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Front Page

- 116, mostly women & kids, die in Hathras satsang stampede

- Monsoon covers entire country 6 days in advance

- A restaurant for ‘trainee’ jumbos

- 5 Maoists killed in Bastar gunbattle

- Murder case witness shot dead

- Game zone fire: Cash, gold worth `18cr seized at ex-officer premises

- HC: India’s majority will become minority if conversions don’t stop

- HC judge to visit Ridge July 17 to verify felling and afforestation claims

- Abducted at age 9, youth returns home after 16 yrs

- TEARS TO CHEERS FOR RONALDO

- IN THE COURTS

- Teen files 1st case in city under snatching law

- ‘Poverty’ down to 8.5% from 21%’

- Former RAW chief appointed addl NSA

- 3 friends die in crash trying to save cow

- PM hits back in LS: Congress a ‘parasite’, Rahul ‘childish’

- ‘Varna’ charge in Kharge spat with RS chair

- After yrs, BJP may field a Muslim for bypoll in UP

- Restore expunged remarks, Rahul writes to Speaker

- Sebi sends Hindenburg notice on Adani report ‘manipulation’

- `670cr cost rise for LNJP block: LG for CVC probe

- NEET-PG likely to be conducted in August

116, mostly women & kids, die in Hathras satsang stampede

Yogi: Will Probe If It’s Accident Or Conspiracy

Deepak.Lavania@timesgroup.com

Agra: At least 116 people, mostly women and children, died and over 300 were left injured in a major stampede during a religious congregation (satsang) in Hathras district of UP on Tuesday.

The number of fatalities was confirmed by UP chief secretary Manoj Kumar Singh and director general of police Prashant Kumar who reached the site late in the evening to take stock of the situation. The tragedy took place when religious preacher ‘Vishwa Hari Bhole Baba’ was addressing his followers at a specially erected tent in the middle of villages Fhulrai and Mughalghadi in Sikandra Rau area.

It was not immediately clear what led to the stampede, with many theories floa- ting on possible reasons. One explanation being proffered was that hot and humid conditions at the venue led to discomfort among the attendees. Following this, people in large numbers started running out in panic, causing the stampede. A cop on duty at the venue told TOI that “the event saw a likely gathering of over one lakh people. When the satsang ended, many people rushed to leave the venue while many others rushed in the opposite direction to touch the baba’s feet and take his blessings, thereby leading to chaos.”

UP CM Yogi Adityanath, after a high-level meeting at his residence on Tuesday evening, said: “The state govt will go in-depth to find whether it was an accident or a conspiracy. We will take the strictest action against the conspirators and those responsible for the tragedy.”

Meanwhile, inspector general (Aligarh range) Shalabh Mathur said that “only a temporary permission was granted for the gathering”.

Admin ‘inefficiency’, P 18

 ‘Godman’ a former UP cop, P 18

 Seeing bodies, cop has heart attack, dies, P 18

Monsoon covers entire country 6 days in advance

Monsoon covered the entire country on Tuesday, six days ahead of its normal date, IMD said. It’s the third consecutive year in which the monsoon covered the entire country by July 2 and the fourth instance of early coverage in last five years. Good rainfall in the last six days has reduced the monsoon deficit to 4.5%. June had ended with a deficit of 11%.

P 10

A restaurant for ‘trainee’ jumbos

Inside Chandaka sanctuary in Odisha is a restaurant where rescued jumbos training to be kumki elephants drop in for breakfast and lunch. There’s a booth for each and the menu spans fruits to millets and molasses.

P 10

5 Maoists killed in Bastar gunbattle

At least five Maoists were killed till late Tuesday in a gunfight in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district in Bastar. A large cache of arms and ammunition was seized, police said. The toll may go up as the gunbattle is still on, they said.

P 15

Murder case witness shot dead

A 32-year-old woman who was the prime witness in the case of her husband’s murder in Bihar’s Nawada district was shot dead Monday, two days before she was to testify. Mamata Kumari was attacked by car-borne criminals who fled.

P 15

Game zone fire: Cash, gold worth `18cr seized at ex-officer premises

Rajkot: Gold biscuits weighing 22 kg, diamond jewellery, 2.5kg of silver ornaments and other valuables worth over Rs 18 crore were found in the office of MD Sagathiya, the former town planning officer of Rajkot Municipal Corporation who was arrested in the May 25 TRP Game Zone fire that snuffed out 27 lives. The office is at the city's Twin Star Towers.

The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) found these valuables on Monday during the ongoing investigation into the disproportionate assets case lodged against Sagathiya. The office is registered in the name of Sagathiya’s brother. TNN

 Ex-official charged, P 18

HC: India’s majority will become minority if conversions don’t stop

Rajesh Kumar Pandey TNN

Prayagraj: India’s “majority population” risks being reduced to a minority someday if mass conversions continue to be allowed in the name of religious congregations, Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal of Allahabad high court said on Monday while rejecting the bail petition of a man accused of initiating a mentally ill villager into Christianity.

“Such congregations should be stopped immediately,” Agarwal said, adding, “It has come to the notice of this court that unlawful conversion of people of SC/ST, other castes and economically poor people into Christianity is being done at a rampant pace throughout the state of Uttar Pradesh.”

The judge said Article 25 of the Constitution, which guarantees citizens the right to choose and practise any faith, “does not provide for religious conversion. It only provides freedom of conscience, practice and propagation of religion”.

Propagation means, P 15

HC judge to visit Ridge July 17 to verify felling and afforestation claims

Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Delhi high court has decided to physically inspect central and southern Ridge to verify the extent of tree felling and claims of afforestation. Justice Jasmeet Singh, while dealing with a plea on the well-being of trees in the national capital, fixed July 17 as the date to visit the Ridge after “conflicting claims” were made before court. While Delhi govt authorities said afforestation has been carried out, the court-appointed amicus contested the statement.

The Ridge, an extension of the Aravali hill range in Delhi, is a rocky, hilly and forested area. It has been divided into four zones — south, south-central, central and north — for administrative reasons. These four zones make up a total area of around 7,784 hectares. The authorities, including DDA, are also under scrutiny of Supreme Court for unauthorised felling of trees in Ridge.

Conflicting claims, P 5

Abducted at age 9, youth returns home after 16 yrs

Monu with his mom in Dehradun. A truck driver helped him escape

Kalyan.Das@timesgroup.com

Dehradun: A 25-year-old man, abducted at age nine and taken to a remote village in Rajasthan, was reunited with his family in Dehradun on Monday after 16 years of shepherding goats, thanks to an unknown truck driver. Monu Sharma arrived at the Dehradun police headquarters last week, aided by the driver who helped him escape and drove him to Delhi.

In 2008, Monu was abducted by unidentified men while playing outside his home. He was rendered unconscious and found himself in an unknown land on regaining his senses. He was given a new name, Raju, by his ab- ductors and forced to graze goats, often facing physical abuse for disobedience. Despite several attempts to escape, he failed due to the remoteness of the area, police said.

 Could recall dad shop, P 18

TEARS TO CHEERS FOR RONALDO

Sadness at the start is joy at the end. That’s what football is. Moments, inexplicable moments —Ronaldo

Ronaldo broke down after his extra-time penalty miss

A game of epic personal drama for Cristiano Ronaldo ended with his Portugal setting up a clash with France in Euro quarters after beating Slovenia in a penalty shootout that saw goalkeeper Diogo Costa pull off a hat-trick of saves

➤ Ronaldo, yet to score a regulation-time goal in this Euro, was denied several times by Slovenia keeper Jan Oblak in the match. Oblak also went on to save his penalty

➤ After goalless 120 minutes, CR7 finally found the net with the first kick of the tie-breaker. Later, the 39-yr-old, who has featured in 1,266 career matches, said, ‘It is without a doubt my last European Championship’

➤ Porto keeper Costa (24) first made a key one-on-one save with his foot in extra time. Then he made 3 sensational shootout saves, the secret of which, he said, was, ‘I just went with my gut’

➤ Mbappe’s France awaits Portugal. ‘Let’s go to war. We will fight till the end,’ CR7 said

NETHERLANDS BEATS ROMANIA 3-0, ENTERS QUARTERS P 21

IN THE COURTS

➤ Bihar govt moves SC challenging a Patna HC verdict that has set aside the amended reservation laws in the state, which enabled Nitish govt to hike quotas for Dalits, tribals and backward classes from 50% to 65%

P 18

➤ Delhi court grants custody parole for 2 hrs to jailed Kashmiri politician Sheikh Abdul Rashid, better known as Engineer Rashid, to take oath as MP on July 5, subject to certain conditions

P 18

➤ SC strongly disapproves Maha excise minister Sambhuraj Desai’s July 6, 2023 order to reverse concurrent decisions of Amravati collector and excise commissioner to cancel licence given to serve liquor in the bar of a restaurant in a residential area

P 18

➤ Rajasthan HC orders the reinstatement of constable Rajesh Kumar, who was dismissed in 2000 over allegations of wilful absence & role in a death in custody

P 15

Teen files 1st case in city under snatching law

An 18-year-old was likely the first complainant from Delhi under a dedicated section for snatching in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, reporting the theft of his mobile phone early Monday morning. Earlier, snatching cases were registered by combining the sections on theft and assault. Now, section 304 of BNS exclusively deals with this growing menace.

P 5

‘Poverty’ down to 8.5% from 21%’

A new survey estimates poverty in India to have declined to 8.5% from 21% in 2011-12, but cautions that many can slip back into poverty. There’s a sharper fall in headcount poverty ratios in villages — from 24.8% to 8.6% now — compared with 13.4% to 8.4% in urban areas.

P 18

Former RAW chief appointed addl NSA

Deputy national security adviser and former RAW chief Rajinder Khanna was on Tuesday upgraded to the post of additional national security adviser. Two new deputy NSAs — T V Ravichandran, and Pavan Kapoor — have also been named.

P10

3 friends die in crash trying to save cow

Three people died when their car hit a tree while trying to avoid a cow on the road in Bah block of Agra on late Monday night, police said. The three friends were returning from the Lord Shiva temple in Bateshwar when the accident took place in Bijkauli village. TNN

PM hits back in LS: Congress a ‘parasite’, Rahul ‘childish’

‘Electoral Defeat Being Spun As Moral Victory’

Akhilesh.Singh@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: PM Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a furious attack on Congress and Rahul Gandhi, saying the opposition party and its “ecosystem” had been trying to spin its third consecutive electoral loss as a “moral victory” even as it had emerged as a “parasite”, and the newly-appointed leader of opposition was exhibiting childish exuberance (“baalak buddhi”).

“No matter how much you shout and scream, the mandate is very clear, you have to again sit in the opposition,” said Modi amid consistent heckling by members of Congress that led Speaker Om Birla to reprimand Rahul Gandhi for directing MPs to occupy the well in front of the PM.

Replying to the motion of thanks on the President’s address in Lok Sabha, Modi said, “It would have been better had Congress understood the message instead of indulging itself with fake victory celebra- tions which cannot gloss over the fact that it is the third time in a row that the party has failed to get a triple-digit score and that the June 4 verdict marked Congress’s third worst-ever performance.”

Modi also took on Rahul for “childish whining”, referring to his complaints about being wronged by the Spea- ker. “Like the boy who comes from school to whine to his mother that he has been bullied, but who would never admit his own mistake, a fresh drama is being enacted to garner sympathy,” he said, referring to the ongoing cases against Rahul.

Modi attacks Cong, P 16

Follow Parl norms, Modi tells NDA MPs

Every NDA MP has to work by prioritising the country, PM Modi told MPs of the governing alliance on Tuesday, urging them to adhere to parliamentary norms and effectively voice their concerns, parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju said. Modi said every MP should present the matters of their constituency in the House.

P16

‘Varna’ charge in Kharge spat with RS chair

Rajya Sabha chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar and Mallikarjun Kharge had yet another run-in on Tuesday after the former said Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, who made an intervention, was “intelligent, gifted, talented” and should replace Kharge as leader of opposition in the House.

Kharge, who is a Dalit, said Dhankhar was bringing in the “varna” (caste) system by calling Ramesh “intelligent” and implying that he was dull. Dhankhar reacted strongly, saying Kharge was “twisting” his remarks.

P 16

After yrs, BJP may field a Muslim for bypoll in UP

BJP is expected to pick a Muslim candidate for the bypoll to Moradabad’s Kundarki assembly seat — a first for the saffron party in any UP election since it gave Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi an L S ticket in 2019, reports Pankaj Shah. A senior BJP neta said the state party brass was in contact with a prominent Muslim face, hoping to regain its lost foothold in UP with a horses for-courses approach in the byelections to 10 seats.

P 16

BJP to send RLM chief Kushwaha to RS, P 16

Restore expunged remarks, Rahul writes to Speaker

New Delhi: Leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi Tuesday shot off a protest letter to Speaker Om Birla against the expunction of portions of his speech delivered in LS on Monday, expressing “shock” at the decision that he said “defies logic” and violates the principles of democracy. He demanded that the expunged remarks be restored in the proceedings.

The Speaker has expunged Rahul’s remarks that slammed PM Modi and BJP over violence and hatred, referred to Adani and Ambani, and Agnipath scheme. “I am shocked to note the manner in which considerable portion of my speech has been taken off from the proceedings under the garb of expunction,” he wrote to Birla. TNN

 ‘Ground reality’, P 16

House condemns oppn’s disruptions

LS Speaker Om Birla reprimanded LOP Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of inciting opposition members to troop into the well of the House to protest while the PM was speaking. Later, the Lok Sabha passed a resolution condemning opposition’s disruptions during Modi’s address.

P 8

Sebi sends Hindenburg notice on Adani report ‘manipulation’

Firm: Regulator Protecting Those Perpetrating Fraud

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Sebi has issued a show-cause notice to Hindenburg, asking why it should not act against the short-seller for violating norms related to the “prohibition of fraudulent and unfair trading practices in the securities market”.

The notice, dated June 26, was released online by Hindenburg, which took a defiant stand, charging Sebi with not acting on allegations in its Adani report. Hindenburg described the notice as “nonsense” and “nebulous” and alleged attempts to silence the firm. Hindenburg claimed it only made $4 million from the operation, which resulted in a $153 billion drop in Adani group’s valuation.

In a statement, Hinden- burg said: “Sebi has neglected its responsibility, seemingly doing more to protect those perpetrating fraud than to protect the investors being victimised by it.”

The thrust of Sebi’s notice is that the research firm colluded with its investor partner, misled the public, and used non-public information to manipulate prices and profit from its action. Sebi has alleged that the partner, King- don Capital, knew about Hindenburg’s research on Adani group before the report was made public and there was a profit-sharing agreement between the two. As per Sebi, Kingdon agreed to share 30% of its net profits from trading securities related to Adani with Hindenburg in exchange for receiving the report two months in advance.

 ‘Our statements’, P 17

Wasn’t aware of Hindenburg’s connection with investor, says Kotak group

Late on Tuesday, Kotak Mahindra Bank informed stock exchanges that Sebi’s show-cause notice to Hindenburg and Kingdon included a fund managed by Kotak Mahindra International (KMIL). This followed Hindenburg’s revelation that KMIL had created the offshore fund structure used by its investor partner Kingdon Capital to short Adani stocks before its report was published in Jan 2023. In a statement, the bank said, “Kingdon had not disclosed that they had any relationship with Hindenburg nor that they were acting on the basis of any price sensitive information. In fact, they had expressly confirmed that any advice from Kingdon to invest would be basis purely public information.”

P17

`670cr cost rise for LNJP block: LG for CVC probe

Taking note of loss of public money due to “procedural violations”, leading to a huge cost overrun of Rs 670 crore in the construction of anew block of the state-owned Lok Nayak Hospital, LG VK Saxena has approved a proposal to refer the case to central vigilance commission for a detailed technical examination. The LG has also constituted a committee to examine procedural violations which led to the increase in cost.

P 2

Dissolution of DDCD null & void: Atishi, P 2

NEET-PG likely to be conducted in August

New Delhi: NEET-PG, which was postponed recently, is likely to be conducted in August. The National Board of Examinations is waiting for “certain clearances” from the govt after which the date will be announced, NBE sources said, reports Durgesh Nandan Jha.

“We need to give the examinees at least 4 weeks’ time from the date of announcement of exams. So, it is likely the exam may be held next month only,” they added. NBE is an auton mous body under the health ministry that is responsible for conducting the exams.

 Extra measures, P 10

 EDIT: Online Won’t Do

Bokaro boy No. 1 in dist, P10

Godhra school among priciest in Guj

Jay Jalaram International School in Godhra, which is under CBI lens for alleged NEET illegalities, was among the most expensive schools in Gujarat, charging between Rs 3.2L and Rs 5.5L a year for courses. After the fee panel FRC came into being in 2017, its fees were cut.

P 10

Times Nation

- In rare move, Speaker names, reprimands LoP Rahul Gandhi

- Floods, landslides claim 9 lives in NE

- BJP sniffs scam in land given to K’taka CM’s wife

- 5 kids die at MP ashram in 72 hrs

- Vigilantes target lemon truckers

- K’taka farmer buys ox for `18L

- Entire India under monsoon cover 6 days before schedule

- Re-evaluation of CBSE Class 12 answer papers helps Bokaro boy secure 98.8%, jump to 2nd rank in J’khand

- Just opened in an Odisha wildlife sanctuary, a restaurant for jumbos

- Ex R&AW chief Rajinder Khanna appointed new additional NSA

- NBE planning extra security measures for NEET-PG

- 5 days after joining coaching centre, student ends life

- Why BNSS offers slim hope of early disposal of pending cases

- Oasis school’s rise, principal’s Bali trip after NEET-UG under CBI lens

- Godhra school in NEET web was among the most expensive in Guj

- Survivor ‘not willing’ to meet, WB guv aborts trip

- Court summons Rahul on July 26 in defamation case:

- Truck runs over 4 kids in Kangra, 1 dead:

- After 14 yrs’ jail, Raj cop back in job he lost over custody death

- Woman, a witness in husband’s murder case, shot dead in Bihar

- Pak intruder shot dead on Punjab border

- UP STF guns down criminal wanted in 2 dozen cases

- 5 Maoists killed in C’garh op involving 1,000 personnel

- Propagation means to promote religion, not convert: HC

- Modi attacks Cong, says party trying to push nation into throes of anarchy

- Clash in Guj over Rahul’s speech, 7 hurt

- 1st session of LS saw 103% productivity

- MP questions govt silence on Manipur

- ‘Outright lies are being spread by Cong to weaken armed forces’

- ‘Those playing with future of students won’t be spared’

- Sarcastic comment sparks Dhankhar-Kharge spat

- Adhere to House norms, effectively voice concerns: Modi to NDA MPs

- Akhilesh: Polls marked end of communal politics

- Rahul writes to PM, seeks NEET debate

- What I sought to convey in House is ground reality: Rahul

- BJP likely to field a Muslim for assembly bypoll in UP

- Poverty dips to 8.5% from 21% in 2011-12, says NCAER paper

- Jailed J&K MP granted 2-hour custody parole for taking oath

- Maha minister draws SC ire for restoring restaurant’s liquor licence

- Bihar goes to SC against HC order nixing quota rise beyond 50%

- Ex-official was charged with disproportionate assets in June

- Organisers blame admin’s ‘inefficiency’ for stampede

- Mumbai college bars students defying dress code for 2nd day

- Monu could only recall dad ran grocery shop

- 4 jewellers held for ties with Af diplomat in gold-smuggling case

In rare move, Speaker names, reprimands LoP Rahul Gandhi

LS Passes Resolution Condemning Oppn Disruptions Of PM Speech

Birla accused Rahul of inciting opposition MPs to troop to the well

Akhilesh.Singh@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: It was a rare occasion when Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla named and reprimanded the newly appointed leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of inciting opposition members to troop to the well of the House to protest while PM Narendra Modi was delivering his reply to the vote of thanks to the President’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament.

“It is unbecoming of you as leader of the opposition... I have seen you asking members to troop to the well. Such behaviour is unwarranted on your part,” Birla said.

Opposition MPs, mostly from Congress, started protesting from both sides of the well and continued heckling the PM during his entire over two-hour speech. As soon as Modi rose to speak, opposition members, amid relentless sloganeering, urged the Speaker to allow an MP from Manipur to speak. As Birla said one of them had already been given an opportunity to speak, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi along with two Manipur MPs rushed to the well. Later, several Congress MPs entered the well, while TMC members stood on the aisles voicing their support.

Modi, however, braved the continuous heckling by Congress MPs. Breaching the well and protesting from the sides of the treasury bench was seen as a serious breach of decorum and parliamentary norms as the MPs were sloganeering just in front of the PM. It was also a rare occasion as the entire treasury bench remained silent and did not confront the protest- ing MPs even for once.

Although the PM completed his reply with full throttle, he urged the Speaker that he should not take the opposition’s behaviour lightly and also look at how the House will run in the next five years.

Later, Lok Sabha passed a resolution condemning opposition’s disruptions during Modi’s address, with Union minister Rajnath Singh saying these actions “shredded” parliamentary norms and decorum. “I propose that the House condemns this action,” Singh said. Birla said, “I gave sufficient time to all members. I gave more than 90 minutes to the leader of the opposition but this behaviour is not in line with parliamentary norms.”

The resolution was seconded by home minister Amit Shah and was passed by a voice vote.

Floods, landslides claim 9 lives in NE

Deer move to high ground as floods inundate Kaziranga National Park. So far, 28 Assam districts have been hit, affecting 11.34 lakh people

Kangkan Kalita, Mukut Das & Rajib Dutta TNN

Guwahati/Dibrugarh:Nine lives were lost due to continuous rainfall triggering landslides, while worsening the flood situation, in the North-East since Monday, even as IMD issued an “orange warning” in Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland for three days, starting Wednesday.

The number of people hit by floods in Assam surged to 11.34 lakh across 28 districts on

Tuesday — up from 6.44 lakh in 19 districts on Monday. The season’s flood-related death toll in Assam since May has gone upto to 38. Ravaging floods have also inundated almost the entire Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve spread over 1,300 sq km — except certain locations in Panbari Reserve Forest — and nearly 80% of Dibru-Saikhowa National Park. In Kaziranga, four hog deer have drowned and floods have forced other animals to move to higher land.

While two persons drowned in Tinsukia, another one was swept away in Dhemaji in Assam. In Cachar, a 28-year-old man and his six-month-old son lost their lives when a mud wall of their house collapsed.

In Mizoram, a couple and their four-year-old daughter were killed in a landslide on the outskirts of Aizawl.

In Nagaland’s Kusong village, a 35-year-old man was swept away by strong currents of the Nguhaiu river in Noklak on Monday. His body was retrieved by locals at midnight.

The Met dept has predicted that the situation may improve from Wednesday with a decline in rainfall intensity.

BJP sniffs scam in land given to K’taka CM’s wife

Sidda Dismisses Allegation

Siddaramaiah said his wife received the land from her brother, and MUDA compensated her with alternative sites in accordance with the 50:50 policy introduced by previous BJP govt

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru:BJP has accused Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah of involvement in a Rs 4,000-crore scam tied to Mysuru Urban Development Authority’s (MUDA) allotment of premium alternative sites to his wife Parvathi after acquiring land belonging to her. The controversy stems from allegations that MUDA deviated from the standard site allotment ratio of 40:60 in favour of a 50:50 ratio for the CM’s wife, allegedly under Siddaramaiah’s directive.

BJP demanded a CBI inquiry or an investigation by a retired HC judge, rejecting state govt’s decision to have the matter investigated by two IAS officers. “Who fixed the new ratio of 50:50 for sharing of developed land? It cannot happen without the CM’s directive,’’ leader of opposition R Ashoka alleged.

Siddaramaiah refuted the allegations, explaining that his wife received the land from her brother, and MUDA compensated her with alternative sites in accordance with the 50:50 policy introduced by previous BJP govt.

