrested,” said Yasir Nawaj, president of Chhatra Congress.

Calling out the studied silence of the Chief Secretary and Director-General of Police at a time when an Odia employee was beaten up inside the Raj Bhavan, Mr. Nawaj demanded that the accused be arrested immediately for the attack. BJD MLA Pratap Deb also came down heavily on the State government, questioning its silence on the incident. “Although the assault occurred on July 7, the police have neither registered a case nor taken any action. The government employee deserves justice,” he said.

The Odisha Secretariat Service Association also urged Mr. Majhi to intervene and take proper action against the attacker.

J&K parties decry ban on paying tributes at martyrs’ graveyard

The Hindu Bureau

Srinagar

Political parties in Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday alleged the J&K Lieutenant-Governor’s administration had denied them permission to pay tribute at the Mazar-e-Shuhada (martyrs’ graveyard) in Srinagar. They termed it an attempt to “erase collective history”.

A total of 22 civilians were killed in police firing outside the Central Jail in Srinagar in 1931 in an uprising against the then Dogra monarchy.

The J&K National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), J&K Peoples Conference (JKPC), and All Parties Hurriyat Conference alleged that their leaders and supporters were denied permission to visit the old city in Srinagar, and pay tribute at the graveyard on the premises of the Naqsband Sahib shrine.

“Another 13th July, Martyr’s Day, another round of locked gates and police excesses to stop people from paying homage to those who sacrificed their lives to establish a just, fair and democratic regime in J&K. Insha Allah next year we will mark 13th July with the solemnity and respect this day deserves,” NC vice-president Omar Abdullah posted on social media platform X.

Prior to August 5, 2019, when the Union government ended J&K’s special status, the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir observed July 13 as ‘Martyrs’ Day’, an official holiday. Regional leaders, police and officials would organise a special ceremony to pay tribute at the Mazar-e-Shuhada.

“The courage and selfless sacrifices of the martyrs were unparalleled. They declared that 13th July 1931 was a pivotal moment in Kashmir’s history, marking the beginning of a relentless struggle against tyranny, oppression, and despotism,” NC president Farooq Abdullahand Mr. Omar Abdullah said in a joint message.

Former J&K Chief Minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti claimed the gates to her house had been “locked up”.“Mazar-e-Shuhada is an enduring symbol of Kashmir’s resistance and resilience against authoritarianism, oppression and injustice. The sacrifices of our martyrs are a testament that the spirit of Kashmiris cannot be crushed. Today, even observing it in remembrance has been criminalised,” Ms. Mufti said.

Police register FIR on lewd remarks made about wife of Kirti Chakra awardee

The Hindu Bureau

New Delhi

Five days after the National Commission for Women took cognisance of the lewd remarks made about Smriti Singh, the widow of Kirti Chakra awardee Captain Anshuman Singh on a social media platform, the Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) cell has registered an FIR, officials said on Saturday.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Monday took suo motu cognisance and filed a complaint before the Delhi Police regarding the matter.

According to a senior officer, the FIR has been registered at the IFSO unit under Section 79 (outraging a woman’s modesty) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 67 (distribution of sexually explicit matter) of the IT Act.

“We have contacted the social media platform to provide details about the handle that allegedly passed the lewd comments about Ms. Singh,” the officer said.

The NCW, on Monday, had written to the Delhi Police to take appropriate action against the profile that posted the lewd comment.

In a letter issued on Monday, the NCW specified that the comment violated several Sections of the criminal and IT laws, including Section 79 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which penalises acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman, and Section 67 of the IT Act, 2000, which deals with the punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form.

The commission also demanded a fair and timely investigation into the matter and requested timely and fair investigation and a detailed action taken report within three days.

Stage set for opening of Jagannath temple’s Ratna Bhandar today

Satyasundar Barik

BHUBANESWAR

Shree Jagannath Temple.ANIANI

The stage is set for the highly anticipated opening of Ratna Bhandar, the treasury of Shree Jagannath Temple in Puri, after 46 years, following the finalisation of the standard operating procedure on Sunday.

“We will meet at 10 a.m. on Sunday to address various issues that may arise during the opening. The managing committee of the temple will hold a meeting separately to plan their course of action,” said former Orissa High Court Judge Biswanath Rath, chairman of the high-level committee set up to supervise the inventorisation of jewelleries and other valuables stored in the Ratna Bhandar.

“Initially, efforts will be made to open Ratna Bhandar using the keys. If the keys fail to unlock it, the lock will be broken in the presence of a magistrate”, said Odisha Law Minister Prithviraj Harichandan.

SC seeks report on gram

Krishnadas Rajagopal

New Delhi

The Supreme Court has sought a full report from the States and High Courts on the establishment and functioning of gram nyayalayas, meant to provide affordable and quick justice to rural India and de-clog local courts.

The top court was informed that gram nyayalayas were far and few between even 16 years after they were introduced through a parliamentary law.

“Gram nyayalayas were supposed to provide speedy and easy access to the justice system for the last citizens of the country. Every citizen has a right to affordable justice at an affordable price,” Justice B.R. Gavai said during a hearing on Friday.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for petitioner NGO National Federation of Societies for Fast Justice, informed the court that 16,000 gram nyayalayas were required, but only a little over 450 were set up with about 300 actually functional.

The court said the last time it had taken up the issue was on January 29, 2020.

The Bench directed the States and High Courts to file fresh affidavits in six weeks giving details of the establishment and functioning of gram nyayalayas. The court scheduled the case for hearing on September 11.

INDIA bloc wins 10 seats in Assembly bypolls

The Trinamool also retained the Maniktala seat.

It was revenge time for the AAP in Punjab where it trounced Jalandhar West’s sitting MLA Sheetal Angural, who had defected to the BJP. She was defeated by the AAP’s Mohinder Bhagat, who had incidentally been her BJP rival in 2022.

In the Rupauli seat in Bihar, Independent Shankar Singh pulled off an upset win over the Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal candidates. The bypoll had been necessitated by the defection of JD(U) MLA Bima Bharti to the RJD.

BJP wins in M.P.

The BJP got some solace from the Amarwara seat in Madhya Pradesh, where Kamlesh Pratap Shah, who had switched sides to the BJP, won a tough contest against Congress candidate Dheeran Sah Sukharam Das Invati.

The victory in Amarwara, which is part of the Chhindwara region, known as senior Congress leader Kamal Nath’s pocket borough, is significant as it comes at a time when the party has been decimated in the Lok Sabha election in the State.

In Tamil Nadu, the DMK sealed its dominance in the State with its candidate in the Vikravandi seat Anniyur Siva emerging victorious against Pattali Makkal Katchi candidate Anbumani C. by 67,757 votes. The bypoll was necessitated following the death of DMK MLA N. Pugazhenthi.

Indian among 3 dead in Nepal twin bus tragedy

The first body from the buses was recovered in the morning 50 km away from the accident site. The deceased was identified as Rishi Pal Shahi from India, the police said.

The rescuers in the afternoon recovered two more bodies from the Gaindakot area in East Nawalparasi district, the police said. They were passengers of the bus heading towards Kathmandu from Birgunj, they said. Besides Shahi, the other missing Indian nationals were identified as Santosh Thakur, Surendra Sah, Adit Miyaan, Sunil, Shahnawaj Alam, and Ansari.

There were 24 people including seven Indian nationals onboard a bus heading towards Kathmandu from Birgunj and another bus heading to Gaur from Kathmandu was carrying 30 local people. The two buses fell into the river as the landslip accompanied by muddy water, triggered by heavy rain, swept them away.

More than 500 security personnel, including from the Nepali Army and Nepal Police, along with deep divers were mobilised for the search operation, the police said.

Chance treasure discovery sparks frenzy

Vijayakumar Namboodiri, a resident, said ancestral houses in the locality buried valuables in pots in ancient temple groves. He noted that local myths about ‘moola bhandari’ or secreted assets were passed down generations and integral to local folklore.

K. Krishna Raj, the officer in-charge of the Pazhassi Raja Archaeological Museum in Kozhikode, said the locality rarely yielded historical collections and the riches could be some individual or family’s fortune.

Mr. Raja noted that the coins bore the hallmarks of the late 18th century, with some displaying Indo-French and Kannur Ali Raja markings. The bead necklaces appeared to be from the same era. He stressed that only a comprehensive study could unveil the historical context of the remarkable find.

2 J&K clerics booked over ‘inflammatory speeches’

The Hindu Bureau

SRINAGAR

Two prominent Islamic scholars were booked on Saturday by the J&K Police for their “derogatory remarks”.

“The clerics have been bound down to prevent any further inflammatory speeches,” a police spokesperson said.

The police identified the preachers as Mushtaq Ahmad Veeri and Abdul Rashid Dawoodi. Both are prominent religious scholars and hold sway among a sizable section of followers. They had been arrested in the past too.

“We urge the public to report any such instances of hate speech to the authorities,” the police said.

Bypoll results an indication of BJP’s decline: Congress leaders

The Hindu Bureau

New Delhi

The INDIA bloc won 10 of 13 seats in the byelections held on June 10, while the BJP could win only two; Congress celebrates its win in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand; results show that Narendra Modi’s credibility is eroding, say leaders

Joyful triumph: Congress workers celebrate after the party's victory in the byelection in Chamoli in Uttarakhand on Saturday.PTI

With the INDIA bloc winning 10 of the 13 seats in the June 10 Assembly byelections, the Congress on Saturday said the results once again indicated that the ruling party was on a severe decline and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s credibility was eroding.

The BJP could win only two seats as the Congress four — two each in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand — bagged by the Congress. By winning two of the three seats in Himachal Pradesh, the Congress has reclaimed its original tally of 40 seats in the 68-member Assembly. This has lifted the cloud of uncertainty looming over the government after a series of desertions during the Rajya Sabha elections.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, said the results of the byelections in seven States made it clear that the “web of fear and confusion woven by the BJP has been broken”.

“Every class, including farmers, youth, labourers, businessmen and employed people, want to completely destroy dictatorship and establish the rule of justice. The public is now completely standing with INDIA for the betterment of their lives and protection of the Constitution,” he said in a post on X.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the victory showed that the people have completely rejected the arrogance, misgovernance and negative politics of the BJP.

Party general secretary K.C. Venugopal said the results “stand as a resounding victory for democracy and a strong rebuke to the BJP’s divisive politics”.

On Himachal Pradesh results, which brought relief to the party, Mr. Venugopal said, “This triumph is a testament to the unwavering faith of the people of Himachal who have rejected the BJP’s politics of horse trading and defections.”

He branded the results as “the public’s strong disapproval of their [BJP’s] pro-rich, dictatorial politics”.

Equally, he said, it was also a rejection of “opportunism” since none of the Congress turncoats who fought on BJP ticket won in Himachal or Uttarakhand.

BJP loses in its Matua strongholds in Bengal as Trinamool sweeps all four seats in bypolls

Shiv Sahay Singh

Kolkata

Trinamool Congress supporters celebrate after Supti Pandey’s win in the Maniktala Assembly constituency in Kolkata, on Saturday.PTI PTI

The Trinamool Congress on Saturday won byelections to all four Assembly seats in West Bengal which were held on July 10. The results, which come almost five weeks after the Lok Sabha election, have emerged as a shot in the arm for the State’s ruling party.

Trinamool candidate Supti Pandey defeated Kalyan Chaubey of the BJP by a margin of over 62,312 votes from the Maniktala Assembly constituency in Kolkata. The seat had fallen vacant in February 2022 after the death of State Minister Sadhan Pandey. Ms. Supti Pandey is the widow of Sadhan Pandey, while Mr. Chaubey is the president of the All India Football Federation.

In the Bagda constituency in North 24 Parganas district, Madhuparna Thakur defeated Binay Kumar Biswas of the BJP by a margin of 33,455 votes. In the Ranaghat Dakshin Assembly constituency located in Nadia district Mukut Mani Adhikari defeated Manoj Kumar Biswas of the BJP by a margin of 39,048 votes.

Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagda have a significant population of the Matua community and were considered strongholds of the BJP.

In the Raiganj constituency in Uttar Dinajpur district of north Bengal, the Trinamool candidate Krishna Kalyani defeated the BJP’s Manas Kumar Ghosh by a margin of 50,077 votes.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee congratulated the people of the State for the victory and said that everyone will work for the betterment of the society.

The Chief Minister particularly extended her congratulations to 25-year-old Ms. Thakur, the daughter of Mamatabala Thakur, a Matua leader and Rajya Sabha member. “Madhuparna has given a tough fight. People over there supported us and she has won,” Ms. Banerjee said.

‘Electoral malpractices’

While the BJP leadership, especially the candidates who were in the fray, had alleged that there were electoral malpractices on the day of voting, party spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya called for an introspection of the party’s performance.

The defeat is an embarrassment for the West Bengal BJP which suffered a setback in the Lok Sabha election and won only 12 Lok Sabha seats whereas the Trinamool Congress increased its tally to 29 Lok Sabha seats.

Congress and J&K parties oppose expanding administrative role of L-G

Vijaita Singh

NEW DELHI

The Opposition parties attacked the government for the ‘unabated betrayal’ of J&K.

A day after The Hindu reported that the Union Home Ministry has widened the ambit of the administrative role of the Lieutenant-Governor of Jammu and Kashmir by amending the Transaction of Business Rules, sources clarified that the J&K Legislative Assembly may make laws on any of the matters on the State List, except “Police” and “Public Order”. The Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution is excluded.

The Concurrent List includes education, marriages, taxes, property transfer, forests, trade unions, labour welfare, charitable organisations, and trade and commerce, which effectively means that the Assembly as and when it is constituted will have no say in such matters.

The Opposition parties attacked the government for the unabated betrayal of J&K, saying the notification was yet another example of an attack on the Constitution.

“Another indicator that elections are around the corner in J&K. This is why a firm commitment laying out the timeline for restoration of full, undiluted statehood for J&K is a prerequisite for these elections. The people of J&K deserve better than powerless, rubber stamp CM who will have to beg the Lieutenant Governor to get his/her peon appointed,” former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah posted on X.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the notification meant that the Modi government “wants to delay the restoration of full Statehood to J&K” and even if full Statehood is restored, it wants to keep the newly elected State government at the mercy of the Lieutenant-Governor, by clamping its executive power.

Ministry sources asserted, “The notification dated July 13, 2024, does not in any sense alter the balance of powers as enshrined in the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019. The said Act has been passed by the Parliament of India in August 2019 and the same has been upheld by the Supreme Court of India.”

The functions of the Lieutenant-Governor have been clearly defined and delineated in the Act and same has been reflected in the amended Rules which were notified in 2020. “The current notification is to provide better clarity on the processes so as to enable smooth administration of UT of J&K,” sources said.

Congress’s K.C. Venugopal receives spyware attack alert

The Hindu Bureau

New Delhi

K.C. Venugopal PTI

Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal on Saturday put out a notice from Apple informing him that a “targeted mercenary spyware attack” had been detected on his iPhone. Earlier this week, Iltija Mufti, daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, had also gone public with a similar notice.

In a post on X, Mr. Venugopal, while putting out the notice, said the Opposition would “oppose this blatantly unconstitutional act and breach of our privacy tooth and nail”.

“Thank You PM Modi ji for sending your favourite malicious spyware on my phone also! Apple has been kind enough to intimate me about this special present of yours!” he wrote. The threat notification sent to him highlighted that he was sent a similar notification on October 30, 2023, and this was another attack against his device.

“Let’s be clear, the Modi government is acting in a criminal and unconstitutional manner, going after political opponents and invading their privacy in this manner. The message of the Lok Sabha elections was that the people reject any attack on the Constitution and the BJP’s fascist agenda,” Mr. Venugopal said.

Similar notification

Besides Ms. Mufti, Samruddha Bharat Foundation founder Pushparaj Deshpande also posted a similar notification from Apple on July 10. The foundation works closely with the Congress.

In October 2023, such notifications were sent to multiple members of the Opposition, including Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera and Supriya Shrinate of the Congress; Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena; Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congress; Raghav Chadha of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP); and Sitaram Yechury from the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen was also notified last year.

BJP wins Amarwara bypolls; Cong. alleges ‘misuse’ of power

Mehul Malpani

Bhopal

Kamlesh Pratap Shah of the BJP on Saturday won the byelection to the Amarwara (Scheduled Tribe reserved) Assembly seat in Chhindwara of Madhya Pradesh, defeating the Congress candidate Dheeransha Invati in a closely fought contest.

The counting of votes polled on July 10 witnessed a seesaw-like situation between the two parties, with Mr. Shah finally emerging victorious by 3,027 votes.

While Mr. Shah secured 83,105 votes, Mr. Invati bagged 80,078. Devraven Bhalavi of the Gondwana Ganatantra Party remained in the third position with 28,723 votes.

Mr. Shah, a three-term MLA and former associate of Kamal Nath, had moved from the Congress to the BJP and resigned from his legislative membership just weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha election in Chhindwara on April 19, mandating the bypolls in Amarwara.

Mr. Kamal Nath had termed the byelection an “election of betrayal” and made an emotional appeal to voters for Mr. Invati. The Congress alleged “misuse of administration by the BJP”, and said that the demand for a recount had been turned down by the authorities.

Parody account’s post on X lands YouTuber in legal trouble

Press Trust of India

Mumbai

Maharashtra’s cyber police have registered a case against popular YouTuber Dhruv Rathee after a parody account allegedly posted a fake message on X about Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s daughter, a senior official said on Saturday.

According to the State cyber department, the account with the handle @dhruvrahtee had alleged on social media that Mr. Birla’s daughter had cleared the Union Public Service Commission exam without appearing for it.

Acting on a complaint by a relative of Mr. Birla, the police booked the YouTuber under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections for defamation, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, and statement leading to mischief, and the IT Act, the official said.

When pointed out that the alleged fake message was posted by a parody account, the official said, “We are investigating the matter.”

Independent candidate wins Rupauli Assembly seat

The Hindu Bureau

PATNA

Independent candidate and former MLA Shankar Singh defeated Janata Dal (United) candidate Kaladhar Prasad Mandal and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate Bima Bharti in the byelection to the Rupauli Assembly seat in Bihar’s Purnia district.

Mr. Singh received 68,070 votes whereas Mr. Mandal got 59,824. Ms. Bharti, who had also contested the Lok Sabha election, came in third with 30,619 votes.

Mr. Singh not only won the election with a good margin but also defeated Ms. Bharti, a five-term MLA.

Soren, wife Kalpana meet Sonia Gandhi

Press Trust of India

New Delhi

Days after taking charge as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren and his wife Kalpana Soren met Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Sunita Kejriwal, the wife of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, in New Delhi on Saturday.

Mumbai will be made global fintech capital, Maharashtra economic powerhouse: PM

The Hindu Bureau

MUMBAI

In his maiden visit to the State after Lok Sabha polls , Modi calls Opposition parties ‘enemies’ of development; he says efforts are on to improve Mumbai’s connectivity with neighbouring areas

Narendra Modi with Maharashtra Governor Ramesh Bais, CM Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis during the inauguration of development projects in Mumbai on Saturday. PTI

In his maiden visit to Maharashtra after the Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday laid foundation stones and inaugurated multiple public projects estimated at ₹29,396 crore, and said he aimed to make Mumbai the world’s capital in financial technology and Maharashtra the leading State in tourism.

Later in the evening, he inaugurated the Indian Newspaper Society Towers in the Bandra Kurla Complex area.

“I aim to use Maharashtra’s power to transform it into an economic powerhouse of the world. Want to make Mumbai [the] global fintech capital,” Mr. Modi said, adding that he also wants Maharashtra to scale the top of the tourism charts. “There are so many magnificent forts of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, a rich Konkan coastline and the entire Sahyadri mountain range. There is immense potential to explore medical and conference tourism.”

Emphasising the tourism sector while addressing media owners and senior management at another event, he asked the media industry to have coordinated efforts to promote tourism in every State to boost the economy.

He took a jibe at the Opposition parties by calling them “enemies” of development, and reiterated the National Democratic Alliance’s resolve for Viksit Bharat in the next 25 years. “It is our goal that the quality of life improves for all. We are attempting to improve connectivity of Mumbai with the neighbouring areas... A decade ago, the metro line was limited to 8 km, which now is a network of 80 km and work is going on to create another 200 km,” he said.

A decade ago, the Mumbai Metro was a single line of 11.4 km. Now, a metro rail network of 46.5 km is operational and 166.97 km is under various stages of construction.

‘Media plays vital role’

At the Indian Newspaper Society Towers inauguration, Mr. Modi said, “Media plays a crucial role in showing the correct path to the nation. It will play a crucial role in making India ‘Viksit’ in the next 25 years. Media also makes people aware of their strength and their rights... and its natural role is to create discourse... The media is not just a mute spectator of the conditions of the country, all of you people of the media play an important role in changing the conditions and giving direction to the country. Today India is in such a period when its journey of the next 25 years is very important. For India to become developed in these 25 years, the role of newspapers and magazines is equally big.”

He laid the foundation stones for the Thane-Borivali (₹16,600 crore) and the Goregaon-Mulund (₹6,300 crore) twin tunnels to be executed by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (BMC), respectively.

6 lakh fake pollution-trading certificates unearthed in 3 States

Jacob Koshy

NEW DELHI

According to a report by the CPCB this May, nearly 3.7 million tonnes worth of certificates were generated. File photoSANDEEP SAXENA

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2023 had unearthed more than six lakh fake pollution-trading certificates during audits at four plastic-recycling companies in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka, documents show.

Multiple sources from the Environment Ministry and from the plastic waste recycling industry confirmed to The Hindu that the potential number of fake certificates could be manifold as these were only four of the 2,348 plastic waste recyclers registered with the CPCB.

Only a small fraction of these recyclers has been physically verified for recycling the claimed quantity, sources said.

Between 2022 and 2023, the latest year for which information is available, there were about 18,000 companies that use plastic packaging and were registered with the CPCB, which manages the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, as either producers, importers or ‘brand-owners’. They had a collective target of recycling about 3.3 million tonnes, with the Ministry data suggesting that on average, more than 85% of the target was met.

The Plastic Waste Management Rules mandate all companies that use plastic packaging to register with the CPCB. Not complying with these targets can invite fines.

These certificates, or EPR certificates, are used by thousands of companies that use plastic packaging in some form for business operations and are legally obliged to either ensure that a prescribed percentage of the plastic used annually is collected and recycled, or that they buy enough certificates to make good on their targets. The mandated targets change every year.

In 2022-23, for instance, companies were expected to recycle 70% of the packaging used in the previous two financial years. For 2023-24, it is 100%.

Certificates are generated by registered plastic waste recyclers, who collect plastic waste and recycle them. Every tonne of plastic recycled by them generates a certificate. As per a report by the CPCB this May, nearly 3.7 million tonnes worth of certificates were generated but given that companies have differing obligations, the exact number of certificates they buy from recyclers is not clear.

While 6,00,000 fake EPRs were bought by packaging companies as part of meeting their obligations, is unclear who bought these certificates as the break-up is not publicly available.

The details vary, but the basic pattern in how recyclers produced fake certificates is similar. The four recycling companies, Enviro Recyclean Pvt. Ltd (Karnataka), Shakti Plastics Industries (Maharashtra), Technova Recycling India Pvt. Ltd and Asha Recyclean Pvt. Ltd, were hauled up for claiming to have generated many more EPR certificates than the installed capacity of their plants. The malpractice came to light after the CPCB conducted physical checks on their premises.

Certificates generated by recycling companies are considered legitimate only if the recyclers are actually able to sell the recycled plastic. In the case of these companies, they were unable to establish proof of these sales to the visiting CPCB officials.

The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board has, as on March 2024, ordered Technova to shut down following violations. The Hindu could not confirm if the other companies have got similar orders.

A typical notice, for instance to Technova, says: “The Unit has generated EPR certificates of the order of 97,200 tonnes and transferred certificates of 95,200... quantities mentioned in the invoices are fallacious and very high compared to the declared production capacity...”

Villages along China border to get 4G, tourist circuits, all-weather roads, says Home Ministry

The Hindu Bureau

New Delhi

Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviews the implementation of ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ at a meeting in New Delhi. PTI

At a high-level meeting here on Saturday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the implementation of the “Vibrant Villages Programme”, which aims to develop infrastructure and open up villages to tourists along the China border.

Mr. Shah said that the Union government was committed to the all-round development of the border villages, and stressed the need to provide employment opportunities to the local people and increase connectivity with villages to prevent migration.