Siddaramaiah said his broin-law Mallikarjuna had purchased three acres and 36 guntas in 1996 and later gifted the land to Parvathi. However, MUDA had developed plots (for housing) on this land (about four years ago) and sold them without acquisition or compensation, he alleged. “It is not that my wife’s property was acquired but plots were made and sold out. I don’t know whether MUDA did it knowingly or unknowingly,” CM said. “When we petitioned, MUDA agreed to give us compensation. “Where is theillegality in this?”

BJP MLA Ashoka accused MUDA of allocating alternative sites in high-value areas of Mysuru, far more valuable than the original land. He questioned this process: “On whose recommendation did MUDA allot these alternative sites in premium layouts when the rules clearly say it should be given in the new layout? The CM must explain.” He further alleged the scale of the purported scam indicated CM’s involvement. He criticised the investigation by IAS officers, which he believes is anattempt to cover up the irregularities.

Siddaramaiah argued that his wife was deprived of her property after the plots were developed and sold. “Should we lose our property? Shouldn’t MUDA give us our land legally? When we asked MUDA about it, they said they will give us land in accordance with the 50:50 ratio. We agreed to it. Then MUDA gave us equal measurement of sites in different places. What iswrong with that?” he questioned.

5 kids die at MP ashram in 72 hrs

Five mentally challenged children at an ashram in Indore have died of a mysterious illness in the last 72 hours and 30 are in hospital. The youngest is a three-year-old, reports Sagar Choukse.

Two of the deaths, including the toddler’s, took place on Tuesday during a visit by govt officials. The two kids had not been taken to hospital although they were ill and three deaths had already happened. It was not until the morning after the third death that the administration sent doctors to Shri Yugpurush Dham Ashram, in the heart of Indore.

Vigilantes target lemon truckers

A group of more than 14-15 cow vigilantes assaulted a pick-up truck driver and his aide in Rajasthan’s Churu, suspecting them of cattle smuggling. The two men were transporting lemons from Punjab to Jaipur on Sunday. They were attacked with sticks and rods near Lasedi village toll booth on NH52, police said. Churu SP Jai Yadav said that six suspects have been detained for questioning, and some more have been identified.

TNN

K’taka farmer buys ox for `18L

An ox, which has won cash and prizes worth nearly Rs 20 lakh in north Karnataka cart races, was bought by a Belagavi farmer for an astounding Rs 18 lakh early this week. The current rate for awell-bred ox ranges between Rs 80,000 and Rs 1.3 lakh. Ramanagouda Patil had no intention to sell his ox, that stands 5.6ft tall, until Sadashiv Dange, another farmer offered him the price that he couldn’t refuse.

TNN

Entire India under monsoon cover 6 days before schedule

11% Deficit Rainfall In June: IMD

IMD records show that this is the seventh time in the past 12 years that monsoon has covered the entire country ahead of time

Vishwa Mohan@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Southwest (summer) monsoon covered the entire country on Tuesday, six days before its normal date, said India Meteorological Department on Tuesday. It’s the third consecutive year in which the monsoon covered the entire country by July 2.

The onset of monsoon over Kerala and most parts of northeast happened simultaneously on May 30 ahead of its normal date of June 1 and June 5, respectively. It covered the entire country in 34 days despite its sluggish progress during June 10-18. Normally, monsoon covers the entire India in 38 days .

Early/delayed onset or early/delayed coverage, however, doesn’t impact quantitative or spatial aspects of rainfall during the four-month monsoon season. It, however, guides the progress of kharif (summer sown crops such as paddy, sugarcane, coarse cereals and cotton) sowing operations and choice of crops as farmers have to take a call on the basis of the irrigation cy- cle a crop may need.

IMD records show that this is the seventh time in the past 12 years and 14th time in the past 25 years that the monsoon covered the entire country ahead of time, with the earliest one being recorded in 2013 when it did so as early as June 16 — the day country witnessed a major disaster in Kedarnath (Uttarakhand).

Monsoon normally starts retreating from northwest India around Sept 17 and fully withdraws by Oct 15. Besides farming activities, water and hydro-power management also depends on the onset, coverage and withdrawal of monsoon.

Though June recorded nearly 11% deficit rainfall in the country, it did not affect the overall acreage last month due to adequate pace of sowing operations in peninsular India which reported over 14% more than normal rainfall in the month.

Agriculture ministry data shows that the overall acreage of all kharif crops put together in the country as on June 28 was 240 lakh hectares which was 59 lakh hectares more than the acreage during the corresponding period last year. It happened due to higher acreage of the less water consuming crops — pulses and oilseeds — last month.

Re-evaluation of CBSE Class 12 answer papers helps Bokaro boy secure 98.8%, jump to 2nd rank in J’khand

After re-evaluation, Rajat Ritwik’s marks in four subjects increased. The humanities student from Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Bokaro, catapulted to top spot in his school and district

Divy Khare TNN

Bokaro: Re-evaluation of Rajat Ritwik’s CBSE Class XII exam answer sheets has catapulted him to top spot in his school and district, and second position in Jharkhand.

The Arts stream student from Chinmaya Vidyalaya Bokaro secured 98.8% after the successful re-evaluation.

“Rajat was not satisfied with the marks announced by CBSE last month. He challenged the evaluation, leading to a re-evaluation process that resulted in his final score of 98.8%. His subject-wise marks after re-evaluation are English, 99; history, 99; political science, 99; sociology, 99; and physical education, 98,” school principal Suraj Sharma said.

Sharma added, “Earlier, Rajat had scored 94 in English, 98 in history, 95 in political science, 96 in sociology and 98 in physical education, which was around 95%. After reevaluation, his marks in four subjects have increased, making him topper in the Arts stream. After seeing the reevaluation score of the student, I checked it with CBSE Patna and also got confirmation from there about his standing in the rank tally.”

Sharma expressed immense happiness and pride in Rajat’s achievement. He also praised Rajat’s multi-talented nature and potential and was confident that Rajat would achieve even greater heights.

Rajat attributed his success to hard work, time management, guidance from teachers, and support from his parents. He expressed his aspiration to serve society and the nation through the civil services.

BREAKFAST, LUNCH, GRANITE TRAYS... AND VERY BIG CUSTOMERS

Just opened in an Odisha wildlife sanctuary, a restaurant for jumbos

At Chandaka wildlife sanctuary, fruits, wheat, millets, corn powder and horse gram are served to the elephants rescued by forest officials

Riyan.Ramanath@timesgroup.com

Bhubaneswar: This restaurant serves breakfast and lunch, menu is strictly vegetarian, customers have separate booths, the service and the food are expected to be excellent, but the staff know they mustn’t come in the way of patrons when they enter or leave the establishment — a basic precaution for a restaurant for elephants.

This ‘elephant restaurant’ has opened in Odisha’s Chandaka wildlife sanct uary, which lies just outside the state capital.

‘Customers’ are elephants rescued by forest officials. Typically, they are young elephants that got separated from their herd. They are being trained to be what’s locally called kumki elephants, who are deployed for taming elephants in the wild and for monitoring tiger pres- ence in forests — tiger population is on the rise in neighbouring forests, say officials. There are six elephants, cared for by 13 mahouts and assistant mahouts.

The restaurant idea was born out of necessity. As Susanta Nanda, chief conservator, explained: “Training requires a routine as well as nutritional food”. An establish- ment that caters to the elephants at specific times of a day fit the bill. Nanda said each elephant has a booth named after them, and they have been trained to identify the booth that’s theirs.

What will the elephants eat from? Granite trays that, Nada said, ensures both that the ‘plates’ survive and can be washed and cleaned easily.

And what’s on the menu for Jaga, Mama, Uma, Kartik, Chandu and Sankar — the six regular ‘customers’? Breakfast, at 8.30 sharp, and served after a brisk morning walk and light exercise, offers fruits like banana, coconut, carrot, sugar cane and watermelon. Lunch, served after an hour-long bath from 1.30 to 2.30 pm, is heavier — wheat, millets, corn powder, horse gram, molasses mixed with turmeric, castor oil, and salt.

Dinner, though, is at home. “The elephants have a separate rest shed, away from the restaurant, where they are provided with grass, tree branches, banana stem, straw etc for consumption throughout night”, Sarat Behera, divisional forest officer, said.

The daily ‘bill’ for training and feeding each elephant (including salaries for mahouts) won’t buy you a good lunch in a big city, upscale restaurant — it’s just Rs 1,500.

Ex R&AW chief Rajinder Khanna appointed new additional NSA

New Delhi: Deputy national security adviser and former R&AW chief Rajinder Khanna was on Tuesday upgraded to the post of additional national security adviser. Two new deputy national security advisers — T V Ravichandran, an IPS officer currently serving as special director in the Intelligence Bureau, and Pavan Kapoor, secretary (west) in the ministry of external affairs — have also been named, reports Bharti Jain.

The appointment of Khanna, who served as R&AW chief from 2014 to 2016, as additional NSA is being seen in sync with the Narendra Modi 3.0 regime’s emphasis on maintaining continuity in the national security apparatus.

It was as part of this continuity principle that national security adviser Ajit Doval was reappointed for a third term, co-terminus with that of PM Modi.

Doval will now have an additional NSA and three deputy NSAs working under him. While former Border Security Force (BSF) chief Pankaj Kumar Singh continues as deputy NSA, Ravinchandran will be slipping into Khanna’s role as deputy NSA. Kapoor will be taking Vikram Misri’s place in NSA’s office.

NBE planning extra security measures for NEET-PG

 Continued from P1

The Centre had, on June 22, suddenly postponed NEET-PG in the wake of allegations of paper leak in NEET-UG, a test to determine eligibility of candidates for admission in undergraduate medical programmes in govt and private medical colleges.

Govt said the decision was taken as a precautionary measure and to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of NEET-PG for admission to postgraduate medical courses.

There are nearly 70,000 postgraduate seats in govt and private medical colleges and more than two lakh candidates have applied for NEETPG this year, which will determine their eligibility for admission to various specialty courses in both govt and private medical colleges.

Sources in NBE said the Board is planning to put in place extra security measures to ensure the sanctity of the examination. “We plan to have more invigilators and central command centres to monitor the process,” said a source.

5 days after joining coaching centre, student ends life

Jaipur: A17-year-old NEET aspirant from Jaipur died by suicide at his paying guest accommodation in Rajasthan’s Sikar on Monday evening, just five days after he enrolled in a coaching institute , police said.

The student had been homesick, so his father promised to bring him back. But before that, he took the step, said SHO Surendra Singh Degra.

TNN

Why BNSS offers slim hope of early disposal of pending cases

The laws on adjournments under Sec 346 of BNSS and Sec 309 of the erstwhile CrPC remain identical

Pradeep.Thakur@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:The laws on adjournments under Section 346 of the just-implemented Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and Section 309 of the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) remain identical, giving little hope for expeditious disposal of huge pendency of cases across all courts.

Repeated adjournments have been the single largest factor contributing to over five crore cases clogging the three-tier judicial system, where 4.5 crore cases are pending only in the subordinate courts, pendency in high courts touching 62 lakh, and those in Supreme Court having crossed 83,800 cases as of July 1.

The provisions under 346 of BNSS provides that “in every inquiry or trial the proceedings shall be continued from day-to-day basis until all the witnesses in attendance have been examined, unless the court finds the adjournment of the same beyond the following day to be necessary for reasons to be recorded”.

CrPC, which has now been replaced with BNSS, under Section 309 had the same provisions as the newly-enacted law, including the procedure to be followed for rape cases in which the inquiry or trial shall be completed within a period of two months from the date of filing of chargesheet.

“The provisions relating to postponement or adjournment of hearings, as provided in Section 309 of CrPC and now in Section 346 of BNSS is only a legitimate expectation. Due to large pendency of cases in the courts, disproportionate ratio of judges vis-avis population, routine adjournment of cases merely on asking of an advocate and lack of use of technology, more particularly in lower courts, are big constraint in maintaining the timelines provided in the law for deciding cases,” said former law secretary PK Malhotra.

Though Section 346(2) of BNSS gives unfettered powers to a judge to adjourn hearings even after commencement of trial “for such time as it considers reasonable...”, in Section 346(2)b, the BNSS for the first time limits the adjournments to two: “where the circumstances are beyond the control of a party, not more than two adjournments may be granted by the court after hearing the objections of the other party and for the reasons to be recorded in writing.”

The directives to limit adjournments have been issued earlier too by the apex court to subordinate courts but these are seldom followed.

Quoting from the findings of a 2017 study by Bengaluru-based legal think tank Daksh, TOI had earlier reported that an average 87 cases got listed each day before a subordinate court judge, and almost half of them were adjourned. “This is far too many, given that the judge sits in an open court for only about five-and-a-half hours. This means on an average, judges have a little more than three-and-a-half minutes on each case,” the study had noted.

Oasis school’s rise, principal’s Bali trip after NEET-UG under CBI lens

RJD activists stage a protest outside Raj Bhawan over alleged irregularities in NEET-UG, in Patna on Tuesday

Vishvendu Jaipuriar | TNN

Hazaribag: CBI started digging Tuesday into the journey of Hazaribag’s Oasis School from humble beginnings in 2012, when it had only 17 students, to a thriving CBSE institution as new evidence purportedly emerged of its arrested principal Ehsanul Haque’s alleged shady dealings, culminating in him becoming a key figure in the NEET-UG paper leak.

The agency is investigating how the school expanded in the span of just over a decade and built infrastructure that many older institutions of the region can’t afford.

The CBI team, which has returned to Hazaribag from Patna, is also probing how the principal of a relatively new school earned CBSE’s trust to become its city coordinator for the NEET-UG test.

A coaching institute teacher believed to be an associate of Haque and his two arrested accomplices — vice principal Mohammad Imtiyaz Alam and journalist Jamaluddin —could be CBI’s next big catch, sources said.

Officials said that Haque made a trip to Bali in Indonesia a few weeks after the May 5 NEET-UG test, for which Oasis School was one of the designated centres in Jharkhand.

Investigators suspect the holiday starting June 11 was Haque’s “reward for a job done well”. He was questioned about the Bali trip when he was kept in a Jharkhand jail. “CBI is verifying his travel details, his spendings during the duration of the trip, and all bank transactions,” an official said.

CBI has already found information of Haque being in contact with the Bihar paper-leak gang. “His call details reveal connections with numerous individuals, necessitating a thorough investigation,” the official said.

Godhra school in NEET web was among the most expensive in Guj

Bharat.Yagnik@timesgroup.com

Ahmedabad: Jay Jalaram International School (JJIS) in Godhra, which is being investigated by CBI for its alleged role in NEET-UG exam illegalities, was among the most expensive schools in Gujarat, charging between Rs 3.2 lakh and Rs 5.5 lakh per annum for various courses. After the fee regulatory committee (FRC) came into being in 2017, the school’s fees were reduced to between Rs 44,000 and Rs 71,000 per annum.

With the ongoing CBI probe and the arrest of top officials of the school, this fact came to light in the investigations initiated by the state education department.

Despite the high fees, many students from places across the country such as Odisha and Tamil Nadu came to this school, which has no educational specialisation.

“Before the FRC came into being, the education department had sought details of fees to understand the fee structures and heads . In that period, JJIS emerged as one of the most expensive schools in Gujarat,” said a senior education department official on condition of anonymity.

“The school has been functioning for 15-odd years, and has three branches at Boriavi, Anand and Menpara near Vanakbori,” he added.

JJIS has both Gujarat State Education Board and CBSE affiliations, said Kirit Patel, DEO of Panchmahal, who had conducted the initial probe into alleged illegalities on orders from the district collector.

When approached by TOI, Kirti Raolingam, principal of the English medium school, said she cannot comment on the fee structure.

Sources privy to the developments said the education department has launched a probe to understand why students from other states chose this school and whether there were discrepancies in the school being chosen as a centre for NEET.

Sources said the branch of the school at Menpara had been barred from conducting Gujarat state board exams after illegalities came to light about a decade ago.

Survivor ‘not willing’ to meet, WB guv aborts trip

Returns Midway, But Woman Later Says She Didn’t Stop Meet

TMC, meanwhile, served Chopra MLA Rahman a show-cause notice for his comment on the woman’s character, two days after a public flogging video went viral. Rahman also received acall from Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee

Roshan Gupta & Subhro Maitra TNN

Siliguri/Chopra: Bengal governor CV Ananda Bose on Tuesday flew to Siliguri from Delhi but was back in three hours, cancelling his planned trip to Chopra where a woman was publicly flogged after a kangaroo court deemed her “guilty” of extramarital relationship. Bose said the woman did not want to meet him.

Meanwhile, Chopra MLA Hamidul Rahman was served a show-cause notice by Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Tuesday for his comment on the woman’s character, two days after a video of the public flogging went viral. He also received a phone call from Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.

In Siliguri, Bose said: “The victim wants to be left alone and I will respect her wishes.” He then left Siliguri. The governor landed at Bagdogra airport at 10.05am and flew back to Delhi at 1.10pm. Elaborate arrangements had been made at Chopra and a large police contingent deployed in preparation for Bose’s visit.

The woman later told mediapersons she had not prevented the governor from meeting her. “The governor can come to my residence and meet (me),” she said. Asked about the state of her health, she said: “Police had taken me to a hospital for treatment. The doctors there prescribed me medicines and I am fine now.”

The governor, when asked if the Chopra survivor was pressured into refusing an audience with him, said: “We would look into any pos- sible malpractice that might have taken place.”

A day after the survivor lodged a police complaint seeking action against those who had publicly shamed her by putting her video online, her male companion’s mother filed a similar complaint. The man’s mother said: “I don’t know who assaulted my son and the woman he loves. But I want punishment for the person who circulated the video on social media. Our family has been defamed.”

In Chopra, MLA Rahman said: “The CM called me and asked me to maintain peace in the locality. I’ve told her police have arrested the main accused (Tajemul Islam alias JCB) and there was no protest over his arrest. I had said JCB is not an officebearer of our party, merely a voter. His wrongdoing had to be puni- shed and we have no role in this,” Rahman said Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, North Dinajpur district TMC authorities issued a show-cause notice to Rahman for his comments on the assault. “The woman committed a crime too. She left her husband and children and was involved with another man. In cases like this, such justice is often meted out in our Muslim rashtra,” he had said.

According to TMC sources, the letter was sent to the MLA by North Dinajpur TMC district chief Kanailal Agarwal. Rahman has been given seven days to respond. Rahman, when asked about the notice, said: “I have not received the letter yet. I will respond once I do.”

(With inputs from agencies)

Court summons Rahul on July 26 in defamation case:

An MP-MLA court in UP’s Sultanpur on Tuesday asked Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to appear before it on July 26 in connection with a defamation case lodged against him for remarks against Union home minister Amit Shah.

Rahul, who is leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, had to appear before the court on Tuesday, but could not do so because of the ongoing parliament session. His counsel Kashi Prasad Shukla sought a fresh date of hearing. According to the complainant’s lawyer, Santosh Kumar Pandey, special judge Shubham Verma said if Rahul did not make a personal appearance on the next date, action will be taken against him. TNN

Truck runs over 4 kids in Kangra, 1 dead:

A truck ran over four brothers, all minors, sleeping in the open in HP’s Kangra on Monday, killing one of them and seriously injuring the other three. TNN

After 14 yrs’ jail, Raj cop back in job he lost over custody death

Jaipur: The Rajasthan high court has ordered the reinstatement of 52-year-old police constable Rajesh Kumar, who was dismissed from service in 2000 over allegations of wilful absence and involvement in a death in custody. The single bench directed state govt to reinstate Kumar with all consequential and notional benefits, bringing relief to him after nearly 24 years, reports Ashish Mehta.

A trial court had convicted Kumar in 2003 for his involvement in the death of Radhey Shyam Darji in custody. HC had earlier upheld the lower court’s conviction and Kumar served almost 14 years of jail.

However, SC acquitted him in 2016 and instructed state govt to reinstate him. Despite SC orders, govt did not comply, prompting Kumar to file a civil writ in HC. “I will submit a fresh representation to the authorities, hoping to receive my dues. I spent almost 14 years in jail for a crime I did not commit. I hope justice will prevail,” Kumar said, reacting to the HC verdict.

Justice Ganesh Ram Meena overturned the termination orders issued by Jhalawar SP on Oct 19, 2000. However, the judge also stipulated that upon reinstatement, the authorities could issue a show-cause notice for Kumar’s 104-day absence from duty. His counsel Vibhuti Bhushan Sharma said his client was appointed as a constable on May 31, 1993. While stationed at Gangadhar in Jhalawar, Kumar and four others were charged under sections 302 and 201 of the now-defunct IPC for allegedly torturing and killing Darji.

Woman, a witness in husband’s murder case, shot dead in Bihar

Patna: Mamta Kumari (32), prime witness in her husband’s murder case in Bihar’s Nawada district, was shot dead on Monday night, just two days before she was to testify in a court, reports Kshitiz. Car-borne criminals attacked Mamta while she was returning to Daulatpur, her native village, along with her husband’s elder brother, Rajesh Prasad, on a bike. Her family had been embroiled in a long-standing land dispute with some villagers. Her husband, Vivekanand Prasad (36), was allegedly shot dead as a result of this in 2018, police added. The family had then registered a murder complaint against 12 persons.

Pak intruder shot dead on Punjab border

BSF early on Tuesday shot dead a Pakistani intruder trying to sneak into Indian territory near Sadqui border outpost in Punjab’s Fazilka district, DSP Shubegh Singh said.

TNN

UP STF guns down criminal wanted in 2 dozen cases

Jaunpur/Meerut:A criminal carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh was on Tuesday killed in an encounter in Jaunpur while another wanted criminal was injured in similar action in Meerut, officials said. Sumit Singh alias Monu Chavanni was wanted in over two dozen criminal cases, they said.

The criminal was killed in an encounter by a joint team of STF and local police in Badlapur area, SP Ajay Pal Sharma said.

Police seized an AK-47 rifle and a pistol while two accomplices of Singh managed to flee from the spot.

In another encounter, a wanted criminal was injured after being shot in the leg by police in Meerut. A country made pistol and cartridges were seized from him.

PTI

5 Maoists killed in C’garh op involving 1,000 personnel

Gunbattle Still On, May Push Up Reds’ Toll

Rashmi.Drolia@timesgroup.com

Raipur: At least five Maoists were killed till late Tuesday in a gunfight in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district in Bastar division. A large cache of arms and ammunition was seized, police said.

Notably, the security forces launched an anti-Naxalite operation, Operation Monsoon Prahar, involving 1,000 troops from Kanker, Bastar, Dantewada and Kondagaon districts, in Abujhmarh area of Narayanpur on Sunday. Teams of District Reserve Guards, STF, BSF and ITBP converged from multiple directions upon a deeply forested area close to Maharashtra border.

Bastar range IG P Sundarraj told TOIthat Maoists laid an ambush for security forces in the forests of Kohkameta in Abujhmarh in Narayanpur district on Tuesday.

Till Tuesday evening, five bodies had been recovered and the toll may go up as the gunbattle is still on, police said. The exact body count will be known when forces return to base, an officer said.

On Monday, Maoists kidnapped a cop’s brother and murdered him accusing him of being an informer in Orchha village. As many as 137 Maoists have been gunned down this year in Bastar division.

2 Reds carrying `10L bounty surrender

Two Maoist ‘commanders’, including a woman, surrendered before police in insurgency-hit Sukma district of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar division on Tuesday.

Police identified them as Sodhi Manjula, a Pollampalli local squad commander, and Sodhi Gajendra, a member of Konta area committee and ‘Errabore civil organisation commander’. Both were involved in several ambushes in Sukma, carried bounties of Rs 5 lakh each, and had been in the Maoist ranks for 15-20 years, cops said.

The two said they decided to surrender because they could no longer stand the torture of tribals by senior Maoist commanders and felt disillusioned by the hollow ideology of Maoists. They were also tired of roughing it out in the forest and the daily risks of being an insurgent. They will be rehabilitated under govt’s surrender policy, said officials.

TNN

Propagation means to promote religion, not convert: HC

The FIR said that Ramphal, the mentally ill brother of the complainant, was among several villagers from Hamirpur to be converted during a ‘religious congregation’

 Continued from P 1

The word ‘propagation’ means to promote, not to convert any person from one religion to another, Allahabad HC said.

Kailash, the accused who was denied bail, had taken a villager from Hamirpur to a religious congregation, where he was allegedly converted.

An FIR was filed against Kailash at Maudaha police station in Hamirpur in 2023 under sections 365 (abduction) of IPC and 3/5(1) of Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

According to the FIR, Ramphal, the mentally ill brother of complainant Ramkali Prajapati, was one among several from the vil- lage to be converted during that event. Kailash had allegedly promised Ramkali that her brother would be treated.

When Ramphal did not return home after a week, his sister lodged a complaint.

Kailash’s counsel said the congregation was organised by a man identified as Sonu Pastor, who was also arrested but is currently on bail.

Modi attacks Cong, says party trying to push nation into throes of anarchy

‘Country Will Not Accept Anti-National Conspiracies’

In a fierce direct assault on Rahul Gandhi, Modi said, ‘It is not disclosed that he is on bail in a cheating case involving thousands of crores, that he has been convicted for maligning OBCs, that SC held him guilty of making irresponsible statements and that he is facing trial for maligning Veer Savarkar’

Akhilesh.Singh@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Defying the consistent sloganeering from opposition members which at times threatened to drown his voice, PM Modi on Tuesday drew upon famous dialogues from popular Bollywood movies to dismiss the estimate about June 4 being the coming-of-age moment for Rahul Gandhi. “The ecosystem is, much like mausi in Sholay, trying to flatter the party by saying that you may have lost again, but you have scored a moral victory,” said Modi.

“But the people have seen through it and have a simple message, inse na ho payega (you just don’t have it in you),” the PM said, borrowing the famous line from ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, something that sparked a flurry of memes on social media. The PM was replying to the motion of thanks on the President’s Address.

“Just like the whining child who would never acknowledge that he had tore somebody’s book, abused another, called the teacher a thief and stole somebody’s lunch... Similarly, it is not disclosed that he (Rahul) is on bail in a cheating case involving thousands of crores, that he has been convicted for maligning OBCs, that SC held him guilty of making irresponsible statements and that he is facing trial for maligning Veer Savarkar,” said the PM in the fiercest direct assault on Rahul. The leader of opposition is on bail in the money laundering case related to the alleged National Herald scam.

He also reiterated his protest over Rahul’s attack on “those who call themselves Hindus”. Modi said the effort to establish an equation between Hindus and violence was well deliberated. “A conspiracy has been hatched to target the community... People will not forgive this for centuries.”

Modi said use of images of deities for personal political interests marked an “insult to our Gods”. He added, “Hindus have to decide whether what happened was just coincidence (sanjog) or part of a deliberate effort (prayog)”.

The Prime Minister also had tough words for the “ecosystem” — BJP’s shorthand for Congress supporters among the intelligentsia.

“The habits of the ecosystem, flourishing for 70 years, the way they have decided to stop the nation’s progress, and derail its development, I want to warn them... that the answer to all their conspiracies will be given in their language. This country will never accept anti-national conspiracies,” he said.

He accused Congress of trying to push the country into the throes of anarchy by pitting regions and castes against each other. “Now they are encouraging their govts in states to take measures which are not feasible. This is part of a dangerous game to create anarchy.”

PTI

Clash in Guj over Rahul’s speech, 7 hurt

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: BJP and Congress party workers pelted stones and clashed outside Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, the headquarters of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, on Tuesday. BJP and affiliated bodies were protesting alleged “anti-Hindu” remarks by Rahul Gandhi. Seven people, including three police personnel, were injured in stone pelting; 25 people were detained.

Bajrang Dal members barged into the compound of Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan and defaced posters of Congress leader and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday morning, for his remarks on Monday.

Several workers of the Congress, BJP and Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) were detained by police from outside the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan. While the BJP accused Congress workers of attacking a “peaceful protest”, opposition leaders blamed BJP cadres for starting the violence.

ACP A B Valand said that after some slogan shouting, workers of both parties threw stones at each other, injuring seven people including three cops suffered injuries. Twentyfive people from both parties were detained from the spot.

Gujarat BJP general secretary Rajni Patel alleged that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had insulted the entire Hindu community.

1st session of LS saw 103% productivity

New Delhi: The first session of the 18th Lok Sabha, adjourned sine die on Tuesday, registered 103% productivity with seven sittings that lasted for about 34 hours.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla informed the House that 539 members took oath during the session. Birla expressed gratitude for electing him Speaker for the second time through voice vote.

He informed the House that the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President’s address lasted for more than 18 hours and 68 members participated in the discussion. In addition, 50 members made speeches.

While a total of 41 matters were taken up under Rule 377, three statements were made under Direction 73A. This apart, 338 papers were laid during the session, informed Birla.

Birla expressed gratitude to Pro-tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab for smooth conduct of proceedings.

TNN

MP questions govt silence on Manipur

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: In a fiery speech, first-time Congress MP from Inner Manipur A Bimol Akoijam expressed his anguish over the absence of any reference to ethnic violence-hit Manipur in President Droupadi Murmu’s address.

In the debate in Lok Sabha on the motion of thanks on the President’s address, he was the last speaker on Monday night. The JNU professor, in a stirring speech, drew attention to the 60,000 people living in “deplorable conditions” in relief camps for the past year.

Articulating concerns of the people of Manipur, Akoijam said, “The hurt, the anger has thrown a nobody like me to be part of this temple of democracy, beating the BJP cabinet minister. Think about the pain,” said Akoijam, who defeated Union minister Rajkumar Ranjan Singh in the polls.

“Our PM remains silent and the President’s address failed to mention this. This silence is not normal,” he said. “Is this silence communicating to the people of the northeast, and particularly Manipur, that you do not matter in the Indian state’s scheme of things?” he said questioning “nationalist party like BJP’s” credentials over Manipur’s tragedy.

He told the House that over 200 people have died, and a civil war-like situation has ensued, while the Indian state has “remained a mute spectator” for one year. “Keep your hands on your hearts and think about the homeless, the mothers and the widows. Think of them and then talk about nationalism,” he said.

‘Outright lies are being spread by Cong to weaken armed forces’

New Delhi: In a rebuttal of Rahul Gandhi’s claims, PM Modi strongly justified the Agnipath scheme linking it to the need for modernisation of the armed forces.

Aday after govt denied Rahul’s claims that Agniveers likely to get martyred will be denied any compensation, Modi said, “Congress opposes every reform that strengthens the Army. Now, Congress has realised that the energy of the youth is the biggest strength of the Army. Outright lies are being spread so that youth of my country do not join the Army. I want to know through the House for whom does the Congress want to weaken our armed forces, for whose benefit are Congress members spreading so many lies regarding the armed forces? We are modernising our armed forces so that they can face any chal-lenge and give a befitting reply. We are making reforms to make our troops battle-ready”.

On Monday, Rahul had ridiculed the scheme where 25% of the recruits are absorbed into armed forces and the rest helped with options outside, as a “use-and-throw scheme”.

“Look at the intelligence of these children (Rahul and his colleagues), they used to make small toy models of Rafale and fly them, they used to have fun with armies. In the last few years, a lot of things have changed. After coming up with the designation of CDS, the integration of the forces has strengthened. Today Congress is spreading lies. They are conspiring to weaken the efforts of defence reform. In fact, the people of Congress can never see the Indian forces becoming powerful,” he said.

TNN

‘Those playing with future of students won’t be spared’

New Delhi: PM Modi on Tuesday said that the govt was working on a war footing to check paper leaks, asserting that those playing with the future of students and the youth would not be spared.

In his first-ever comments on the issue amid opposition’s demands to scrap the national level test for admission into medical colleges, Modi said, “Govt is extremely concerned about the NEET issue and is working on a war-footing to fulfil its responsibilities. Those involved in this will be dealt with strongly, people are being arrested continuously. We have already made a strong law in this regard.”

“The President expressed concerns about paper leaks in her address. I also want to tell students and youngsters that the govt is serious about controlling such incidents and we are taking back-to-back steps on a war footing to fulfil our responsibilities,” Modi said.

TNN

Sarcastic comment sparks Dhankhar-Kharge spat

‘Don’t bring in the Varna system,’ Kharge told Dhankhar on LoP remark

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Awar of words erupted between Rajya Sabha chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar and leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday after the former sarcastically told Congress member Jairam Ramesh to take the latter’s post of LoP.

Kharge, who is a Dalit, said Dhankhar was bringing in the “Varna” (caste) system by calling Ramesh “intelligent and gifted”, and by implication labelling him “dull”. An agitated Dhankhar then rapped Kharge for “twisting” his remarks.

The acrimonious exchange began when Congress member and deputy LoP Pramod Tiwari was attacking the govt for “betrayal” on multiple fronts during the motion of thanks on the President’s address. When Dhankhar told Tiwari not to make unverified claims, Ramesh interjected to say that they would be authenticated.

“The senior leadership (Kharge) is here. I think you (Ramesh) should replace (Kharge).... You are so intelligent, so gifted, so talented, you should immediately come and take the seat in place of Kharge because, by and large, you are doing his job,” the chairperson said.

Kharge promptly retorted: “Don’t bring in the Varna system. It is still in your mind... that is why you are saying Ramesh is very intelligent... and that I am dull so that I should be replaced.”

Accusing Kharge of “twisting” his statement, Dhankhar said he did not mean anything like that. “You cannot run down the Chair all the time. Never in the history of Parliamentary democracy and Rajya Sabha proceedings, has there been such disregard of the Chair. I have a lot of patience and tolerate so much,” Dhankhar said.

Adding that Ramesh was always passing some comment or the other, the Chairperson said, “There is a problem which you have to solve.” Pointing to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi sitting next to him, Kharge said it was she and the people who had made him LoP, “not Jairam Ramesh or you”.

Kharge returns Modi’s barb, says people told you ‘tumse na ho payega’

Seeking to embarrass the PM over his “parasite” remarks about Congress in Parliament, Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said Narendra Modi had used the same pejorative against the protesting farmers in 2021.

Kharge mocked that the “tumse na ho payega (you are not capable)” barb that Modi hurled at Congress was what 140 crore Indians told his govt in the elections. “The way you mentioned ‘tumse na ho payega’ in your speech over 2 hours, 140 crore Indians have said the same thing to your govt in this election. The farmers who provide food to us voted against your false promises of ‘doubling their income’ and said ‘tumse na ho payega’,” he said.“The Dalits, Adivasis, backward, minority and poor sections of this country voted against your slogan of ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’ and said ‘tumse na ho payega’,” Kharge said.

He said every victimised woman in the country voted against the ‘Beti Bachao’ propaganda, and said “tumse na ho payega”, adding lower and middle classes and harassed traders to his list of those who voted against BJP.

“PM Modi, you have insulted the mandate. Understand the sentiments of the people, give up dictatorship,” he said.

TNN

Adhere to House norms, effectively voice concerns: Modi to NDA MPs

HOUSE THAT!

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday urged NDA MPs to adhere to parliamentary norms and effectively voice their concerns.

The remarks came a day after the BJP-led alliance criticised leader of opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi for delivering what they deemed “a most irresponsible” speech. According to sources, Modi attributed the opposition’s discontent to the fact that, for the first time, a non-Congress leader has been elected PM for athird consecutive term.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju said that the PM encouraged MPs to thoroughly examine parliamentary matters, maintain regular attendance, and effectively address issues pertaining to their constituencies. “He gave us a mantra which is very important. He said that every MP has been elected to the House to serve the nation. Irrespective of the party they belong to, service to the nation is our first responsibility. Every NDA MP has to work by prioritising the country, this is what the PM urged,” Rijiju told reporters.

“Second, the PM guided us well regarding the conduct of MPs. He said that every MP should present the matters of their constituency in the House very well as per rules. He also told us to develop expertise in other major issues of interest — be it water, environment, social area. So, the PM told us to develop expertise in those areas. The PM urged NDA MPs to follow the rules of Parliament, parliamentary democracy system and conduct which is essential to becoming agood MP,” he added.

When asked if PM Modi alluded to Rahul’s speech in the Lok Sabha on Monday, Rijiju clarified that no specific mention was made.

Rahul had launched a scathing attack on BJP in the Lok Sabha, accusing the party’s leaders of fostering communal divisions for electoral gains. His remarks drew strong protests from the treasury benches, with the PM criticising the Congress leader for labelling the entire Hindu community as violent.

Akhilesh: Polls marked end of communal politics

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Opposition members in Lok Sabha on Tuesday said the recent Lok Sabha polls were a moral victory for the INDIA bloc as it marked the end of communal politics, downgraded the popularity of PM Modi and forced the govt to depend on crutches of its allies.

Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav attacked the govt on several fronts, including unemployment, NEET, Agniveer scheme and poor infrastructure, and questioned the authenticity of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

“I did not trust EVMs yesterday, I don’t trust them today. And even if I win all 80 seats (in Uttar Pradesh), I will not trust EVMs,” said Yadav, adding that the issue of EVMs is not a dead issue for Samajwadis and they would continue to oppose its use.

Participating in the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, TMC member Kalyan Banerjee said the PM now has to use two crutches — Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) — to run the govt and the recent elections had ushered in a change in the country which now has “an unstable govt and a strong opposition”.

“Earlier, our PM had so much confidence in himself, but not any longer,” said Banerjee. “If you are arrogant, we do not mind. Today, the time has come to oversee yourself. This arrogance, this hatred and this vindictiveness has downgraded the popularity of Narendra Modi,” said the TMC member.

Yadav called June 4, the day the Lok Sabha election results were declared, the day of independence from communal politics for India. “In this election, communal politics has lost forever... This election is a new era of positive politics, pro-Constitution people have won, the Constitution has won... It is the end of top-down politics,” Yadav said.

Referring to BJP’s defeat in UP’s Faizabad constituency that comprises Ayodhya, he said it was perhaps the wish of Lord Ram. “Hoi wahi jo Ram rachi rakha (whatever Ram has planned will happen)... The victory of Ayodhya is the victory of the wisdom of India’s voters,” said the former UP chief minister.

Venugopal defends Rahul, says BJP exploits religion for electoral gains

Seeking to defend Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Hindu’ remarks, Congress leader K C Venugopal on Tuesday said BJP functionaries were not believers in Hinduism, but only used religion to polarise the electorate and win elections.

Participating in the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, he said BJP projected the PM as bigger than god, which was the biggest anti-Hindu statement. “Nobody is bigger than god as per Hindu tradition. That is why god punished you in this election,” he said.

Gandhi on Monday had slammed BJP, saying, “You are not Hindus. It is clearly written in Hinduism that one should stand with the truth and not back down from the truth or be scared of it.” He also accused BJP of dividing people on communal lines.

Referring to the mention of the words “stable” and “complete majority” in the President’s address, Venugopal said the use of these words reflected govt’s insecurity.

TNN Alleging that BJP could get 240 seats “with the clear support” of central agencies, Venugopal said, “If these (agencies) would not have helped you, you would have got no more than 140 seats.”

TNN

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav with party MP Awadhesh Prasad in LS on Tuesday

Rahul writes to PM, seeks NEET debate

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Hours after Rahul Gandhi wrote to PM Modi seeking a debate on NEET in Parliament on Wednesday, the last day of the session, Congress said govt adjourned the House sine die to duck a discussion on the issue.

“Our students deserve answers. A parliamentary debate is the first step towards rebuilding and restoring their faith. I believe that it would be fitting if you were to lead this debate in the interest of students,” Gandhi said in his letter to the PM.

While Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die after the PM’s speech on Tuesday itself, Rajya Sabha proceedings will continue as the PM is scheduled to reply to the motion of thanks on the President’s address on Wednesday.

Gandhi pointed out that the opposition’s request for a debate on the issue was denied in both Houses of Parliament on June 28. On Monday, the opposition had requested for a discussion on this issue again and the Lok Sabha Speaker had given an assurance to the opposition that he would discuss the matter with govt.

“Today these students and their families are looking up to us, their public representatives to take bold and decisive steps to resolve the issue,” he asserted. “The NEET examination deserves immediate attention because it has exposed the deep rot in our higher education system,” he added.

Gandhi hihglighted that the past seven years have seen over 70 paper leaks, affecting over two crore students.

What I sought to convey in House is ground reality: Rahul

Rahul Gandhi leaves the House after Tuesday’s session

Continued from P 1

Rahul Gandhi argued that the Speaker’s power to expunge remarks is limited to “words” whose nature has been specified in Rule 380 of the rules of procedure, while the expunged portions of his speech do not fall under its ambit.

“What I sought to convey in the House is ground reality, the factual position. Every member of the House who personifies the collective voice of people whom he represents has the freedom of speech as enshrined in Article 105(1) of the Constitution... It is that right... that I was exercising yesterday,” he said, adding, “taking off from records my considered remarks goes against the very tenets of parliamentary democracy.”

The leader of the opposition also added that BJP MP Anurag Thakur’s speech was full of allegations, but only one word has been expunged from it. “This selective expunction defies logic,” he remarked.

Bansuri points at ‘inaccuracies’ in Rahul’s speech

BJP member Bansuri Swaraj on Tuesday gave notice in Lok Sabha, pointing out ‘inaccuracies’ in Rahul Gandhi’s speech.

Under the rules, a member wishing to point out any mistake or inaccuracy in a statement can, before referring to the matter in the House, write to the Speaker and seek permission to raise the issue. The member may place before the Speaker such evidence as that she or he has in support of the allegation. The Speaker can bring the matter to the notice of the member concerned to ascertain the factual position.

TNN

BJP likely to field a Muslim for assembly bypoll in UP

PankajShah@timesgroup.com

Lucknow:BJP is expected to pick a Muslim candidate for the impending bypoll to Moradabad’s Kundarki assembly seat — a first for the saffron party in any UP election since it gave Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi aLok Sabha ticket in 2019.

A senior BJP functionary said the state party brass was in contact with a prominent Muslim face, hoping to regain its lost foothold in UP with a horses-for-courses approach in the byelections to 10 seats. “The state leadership will consider all aspects before finalising his name and sending it to the central leadership for approval.”

The Kundarki seat was vacated by Zia Ur Rehman, SP’s winning candidate in Samb- hal Lok Sabha constituency.

BJP’s lone Muslim candidate in the Lok Sabha elections was former Calicut University vice-chancellor Abdul Salam, whom it fielded in Kerala’s Malappuram. Salam though lost to E T Mohammad Basheer of Indian Union Muslim league.

In the 1998 LS polls, Naqvi won the Rampur seat on a BJP ticket. He lost the seat in 1999 to Congress’s Begum Noor Bano. The same year, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, another senior Muslim BJP neta, won Bihar’s Kishanganj seat.

BJP to send RLM chief Kushwaha to RS

BJP has decided to nominate its ally and Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) chief Upendra Kushwaha to Rajya Sabha just a month after he came third in Lok Sabha elections from Karakat in Bihar, reports Manoj Chaurasia. Bypolls are anticipated due to the election of BJP’s Vivek Thakur and RJD’s Misa Bharti to LS. “Upendra Kushwaha will be the NDA candidate for RS,” BJP state president Samrat Choudhary announced Tuesday. This move is seen as an effort to counter the opposition’s “Kushwaha card” and regain the support of the Koeri community, which holds significant political weight in Bihar. The Koeri, also known as Kushwaha, make up 4.21% of the state’s electorate, second only to the Yadav, who constitute 14%.

Poverty dips to 8.5% from 21% in 2011-12, says NCAER paper

Cautions Of High Proportion Of People Who Can Slip Back Into Penury

Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta | TNN

New Delhi: A new survey has estimated poverty to have declined to 8.5% from 21% in 2011-12 and pointed out that chronic poverty has come down but there is a significant proportion of people who can slip back into poverty due to “accident of life”.

Based on the initial findings of the just-concluded India Human Development Survey, it has estimated headcount ratios of poverty using inflation-adjusted poverty line by the Tendulkar Committee, which is used by govt to formulate and implement its schemes. This is lower than the World Bank’s $2.15 international poverty line using the 2017 purchasing power parity.

A paper by economists led by Sonalde Desai of think tank NCAER, which was released on Tuesday, estimated a sharper fall in headcount poverty ratios in rural areas — from 24.8% in 2011-12 to 8.6% now. In urban areas it decreased from 13.4% to 8.4%.

The estimates are higher than SBI Research, which used the NSSO’s Household Consumption Expenditure Survey to estimate rural poverty at 7.2% and urban at 4.6%. In March, former RBI governor C Rangarajan and economist S Mahendra Dev have estimated India’s poverty rate to have declined to 10.8% in 2022-23, compared to 2011-12, based on HCES. Niti Aayog CEO B V R Subhramanyam had recently indicated that the poverty level could be less than 5% based on preliminary estimates on the household consumption expenditure data released by the statistics office.

Desai’s paper estimated that there was a significant in- crease in food subsidy through the public distribution system and other benefits through multiple schemes run by the Centre as well as the states.

It, however, suggested that the approach to social protection must pay greater attention to circumstances of life, such as illness, marriage and natural disasters, which push people into poverty rather than circumstances of birth associated with social identity or region of birth.

Using IHDS data for 2011-12 and 2022-24, the paper estimated that out of 8.5% poor, 3.2% were poor by birth, while 5.3% became poor due to “accident of life”.

“Historically, India’s approach to social safety nets has involved identifying the poor and providing them with priority access to various social protection programmes that include both in-kind and cash assistance—however, the nature of poverty changes with economic growth,” says the paper presented at India Policy Forum on Tuesday, adding that identifying the poor is often a challenge.

The paper said economic growth and poverty decline create a dynamic climate that requires nimble social protection programmes. “Ensuring that social protection systems keep up with the pace of social transformation will be a key challenge facing India as it strives towards equitable development,” it said. It said that flexibility remains key to ensuring effective programme design that can respond to changing conditions. Rights-based approaches that institute pro- grams through legislative acts sometimes create such inflexible systems that they fail the purposes for which they were designed and cites the example of MGNREGS.

The paper has suggested three principles for thinking about safety which include universal programs for a limited set of basic safety nets, risk insurance and building in flexibility and institutional framework.

It proposed that identifying and keeping the core set limited and fully funded is the challenge. “Massive expansion of the number of programs without concomitant resource increase would render this approach futile,” the paper said while detailing the reasons for making universal programs for a limited set of basic safety nets.

Jailed J&K MP granted 2-hour custody parole for taking oath

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday granted custody parole for two hours to jailed Kashmiri politician Sheikh Abdul Rashid, better known as Engineer Rashid, to take oath as a Lok Sabha member on July 5, subject to certain conditions. The court order came a day after the NIA gave its consent for Rashid to take oath as an MP.

Advocate Vikhyat Oberoi, who appeared for Rashid, told TOI, “Rashid will take oath on July 5. His family is allowed to accompany him.”

Spelling out the conditions, additional sessions judge Chander Jit Singh said Rashid’s wife and children were allowed to be present during the making and subscribing of the oath. Rashid was not allowed access to a phone and internet, would not speak to the media on any issue, nor interact with anyone except the officials concerned.

TNN

Maha minister draws SC ire for restoring restaurant’s liquor licence

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday strongly disapproved Maharashtra excise minister Sambhuraj Desai’s July 6, 2023 order to reverse concurrent decisions of the Amravati district collector and excise commissioner to cancel the licence given to serve liquor in the bar of a restaurant in a residential area in Kathora.

A vacation bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Ujjal Bhuyan dismissed the appeal filed by the proprietor of ‘Shubh Restaurant’ saying when the two authorities had concurrently found that the liquor licence to the restaurant was illegal as the gram panchayat had not given the no objection certificate, the minister had no business to interfere with it.