Under the programme, 136 border villages are being provided connectivity through 113 all-weather road projects at a cost of ₹2,420 crore, a Home Ministry statement said. By December, all villages under the programme will be covered by the 4G network, for which work was on at a rapid pace. Appropriate steps are being taken to ensure financial inclusion in all these villages and the India Post Payments Bank branches are being facilitated there.

Work is being done to develop tourist circuits to bring vibrancy to these villages and promote tourism. In this endeavour, capacity building and tourism-related infrastructure was being developed in coordination with the Tourism Ministry. The programme is in the process of being integrated with the Prime Minister’s Gati Shakti Portal for better monitoring.

Senior Home Ministry officers, including the Union Home Secretary, the Secretary, Border Management and Director-General, Indo Tibetan Border Police, attended the meeting.

6,000 events organised

The statement said the important and ambitious scheme was launched on February 14 last year, with an allocation of ₹4,800 crore. So far, more than 6,000 events have been organised in these border villages, which include 4,000 service delivery and awareness camps. More than 600 projects have been sanctioned by the government for employment generation. During the meeting, Mr. Shah laid emphasis on review at the highest level at regular intervals to dispose of pending issues.

He said the Central Armed Police Forces and the Army should encourage purchase of local agricultural and handicraft products through cooperatives. He said the healthcare facilities of these forces should be regularly made available to benefit the residents of nearby villages.

Bangladesh team explores Kolkata port for transshipment

Moyurie Som

KOLKATA

A 13-member delegation from Bangladesh visited the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port here between Tuesday and Friday to explore possibilities of transshipment of Bangladesh’s export-import cargo through ports located on India’s east coast. The team also visited the Haldia Dock Complex in Purba Medinipur district on July 10.

The delegation was led by S.M. Mostafa Kamal, Joint Secretary, Bangladesh Shipping Ministry, and was accompanied by private stakeholders and representatives from other key Ministries and ports of Bangladesh. The visit was in accordance with what was discussed at the India-Bangladesh Shipping Secretaries-level talks in Dhaka last December.

The port authorities said the focal point of the discussions was the various trade facility advantages that Bangladeshi exporters could gain from the transshipment of export-bound cargo to third countries through the port. They highlighted its strategic proximity to Bangladesh and the advantages of the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) route in strengthening trade relations between the two countries and boosting export-import trade.

The delegation was given a demonstration of the infrastructure of the Kolkata Dock System and the Haldia Dock Complex and was told about the scope for handling containerised cargo for third-country export from Bangladesh. In the discussions, port authorities spoke about the future plans for development of the dock and a public-private partnership model.

Discussions held

Talks were also held on matters such as introducing direct voyage services between the port and China, planned vessel movement between it and the Chittagong and Yangon ports, introduction of a night-savigation system, presence of extended allied services, strong presence of leading shipping lines, integrated road and rail transportation network and established customs facilities.

The head of the Bangladeshi team said a meeting would be conducted with stakeholders on their return to Bangladesh, with the data, analysis and comparison they had obtained from their visit. The committee will submit a report to the Ministry, and the report will be communicated to India through diplomatic channels.

Yogi Adityanath inaugurates Uttar Pradesh Mango Festival

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Friday in Lucknow that the State would be exporting 40 tonnes of mangoes to Japan and Malaysia. He was inaugurating the Uttar Pradesh Mango Festival at Awadh Shilp Gram. “Uttar Pradesh will export 40 tonnes of mangoes to Japan and Malaysia this year. For the first time in 160 years, the famous Dussehri mangoes from Lucknow are also being exported to the United States,” Mr. Adityanath said. “While the price of Dussehri mangoes in India ranges between ₹60 and ₹100 per kilogram, their price in the U.S. market has risen to ₹900 per kilogram,” the Chief Minister added.

India to host a summit for entertainment sector in Nov.

India will host the first World Audiovisual and Entertainment Summit in November alongside the International Film Festival of India in Goa, with Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw promising to strengthen the ecosystem for the protection of intellectual property rights in the media and entertainment sector. Mr. Vaishnaw and Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Saturday made the announcement of the first World Audiovisual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) in Goa from November 20 to 24. “IP rights hold huge value in the media and entertainment sector. We will be strengthening the ecosystem for protecting IP rights,” Mr. Vaishnaw said in his address. PTI

Chandipura virus: four children die in Gujarat

The Hindu Bureau

AHMEDABAD

Four children died and two are under treatment for suspected infection by Chandipura virus, which causes encephalitis, in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat. The two children are being treated at the civil hospital in the district.

The authorities have sent the samples of the children who are undergoing the treatment, to the National Institute of Virology for confirmation. Chandipura virus is a rare and potentially deadly pathogen that causes fever, flu-like symptoms, and acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain).

Navi Mumbai airport to be operational by March 2025

The new international airport in Navi Mumbai will be operational from March 2025, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said on Saturday. The airport, which is currently under construction, has been named after the Peasants and Workers Party of India leader Dinkar Balu Patil, for which the Maharashtra government gave its nod in July 2022. Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu and Mr. Mohol reviewed the progress on July 13 by visiting the site in Navi Mumbai. Speaking to presspersons, Mr. Mohol said, “The airport will be operational in March 2025. The construction progress is as per schedule.”

Cybercrimes can derail development, says Dhankhar

Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday cautioned that cybercrimes can derail a nation’s development, and called for a convergence of efforts and institutions to deal with the threat. He called for a need to further educate people to protect data to prevent them from falling victims of cybercrimes. Addressing a conference on cybersecurity, Mr. Dhankhar felt that there was a need to extend legal aid to victims of cyberfraud as they could have lost all their finances to cybercriminals. Referring to the growth of the country’s economy, he said “derailment can take place when we are not prepared for such kind of crimes, such kind of incursions”. PTI

France’s ‘republican dam’

G. Sampath

New Popular Front The leftwing alliance, cobbled together just weeks before France’s legislative elections, stopped the far-right juggernaut of Marine Le Pen in its tracks and emerged as the largest bloc in parliament, but political uncertainty prevails as no group has a majority

Raphael Glucksmann (Place Publique), Laurent Berger (trade unionist), Jean-Luc Melenchon (France Unbowed) and Marine Tondelier (Green).

In a development that has stunned most political observers, the New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire, or NFP), a leftwing coalition, has won the most number of seats in France’s legislative elections that concluded on July 7. It secured 182 seats, defeating both President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance Ensemble (168), and the far-right National Rally (RN), which performed way below poll predictions, mustering only 143. With 289 needed for absolute majority in the 577-member National Assembly, and none of the three major political blocs close to this figure, France has been plunged into political uncertainty. But the country wasn’t even due for elections this year.

The whole chain of events began with the European Parliament elections in June. Marine Le Pen’s RN finished at the top with 31.37% of the votes, handing a crushing defeat to Mr. Macron’s Ensemble, which came a distant second with 14.60% votes. Mr. Macron responded to this setback by dissolving the National Assembly and calling snap polls. He justified his decision as intended to save France from being taken over by a resurgent far-right, ostensibly by forcing the French to choose between the moderates and those on the political extremes.

Many analysts, however, criticised his move as an impetuous gamble. The first round of the elections on June 30 seemed to vindicate the criticism. The RN won 33% of the votes, while the Macronists got just 21% — even less than what they secured in the first round in 2022. The NFP came second with 28%. Ahead of the run-off on July 7, exit polls predicted a comfortable win for the RN. But to everyone’s surprise, the leftwing bloc came first.

The NFP is a last-minute, hastily cobbled together coalition of four left-of-centre elements — the Socialists, the Greens, the Communists, and the hard-left France Unbowed of Jean-Luc Melenchon. The same four had come together to form the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (NUPES) ahead of the 2022 legislative elections, where they won 142 seats and denied Mr. Macron a majority. But NUPES broke up last October following Hamas’s surprise attack and Israel’s retaliatory invasion of Gaza. The fragmentation was triggered by Mr. Melenchon’s stand against describing the Hamas attack as “terrorist”, prompting the Socialists to quit the alliance.

Pressure from the ground

No one expected the perennially squabbling left parties to reunite so swiftly. But this time, the pressure for left unity was immense, and came from the ground up — from trade unions, citizens’ collectives, and civil society organisations. In the aftermath of the RN’s dominant performance in the European elections, and pollsters predicting a far-right victory in the election to come, thousands took to the streets, pressuring different sections of the French left to, in the words of Mr. Melenchon, “throw their resentments in the river” and stand together as a ‘republican dam’ against the destructive flood of fascism.

The very name ‘New Popular Front’ is a throwback to the Popular Front of 1936, the historic leftwing alliance led by socialist Prime Minister Leon Blum, which pushed back against fascism even as the rest of Europe crumbled before it. It is considered customary for the French Left to unite whenever the Republic is threatened by fascist forces. With victory for the RN a near certainty, the ex-NUPES parties worked overtime to negotiate a common platform, which became the NFP.

The results of the first round were encouraging for the alliance, as they finished second. But it wasn’t going to be enough to stop the RN from forming the government. Had it done so, it would have been the first time a far-right party came to power in France since the Vichy regime of the Second World War. But the NFP managed to avert this eventuality, thanks in large measure to the tactical understanding it reached with Macronists for the second round.

Invoking the notion of the ‘Republican dam’, both the NFP and Mr. Macron’s party withdrew more than 200 candidates from three-way contests to avoid splitting the anti-RN vote. While the NFP withdrew more than 130 candidates, about 80 Macronists stepped back, so that the run-offs became a two-way contest between the far-right and the rest. The strategy worked. Both Ensemble and the NFP did well while the RN’s performance slumped. The RN’s president, Jordan Bardella, complained bitterly about this tactic, calling it a “dishonourable alliance” that has “deprived the French people” of an RN victory.

When the results came out, Mr. Melenchon described them as a victory for the NFP and proclaimed that Mr. Macron should invite his alliance to form the new government. A minority government that forms issue-based coalitions is not unthinkable in France. There are constitutional provisions under which laws can be passed by decree. But Mr. Macron seems reluctant to work with a Prime Minister from the NFP, whose political programme is directly at odds with his own. Despite the sharp erosion in his party’s numbers, he has refused to accept Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation, asking him to temporarily continue in office. According to the Constitution, Mr. Macron, whose own term extends till 2027, cannot dissolve the Assembly and call for fresh elections at least for one year, or until June 2025.

‘Acts of rupture’

But the French Left are projecting the election results as both a defeat of the far-right and a mandate for an NFP government. The core of the NFP’s policy agenda is what they call “acts of rupture”, or a break from the status quo of Mr. Macron’s neoliberal economics. Weighted heavily by the priorities of its largest constituent, France Unbowed, the NFP’s ‘rupture’ programme tries to capture the spirit of the original Popular Front, which pioneered landmark pro-labour legislation such as paid vacations and 40-hour work weeks.

As per its policy programme, the NFP, if it comes to power, would immediately freeze the prices of essentials like food and gas, hike the minimum wage, and reverse Mr. Macron’s pension reform that increased the retirement age to 64. Subsequently, they would repeal Mr. Macron’s immigration law and reintroduce the wealth tax. On the foreign policy front, they will recognise Palestinian statehood and replace the idea of “unconditional support” for any nation with support for international rule of law.

As things stand, however, in order to form the government, the NFP may have to make several compromises, including junking the idea of Mr. Melenchon as Prime Minister.

With Mr. Macron under no deadline to name a new Prime Minister, the messy political scenario may not resolve itself before the Olympics, the nation’s top priority at the moment, are over. For now, the French Left are basking in their unforeseen success in halting the far-right juggernaut in its tracks — an achievement that continues to elude mainstream political parties across much of Europe.

Engineer of victory

Peerzada Ashiq

Sheikh Abdul Rashid The founder of the Awami Ittehad Party, in jail from 2019, took a resounding victory from Baramulla beating bigwigs such as Omar Abdullah and Sajjad Lone

Sheikh Abdul Rashid, widely known as Engineer Rashid, on July 5, took oath as the Member of Parliament of the Baramulla constituency, in a closed chamber in New Delhi, away from the media gaze. Hailing from a small town of Langate, close to the Line of Control (LoC), in north Kashmir's Kupwara district, the 56-year-old founder of the Awami Ittehad Party became the first jailed Kashmiri leader to have elected to Parliament.

The story of Mr. Rashid’s rise as a politician is like a script lifted straight out of Bollywood.

Long before he completed his diploma in civil engineering, Mr. Rashid, in his early 20s, was forced to work as a porter for the Army. He cleared live mines to ensure the Army had a safe passage in the volatile and militancy-dominated Kupwara district.

Cut to 2005: Mr. Rashid, then a junior engineer in the Roads and Buildings Department, was kidnapped by militants in Sopore for refusing to hand over construction material to them. The militants would accuse him of “indulging in anti-militancy activities”. A year later, security forces detained him on the charges of supporting militancy. He paid ₹35,000 and three mobile phones as bribe to avoid Public Safety Act (PSA), a law pertaining to preventive detention up to two years without a trial, he later said. “My father sold land to pay the bribe,” Mr. Rashid told this reporter after his release, five months after he was jailed. But he lost the government job in the course.

Political entry

Mr. Rashid plunged into politics in 2008 with the sole aim of “getting a security cover and a vehicle”. However, destiny had other plans. He won the 2008 Assembly elections from Langate and as an MLA, he addressed the public issues that other leaders hardly touched. He got areas of Langate free from Army camps and checkpoints for easy movement of locals. He would hit streets against alleged human rights abuses.

Wearing nylon slippers or plastic shoes and donning a Khan suit or a pheran, a long woollen robe for winters, Mr. Rashid stood out for his rustic look in the Assembly with most MLAs neatly dressed. He brought in resolutions on including the United Jihad Council, an amalgam of militant outfits, into talks over Kashmir, and sought clemency for Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. He also made 3,000 youth to take pledge against stone pelting in 2010.

There was an incident which his followers cite to explain how he managed to establish a strong connect with the locals. In 2011, Mr. Rashid heard a knock on the door at around 1 O’clock. It was a man who left home to commit suicide but decided to share his problem with the MLA. The man wanted to marry a girl from a different caste but faced opposition. Mr. Rashid drove in the night to the girl's home and managed to fix the date of marriage with the family.

It's this goodwill that reflected in his election battles. Though he lost the 2019 Parliament elections, he got 1.2 lakh votes against the J&K National Conference's (JKNC) 1.33 lakh votes. A few months later, he was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, just as the Centre revoked J&K's special status on August 5, 2019. The NIA, in its chargesheet, said, “The role of Engineer Rashid, in the conspiracy to destabilise Kashmir and cause unrest, has been revealed”.

Imprisonment did not weaken Mr. Rashid’s fighting spirit. In the 2024 election, he defeated former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, and J&K Peoples Conference’s Sajjad Lone in Baramulla. Rashid won 4.72 lakh votes against Abdullah's 2.68 lakh.

“The argument that Rashid won because separatists voted for him is a fallacy. Data suggests he took a lead in areas where Pahari and Gujjars communities live and won maximum Shia votes in several areas,” Mr. Rashid's campaigner and son Abrar Rashid told The Hindu.

The electoral “victory is for the voiceless”, his son said. “People of Kashmir deserve an honourable resolution of all issues and if they have chosen Rashid to speak for them in Parliament, he should be allowed,” Mr. Abrar added.

Rebel with a cause

Priyali Prakash

Jeremy Corbyn The former Labour leader, known for his left-wing activism and strong support for the Palestine cause, has won his Islington North constituency as an independent

Leftwing leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has represented Islington North in the U.K. Parliament since 1983, won the constituency for a historic 11th time in the July 4 election. Mr. Corbyn, who led the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020, is one of the six Independent MPs currently sitting in the U.K. Parliament, out of a total of 650 members.

Over the years, Mr. Corbyn has emerged as a tall figure of the British Left. Even though he was unceremoniously suspended from Labour in 2020, Mr. Corbyn has spent most of his life as a Labour leader, as a socialist on the political left. His tenure as the party leader was marred by complaints of antisemitism from within the ranks.

In July 2018, three Jewish newspapers in the U.K. printed the same headline — “United We Stand” — to draw attention to alleged antisemitism under Mr. Corbyn’s leadership. The Labour Party responded by saying there was no threat to the Jewish people, after concerns were raised regarding the party’s “failure” to completely adopt the definition of ‘antisemitism’ as given by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

A 2013 video of Mr. Corbyn speaking at a meeting convened by the Palestinian Return Centre also later became a focal point of criticism from Zionists. In his speech, he called Zionists out for two problems: “One is that they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.” Mr. Corbyn had dismissed allegations of antisemitism as “political”. He said he supported “a zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of racism".

Mr. Corbyn has never shied away from supporting the Palestinian cause, which forms a cornerstone of his politics even today. He has showed up at multiple protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza following Israel’s invasion of the strip after Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023. Mr. Corbyn also questioned former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s refusal to support calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Mr. Corbyn’s position as a backbench MP over the years has also allowed him to freely express his views, even if those are against the party’s official policies. He has often been called the “most rebellious Labour MP of recent times”. By 2015, he had voted against the party leadership over 500 times since when former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair came to power in 1997. He voted against the Blair government’s decision to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. As the Labour leader in 2016, he called the war a “catastrophe” after the Chilcot Report found that Mr. Blair knowingly exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

LGBTQ rights

The Independent MP has also been a long-time ally of LGBTQ rights in the U.K. He famously spoke in favour of the community in 1983, although a statement in 2017 where he said people should not be persecuted if they “chose” to be gay or lesbian drew criticism from some sections of society. The U.K. allowed same-sex marriage in 2013.

Mr. Corbyn’s connect with the voters of his Islington North constituency is no surprise — he has been their candidate of choice to Parliament for over 40 years now. Islington is a diverse area in North London. According to the 2021 Census, 7.1% of Islington residents identified their ethnic group within the "other" category ("Arab" or "any other ethnic group").

“Corbyn always showed up to the protests and gatherings [in Islington North] which the local community appreciated immensely,” Annapurna Menon, a Sheffield University teaching associate who lived in Islington North while pursuing her PhD, told The Hindu. Ms. Menon reminisced about talking to Mr. Corbyn during a Black Lives Matter protest in the constituency, and how he stood as “a symbol against oppression and for resistance” for the local Islington community. In his last monthly update before the elections, Mr. Corbyn said the issues related to housing, refugees, and environment will continue to be of prime importance to him. He also added that he was “determined to ensure Gaza stays at the forefront of our politicians’ minds”.

Sweet slice of Assam

Ritu Raj Konwar

Pineapple is grown widely in the northeastern States such as Assam where they ripen and gain the best taste and flavour under the right amount of sunlight and rain

Irresistably sweet: Young men working on a pineapple farm help themselves to the fruit at Gamerimura village in Kamrup district of Assam.RITU RAJ KONWAR

Assam is blessed with diverse natural resources. The wide-ranging topography and congenial agro-climates offer immense potential for growing various kinds of fruit, vegetables, spices, flowers, and aromatic and medicinal crops.

Pineapple is widely grown in northeastern States, including Assam. The fruit is popular and their availability in the form of juice or slices round the year enable people to enjoy them whenever they want. Kew and Queen are the most popular varieties of pineapple among the growers in Assam. The Queen variety is widely grown.

Pineapple has recently gained much prominence for its health-promoting properties. Fresh pineapple is loaded with many essential vitamins and minerals.

Grown in the sunny fields of Assam, pineapples receive the right amount of sunshine and tropical rain to bring them to the peak of their flavour. The pineapple is a humid tropical plant. It grows well, both in the plains and also at elevations. Pineapple usually flowers from February to April and the fruits are ripe to harvest from July to September.

Two years ago, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority organised a promotional event in Dubai to promote Assam’s pineapples there. Processed pineapples are also popular as they can last longer in the export market. A fully ripe pineapple is considered highly perishable, and cannot be kept for more than a few days after harvesting.

The major importers of pineapples from India are Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Maldives.

Recently, Meghalaya has started a scheme to promote fruit wine, including that of pineapples which have high sugar content. Pineapple wine can be processed from culled pineapple, pineapple peel, and the core.

Business

- ‘Tech advances likely to pose challenges to firms’

- ‘There’s traction in subscription model among transit professionals in tier 1 cities’

- TVS Motor to invest in new products, technologies to drive topline growth: MD

- ITC’s Fortune to add hotel rooms in TN

- ‘Chola making strides towards becoming a financial powerhouse’

- ‘Govt. mulls handing over MTNL operations to BSNL’

- Centre denies extension to BSNL Chairman Purwar

- ‘Domestic investors infused $638 mn in realty in Apr.-June’

‘Tech advances likely to pose challenges to firms’

Lalatendu Mishra

MUMBAI

A Canadian court ruling upholding use of an emoji as valid acceptance of a contract flags the risks Indian corporates can face from a lack of preparedness; need awareness of AI tools, emoticons

Advances in technology and AI tools are likely to pose challenges for corporates in safely running their businesses according to two legal experts. To guard against these challenges, several companies and their boards are scrambling to embrace some of these advances and tools.

The recent decision of a Canadian court accepting the use of an emoji in a communication as acceptance of a contract has raised alarm bells in boardrooms worldwide, including in India. Given the rapidly expanding use of messaging platforms to hold discussions, and even arrive at decisions, the Canadian court’s ruling is seen as an eye opener, the legal experts said.

‘Thumbs-up emoji’

The case pertains to a Canadian farmer who was sued by a grain buyer for failing to deliver 86 tons of flax. The buyer alleged that he had discussed the potential purchase with the farmer over phone and sent a message with a draft contract, requesting the farmer to confirm the contract. In reply, the farmer sent a ‘thumbs-up’ emoji but did not then meet the specified deadline for delivery of the flax.

While the grain buyer claimed that the emoji indicated their deal was sealed, the farmer argued that the emoji was only meant to confirm receipt of the contract and not to signify acceptance of the agreement or its terms.

The court ruled in favour of the grain buyer and ordered the farmer to pay Canadian $82,000 (about ₹50 lakh) for failure to fulfil the contract.

Deals via messaging

According to the legal experts, such cases may come up in India because contracts are now increasingly being discussed over messaging platforms.

While only e-mails were considered as having evidentiary value till recently, the Canadian court’s ruling, the experts opine, could result in WhatsApp emoticons making their way to courts here as well.

Abhijit Joshi, founding and managing partner, Veritas Legal, a new age law firm, said most organisations today embrace technological advances, which are complex and cannot always function within a tacit framework of rules.

“Since there is no comparable body of knowledge or best practices, boards at times may not adequately consider the governance of technology, which can be dangerous. For this reason, more and more organisations are forming separate IT / AI Boards to address the complexities and challenges of advances in technology,” he said.

“For this, boards must regularly review their security and reliability measures to prevent any glitch in services or attack on technology. Additionally, investments can be made in back-up systems as well as project management systems, including entering into service level agreements,” he added.

‘Voice replication’

Voice replication using AI, or impersonation of a person on a WhatsApp group following identity theft, can also emerge as major challenges for corporates, given the risks to business integrity.

The legal experts see a lot of legal propositions being tested in the wake of technological advances. Companies need to take measures to safeguard themselves, while making optimal use of these advances, they add.

Several companies and their boards have been seeking the services of tech experts and law firms to pre-empt risks and suggest ways to mitigate them.

“Regular training and awareness programs should be conducted, and proper policies and procedures be framed and put into place,” says Rahul Dwarkadas, co-founding partner, Veritas Legal.

“For example, educating the board and employees that the use of technology, which apart from providing alternative options that differ from the traditional manner in doing things, such as executing a contract, can nonetheless convey an affirmation even if made informally or with the use of signage,” Mr. Dwarkadas observed.

The solution to safeguard boardrooms from tech risks lies in four steps: awareness and education, anticipation of the problems a corporate could face, investment in training and safeguard measures, and liability insulation, the legal experts said.

‘There’s traction in subscription model among transit professionals in tier 1 cities’

Mini Tejaswi

Bengaluru

Hassle free: Those in India on short-term projects and young professionals who prefer not to own assets are subscribing.REUTERSAMIT DAVE

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) witnessed significant traction in its car subscription model in FY24, said Partho Banerjee, a senior company official.

There were more than 10,000 cars across India of all MSIL brands put together since subscriptions were introduced in July 2020 till the close of FY24.

Post-pandemic recovery

While the COVID-19 pandemic hit uptake severely, growth has been steep in the past couple of years.

Subscribers are mainly those who are in India on short-term projects or engagements for under two years. But young professionals who increasingly believe in shared services and do not prefer to own assets are also opting for the subscription model, Mr. Banerjee said.

“We saw good traction for the subscription model last year. The growth in the subscription model was 44% over FY23,” Mr. Banerjee, told The Hindu.

‘Popular overseas’

While the subscription model was a new concept in India, it was already popular in the United States and other mature markets, he observed.

This model may take some time to find greater acceptance in India, because people still consider owning a car as an investment, he added.

“But subscription is certainly an option we offer to our customers. Generally, in mature markets people tend to go for the subscription model. In India, we are seeing interest among young customers,” Mr. Banerjee observed.

This model is hassle free, without requiring a loan and customers could return the car, or upgrade after the tenure period.

He said the trend was evident in Hyderabad, Delhi and Bengaluru and other metro cities where there were large numbers of transit professionals.

TVS Motor to invest in new products, technologies to drive topline growth: MD

N. Anand

CHENNAI

Sudarshan Venu

TVS Motor Company (TVSM) aims to drive topline growth by investing in new products and various technologies to strengthen its EV and ICE capabilities, said Managing Director Sudarshan Venu.

“We aim to drive growth by investing in new products and premiumisation,” he said in the MD’s message to shareholders.

“Our investments in digital connectivity strengthen our EV and ICE capabilities, and we anticipate elevating customer satisfaction with customer-centric investments in software, electronics, and digital connectivity,” Mr. Venu. said.

While expecting a greater demand surge in the two- and three-wheeler industry in the future due to improvements in road infrastructure and increasing mobility demands, TVSM aims to capitalise on the opportunities by deepening its international presence in the African, Latin American, European, Southeast Asian, and West Asia markets, he said.

On its international presence, TVSM said it was now a global brand company operating in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. The company is strategically expanding its international presence by fortifying its EV offerings and strengthening its distribution network across the world. TVSM will initially introduce its premium EV and ICE range in France and Italy, a move that will pave the way for further expansion into select EU markets.

In FY24, TVSM reported a slight decline in two- and three-wheeler exports. The two wheeler business is expected to rebound in FY25.

African market

The African market is expected to show improvement in recovering from the global slowdown, inflation moderation, currency devaluation, and effects of maritime disruption.

The company said it had put adequate countermeasures in place to address the challenges and expects strong recovery in the international markets in FY25.Asserting that the premium and super-premium markets were expected to grow consistently, the company said its Singapore subsidiary Norton Motorcycle Co. Ltd., UK., was preparing its portfolio to become a strong player with a series of products getting closer to market readiness.

ITC’s Fortune to add hotel rooms in TN

The Hindu Bureau

Chennai

ITC’s Fortune Park Hotels plans to expand its portfolio with the addition of 8-10 new hotels with 1,000 keys over the next two to three years mostly in tier 2 and 3 cities, the unit’s CEO said.

“We are an asset light company, and we open hotels through alliances,” Fortune Park Hotels Ltd. CEO M. Samir told The Hindu. “We are always open for alliances,” he added.

Fortune Hotels, which has 55 operating hotels with 67 alliances and 4,000 keys of which 30% are in the South, announced the opening of its Fortune Beach Resort ECR Chennai on Friday.

“Our plan is to open 8-10 properties with 1,000 keys in 2-3 years. This year, we announced opening of eight hotels, of which five have been opened. We are on track,” he said.

Fortune’s portfolio consists of business and leisure hotels in a 70:30 ratio and the goal is to make it 50:50, he said. Already in Tamil Nadu the ratio is 50:50 across Ooty, Madurai, Chennai, Vellore, Tiruppur and Hosur.

‘Chola making strides towards becoming a financial powerhouse’

N. Anand

Chennai

Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Co. Ltd. (Chola) continues to make significant progress towards its long-term vision of becoming a financial powerhouse, said the firm’s top official.

“Chola has achieved record-breaking disbursals, collections, and profitability in FY24. Alongside this growth of our established businesses, our new ventures are making substantial contributions to both volume and value,” Chairman Vellayan Subbiah said in the annual report.

Vehicle finance grew 22%, property loans 46%, while home loans grew by 66%. Small and medium enterprises loans rose 27%, consumer and small enterprise loans by 64% and secured business and personal loans by 138%, he said.

On growth prospects, he said, commercial vehicle segment is expected to rise in single digits in FY25, while two-wheeler finance is expected to grow at a moderate pace this fiscal.

‘Govt. mulls handing over MTNL operations to BSNL’

The Centre is considering to handover operations of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) to BSNL through an agreement, instead of pursuing a merger route, a source privy to the development said. A final call on this is likely to be taken in a month’s time. The source said that the option of handing over MTNL’s operations to BSNL through an agreement is being looked into and given MTNL’s high debt, a merger with BSNL was not a favourable option. pti

Centre denies extension to BSNL Chairman Purwar

The government has denied extension to BSNL Chairman and Managing Director P.K. Purwar and is likely to give the charge to a senior department of telecom officer, official sources said. Mr. Purwar, who took charge as CMD in July 2019 for five years, had applied for an extension. “DoT is mulling to hand over additional charge of BSNL CMD post to DDG Robert J. Ravi. There is no decision on extension sought by the present CMD,” an official source said. pti

‘Domestic investors infused $638 mn in realty in Apr.-June’

Domestic investors pumped $637.9 million in the Indian real estate during April-June, a fivefold jump on annual basis, expecting better returns amid strong demand, according to Vestian. The real estate consultant on Saturday released data for institutional investments in real estate during Q2 of CY24. As per the data, institutional investments in the Indian real estate rose 96% in April-June to $3.1 billion from $1.6 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year. pti

Science

- Nobel laureate supports India’s pursuit for a neutrino lab

- Nipah monoclonal antibody trials may begin in India in 2025

- Air pollution harms pollinators more than pests, study finds

- Heart rate

- Experiment reveals barley’s climate-driven adaptation

- New atmospheric particles form in upper troposphere

- Island vertebrates are at risk of human-driven extinction

Nobel laureate supports India’s pursuit for a neutrino lab

Nandita Jayaraj

Nobel laureate Takaaki Kajita opens up about the parallels and contrasts between Japan and India’s quests to further research on enigmatic elementary particles called neutrinos

If the obstacle-ridden India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) ever becomes a reality, it will be one of the largest basic science projects in the country. Nobel laureate and neutrino researcher Takaaki Kajita is convinced that the proposed underground laboratory is still worth fighting for.

Neutrinos are abundant particles that may be relevant to our understanding of the origin of matter in the universe. About 60 years ago, historic science experiments inside a goldmine in Kolar, Karnataka, would lead to the 1965 discovery of atmospheric neutrinos. This was a collaboration between Indian, Japanese and British scientists.

Awakened to the potential of neutrino research, Japan continued with experiments on—or rather, under—their soil, in the underground Kamioka Observatory situated under Mount Ikeno. This was where Masatoshi Koshiba’s team would discover cosmic neutrinos in the late 1980s. Subsequently, Japan decided to establish a dedicated neutrino observatory, Super-Kamiokande, which began operation in 1996. In 2002, Koshiba won a Nobel Prize for his contributions.

Indian scientists had no intention of being left behind. Though the original experiments had to end in 1992 due to the closure of the goldmines in Kolar, plans to build our own observatory were already underway. After extensive deliberations, a proposal was drawn and in 2011, the Indian government announced its intention to set asideaboutRs.1,350 crores for an India-based Neutrino Observatory, which would be situated 1.3 km underground in Tamil Nadu. Over a decade later, there has been no progress. Today, the fate of INO is uncertain.

Meanwhile, Japanese researchers received the first evidence for a phenomenon called neutrino oscillation within a year of the Super-Kamiokande. This discovery would go on to (jointly) win Koshiba’s student Takaaki Kajita, another Nobel in 2015.

Having spent his entire research career in Japan, Takaaki Kajita is a living example of how much is to be gained by having a neutrino laboratory close to home. “We can easily access the laboratory and the detector is nearby,” he said, in an interview with this reporter during the 73rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting which concluded on July 5.

Two of the main reasons for opposition to INO are adverse environmental impacts and the fear of radioactivity. This is despite INO scientists repeatedly stating that the observatory would be located a kilometre underground and hence would have minimal impact on wildlife and the ecosystem. What about radioactivity? “The experiment will neither produce any radioactivity nor can it function well where there is radiation,” theypoint outon INO’s website. The whole point of housing the detector underground is to protect it from the natural radiation that hits the surface of Earth.

According to Kajita, the Japanese project did not face as much opposition. “We decided to construct the detector in an active mine, so there was no need for additional excavation,” he pointed out. Besides, the original experiment was designed to search not for neutrinos but for a hypothetical phenomenon called proton decay. “That was nothing to do with radiation,” he said. The biggest stroke of luck for the Japanese neutrino scientists was the timing of a supernova that was observed in February 1987. The Supernova 1987A happened while the Kamiokande-II detector was online, leading to the discovery of cosmic neutrinos by the team led by Koshiba. “This had a great impact. People suddenly knew neutrinos, and had only a good image about them,” said Kajita, who was Koshiba’s PhD student.

A neutrino observatory at home is envisioned to give the Indian scientific community, including students of particle physics, the opportunity to work with a world-class detector without needing to travel outside national borders. Back in the 1980s, the young Kajita greatly benefited from this privilege. He recalled the excitement during the construction of the Kamiokande detector. “It’s the young postdocs involved in the Kamiokande and Super Kamiokande experiments who first saw and analysed the data,” he said.

Today, the Super-Kamiokande facility continues to train new generations of particle physicists.

While some of them secure positions abroad, many choose to stay back in Japan. After he won his Nobel in 2015, Kajita himself declined invitations to take up new positions in other countries.

“As an experimental physicist, it is very important that I am near the detector,” he explained.

Aware of the setbacks his Indian colleagues have suffered, Kajita insists that the INO dream is worth salvaging.

“It may be a bit late to start the construction of the detector, but it is very important to continue working towards an underground lab. There are a lot of things [yet] to be done [in the field of neutrino physics].”

(Nandita Jayaraj is a freelance science writer and co-author of Lab Hopping: A Journey to Find India’s Women in Science)

Nipah monoclonal antibody trials may begin in India in 2025

R. Prasad

Fruit bats are natural reservoirs of Nipah virus.VELANKANNI RAJ B VELANKANNI RAJ B

If the Indian drug regulator greenlights it, a human clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of a novel Nipah monoclonal antibody MBP1F5, which might offer immediate protection to people at risk of infection against the deadly disease, might begin next year. A similar trial will be carried out in Bangladesh as well. Though trials on many vaccines are currently under way, there is no approved vaccine against the Nipah virus anywhere in the world. The Nipah virus has a 40% to 75% mortality rate in people who are infected.

India and Bangladesh have been chosen for the trial as Nipah virus outbreaks have been reported in these two countries in recent years. Nipah outbreaks have occurred in Kerala in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2023. In the case of Bangladesh, Nipah outbreaks have been occurring since 2001; the virus has been reported from 34 of 64 districts in Bangladesh with 341 cases detected so far and 242 deaths.

The novel Nipah monoclonal antibody is currently undergoing a phase-1 clinical trial in the U.S., which is carried out by the U.S. Department of Defence.

Aspokesperson of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which is funding the human trials, told The Hindu that the trial led by ServareGMP (a non-profit biotechnology organisation based in California) and supported by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, which is also located in California, will work with local clinical research networks to carry out the trial in India and Bangladesh.

The trial in India and Bangladesh will begin “upon completion of the U.S. Department of Defence Phase-1 trial in the U.S”. “ServareGMP, Mapp and CEPI have already initiated discussions with public health and regulatory authorities in India and Bangladesh about the desire to conduct this trial,” he says.

According to the CEPI spokesperson, the trial in India is planned to begin in 2025, pending regulatory review. The assessment made by the Indian drug regulator will determine “whether the Phase-1 trial data carried out by the U.S. Department of Defence will be sufficient to continue onwards with Phase-2 trials in India, or whether Phase-1 data should also be collected from the Indian population”.

The number of participants who will be recruited for the clinical trial will depend on whether the clinical trial begins as a phase-1 or phase-2 trial in India. “But the intention is to recruit at least 200 participants,” says the spokesperson.

While the trial will be conducted in multiple sites in both countries, the decision on the location and number of sites appropriate to generate data that demonstrate the safety and tolerability of the monoclonal antibody will be taken based upon consultation with public health and regulatory authorities, he says.

“Preclinical studies for pre-exposure prophylaxis have been completed. In these studies, conducted in animal models, the monoclonal antibody has demonstrated high potency against the Nipah virus, proving it effective at preventing the virus from entering the host cell and causing Nipah virus disease. In preclinical studies, this Nipah monoclonal antibody has been shown to be safe at all dose levels tested,” he says.

The monoclonal antibody is designed to bind to the Nipah virus F protein, preventing the virus from entering a host cell and causing infection in people. “This mechanism will offer protection against both known strains of Nipah virus (Bangladesh and Malaysia) and its closely related viral cousin, Hendra virus, for at least six months — enough time for vaccine immunity to build,” says a CEPI release.

In response to a question about equitable access to monoclonal antibodies, once the trial results are positive, he says: “Alongside ensuring pricing commitments for Global South countries, a reserve of monoclonal antibody doses will be stored in a Nipah-affected country, helping to enable rapid availability in the event of an outbreak and accessibility for those most in need.”

Air pollution harms pollinators more than pests, study finds

The Hindu Bureau

Bees and other beneficial bugs are disproportionately harmed by air pollution compared to crop-destroying pests, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Reading analysed data from 120 scientific papers to understand how 40 types of insects in 19 countries respond to air pollutants like ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter. The study published in the journalNature Communicationsfound that pollinators — including bees and some moths and butterflies — experienced a 39% decline in foraging efficiency after being exposed to elevated air pollution levels. In contrast, plant-eating aphids and other pests were not significantly impacted.

The researchers suggest that beneficial insects — such as bees and wasps — are more affected by air pollution due to their reliance on scent-based communication. Many beneficial insects use airborne chemical signals to locate flowers, find mates, or hunt their prey.

Air pollutants can chemically alter these scent trails or interfere with insects’ ability to detect them, essentially disrupting their sensory landscape. In contrast, many pests rely less on long-distance scent cues and more on direct contact or visual cues, making them less vulnerable to air pollution’s effects on airborne chemical signals.

The study focused on how air pollution impacts various insect behaviour and biological aspects, including feeding, growth, survival, reproduction, and ability to locate food sources. Of all these factors, insects’ ability to find food was most severely impaired by air pollution, declining by about one-third on average.

Among air pollutants, ozone emerged as particularly harmful to beneficial insects, reducing their ability to thrive and carry out their roles in the ecosystem by 35%. Ozone pollution has the most detrimental impacts and even low ozone levels below current air quality standards can cause significant damage. Nitrogen oxides also substantially impaired beneficial insects.

“Changes in invertebrate performance are not dependent on air pollutant concentrations, indicating that even low levels of pollution are damaging. Predicted increases in tropospheric ozone could result in unintended consequences to global invertebrate populations and their valuable ecological services,” the researchers write.

Heart rate

What is the maximum heart rate of male noctule bats?

To record the heart rate of male common noctule bats during flight, the scientists attached heart rate transmitters weighing less than one gram to the animals, which they then accompanied in an airplane while the bats flew, sometimes for more than an hour, in search of food. The researchers found that the heart rate of bats reaches around 900 beats per minute within only a few minutes during flight. Using the unique recordings of heart beats, the scientists discovered fascinating strategies that bats use to budget their energy consumption in different seasons. They found that male common noctule bats consume up to 42% more energy in summer compared to spring. This is mainly due to the fact that the bats in spring go into a kind of short daytime hibernation known as “torpor”—an energy-saving state in which heart rate can be reduced to six beats per minute. Male bats did not use torpor in summer at all. In summer, food is plentiful and so males stay awake during the day to invest energy in sperm production.

Experiment reveals barley’s climate-driven adaptation

Leveraging one of the world’s oldest biological experiments — which began in 1929 — researchers have uncovered how barley was shaped by both agricultural pressures and the natural environment. Although the experiment began with thousands of genotypes, scientists show that natural selection has reduced this diversity, leading to the dominance of a clonal lineage constituting most of the population. The results underscore the power of long-term studies in understanding adaptive evolution.

New atmospheric particles form in upper troposphere

New atmospheric particles form when stratospheric air intrudes into the troposphere below, revealing a previously unrecognised mechanism for new particle formation (NPF) in the upper troposphere. The finding suggests that NPF aloft occurs frequently and over large geographic regions. Aerosol particles smaller than one micron in diameter are abundant in the troposphere. They serve as condensation sites for water vapor, contributing to cloud formation, and play a role in Earth’s radiative balance.

Island vertebrates are at risk of human-driven extinction

A study involving 2,813 species of tetrapod vertebrates shows that island-dwelling species have slower relative metabolic rates than their mainland counterparts. Moreover, this slow pace of life puts insular species at a higher risk of anthropogenic extinction. Island evolution is a balancing act. Species must adapt to a limited space with finite resources, leading to unique characteristics, such as dwarfism or gigantism. This phenomenon is called ‘island syndrome’.

Edit

- Why is militancy on the rise in Jammu?

- How is India’s hunt for critical minerals going?

- The SC ruling on portrayal of disability in films

Why is militancy on the rise in Jammu?

Vijaita Singh

Are acts of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir shifting to the Rajouri-Poonch-Kathua sector after being quiet for two decades? What are the reasons for the new trend? What are the challenges of monitoring this sector? Are more troops needed? What is the situation on the ground?

High alert: Security personnel conduct a search operation after three suspects were seen by locals in the Akhnoor area in Jammu on July 12. ANIANI

The story so far:

On July 8, five Army soldiers were killed and five injured as two Army vehicles were ambushed by militants on a hilly tract in the Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir. This was not an isolated incident. From June 9, five terror strikes have occurred in the Jammu division of the Union Territory, in which eight security personnel and 10 civilians have been killed.

Is a new pattern emerging?

The attacks follow a pattern which suggest concerted attempts to revive militancy in the Jammu region since the past three years — in the Chenab Valley comprising Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban, Kathua, Udhampur and Reasi districts and south of the Pir Panjal comprising Rajouri and Poonch districts. While terror incidents have been common in the Kashmir Valley, the resurgence of militant activity in the Jammu belt, that has remained free of such incidents in the past two decades, has sent alarm bells ringing among the security establishment. This region was a hotbed of militancy in the late 1990s and the early 2000s.

What does the data show?

Since 2021, the Jammu region has witnessed 31 terror incidents in which 47 security forces and 19 civilians have been killed other than 48 terrorists who were killed in various encounters. The Kashmir Valley, meanwhile, reported 263 terror incidents in which 68 security forces and 75 civilians were killed. As many as 417 alleged terrorists have also been killed in the Valley since 2021. A plain reading of numbers shows that incidents in Jammu remain far fewer than the Valley, yet it is the frequency and the nature of attacks, targeting pilgrims and security forces that is worrying.

What could be the possible reasons?

The Hindu spoke with multiple officials who offered various reasons for the recurring ambush of security forces and other incidents of violence. After the 2020 Galwan clashes in eastern Ladakh, in which 20 soldiers were killed, a large contingent of the Army was pulled out of Jammu and deployed along the China border. This led to the thinning of the security grid, making the area vulnerable, pointed out security experts. “Inimical elements in the neighbourhood want to engage and exhaust us at both the fronts — the western (Pakistan) and northern (China) borders as part of a design,” a top security official said. As there is a heightened state of alert in the Kashmir Valley and little leg room for state-sponsored terrorists, it is convenient to launch terror attacks in Jammu where the guard is relatively down.

Post-reading down of Article 370 in J&K in August 2019, and based on indicators such as zero stone-throwing events, no strikes, and a boom in tourism, the government has claimed huge success in the Kashmir Valley in terms of the overall security scenario. “Reviving terrorism in Jammu upsets this narrative. Another possibility is that [militants are trying] to stabilise cadres in the Kashmir Valley while they rake up insecurities in Jammu,” said another official. The demography of the area is such that the attacks could flare up communal tensions too, leading to social unrest.

Is there an estimate of the number of terrorists active in the region?

According to various estimates, there are around 20-25 hardened militants who are likely to have infiltrated from Pakistan. Their activity has been noticed around 40-50 km from the border. There are likely two groups, one of them is active in the Poonch-Rajouri axis in the west, and the other in the Kathua-Doda-Basantgarh belt in the east. In the Kathua belt, they are operating in a grid of 30-40 sq km, the investigation suggests. Difficult terrain, forested tracts, poor quality of roads and patchy mobile connectivity are some of the challenges.

How is the infiltration happening?

The 192-km international border (IB) along Jammu is secured by the Border Security Force (BSF) while the 740-km Line of Control (LoC), the effective border in the Kashmir Valley and parts of Jammu, is under the operational control of the Army. Officials said though measures are in place, tough terrain and forested areas along the LoC and vulnerable patches along the IB may have been used for fresh infiltration. An official pointed out that the attacks in the Kathua belt including the July 8 ambush falls on an old infiltration route used by militants two decades ago. “As terrorism ebbed, this route became defunct, it appears to have been revived,” said the official.

What about local support to terrorists?

On June 19, the J&K Police arrested a local, Hakam Din (45), for allegedly harbouring the terrorists who attacked the bus carrying pilgrims in Reasi on June 9. Ten pilgrims lost their lives in the attack. However, the evidence of a larger support is not conclusive. “Earlier, the security forces deployed here had direct communication with the locals which led to quick flow of information regarding any suspicious movement. A whole generation that fought the terrorists are in their 60s and 70s now. There is no such connect with the younger generation, it will take time to build that trust with the civilians,” the official said. The Village Defence Guards/Committees (VDGs) are also being revived since December 2022. The training has gathered pace after seven Hindus, including two children, were killed on January 1-2, 2023 in Dangri in a targeted attack at their homes by unidentified terrorists. Around 30,000 weapons are estimated to be with civilians in Poonch, Rajouri, Samba, Doda and Kishtwar districts. They were distributed to civilians by the local administrations in various phases since 1995 when militancy was at its peak in J&K. The VDGs had to be discontinued amid allegations of crimes such as abduction and rape committed by the members. In 2003, the Army had launched Operation Sarp Vinaash near Hilkaka in the Poonch sector. In the aerial attacks, more than 60 terrorists, who had entrenched themselves in bunkers and trenches in the forest, were killed.

What is the status of the investigation?

Not much headway seems to have been made in apprehending the terrorists involved in the recent attacks. The terrorists who ambushed Army vehicles and killed four soldiers on December 21, 2023 at Bafliaz in Poonch-Rajouri are yet to be identified or caught. The attack was claimed by the People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), a proxy outfit of the Jaish-e-Mohammed that was banned by the Centre in 2023. The terrorist group posted photos of the ambush on social media. After the incident, the Army was accused of custodial torture and death of three locals, which led to a huge outcry. The PAFF also claimed the October 2021 attack after nine soldiers were killed in an ambush in the forested areas of Poonch. Officials said additional security forces were being deployed in the region and loopholes were being plugged.

How is India’s hunt for critical minerals going?

Vikas Dhoot

Why are lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite and others essential for the economy’s green transition? In which States have reserves been found? Why have there been hiccups in the auction process? What lies ahead? Which country dominates global supplies?

Big discovery: The lithium stones found in Reasi, Jammu in 2023. PTI-

The story so far:

In late June, the Centre declared the winning bidders for mining rights in six blocks of critical minerals, including graphite, phosphorite and lithium, for which India largely relies on imports. These are the first private players awarded such rights under the revamped Mines and Minerals law.

Why are critical minerals important?

Minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt are known as critical minerals, as they along with some rare earth elements, are essential for the world’s ongoing efforts to switch to greener and cleaner energy. As per the International Energy Agency (IEA), lithium demand rose by 30% in 2023, followed by nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements which saw an 8% to 15% growth, with the aggregate value of such minerals pegged at $325 billion. In its Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2024 report, the agency has flagged that the world’s goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the net zero emissions scenario, would translate into very rapid growth in demand for these minerals. By 2040, the demand for copper is expected to rise 50%, double for nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements, quadruple for graphite and eightfold for lithium, which is crucial for batteries. The development of sustainable supply chains for such minerals is, therefore, an unavoidable task. In India, the lack of ready reserves of critical minerals has resulted in 100% import dependence for minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Late last month, Union Mines Minister G. Kishan Reddy highlighted that 95% of India’s copper requirements are met through imports. China is a key supplier or processor of many of these items.