“Just because you (the proprietor of the restaurant) are influential and can reach the minister, does not mean the minister can act arbitrarily. Why should a minister interfere with concurrent findings of the authorities below? For no good ground and no cogent reason the minister has upset the concurrent findings,” the bench said dismissing the appeal against the decision of Nagpur bench of the Bombay HC.

A woman teacher, who resided adjacent to the restaurant, had complained to the authorities because of the ruckus created there by people after drinking alcohol served at the eating joint.

The Amravati collector had then sought a report from the gram panchayat, which informed that it had not given any no objection certificate to grant of liquor licence to the restaurant. Based on the panchayat’s report, the collector on May 5, 2021 cancelled the FL-III licence of the restaurant.

On appeal by the restaurant proprietor, the excise commissioner on Aug29, 2022, upheld the findings of the collector that ‘Shubh Bar’ was functioning without permission of gram panchayat, which also had never given permission to use the premises for commercial purposes.

Faulting the minister’s decision, the Bombay HC had said, “It is nobody’s case that the permission/NOC of gram panchayat is not necessary to open/run a Bar/Permit Room in the residential area. Despite such status, the revisional authority (minister), without noting fault in the reasons assigned by the authorities below has set aside the concurrent findings.” The HC had restored the order of the excise commissioner.

When two authorities had found that the liquor licence to a restaurant was illegal, the minister had no business to interfere with it, SC said

Bihar goes to SC against HC order nixing quota rise beyond 50%

New Delhi: Bihar govt has moved the Supreme Court challenging a Patna HC verdict that has set aside the amended reservation laws in the state, which enabled the Nitish Kumar govt to increase the quotas for Dalits, tribals and backward classes from 50%to 65%.

In its June 20 verdict, the high court declared that the amendments, passed unanimously by the state’s bicameral legislature in Nov last year, were “ultra vires” of the Constitution, “bad in law” and “violative of the equality clause”.

The state’s plea has been filed in the SC through advocate Manish Kumar. A division bench of the high court had allowed a bunch of petitions challenging the Bihar Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services (for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) (Amendment) Act, 2023 and the Bihar (In Admission in Educational Institutions) Reservation (Amendment) Act, 2023, while “leaving the parties to suffer their respective costs”.

In a detailed order running into 87 pages, the high court made it clear that it saw “no extenuating circumstance enabling the state to breach” the 50% cap on reservations laid down by the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney case.

“The state proceeded on the mere proportion of population of different categories as against their numerical representation in govt services and educational institutions,” the HC pointed out.

PTI

Ex-official was charged with disproportionate assets in June

 Continued from P 1

The gold biscuits and jewellery are valued at Rs 15 crore, the silver ornaments are worth Rs 2 lakh, the diamond jewellery Rs 8.5 lakh, the ACB said in a statement about the seizure from the office of MD Sagathiya, the former town planning officer of Rajkot Municipal Corporation who was arrested in the May 25 TRP Game Zone fire

It added that “Rs 3 crore in cash, foreign currency equivalent to Rs 1.8 lakh, and a collection of expensive wrist watches valued at Rs 1 lakh” were also found at the office.

On June 19, the ACB had stated that Sagathiya’s legal income between April 1, 2012 and May 31, 2024 was about Rs 2.6 crore. He was charged last month with having disproportionate assets worth Rs 10 crore. The office was sealed following Sagathiya’s arrest last month.

“Although the office was registered in his brother’s name, Sagathiya had control over it. Sagathiya’s brother cooperated in the probe and unlocked the biometric locks for the police,” the agency said. Sagathiya is among the 15 accused arrested in connection with the fire. Of the 15 accused, eight are RMC officials.

Organisers blame admin’s ‘inefficiency’ for stampede

An injured arrives in an ambulance at Sikandrarao hospital in Hathras district, about 350km from Lucknow

 Continued from P 1

ADG (Agra zone) Anupam Kulshreshtha added that “an FIR is being registered and the organisers of the event will be included in the case since more than the permitted number of people had come to attend the event”.

Prakash Kumar, an attendee from Aligarh who was injured, said, “There was a large crowd at the site. There was no way out, and people fell on each other, and fainted. When I tried to move out, there were motorcycles parked outside, which blocked my way.”

However, Mahesh Chandra, a member of the committee that organised the satsang, said that the stampede happened due to the administration’s “inefficiency”. “People had fallen on the ground. Crowds were running over them and there was no one to control them,” he alleged.

The large number of casualties stretched the limits of the medical infrastructure. “Those who were brought alive are dying due to lack of required medical infrastructure. Our hospital does not have enough oxygen to revive those who were unconscious,” said a nurse at Sikandra Rau trauma centre.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed sorrow over the stampede and announced Rs 2 lakh ex gratia for the next of kin of the dead and Rs 50,000 for the injured.

TIMESVIEW: Over the decades, India has witnessed several horrific stampedes. In many cases, inadequate safety arrangements were the reason. The cause of this stampede must be investigated. Whoever is responsible for the lapse should not be spared. Equally importantly, authorities should work out modalities and guidelines to ensure that such tragedies don’t occur in future

Bhole Baba: UP constable who took VRS in 1990s to become religious preacher

The devotional event (satsang) at Hathras in which over 100 people lost their lives on Tuesday was being conducted by godman ‘Sakar Vishwa Hari Bhole Baba’, formerly known as Surajpal Singh, a former UP police constable who left service prematurely to become a religious preacher, reports Deepak Lavania.

Singh is believed to have served as a cop for 18 years during which he was posted across 12 police stations in western UP, as well as in the state’s intelligence unit. He opted for voluntary retirement (VRS) in the 1990s, changing his name to Sakar Vishwa Hari, sources said. He soon hit the big time on the religious circuit in north India, and now has lakhs of followers including senior govt officials as well as politicians. His followers are mainly concentrated across western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Delhi, sources said.

The baba’s next programme was scheduled to be held in Agra from July 4 to July 11. Soon after the stampede, the baba absconded with the help of his sevadars. Police teams are now on the lookout for him.

Shocked by sight of piled-up bodies, QRT cop suffers heart attack, dies

Ravi Yadav, 30, a constable who was assigned to a Quick Response Team (QRT) following the stampede at a religious congregation in Hathras on Tuesday, suffered a heart attack and subsequently passed away at Etah Medical College, reports Deepak Lavania.

Following the death of over 100 people attending the event, their bodies were being taken for a post-mortem. According to police officials, Yadav was part of the team assigned responsibility for management of the bodies. “He was shocked to see that so many people, mostly women, had died. While we were going about our work, he suddenly fell on the ground. We rushed him to hospital, but he had already passed away by then. Doctors said that he probably suffered acute trauma on seeing multiple bodies, leading to the heart attack,” said Lalit Chaudhary, a constable who was on duty along with Yadav.

Mumbai college bars students defying dress code for 2nd day

Mumbai: Some of the students of NG Acharya and DK Marathe College in Chembur who were found defying the dress code were turned away from the entrance on Tuesday, the second day in a row when such action was taken.

The college, which ran into a controversy for not allowing hijab and burqa in classrooms last year, introduced a new dress code this academic year, asking students to wear formals — shirts, trousers, Indian dress and western outfit for girls. While the college notified students about the new dress code on May 1, it issued a new circular on June 27, prohibiting even T-shirts, jeans and jerseys on the campus. A student said they wanted to protest against the rules and so wore jeans on Tuesday and were turned away from the main entrance.

The principal, Vidyagauri Lele, said the students were notified about the new dress code at the time of admission.

TNN

Monu could only recall dad ran grocery shop

 Continued from P 1

Late last month, a truck driver from Dehradun visited the village to transport goats. Monu narrated his ordeal to the trucker, who hid him in his vehicle and brought him to Delhi. “After reaching Delhi, he made him board a train to Dehradun after handing him a paper note explaining how to reach the police in the city. About five days ago, he reached the city police headquarters to seek help in reuniting with his family,” Dehradun SSP Ajai Singh said.

Upon reaching Dehradun, Monu provided the police with very few details about his family, recalling only that he had four sisters and his father ran a grocery shop. The police circulated his photo to local police stations and newspapers and on Monday, Asha Sharma from Brahmanwala area in Dehradun identified Monu as her missing son.

4 jewellers held for ties with Af diplomat in gold-smuggling case

Ahmed.Ali@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:In the gold smuggling case involving Afghanistan consul general Zakia Wardak, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested four jewellers from Mumbai on Monday. The DRI also claimed that the syndicate smuggled 300 kg of foreign-marked gold into the country this year in the four months beginning Jan.

Another employee of the consulate is under the scanner in the case. The DRI suspects that Wardak might have supplied gold bars to the accused jewellers in the past as well.

The arrested jewellers were identified as Vaibhav Thaker, 31, Sahil Shah, 36, Vinod Shah, 60, all residents of Walkeshwar in South Mumbai, and Shailesh Jain, 55, who is a resident of Marine Drive.

The arrests followed the interception of Wardak on April 25, when she arrived from Dubai with 25 kg of foreign-marked gold bars worth Rs 18.60 crore. Investigations revealed that a consulate staff member, Rafiullah Kelewal, might be connected to the syndicate. Thaker said to the DRI that from Jan to April, Jain and his brother from J K Jewels had given a total of 300 kg of smuggled gold to customers introduced through him.

Investigations revealed that Wardak had visited the SK Shah office in Jan.She introduced Kelewal, and it was decided that they would give about 200 kg of gold to SK Shah against cash payment. Once the gold was delivered, Sahil Shah would sell it and hand over the cash to Kelewal. Jain would then sell the gold to Thaker on cash basis.

“Other key members of the syndicate, Tejas Shah of SK Shah and Sons, hawala operators, are yet to be apprehended,” a DRI officer said.

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Dissolution Of DDCD Is ‘Null & Void’: Atishi

‘LG Nod To Proposal Patent Lack Of Jurisdiction’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Days after lieutenant governor VK Saxena approved a proposal to “temporarily dissolve” Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDCD) and subsequent order by the services department to remove its non-official members, Delhi planning minister Atishi on Tuesday termed it “null and void”.

The minister termed the LG’s nod to the proposal a “patent lack of jurisdiction” and said the non-official members would continue in their roles. She said that DDCD had been constituted by the elected govt of Delhi following a cabinet decision and the “sole supervisory jurisdiction and authority” over the appointment of its non-official members was that of the chief minister.

“Each of these gazette notifications were issued after the approval of the then LG of Delhi. It is abundantly clear that the non-official members are to be appointed directly by the chief minister and their term is coterminous with the term of the Govt of NCT of Delhi. They can be removed only with the approval of the chief minister, who is the chairperson of DDCD,” Atishi said in her order.

No immediate reaction was available from the LG office.

While approving a proposal moved by the services department last week, LG VK Saxena had given a go-ahead to the removal of three non-official members till a mechanism for screening and selection of domain experts as DDCD’s vice chairman and members was developed. Saxena had also observed on the file that DDCD was ostensibly created by AAP govt “to extend financial benefits and patronage to certain favoured political persons of partisan inclinations”.

Atishi, however, said she had not received any official communication from the LG’s office to work out the terms of reference and form a screening-cum-selection committee for DDCD. “Prima facie, it is observed that LG is not vested with any jurisdiction or authority to issue an order to rescind the engagement of these non-official members,” she stated.

The order further added that “DDCD operated under the planning department of Delhi govt and none of its functions correspond to any reserved subject over which LG could exercise jurisdiction”.

The minister said the non-official members had been appointed in an advisory capacity to recommend policy reforms to govt due to “expertise” in their respective areas.

“Therefore, Vijay Chandra Vupputuri, Aswathi Muralidharan and Gopal Mohan shall continue as non-official members of DDCD, and shall remain entitled to salary, offices, official vehicles, and all perks as they were on 26.06.2024 (when the order to remove them was issued). Any officer who stops the payment of their salaries or prevents the providing of perks to these non-official members shall make themselves liable for disciplinary action,” she added.

Quashing sexual violence case upon monetary settlement will imply ‘justice for sale’, says HC

New Delhi:Criminal cases involving allegations of sexual violence cannot be quashed on the basis of monetary payments as doing so would imply that “justice is for sale”, Delhi High Court has observed.

The court said even if the parties have reached a compromise in a sexual violence case, they cannot demand quashing of the FIR as a matter of right.

The court made the observation while rejecting a plea moved by a rape accused seeking quashing of an FIR re- gistered by a woman on the ground that the matter was amicably settled between the parties and that she agreed to settle for Rs 1.5 lakh.

“… This court is of the opinion that criminal cases involving allegations of sexual violence cannot be quashed on the basis of monetary payments, as doing so would imply that justice is for sale,” Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said.

The court, in an order passed on Monday, said it has considered the fact that the FIR it- self reveals serious allegations against the man and his family members, including consistent threats to the prosecutrix (woman) to prevent her from lodging a complaint.

The woman, who was divorced and had a child, had initially demanded Rs 12 lakh from the man but later settled for Rs 1.5 lakh.

The FIR also alleged shooting of inappropriate videos and photos by the accused, threats to kill her and her son, and repeated misrepresentation by the accused.

PTI

`670-crore cost escalation for LNJP’s new block: LG seeks technical probe by CVC

BHARADWAJ SAYS The LG orders inquiries day and night. What other work has he done for Delhi? The vigilance department is under him. He does this so that the media asks us (AAP govt) questions

The LG has also constituted a committee to examine procedural violations that led to the increase in cost

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Taking note of loss of public money due to “procedural violations”, leading to a huge cost overrun of Rs 670 crore in the construction of a new block of the state-owned Lok Nayak Hospital, LG VK Saxena has approved a proposal to refer the case to central vigilance commission for a detailed technical examination.

The LG has also constituted a committee to examine procedural violations which led to the increase in cost. The committee, which will submit its report within two months, will also examine all such ongoing projects in different Delhi govt hospitals.

The cost of building the new block was initially pegged at Rs 465 crore but increased to Rs 1135 crore, an escalation of nearly 143%.

“It is beyond justification that such huge cost overruns were effected at the level of the engineers of the department though it should had gone to the finance department and the cabinet,” the LG said in his note.

Addressing a press conference, Delhi health minister Saurabh Bharadwaj slammed the LG for ordering inquiries. “The LG orders inquiries day and night. What other work has he done for Delhi? The vigilance department is under him. He does this so that the media asks us (AAP govt) questions,” Bharadwaj said.

Welcoming the inquiry, Delhi govt sources said if there was any illegality, the officers concerned should be punished. “In his note, the LG is himself saying that the cost escalation happened at the level of officers without the knowledge of govt. We welcome any inquiry into this matter and strictest punishment should be given if any illegality is found,” said a Delhi govt official.

“These officers are directly under the control of LG. The vigilance department is directly under LG. He and his department should have been more proactive instead of coming into action after media reports,” the official added.

The hospital’s new block, which is being constructed by PWD, will have 22 floors with 1,427 beds and will have a parking capacity of around 400 vehicles. Construction was scheduled to start on Nov 4, 2020 and get completed within 30 months. The LG’s office claimed only 64% work has been completed so far. PWD attributed the cost overruns to increase in the scope of work, officials said. The LG has in his note to the chief secretary asked the directorate of vigilance to request CVC to constitute a special team of chief technical examiners to conduct a detailed examination in the case.

Raj Niwas officials said LG wrote to CM Arvind Kejriwal on June 22, 2023, flagging reports of “inordinate delays” in hospital projects highlighting cost overruns running into crores of rupees. They added that it was only after this communication that the health department moved a cabinet note in March 2024 for endorsement/approval of the cost overruns in the case.

The LG also mentioned that a dispute between PWD and the private construction company engaged for the work had arisen following which an arbitral tribunal constituted for adjudication gave an award of Rs 82.45 crore in favour of the contractor. However, PWD chose not to challenge the award that further increased the financial burden.

The LG has also asked for formation of a four-member committee, headed by retired IAS officer BK Prasad, to undertake a detailed examination of the matter.

HC asks CBI to reply to Kejriwal’s plea in a week

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will soon seek regular bail in the corruption case related to the alleged excise scam, his lawyer told Delhi High Court on Tuesday.

The court, meanwhile, asked CBI to respond to his plea challenging his arrest. Justice Neena Bansal Krishna gave the agency a week to reply, listing the matter for July 17.

Besides his arrest, Kejriwal has challenged the trial court's June 26 and June 29 orders by which he was remanded in CBI custody for three days and judicial custody till July 12, respectively.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing Kejriwal, submitted that an FIR was lodged by CBI in Aug 2022 and he was summoned and questioned by the probe agency in April 2023 for nine hours.

“From April 2023 till now, there has been no summons and now he was arrested by CBI on June 26. No new evidence or material is pointed out by CBI to justify his arrest.... So there cannot be any necessity to arrest him,” he said.

When the court queried if the accused has filed any bail plea in the CBI case, Singhvi said they are going to soon.

“Since the petitioner’s fundamental rights as gua- ranteed under … the Constitution are infringed, he is beseeching this court to direct his interim release until the issues that have far-reaching ramifications and are of grave legal, constitutional as well as public importance are adjudicated,” it said.

“Even after the arrest of the petitioner, in the remand application also CBI has not pointed out any new material which would have justified his arrest. All the facts and allegations... were part of the chargesheets dated Nov 24, 2022, April 25, 2023 and July 6, 2023 filed earlier….This fact was concealed by the CBI. In such a scenario there is no justification in the arrest memo for arresting the petitioner after 2 years of investigation,” the plea said.

The CBI had claimed before the trial court that Kejriwal did not cooperate with the investigation.

Curious Case Of The Missing Rains

After Day 1 Deluge And A Series Of Failed Predictions, Met Says Heavy Showers Are Unlikely Anytime Soon

Priyangi.Agarwal@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The monsoon arrived in Delhi with a literal bang on June 28 — accompanied by the roll of thunder, a record rainfall measuring 228.1mm in just a few hours submerged large swathes of the city. India Meteorological Department had predicted rain on the weekend, but the capital logged only 8.9mm of rainfall on Sunday and the expected precipitation has been eluding the city since then.

Met officials said due to the shifting of the rainfall belt, heavy rain did not occur in Delhi as forecast, but the surrounding areas were indeed drenched. They said heavy rain was unlikely in the city over the next few days, though there is the likelihood of light to moderate rain.

SD Kotal, scientist, IMD, said, “Heavy rain is unlikely for the next few days in Delhi. Ho- wever, light to moderate showers or thunderstorms and lightning can be expected in the city over the next five days.” The Met department has issued a ‘yellow’ alert for moderate rain and thunderstorm/lightning for Wednesday, but there are no colour-coded alerts for July 4-8. Safdarjung, the city’s base weather station, recorded extremely heavy rainfall of 228.1mm on Friday, the highest in a single June day since 1936. After a dry Saturday and slight rain on Sunday, Safdarjung logged no rain on Monday and Tuesday though some stations recorded light showers.

A Met official said, “The conditions for rain were favourable then, but it is difficult to predict the exact area of rainfall. Though Delhi did not get significant rain, the adjacent areas did record proper rainfall in the past three days. An error in the shifting of the rainfall belt meant intense ra- in over a large area without some portions receiving any.”

The maximum temperature on Tuesday was 36.7 degrees Celsius, one degree below normal, against Monday’s 36 degrees. The minimum temperature was 30.7 degrees Celsius, three above normal. The relative humidity was high and between 61% and 76%.

IMD predicts the maximum temperature to remain 34-35 degrees Celsius on Wednesday and Thursday and around 33 degrees Celsius from July 5 to 8. The minimum temperature is likely to dip to 28 degrees Celsius on Wednesday before falling further to 26 degrees Celsius by July 6.

Mahesh Palawat, vice chairman, meteorology and climate change, Skymet, said, “The monsoon trough shifted from south of Delhi to north of Delhi on Tuesday night within 24 hours. Only scattered or patchy rain is expected in Delhi.”

You can use IIT-D app to report cases of flooding

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:Researchers at IIT Delhi have developed a mobile application, “IITD Aab Prahari”, to help citizens alert civic bodies to mitigate waterlogging issues. The app would enable real-time reporting of flooding incidents in and around residents’ location, said an IIT report.

“Rapid urbanisation and the escalating impacts of climate change have exacerbated the issue of urban flooding (waterlogging) that the NCT of Delhi faces during monsoon season. There is also a need to strengthen the city's drainage system to address this pressing issue. Low-lying and densely populated areas in the NCT of Delhi suffer from severe waterlogging and infrastructure damage during heavy rainfall. Recognizing the need for a proactive, data-driven approach, the water security and sustainable development hub at IIT Delhi’s civil engineering department developed a mobile application called ‘IITD Aab Prahari’. The app has been designed to empower citizens to contribute to flood management,” said IIT in a release.

The app, available on the Google Play Store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iitdap.abbprahari&hl=en), allows users to send photos and measurements of flood depths at specific locations, which are automatically geotagged and sent to a central server.

Since its experimental launch in Aug 2022 and its official release in Sept 2022, the app has facilitated the collection of detailed, geotagged information on flood events, told the report.

“This crowdsourced data, which has been available on the central server since 2022, was instrumental in calibrating and validating IIT Delhi's urban flood model in 2023. An urban flood early warning system for the Barapullah basin based on this flood model is already in place and can be accessed through https://jalsuraksha.iitd.ac.in/barapullah/index.html.” added the report.

"One of the Aab Prahari app's key strengths is its ability to engage citizens in flood management,” said Dr Dhanya CT, project PI and professor in department of civil engineering, IIT Delhi.

Customs seizes cocaine worth `22 crore at IGI

New Delhi: A 51-year-old passenger, who arrived from Addis Ababa to Indira Gandhi International Airport, has been arrested after 1,472 grams of cocaine was seized from his possession. The seized contraband has been valued at over Rs 22 crore.

Customs officials said on Tuesday that the incident happened on June 28. Based on the intelligence inputs, the Cameroon national was searched upon both in person as well as his luggage in the international transit area.

“During personal and baggage search of a Cameroonian passenger, 70 capsules containing white powdery substance were recovered. These 70 capsules yielded 1,472.5 grams of white powdery substance suspected to be cocaine. Diagnostic test confirmed the substance to contain cocaine. The approximate worth of the substance is Rs 22.09 crore,” Varun Koundinya, joint commissioner of customs at IGI Airport, said in a statement.

TNN

13 reasons why: Flood dept’s plan focuses on locations that were submerged last yr

Siddhanta Mishra & Abhinav Rajput TNN

New Delhi:With the sorry situation after the heavy rains on June 28 frustrated Delhiites, will the plans to prevent flooding in the city yield results? Delhi govt’s irrigation & flood control department (IFC) had already determined that 13 locations in central Delhi would be minutely monitored given their history of flooding. Separately, IFC also has temporary control rooms along the Yamuna and the major drains to prevent, or at least manage, any flooding because of these.

The flood control order published by IFC has measures and protocols even for summoning the army to conduct rescue operations in the event the Yamuna is in spate. The temporary control rooms will issue alerts based on the water level in the river and the drains for further action.

Last year, the unprecedented rainfall in the catchment area of the Yamuna had a huge runoff, resulting in the highest flood level (HFL) of 208.7 metres at the Old Railway Bridge on July 13, surpassing the earlier high of 207.5m on September 6, 1978. Several areas in the city were flooded. In hindsight, IFC realised that at some places, inadequate stormwater drainage, punctured DJB sewer manholes and lack of coordination among the various official agencies had led to the crisis.

The malfunctioning of five gates of the ITO barrage on the Yamuna duse to heavy silting was one of the major reasons for the flooding last year. When these gates at the east end of the barrage couldn’t be opened, the flooded river breached the banks and inundated areas, roads and colonies on the stretch between Wazirabad and the barrage. Recently, minister Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed that repairs had been carried out on the gates and a similar situation wasn’t likely to be repeated.

The flood control order also identifies the problems of backflow of sewage from broken manholes. “No proper drainage system has been installed in some unaut-

STARTS horised colonies, resulting in the stagnation of stormwater in pools and low-lying plots. “For the drainage of these ponds, batteries of pumps have to be installed to link the colony water to nearby drains” says the plan.