What is being done to spur production?

While India has natural reserves of some of these minerals, they haven’t been explored or tapped fully. For instance, India holds 11% of the world’s deposits of ilmenite, the main source of titanium dioxide used in many applications, but still imports a billion dollars of titanium dioxide a year, former Mines Secretary Vivek Bharadwaj once pointed out. Then there is the “lucky” discovery of lithium reserves in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) while the Geological Survey of India (GSI) was exploring the State’s terrain for limestone, which triggered hope of some self-sufficiency in the mineral. Announced as the first discovery of lithium in the country last February, these reserves were pegged at 5.9 million tonnes, enthusing the government to expedite its tapping.

Acknowledging that reliance on a few nations for the ores and processing of these minerals could pose significant vulnerabilities for Indian supply chains, the central government amended the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 in August 2023 to enable it to grant mining concessions for 24 critical and strategic minerals. By November, the first auctions of 20 critical mineral blocks, with the lithium block identified in J&K’s Reasi district on the list, were launched, followed by two more tranches with 18 more blocks offered this February and March. However, investor interest has been tepid — the auction of most of the first 20 blocks was scrapped for lack of adequate bidders. After a delayed process, the Mines Ministry on June 24, announced six winners from the maiden auction tranche for three blocks in Odisha, and one each in Tamil Nadu, U.P. and Chhattisgarh. The outcomes of the second and third round of auctions are still awaited, while the Ministry has initiated a fourth tranche, which includes 10 blocks that are being offered for the second time.

Why are some blocks not finding takers?

Among the first attempt blocks offered in the latest auction, two phosphorite blocks along with a glauconite block are in Chhattisgarh, while two blocks each are up for grabs in U.P. (phosphorite and rare earth elements), Karnataka (phosphate and nickel), and Rajasthan (potash and halite). A graphite block is being auctioned in Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh, with five additional blocks of graphite, tungsten and vanadium offered in the northeastern State for the second time. The ‘second attempt’ blocks also include a tungsten reserve in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district, a cobalt and manganese block in Karnataka’s Shimoga, and a chromium and nickel block in Sindhudurg, Maharashtra.

As per industry experts, the reasons for low interest among miners for some of these blocks include the lack of adequate data on the potential reserves buried within them. Technology challenges also affect outcomes. For instance, the lithium block in J&K has clay deposits, and the technology for the mineral’s extraction from clay remains untested globally, pointed out Girishkumar Kadam, senior vice-president and group head for corporate sector ratings at ICRA.

When is domestic production likely to begin?

Given the preliminary stage of exploration for most of the domestic blocks being auctioned, their commercialisation and associated benefits are unlikely to fully accrue in the current decade ending 2030, ICRA said. “India’s manufacturing is thus likely to remain exposed to potential future supply shocks of these minerals till then,” it concluded. Apart from spurring exploration and attracting more miners, the Centre is looking to acquire overseas assets from key resource-rich regions as a parallel measure to bolster mineral security. The first such mine, for lithium brine, was acquired in Argentina this year by Khanij Bidesh India Limited, a joint venture of NALCO, Hindustan Copper, and Mineral Exploration Company. While it scouts for more assets, India has also joined the U.S.-led Mineral Security Partnership, a block consisting of large buyers and sellers of critical minerals.

The SC ruling on portrayal of disability in films

Sreeparna Chakrabarty

Are the laws governing rights of differently abled persons being implemented properly?

The story so far:

On July 8, while hearing a plea to ban the film Aaankh Micholi for derogatory portrayal of people with disabilities, the Supreme Court in a landmark ruling laid down comprehensive guidelines to prevent stereotyping and discrimination of persons with disabilities (PwDs) in visual media, including films and documentaries.

What is the framework?

The Supreme Court’s framework focuses on the prevention of stigmatisation and discrimination, recognising their profound impact on the dignity and identity of persons with disabilities. Among the guidelines is a call to avoid words that cultivate institutional discrimination, such as “cripple” and “spastic,” as they contribute to negative self-image and perpetuate discriminatory attitudes. A Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said stereotyping differently abled persons in visual media and films must end, asking creators to provide an accurate representation of disabilities rather than mocking them. Language that individualises the impairment and overlooks disabling social barriers, for example, words like “afflicted,” “suffering” and “victim”, should be avoided, it said. The court also asked creators to practice the principle of “nothing about us, without us,” and involve persons with disabilities in the creation and assessment of visual media content.

What are laws which grant disability rights?

The law which comprehensively deals with disability rights is the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act which came into force from April 19, 2017. It replaced the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995. The National Trust Act (1999), Rehabilitation Council of India Act (1992), Mental Health Care Act (2017) are the other laws that govern disability rights.

According to Shashank Pandey, a lawyer based out of Delhi and a founder of the Politics and Disability Forum, there are broadly two models under which disability rights are looked at, namely medical and social models. The human rights model, which is a recent one, is an evolution of the social model which says that people with disability are a part of society and have the same rights as everyone else. The Supreme Court’s emphasis on the human rights model is significant as it makes the government and private parties obliged to facilitate full and effective participation of persons with disabilities in society. The advantage is that it places individuals in a sphere where all human rights principles which are applicable to anyone can be claimed by the disabled populace. The disadvantage is that it is an abstract idea and difficult to implement, says Mr. Pandey. The framework is also limited, as it is only for visual media, he adds, pointing out that the guidelines could have been sent by the SC to all departments for sensitisation.

V. Muralidharan of the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled welcomed the ruling, adding that the framework has stressed on the guidelines which were in place in the 2016 legislation. He rues the fact that the law is not being implemented properly. “However, we cannot lose sight of the conditions prevailing in the country. Disabled people are still considered objects of charity. Even the government’s coinage of ‘Divyang’ looks at disability through the lens of charity. It is regressive and reinforces a patronising mindset. Also, the usage of words like ‘pappu’ and ‘balak budhi’ by the ruling party to paint its opponents in a poor light only shows how big the battle is,” he points out.

What about creative freedom?

Cinematic expression doesn’t have absolute power when it operates in the context of marginalised communities. It has to be looked at from the overall context of the expression and intent behind the expression. The Supreme Court said “the creative freedom of the filmmaker cannot include the freedom to lampoon, stereotype, misrepresent or disparage those already marginalised”. In determining these aspects, the “intention” and “overall message” of the film have to be considered.

What is the way forward?

The court emphasised on collaboration with disability advocacy groups to gain invaluable insights and guidance on respectful and accurate portrayals, ensuring the content aligns with the lived experiences of persons with disabilities. It has also said that implementing training programmes for writers, directors, producers, and actors to emphasise the impact of portrayals on public perceptions and the lived experiences of persons with disabilities is a necessity.

Foreign

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- Exiled Tibetan leadership welcomes Biden’s assent to the Resolve Tibet Act

- Anahat progresses to the third round

- Imran, wife acquitted in marriage case; jail release more likely

- Russian warships arrive in China for joint naval exercises

- Argentina President declares Hamas ‘terrorist organisation’

- Pakistan says its $7 billion relief package will be last deal from IMF

- Five civilians, two officials killed by Russian attacks in Ukraine

- N. Korea threatens to boost nuclear arsenal after U.S.-South Korea deal

Argentina seeks ‘triple crown’ but Colombia will aim for an upset

Agence France-Presse

Miami

1 of 2 One last dance? With time catching up on them, it remains to be seen if Messi joins Di Maria and Otamendi on the retirees list. AFP

2 of 2 On a roll: Unbeaten in 28 games, the Colombians will look to extend that run and add a second continental title. AFP

Argentina can become the first South American team to win the ‘triple crown’ of three straight major tournament titles if it can overcome a formidable Colombia in Sunday’s Copa America final.

Inspired by Lionel Messi, Argentina followed up its 2021 Copa America title with the World Cup triumph a year later and has advanced with little drama to this weekend’s showpiece with the Colombians.

Spain is the only other team in international football to have won a World Cup in between two straight continental titles when it clinched Euro wins in 2008 and 2012 either side of the 2010 World Cup.

As well as achieving that landmark for the squad coached by Lionel Scaloni, a win would also give the ‘Albiceleste’ a record 16th Copa America title — it is currently tied with Uruguay on 15 Copa wins.

But Colombia has an impressive streak of its own — it is unbeaten in 28 matches, a record for the team, and has arguably had the tougher route to the final.

Argentina, ranked number one in the world by FIFA and with a team that has been together for several years, is favourite, but few expect a one-sided game. Rodriguez, who grabbed global attention with his performances in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, has never truly lived up to expectations at club level but at 34 is producing some of his best football in the yellow jersey of his country.

Colombia’s sole Copa America title came in 2001.

There is an emotional factor for Argentina with Sunday’s game also a farewell to the national team for 36-year-old winger Angel Di Maria.

While defender Nicolas Otamendi may also depart, it remains to be seen if this will be the last tournament for Messi, who will turn 39 during the 2026 World Cup.

Iran President-elect Pezeshkian ready for ‘constructive dialogue’ with Europe

Agence France-Presse

Tehran

First move: Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian favours reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers.APVahid Salemi

Iran’s president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian said he looks forward to improved relations with European nations, even though he accused them of reneging on commitments to mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Mr. Pezeshkian won a run-off election against ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili last week.

The 69-year-old has called for “constructive relations” with Western countries to “get Iran out of its isolation”, and favours reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers.

The U.S. withdrew from the accord in 2018, reimposing sanctions, which led Iran to gradually reduce its commitment to the terms of the deal. The agreement aimed to curb nuclear activity, which Tehran maintains is for peaceful purposes.

In an article published late on Friday in the English-language Tehran Times newspaper, Mr. Pezeshkian said that after the U.S. pullout from the 2015 deal, European nations committed to trying to salvage it and mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Reneging on promises

“European countries have reneged on all these commitments,” Mr. Pezeshkian wrote. “Despite these missteps, I look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue with European countries to set our relations on the right path, based on principles of mutual respect and equal footing.” He said the two sides could explore “numerous areas of cooperation” if the Europeans “set aside self-arrogated moral supremacy coupled with manufactured crises that have plagued our relations for so long.”

European Union spokeswoman Nabila Massrali had earlier congratulated Mr. Pezeshkian on his election, saying the 27-member bloc was “ready to engage with the new government in line with EU policy of critical engagement”.

The death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash necessitated the July 6 election, which was not due until 2025.

Massive Israeli strike in Gaza leaves 90 dead, 300 injured

Associated Press

JERUSALEM

Israel claims to have targeted Mohammed Deif , the shadowy chief of Hamas’s military wing and an architect of the Oct. 7 attack; the strike lands inside the Israeli-designated safe zone of Muwasi

Tall cost: The debris following an Israeli military strike on the al-Mawasi camp near the city of Khan Younis on Saturday.AFPBASHAR TALEB

Israel said it targeted Hamas’s shadowy military commander in a massive strike in the southern Gaza Strip that killed at least 90 people, half of them women and children.

It was not immediately known whether Mohammed Deif was among the dead. But Israeli officials confirmed that he and a second Hamas commander, Rafa Salama, were the targets.

Talks may derail

Deif is believed by many to be the chief architect of the October 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and triggered the Israel-Hamas war. He has topped Israel’s most-wanted list for years and is believed to have escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts in the past. His potential killing threatens to derail ceasefire talks and would be seen as a major Israeli victory in the nine-month campaign.

Hamas rejected the claim. “This is not the first time that the occupation has claimed to target Palestinian leaders, and their lies were later proven to be false," the group said in a post on X.

The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 300 others were injured in the attack and that many of the injured and dead were taken to nearby Nasser Hospital.

Witnesses said the strike landed inside Muwasi, the Israeli designated safe zone that stretches from northern Rafah to Khan Younis. The coastal strip is where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled to in search of safety, sheltering mostly in makeshift tents.

Exiled Tibetan leadership welcomes Biden’s assent to the Resolve Tibet Act

Kallol Bhattacherjee

NEW DELHI

The Act enhances U.S. support for Tibet and promotes dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama for a peaceful solution.REUTERSADNAN ABIDI

The leadership of the Central Tibetan Administration in exile has welcomed Presidential assent to the Resolve Tibet Act in the U.S. Welcoming President Joe Biden’s signature on the Act, Sikyong Penpa Tsering has vowed to campaign for the Tibetan issue through “non-violent means”. The approval of the Resolve Tibet Act by the U.S. President drew a strong response from Beijing, which argued that the law “grossly interfered in China’s domestic affairs”.

“Please accept heartfelt prayers of gratitude from the Tibetan people, especially those inside occupied Tibet, who will rejoice in the renewed hope and inspiration that today’s victory brings to their hearts. May the just cause of Tibet prevail. May non-violence and truth prevail,” said Sikyong Tsering, after President Biden signed the text of the Resolve Tibet Act on July 12.

The Act, which was passed by the House in February and the Senate in May, enhances U.S. support for Tibet and promotes dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama for a peaceful solution.

Commenting on the development, the CTA observed that the U.S. law declares the officials of the Chinese government as well as the Communist Party of China are often “historically inaccurate” while arguing about China’s claims over Tibet.

Anahat progresses to the third round

Sports Bureau

India’s Anahat Singh moved into the girls’ third round of the World junior squash championships in Houston on Friday.

The 16-year-old women’s National champion, seeded 5/8, eased past South African Dene Van Zyl 11-3, 11-2, 11-6 in the second round following a first-round bye, and will next meet Samantha Jaffe (17/32) of the USA.

Compatriot Tiana Parasrampuria (17/32) also advanced with a 14-12, 11-5, 11-5 win over Emma Merson (NZ), while five Indian boys recorded first-round victories.

Other Indian results: Boys: First round: Ayaan Vaziralli bt Md. Alnasfan (KSA) 12-10, 11-6, 11-5; Shaurya Bawa (17/32) bt Md. Ammad (Pak) 12-10, 11-3, 11-9; K.S. Arihant bt Jonathan Reyes (Phi) 11-5, 11-3, 11-6.

Harith Danial Jefri (9/16) (Mas) bt Tanveet Singh Mundra 11-4, 11-7, 11-7; Yuvraj Wadhwani (17/32) bt Shu Takahashi (Jpn) 11-3, 11-3, 11-9; Avlokit Singh bt Kasper Cheung (Aus) 11-9, 11-9, 11-2.

Girls: Second round: Malika Elkaraksy (17/32) (Egy) bt Shameena Riaz 11-3, 11-6, 11-2; Dixon Hill (17/32) (USA) bt Nirupama Dubey 11-4, 11-4, 11-5; Helen Tang (17/32) (HK) bt Unnati Tripathi 11-4, 11-5, 11-8.

First round: Shameena bt Maiden-Lee Coe (NZ) 11-4, 13-11, 11-1; Nirupama bt Maria Gomez (Col) 11-4, 11-6, 7-11, 11-4; Savannah Moxham (Bel) bt Sehar Nayar 11-8, 11-7, 11-5;

Unnati bt Mariam Ayad (Ger) 12-10, 11-2, 11-2; Tiana — bye.

Imran, wife acquitted in marriage case; jail release more likely

Associated Press

ISLAMABAD

A Pakistani court on July 13 overturned the conviction and seven-year prison sentence of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife in the case of the couple’s alleged 2018 unlawful marriage case, removing the last known hurdle in the way of his release nearly a year after he was jailed.

The acquittal comes two weeks after another appeals court upheld the February 5 conviction and sentence of Mr. Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi. The court said if the couple is not wanted in any other case, they should be released.

Ms. Bibi was previously married to a man who claimed that they divorced in November 2017, less than three months before she married Mr. Khan. Islamic law requires a three-month waiting period before a new marriage.

Ms. Bibi has said they divorced in August 2017 and the couple insisted during the trial that they did not violate the waiting period.

Russian warships arrive in China for joint naval exercises

Agence France-Presse

Moscow

Two Russian warships have arrived in the southern Chinese port city of Zhanjiang to take part in joint naval exercises, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

China and Russia have greatly reinforced ties since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine that began in 2022.

Their common goal is also to reduce the role of the U.S. and the West on the international stage.

“A detachment of vessels from the Pacific fleet will take part in the joint naval exercise — Interaction Maritime 2024,” the Ministry announced on Telegram.

First phase

The first phase will take place from Monday-Wednesday and involve anti-air and anti-submarine attacks along with Chinese planes specialised in anti-submarine manoeuvres, it said.

Last year, a similar naval exercise took place off Alaska.

Argentina President declares Hamas a ‘terrorist organisation’

REUTERSVIOLETA SANTOS MOURA

Argentina has declared the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas an “international terrorist organization” over its October 7 assault on Israel and an “extensive history” of attacks, the presidency announced. President Javier Milei had visited Israel in February, where he likened Hamas’s attack to the Holocaust. afp

Pakistan says its $7 billion relief package will be last deal from IMF

AFPARIF ALI

The International Monetary Fund agreed to loan Pakistan $7 billion to bolster its economy, with Islamabad pledging it would be the last time it relied on relief from the lender. Pakistan agreed to the deal -- its 24th IMF payout since 1958 -- in exchange for unpopular reforms, including widening its chronically low tax base. afp

Five civilians, two officials killed by Russian attacks in Ukraine

REUTERSVitalii Hnidyi

Five civilians were killed by Russian fire on Saturday in Ukraine, with one missile attack carried out after emergency services had arrived at the scene of an earlier attack. A police officer and an emergency rescue official were killed by that second strike in the village of Budy in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. afp

N. Korea threatens to boost nuclear arsenal after U.S.-South Korea deal

AFPKOREA SUMMIT PRESS POOL

North Korea threatened to boost its nuclear fighting capability and make the U.S. and South Korea pay “an unimaginably harsh price” as it slammed its rivals’ new defence guidelines. North Korea said the U.S.-South Korea guidelines betrayed “their sinister intention to step up preparations for a nuclear war against” North Korea. ap

Sports

- Zestful Alcaraz stands in the way of a resilient Djokovic

- Ice-cool Krejcikova aces Paolini test to win tennis’ holy grail

- Jaiswal and Gill’s masterclass secures Men in Blue a series victory

- ‘Novotna told me that I had the potential to be a champion’

- I have to remember today is still a good day, says Paolini

- Krejcikova joins the elite list of French-Wimbledon champions

- Alcaraz will win many more Slams, hopefully not on Sunday: Djokovic

- Princess of Wales set to watch the Wimbledon men’s final

- SCOREBOARD

- The smart money is on Spain to claim a fourth crown but England can deliver the sucker punch

- Anirudh gives Tamizhans first victory of the season

- Around THE CITY

- Santissimo primed to come good in Mayor’s Trophy

- Isnt She Beautiful takes the honours

- Pogacar extends lead

- LiVE TELECAST

- Engagements

Zestful Alcaraz stands in the way of a resilient Djokovic

N. Sudarshan

LONDON

1 of 2 Titanic clash: Alcaraz will do everything he can to deny Djokovic a record-extending 25th Major. Getty Images

2 of 2

On June 5, when Novak Djokovic had a surgery on his right knee to mend a torn meniscus, Wimbledon seemed as distant as the moon. The Olympic Games, which starts on July 26 in Paris, seemed a realistic target, for he has long coveted singles gold which his famed rivals Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray both have.

Less than six weeks since going under the surgeon’s scalpel, the 37-year-old is in the Wimbledon final for a 10th time — a record 37th in Slams overall — with the opportunity to equal Roger Federer’s eight singles crowns at the All England Club and secure a record-extending 25th Major.

In his way is Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, who beat the Serb over five fantastic sets in the 2023 final and has since added 2024 Roland-Garros — his third Grand Slam title — to establish himself as the next generation’s numero uno. Djokovic, after defeating Lorenzo Musetti in the semifinals, even called Alcaraz “one of the greatest 21-year-olds ever.”

Cat-and-mouse final

Djokovic is humility personified and mostly liberal in his praise. On court, though, he is a ruthless machine. His form has improved through the tournament and such is his confidence that he is back sliding with ease and swiftly changing direction on the slippery lawns. The fact that Alcaraz has not been at his best points to a cat-and-mouse final.

“I try not to think that I’m the defending champion,” Alcaraz insisted. “I go into every match thinking I have chances to lose. I know how it is playing Djokovic and I know what I have to do. I’m sure he knows what he has to do. I’m ready to take that challenge.”

For Djokovic, the match comes at a crucial time. He has lost his last three matches against top-10 players, twice to Jannik Sinner and Casper Ruud. And he has not won a title since beating Sinner last November at the ATP Tour Finals.

“History is on the line,” Djokovic said. “Roger holds eight Wimbledons [and] I hold seven. Also, a potential 25th Grand Slam. It serves as great motivation, but it’s also a lot of pressure. [But] every time I step on the court, even though I’m 37 and competing with the 21-year-olds, I expect myself to win.”

In 2021, when the summit clashes of Euro and Wimbledon were on the same day, it was bitter-sweet for the Italians as Djokovic beat Matteo Berrettini before the footballers salvaged the day. Come Sunday, the Spaniards will want the cake and eat it too.

Ice-cool Krejcikova aces Paolini test to win tennis’ holy grail

N. Sudarshan

LONDON

The Czech defeats the Italian at the same Centre Court where her late mentor Novotna hoisted the Venus Rosewater Dish 26 summers ago

Towards tennis nirvana: Krejcikova let two match-points slip before a huge serve into the ad-court sealed the tie.Getty ImagesJulian Finney

Heading into the Wimbledon final, Barbora Krejcikova was a seven-time Major doubles champion, the 2021 French Open singles winner and an Olympic gold medallist. She had even completed the career Slam in doubles, winning each of the four big titles at least once.

But tennis nirvana, it appears, doesn’t quite touch those who are yet to triumph in singles at the historic All England Club. On Saturday, Krejcikova achieved this crowning glory by defeating Italy’s Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 at the same Centre Court where her late mentor Jana Novotna hoisted the Venus Rosewater Dish 26 summers ago.

“It’s unreal what just happened,” the Czech star said on court. “Definitely the best day of my career and my life. Jasmine played great, but in the end I was the lucky one.”

Management gurus will say that luck arises when preparation meets opportunity and on the day Krejcikova was a tad better at this. The 28-year-old played a superb first set, disappeared in the second before cracking open the contest at 3-3 in the third and holding her nerve during the tense home stretch.

Paolini was in form, having reached the French Open final a month ago, and someone whom the SW19 populace had instinctively warmed up to as they would with a striking piece of art.

But Krejcikova hushed them into silence by breaking Paolini in the very first game. She landed 90% of her first serves, won 80% of all service points and a majority on the return.

Virtuoso artist

The 31st seed hit with power and precision, changed direction at will and painted the lines like a virtuoso artist.

In the second, however, Paolini came out swinging. Four errors into the net from Krejcikova in the second game handed the 28-year-old a crucial break and a toehold. Another break in the eighth game levelled matters and gave Paolini a chance to serve ahead in the third.

The first six games were quiet, but the match turned in the seventh when Krejcikova pressured Paolini and the latter served a double fault on break-point. A love hold to 5-3 seemed to signal the end only for the irrepressible Paolini to attempt one last roll of the dice.

From 5-4, 30-0 up, Krejcikova was forced to face break-point twice. But she saved them with a drop volley and a terrific cross-court forehand. Krejcikova also let two match-points slip before a huge serve into the ad-court ushered the end.

The capacity crowd burst into spontaneous appreciation and would have gone home celebrating Krejcikova but also remembering Paolini.

Jaiswal and Gill’s masterclass secures Men in Blue a series victory

Agence France-Presse

HARARE

Unstoppable: Jaiswal’s knock left the bowlers clueless.x@bcci

Yashasvi Jaiswal and captain Shubman Gill thrashed Zimbabwe’s bowlers to all parts of the Harare Sports Club on Saturday to secure a 10-wicket in in the fourth T20I and with it claim the series.

Chasing Zimbabwe’s 152 for seven, India cruised home with 28 balls to spare to take a 3-1 lead in the five-match series.

The left-handed Jaiswal hammered 93 not out off 53 balls and was named Player-of-the-Match while Gill made 58 not out off 39 deliveries.

“Chasing was something we talked about,” Gill said at the post-match presentation. “We couldn’t do it in the first game so it was good to get it done.”

Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza said he had thought after his team’s innings that 160 was a par score but admitted: “The way they batted, 180 would not have been enough.”

Domination

Zimbabwe won the first match by 13 runs last Saturday but India has taken charge since then, dominating the next three matches. Although Raza hit 46 off 28 balls, Zimbabwe was unable to capitalise fully on its first good start of the series.

Wessly Madhevere (25) and Tadiwanashe Marumani (32) put on 63 for the first wicket after Zimbabwe was sent in to bat.

But the openers fell in successive overs to part-time bowlers Abhishek Sharma and Shivam Dube.

India again opted to field only four specialist bowlers, including new cap Tushar Despande, who claimed the wicket of Raza while conceding 30 runs in three overs.

‘Novotna told me that I had the potential to be a champion’

N. Sudarshan

LONDON

Win-Win: Krejcikova and Paolini made it an exciting finale with a memorable battle.APAlberto Pezzali

Wimbledon and the Czech Republic seem to have a special relationship. Four women representing the country have won Grand Slam singles titles and all four have triumphed at SW19, with Barbora Krejcikova joining Jana Novotna (1998), Petra Kvitova (2011 and 2014) and Marketa Vondrousova (2023).

“Nobody is going to believe that I won Wimbledon... I still can’t believe it,” insisted Krejcikova. “The first match here was three hours and 15 minutes and I won 7-5 in the third. I didn’t have a good season and it is unbelievable that I am standing here with this trophy.”

The 28-year-old said none of her dreams would have materialised if not for the mentorship of Novotna. “After I finished juniors, I didn’t know whether to go professional or into education. She told me that I had potential to be a champion.

“Before she passed away (2017) she asked me to win a Slam and I achieved that (French Open 2021). I never thought I would also win the same trophy as Jana did. It is very emotional to see me on the [honours] board next to her.”

Krejcikova, who is set to re-enter the WTA top-10 on Monday, said it was Novotna who kindled in her the love for Wimbledon.

“When I was 12, I wrote that would like to win the French Open. Things shifted when I actually met Jana and when she was telling me all the stories about Wimbledon, the grass, how difficult it was for her to win and how emotional she was when she made it.

“Since then, I saw Wimbledon as the biggest tournament in the world. I think she will be proud.”

For Jasmine Paolini, Saturday’s finalist, there was a silver lining even in defeat.

“As a kid, looking at Wimbledon on TV, I remember cheering for [Roger] Federer. To now be here is great and it has been a beautiful two weeks.”

I have to remember today is still a good day, says Paolini

Getty ImagesSEAN M. HAFFEY

Jasmine Paolini has now lost two Grand Slam finals back to back after coming off second best to Iga Swiatek at the French Open last month. “I'm a little bit sad but I try to keep smiling. I have to remember today is still a good day,” said Paolini, who had never won a grass-court match in her career until last month.

Krejcikova joins the elite list of French-Wimbledon champions

APKIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH

Krejcikova, the 2021 Roland-Garros champion, is one of six women in the Open era (post 1968) to secure their first two singles Majors at the French Open and Wimbledon. The others are Evonne Goolagong (1971), Chris Evert (1974), Garbine Muguruza (2016 and ’17), Simona Halep (2018 and ’19) and Ash Barty (2019 and ’21).

Alcaraz will win many more Slams, hopefully not on Sunday: Djokovic

AFPANDREJ ISAKOVIC

Novak Djokovic has backed Carlos Alcaraz to rack up more Grand Slam titles, but the Serb hopes that run doesn’t start when they clash in a blockbuster Wimbledon final on Sunday. “He is going to win many more Grand Slams, but hopefully in two days not this one,” Djokovic said.

Princess of Wales set to watch the Wimbledon men’s final

APAlberto Pezzali

The Princess of Wales is set to attend the Wimbledon men’s final on Sunday in a rare public appearance after her cancer diagnosis. Kensington Palace confirmed on Saturday that Kate, wife of heir to the throne Prince William, will be in the Royal Box on Centre Court to watch defending champion Carlos Alcaraz play Novak Djokovic.

ZIMBABWE

Wessly Madhevere c Rinku b Dube 25 (24b, 4x4), Tadiwanashe Marumani c Rinku b Abhishek 32 (31b, 3x4), Brian Bennett c Jaiswal b Washington 9 (14b), Sikandar Raza c Gill b Deshpande 46 (28b, 2x4, 3x6), Johnathan Campbell run out 3 (3b), Dion Myers c & b Khaleel 12 (13b), Clive Madande c Rinku b Khaleel 7 (5b, 1x4), Faraz Akram (not out) 4 (3b); Extras (lb-5, w-8, nb-1): 14; Total (for seven wkts. in 20 overs): 152.

FALL OF WICKETS

1-63 (Marumani, 8.4 overs), 2-67 (Madhevere, 9.6), 3-92 (Bennett, 13.4), 4-96 (Campbell, 14.4), 5-141 (Raza, 18.3), 6-147 (Myers, 19.1), 7-152 (Madande, 19.6).

INDIA BOWLING

Khaleel 4-0-32-2, Deshpande 3-0-30-1, Bishnoi 4-0-22-0, Washington 4-0-32-1, Abhishek 3-0-20-1, Dube 2-0-11-1.

INDIA

Yashasvi Jaiswal (not out) 93 (53b, 13x4, 2x6), Shubman Gill (not out) 58 (39b, 6x4, 2x6); Extras (w-5): 5; Total (for no loss in 15.2 overs): 156.

ZIMBABWE BOWLING

Ngarava 3-0-27-0, Muzarabani 3.2-0-25-0, Chatara 2-0-23-0, Akram 4-0-41-0, Raza 2-0-24-0, Bennett 1-0-16-0.

Toss: India; PoM: Jaiswal.

India won by 10 wickets with 28 balls remaining to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in five-match series.

Fifth and final T20I: July 14 (Sunday), Harare, 4.30 p.m. IST.

The smart money is on Spain to claim a fourth crown but England can deliver the sucker punch

Associated Press

Berlin

The 2010 World Cup champion has been the standout team so far with its entertaining brand of football and the last edition’s losing finalist will need to do something special to win it all

1 of 4

2 of 4

3 of 4 Key battle: Rodri and Fabian Ruiz have been at the forefront in dictating play from Spain’s midfield and England’s attacking force led by Saka and Kane will have to pick their way past them. AFPJAVIER SORIANO

4 of 4

One is the best team in the tournament, on the brink potentially of a new era of success because of a teenage wonderkid, an outstanding midfield and a tweak in philosophy.

The other is a survivor, limping to the end with big moments, resilience and an oft-criticised coach who has another chance to end his country’s long wait for a major men’s title. The European Championship final between Spain and England on Sunday is dripping with narrative — with one arguably standing out above the rest.

The Yamal factor

Inside Olympiastadion, Lamine Yamal — a day after his 17th birthday — will look to crown his breakthrough as football’s newest superstar by leading Spain to a first major men’s trophy since the 2008-12 era.

While Yamal and fellow winger Nico Williams now offer Spain a hitherto-lacking directness out wide, it’s the central midfield that has given Spain the edge over its rivals. Rodri and Fabian Ruiz are the axis from which Spain thrives.

Dani Olmo has joined them as the most attacking of pretty much a complete central-midfield three that England will struggle to contain.

For England, its tenacity and character have stood out way above its quality of play. The nation’s most talented squad for 20 years has underperformed, looking unbalanced, short of ideas and in some cases fatigued, but has somehow scrapped through to a second straight European final. Gareth Southgate’s team is an increasingly confident underdog, with potential matchwinners dotted throughout the team in Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Harry Kane.

Who will come to Southgate’s rescue on Sunday — if indeed someone does?

The smart money, though, is on Spain winning a seventh straight game to clinch a record fourth Euro title.

Anirudh gives Tamizhans first victory of the season

S. Dipak Ragav

COIMBATORE

Going hammer and tongs: Anirudh smashed a 28-ball 52 with five fours and three sixes. M. Periasamy

B. Anirudh Sitaram (52, 28b, 5x4, 3x6) stroked a fine half-century to help IDream Tiruppur Tamizhans beat Siechem Madurai Panthers by four wickets and post its first win of TNPL-8 at the Sri Ramakrishna College ground here on Saturday.

In pursuit of 157, the Tiruppur side started poorly, losing its openers by the third over before Anirudh and Amit Sathvik (23) got the chase back on track, adding 51 (25b) for the third wicket.

Making an impact

Anirudh, who walked in as the Impact Player, immediately put the pressure back on the opposition by depositing pacer Kiran Akash over covers for a six and then smashing spinners Hari Nishaanth and P. Saravanan for a couple of boundaries.

Amit then lofted Kiran down the ground for a six and a four in a 17-run sixth over to take Tamizhans to 62 for two in the PowerPlay. During the middle overs, leg-spinner M. Ashwin (four for 21) kept the former champion in the hunt, giving breakthroughs. But, S. Mohamed Ali showed composure and made a vital unbeaten 33 (27b, 2x6) to guide his side home.

Fighting cameo

In the afternoon, U. Sasidev’s cameo (41, 19b, 2x4, 4x6) ensured the Panthers got to a fighting total of 156 for nine after being asked to bat first.

Sasidev was aggressive and swept the spinners well — conventional and reverse — hitting Ajith Ram for a six and a four.

He was innovative against the pacers, using the scoop and lap shots to give the innings the final flourish, but it was not enough.

In the second match of the day, unbeaten half-centuries from local lads B. Sachin (76 retired hurt, 48b, 8x4, 3x6) and J. Suresh Kumar (63 n.o., 55b, 3x4, 2x6) powered Lyca Kovai Kings to a commanding nine-wicket win over Nellai Royal Kings for its third successive win in this edition.

Chasing 168, the duo added 144 runs for the second wicket before Sachin retired hurt.

The left-hander was strong through the square on the off-side and punished the bowlers when given width.

Earlier, Royal Kings, put in, made 167 for seven riding on knocks from K.B. Arun Karthick (47, 38b, 5x4, 2x6) at the top and R. Sonu Yadav (43 n.o., 26b, 1x4, 5x6) at the death.

But in the middle overs, the Nellai side lost its way, losing wickets in a cluster as it slumped from 102 for two to 119 for six and ended up with a below-par score.

The scores:

Siechem Madurai Panthers 156/9 in 20 overs (U. Sasidev 41, S. Ajith Ram 3/35, R. Rohit 2/34) lost to IDream Tiruppur Tamizhans 157/6 in 18.2 overs (B. Anirudh Sitaram 52, S. Mohamed Ali 33 n.o., M. Ashwin 4/21).

Nellai Royal Kings 167/7 in 20 overs (K.B. Arun Karthick 47, R. Sonu Yadav 43 n.o., Mohammed 2/29, Shahrukh Khan 2/30) lost to Lyca Kovai Kings 172/1 in 18.3 overs (B. Sachin 76 retd. hurt, J. Suresh Kumar 63 n.o.).

Today’s matches:

SKM Salem Spartans vs Trichy Grand Cholas (3.15 p.m.); Chepauk Super Gillies vs Dindigul Dragons (7.15 p.m.).

Ronel.

Rain has the final say, Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur share trophy

The TNCA inter-district u-14 tournament final between Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur was washed out without a ball being bowled due to overnight rain and wet outfield on the second and final day here on Saturday. The teams were declared joint winners.

The scores: Chengalpattu 150 in 84.5 overs (A. I. Aswin 51, B. Akshadh Rao 30, S. Kiran Raj Yadav 4/31, S. Sarvin Raj 3/28) drew with Tiruvallur 17/0 in eight overs.

TNCA league matches postponed

All the TNCA lower division league matches that were scheduled to be played on July 14 have been postponed due to poor and wet ground conditions.

Ronel breaks an 18-year-old record

E. J. Ronel Retnam broke an 18 year old record and set a new mark in the group-I boys’ 50m butterfly on day two of the Tamil Nadu State Aquatic Association 40th sub-junior and 50th junior State championship in Chennai on Saturday.

Two other new meet records was set during the day by V. Kaveen Raj in group-I boys’ 800m freestyle and Shreenithi Natesan in group-II girls’ 400m individual medley.

The results (winners, day two):

Boys: Group-I: 50m backstroke: B. Kishan (ACES) 00:29.08; 200m breaststroke: R. Dharshan (ACES) 02:32.71; 800m freestyle: V. Kaveenraj (Turtles) 08:42.42 (NMR).

Group II: 50m butterfly: E.J. Ronel Retnam (Turtles) 00:27.05 (NMR); 50m backstroke: Ronel 00:30.05; 200m breaststroke: M.S. Nitheesh (TDSA Tirunelveli) 02:32.07; 800m freestyle: P. Monish Naidu (Coimbatore Corp) 09:51.54.

Group III: 100m breaststroke: R.K. Dhiiraj (H2O Club) 01:27.89; 400m freestyle: B. Mohit Rajan (SDAT Chennai) 05:22.66;

Girls: Group I: 50m backstroke: Deeksha Sivakumar (ORCA) 00:32.03; 50m freestyle: P. Preshetha (SDAT Dolphin) 00:28.25; 100m butterfly: B. Roshini (Aquatic Madurai) 01:08.42; 400m Individual Medley: Pranavi Ramu (ACES) 05:49.61; 800m freestyle: M.P. Aarna (SDAT Chennai).

Group II: 50m backstroke: Pramiti Gnanasekaran (SDAT Chennai) 00:32.72; 50m freestyle:1. M.M. Khatija Tul Kubra (Turtles) 00:29.25; 100m butterfly: P. Shashini (SAV Titans) 01:10.41; 400m Individual Medley: Shreenithi Natesan (St. Brittos) 05:17.87 (NMR); 1500m freestyle: Nenya Vijayakumar (Waves Academy) 18:57.55.

Group III: 100m breaststroke:Sri Harshini (SAV Titans) 01:33.88; 400m freestyle:J. Vanshika Reddy (ORCA) 05:38.61.

Santissimo primed to come good in Mayor’s Trophy

BENGALURU:

BENGALURU: Santissimo, who is in fine fettle, may score an encore in the Mayor’s Trophy (1,400m), the chief event of the races to be held on Sunday. False rails (width about 6m from 1,600m to the winning post) will be in position.

TRACK LIGHTNING STAKES (Div. II), (1,400m), maiden 3-y-o only, (Terms), 1-30 p.m.: 1. Amazing Stride (1) Sandesh 56, 2. Gallon Of My Love (3) Sai Kiran 56, 3. Iron King (6) Trevor 56, 4. Priceless Prince (7) Vinod Shinde 56, 5. Ranquelino (2) Akshay K 56, 6. Victor Hugo (5) G. Vivek 56, 7. Zebula (—) (—) 56 and 8. Nyx (4) S.J. Moulin 54.5.

1. AMAZING STRIDE, 2. IRON KING, 3. NYX

SWEET MEMORIES STAKES (Div. II), (1,200m), rated 20 to 45, 5-y-o & over, 2-00: 1. Lauterbrunnen (8) Angad 60, 2. Super Kind (9) Sandesh 60, 3. Spirit Dancer (5) Vishal Bunde 58.5, 4. Dawn Rising (3) Rayan 57, 5. Ultimate Chance (2) Tousif 56.5, 6. The Athabasca (4) Sai Kiran 56, 7. Embosom (7) Shreyas S 55.5, 8. Mega Success (6) Salma Khan 53.5 and 9. Sand Castles (1) P. Sai Kumar 53.

1. SUPER KIND, 2. THE ATHABASCA, 3. LAUTERBRUNNEN

EPSOM STAKES (1,400m), rated 40 to 65, 2-30: 1. Starkova (1) Neeraj 61, 2. Galahad (8) Akshay K 60.5, 3. Disruptor (10) Darshan 59, 4. Golden Peaks (3) Sandesh 57.5, 5. Adjustment (9) L.A. Rozario 56.5, 6. Bharat (2) Dhanu S 56.5, 7. Klimt (4) D. Patel 55.5, 8. Aldila (12) Antony 55, 9. Gold Ride (6) S.J. Moulin 54.5, 10. Lex Luthor (5) Saddam H 54, 11. Jade (11) G. Vivek 53 and 12. Millbrook (7) Salman Khan 53.

1. JADE, 2. GALAHAD, 3. GOLDEN PEAKS

SWEET MEMORIES STAKES (Div. I), (1,200m), rated 20 to 45, 5-y-o & over, 3-00: 1. Oxytocin (5) Sai Kiran 62.5, 2. Ultimate Striker (7) Vivek 62.5, 3. Remontoir (2) Arshad 62, 4. General Patton (9) G. Vivek 60.5, 5. Star Admiral (3) Vishal Bunde 60.5, 6. Chisox (6) Arvind K 58.5, 7. Osiris (4) Ram Nandan 58.5, 8. Altamonte (1) Salman Khan 58 and 9. Measure Of Time (8) Rayan 58.

1. GENERAL PATTON, 2. OXYTOCIN, 3. STAR ADMIRAL

MANITOU STAKES (Div. II), (1,200m), rated 20 to 45, 3-30: 1. Jersey King (4) Sandesh 60, 2. Magical Bay (8) G. Vivek 57.5, 3. Ebotse (5) Antony 57, 4. Invincible (6) S.J. Moulin 54, 5. Alacero (3) Arvind K 53.5, 6. Cat Whiskers (1) Neeraj 53, 7. Sea Diamond (2) P. Sai Kumar 51.5 and 8. Tigerking (7) Saddam H 50.

1. JERSEY KING, 2. MAGICAL BAY,

3. CAT WHISKERS

MAYOR’S TROPHY (1,400m), rated 60 to 85, 4-00: 1. Splendido (9) S.J. Moulin 60, 2. Tehani (8) Akshay K 60, 3. Vivaldo (3) Trevor 59.5, 4. Fast Pace (5) Sandesh 58, 5. Aquamatic (6) Arshad 57, 6. Auspicious Queen (7) Angad 57, 7. Del Mar (1) Arvind K 57, 8. Santissimo (4) G. Vivek 56.5, 9. King Of War (10) Shreyas S 54.5 and 10. Aralina (2) Neeraj 54.

1. SANTISSIMO, 2. TEHANI,

3. AUSPICIOUS QUEEN

BE SAFE CUP (1,200m), maiden 3-y-o only, (Terms), 4-30: 1. Bourbonaire (1) Suraj 56, 2. Helios (3) S.J. Moulin 56, 3. Rodney (5) B.R. Kumar 56, 4. Silver Strike (7) Vishal Bunde 56, 5. Femme Fatale (6) Sai Kiran 54.5, 6. Glaze (8) Kiran Rai 54.5, 7. Habibti (11) Antony 54.5, 8. Mehra (10) Darshan 54.5, 9. Super Bold (2) Tousif 54.5, 10. Totally Epic (4) P. Siddaraju 54.5 and 11. Xaily (9) J. Chinoy 54.5.

1. HELIOS, 2. BOURBONAIRE,

3. HABIBTI

TRACK LIGHTNING STAKES (Div. I), (1,400m), maiden 3-y-o only, (Terms), 5-00: 1. Ahead Of The Curve (4) Salman Khan 56, 2. Mansa Musa (1) Trevor 56, 3. Santorius (5) S.J. Moulin 56, 4. Storm Shadow (3) Suraj 56, 5. Westlake (7) Antony 56, 6. Art Of Romance (8) Sai Kiran 54.5, 7. Balmoral (2) Akshay K 54.5 and 8. Magnetic (6) Sandesh 54.5.

1. MANSA MUSA, 2. ART OF ROMANCE, 3. WESTLAKE

MANITOU STAKES (Div. I), (1,200m), rated 20 to 45, 5-30: 1. Global Influence (5) Suraj 62.5, 2. Never Give In (8) Sandesh 62.5, 3. Indian Blues (2) Kiran Rai 58, 4. La Mcqueen (1) Antony 58, 5. Southernaristocrat (7) B.L. Paswan 57.5, 6. Isabelle (4) L.A. Rozario 55, 7. Princess Gold (3) P. Sai Kumar 52 and 8. The Mega Man (6) Saddam H 50.5.

1. GLOBAL INFLUENCE, 2. NEVER GIVE IN, 3. ISABELLE

Day’s best: MANSA MUSA

Double: JADE — GLOBAL INFLUENCE

Jkt: 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9; Tr (i): 1, 2 and 3; (ii): 4, 5 and 6; (iii): 7, 8 and 9.

Isnt She Beautiful claims Racing Patrons Cup

BENGALURU:

BENGALURU: Imtiaz Khan-trained Isnt She Beautiful (Sandesh up) won the Racing Patrons Cup, the feature event of the races here on Saturday (July 13). The winner is owned by Mr. & Mrs. P.J. Vazifdar, Mr. M. Rishad & Mr. Mukul A. Sonawala and M/s. DT Racing & Breeding LLP.

1. WELCOME CUP (Div. II): CRIMSON FLAME (S.J. Moulin) 1, Golden Light (Akshay K) 2, Chotipari (Darshan) 3 and Desert Goddess (Sandesh) 4. Not run: Roman Knight. 1-3/4, 3-1/2 and 1/2. 1m, 13.86s. ₹233 (w), 22, 10 and 18 (p), SHP: 29, THP: 33, FP: 537, Q: 99, Trinella: 5,573, Exacta: 6,705. Favourite: Golden Light. Owners: Sarainaga Racing Pvt. Ltd. & Mr. S. Saleem Shah. Trainer: Darius Byramji.

2. ICH DIEN STAKES (Div. II): SLING SHOT (Indrajeet S) 1, Estefania (Antony) 2, Recreator (Shreyas S) 3 and Tankinika (Vivek) 4. Hd, Shd and 1. 1m, 28.60s. ₹42 (w), 13, 17 and 23 (p), SHP: 58, THP: 75, FP: 444, Q: 191, Trinella: 2,352, Exacta: 12,032. Favourite: Sacred Creator. Owners: Col. Kuldeep Singh Garcha, Mr. Srinath Byregowda, Mrs. Divyajyothi C.M. and Mrs. Shruthiba L. Gowda. Trainer: V. Lokanath.

3. ICH DIEN STAKES (Div. I): SUPER SAPPHIRE (Suraj) 1, Quick Witted (Sandesh) 2, Striking Eyes (P. Siddaraju) 3 and Avicena (Antony) 4. Not run: Lady Godiva. 4-1/2, Nose and 3/4. 1m, 28.75s. ₹15 (w), 11, 13 and 13 (p), SHP: 39, THP: 29, FP: 67, Q: 47, Trinella: 353, Exacta: 517. Favourite: Super Sapphire. Owners: Mr. P. Ramesh Naidu & Mr. Srinivas Naidu. Trainer: S. Narredu.

4. NEWMARKET STAKES: INFINITE SPIRIT (P. Siddaraju) 1, Emeraldo (Antony) 2, Pettes Love (Sandesh) 3 and Quevega (Angad) 4. Not run: Mega Success. 1, 3-1/2 and 1-1/2. 1m, 15.32s. ₹1,950 (w), 297, 12 and 12 (p), SHP: 34, THP: 55, FP: 7,288, Q: 2,273, Trinella: 10,288, Exacta: 42,137 (carried over). Favourite: Emeraldo. Owner and trainer: Mr. V. Lokanath.

5. KUNIGAL STUD STAKES: ENGLISH BAY (Tousif) 1, Aherne (Antony) 2, Tignanello (B.R. Kumar) 3 and Golden Time (Vivek) 4. 1-1/4, 3-1/2 and 1-3/4. 1m, 26.86s. ₹752 (w), 75, 13 and 12 (p), SHP: 42, THP: 44, FP: 583, Q: 621, Trinella: 8,831, Exacta: 1,25,734 (carried over). Favourite: Aherne. Owner: Mr. B.E. Vasanth Kumar. Trainer: S. Dominic.

6. RACING PATRONS CUP: ISNT SHE BEAUTIFUL (Sandesh) 1, Aldgate (G. Vivek) 2, Champions Way (Suraj) 3 and Yukan (Trevor) 4. 1-1/4, 1 and 2-1/2. 1m, 11.80s. ₹70 (w), 18, 13 and 12 (p), SHP: 33, THP: 55, FP: 366, Q: 257, Trinella: 905, Exacta: 5,559. Favourite: Champions Way. Owners: Mr. P.J. Vazifdar, Mrs. P.J. Vazifdar, Mr. M. Rishad & Mr. Mukul A. Sonawala and M/s. DT Racing & Breeding LLP. Trainer: Imtiaz Khan.