The river level at the Old Railway Bridge serves as the basis for studying the flood situation in the Yamuna River. The warning level is 204.5m, the danger level is 205.3m and evacuation begins when the level reaches 206m. The control room issues the first warning to all its officers, departments and sector committees as soon as the water discharge from the Hathnikund barrage exceeds one lakh cusecs. The second warning is issued when the discharge exceeds three lakh cusecs.

“After the third warning, people residing on the river

embankments are warned and arrangements made to shift them to safer places,” said an IFC official. “Police and the IFC staff undertake patrolling along marginal embankments and keep vigil on the vulnerable points.” The third warning comes when the release of water exceeds five lakh cusecs. At this level, people residing in dangerously exposed areas are advised to move to higher terrain.

The current assessment suggests that Delhi may require around 15 army boats for relief measures. The general officer commanding, Delhi area, will circulate a flood relief scheme directions and instruct army officer who are deployed on such emergent work. In 2023, army engineers were called to repair a broken regulator near ITO to prevent floodwater from entering central Delhi.

While unprecedented weather events are being witnessed across the world and different govt agencies are preparing for heavy flooding or high temperatures, in the capital, the public infrastructure has always collapsed in the face of usual monsoon activity. Despite the past years’ experience, the torrential rainfall last month left the city drenched, cranky and miserable.

6

After freaky Friday, DDA on waterlogging vigil

Sarita Vihar underpass witnessed heavy waterlogging after Friday’s rain

Vibha.Sharma@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has issued instructions in response to the recent severe waterlogging at various points of the city, including underpasses.

On Friday, an incident of drowning of a 60-year-old at the flooded Sarita Vihar underpass was also reported. DDA has directed its zones to ensure that water pumps for subways and underpasses are operational and personnel deployed 24/7.

A DDA official said: “On Friday, heavy waterlogging (up to 5 feet) happened in the Sarita Vihar underpass which is very long and most of the area is uncovered. Soon after the flooding, we installed seven pumps. After that, the process for desilting of all sump pits also started. We expect to complete the exercise of cleaning the pumps by July 6 and after that there will be negligible chances of water longing for a longer duration."

According to a post by Delhi Traffic Police on X, the floo- ded underpass was reopened for traffic movement on Sunday night after the water level receded. DDA's instructions also stress the importance of maintaining a consistent supply of fuel and electricity to the pumps. Additionally, repair and maintenance teams have been directed to regular- ly inspect all areas and promptly address any road damage caused by rain, including those near underpasses.

The official stated, “All engineering zones have been instructed to gear up and take all precautionary and preventive measures. They have been asked to be ready with equip- ment and manpower to handle the situation. All officials on leave were asked to join back and no break will be given in upcoming months.” Furthermore, the landscape and horticulture departments have been tasked with monitoring the water levels of the Yamuna and taking appropriate measures to pre- vent waterlogging. Last year, after flooding, the river banks were severely affected. In an effort to prevent the clogging of stormwater drain exits, DDA has issued instructions for desilting and removing any floating debris from the surface.

On Tuesday, mayor Shelly Oberoi inspected of the Kushak drain to assess its state. During the inspection, officials from MCD reported that encroachments in the vicinity had led to a lack of approach roads, making it difficult for desilting equipment to access the area. "Encroachments along the banks significantly impede maintenance work, particularly desilting. The lack of proper approach roads prevents machinery from reaching all parts of the drain. Despite these obstacles, efforts have been made to desilt the drain, wherever possible," an official said.

The mayor stressed the importance of finding a permanent solution to ensure proper upkeep and maintenance of the Kushak drain.

Agent of ‘change’: Man who provided fake passport held

US DREAMS: Guru Sewak Singh dyed his hair and beard and wore glasses to appear older

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Weeks after a 24-year-old man was apprehended at IGI Airport for impersonating a 67-year-old, police arrested the agent who had arranged his fake documents for Rs 60 lakh. The agent, who has been identified as Jagjeet Singh, a resident of Pilibhit in UP, had orchestrated the man’s disguised appearance too.

At 5:20 pm on June 18, CISF staff intercepted a passenger in the check-in area of Terminal 3. Upon inquiry, he identified himself as Rashvindar Singh, born on Feb 10, 1957, and stated that he was bound for Canada on an Air Canada flight at 10:50 pm. “His appearance, voice, and skin texture seemed significantly younger than the details provided in the passport. Closer observation revealed that he had dyed his hair and beard white and was wearing glasses to appear older,” an officer said.

During the inspection of his mobile phone, a soft copy of another passport in the name of Guru Sewak Singh was found. Upon further inquiry, the passenger admitted that this was his real name and that he was travelling on a passport issued in the name of Rashvindar Singh. CISF officials handed him over to police, and a case was registered.

Guru Sewak disclosed that he and his wife wanted to go to the USA for better livelihood opportunities and he came into contact with Jagjeet through a friend. “He promised to send us to the USA via Canada illegally using someone else’s passports, in exchange for Rs 60 lakh. Guru Sewak paid him Rs 30 lakh, and it was decided that the rest of the amount would be paid after reaching the destination,” the officer said.

DCP (IGI) Usha Rangnani said the agent arranged a passport for him in the name of Rashvinder Singh and another passport for his wife, Archana Kaur, under the name of Harjeet Kaur for their journey to Canada. “On Jagjeet’s directions, one of his accomplices took him to a salon in Tilak Nagar to make him look like an old man resembling the age of the passport holder. A salon employee applied makeup to make him appear similar to the passport photo,” she said.

“Jagjeet had even arranged tickets for their journey to Canada, but Guru Sewak was caught by airport staff on suspicion. His wife was also apprehended near the airport as she tried to flee using the fake passport. A dedicated team led by SHO (IGI) Vijender Rana was then formed, and they conducted multiple raids, eventually apprehending the agent from his hideouts in Uttarakhand,” the officer said.

Jagjeet told police that he is a graduate and runs a tours and travel company in Bijnor. “The salon owner was questioned and she told us that the suspect posed as a genuine customer. We are also contacting the original passport holders,” the DCP stated.

Shots fired at builder’s house for not paying ‘protection money’

New Delhi: Armed men fired at a builder's house in northeast Delhi's Kabir Nagar after he refused to pay Rs 20 lakh as “protection money”. No one was injured, police said.

The incident happened on Monday around 8pm near Madina Masjid in Kabir Nagar. During the investigation, a 38-year-old man told cops that he received a call from a local goon demanding Rs 20 lakh a few days ago, a police officer said.

The builder was threatened if he didn't give the demanded amount, he and his family would be murdered and to terrorise him, the goon boasted about his previous criminal record, the officer said. After receiving nothing, the goon called the builder again two days ago, asking him to pay at least Rs 10 lakh or else a "trailer" would be shown to him, the officer said, adding that investigations have revealed that two suspects came on a scooter and fired 3-4 rounds at the complainant’s house. Two empty cases and one mangled lead piece have been recovered.

TNN

Survey to identify units discharging waste into Yamuna

Priyangi.Agarwal@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) is conducting a survey to identify grossly polluting units operational in 25 redevelopment areas of the city. These 'red' category units, including dyeing, electroplating and phosphating, discharge untreated waste into the Yamuna through drains.

Officials stated that after identifying such units, steps will be taken to either transition these units to cleaner operations in a time-bound manner or close them.

TOI had reported last year that industries in 25 areas for redevelopment under Master Plan Delhi 2021 (MPD 2021) are not connected to common effluent treatment plants and such units are discharging untreated effluents into Yamuna through drains.

Industries department of Delhi govt had notified 25 industrial clusters in non-conforming areas (having 70% plots in the clusters under industrial activity) for redevelopment to regularize these areas as industrial areas after developing the required infrastructure. Subsequently, MPD 2021 also included such clusters with a series of stipulated conditions with respect to the infrastructure to be developed in such areas before declaring them as industrial areas.

Certain Red category units, including electroplating, dying, phosphating, etc. which come under grossly polluting industries and have high pollution potential are existing in these areas. “A survey is underway to identify such units,” said a DPCC official.

“The units are tiny and do not possess requisite technical know-how to efficiently employ pollution control measures. These non-conforming industrial clusters do not have any common effluent treatment plan (CETP) installed or proposed. Therefore, if any unit does not operate its effluent treatment plant then the highly polluted water gets directly discharged into the drain and to river Yamuna eventually. Since the notification of MPD 2021 a lot of time has passed without any steps being taken for redevelopment of these arca either by the societies or by local bodies/ authorities,” said DPCC’s Consent Committee as per its minutes of meeting.

“It is felt that there is no reason to allow the highly polluting units (Red category as categorized by CPCB and DPCC) to exist in these industrial clusters. Therefore, it decided in the meeting that list of all the existing Red category units in notified non-conforming industrial clusters will first be identified and their case be brought before the Consent Committee so that a decision can be taken to direct them to either switch over to any non-polluting or green operations within a prescribed time failing which deny their consent to make them shut down,” said DPCC.

Activist Varun Gulati, who had earlier complained to authorities about these units, said, “A large number of units, which are releasing untreated chemicals into drains, are operational in these 25 redevelopment areas. These units should be closed as they end up releasing waste into Yamuna through drains.”

No Masterstroke: Draft MPD 2041 Fails ToFully Address Recurring Flooding

Instead, It Focuses On Combination Of Initiatives To Boost Management Of Sewage, Wastewater

TIMES Special

Vibha.Sharma@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The draft Master Plan for Delhi 2041, which is awaiting notification of the central govt, does not provide a comprehensive solution to the recurring problem of waterlogging after every spell of rain. Instead of offering specific solutions, the plan focuses on a combination of initiatives to improve the management of sewerage, wastewater and drainage, with the emphasises on augmenting the green cover and promoting water-sensitive urban development. The plan also advises keeping all natural and engineered drains free of silt.

According to projections, Delhi is expected to generate 1,200 million gallons per day of wastewater for a population of 30 million by 2041. A Delhi Development Authority official said, "While a service plan of the drainage system in Delhi has been included in the draft MPD 2041, a detailed plan must be prepared by Delhi govt’s irrigation & flood control department. Such plans are prepared ba- sed on the geomorphology of the city, calculation or monitoring of rainfall, existing infrastructure, etc."

However, Sarvagaya Srivastava, former engineer-inchief of PWD, countered that no one was focusing on making the capital healthy. "At present, 25-40% of sewage is being disposed of in open drains and this is why there is need of desilting,” he no- ted. “The irony is that no one pays heed to implementing separate drainage and sewage systems in the city. This would save crores of rupees spent on remodelling, extension and desilting of drains every year. If there is land scarcity in laying a vast network of stormwater drains or sewer lines, then we can go underground as in other countries." Srivastava also pointed out that IIT Delhi had prepared a drainage plan in 2018, but it was never implemented by the state govt.

MPD 2041 suggests split- ting the National Capital Territory into 12 sewage-drainage zones from the current six zones, not including Delhi Cantonment and the airport areas. The delineation of these zones is based on fac- tors such as wastewater generation in each zone and sub-zone, the capacity of existing wastewater treatment plants, and the availability of land for additional wastewater plants.

"There should be a single institution that bears overall responsibility of the management of the stormwater drainage system within NCT of Delhi for effective administrative manage- ment," says the MPD.

The plan also says that while remodelling work is going on for drains like Najafgarh Pond Drain and Bund Drain, there are areas where work is pending due to land constraints. "There is no land available for remodelling the KSN drain since the adjacent area on both sides is developed and urbanised," the MPD says.

Delhi govt officials have acknowledged that the city would continue to face waterlogging issues until a new drainage plan was implemented. Recently, chief secretary Naresh Kumar claimed that work was under way in this regard, with the city being divided into three parts — Najafgarh basin, Barapullah basin and Trans-Yamuna basin — and consultants had been appointed to prepare the drainage plan for each of these basins. "We are likely to get a report by March next year and once approved, it will take around three years to modify the city's drainage system according to the new plan," Kumar had said.

Plantation drive to start from July 11, Rai calls for support

New Delhi: Environment minister Gopal Rai on Tuesday announced a plantation drive in Delhi from July 11, which will continue till Aug 9. Under this phase, plantation activity will be held in 30 Vidhan Sabha areas. Earlier, Delhi govt had set a goal of planting 64 lakh saplings throughout the year.

The campaign will begin with plantation and free sapling distribution in Narela assembly constituency. Rai said that the green goal would be accomplished with the cooperation of all the agencies concerned. The plantation campaign is the most important feature of Delhi govt’s summer action plan and it is being run every year to increase the green belt and reduce the pollution in the city, the minister said.

“We are seeing the speed with which climate change is happening. Whether it is winter or summer, both are hitting us hard…The sharp impact of this rapid climate change is now directly affecting lives…In this situation, plants are the only solution. Only green areas can save us from the wrath of nature,” said Rai.

The minister recalled that Delhi govt had set a target of planting two crore trees in five years to improve the environment of Delhi, and the target was achieved in the fourth year of its tenure itself.

Rai further said that Delhi govt had set a target of planting and distributing 64 lakh trees this year as against 52 lakh trees last year. Over 7,74,000 plants will be distributed for free.

TNN

AI flyers stranded in Denmark over ‘aircraft glitch’

Mumbai: About 250 Air India passengers who were to travel from Copenhagen to Delhi on June 30 have been stuck in Denmark for the past two days. The passengers alleged that they have no information on the flight status. The airline had cancelled the evening flight after the aircraft developed a technical problem.

The passengers, aged between 2 and 85 years, have been put up in hostel-like rooms in a Copenhagen hotel, said Ashok Mehta (64), one of the affected passengers. “It’s been two days, but there has been no information from Air India about our flight to Delhi,” Mehta added.

An Air India spokesperson said: “Our colleagues in Copenhagen have made all efforts to minimise inconvenience caused to the guests because of this unexpected disruption... We will announce the revised schedule shortly.”

TNN

Man kills self at metro stn

New Delhi: A man killed himself by jumping in front of a Metro train at Jahangirpuri metro station on Tuesday.

The incident happened around 12.15pm at platform number 2 of the station. The body was taken to a nearby hospital, a CISF official said.

Efforts to identify the deceased were under way, a police officer said.

TNN

Discoms geared up to cut outages, mishaps

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Delhi govt has directed power distribution companies to ensure necessary infrastructure is in place to prevent any incidents of electrocution during the monsoon season. The discoms have outlined essential steps, such as raising transformer base heights in floodprone areas, deploying quick response teams and establishing war rooms for prompt resolution of complaints.

“To reduce the incidence of breakdowns, active measures have been taken to minimise the accumulation of moisture in the grids and panels. These include increasing the height of the foundation (base) of transformers in low-lying areas to safe levels, preventing waterlogging that may create seepage and moisture in switchgear, fencing around pole-mounted transformers and deployment of QRTs to tackle exigencies,” BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL) stated on Tuesday.

As a precautionary mea- sure, the discom has issued an advisory warning saying the risk of electricity-related accidents is higher due to waterlogging during the monsoon season and asked people to maintain a safe distance from electricity poles, sub- stations, transformers and streetlights. “People must caution children from playing near electricity installations, even if they are barricaded. Advise them not to play in parks that are waterlogged,” said an official.

The official said power theft poses a significant safety hazard, particularly during the monsoon months. “Invariably, these wires that are ‘hooked onto’ are not insulated or properly fixed. If it’s windy or rainy weather, they can fall off and cause grievous injuries, even fatalities,” he added.

Another cause of outages is unplanned digging for road repairs or to lay cables and pipelines. “This not only leads to power cuts, sometimes for long durations, but can also be a serious safety threat for residents and passersby. For your safety, if you dig or come across digging, please inform BSES,” the official urged.

Tata Power-DDL said as part of the pre-monsoon safety drive, it is conducting inspections and maintenance of electrical equipment and lines installed in public areas. So far, it has undertaken leakage testing of 1.7 lakh poles, 1,734 PWD and MCD poles, 492 ATMs and 1,549 streetlight poles installed in MCD and DDA parks. Proper maintenance of the earthing of electrical installations is also being done to ensure their effectiveness, it added.

“Heavy rainfall brings an array of challenges, such as waterlogging, strong winds and lightning, all of which can adversely affect the power infrastructure. Understanding these challenges, Tata Power-DDL has intensified its efforts and taken proactive measures to spread awareness about electrical safety among consumers to mitigate risks while ensuring public safety,” said a senior official.

Tata Power-DDL said that it is conducting regular visits to check meters in hospitals, malls, schools and colleges to ensure a seamless supply of power in the coming months, he said.

In Attempt To End Free Run, ‘Nyaya’ Spreads Its Net To Catch Snatchers

TIMES Special

Finally, A Law To Tackle Menace; First Case Filed Under BNS

Rajshekhar.Jha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Eighteen-year-old Aniket Goswami was out for a jog around 5.30am on Monday. He had taken out his phone to click a selfie and upload it on his Instagram. At that point, two men on a black bike suddenly appeared, snatched his phone and zoomed off. Goswami approached the police and incidentally became perhaps the first victim in the city whose complaint was filed under the new snatching section in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

For decades, there was no law to deal with snatchings in the city. Though a rampant crime which left the victims in shock, the police in Delhi used to register snatchings through a ‘jugaad’. In a police-enacted provision, the cops combined the section of theft and that of assault or criminal use of force and filed them under the combined sections ‘379/356’ of the Indian Penal Code. As a result, snatchings in the city remained unchecked.

Now, BNS has a dedicated section for snatching — 304. A theft, the section says, is snatching if the offender suddenly or quickly or forcibly seizes or secures or grabs or takes away from any person or from his possession any movable property. It has a punishment for a term which may extend to three years, and a fine.

Till now, the absence of a specific law in Delhi was a major issue, but there were other challenges as well. Solving snatching cases has been getting tougher by the day as the criminals are finding new ways to hoodwink the police.

For instance, gold chains, which constitute over one-fo- urth of total snatchings, are melted soon after they are snatched, making it difficult to catch the criminals and recover or link the case property. Mobile phones, which comprise half of the snatchings, are now being kept switched off for a long time which makes the task of tracking them even more difficult. After a few months, most crooks get their IMEI numbers changed and sell it in the grey market.

According to cops, factors like easy bail and failure of the test identification parade --snatchers mostly cover their faces while committing the crime -adds to their woes. This often results in a poor conviction rate.

Even with BNS, the problem is unlikely to get fully addressed unless the cops go the extra mile and treat this crime as priority, several retired senior cops pointed out. A few years ago, Delhi Police had conducted a study to identify patterns in this crime and found that half of the snatchings that had been reported in the city were from just 37 police station areas. About 85% of the incidents were recorded in 96 police stations in the capital and 21 stations had reported no incidents in 2017. The study had also revealed that 94% of criminals arrested for the offence were first-timers. Delhi Police had also formed anti-snatching cells in districts.

Some investigators also pointed out that the punishment for snatching in BNS should have been seven years instead of three years.

“Haryana had realised the menace of this crime a decade ago and enacted two new sections — 379A & B — to the IPC dedicated to snatching. It made snatching non-bailable and punishable up to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. So, there should have been seven years of punishment for snatchings,” an investigator said.

After Maliwal claims ‘systemic erosion’ of DCW, AAP hits back

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Former Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal has urged chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to address the “takeover” of 181 women’s helpline and the “systemic erosion” of DCW.

In a letter written to Kejriwal on Tuesday, Maliwal, now an AAP Rajya Sabha member, claimed that since her resignation from DCW in Jan, Delhi govt had been making the commission a “weak institution”. Highlighting govt’s “arbitrary” takeover of DCW’s 181 helpline for the women and children in need, Maliwal added, “It is crucial to safeguard systems that protect women and girls.”

She also alleged that DCW staff had not been paid for the past six months, the commission’s budget had been cut by 28.5%, and no attempt had been made to fill the posts of the chairperson and two members. The post of its Dalit member has been lying vacant for 1.5 years, she added.

Requesting chief minister to stop the “deliberate disintegration” of DCW, Maliwal said, “As soon as I left, every possible effort was made to make the women’s commission a weak institution again... Why is Delhi govt taking out its enmity on women? Today I have written a letter to Arvind Kejriwal-ji and asked for an answer from him.”

Women and child development minister Kailash Gahlot on Monday said the 181 helpline would now be run by his department and the number would remain inoperative for a few days for the transition. Central govt plans to make it mandatory for the helpline to be run by the department, not by DCW, Gahlot had said.

Calling her a “BJP puppet”, AAP alleged that while Maliwal had earlier accused lieutenant governor VK Saxena of arbitrarily removing 223 staff and stalling DCW funds and salaries, she was now levelling the same charges against Delhi govt. “Maliwal is well aware that vide gazette notification dated 11.08.2023, central govt snatched the powers of Delhi govt regarding the appointment of any personnel” despite a Supreme Court order... Then on whose instructions is Maliwal acting now?”

Referring to Maliwal’s letter, BJP MPs Kamaljeet Sehrawat and Bansuri Swaraj said the poor condition of DCW was the evidence of Kejriwal’s insensitivity towards women’s safety.

Section 305 is ray of hope for police on vehicle thefts

Rajshekhar.Jha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Vehicle thefts — a rampant crime in Delhi — could see a decline in the near future. In the new laws rolled out Monday, vehicle thefts are listed as a separate offence, something that was absent in IPC, which covered it under ‘theft’.

In the new laws, Section 305(B) specifies theft of “any means of transport used for the transport of goods or passengers”. Importantly, this offence attracts a punishment of seven years.

While this quantum of punishment will be a deterrent for vehicle thieves, or auto lifters as they are called, this would also increase police’s job substantially, according to sources. Till now, vehicle thefts in Delhi were filed online through an application. The e-FIRs were registered at the crime branch police station and an untraced report was sent after 30 days to the owner to claim insurance. This process had many flaws.

While it took away the responsibility from the local police station in a way, it also resulted in the numbers skyrocketing over the years. From 14,000 thefts in 2011, the figures grew more than three-fold by 2019 and touched 46,000. In 2020-22, the figures stood at about 37,000, and remained the same thereafter.

With Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in place, the re- gistration process will not change. However, with a quantum of seven years punishment, the investigating officer would now be required to visit the crime scene, videograph it and conduct the probe. The videos would have to be submitted to the court like in other crimes. The crime branch is learnt to have made arrangements to facilitate these procedures, sources said.

Similarly, many other changes in the laws would have implications on the crime situation in the city. Delhi Police is busy figuring out a range of sections in BNS that would help them control crime. Besides snatchings and vehicle thefts, there is a section of ‘petty organised crimes’ to reign in snatchers, burglars, bootleggers, robbers and other such criminals. However, this section may not be invoked blindly in all cases. Cops may use their discretion to impose this section on individuals or groups notoriously engaged in such crimes.

According to BNS, petty organised crimes cover low-value item theft, shoplifting, vandalism, public inebriation, assault. Section 112(1) provides that “whoever, being a member a group or gang, alone or jointly, performs any act of stealing, snatching, cheating, unauthorised sale of tickets, unauthorised betting/gambling, selling of public examination question papers, or similar illegal conduct” must be punished with imprisonment of one to seven years.

‘Fresh orders to DDA and forest dept officials to appear before committee’

BHARADWAJ SAYS SC-appointed body was told to submit a report on the environmental damage caused by the tree cutting, while the Delhi govt panel will fix the culpability of officials responsible for illegal cutting of trees

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Delhi urban development minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said on Tuesday that a fact-finding committee constituted by the environment minister to probe alleged illegal cutting of trees on the Southern Ridge has issued fresh orders to DDA and forest department officials to appear before it.

Addressing a press conference, Bharadwaj said the officials of the two agencies were earlier supposed to appear before the three-member panel on Monday but skipped it after the principal secretary of the environment and forest department wrote to the LG that the committee was formed in “violation of rules”.

“We have asked the officials of DDA and forest department to appear before the committee on Wednesday afternoon and have replied to the concerns raised by the principal secretary of environment and forest department AK Singh in his communication to the LG,” Bharadwaj said.