7. WELCOME CUP (Div. I): PURANJAYA (J. Chinoy) 1, Don Carlos (Trevor) 2, Stentorian (M. Prabhakaran) 3 and Feeling Good (G. Vivek) 4. Not run: Complete Package. 1, 9-1/4 and 2-3/4. 1m, 13.66s. ₹49 (w), 12, 10 and 39 (p), SHP: 29, THP: 88, FP: 164, Q: 28, Trinella: 956, Exacta: 2,240. Favourite: Don Carlos. Owner: Mr. Laksh Bhatia. Trainer: Warren Singh.

8. MAY DAY STAKES: VICTORIA DORESAANI (L.A. Rozario) 1, Del Aviz (Trevor) 2, Golden Legend (G. Vivek) 3 and Norwegian Wood (Antony) 4. Snk, 1-1/4 and Hd. 1m, 29.15s. ₹46 (w), 13, 11 and 13 (p), SHP: 43, THP: 32, FP: 109, Q: 37, Trinella: 411, Exacta: 666. Favourite: Del Aviz. Owner: Mr. Ananda C. Trainer: Irfan Ghatala.

9. QUASAR STAKES: GRIZZLY (Sai Kiran) 1, Super Marvella (Sandesh) 2, Sassy (Shreyas S) 3 and Vyasa (Akshay K) 4. Not run: Schafenberg. 3-1/4, 1 and 1-1/2. 1m, 25.76s. ₹405 (w), 35, 15 and 17 (p), SHP: 37, THP: 52, FP: 1,152, Q: 981, Trinella: 8,459, Exacta: 50,521. Favourite: August. Owner: Mr. C.V. Prasad Rao. Trainer: Warren Singh.

Jackpot: ₹2,05,722 (carried over); Runner up: 88,166 (one tkt.); Treble (i): 3,942 (one tkt.); (ii): 7,538 (carried over); (iii): 15,400 (carried over).

Pogacar extends lead

Agence France-Presse

Saint-Lary-Soulan (France)

Tadej Pogacar extended his overall lead on the Tour de France when he won stage 14 in the Pyrenees on Saturday.

Jonas Vingegaard came second at 39sec while Remco Evenepoel was third at 1min 10sec.

TNPL: Star Sports 1 & FanCode , 3.15 & 7.15 p.m.

Zimbabwe vs India: 5th T20I, Sony Sports Ten 5 & LIV, 4.30 p.m.

Wimbledon: SS Select 1, 2 & Hotstar, 6.30 p.m.

Cycling: Tour de France, Eurosport , 7.30 p.m.

Football: Euro 2024, Sony Sports Ten 2, 3, 5 & LIV, 12.30 a.m. (Monday)

Cricket: 19th Lucas TVS Tiruvallur DCA trophy semifinal, Lucas TVS vs Apollo Tyres (8 a.m.), Wheels India vs Samsung India (1 p.m.), DRBCCC Hindu College ‘A’.

SM

- in the interest of small fry

- The India of Anita Desai’s dreams

- Centuries of Korean diaspora

- The Hindu Books Crossword

- chronicles of a quick-change artist

- Dalit food habits

- Banojyotsna Lahiri: a modern love story

- Easy like Sunday morning

- Teachers can play too

- The sacred acres in mortal danger

- An ocean of plastics

- Unsung heroes

- No cash, only gifts in kind

- Beyond smoke and glass

- A different kind of story book

Simrit Malhi

Does India’s culinary heritage hold the key to ‘sustainable’ seafood? The monsoon and fishing ban along the west coast is a good time to learn about local, small and seasonal fish

1 of 6 A fisherman casts his net at Srinivasapuram beach in Chennai. (Getty Images)yodaswaj

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4 of 6 Fisherwomen in Mumbai. (Getty Images)INDRANIL MUKHERJEE

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Grey skies loom, merging in the horizon with the neon green that surrounds us in Goa during the monsoon. We are drenched and cold on a small wooden boat with a very loud engine, gliding through the inner rivers of North Goa. I have come netfishing with Tukaram Chodankar, a professional fisherman who has been fishing since he was three. There is a moment of silence before both his net and the rain are unleashed together.

I can barely see through the rain, while Chodankar deftly brings the net in, splashing mudoshi (lady fish), chonak (giant sea perch) and tamoshi (red snapper) into the bucket next to my feet. Rain or shine, he is out on the Moira river every day catching fish that he sells in the market. The size of his net determines his catch, its wider weave ensuring he only catches the larger fish, letting babies and any shellfish through. “As a fisherman, it is my duty to make sure I leave behind enough in the river for my own future,” he says.

Nitesh Shetkar, a young taxi driver and Chodankar’s friend, also regularly goes fishing “because it’s what my father used to do, and his father before him”. He fishes through the year in Goa’s rivers, ponds and canals with a simple line and hook, or smaller nets for shellfish, catching topro (zebra fish), gobro (rockfish), and bugdi (sardines), along with crab, catfish, khorsane (butterfly fish) and river prawns in the monsoon. He laments that Goans cannot live off farming and fisheries like they used to and are forced to depend on tourism for income.

Traditional fishermen are more judicious with how and when they fish, ensuring the biodiversity of our waterbodies. Freshwater crab and prawn fishermen fish at night, larger fish are caught with wide weave nets on boats, and smaller fish are snared with a line and hooks. Trawlers, in comparison, drag their nets along the seabed, destroying it and dredging and collecting fish indiscriminately. Worse, small indigenous fish or ‘weed fish’ are thrown back into the sea dead, regardless of breeding seasons or size.

Freshwater advantage

India’s 7,500 kilometre tropical coastline hosts a megadiversity of marine life; most of which are now severely depleted. Maharashtra, for example, registered its lowest marine catch in 45 years in 2020. This is no small statistic considering India is a big player in international seafood exports — ranking third worldwide.

Every year, there is a ban on sea fishing (currently, it is along the west coast) during the monsoon, the main breeding months. The government-enforced ban adheres to traditional practices. While this means the smaller fish markets are shut and restaurants have to rely on frozen supplies, it’s also the best time to encourage people to look beyond their big fish staples such as tuna, king mackerel, and tiger prawns.

The tradition of small-scale fishing is not unique to Goa; though fast disappearing, it is still practised in many coastal states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and West Bengal with rich networks of backwaters, rivers and other waterbodies. While it’s mostly enjoyed by the local community, it would be beneficial to the environment, our health and pockets to take freshwater options and boat-caught small fish to a wider audience.

This market already exists in a small way in cities. In Kochi, Kerala, delivery services such as Fresh to Home and the relatively new city-based Happy Fish have freshwater options listed. “We have a large number of people who are knowledgeable about seasonality, and enjoy eating freshwater fish. And they don’t mind paying extra for it,” says Nidhin Mani, founder, Happy Fish. “We have tied up with small boat and hook-and-line fishermen from the suburbs and nearby villages to supply us with karimeen (pearl spot), kozhuva (anchovy), catla (Asian carp), paral (giant danio), mud crab, and the like.”

In the metros too, people are starting to explore smaller options.Mumbai-based nutritionist Neha Sahaya has stopped recommending sea fish to her clients because of the high amounts of mercury and microplastics found in them. “In fact, I don’t recommend local sea fish to any of my pregnant clients. Perhaps freshwater fish is a cleaner, more healthy option.”

Break food elitism

Food is political in India, and what you eat is an indication of your socio-economic status. Even our traditional vegetarian diet is rooted in privilege and caste hierarchies. That one can afford to eat fish such as king mackerel, Indian salmon, tuna and pomfret regularly is considered a sign of elitism, resulting in an excessive demand for these fish.

With the country’s economy booming, this also means that Indians now consume more fish than ever before — monthly consumption per household has shown a quantum leap in 10 years from 2.66 kg in 2011-12 to 4.99 kg in 2022-23 (according to the National Council of Applied Economic Research). Larger fish that were once only eaten on special occasions are now expected to be available throughout the year. And are, most often, chosen at the expense of smaller fish.

To add to this pressure, urban Indians, who are largely responsible for this leap in consumption, seem to lack generational knowledge about seasonal fish or their nutritional value. Food historian Vikram Doctor blames the supply chain and supermarkets for this change. “Supermarkets do not stock produce the way traditional markets do. Their emphasis is on standardised, easy to stock and carry products, which leads to standardised and simplified cooking,” he says. “Traditional markets have the possibility of stocking more seasonal, unique, unprocessed products that are challenging to cook, but also more rewarding.”

With most urban Indians purchasing fish at supermarkets and through delivery services such as Licious and Fresh to Home, there is a disconnect from local fish markets and fishermen.

What you can do as

a consumer

Today, fish in India is sold according to demand rather than supply. As researcher Divya Karnad learnt, what consumers eat has a strong impact on our coastline and plays a large role in the health of fisheries. Karnad is the founder of InSeason Fish, a five-year-old Chennai-based organisation committed to “promoting sustainable fishing practices and protecting the health of people and our oceans”. On the east coast, they work towards marine conservation by bringing together the main stakeholders in the fish industry: fishermen, stockists, vendors and the consumer. “We also collaborate with chefs and restaurants to promote sustainable seafood options on menus and provide tips for cooking that maximises flavour and sustainability,” she says, adding that they help educate consumers through fish market walks and children’s games.

On the west coast, Know Your Fish — started by a group of researchers in 2017 — focuses on influencing consumer trends towards healthier fish. They release a monthly calendar on social media illustrating which fish is safe to eat when, based on their annual data collection to test the vulnerability of each fish caught in the Arabian Sea. Several hotels, including Fort Tiracol in Goa, have approached them and now showcase their calendars at their in-house restaurants.

Though there is no empirical evidence yet to show if and how their efforts have made an actual difference, there are certainly more restaurants putting smaller fish options on their menus.

In Kolkata, at Sienna Store & Cafe, head chef Koyel Roy Nandy insists on featuring smaller, lesser-known and even dried fish on the menu. “We are lucky here in Kolkata that there is a strong piscine culture. We have three local fish markets a kilometre from the restaurant, and we visit them and choose whatever is in season. The diversity of fish throughout the year makes for better nutrition.” She tells me of the delicious kadamacha (mudfish) that comes from ponds and lakes that is a staple at Sienna, morula (anchovies) that are served beer-battered with chips, and dried hilsa that is used like bonito flakes.

Small fish are more nutritious. It has been reported that the vitamins and minerals in 1 kg of small indigenous fish (SIF) is equal to approximately 50 kg of big fish. A 2008 study on the consumption of small freshwater fish in West Bengal found that SIFs provide better nutrition since they are generally eaten whole — with the bones, organs, head and eyes, all of which contain important micronutrients that improve the immune system and aid growth and development.

In North Goa, New York-trained chef Sai Sabnis of Posa, a conscious restaurant, serves salt fish fritters in a recipe inspired from the Caribbean, in an attempt to modernise what eating small fish looks like. “In the more expensive restaurants, people don’t want to eat small fish because they don’t want to eat with their hands,” she says, adding that it also takes up more time for the kitchen to debone and process such fish. At Posa, she works around this by charging a higher value for these dishes — and customers are willing to pay. “Small, local fish are higher in quality than the large ‘big ticket’ fish like salmon and tuna because of the shorter supply chain.”

A case for dried

One way to rediscover the knowledge of our piscine culinary heritage is to connect with the communities that have engaged with it over generations. The Kolis, Mumbai’s indigenous fishing community, are an ideal example.

They consume a wide variety of fish, including smaller pelagic fish such as lepo (sole) as well as vam (eel), shrimp, a variety of molluscs, and even a few amphibians like nivte (mudskipper). And a large part of their diet in the monsoon consists of fish that is dried during the preceding summer months, another tradition seen throughout the country.

Popularly known as shutki, it is emblematic of the cultural oneness of India’s coastline. From the famous ‘Bombay Duck’ or bombil to the dry fish markets on the border of Bangladesh that service Northeast India and West Bengal, there is still a thriving industry across the country. It’s urban India that’s disconnected from it.

In Goa, Doctor reminds me of the importance of the Purumentachem Festival. This annual ‘Feast of Provisions’ kicks off just before the rains start, in May. Old women from around Goa set up stalls with pickles, fermented foods, vinegar and dried fish. The stalls of dried fish are among the most sought after. “It was, and is still, common in the rural areas for monsoon meals to be made up of only rice, dal and dried fish,” he says. “The strong flavour and high nutritional value removes the need for much else.”

However, very few practise the tradition of salt-drying fish in the sun nowadays because the smell is so pungent. “This was traditionally done in large outdoor kitchens that people don’t have access to any more. Even hotels that might have access to space, are warned by management to stay away from these practices.”

Our taste buds have been colonised into a western ideal of a more ‘sanitised’ palate. A change could spell good things for our health, culinary practices, and waterbodies.

The writer is a permaculture farmer who believes eating right can save the planet.

The India of Anita Desai’s dreams

Sudipta Datta

The thrice Booker-shortlisted author on how her country has changed, and on setting her latest work, Rosarita , in Mexico

1 of 3 Author Anita Desai (Getty Images)Ramin Talaie

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Anita Desai has often experimented with language, theme and form in novels like Clear Light of Day, Fasting, Feasting, Baumgartner’s Bombay and The Artist of Disappearance. In her latest, Rosarita (Picador), a dream-like novella, Desai gives the narrator a second-person voice. When a stranger plants an idea into young student Bonita’s mind, that her mother’s name was Rosarita and that she had studied art in Mexico, it sends her off to imaginatively fill the absences left by her mother. In a phone conversation, the soft-spoken and thrice-Booker-shortlisted Desai, now 87, talks about her Mexico connection, how she has used techniques of poetry in her prose and why India has become remote to her. Edited excerpts:

Question: What took you to Mexico to write Rosarita?

Answer: Well, I first went to Mexico to escape from a very bitter North American winter. But the minute I stepped off the plane in a strange country, I felt entirely at home. I thought I had returned to India; the resemblance between the two countries struck me immediately, and I kept returning to Mexico. Rosarita became a kind of a patchwork, a collage of my impressions of the India that I had left and the Mexico that was new to me, and trying to find how they fit together. My instinct told me that they did fit together, yet I couldn’t find the facts, the necessary ground work on which to base them, till I discovered that I could put my bewilderment into my narrator’s voice. She was the one who created this imaginary portrait of the mother who was no longer alive.

Q: Why did you want to tell this dream-like story in a second-person voice?

A: For long I have wanted to experiment with using the second person because it seems to me such an immediate way to reach the reader. The dream-like quality, as you call it, is created by bringing in the trickster who is a magician figure. She plants this seed of an idea in the narrator’s mind that there was such a character, Rosarita, who studied art in Mexico, and although the narrator never heard such a story from her mother and disbelieves it, she can’t help imagining that it might be true and what would her mother’s experiences have been had it been true. So, she creates an imaginary mother.

Q: Is the novella a favoured form now? How has poetry shaped your work?

A: I have been trying to model my prose upon the techniques of poetry for quite a long time, to as far back as a small book I wrote, Fire on the Mountain (1977). I have tried to reduce my work to a set of images and to use suggestion rather than any prosaic facts. I always quote some lines from an Emily Dickinson poem to describe my work: ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant/ Success in circuit lies’.

As for the novella form, I have also come to it through a long circuitous route. In earlier years, I used to write novels which were fully thought out and plotted but I found myself happier with the novella form when I wrote my last book, The Artist of Disappearance, which is a collection of three novellas. I was comfortable with this form; I could put everything I meant to in a very short space, selected and chosen carefully.

Q: What was it like to write before Salman Rushdie and post Midnight’s Children?

A: I will use my own experience as a model to answer your question. English for me was a literary language. It wasn’t the first language I spoke, but it was the first language I learnt to read and write. So it always belonged to books; the books and literature I read were my model, and that made my language a more literary form of prose on paper. Although there had been predecessors to Rushdie’s work, like Raja Rao who experimented with bringing in Indian intonations, as did Mulk Raj Anand and G.V. Desani, Rushdie brought it into the present times. He seemed to use English that was all around in India, on the streets, in the shops, in the cinema. He wrote on very serious subjects in this language, which encouraged a whole new generation to write about their views of India, their experience, using a foreign language but in a way that Indians used it.

Q: Has the India you knew changed?

A: Unlike my parents who never went back to their homelands [Germany/ East Bengal] because they had mostly been destroyed or had vanished, I could constantly return to India. But now I realise that India has changed in the years that I have been absent and I have changed in the years that I have been away from India, and so it has become more and more remote to me. Now when I go back to India, I keep searching for the India I had known as a child and as a young woman and I have to recognise the fact that that doesn’t exist any more.

Q: Do you read contemporary Indian novels?

A: A lot of interesting things are being done in regional languages; translations have improved greatly and the books are much more accessible. I think mostly of the books by Perumal Murugan; he writes about small communities in Tamil Nadu. The language is so marvellous and they are so well-translated that it helps you to enter his world you have never visited.

Q: The cover of Rosarita is so powerful, a self-portrait of Amrita Sher-Gil.

A: It’s a wonderful discovery made by my Indian publisher, Teesta Guha Sarkar. She was looking into Amrita Sher-Gil’s work with an idea of finding something suitable for the cover and she came across this early self-portrait, which Amrita had painted when she was an art student in Paris in the 1930s. It was a very bold choice to make because I myself had not imagined or described the character of the mother or the narrator or the stranger, in fact, and Teesta’s discovery seems so exactly right. I’d never seen this portrait before, though I was familiar with Sher-Gil’s work ever since I was a young girl. I think it’s such a dramatic one for a young woman to have painted, the gaze is so determined and direct, and so thoughtful. It gave me a tremendous thrill to find myself on the same cover as Amrita Sher-Gil’s painting.

Centuries of Korean diaspora

Sheila Kumar

Paul Yoon’s seven tales of ordinary people and their struggles span time and geography

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A sense of sadness, loss and regret runs through the seven stories in Paul Yoon’s The Hive and the Honey. They grapple with themes of identity, belonging and escape, and cast a light on the experiences of the Korean diaspora. We see their lives play out not only in different parts of the world — New York, London and Russia — but also in different periods of time, going all the way back to 1608 in one story.

In all the tales, there is a journey. A teenager goes in search of his elusive father. A samurai in 17th century Japan is tasked with reuniting a young Korean boy with his countrymen. The void of being childless propels a man to go looking for a runaway he briefly encountered. A woman sets out to meet a young man who may be the son she left behind when she defected from North Korea. A man goes from New York to Canada in search of better prospects and becomes one of “those who leave their hometown and never look back”.

There are no happy endings for most of these people. Their travels lead to unmet expectations, yearning, remorse and quiet grief. These people are displaced twice over — geographically and emotionally.

Violence rears its head suddenly in quite a few of the lives. Tellingly, in the first tale, the protagonist who is in jail outside Korea, is informed that he will be left alone as Koreans have a reputation for hitting rather than getting hit. Soon enough, he beats another man mercilessly. Then there is the man who beats the boy he has reared as his son so badly that the latter runs away. In the title story, an epistolary ghost story, a Korean settlement pays the price for their barbaric punishment of an innocent woman. There are reasons that dictate why these people behave the way they do; the violence, however, is brutal and unsettling.

The lives delineated here are marked by violence, longing and sorrow. Yoon’s superb craftsmanship as a writer makes these characters stay with you for a long time.

The reviewer is a Bengaluru-based author, journalist and manuscript editor.

The Hindu Books Crossword

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In this week’s edition of The Hindu Books Crossword, we turn the spotlight on the world of Indian non-fiction, celebrating influential books and the authors behind memoirs, travelogues and titles on true crime, food history, politics, science, religion and more.

Chronicles of a quick-change

Ramya Kannan

A window into the soul of Kamal Haasan, the actor, filmmaker, technician and bahurupi , through 40 out of about 260 films

1 of 5 Tracking the past (Clockwise from left) Stills from 16 Vayathinile and Nayakan; and Kamal Haasan with director K. Balachander. (special arrangement) HANDOUT- E- MAIL

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At a recent press conference ahead of the launch of his sequel Indian 2, Kamal Haasan was asked a question that made his colleagues on stage with him smirk. Was he upset that though there were three pretty heroines in the film, he himself had no consort? Kamal raised the mic and answered with great assurance: “My consort in the film does not have to be a woman.” In that one sentence was buried a touchstone. Kamal revealed the consummate artist he is, his relationship with cinema, his philosophical approach to the medium, and that while he’s celebrated as a hero, his tango with the movies goes far beyond formulae and stereotypes.

That is what director and writer K. Hariharan captures in Kamal Haasan: A Cinematic Journey. It’s not an easy task, but as a filmmaker with a deep understanding of politics, history and culture, he pulls it off by linking Kamal's oeuvre in a single intelligible strand. Hariharan picks 40 films (from Kamal’s repertoire of about 260 films) and executes a contextual analysis, replete with references to world cinema, its masters, political theories, running parallel to real time events. That is the strength of this book; the craft of a chronicler to pick from a veritable smorgasbord to lay out on his charcuterie board a pick of the finest, though not necessarily the most popular, slices. This will then serve again as a window that opens into the soul of Kamal Haasan, the actor, filmmaker, technician, the bahurupi, a quick-change artist who physically metamorphoses into many characters, in its fullest sense.

Dramatic arrival

The book opens, appropriately, with aplomb, right in the middle of intense drama and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the birth of Kamal. While Hariharan stays off the personal life of the star, he wraps the early years of Kamal and the influences of his immediate, liberal family, into a capsule that seeks to measure the heights he has since achieved. For someone who learnt, not formally or in schools, but from actors and directors-turned-mentors, from screen, from behind the camera, and from life, there now stands a man, a consummate entertainer, but more, a veritable ashtavadhani of multiple talents and achievements.

The storyteller

Kamal is the sutradhar in a sense, not only because this book is about him, but because the author relinquishes this role to him. He allows Kamal, and his movies, to hold together a nation and state in the throes of development, freed from the shackles of colonisers. In one chapter, while talking of the epoch-making collaboration between Kamal and his biggest mentor, K. Balachander, Hariharan leaves an indication of how he will be treating his subject and book: “The performance and conviction that builds the story’s characters are many times more important than the personal story and beliefs of the actors.” As mentor and protege plumbed the depths of film making, the author retrospectively strings together the social themes they explored, and the way they were handled. If the whirring celluloid projector alone were enough to cause a revolution, this consummate pair — Kamal and KB — would have dragged society by its ears into a more progressive, liberal matrix, with their caste-agnostic, and feminine themes, the portrayal of contrived human relationships, the deliberate casting of androgynous heroes and facilitating the redemption of rebel heroines. Behind the camera, the mask and face paint, were revolutionaries, marching to Bella Ciao, urging change in the urban, middle class households their movies were set in. All without, as Hariharan points out, diluting the tenets of mainstream entertainment.

Political turn

The book is rich with small stories that illustrate the prowess that Kamal holds, not just in acting, but in all aspects of filmmaking. The sharp way in which he detects that there was no film in the camera by merely observing the sound it was making, on the sets of 16 Vayathinile, for instance, is a hat tip to his phenomenal knowledge. While it stays away from Kamal’s later avatar as a politician, just as it skirts wide off his personal life, this book is a deliberate chronicle of the emergence of Kamal as a political animal, as if he had no other option, given his circumstances.

Hariharan also summons equipoise to raise questions on motive, and technique, something the ardent movie watcher and fan, would probably dismiss in the realm of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. For the cinephile, this is an unputdownable book, racy like the moments before the splendid transformation of the rather effeminate Kathak dancer Viz into the athletic spy Wizam Kashmiri, in Vishwaroopam. By then, as the audience, we learn that Viz might actually be a Tamil Muslim, but nevertheless, that scene is remarkable. It’s another touchstone, a masterclass in acting. We’ve probably been rendered speechless multiple times, watching Kamal on screen, but Hariharan’s book is still a revelation.

Dalit food habits

M.T. Saju

Shahu Patole’s newly translated book about two communities in Maharashtra documents a cuisine shaped by exclusion

1 of 3 Staple diet Flatbread made of jowar (below) was central to the everyday meal of the Mahar and the Mang communities. (Getty Images/istock)

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When the coriander plants flowered, a strong aroma would linger in the air that reminded everyone of meat curries. If there were sufficient coriander leaves, ‘mutke’ (balls) would be made. Kotmiriche Mutke has no meat, just coriander leaves, jowar, gram and wheat flour, soaked gram dal and green chilli chutney. The dough is shaped into balls, and then steamed. A seasonal dish of Dalits in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, Kotmiriche Mutke was not fried as oil is a luxury for the poor in India.