In his communication to the LG on Monday, Singh mentioned that Supreme Court had formed an independent committee comprising officials of the Forest Survey of India and other impartial experts, which had already furnished its preliminary report before the apex court. Singh also added that Delhi govt’s committee, which comprised ministers Bharadwaj, Atishi and Im- ran Hussain, lacked the approval of the council of ministers.

Bharadwaj, however, claimed that the SC-appointed committee was tasked with the responsibility of submitting a report on the environmental damage caused by the tree cutting and the measures for reforestation, while the three-member Delhi govt panel will fix the culpability of officials responsible for “illegal cutting of trees”. He added that environment mini- ster Gopal Rai sought a factual report from his department on June 27 and even sent a reminder on June 28 but the officials did not comply. It was then decided in an all-ministers meeting on June 29 to form a fact-finding committee “to uncover the truth”, Bharadwaj said.

Replying to the questions raised in Singh’s letter to the LG, Bharadwaj said the Transactions of Business Rules clearly state that a minister can seek information from officials of any department and it can be provided with the permission of the respective minister if it is “confidential”.

“We have once again issued a notice to all officials concerned to attend the meeting on Wednesday. The notice has been signed by all three members of the committee as well as environment minister Gopal Rai to prevent officials from using the excuse that they do not have permission from their own minister,” Bharadwaj said.

‘Negligence deaths’: 2 travel cos asked to pay `1cr plus interest

Vineet.Upadhyay@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The Delhi consumer commission recently directed two travel companies to pay Rs 1 crore as compensation with 6% interest since 2019 to a man and his daughter, who had alleged negligence and deficiency by the firms that had led to the death of their family members.

The complainant, Yogesh Saigal, along with his 13-yearold daughter, approached Delhi Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission against an order by District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, south Delhi, which last year ordered a compensation of Rs 50 lakh for negligence/deficiency on the part of the two companies, based in Delhi and Mumbai.

On Dec 22, 2019, Saigal, along with his wife, son, daughter and father-in-law, went to Colombo in Sri Lanka. The following day, he was provided a vehicle and a driver for sightseeing. Around 5.30pm, the vehicle rammed a container truck from behind, killing Saigal’s wife, son and fatherin-law. Saigal was severely injured while his daughter, then six years old, suffered injuries too.

In 2019 itself, Saigal approached the district consumer commission, seeking Rs 9 crore as compensation along with legal costs. One of the travel companies, based in Connaught Place, had submitted that it was an ill-fated and unfortunate accident, which was beyond control, and there was no negligence or deficiency in service.

However, the district commission noted, “It can safely be concluded that the driver was negligent... The complainant was so grievously injured that he could not even attend the funeral of his family members. He was stuck in a hospital and had no one to care for him and his injured daughter.”

Saigal had moved the state commission, stating that the district panel had failed to appreciate the factors like the loss of income to the family on the death of his wife, son and father-in-law, loss of livelihood and future prospects of his and his daughter, and their physical injuries and mental trauma.

The coram of the state commission comprising its president, Justice Sangita Dhingra, and members Pinki and JP Agarwal also observed that the district commission had failed to award an adequate compensation. “It is clear from the record that the appellants have undergone through a trauma in terms of loss of their mother/wife, the loss of son/brother and loss of father-in-law/grandfather, and the district commission had not truly compensated the appellants by way of monetary compensation,” it observed.

Damage to sewer leads to cave-in on Sohna highway

The sinkhole that has opened up is 12ft deep

Akanksha.Gupta@timesgroup.com

Gurgaon: A portion of the Sohna highway developed a sinkhole on Tuesday, near the spot that was damaged in Dec last year after the wall of a sewer chamber passing underneath the road had caved in, creating an 18-foot-deep hole. NHAI had repaired the stretch in March.

The 12-foot-deep sinkhole that has opened up now on the highway is suspected to have been caused by damage to an underlying sewer line, according to officials. The highways authority has restricted traffic movement on the stretch as a precautionary measure.

“The affected area has been barricaded and GMDA has been asked to repair the sewer line immediately. After carrying out the repairs, we will finish the patchwork. We have now asked GMDA to use CIPP (cured-in-place-pipe) technology this time to ensure a more permanent solution,” said Yogesh Tilak, project director, NHAI (Rewari).

GMDA officials, who were at the site for inspection, said the cause of damage could be ascertained only after excavation. “Prima facie, it looks like damage to the sewer line. Remedial measures are being taken, and machinery and manpower are being deployed at the site for repairs,” said GMDA chief engineer (infra- II division) Rajesh Bansal.

An 1,800-metre master sewer line starting from Shankar Chowk passes via Rajiv and Subhash chowks and crosses the elevated portions of Sohna highway near Sector 47 before it ends at Behrampur sewage treatment plant.

The brick sewer chamber, which is around two decades’ old, was not adequately reinforced during the highway’s construction, contributing to the recurring problem. GMDA officials said they would prepare an estimate for repairing the sewer line using CIPP technology to prevent such incidents in the future.

Commuters have expressed concerns about the substantial amount spent on the highway’s construction and apparent lack of proper planning and execution. “The recurrence of such incidents raises serious worries about the quality of Sohna highway’s construction. The authorities must investigate the cause thoroughly and make accountable whoever is at fault, as it is a matter of road safety. Both GMDA and NHAI are blaming each other, but it is us, the citizens, who suffer because of their negligence,” said Siddharth Bhalla, a resident of Sector 48, who travels via the stretch daily.

Neighbour, his sons kill man for not buying grocery from their shop

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A grocery shop owner and his sons allegedly fatally attacked a 30-yearold man with an iron rod and stabbed him with a knife for not shopping from their store in northwest Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh. All three have been arrested.

The deceased was identified as Vikram, who lived with his family in the same area. Police said they were informed about the attack around 10.30pm on Sunday, and, on reaching the spot, found a significant amount of blood on the road. Vikram, who was also known as Rinku, was struck on the head with a rod and stabbed in the neck with a knife, said an officer. He was declared dead at a hospital.

The officer said, “Lokesh Gupta runs a grocery shop, and the victim’s family used to be a regular customer. But they had stopped coming to the shop and started buying from elsewhere, which angered Gupta and his sons.” Police have learnt both parties had frequent quarrels over the issue.

“On the day of the incident, Vikram’s father had gone to meet Gupta to solve a row over the issue. Gupta started abusing him and an argument started,” the officer said. As Vikram and his brother Mahesh came to know about the quarrel, they rushed to the spot to save their father. Gupta also called his sons, Vijay and Priyansh, and a scuffle ensued, said police.

“Vijay grabbed Vikram from behind, while Priyansh struck Vikram repeatedly on the head with the iron rod and also stabbed him in the neck. As Vikram collapsed in critical condition from severe bleeding, both accused fled into an alley,” the officer said.

A case under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code was registered at the Shalimar Bagh police station and Gupta and his sons have been arrested, police confirmed.

HC judge cites conflicting claims on cutting of trees on Ridge as he plans visit

 Continued from P1

In view of conflicting claims by principal secretary, department of environment and forest, Delhi govt, who is present in court, and Gautam Narayan, learned amicus curiae, regarding afforestation and cutting of trees in central Ridge and southern Ridge, I am of the view that a physical examination… should be done by this court,” Justice Singh recorded in his order.

In March, the court had expressed displeasure over felling of several trees in the southern Ridge for an approach road and said if the authorities wanted to convert the capital into Thar desert, they should state so clearly in an affidavit.

Terming it “painful”, HC had said if the authorities chose to ignore court directions to preserve the Ridge, it could “only feel sorry for the people”.

Last year, the court had also restrained the forest department from holding a ‘Walk with Wildlife' event inside the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in the Southern Ridge.

Calling the central Ridge “our green heritage”, the high court recently said it cannot be allowed to be “degenerated” when the city is already grappling with rising pollution levels that have attained “dangerous proportions”.

It took a “serious view” of the central Ridge being used as a garbage dumping ground and felling of trees and removal of shrubs, demanding an explanation from the forest department.

LG approves promotion of 12 vice-principals

New Delhi: Lieutenant governor V K Saxena approved promotion of 12 vice-principals to the post of principal in the Directorate of Education of Delhi govt, Raj Niwas said on Tuesday.

The LG approved the promotions as per recommendations of departmental promotion committee (DPC) of DoE. The DPC meeting regarding the matter was held on June 25, an official said.

The promotions will be in level-12 in the pay matrix as per the 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC)and Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2017 plus usual allowances, as admissible under the rules, with immediate effect, the official said.

Saxena, who has been pushing for better service conditions for govt employees, approved promotions for 411 vice-principals to the level of principals and 51 principals to deputy directors of education in the last two years, the release said. PTI

1,500 stones taken out from woman’s gallbladder by docs

Anuja.Jaiswal@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital have removed over 1,500 gallstones from a 32-year-old woman’s gallbladder. The patient from Gurgaon is an employee of an IT firm. She had complained of recurring abdomen pain.

Doctors said Ria Sharma sought medical help for symptoms such as bloating, distension, and a feeling of heaviness, particularly after consuming junk food and fatty meals.

She had been taking over-the-counter medicines on her own for the last 3 to 4 months, believing that her symptoms were caused by gas.

During this time, she also experienced recurring pain in the upper right region of her abdomen, which radiated to her back and right shoulder. "Most of the time, the pain was associated with nausea and vomiting."

She reached out to her family physician, who recommended an ultrasound examination. The ultrasound results revealed that the woman's gallbladder was filled with stones, providing an explanation for her symptoms and discomfort.

She consulted Dr Manish K Gupta, vice-chairperson and senior consultant of laparoscopic & general surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi.

Following an evaluation, Ria underwent a minimally invasive surgical procedure known as laparoscopic cholecystectomy to remove her gallbladder and the stones inside it.

The surgery involved creating small incisions, measuring 10mm and 5mm, in the patient's abdomen to access and extract the gallbladder. Upon opening the removed gallbladder, the surgical team was astonished to find over 1,500 large and small gallstones.

The patient was discharged from the hospital the day after the operation. She had recovered sufficiently to consume regular meals and ambulate without assistance.

According to doctors, the incidence of gallstones is on the rise due to changing lifestyles. Sometimes, long gaps between meals and long fasting periods lead to the precipitation of bile, which in turn leads to stones.

Denied admission by schools, claim parents of EWS kids; plea in HC

Ridhima.Gupta@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Kanhaiya Lal’s happiness knew no bounds when his son’s name appeared on the Delhi EWS admission lottery list. “I couldn’t get a good education, but I wanted my son to get admission in a good private school,” the 34-year-old, who works as a courier delivery executive, said.

The excitement was, however, short-lived. When Lal went to get his son enrolled, the school denied it, he alleged. “I was told my child could not get admission as there were no seats for him in KG. Day after day, I have been leaving my job to go to school, but I have been getting the same response. When I asked the school authorities to give the same response in writing, they refused,” Lal claimed. Kauser Jahan, another parent, also narrated a similar ordeal when she went to get her daughter admitted to class I in the same school.

For almost a year, Naziya, tirelessly collected forms and navigated hurdles to secure her son’s admission to the school under the same category, and finally, her persistence paid off when his name appeared on the EWS list. To her dismay, the school allegedly denied the boy admission in KG.

“I don’t know what to do. Should I give up on my dream to get my child a good education in a private school, even after his name is on the list? Or I should fight a legal battle and go from one officer to another to get him his basic right,” wondered Naziya.

Several other parents expressed concern that their children will lose out on the academic year. Sharukh and Tasleem, who live in Trilokpuri, claimed they had to run from pillar to post after their daughter Alisa was denied admission to a private school. “Despite her name being on the list, she is not getting enrolled. What is the point of such a scheme?” an exasperated Sharukh said.

On Monday, Peoples’ Action for Change and Empowerment (PACE), an NGO working for the rights of economically weaker sections, came to the rescue of the four families and filed a PIL in Delhi High Court against the denial of admission by the two schools. The matter is listed for hearing on Wednesday.

“Not all people, especially those living in slums, are aware about the EWS scheme or know how to apply for it, so we help them fill the forms. This year, there were 78 applications, of which 11 names appeared. However, four were denied admission to two schools,” Mayuri Kar, an NGO representative, said.

Advocate Pankaj Sinha from the NGO said, “As per RTE Act and other judgments, if a child’s name comes in the lucky draw for the EWS list, admission cannot be denied. The cases where admission has been denied show the schools are not following govt norms. If other parents are also facing similar issues, there is a need for a proper inquiry in the matter. The officials should also be held accountable; it’s their duty not only to take out the EWS list, but also to ensure those who are in it get admission.”

2 from Delhi killed in DME crash

Alwar: A speeding car on the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway collided with a stationary truck resulting in the death of two young men from Delhi in the ill-fated vehicle in Naugaon police station of Alwar district early on Tuesday.

According to ASI Brijmohan Goswami of Naugaon police station, the accident occurred around 2am near the Khushpuri culvert at channel number 84.5. The car, presumably speeding, rammed into the rear of the truck.

Preliminary investigations suggest that the driver of the car may have succumbed to fatigue, leading to the devastating collision. The extensive damage sustained by the car further corroborates the hypothesis that it was moving at a high speed.

The victims were identified as Ashraf (32), Mohammad Dilshad (29), both from Shaheen Bagh. The bodies were initially transported to the Naugaon Community Health Center. However, in the absence of any formal complaint, thee were released without conducting a post-mortem.

TNN

Rough, Ready And Handy Justice Anathema To Rule Of Law, Says CJI

Courts Are Guardians Of Justice, Liberty, Equality & Fraternity: Chandrachud

CJI DY Chandrachud, flanked by LG Vinai Kumar Saxena and Delhi HC Acting Chief Justice Manmohan, along with Supreme Court judge Justice Hima Kohli and minister Atishi, attended the foundation stone laying ceremony at Karkardooma Court complex on Tuesday

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Citing a 300-yearold case in which a wealthy Bombay noble was fraudulently convicted by the British, Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on Tuesday said rough, ready and expedient justice is antithetical to the rule of law.

Laying the foundation stone of modern IT-enabled court complexes at Karkardooma, Shastri Nagar and Rohini in the national capital, the CJI said the cases of 1720, in which Rama Kamati was convicted based on forged and fabricated documents and hearsay evidence because of his enmity with the British, is a reminder that rough ready and handy justice is an anathema to the rule of law and procedural guarantees which we have all come to cherish.

He said the foundation of a court must be sound — both in its structural and philosophical capacities. “It must subserve no might but the Constitution and be in service of no one but the litigants. Our courts are not merely sights of sovereign power but are also essential public service providers,” the CJI said.

He said these court complexes lush with greenery, when completed, would expand the capacity of the court to function over one of the most populous jurisdictions in the NCT of Delhi and alleviate case backlogs while providing a dignified environment to all stakeholders. The design of the court complexes will be in sync with the requirement to absorb the challenges of climate change, he said.

“Our infrastructure must reflect the reality we live in — climate change can no longer be ignored. One crucial step is to incorporate a green lifestyle into our daily lives, which includes reducing carbon emissions. I was delighted to know that the new buildings will focus on heat island mitigation and reduce environmental footprint,” he said.

The CJI said India’s legal system is fundamentally premised on constitutional virtues of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity and that courts are the guardians of these fundamental values.

“The central importance of these virtues reminds me of the Rama Kamati case from 1720. Rama Kamati was a wealthy noble from Bombay who had been loyal to the East India Company for over thirty years. The Governor in Council of Bombay developed an enmity with Rama and accused him of conspiring with a Maratha naval pirate who had pledged his loyalty to Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj,” he said, narrating how he was framed and convicted by the British.

Chandrachud said, “The story of Rama Kamati is a reminder that rough, ready and handy justice is an anathema to the rule of law and procedural guarantees which we have all come to cherish. The foundation of a court must be sound — both in its structural and philosophical capacity. It must subserve no might but the Constitution and be in service of no one but the litigants. Our courts are not merely sights of sovereign power but are also essential public service providers.”

One injured as DTC bus overturns:

One person was injured when a DTC bus with 15 passengers overturned after hitting a divider on Ring Road in west Delhi’s Kirti Nagar on Tuesday. Police said that legal action is being initiated.

PTI

2 yrs after wife’s arrest, man held for Ponzi fraud

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A man who, along with his wife, allegedly duped hundreds of people through a Ponzi investment scheme has been arrested by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW). According to police, the couple duped at least 670 investors of over Rs 4 crore.

Wanted for orchestrating bogus finance companies promising high returns, the accused evaded authorities for three years. Chander Parkash Saini, the mastermind behind these fake finance companies, along with his wife Sunita Saini, who served as a director of the fake companies, targeted vulnerable low-income families in Azadpur and adjacent areas of northwest Delhi.

“They lured poor families on the pretext of opening daily investment savings accounts, fixed deposit accounts and other lucrative investment plans. The couple managed to earn Rs 4.25 crore while some of the victims cut their daily expenses on food and invested Rs 100 per day in the daily investment scheme of the accused persons. A few others sold their land to invest in their lucrative fixed deposit schemes to financially secure their future,” Delhi Police said in a statement.

To legitimise their operations, the accused issued fake passbooks, certificates, and other documents. They maintained websites showcasing fictitious ventures in real estate and hospitality sectors.

Sunita was apprehended in 2022, while Chander Parkash remained at large. He was declared an absconder with a reward on his head. Raids were conducted across multiple states and regular tech- nical surveillance across multiple platforms was also undertaken to get his location, but to no avail. He frequently changed his locations and avoided any digital footprint to dodge cops. However, a break through came recently when cops got information about his possible hideout in Chhatarpur Extension, Delhi. Using this lead, the EOW’s team raided the location and arrested him.

Delhi Police has yet again urged the public to exercise caution while considering investment opportunities. An officer said people should stick to established and RBI-recognised banks and financial institutions when making investments. Also, they should be wary of schemes promising unrealistically high returns.

CITY CITY BANG BANG

Business As Usual?

The govt is careful to use the NDA label, but beyond that, little seems to have changed. BJP is back in the saddle, Modi is the unanimous leader and the cabinet is full of familiar faces

SANTOSH DESAI

As the dust settles over the unexpected election results, it becomes a little clearer as to what we can expect in this term of the BJP-led NDA govt. That the outcome was a surprise is an understatement; it upended most forecasts and belied almost all expectations, barring the odd Yo gendra Yadav.

But those who thought that this would bring about an immediate change in the manner in which the country is run—those who saw this as a sign that a major reversal would unfold— would be disappointed with how things are turning out. Yes, the govt is careful to use the NDA label, but beyond that, little seems to have changed. BJP is back in the saddle, Narendra Modi is the unanimous leader, Amit Shah is the home minister, and the cabinet is full of familiar faces. Even the speaker is the same. The mainstream media continues to be its usual self, acting as spokespersons for the govt.

Politically, there seems to be little reason for the allies to flex their muscles just yet. Aligning with a fragmented Opposition in order to get a little more power is not worth the risk. Their interests lie in their own states, and they have little incentive to wade into larger national issues. For TDP, getting a better deal for the state is a far more pressing priority than taking a stand on an ideological issue. For Nitish, what is most important is consolidating the unexpected gains from the Lok Sabha results and converting them into political capital at the state level.

Today, there is a convergence of interests between the BJP and its allies. There may not be great shared enthusiasm for all of the BJP's projects, including minority-baiting, but for now, it is unlikely to be an issue that would cause any rift between the allies. In the long run, however, TDP would be wary of allowing the BJP’s influence to grow at the state level and would like to keep its options open. Having seen what happened most recently to BJD in Odisha and having enough seats not to worry about the BJP’s support at the state level, TDP has enough leverage to bargain and enough freedom to walk away when its interests diverge from those of BJP. For Nitish, it will always be about political survival and making whatever move is necessary in order to do so. Overall, the alliance looks stable in the short run, even if there is nothing intrinsic that binds them together in the long run.

So, at one level, it would be possible to argue that nothing material has changed. There is no reason why this govt should not last its term, and provided they look after the interests of their allies and keep their goals subordinate to those of their alliance partners at the state level, there is no reason why the alliance cannot continue till the next elections and why BJP cannot govern using the same playbook that it has for the last 10 years. In a technical sense, that is true, but that misses a fundamental truth. BJP does not mere- ly wish to hold on to office; utter domination is a strategic, non-negotiable goal. This election has been a significant setback to the script that the Modi govt was writing and executing to near perfection. Step by step, it had increased its control over all the key levers of governance and had done so with a popular mandate backing them. Modi’s personal brand and its ability to override any concerns that voters might have about this approach were instrumental to the success of this strategy.

And that is what has changed. While Modi continues to be popular, the aura around him has dimmed. The air of inevitability that surrounded him and his govt, the sense that propelled the ‘ab ki baar char sau paar’ slogan, has been found to be hollow. Even if the BJP’s support base is largely intact, the fact that so many voters are willing to support someone else is a big blow.

Mythic brands are embedded in meta-narratives—the glory of the nation, its place in the world, the rise of Hindu power, becoming a developed nation—these are the kinds of ideas that the Modi brand has been associated with. The credibility of these kinds of stories rests on the belief that the brand is invincible and that it rises above regular politics and is concerned with larger goals of nation-building. But when election results so publicly demonstrate that a large part of India is looking for an option, then that implicit legitimacy gets significantly dented.

The extra-electoral mandate that Modi was seen to have is what implicitly legitimised this govt’s approach towards key institutions and the Opposition, at least in the eyes of most voters. Even his opponents felt that their protests about the state of democracy in the country were destined to be futile, for there was a mandate in place that they could not do much about. That is what has changed.

However, it would be premature for those who see this govt as a threat to democracy to declare victory. The Opposition might have performed better than expected, but it still lacks a coherent alternative vision for the country. Rahul Gandhi may have finally found his feet politically, but Congress as a party continues to be in disarray at an organisational level. In some ways, it needs to be thankful that it did not win this time, for had it done so, it is extremely likely that the alliance, which is currently held together by a common fear, would collapse when confronted with the prospect of sharing office. More importantly, BJP has worked hard to sow seeds of a new political culture in the last decade and its roots run deep. A solitary setback is unlikely to change this too much.

santosh365@gmail.com

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Shalabh Goel assumes charge as NCRTC MD

Shalabh Goel

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:Shalabh Goel on Tuesday assumed charge as the managing director of National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), which is executing the Regional Rapid Transit System. Goel is a 1989 batch officer of Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers.

VK Singh had resigned as the managing director of NCRTC citing "personal reasons" on March 15. On April 9, Kuldip Narayan, joint secretary, ministry of housing and urban affairs, had assumed additional charge as managing director of NCRTC.

Goel has joined NCRTC at a very crucial juncture, when the organization is poised to operationalize the entire 82-km long DelhiGhaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor, a very complex and challenging project, within the scheduled timelines.

In a career spanning over three decades, Goel has held several challenging assignments such as executive director, ministry of railways; divisional railway manager (DRM), Mumbai division of Central Railway; chief electrical locomotive engineer, Central Railway; and SDGM/CVO (Western Railway). During his tenure as DRM, he pla- yed a pivotal role in managing train operations amidst the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, ensuring the continuity of essential services and the safety of passengers and staff.

Just before joining NCRTC, Goel served as senior deputy general manager cum CVO of Western Railway. He has a rich background in railway operations, electrification, electrical locomotive maintenance, energy management and general administration. His extensive experience includes postings over Central Railway, Northern Railway, Western Railway, ministry of railways, & Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). Goel's exemplary service has been recognized with numerous accolades, including the prestigious minister of railways and general manager awards.

NCRTC is a joint venture company of Centre, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, under the administrative control of ministry of housing. The DelhiGhaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor is country’s first to be implemented.

District courts foundation of judicial system: Chief Justice

The projects on the three court buildings were pending approval since March 2021 and Justice Manmohan said it was only because of directions on time-bound construction passed by the Supreme Court in the Malik Mazhar Sultan Vs UPSCcase that this had fructified within five months

Vineet.Upadhyay@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The foundation of our judicial system is not the Supreme Court or HC’s but the district courts, them being the first point of contact with the litigant, pointed out Delhi High Court acting chief justice Manmohan on Tuesday, underlining the key role played by lower courts.

In his keynote address at the foundation stone laying of three court buildings at Karkardooma, Shastri Park and Rohini, Justice Manmohan said, “I have no doubt that today's ceremony is a significant step forward in achieving the Justice-at-the-Doorstep initiative, which aims to make justice more accessible and efficient for all citizens.”

He added that the projects wouldn’t have been a reality without the efforts of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, who was the chief guest at the event. The projects on the three court buildings were pending approval since March 2021 and Justice Manmohan said it was only because of directions on time-bound construction passed by the Supreme Court in the Malik Mazhar Sultan Vs UPSC case that this had fructified within five months.

Asserting the importance of integration of development with sustainability and eco-friendly policies, the acting chief justice underlined the “dire need” for more courtrooms and infrastructure, saying it is crucial to ensure litigants had easy access to courts.

He also informed the gathering that by the year-end, the number of judges in the district judiciary would rise but there would be a shortage of 188 courtrooms. He said at present, some district judges in the Rohini Courts were each handling over 3,800 cases.

In the plans for the new buildings are 102 new courtrooms for the Rohini Courts complex plus a 276-seat auditorium, multi-level car parking for 483 cars and 362 lawyers chambers. The Shastri Park Court complex will get 48 courtrooms and 175 lawyers desks, while the Karkardooma complex will get 50 new courtrooms connected to the main court complex via a bridge and skywalk.

Delhi PWD minister Atishi, who was also present on the occasion, claimed that in the tenure of AAP govt, the resources allocated to Delhi High Court and district courts had risen steadily. "Befo- re we assumed power, the total allocation in the state budget was Rs 760 crore. The budget allocation for the courts has steadily increased and today stands at more than Rs 3,000 crore," said Atishi.

The minister added, "We are today fulfilling our promise that justice would be accessible to Delhiites. Delhi govt under the leadership of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is committed to fulfilling the promise we made on justice and providing all support to the third pillar of the state — the judiciary."

Lieutenant governor VK Saxena said in his address that in a large democracy like India, rule of law was necessary to ensure the rights of the last man in the queue. "In order to achieve this, it is important to ensure that the judicial infrastructure is put on the highest pedestal,” said Saxena. “We will have to join hands together to ensure that the backlog of cases in the courts are reduced and new technology is embraced. Our aim should be to have swift functioning of the judicial system."

Times Global

- Rep Lloyd Doggett 1st Dem to publicly call for Biden to quit as nominee

- Rudy Giuliani loses NY law licence after backing Trump’s false ’20 poll claims

- Israeli gens, low on munitions, want a ceasefire in Gaza soon

- 200+ French candidates bow out in bid to block far-right

- UN body calls Imran arrest ‘arbitrary’, Pak slams report

- Indian-American who defrauded Goldman, Google gets 7.5 yrs’ jail

- Nepali Congress, CPN-UML strike alliance to oust Prachanda as PM

- Hush money: Prosecutors agree to delay Trump sentencing after immunity ruling

- Footballer who turned thief and stole ‘The Scream’ dies

- Ukraine eyes AI as weapon against Russia, ushering in age of killer robots

- AROUND THE WORLD

Rep Lloyd Doggett 1st Dem to publicly call for Biden to quit as nominee

Washington: A House Democratic lawmaker has become the first in the party to publicly call for Prez Joe Biden, 81, to step down as the Democratic nominee for president, citing Biden’s debate performance against Donald Trump failing to “effectively defend his many accomplishments”.

Represenative Lloyd Doggett, 77, of Texas said Tuesday: “Recognising that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw.”

Doggett, who is serving his 15th term in Congress, is the first sitting lawmaker in his party to publicly state what many have been privately whispering behind closed doors since last week’s debate.

Doggett’s explosive statement came minutes after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, told MSNBC Tuesday that she believes “it is a legitimate question” whether Biden’s halting performance is just “an episode or is this a condition”. “When people ask that question, it’s legitimate — of both candidates,” Pelosi said. AP

Rudy Giuliani loses NY law licence after backing Trump’s false ’20 poll claims

Washington: Rudy Giuliani lost his New York law licence on Tuesday, after a state appeals court found he had lied in arguing that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from his client, former US Prez Trump. The court found that Giuliani, 80, the New York ex-mayor who served as Trump’s personal lawyer, “baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process” and “actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant.” Giuliani was one of the leading proponents of false claims that Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in 2020 was the result of voter fraud. REUTERS

Israeli gens, low on munitions, want a ceasefire in Gaza soon

Military Brass Fear Bigger War In Lebanon, Security Officials Say. They Also Believe Truce Would Be Swiftest Way To Free Remaining Hostages

Palestinians leave Khan Younis after the Israeli army issued a new evacuation order for parts of the city and Rafah

Israel’s top generals want to begin a ceasefire in Gaza even if it keeps Hamas intact for the time being, widening a rift between the military and PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who has opposed a truce that would allow Hamas to survive the war. The generals think that a truce would be the best way of freeing the roughly 120 Israelis still held, both dead and alive, in Gaza, according to interviews with six current and former security officials.

Underequipped for further fighting after Israel’s longest war in decades, the generals also think their forces need time to recuperate in case a land war breaks out against Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that has been locked in a low-level fight with Israel since Oct, multiple officials said. A truce with Hamas could also make it easier to reach a deal with Hezbollah, according to the officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. Hezbollah has said it will continue to strike northern Israel until Israel stops fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s military leadership is formed from roughly 30 senior generals, including the military chief of staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, the commanders of the army, air force and navy, and the head of military intelligence. The military’s attitude to a ceasefire reflects a major shift in its thinking over the past months as it became more clear that Netanyahu was refusing to articulate or commit to a postwar plan. That decision has created a power vacuum in the enclave that has forced the military to go back and fight in parts of Gaza it had already cleared of Hamas fighters.

“The military is in full support of a hostage deal and a ceasefire,” said Eyal Hulata, who served as Israel’s national security adviser until early last year, and who speaks regularly with senior military officials. “They believe that they can always go back and engage Hamas militarily in the future,” Hulata said. “They understand that a pause in Gaza makes de- escalation more likely in Lebanon. And they have less munitions, less spare parts, less energy than they did before.”

It is unclear how directly the military leadership has expressed its views to Netanyahu in private but there have been glimpses of its frustration in public. “Those who think we could make Hamas disappear are wrong,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesman, said on June 19. To suggest otherwise, Hagari said in a veiled criticism of Netanyahu, was to “throw sand in the eyes of the public”. Over 300 soldiers have been killed in Gaza, short of what some military officials predicted before Israel invaded the territory. But over 4,000 soldiers have been wounded since Oct, according to military statistics, 10 times the total during the 2014 war in Gaza, which lasted for just 50 days. An unknown number of others are suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. NYT

Netanyahu says Israel in ‘final stages’ of eliminating Hamas

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that his country’s forces were “advancing toward the final stage of eliminating” Hamas’s “terrorist army”, though he added that Israel would still have to continue to “strike its remnants”. Netanyahu’s comments were the latest sign that his govt intends to wind down major military operations against Hamas in Gaza in the near future and shift the military’s focus to the cross-border conflict with Hezbollah in Israel’s north. However, on Tuesday, Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis ahead of a possible new assault, underscoring its struggle to stop militants regrouping in areas that were previously cleared. AGENCIES

200+ French candidates bow out in bid to block far-right

Paris: Opponents of France’s National Rally (RN) stepped up their bid to block the far-right party from power on Tuesday as more candidates agreed to pull out of this weekend’s runoff election to avoid splitting the anti-RN vote. More than 200 candidates have confirmed they will not stand in Sunday’s second-round for France’s 577-seat parliament, according to local media estimates.

Marine Le Pen’s RN came out well ahead in Sunday’s first-round vote after Prez Macron’s gamble on a snap election backfired, leaving his centrist camp in a lowly third place behind the RN and a hastily formed left-wing alliance.

But even before the manoeuvring of the last 24 hours to create a “republican front” to block the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic party, it was far from clear the RN could win the 289 seats needed for a majority. Pollsters calculated the first round put the RN on track for anything between 250-300 seats.

There was initial confusion over whether Macron’s allies would stand down in local contests in favour of better-placed rival candidates if they came from the radical left-wing France Unbowed (LFI) party of Jean-Luc Melenchon. However Macron on Monday told a closed-door meeting of ministers at the Elysee Palace that the top priority was blocking the RN and that LFI candidates could be endorsed if necessary. The “republican front” has worked before, such as in 2002 when voters of all stripes rallied behind Jacques Chirac to defeat Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, in a presidential contest.

Le Pen on Tuesday repeated her assertion that the RN would not try to form a govt if it did not have a workable majority in parliamen. REUTERS

UN body calls Imran arrest ‘arbitrary’, Pak slams report

Omer Farooq Khan | TNN

Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday denounced a UN report that termed the detention of former PM Imran Khan as “arbitrary and in violation of international law”, asserting that the arrest of the cricketer-turned-politician and the cases against him were an “internal matter” of the country. Imran, the founder of PTI party, has been in jail since Aug last year following his conviction in a Toshakhana case. The Election Commission subsequently disqualified him for five years, ahead of Feb elections. He is also facing prosecution in other cases.

In an opinion released on Monday, the Geneva-based UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Imran’s detention had no legal basis, and appeared to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office. The “appropriate remedy would be to release him immediately”, it said.

Indian-American who defrauded Goldman, Google gets 7.5 yrs’ jail

Rishi Shah, 38, the co-founder of Outcome Health, which provided ads on TVs in doctors’ offices, was convicted of more than a dozen fraud and money laundering charges by a federal jury last year

A former jet-setting Indian-American Chicago billionaire was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for a $1 billion fraud at an advertising startup that included investors such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Illinois governor JB Pritzker’s venture capital firm.

Rishi Shah, 38, the co-founder of Outcome Health, which provided ads on TVs in doctors’ offices, was convicted of more than a dozen fraud and money laundering charges by a federal jury last year. He and two other Outcome executives were sentenced last week in Chicago by US district judge Thomas Durkin, the US attorney’s office said on Monday.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence, describing Shah as the “driving force behind a dizzying array of lies to clients, lenders, investors and an audit firm.” He and the other executives were accused of lying to pharmaceutical company clients and taking money for ads that were never placed, and then misrepresenting the health of the company to investors. Before the fraud was revealed in a 2017 Wall Street Journal article, Shah was a budding star in Democratic circles. Shah got the idea for Outcome — then known as Context Media Health — in 2006 while he was a student at Northwestern University, and the company’s rapid rise over the next decade boosted his public profile.

The company’s surge in cash from ad sales and financings allowed Shah to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Outcome to li- ve a lavish lifestyle, with weekend trips on private yachts and jets as well as a $10 million home, the govt said. After raising more money from lenders and investors based on bogus financial statements in 2016, Shah’s net worth was reported at more than $4 billion, prosecutors said.

Shah told the judge last week in a prepared statement that he was “ashamed and embarrassed” by his failure to properly manage the company’s aggressive push for growth, which led to “a number of fatal mistakes” that included not tracking the delivery of ads paid for by clients. Shah was convicted in April 2023 along with Outcome president and co-founder Shradha Agarwal and CFO Brad Purdy.

A group of funds, including those owned by Goldman, Alphabet and Pritzker, were among the investors that sued Outcome in 2017, claiming fraud tied to a $487.5 million fundraising that year that led to a $225 million dividend pocketed by Shah and Agarwal. BLOOMBERG

Nepali Congress, CPN-UML strike alliance to oust Prachanda as PM

Ex-Premiers Deuba And Oli Agree To Share Post On Rotation Basis; Prachanda Refuses To Quit, Says Will Face Trust Vote

Prachanda, 69, has won 3votes of confidence during his one-&-a-half-yr term. Nepal’s had 13 govts in the last 16 years

(From L to R) Sher Bahadur Deuba’s Nepali Congress, the largest party in the 275-member House of Representatives, has 89 seats, while K P Sharma Oli’s CPN-UML has 78 seats. Their combined strength of 167 is sufficient for a majority of 138 seats in the lower House. Prachanda’s party has 32 seats

Kathmandu: Nepal’s two largest parties have inked a power-sharing deal to form a new govt to replace the governing coalition led by PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, who on Tuesday refused to resign and asserted that he would rather face a confidence vote.

The agreement, finalised between Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba and Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) chairman K P Sharma Oli on Monday night, outlines ministerial division, provincial leadership roles and a rotation for the prime ministerial position. Deuba, 78, and Oli, 72, — both former premiers — agreed to share the PM position on a rotation basis for the rest of the term of the parliament, said ex-foreign minister Narayan Prakash Saud, who is a Nepali Congress central member.

Nepali Congress, the largest party in the 275-member House of Representatives, has 89 seats at present, while CPNUML has 78 seats. Their combined strength of 167 is sufficient for a majority of 138 seats in the lower House. Prachanda’s party has 32 seats.

The two politicians met Saturday to lay the ground for the new alliance between the two parties, following which Oli’s CPN-UML ended its association with the Prachandaled govt barely four months after extending support to it.

Differences between Oli and Prachanda had been steadily building, and Oli was unhappy with the budget allocations made for the fiscal year 2024-25, which he had publicly criticised. The ministers belonging to the CPN-UML in the Prachanda-led cabinet are likely to resign en-masse, sources close to the CPN-UML said.

On Tuesday, embattled PM Prachanda, 69, refused to step down. In a meeting of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) office-bearers, Prachanda said he would rather face a vote of confidence in parliament than resign, the party secretary Ganesh Shah told PTI. RSP, a key coalition partner, is still backing the Prachanda govt. According to the constitutional provision, the PM will have 30 days to seek a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives, which would give Prachanda some time for political manoeuvring. PTI

Hush money: Prosecutors agree to delay Trump sentencing after immunity ruling

New York: Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday agreed with Donald Trump’s request to postpone his criminal sentencing so that the judge overseeing the case could weigh whether a recent US Supreme Court ruling might imperil his conviction, new court filings show. It is up to the judge to determine whether to postpone the sentencing, though with both sides in agreement, a delay seemed likely.

A delay would represent a surprising setback for the case, which led to the first conviction of an American ex-president. The sentencing was likely to be the only moment of criminal accountability for the twice-impeached and four-time indicted former president whose other cases are mired in delay.

Trump, who was convicted of falsifying business records related to his cover-up of a sex scandal during 2016 prez campaign, was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. He faces up to four years in prison, though he could receive as little as a few weeks in jail, or probation.

On Monday, the planned sentencing hit a snag when the SC granted Trump broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president. Although the Manhattan case does not centre on Trump’s presidency or official acts — but rather on his personal activity during the 2016 campaign —his lawyers argued Monday that prosecutors had built their case partly on evidence from his time in the White House. NYT

Biden: SC verdict could turn prez into ‘king’

US Prez Biden said Monday the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity set a “dangerous precedent” that could turn presidents into kings and called on the American people to “dissent” by rejecting Donald Trump in Nov’s election. In remarks from the White House, Biden said the court decision meant Trump was highly unlikely to go on trial before the Nov. 5 election for his role in seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each, each of us is equal before the law. No one, no one is above the law. Not even the president of the US,” Biden said. He said the court's decision meant there were now virtually no limits on what a president could do.

Footballer who turned thief and stole ‘The Scream’ dies

Pal Enger

Helsinki: Pal Enger, a talented Norwegian soccer player turned celebrity art thief who pulled off the sensational 1994 heist of Edvard Munch’s famed “The Scream” painting from the National Gallery in Oslo, has died.

He was 57. Citing family sources, Norwegian paper Dagbladet said Enger died in Oslo.

Enger served his first prison sentence at the age of 19, before he kicked off a long string of art and jewellery thefts in 1988 when he climbed into a window at the Munch Museum in Oslo and stole the artist’s painting “Love and Pain”. More dramatically still, on Feb. 12, 1994 — the opening day of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway — Enger managed to steal the “The Scream”.

In the 50-second theft, videotaped by a security camera, two thieves climbed a ladder, broke a window and emerged with the painting, then valued at at least $55 million. They left a postcard saying: “Thanks for the poor security.” News of the theft of the painting made he- adlines around the world, and after his capture Enger became an instant celebrity in Norway with documentaries and TV series made of his story, including the 2023 documentary “The Man Who Stole The Scream”.

The painting was recovered undamaged after Enger confessed that he had hidden it in a secret compartment located in a living room table at his family’s home.

Enger was repeatedly convicted of art and other thefts and drug crimes over decades.

In 1999 he absconded while on an outing from a minimum-security prison and tormented police by turning up in a cafe frequented by celebrities in Oslo and granting TV and newspaper interviews. He was later rearrested after attracting attention by wearing sunglasses late at night. During a prison stay in 2007 he started painting himself — first animals and later abstract motifs. He debuted as a professional artist in 2011 with a series of abstract paintings exhibited at a Norwegian gallery. AFP

Ukraine eyes AI as weapon against Russia, ushering in age of killer robots

In Kyiv, the facilities of Skyeton makes long-range drones that use automated systems to fly

Kyiv: In a field on the outskirts of Kyiv, the founders of Vyriy, a Ukrainian drone company, were recently at work on a weapon of the future. To demonstrate it, Oleksii Babenko, 25, Vyriy’s CEO, hopped on his motorcycle and rode down a dirt path. Behind him, a drone followed, as a colleague tracked the movements from a briefcase-size computer. Until recently, a human would have piloted the quadcopter. No longer. Instead, after the drone locked onto its target —Babenko — it flew itself, guided by software that used the machine’s camera to track him. The motorcycle’s growling engine was no match for the silent drone as it stalked Babenko. If the drone had been armed with explosives, and if his colleagues hadn’t disengaged the autonomous tracking, Babenko would have been a goner.

Vyriy is just one of many Ukrainian companies working on a major leap forward in the weaponisation of consumer technology, driven by the war with Russia. The pressure to outthink the enemy, along with huge flows of investment, donations and govt contracts, has turned Ukraine into a Silicon Valley for autonomous drones and other weaponry. What the companies are creating is technology that makes human judgment about targeting and firing increasingly tangential. The widespread availability of off-the-shelf devices, easy-to-design software, powerful automation algorithms and specialised artificial intelligence microchips has pushed a deadly innovation race into uncharted territory, fuelling a potential new era of killer robots.

The most advanced versions of the technology that allows drones and other machines to act autonomously have been made possible by deep learning, a form of AI that uses large amounts of data to identify patterns and make decisions. Deep learning has helped genera- te popular large language models, like OpenAI’s GPT-4, but it also helps make models interpret and respond in real time to video and camera footage. That means software that once helped a drone follow a snowboarder down a mountain can now become a deadly tool.

In more than a dozen interviews with Ukrainian entrepreneurs, engineers and military units, a picture emerged of a near future when swarms of self-guided drones can coordinate attacks and machine guns with computer vision can automatically shoot down soldiers. More outlandish creations, like a hovering unmanned copter that wields machine guns, are also being developed.

For Ukraine, the technologies could provide an edge against Russia, which is also develo- ping autonomous killer gadgets. The systems raise the stakes in an international debate about the ethical and legal ramifications of AI on the battlefield. Human rights groups and UN officials want to limit its use for fear that they may trigger a new global arms race that could spiral out of control. In Ukraine, such concerns are secondary to fighting off an invader. “We need maximum automation,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, minister of digital transformation, who has led Ukraine’s efforts to use tech startups to expand advanced fighting capabilities. “These technologies are fundamental to our victory.” NYT

AROUND THE WORLD

CYCLING HIS WAY OUT: Newly-appointed Dutch PM Dick Schoof (2nd R), an ex-spy chief, waves to his predecessor Mark Rutte (L) as he leaves after a handover ceremony in The Hague. Rutte, known for riding his bike to work, often crunching an apple on the way, will be the next secretary-general of the Nato alliance, based in Brussels

Now, Sweden allows grandparents to get paid parental leave to care for grandkids

Sweden launched a groundbreaking new law on Monday that allows grandparents to step in and get paid parental leave while taking care of their grandchildren for up to three months of a child’s first year. This comes 50 years after the Scandinavian country became the first in the world to introduce paid parental leave for fathers and not just mothers. Under the law, parents can transfer some of their generous parental leave allowance to the child’s grandparents. A parent couple can transfer a maximum of 45 days to others while a single parent can transfer 90 days. This Scandinavian country of 10 million has over generations built a society where citizens are taken care of from cradle to grave. In Sweden, you are entitled to be fully off work when your child is born. Parental benefit is paid out for 480 days, or about 16 months, per child.

‘Judi Dench among 1st woman members of Garrick Club in UK’: Veteran actors Judi Dench and Sian Phillips have become the first woman members of London’s esteemed Garrick Club after it voted in May to allow women to join, Guardian reported Tuesday. Founded in 1831 for actors and “men of refinement and education”, the Garrick was one of the last such clubs not to allow women in, except as guests of men. But following a bitter row, the club opened up its membership and fast-tracked the actors’ applications during its annual general meeting on Monday. Oscar-winner Dench, 89, is recognised as one of the UK’s best ever actors, starring on stage and screen, notably as “M” in eight James Bond films. Phillips, 91, is best known for her theatre work, and was nominated for a Tony Award and Olivier Award for her performance in “Marlene”. The club’s membership is a closely guarded secret but is known to include leading figures from the civil service, the law, journalism, publicly funded institutions and the arts. Other high-profile figures reported to be members include “Sherlock” star Benedict Cumberbatch and senior minister Michael Gove. An early member was Charles Dickens.

Times Special

- Why you can expect more desis in UK parl this time

- A RECORD 107 BRITISH INDIANS IN THE FRAY FROM...

Why you can expect more desis in UK parl this time

TOI Explains

From Labour To Tories And Newly Formed Outfits, All Key Players Have Fielded Indian-Origin Candidates For July 4 Elections To Lower House

Naomi Canton

A record number of over 100 desis are contesting the UK general elections on July 4. In 2019, 63 British Indians had contested with 15 making it to the House of Commons.

Many of these candidates have made successful lives for themselves in Britain with bankers, lawyers and doctors prominent among those standing. Some started their UK story in poverty. For instance, Labour candidate for Cippenham, Ravi Venkatesh. He moved to UK in 2006 from southern India with just £20 (Rs 2,000) in his pocket. He has now created an IT consulting business.

“UK instilled in me the confidence that I could achieve anything with hard work and determination,” he said. “The UK has been an integral part of my growth as a person”.

Labour and Tories lead the list for the number of Indian-origin candidates in the fray but others are also betting on desi faces.

Thirteen British Indians are on the ticket for the newly formed Reform UK, which has a manifesto promising to “freeze all non-essential migrants”. India-born Nagender Chindam, the party’s candidate for Sefton Central, said the party was not racist and “the Tories and Labour are the same, throwing money into the deep sea while our own people struggle to pay day-to-day bills”.

Labour has put up British Indian Shama Tatler for the Chingford and Woodford Green seat. If victorious, Tatler will make history as the first Labour MP elected in an area previously represented by Winston Churchill. Another seat to watch is Islington North where Labour’s Praful Nargund is up against former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn is standing as an Independent after being suspended from Labour.

Desi Vs Desi

There are many battlegrounds where British Indians are standing against each other from rival parties.

Labour’s Primesh Patel, the Lib Democrats’ Reetendra Nath Banerji, and Sarajulhag Parwani of newly formed Workers Party of Britain (WPB) are all fighting for Harrow East, which has a large Gujarati diaspora. Padma Shri awardee Bob Blackman is the sitting Tory MP.

In Leicester East, Labour has put up former deputy mayor of London for business, Rajesh Agrawal. But the Muslim Vote has endorsed Claudia Webbe, an Independent candidate who was expelled from Labour. She chaired the debate at the Labour party conference in 2019 when the controversial Kashmir motion was passed. The Conservative candidate is Shivani Raja, whose parents came to UK from Kenya and India.