There are many explanations like this in Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada, the English version of Shahu Patole’s Anna He Apoorna Brahma, translated from the Marathi by Bhushan Korgaonkar.Originally published in 2015, it was the first to document the history of food through the culinary practices of the Mahar and the Mang, two prominent Dalit communities of Maharashtra. Patole’s book is not just a ‘cookery’ guide, it is the story of a taste acquired through centuries of discrimination. For food is an identity marker of a community and plays a significant role in the social and cultural spaces of the people of a region.

The die is caste

Food habits and caste cannot be separated, says Patole, 63, explaining that just as caste is cemented at birth, so is diet. Like many marginalised communities in India, the food habits of the Mahar and the Mang have been neglected due to various reasons. In his book, he tries to document the primary diet and a few recipes of these two communities, looking at the way they evolved over time. From Lakuti (a dish prepared from the blood of a slaughtered animal) to dishes made of jeebh (tongue), fashi (epiglottis), mendu (brain), kalij (liver), boka (kidney), dil (heart), tona (bones), gana (windpipe), kaas (udder), aand (testicles), paaya (hooves) and wajadi (intestines), he explains how no part of the animal was left unused. Each portion had a recipe of its own.

In the preface to the book, Patole raises a question: vegetarianism or non-vegetarianism — which one is superior? “Our Indian socio-cultural identity only highlights the food culture of the upper castes and upper classes. This hasn’t changed even today. A vegetarian diet is recommended to create harmony among different communities, allowing vegetarians, often upper castes, to dominate the scene. No one ever talks about our food culture, which is why I had to use the term ‘Dalit Kitchens’,” says Patole, adding that, “even today, meat-eating lower castes feel ashamed and guilty about their food habits.”

Cultural practices

Patole brings in the dietary habits and cultural practices of the two communities in this region where he was born and brought up. “This is the story of the food my parents ate and their parents before them — an acquired taste, especially one acquired through centuries of discrimination. I have taken this task of documentation to ensure that our future generations are aware of their past. They should know what we ate, how we lived, and the treatment we received in society,” says the now-retired government officer and writer in Marathi. In addition to the communities from northern Maharashtra, these food habits are noticed in northern Karnataka and some parts of Telangana.

If you look at the diet of the Mahar and the Mang, you will see that bhakri (flatbread) made of jowar or bajra is central to their everyday meal. The book talks about the social, cultural and religious practices and culinary history of the people in the region with specific chapters on recipes and cooking tips. “An individual’s eating practices played a vital role in determining their social status — governed by what they ate and what their ancestors ate. Even today, there is no significant difference in this. Food culture seems to be firmly aligned along caste and class divides,” writes Patole, a native of Khamgaon, a village in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra. In the past, he has talked about how the communities he grew up in had to clear carcasses of dead animals and eat that flesh.

This doesn’t imply that the Dalit diet comprises only non-vegetarians dishes. Patole has a long list of dishes made of vegetables and pulses, which were once popular in the region. Pithala (a delicacy made of dal flour), kandavani (onion chutney), usal (curries made of legumes), hula (roasted pods), pendapala (made of toor dal), and dal-kanda (dal and onions) are a few recipes in his book. There is also a list of recipes for seasonal and all-season vegetables. There are 12 chapters and the last one deals with the 1972 famine and its impact on the rural food culture of Marathwada. “I have simply penned down my observations since childhood. I have experienced and prepared each and every recipe and other things mentioned in the book,” concludes Patole.

The reviewer is a freelance journalist based in Chennai.

a modern

The researcher is uncomfortable talking about herself but wants to ensure people do not forget her partner Umar Khalid, jailed under UAPA since 2020

1 of 2 In hope Banojyotsna Lahiri is determined to secure justice for her partner. (SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP)

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When Jawaharlal Nehru University Ph.D student Umar Khalid was arrested in September 2020 under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA, his friends and partner Banojyotsna Lahiri were shocked. The shock turned to anger when they watched the police implicate him and other activists in the 2020 Delhi riots that killed 53 people, three-quarters of them Muslim. “We thought that this is such an unjust case,” says Lahiri. “We thought we just had to raise our voices and justice would be delivered.”

But that was four years ago. The case has disappeared from mainstream media. Khalid, who gave speeches asking people to respond to hate by offering love, is in jail with no bail and no trial despite the lack of concrete evidence against him. Lahiri, 40, a researcher who grew up in a family of school teachers and college professors in Kolkata, has abandoned her lifelong dream to be a teacher. “The thing I once wanted to do most has gone out of consideration,” she says of life after the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) movement.

She no longer has the focus required to teach. Instead she works tirelessly, using humour and compassion to keep Khalid’s story alive, sometimes telling funny stories that pit Khalid against her other true love, footballer Lionel Messi, and sometimes, sharing intimate conversations from their weekly meetings at Tihar Jail. Khalid is now a household name despite the aversion of mainstream media, and it is largely thanks to Lahiri and Khalid’s friends. “When you see this kind of injustice happening to your close ones, you cannot go about your life,” she says. “It becomes a part of your life.”

Desire for a just society

Lahiri’s fight for justice is emblematic of the love stories of modern-day dissenters, increasingly under threat across the world. Think of Yulia Navalnaya, who accused Putin of killing her husband Alexei Navalny, the Russian President’s biggest critic. “I urge you to stand next to me. I ask you to share the rage with me,” she said in a video after Navalny mysteriously died in an Arctic prison. Or Sahba Husain, who voluntarily opted to spend two years in house arrest with her partner Gautam Navlakha, journalist and human rights activist, arrested on terror charges in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2018. He was recently released on bail. All these love stories are built on a common desire for a just, equitable society.

Lahiri feels uncomfortable talking about herself. She thinks I’ve called to talk about Khalid. “We don’t want people to forget,” she says. “It’s important that we keep talking.” And that’s exactly what the group of friends does. They organise meetings and discussions; run social media campaigns through accounts dedicated to Khalid and trend hashtags such as #FreeUmar; give interviews or write; and reach out to journalists, artists and legislators to spotlight the delays in the case. Many have expressed solidarity and some — such as MPs Mahua Moitra and Manoj Kumar Jha — have brought up Khalid’s case in Parliament. For the record, she didn’t ask me to write this piece.

Lahiri says the group’s mood is like a Ferris wheel. “Sometimes we get really high when someone speaks out or when Ravish Kumar makes a video. Other times we come down,” she says. “But we keep the wheel moving, we haven’t stopped.” Her survival strategy? Focus on the present and hope about the future, without trying to read it. Also, no discussing sad things. She misses everything about Khalid, even his “annoying carelessness”. “He keeps forgetting things, someone is constantly picking up after him,” she says. “It used to be irritating when he was around, but now that I don’t have to do it, I miss it and feel the void.”

Learning law and legalities

In Lahiri’s life, the weekly jail meeting, when she talks to Khalid across a glass partition on an intercom, takes precedence over everything else. Then there is the whirl of bail applications, and ensuring that someone always shows up when Khalid is produced in court. She switched jobs to ensure she would have more time to devote to the case. “I plan my life according to the case. All of us do,” she says. “I have learned more about law and legalities than an ordinary citizen is required to.” Lahiri tracks UAPA cases in the courts, and the day we speak she is feeling hopeful because the Supreme Court has just reprimanded the National Investigation Agency in another case. The court has emphasised everyone’s right to a speedy trial, adding that if there are delays, the accused should be entitled to bail.

This single-minded focus on Khalid’s case and his long imprisonment have taken a toll on Lahiri’s body and mind. “The stress is constant. I have panic attacks, and anxiety at night. I’ve gained weight, lost sleep and all this has had concurrent effects on my body,” she says, joking that Khalid’s health, on the other hand, has improved because of the daily prison routine and exercise.

These past four years, Lahiri has found hope in student protests, the farmers’ movement and strangers who offer love and support. “Those children of Palestine who still play between the bombardments give me hope,” she says.

Easy like Sunday morning

Berty Ashley

What has July 14 ever done for us?

Deadly peak The Matterhorn in Switzerland is the 12th highest summit in the Alps. (Getty Images/iStock)

1 This day in 1850, Florida physician John Gorrie carried out the very first demonstration of something he had invented. He astonished the guests at a Bastille Day party on a hot evening in Florida by announcing that France gave her citizens what they wanted, and now he could give them what they wanted. What did he do that now comes as part of our daily appliances?

2 In 1865, on July 14, Edward Whymper and his team were the first to complete the ascent of Matterhorn, the iconic alpine mountain. It is iconic due to its near-symmetric pyramidal peak. A chocolate company that has a similarly shaped product uses the mountain in its logo. Which company?

3 On this day in 1902, Peruvian farmer Agustín Lizárraga led a team of workers to search for new lands for cultivation. After hours of scaling difficult terrain, he came across an ancient building. Realising the importance of the discovery, the team inscribed its name and left. Nine years later, an American explorer rediscovered the site and took credit. Which place is this, also known as the ‘Lost City of the Incas’?

4 Born this day in 1910, William Hanna was an American animator who, along with his friend Joseph Barbera, directed seven academy award films and made shows that have been translated into 28 languages. Their first and arguably most popular creation was a duo who rarely says a word but have been entertaining people since 1940. Which duo is this?

5 Robert Zildjian, born this day in 1923, was the second son of Avedis Zildjian III, who was the head of Avedis Zildjian Company, the oldest continuously operating musical instrument manufacturer in the world. Zildjian started his own company called ‘Sabian’ in 1981. Known worldover for their beautiful cymbals, which popular musical instrument does Zildjian and Sabian cater to?

6 On this day in 1942, at the Wardha session of Congress, a resolution was approved that authorised Mahatma Gandhi to campaign for India’s independence from Britain. The name of the campaign came from the unifying call to action demanding ‘An Orderly British Withdrawal’ from India. What was the name of this campaign?

7 In 1960, on July 14, English Zoologist Jane Goodall began her study of great apes in the wild at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania. Her untiring work with one particular species is responsible for us realising that they are also capable of rational thought and emotions such as joy and sorrow, something that was thought to be exclusive to humans till then. What species did she work with?

8 On this day in 1965, spacecraft Mariner 4 took the very first close-up photos of another planet in our universe. The photographs of a cratered, dead planet took approximately six hours to be transmitted back to Earth. Which planet did Mariner 4 give us a pic of?

9 This day in 1983, an arcade video game was released in Japan, beginning a popular franchise. It is often considered as the most successful and renowned gaming franchise with more than 830 million copies sold worldwide. What franchise is this that follows a pair of Italian twin plumbers on their adventures against gorillas and turtles?

10 In 2015, on July 14, NASA’s New Horizons probe performed the first flyby of another planet. This probe took pictures of this celestial neighbour, and thus completed the initial survey of the solar system. Although the object of the photo had lost its original status, it is still a wonderful feat of science. What did New Horizons take pictures of?

A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley

Teachers can play too

Bob Jones

Both vulnerable, South deals

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Keith Hanson, from Boca Raton, Florida, has been one of America’s great bridge teachers for many years. He is also an outstanding player. Hanson was East in today’s deal.

The deal is from a high-stakes rubber bridge game some years ago and the bidding employed in this game was not very sophisticated by today’s standards. It was, however, in line with the way people bid in the good old days. Many readers should recognize it. Against four spades, West cashed his three top hearts to get the defense off to a good start. West shifted to the jack of diamonds, won by declarer in hand with the ace.

South had to play the trump suit for no losers and the most likely way to do that was to find one of the defenders with a doubleton queen of spades. He could also easily handle a singleton queen in the West hand. South started by leading a spade to dummy’s ace and Hanson smoothly dropped the queen! What would you do? Declarer, as would we all, believed that Hanson had just played a singleton queen and that West started with four spades to the 10. South crossed back to his hand with the king of diamonds and led the nine of spades. He played low from dummy and was shocked to see Hanson win with his 10 to defeat the contract. Lovely play!

Bob Jones welcomes readers’ responses sent to Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001.

T.N. Venugopalan

The Kaavus of Kerala are fast disappearing, and with them go rich ecosystems of vibrant biodiversity

The once-ubiquitous Kaavus, Kerala’s sacred groves, are now rare sanctuaries and unlikely places of worship. These groves stand out as unique ecosystems, rich in biodiversity and ecological balance. Unlike temples, they are nestled within forest patches of varying sizes — from a few cents to several acres, as seen in the expansive Iringole Kaavu near Kochi.

The stone idols are typically placed on cement platforms without roofs, exposed to the natural elements, with only a few protected within structures. Thus, the deities exist in harmony with Mother Nature.

Dedicated primarily to various incarnations of Nagaraja, the serpent deity, such as Ananthan, Seshan, Kambakan, Thakshakan, Vasuki and Kaaliyan, and Naga Yakshi (the Serpent Queen), these groves are serene abodes where gods, plants, trees, reptiles, birds, and other creatures coexist peacefully alongside perennial waterbodies. Ancient Kaavus symbolise the symbiosis of divinity and nature, pulsating with life.

They are profound reflections of cultural ethos, traditions, beliefs, and environmental guardianship, where the natural and supernatural realms intertwine.

Kerala was once dotted with thousands of such sacred groves. Myths and legends have been woven around them with the prime aim of protecting the forest wealth by bestowing a sacred image to them. Regrettably, many have been wantonly destroyed in recent decades to make way for “development”. The fact that most groves are privately owned and maintained without government support has left them vulnerable.

Encroachment on public lands and the breakdown of joint families in Kerala spelled doom for many sacred groves, bringing their number to fewer than 1,000 from 10,000 a couple of decades ago.

Rich vegetation

The ecosystem of a Kaavu, complete with ponds and streams inhabited by frogs, fish, snakes, and other aquatic life, is supported by an array of herbs, shrubs, and towering trees. The water, filtered through this rich vegetation, is believed to possess remarkable healing properties.

Our ancestors revered the Kaavus, recognising the ancient forests as evolved sanctuaries that have endured for centuries, and understood the imperative to preserve these ecosystems for future generations.

Kaavus are home to hundreds of rare plants which are of tremendous ecological and religious importance.

A few among them are Nagakesar; white dammar; Indian white oak; Indian devil tree; Spanish cherry; Chaulmoogra tree; wild jack fruit; cannon ball tree; Siris tree; Alexandrian laurel; Bael tree; Niepa bark tree; and Chinese chaste tree; and small plants such as Veldt grape and wild asparagus.

The entire Kaavu is shaded by a thick canopy, allowing beams of sunlight to gently filter through and create irregular spots on the ground.

Kaavus are associated with several festivals and rituals, all of which have environmental focus. The community takes care in the maintenance and conservation of the sacred groves.

The usual rituals involve Kalamezhuthu, Pulluvan Pattu and Sarppam Pattu, Sarppabali, Ayilyam Puja and offering of noorum paalum to the Nagaraja and Nagayakshi. In essence, the rituals associated with the sacred groves are rooted in spirituality, cultural expression and protection of natural habitat.

We are living in an era where nature faces the ever-present threat of reckless destruction, and the surviving sacred groves are reminders for the need to protect and maintain these vital components of the ecosystem from disintegration. When we destroy them, we are destroying our own cultural heritage and rich biodiversity for ever. Of late, the Kerala Forest Department is extending financial assistance to temples and individual owners for the protection of the sacred groves.

It is high time the government undertook a mapping exercise to document and protect the indigenous flora and fauna of our sacred groves. School students should be encouraged to embark on a bio-blitz by inviting environmentalists and scientists as observers to document the biodiversity of sacred groves.

An ocean of plastics

Somnath Sarkar

Non-biodegradable refuse from IT and other industrial sectors, besides homes, pose an existential threat

There is a real-felt need to go beyond mere tokenism of staging earth-hours now and then to stoke dormant concerns on the world’s increasingly fragile ecology.

Mere gestures will not go far in appeasing nature, that, to quote Tennyson, is becoming “red in tooth and claw”. Proliferation of natural disasters across the world serves as a chilling reminder of dangers arising from tampering with the fragile ecosystem in the name of development. Global warming is just one aspect of the problem, with unsustainable build-up of carbon as the proceeds of unbridled global economic growth and industrialisation. Increased infusion of plastics, much of it non-biodegradable and unrecycled, in IT and other industrial sectors and in day-to-day life poses another existential threat.

Much of the unmanaged plastic and e-waste, particularly of developing economies, end up in landfills or oceans, with alarming repercussions.

In 2019, a whale was washed ashore in the Philippines and died thereafter, with necropsy revealing 40 kg of plastic trash in its stomach. A similar tragedy occurred in Greece in 2021. These incidents portend the looming unmanaged plastic and e-waste threat, requiring concerted action by all stakeholders for optimal recycling to check waste build-up in landfills and oceans. Another dimension of the unmanaged plastic threat is its toxic leaching as microplastic and nanoplastic into farm soil, infiltrating agri-products en route to humans.

In India, while the government needs to formulate more innovative and dynamic strategies to tackle the multi-dimensional problem, the onus is not merely on government or industry to devise solutions.

There is a case for the end-consumer to contribute with steps such as shunning single-use plastics. Additionally, efficient and optimal plastic recycling could substantially reduce energy costs for production.

Regarding e-waste, lifestyle impact of providing and using IT needs to factor both upstream impact of supply and downstream impact of disposal.

Unsung heroes

Cheera Das

Nurses are the epitome of tolerance, kindness and perseverance

Ever since I remember I have been too good at making a scene at the hospital, and so I avoid hospital visits unless it is life-threatening. The very sight of a nurse carrying the medical tray containing the needles and syringes pushes me over the edge and I become hysterical.

A few weeks ago, I was admitted to a hospital for emergency surgery. As prophesied, I started my drama upon hearing the stride of the nurses outside my door. I was expecting a battalion of nurses carrying big needles ready to fire at me. But to my surprise, an empty-handed nurse opened the door and greeted me with a smile. She asked me how I felt and if I slept well. Her empty hands and her smile instantly lifted my mood. I felt peaceful in my mind. But in no time, I heard myself whining about all my fears and pain. She patiently listened to me and assured me that everything would be fine. A few minutes later, she was back with the medical tray, and upon realising my fear she held my hands for a while and gently convinced me to stay calm. I realised that her kindness and considerate behaviour did have a profound effect on my fear. Later, during the entire pre- and post-surgery period, I was looked after by a squad of diligent nurses who stayed calm and composed even when I was being dramatic. How they treated me during my tough time helped me remain unruffled emotionally and physically to a great extent. Until that day, I never realised the significance of nurses in our lives. A kind-hearted nurse’s positive impact on a patient’s physical and emotional well-being is ineffable.

These angelic humans should be appreciated and bowed down to for taking good care of everyone who comes to them with the utmost care and attention. Their tolerance, kindness, optimism, and perseverance shall not go unnoticed.

No cash, only gifts in kind

Shankar Gopalkrishnan

In the days of yore, a wedding gift was simple. You took a postal envelope and inserted a 100 rupee note. That done, a one-rupee coin was added: ₹101 was the standard wedding gift since time immemorial. You made sure that along with the congratulatory note to the couple, you clearly indicated the name of the donor.

A key aspect in an Indian wedding was a sincere accountant. He diligently jotted down the name of the donor and the amount of the wedding gift. At the next wedding, this time in the donor’s family, the exact amount was tendered as his gift. This mutual give-and-take, accurate to the penny, ensured you stayed rooted to the dictum: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be!”

In modern times, a cash gift is considered inelegant. It is here that we hit a roadblock. If it is jewellery, the bride’s tastes may not match yours. You explore other alternatives: gadgets, culinary appliances, and other artefacts. A safe bet is a framed picture of Lord Ganesha. After the wedding, the couple could be stranded with over 30 versions of Ganesha, enough to set up an entire showroom.

But when should you give the gift to the couple? Once the maangalya dhaaranam ceremony is over, there is a mad rush. People jump onto the stage, to congratulate the couple and hand over the gift. The groom and the bride are clueless: their hands are full, with gifts thrust from all directions. A court has recently decreed, that until saptapadi completed, the marriage is null and void. Evidently, such intricate details are yet to enter Indian consciousness.

American weddings follow a different format. The couple sit together and create an elaborate gift list from home appliances to a kitchen spoon. The price of each item is mentioned. The list is advertised online. Each guest chooses the item in keeping with his budget. Once a guest has made the selection, that item is out of bounds for others.

Beyond smoke and glass

Deepthi Sasidharan

From Hyderabad’s collection of huqqas to rare pikdans in London, a new book tracks the history of glassmaking associated with the Mughal Empire

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2 of 8 Cadence of a time gone by (Clockwise from far left) The book cover; huqqa base from Awadh or Bengal; lota from northern India; huqqa base from Bengal; plate from Awadh or Bengal; Tara Desjardins; ewer from Awadh or Bengal; and a bottle from Lucknow. (LACMA, Musée Guimet, and Toledo Museum of Art) LACMA - The Los Angeles County M

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In a lyrical painting by the master Nainsukh, set in rolling mustard fields abloom in yellow, an aesthete Mian is on horseback with his gorgeous lady in red. The painting is spectacular because in the 18th century, with electronic speakers still in the future, two musicians accompany them, singing and drumming, while another bearer walks alongside holding a decorated glass hubble-bubble that the gentleman redolently smokes.

I have seen so many Indian paintings with huqqa bearers, but never thought much of them till I saw the luxurious gilded green glass base that adorns the cover of Mughal Glass – A History of Glassmaking in India. The ‘hubble-bubble’ is an onomatopoeic name for huqqas, the smoking apparatus that was floor- or table-set and one of the many Mughal pleasure pursuits. Its component parts — typically a globular or bell-shaped base, a tobacco holder and a mouthpiece — were fashioned from precious stones, metals and sometimes glass. Demerits of smoking apart, if anything, a huqqa always slowed the pace of a painting. Its presence meant leisure, refinement and a cadence of a time gone by.

Born of heat, used as luxury

The book by Tara Desjardins, curator of South Asia at Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art, presents as a catalogue the niche oeuvre of glass associated with the Mughal Empire (1526-1858) — easily some of the most beautiful objects made anywhere in time.

Glass as a material, with its ephemeral fragility, has often been relegated to the shadows by scholars of this period. Earlier books such as Mark Zebrowski’s Gold, Silver & Bronze from Mughal India brought ewers, huqqas and paandans into the popular imagination, as he painstakingly referenced these utility items from miniature paintings to show how they were used. That didactic approach widened the ability to look at historical objects, and Mughal Glass, for the first time, expands our view on decorative glassmaking for luxury utilitarian objects. Bursting with sprays of water lilies or nodding scarlet heads of poppies, the range of colours is incredible — from lapis blue to emerald green and my favourite, a deep purple.

Desjardins brings together a decade of focused scholarship in this compilation as she traces the many millennia of the Indian subcontinent’s romance with glass through beads, bangles and glazed objects. Trade exchanges with ancient glass-blowing civilisations as well as archaeological excavations in the region have also been touched upon.

Drawn from museums such as the V&A in London and the MET in New York, auction house databases of Christies and Sotheby’s, and private collections in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, the lavishly illustrated book has collections of surviving decorated huqqa bases, bottles, ewers, cups and saucers. Refreshingly, the author has also included items from a cross-section of Indian sources, including the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad, and the National Museum in New Delhi, making it possible to compare the indigenous collections with international hierarchies.

The book also examines vitreous objects with art history tools such as X-ray spectrometry, making it a firm bedrock for future explorations on the subject.

An X-ray to tell stories

It is the inclusion of exhaustive scientific analysis — something fundamental to the study of historic objects and typically missing in Indian art historical studies — that forms a refreshing and key component of this book. For instance, the use of energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry in the study of glass enables an elemental analysis of inherent components such as lime and alumina. It is an exciting research area because it helps determine geographic sources of both primary glass manufacturing in India and manufacturers who exported to the country.

An example is a huqqa base, now at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., believed to originally be from West Bengal or Bihar in the 18th century. An X-ray fluorescence analysis revealed a lead on the major element in the glass, and the museum entry of origin was changed to ‘United Kingdom’ as the object was established as a Jacobite style. In other words, while the shape of the glass huqqa suggested it was made in India, science established that it was manufactured in England for export to India.

In a rapidly changing 17th-18th century world of expanding trade connections, mercantile exchange and commerce that defined the fate of nations, Desjardins presents glass as a commodity and a form of artistic expression.

Around the world in glass

The art historian also brings the study of form, technique, and decorative styles to determine uniqueness of historic objects. Here, Desjardins’ scholarship shines. And as she brings together dozens of glass objects “from California to Kuwait, Denmark to Delhi, identifying and creating a corpus of material that had previously been unknown to scholars of Islamic and Asian art”, a remarkable book emerges. Who knew that Salar Jung Museum holds the “single largest collection of glass huqqa bases in the world”? Or that the indigenous metal pikdans or spittoons, so common in this part of the world, would be made in free-blown glass, gilded, and find their way to museum collections in London and Doha.

On a more wistful note, I cannot help but notice that most of the beautiful glass forms in this book are not made anymore. Glass that kings, queens and the well-to-do cherished, born of heat and forever fragile, I am glad they are preserved in institutions and the pages of this magnificent compilation.

Published by Roli Books, the book

is priced ₹2,995.

The writer is the founder-director of Eka Archiving Services.

A different kind of story book

Menaka Raman

When a Nobel Prize-winning economist introduces the concept of poverty to children, it is anything but the expected

1 of 3 Hard truths in bold colours Illustrations from the book; and (below) economist Esther Duflo. (Bryce Vickmark and special arrangement)

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Last year, I met the members of a Gurugram-based children’s book club to discuss a picture book I’d written about child rights. While talking about the right to education, one tween said, “If poor children don’t go to school because they need to fetch water or work, they and their families are choosing not to get an education. How can they complain then?”

I was reminded of this while reading Abhijit Banerjee’s foreword in economist Esther Duflo and illustrator Cheyenne Olivier’s recently released, Poor Economics for Kids. He writes: “... the discussion in the world about the poor is wrong-headed because it ignores just how hard it is to be poor and therefore blames them for the problems of their own lives.”

Originally published in France, the English translation was released in India last week by Juggernaut (₹999), with five of the stories translated into Hindi, Bengali, Kannada,Tamil, and Marathi. It will also be published as individual picture books by Pratham Books.

Expanding the S curve

Duflo and Banerjee’s lifetime work in trying to understand the specific problems that come with poverty, and to find solutions, earned the husband and wife team, along with American economist Michael Kremer, the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics. A few years earlier, their research also came out as a book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2011), which revealed why the poor, despite having the same aspirations and abilities as anyone else, end up with entirely different lives.

“I realised it was the real-life stories that people found appealing in Poor Economics, and that they understood certain concepts after reading them,” Duflo, a professor of economics at MIT and Collège de France, tells me over a Zoom call. She recalls reading books on poverty as a child; they stayed with her despite being filled with stereotypes. But the fact that they stayed with her made Duflo want to write for children, an audience for whom very little has been crafted around the topic of poverty.

Through 10 loosely interconnected stories, young readers are introduced to Nilou, Tsongai, Imai, Afia, Bibir and a host of other characters as they go about their daily lives, looking for ways to overcome issues such as food insecurity, climate change, deforestation, and under-resourced schools. They are composites based on the lives and experiences of people from around the world. Duflo says it was important to her that the tales were not tied to a particular place, culture, religion or race, and so they are set in an unnamed, imaginary village free of cultural and geographical markers.

The characters are rendered in a startling array of skin tones: from yellow to green to blue by Olivier. The illustrations are filled with bold shapes and colours. The trees are striped, the ground is full of patterns, and is often curved. “I took the S curve from poor economics and turned it into a beautiful and meaningful element [the ground] that evokes the highs and lows in the stories and characters’ lives,” Olivier explains. The S curve, I found on further research, represents the relationship between a person’s income now and their future income based on the investments they can make in their health, education, and overall well-being.

‘Young people are

part of the solution’

Was it hard turning decades of work into stories for children? Duflo admits that writing for youngsters is much harder than writing for adults, but that “it was clear to me what needed to be touched upon for each topic and the idea for some stories, like Nilou’s, has been within me for a long time”.

‘Nilou Skips School’ is about a young girl who is unable to keep up with her school lessons and plays truant. Her under-resourced teacher struggles to help the students, but a social worker trains the older children of the village to teach Nilou and her friends.

The stories are non-didactic and devoid of heavy-handed platitudes, instead using dialogue and a succinct narrative style to move things along. An essay at the end of each story explains the underlying concept, opening up the books to a wider group of children. “Younger ones can have the stories read to them by an adult, and leave it at that, while older children can read the story with the accompanying essay on their own,” says Duflo.

So what does she want readers to take away from the stories? “Too often in children’s literature, the child is either an innocent victim or they are in charge of saving the whole world,” she replies. “We wanted to make clear that young people are part of the solution. There are things you can do, but you’re never alone. You’re part of a society.”

Creating empathy

The creators are aware that in India, a book for children in English will most likely reach readers of far greater privilege and wealth than the characters in the book. “While the book’s reader may not have had similar experiences, we hope the stories will make them realise that these children are not all that different to them,” Duflo says.

And perhaps that is why the young tween reader I met at the book club should read these stories. To understand that Nilou, Afia and Neso are not that different from him, that they have as much a right to live a life of dignity and quality as he does. That understanding and empathy is perhaps the first step in the journey towards bridging the gap that exists between them.

The writer is a children’s book author and columnist based in Bengaluru.

SM/SM

- All is not well at Changthang

- Taking Baul music places

- Appeal from a chair person

- green Humour

Tsewang Namgail

As the summer rush peaks in July, a conservationist looks at how rash development and irresponsible tourism are threatening Ladakh’s unique animals and environment

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3 of 3 Threats loom large (Clockwise from left) Bikers at Khardung La pass; construction work near Zanskar river for the Shinku La tunnel, which will provide all-weather road connectivity to Ladakh; and a snow leopard. (PTI and Getty Images)annop24

The Himalayan mountains are ecologically sensitive, culturally rich, socially vibrant, yet politically ignored.

The wildlife that inhabit them are crafted intricately by the process of evolution, responding to extreme altitudes and temperatures. The Hanle valley in eastern Ladakh near the Indo-China border is one such eco-sensitive region. It is bestowed with a variety of unique and threatened wild animals such as the Pallas’s cat, Tibetan sand fox, snow leopard, and black-necked crane, among others. It is part of the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary.

Located at about 250 kilometres from Leh, the capital town, Hanle is an idyllic valley at an average altitude of 4,500 metres above sea level. It is inhabited by Changpa nomadic herders, who rear sheep, pashmina goats, horses and yaks, and use the rangeland’s resources ingeniously, following a rotational grazing system to promote plant regeneration.

I have fond memories of the low hills and shallow vales of this until-recently obscure valley. In the early 2000s, I had studied the Tibetan gazelle, an animal that earned the epithet ‘ping-pong ball’ because of its bouncing gait while running. Back then, domestic tourists needed an Inner Line Permit and foreigners were simply not allowed, except in rare cases.

Dark skies and observatories

That has changed. In 2020, the Border Roads Organisation built, arguably, the world’s highest motorable road crossing Umling La (19,300 feet). Today, this attracts thousands of tourists, especially bikers. And a myriad small hotels, guest houses and homestays have mushroomed to accommodate them.

Speaking of development, over two decades ago, in 2001, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) set up an astronomical observatory in Hanle to survey celestial bodies. Over the years, IIA expanded its project, and several other institutes, including the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, installed telescopes to study gamma rays. Given the potential of the valley as a star-gazing site, it has also been declared a Dark Sky Reserve, a site where the nocturnal environment is exceptional — the first of its kind in India.

Being close to the Indo-China border, Hanle is also a strategically important area from a defence standpoint. Several military outposts have been established here after the recent skirmishes between the Chinese and Indian forces.

Rash bikers and

irresponsible tourism

Recently, the valley rose to prominence for other reasons. One of them: the increased sighting of the Tibetan sand fox. People also started seeing the Pallas’s cat, nicknamed the world’s grumpiest cat, on a regular basis, along with the black-necked cranes.

The wild animals, however, are at the receiving end of these developments. Some threats, such as plastic garbage, are insidious, while others, such as the proliferation of stray dogs, have an immediate impact. Reports have suggested that dogs prey on the eggs and chicks of cranes, which suffered a drastic population decline in the last decade or so.

The dogs also chase other wild animals, including the Pallas’s cats, Tibetan sand fox and bar-headed goose, deplete the prey of the snow leopard and wolf, and spread diseases. They even hybridise with the Tibetan wolf, thereby diluting the latter’s gene pool.

Meanwhile, irresponsible tourists ride roughshod over pasturelands, destroying the topsoil, which takes hundreds of years to form, given the minimal moisture and organic content in the soil. These, in tandem with global warming and water scarcity, severely compromise the rangeland’s health, threatening the existence of the nomads in the region.

Some go off-road to chase wild animals, or drive their SUVs into waterbodies to assess the performances of their vehicles. Blaring music and glaring headlights disturb the animals. And furthermore, rash driving leads to fatal accidents, killing many wild animals on the spot. The Pallas’s cat is especially vulnerable, because the roads run along cliff bases, bisecting the cats’ habitat.

A Frankenstein

monster in the making?

Tourism in the region might soon turn into a Frankenstein monster. Government efforts to promote rural tourism haven’t been well thought through. For example, one of the criteria for receiving a homestay package is a flush toilet. Responding to this, people have been on a flush-toilet construction spree without understanding the ecological implications. With a lack of septic tanks, all the sewage flows into the ground. This exposes the villagers to waterborne diseases.

Traditional dry-composting toilets, which use minimal water and generate much-needed manure for the agricultural fields, are being discouraged. The irony is that Ladakh is aspiring to be an organic state, but the organic manure is being flushed down the sewer. Organic fertilizer is brought in from far-off places such as Haryana in trucks, which spew massive amounts of carbon that settle on glaciers leading to their rapid melting.

Retreating glaciers are already affecting water availability in the region. Springs in the interior parts are drying up, and more and more villagers and wild animals are coming down to the Indus river for water. Adding to the problem is campers along the river. They wash their kitchenwares and dump organic matter in the water, leading to an explosion of invertebrates, which, in turn, depletes dissolved oxygen. The warming temperature then affects the quality of water.

These are just some of the ecological issues besetting the people and wild animals of the Changthang region. They need to be attended to and resolved swiftly, if we want to have better destinations for tourists, better living spaces for nomadic herders, and better habitats for the wild animals.

The writer heads the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust.

Taking Baul music places

Debasree Purkayastha

Parvathy Baul hopes her upcoming biopic Joyguru , introduced recently at the Cannes Film festival, will help youngsters find the ability to celebrate small wins in life

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2 of 2 Life in devotion Parvathy Baul (left) with director Soumyajit Majumdar; and (below) in action at a concert. (Special Arrangement)

Back in April, when renowned folk singer and performer Parvathy Baul took to the stage in New York’s Times Square — nupur (anklets) on her feet, ektara and dug-dugi in each hand, and twirling to the rhythm as she sang ‘Kaala Re...’, an invocation to Krishna — the onlookers were captivated. They may have known nothing of the singer or her craft, but Parvathy knows how to draw a crowd, with a chant for a hook line or by breaking into a Q&A. It’s never a one-sided dive into devotion; she takes the audience along on a journey of spiritual awakening.

Among the most relevant and influential artistes of the folk genre, Parvathy has been a practitioner of Baul sangeet for over two decades now. “Music flows through me,” says the 48-year-old over a video call, days after the announcement of her biopic, Joyguru, at the Cannes Film Market. Helmed by actor-director Soumyajit Majumdar, the project is set to be an India-U.S.-U.K.-France co-production and will commence filming next year. “There is a large community in France as well as in other parts of the globe, devoted and dedicated to Baul music, even more so than people in India,” says Majumdar. The fascinating story of the singer has already generated a huge buzz, he says, adding that acclaimed cinematographer Ravi Varman has been signed on for the project. The movie promises to feature Baul music by Parvathy as well as other songs filmed across India and abroad.

A piece of heritage

A largely oral tradition of preaching mysticism, UNESCO calls Baul music “a masterpiece... and intangible heritage of humanity”. The musical genre has been in practice for centuries in the eastern part of the country.

Parvathy, born in Fakira village in Assam’s North Lakhimpur, was pursuing her degree in arts at Shantiniketan when she decided to follow the traditional and ancient path of Baul music, an immersive art form that blends elements of Sufism and Vaishnavism. “I was engulfed in alchemy; it was astounding,” she smiles. “Baul is transcending.”

Parvathy hopes that through the film, people, especially the youth, will find the ability to celebrate the small wins in life. The artist enjoys biopics as a genre, she says. Me Vasantrao (2022), a Marathi movie based on the life of classical musician Vasantrao Deshpande, is one of her favourite films from recent times.

An avid reader who lives the disciplined life of an artist and “yogi”, Parvathy stresses the need for the younger generation to find hope in despair. “Music has the ability to transport you to divinity. And for those who are glued to the screen instead of nature, it can be truly helpful and educational,” she says. But the singer acknowledges the role that technology has played in keeping this niche folk music relevant today. Through online classes and workshops, she has been connecting with those interested in learning about this traditional practice.

Embracing the philosophy

Majumdar first became interested in Parvathy’s story when he chanced upon an audiobook by her while researching for his debut feature film Homecoming (2022). “I have been an ardent admirer of Baul music and philosophy, but it is through the book that I started to fathom the power of meditation, and it also showed me the path as an artist,” he says over a phone call. He then began to follow her work and develop a script.

What does it take to become a musical maven in Baul, I ask Parvathy. “Years of practice. And I mean not just the music and dance, but also embracing the lifestyle and philosophy so fully that it becomes second nature to you. I write and compose music as it flows through me, and it happens because I have truly immersed myself in the art form,” she says, before breaking into ‘Kaala Re’, her favourite song.

Appeal from a chair person

When I listed my luxury recliner on OLX, the offers I got were lessoffers and more like insults

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Regular readers of this column might recollect that in June 2021, during the COVIDlockdown, smack in the middle of the second wave, I bought a chair. Not just anychair but an expensive, ultra-luxury ‘Comfy Recliner’ with high density Italian foam,Malaysian padding, and push-button footrest. I even got a couple of mails from youguys attempting(and failing) to shame me for my insensitivity, which allegedly shonethrough inmy selfish urge to pamper myself at a time of global adversity.

In my defence, let me just say that people have different waysof coping with theemotional turmoil induced by a combination of life-threatening pandemic, incomeloss, and extended solitary confinement (with Wife and Kattabomman).

I admit it’s not particularly bright to respond to a salary cut by splurging on a sofa. But at least Iwasn’tinto online gambling, which I’mtold took off around this period.I honestly thought it would make me feel better. Unlike some people who grow upand become chairpersons, I was born a chair person. My mother tells me when I wasa baby, there were only two ways they could get me to stop crying — promise meHindu Rashtra, orput me in my father’s ‘easy chair’.Do we even get ‘easy chairs’anymore? From time to timeI search for easy chairs online and the only results I getare ‘lounge chairs’. For those who don’tknow the difference, lounge chairs are toeasy chairs what Mother of Democracy is to Democracy — only one of them isfriendly to your spine.

That sinking feeling

At the showroom, the recliner looked, and felt, like the “ergonomic perfection”promised by the sales guy. But within minutes of home delivery, as I plopped into it, Igot a sinking feeling. Not the kind the brochure meant when it spoke of “sinking intoa cosy embrace crafted to deliver the perfect balance of bounciness and firmness forextended relaxation”.I tried the recliner at every angle known to mathematics.Bouncy firmness eluded my spine in all of them. I had dreamed of putting my feet upon the footrest and reading all six volumes of Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle.But sitting in the recliner became a struggle in itself, possiblybigger than anyKnausgård may have faced in his life.

Kattabomman, however, loved the recliner, though not in a way a recliner mightwant to be loved. He liked to crash test its vaunted bounciness and firmness byjumping on it. When I say, “jumping on it”,imagine an Olympic-grade long jumperwith an extended run-up starting in the far corner of the kitchen, gathering pacethrough the dining area, accelerating through the living room and taking an abruptleap at the bedroom doorway to land bottom-first into the “cosy embrace”.Andimagine this long-jumper bringing home three more long-jumpers aged seven, eightand nine, and practising nearly everyday for three years.

On the battlefield

The recliner was a sturdy thing – way sturdierthan our bridges, airport canopies andtemple roofs. But it wasn’tbuilt to withstand daily abuse from a band of hyperkineticbrats. It soon lost one leg, then a knee, and finally its lower back caved in, making itdangerously unstable for the orthopaedicallychallenged. It continued to earn itskeep serving as Katta’s favouriteperch and playstation — until the day Wife revokedits residence permit, on the grounds that it was an “ugly piece of broken furnituregathering dust and pests”.It had to go.

To my astonishment, no one wanted it. I listed it on OLX. But the offers I got werelessoffers and more likeinsults. I offered it to the raddiwala. He wanted it for free. Itold him it was his for100 bucks, less than 1/500th of what I had paid for it. He nevergot back. Last month, in desperation, I asked the watchman. He agreed to take itprovided I paid for transporting it to his home.

After spending a small fortune buying this recliner, and never having used it, therewas no way I was paying for its deportation. For now, we’vedumped it outside ourdoor, with a notice saying anyone interested can take it. It hasbeen three weeks, andit’sstill there, attracting dust, eyebrows, and a self-sustaining population of free-ranging Namibian lizards. Soif you know someone interested, do let me know. Also,in case you happen to come across a real, old-school easy chair in good condition,youknow what to do.

Rohan Chakravarty

Table of Contents

The Hindu Jul 14, 2024

Regional

INDIA bloc wins 10 of 13 seats in Assembly bypolls; BJP gets 2

Chance treasure discovery sparks frenzy

Italian police free 33 Indian farm workers from ‘slavery’

DMK gets thumping victory in Vikravandi

Indian man among 3 dead in Nepal twin bus tragedy

Young woman killed after bike hits water-filled pothole

‘M.P. Narasimhan was keen on spreading knowledge of culture, civilisational values’

Interrogation of suspects in BSP leader Armstrong’s murder case under way: police

Ilaiyaraaja concert-goers will get exclusive passes: CMRL

Delay in flight to Bengaluru due to bad weather irks flyers

Woman killed after iron barricade falls on her in Taramani

Truck driver killed after container falls on vehicle at port in Ennore

Politics, gang rivalries and revenge murders

Many parts of Tamil Nadu will continue to receive evening showers till July 19

Madras High Court Chief Justice’s post to regain its lost credence after a six-year hiatus

ICAR-CIBA denies claims of CRZ violations at Muttukadu station

Human rights awareness lacking among citizens: Thirumavalavan

‘Complete flood mitigation works before NE monsoon’

Increase budget allocation for effective implementation of NEP, urges ex-V-C

Rally taken out in city to mark World Population Day

Quaide Milleth Award presented to N. Ram and Abusaleh Shariff

AIADMK’s decision to boycott largely benefits the DMK this byelection

Bypoll result proves Tamil Nadu will need DMK forever: Stalin

CEO Sahoo should resign for failing to do his job, says Anbumani

Illicit liquor offences: amended law making punishment more strict comes into force

Vikravandi bypoll: DMK wins by a thumping margin

‘Savukku’ Shankar remanded in judicial custody till July 23

EPS decries searches at premises of party cadre

CM to expand breakfast scheme tomorrow

National

High drama as CPI(M) expels leader accused of corruption

Price cut of premium liquor in Karnataka put off by a few weeks as move hits roadblock

Kerala chalks out master plan to end human-wildlife conflict at ₹645 cr.

Off-roaders on prohibited trail in Idukki get stuck, police seize 22 vehicles

Sanitation worker goes missing in Kerala canal

One more BRS MLA joins Congress in Telangana

Valmiki scam case: ex-Minister sent to ED custody for 6 days

Telangana to host AI meet

More migrant workers assaulted in Meghalaya

2000 cricket match-fixing scandal: Delhi court names Chawla as main conspirator

Opposition asks Mohan Majhi govt. to take action against Governor’s son

J&K parties decry ban on paying tributes at martyrs’ graveyard

Police register FIR on lewd remarks made about wife of Kirti Chakra awardee

Stage set for opening of Jagannath temple’s Ratna Bhandar today

SC seeks report on gram nyayalayas from States, HCs

INDIA bloc wins 10 seats in Assembly bypolls

Indian among 3 dead in Nepal twin bus tragedy

Chance treasure discovery sparks frenzy

2 J&K clerics booked over ‘inflammatory speeches’

Bypoll results an indication of BJP’s decline: Congress leaders

BJP loses in its Matua strongholds in Bengal as Trinamool sweeps all four seats in bypolls

Congress and J&K parties oppose expanding administrative role of L-G

Congress’s K.C. Venugopal receives spyware attack alert

BJP wins Amarwara bypolls; Cong. alleges ‘misuse’ of power

Parody account’s post on X lands YouTuber in legal trouble

Independent candidate wins Rupauli Assembly seat

Soren, wife Kalpana meet Sonia Gandhi

Mumbai will be made global fintech capital, Maharashtra economic powerhouse: PM

6 lakh fake pollution-trading certificates unearthed in 3 States

Villages along China border to get 4G, tourist circuits, all-weather roads, says Home Ministry

Bangladesh team explores Kolkata port for transshipment

Yogi Adityanath inaugurates Uttar Pradesh Mango Festival

India to host a summit for entertainment sector in Nov.

Chandipura virus: four children die in Gujarat

Navi Mumbai airport to be operational by March 2025

Cybercrimes can derail development, says Dhankhar

Profile 1

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Sweet slice of Assam

Business

‘Tech advances likely to pose challenges to firms’

‘There’s traction in subscription model among transit professionals in tier 1 cities’

TVS Motor to invest in new products, technologies to drive topline growth: MD

ITC’s Fortune to add hotel rooms in TN

‘Chola making strides towards becoming a financial powerhouse’

‘Govt. mulls handing over MTNL operations to BSNL’

Centre denies extension to BSNL Chairman Purwar

‘Domestic investors infused $638 mn in realty in Apr.-June’

Science

Nobel laureate supports India’s pursuit for a neutrino lab

Nipah monoclonal antibody trials may begin in India in 2025

Air pollution harms pollinators more than pests, study finds

Heart rate

Experiment reveals barley’s climate-driven adaptation

New atmospheric particles form in upper troposphere

Island vertebrates are at risk of human-driven extinction

Edit

Why is militancy on the rise in Jammu?

How is India’s hunt for critical minerals going?

The SC ruling on portrayal of disability in films

Foreign

Argentina seeks ‘triple crown’ but Colombia will aim for an upset

Iran President-elect Pezeshkian ready for ‘constructive dialogue’ with Europe

Massive Israeli strike in Gaza leaves 90 dead, 300 injured

Exiled Tibetan leadership welcomes Biden’s assent to the Resolve Tibet Act

Anahat progresses to the third round

Imran, wife acquitted in marriage case; jail release more likely

Russian warships arrive in China for joint naval exercises

Argentina President declares Hamas ‘terrorist organisation’

Pakistan says its $7 billion relief package will be last deal from IMF

Five civilians, two officials killed by Russian attacks in Ukraine

N. Korea threatens to boost nuclear arsenal after U.S.-South Korea deal

Sports

Zestful Alcaraz stands in the way of a resilient Djokovic

Ice-cool Krejcikova aces Paolini test to win tennis’ holy grail

Jaiswal and Gill’s masterclass secures Men in Blue a series victory

‘Novotna told me that I had the potential to be a champion’

I have to remember today is still a good day, says Paolini

Krejcikova joins the elite list of French-Wimbledon champions

Alcaraz will win many more Slams, hopefully not on Sunday: Djokovic

Princess of Wales set to watch the Wimbledon men’s final

SCOREBOARD

The smart money is on Spain to claim a fourth crown but England can deliver the sucker punch

Anirudh gives Tamizhans first victory of the season

Around THE CITY

Santissimo primed to come good in Mayor’s Trophy

Isnt She Beautiful takes the honours

Pogacar extends lead

LiVE TELECAST

Engagements

SM

in the interest of small fry

The India of Anita Desai’s dreams

Centuries of Korean diaspora

The Hindu Books Crossword

chronicles of a quick-change artist

Dalit food habits

Banojyotsna Lahiri: a modern love story

Easy like Sunday morning

Teachers can play too

The sacred acres in mortal danger

An ocean of plastics

Unsung heroes

No cash, only gifts in kind

Beyond smoke and glass

A different kind of story book

SM/SM

All is not well at Changthang

Taking Baul music places

Appeal from a chair person

green Humour