Keith Vaz, the Leicester East MP for 32 years, has surprised everyone by standing not for Labour, but for a new party called One Leicester. Last weekend, Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty went canvassing with him around Belgrave in an open-top car as fans swarmed around them. In 2019, Vaz had announced he was retiring from Parliament after being suspended for six months following a drugs and prostitutes scandal. The Reform UK candidate is Raj Solanki.

Echoes Of Indian Issues

Indian politics has also infiltrated some of the campaigns.

Bihar-born Dhruva Kumar, who is standing for the Alba party, reported the Scottish Greens to police for a hate crime after they dug up social media posts by him praising Indian PM Narendra Modi and criticising the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

The Greens used the posts to claim Kumar was not suitable to stand in Glasgow South. He said they had attacked his religion and ethnicity.

Labour’s Sonia Kumar found herself attacked over her surname when her Conservative opponent for the Dudley North seat sent out letters addressed to “voters of the British Pakistani/ Kashmiri community” noting her surname and asking whether she, or him, would speak up for Kashmiris in the UK parliament.

Two New Parties

While surveys have forecast a landslide win for Labour, it is not necessarily a two-horse race with two new parties also jumping into the race.

Reform UK is led by Nigel Farage and has put up 609 candidates. The other new outfit, WPB, is headed by leftwing firebrand George Galloway, who was expelled from Labour in 2003 for his views on the Iraq War. WPB has fielded 152 candidates.

Liberal Democrats, led by Ed Davey, and Reform Party are expected to pick up the votes of disaffected Conservative supporters while Labour is tipped to make gains in Scotland.

Labour Faces Muslim Ire

Recent derogatory remarks by Labour leader Keir Starmer on British Bangladeshi migrants and Labour’s stance on the Gaza war are seen as having cost the party some of its Muslim support. A collective called the Muslim Vote has endorsed a string of candidates who are standing against some of the Labour and Tory MPs who abstained from or voted against a Nov 2023 SNP motion in the House of Commons calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

In Slough, the Muslim Vote has endorsed Independent candidate Azhar Chohan against Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi. Dhesi was recently targeted by Palestinian activists while handing out campaign leaflets outside a mosque. In Ealing Southall, the Muslim Vote has endorsed Darshan Singh Azad of WPB over Labour candidate Deirdre Costigan. Labour’s Virendra Sharma, who’s held the seat since 2007, is not standing this time.

A RECORD 107 BRITISH INDIANS IN THE FRAY FROM...

CONSERVATIVES

7 renominated | Including Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel, and Suella Braverman

Tories | Children of immigrants and first-generation movers to UK, the list of British Indians fielded by Tories is a mix of leading professionals and notable entrepreneurs. If Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (seat: Solihull West and Shirley) is a barrister specialising in healthcare law after a stint in British Army, his namesake Neil Mahapatra (Tunbridge Wells) — like the half-Indian ShastriHurst, also the son of doctor parents — is founder and partner at Kingsley Capital Partners in London. Mahapatra loves cooking Indian food and cricket and his fellow Indian-origin Tory candidates, too, wear their roots on their sleeves, like Dr Reva Gudi (Feltham and Heston), who swears by the Bhagavad Gita and says she is committed to showing that Hindu cultural heritage and values can contribute to British society.

Nupur Majumdar (Lewisham North), who runs a successful hospitality company and an aviation consultancy firm, says she chose to join the Tories based on her “life experiences” even though she was not “born in a traditional Conservative family”. Eric Sukumaran (Southgate and Wood Green), too, has a shot at breaking new ground as the 38-yearold — a former civil servant and founder of a global renewables company — can become the first person of Malayali origin to sit in House of Commons.

LABOUR

7 renominated | Including Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Valerie Vaz, Seema Malhotra

Labour | Though Labour has been out of power for more than a decade, some of the British Indian names on its candidates’ roster are of those that are well-acquainted with public office and policy circles. And there are also leaders with famous connections, like Uday Nagaraju (seat: North Bedfordshire), a 55-year-old IT professional who is related to former India PM PV Narasimha Rao. Then there is Hajira Piranie (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston), whose family in Mumbai is famous as the Machiwalas — because of her grandfather’s fish business — and runs many wellknown enterprises in the city.

If Piranie is the first woman in her family to go to university, Kanishka Narayan (Vale of Glamorgan) could become the first ethnic minority MP from a Welsh constituency. Narayan, 34, was born in Bihar and has worked in senior govt roles and was senior adviser in the Cabinet Office. Rajesh Agrawal (Leicester East) moved to UK from MP and the fintech entrpreneur was, until recently, deputy mayor of London for business. Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) is a 33-year-old who leads the economics team at think tank New Economics Foundation with a prior stint at the Treasury. Jas Athwal (Ilford South) credits the move to UK as having given a better future for his family and has been a councillor since 2010.

BRITISH INDIANS FROM OTHER PARTIES

Workers Party of Britain | 5; SNP | 1; Alba party | 1

Reform, Lib Dem, Greens, Workers Party | Not just the big two, Indianorigin MP aspirants are trying their luck from small and newer outfits, too, which they may feel are in better sync with their politics.

Mohmed Hanif Alli (Bolton North East), one of the first-ever Asian councillors elected to Bolton council now wants to become the town’s first Green MP. The 59-year-old says he joined the Greens “for its core values of social justice, speaking out for Palestine, protecting the environment and their passion in fighting to create a fairer, society, locally and globally”. Anita Prabhakar (Nottingham East) does not support Brexit and the Lib Dem candidate describes herself as a “keen pro-European”.

Times Ascent

- You Can Future-Proof Your Career With Diverse Skill-Sets

You Can Future-Proof Your Career With Diverse Skill-Sets

By Rajorshi Ganguli

No job is immune to outsourcing, automation, or becoming outdated, rendering the notion of a lifelong career with a single skill increasingly elusive.

Flexibility to explore alternative career paths is crucial. It serves as a safety net, akin to a parachute for emergency landings. Just as investors diversify their portfolios to manage risk, professionals must diversify their skill sets and experiences to guard against unforeseen disruptions in the job market.

This concept of a ‘career portfolio’ is gaining ground, where individuals cultivate a diverse array of skills and experiences that go beyond traditional job titles or industries. By diversifying their skill sets, executives can smoothly transition to different roles or even embark on entirely new career paths without being tethered to a single profession.

What Can Boost Career...

Open Mind: You may find opportunities within your organisation which are different from your skill set, yet possible to venture into and which you may like. Go for it and discuss it with your mentor, manager and HR.

Mentorship: Solicit feedback from peers, supervisors, and mentors to gauge skill development progress and identify areas for improvement. Mentors can provide valuable guidance in navigating career transitions.

Continuous Learning: Cultivate a habit of learning by dedicating regular time to skill development. Integrate lear- ning into daily routines.

Specialisation: Evaluate whether to deepen expertise in a specific area or broaden skills for versatility. Both have their pros and cons — we- igh out your capabilities.

Networking: Expand professional networks and relationships with peers, mentors, and industry leaders.

Pursue Passion: Pursue at least one passion seriously. Very often, your interest can give you an alternate career which you can enjoy and get paid for also.

What Can Hurt Career…

Complacency: Avoid be- coming complacent with existing skill sets or relying solely on past achievements. Overcome the fear of failure and take calculated risks in uncharted areas of your career.

Narrow Specialisation: Foster a breadth of skills that can be applied across different contexts.

Ignoring Industry Trends: Stay informed about emerging industry trends, technological advancements, and market shifts.

Neglecting Soft Skills: Don’t overlook the significance of soft skills such as communication, leadership, and emotional intelligence.

By diversifying experien- ces and skills, individuals can future-proof careers, unlock new opportunities, and navigate the complexities of an everchanging landscape.

(The writer is president and global HR head, Alkem Laboratories)

Times Business

- Sensex hits new high intraday, nears record 80k

- IT firm Hexaware to hire 8,000 globally

- Edtech co Unacademy fires 250 employees

- US job openings up from 3-year low

- Oil hits 2-month high amid W Asia turmoil

- BMW India clocks record sales in H1

- Wasn’t aware of Hindenburg link to investor: Kotak group

- Data breach at Infosys’ arm affected 6mn people

- Our statements had proper attribution: US short-seller

- India may gain from trade actions against China: IMF

- Sebi rule may end zero fee era: Zerodha

- Nine NBFCs give up certificate of registration

- HC rejects NCLT stay on Byju’s $200mn rights issue

- A road map for India @2047

- Birla steps up consolidation in holding cos

- Adi-Nadir to buy cousins’ 13% stake in Godrej Ind

- Firms rope in AI experts to manage cybersecurity risk

Sensex hits new high intraday, nears record 80k

Mumbai: The sensex and Nifty hit fresh highs before closing flat due to profit-taking in select banking and telecom shares amid mixed global cues on Tuesday. The sensex declined 35 points to settle at 79,441 in a volatile trade. During the day, it jumped 380 points to hit a record peak of 79,856. Nifty declined by 18 points to 24,124. Intraday, it climbed 94 points to hit a lifetime high of 24,236. On the sensex, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, and IndusInd Bank were among the laggards. AGENCIES

IT firm Hexaware to hire 8,000 globally

Bengaluru: IT services firm Hexaware Technologies plans to hire between 6,000 and 8,000 employees globally this year. The recruitment drives will attract talent to its offshore, onshore, and nearshore centres. TNN

Edtech co Unacademy fires 250 employees

Bengaluru: Edtech startup Unacademy has laid off 250 employees across various departments, including those employed at its entrance and medical postgraduate test prep unit, PrepLadder. TNN

US job openings up from 3-year low

US job openings unexpectedly rose in May, interrupting a months-long downtrend.

Available positions increased to 8.1 million from a downwardly revised 7.9 million reading in the month before. BLOOMBERG

Oil hits 2-month high amid W Asia turmoil

Oil touched a two-month high as tensions escalated in West Asia and the Atlantic hurricane season got off to a rapid start. West Texas Intermediate climbed 1.2% to top $84-a-barrel. BLOOMBERG

BMW India clocks record sales in H1

New Delhi: BMW Group India on Tuesday said it has reported the highest ever sales in the country in the first half of the year, with delivery of 7,098 units to customers. AGENCIES

Wasn’t aware of Hindenburg link to investor: Kotak group

Kotak Fund Enabled Our Partner Co To Short Adani Cos: Hindenburg

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: In a fresh twist in the Hindenburg saga, the US short seller said that Kotak Mahindra International created the offshore fund structure used by its investor partner Kingdon Capital to short Adani stocks before its report was published in Jan 2023.

Kotak Mahindra Bank informed stock exchanges late on Tuesday that Sebi’s showcause notice to Hindenburg and Kingdon included a fund managed by Kotak Mahindra International (KMIL).

“KMIL was informed by Kingdon that the transactions were made on a principal basis, i.e. for themselves. Kingdon never disclosed that they had any relationship with Hindenburg nor that they were acting on the basis of any price sensitive information. In fact, they had expressly confirmed that any advice from Kingdon to invest would be basis purely public information,” Kotak Bank’s statement said.

“Neither the fund nor KMIL were aware that Kingdon entities had any association with Hindenburg. The fund and KMIL had no prior knowledge of the publication of the aforesaid Hindenburg report. We deny any allega- tion of being aware of such report or acting in collusion in any manner with Kingdon or Hindenburg,” it said.

Earlier in the day, Kotak Bank shares dropped 2.4% after Hindenburg disclosed Sebi’s notice and said that a Kotak fund was one of the noticees for setting up the offshore structure. In its exchange communication, Kotak said that the showcause notice dated June 26 was received by KMIL on July 2.

In its reply to Sebi’s showcause notice, Hindenburg qu- estioned the regulator for not highlighting the name of Kotak, the group that facilitated offshore investors’ short-selling in Indian markets.

By bringing Kotak into the picture in correspondence with Sebi, Hindenburg has sought to support its claim that the firm played by the rules while short-selling and did not cross a line between using proprietary research based on public information and “use of advance knowledge of nonpublic information” for trading, as the regulator alleged.

Hindenburg reply also referred to Kotak group founder, Uday Kotak’s chairmanship of 2017 Committee on Corporate Governance to bolster the legitimacy of its actions.

“We suspect Sebi’s lack of mention of Kotak or any other Kotak board member may be meant to protect yet another powerful Indian businessman from the prospect of scrutiny, a role Sebi seems to embrace” Hindenburg said.

In a statement, a Kotak group spokesperson said, “KIOF (K India Opportunities Fund — a Sebi-registered FPI regulated by Financial Services Commission of Mauritius), was established in 2013 to enable foreign clients to invest in India. The fund follows due KYC procedures while on-boarding clients and all its investments are made in accordance with all applicable laws. We have cooperated with regulators in relation to our operations and continue to do so.”

The statement also denied any knowledge of investors’ association with Hindenburg. “KMIL and KIOF unequivocally state that Hindenburg has never been a client of the firm nor has it ever been an investor in the fund.,” the spokesperson said.

Data breach at Infosys’ arm affected 6mn people

Compromised info includes details such as social security no., DoB, biometric data, email address and password

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru: Infosys McCamish Systems data breach has affected over 6 million people, data from the office of the Maine Attorney General showed.

Last week, IMS provided written notice of the compromise to impacted individuals, which includes Maine residents. About 11,866 Maine residents were impacted due to the data breach. IMS also provided substitute notice of the incident on June 27. The information compromised varies by individual but includes some or all of the details — social security number, date of birth, medical treatment/record information, biometric data, email address and password, username and password, driver’s license number or state ID number, financial account information, payment card information, passport number, tribal ID number, and US military ID number. An email sent to Infosys did not elicit a response till the time of going to press.

On Nov 4, many security chroniclers reported that the LockBit ransomware gang took responsibility for the attack. In Feb, one of Infosys’s key customers — Bank of America — named IMS as the source of a data breach that affected 57,028 customers. McCamish Systems, a subsidiary of Infosys BPM, was impacted by a cybersecurity incident in Nov last year that resulted in the non-availability of certain applications and systems in McCamish.

Our statements had proper attribution: US short-seller

From P 1

In Jan 2023, a fund managed by Mark Kingdon sent $43 million to the K India Opportunities Fund, which then began short-selling Adani Enterprises using futures, according to the notice. These short positions were closed by Feb 22, earning $22 million. By June 1, the Kingdon fund had given Hindenburg $4.1 million from the profits of the Adani short sale.

The 46-page Sebi notice is addressed to Hindenburg Research, the firm’s founder Nathan Anderson, its partner investor Mark Kingdon and his companies, and K India Opportunities Fund, a foreign portfolio investor which was set up by the Kotak group.

Legal experts have pointed out that there is a fine line when it comes to irregularities related to fair practices. While short selling is not illegal, manipulating prices to support short positions is against the law. However, it would need to be established that manipulation has taken place, they said.

Hindenburg Research claims that all its statements had proper attribution and were based on publicly available allegations. Additionally, while it is not illegal for an investor to purchase a research report, Sebi has alleged a quid pro quo between the research and the investment firm.

India may gain from trade actions against China: IMF

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas on Tuesday said India may benefit from tariff and other actions against China.

“India is already benefiting from large FDI inflow since 2020… Countries that are not very connected with China may be in a position to benefit more if the measures (higher tariffs) are extended to countries that do a lot of trade with China… India is in that space,” he said at the TN Srinivasan Memorial lecture, adding that the gains from trade may not be so large.

The US and EU recently announced higher import duties on some Chinese products and FDI from China is already facing heightened scrutiny in several parts of the world.

Gourinchas cautioned that fragmentation can impact trade flows, capital flows and labour flows. In the short term, it may affect supply and inflation. Global cooperation may be more difficult to address challenges like climate, debt problems or technological changes.

He said there is an emergence of connector countries, such as Vietnam and Mexico, which are gaining market share in US imports and they have received more FDI and exports from China since 2017. Countries that export more to the US are importing more from China, not just at the macro level but even in certain product categories. “You see the same thing for FDI — more FDI from China into a country translates into more export from that country to the US,” the IMF chief economist said.

He, however, cautioned that the diversification has resulted in lengthening of the supply chain, and not necessarily a reorganisation of the supply chain. “Trade flows are making more stops.” He also said some of the financial flows are re-routed through offshore financial centres. “The cost of fragmentation is difficult to estimate. A number of countries that remain non-aligned can benefit,” Gourinchas said.

Sebi rule may end zero fee era: Zerodha

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Sebi’s move to require stockbrokers to charge customers only the actual fees paid to exchanges, clearing houses, and depositories has had major consequences for stockbroking firms.

In its circular, Sebi had asked brokers to be ‘true to the label’ in how they levy charges. Zerodha Broking said it may be forced to end its zero brokerage structure, and shares of listed stockbroking firms crashed. Angel One — the largest listed broker — fell 8.7% while IIFL Securities fell 3.5%.

The impact of the new regulations were explained in a detailed note by Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath. “Stock exchanges charge transaction fees based on the overall turnover contributed by brokers. The more the turnover, the less the transaction fee. The difference between what the brokers charge the customer and what the exchange charges the broker at the end of the month is a rebate, which goes to brokers. Such rebates are common across major markets in the world,” Kamath said.

He added that this rebate accounts for 10% of Zerodha’s revenues and anywhere between 10-50% of revenues for brokers across the industry. This income stream will go away following Sebi’s new circular. “We were one of the last remaining brokers that offered free equity delivery trades. We could do this because F&O trading revenues were subsidising equity delivery investors. With the new circular, we will likely have to let go of the zero brokerage structure and/ or increase brokerage for F&O trades,” said Kamath.

Nine NBFCs give up certificate of registration

Mumbai: RBI on Tuesday said nine NBFCs, including Ujjivan Financial Services, have surrendered their certificate of registration to RBI.

Of these, five NBFCs have surrendered their CoR as they have exited from the non-banking financial institution business. RBI said three NBFCs — Allegro Holdings, Temple Trees Impex and Investment, and Hem Financial Services — have surrendered their certificates after meeting the criteria prescribed for unregistered core investment company that do not require registration. AGENCIES

HC rejects NCLT stay on Byju’s $200mn rights issue

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The Karnataka high court on Tuesday set aside an interim order by the National Company Law Tribunal restraining Byju’s from going ahead with its second rights issue, in a temporary reprieve for the troubled edtech startup. The court also sent the matter back to the NCLT for a fresh consideration. Byju’s declined to comment.

In an order issued last month, the Bengaluru bench of the NCLT directed Byju’s to not proceed with its second rights issue and also restrained it from using any funds that have been collected since the opening of the issue on May 13. A group of Byju’s investors had argued in their petition that due to the siphoning off funds by the startup’s management, the company is in “dire straits” and therefore, they should not be allowed to raise further money by going ahead with the second rights issue.

The high court allowed the writ petitions filed by Think & Learn (Byju’s parent company) and Byju Raveendran against the NCLT order.

The second rights issue is part of the same issue through which the cash-starved company sought to raise $200 million.

A road map for India @2047

INDIA@100 LOOKING AHEAD

Dipak.Dash@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: India is the world’s fifth largest economy and will almost certainly climb to number three before 2030. Where do we rank in terms of prosperity? Not even among the top 100. Depending on which per capita income we pick to rank countries on (US dollar or purchasing power parity), India ranks between 120 to 150. Unless it ranks around 50, India won’t be a developed country. Turkey, Greece and Russia have per capita income that rank them around 50.

To improve quality of life in India in a substantial and multi-faceted way, various ministries of govt have been engaged in measuring current state of economic and social achievement on a whole host of indicators. They have also set a series of short-term (2030) and long term (2047) targets to track India’s potential journey to becoming a developed country.

TOI pored over multiple presentations by several ministries to look at how govt agencies are seeking to improve the quality of life, ease of doing business and overall functioning of govt and the economy.

For example, govt is seeking to increase the average speed of freight trains from 24 kmph to over 40 kmph by 2030 and over 80 kmph by 2047. Similarly, the plan is to develop around 50,000 km of high-speed highway corridors, which will improve the average speed of freight trucks from 35 kmph to more than 75 kmph by 2047.

The Centre is also targeting to increase military expenditure to at least 3.4% of GDP by 2047 compared to current 2.4%, increase share of India’s export of defence items to more than 10%, which is currently less than 0.2%. The target is also to reduce the share of import to less than 2% compared to 11% at present. Starting today, we will showcase one key ‘official’ target to make India a ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 100th year of the county’s independence.

Keep an eye on the boxcar — inforgraphics just below ‘Times Business’ masthead — on this page for a daily update. With paddy sowing on in most parts of the country, we start with the target of making India’s rice cultivation more productive.

Birla steps up consolidation in holding cos

Uditprasanna.Mukherjee@timesgroup.com

Kolkata: In a fresh push, Kumar Mangalam Birla is consolidating investments in group companies under Birla Group Holdings.

The latest round of consolidation will impact seven companies, including Jay Shree Tea &Industries, which is run by Jayshree Mohta, Kumar’s aunt & elder daughter of Basant Kumar Birla. The other companies are Hindalco, Aditya Birla Fashion, Grasim Industries, Century Textiles and Century Enka.

Birla Group Holdings will see its stake in textile giant Grasim rise to over 23% from nearly 19% after the consolidation. Birla Group Holdings, which currently holds no stake in Century Textiles, will get almost 7% in the company. Kumar had inherited Century Textiles and Century Enka from his grandfather B K Birla.

“Aditya Birla Group’s consolidating will help in establishing a unique entity, simplifying holding structure and to raise promoter holding in group entities,” said Arijit Malakar of Ashika Stock Broking.

Adi-Nadir to buy cousins’ 13% stake in Godrej Ind

`4,568CR DEAL

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Godrej Industries group, controlled by Adi Godrej and his younger brother Nadir Godrej, is acquiring a 13% stake in Godrej Industries from RKN Enterprises, a company owned by their cousins Rishad Naoroji and Jamshyd Godrej.

The 13% stake will cost around Rs 4,568 crore. In a regulatory filing, Godrej Industries said the acquirers will buy RKN’s share in the company for not more than 25% of the average 60-day market price of Rs 858 apiece. On Tuesday, Godrej Industries’ stock closed at Rs 898 apiece, up 1.34% on the BSE.

The share-purchase will increase Adi and Nadir’s stake in the holding company of the GIL Group to 44% from 31%.

Adi’s three children, Tanya, Nisaba and Pirojsha, will buy about 2% each of Godrej Industries from RKN Enterprises, while Nadir will buy 8% of the company from RKN Enterprises.

Once the transaction is concluded, Nadir will hold the single largest block of 12% in Godrej Industries. The share-purchase is part of the business separation agreement inked between AdiNadir and Jamshyd and his sister Smita Crishna. According to the business settlement deed, Adi-Nadir will receive eight entities including Godrej Industries, Godrej Consumer Products, Godrej Properties and Godrej Agrovet.

Jamshyd-Smita will receive four companies including Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing and Godrej Infotech. In April, AdiNadir had announced their intention to buy 21% of Godrej Industries from Jamshyd-Smita following the business settlement agreement. Godrej Industries owns a stake in all the listed companies of the GIL group.

Firms rope in AI experts to manage cybersecurity risk

Shilpa.Phadnis@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: As the cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, firms are increasingly onboarding cybersecurity professionals with AI skills to combat emerging threats and mitigate risks.

AI is not only transforming traditional attack vectors but also playing a vital role in neutralising potential dangers. Among the most indemand skills in cybersecurity are security architects, security engineers, incident responders, and fraud analysts.

“The threat landscape has evolved from simple malware to sophisticated attacks like ransomware. The rise of GenAI has enabled threat actors to execute evasive, unique, and destructive zero-day attacks. With the expanding attack surface and evolving threats, proficiency in network security, incident response, cloud security, AI-driven threat detection, and regulatory compliance is essential,” said Kunal Ruvala, SVP and general manager at cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks India.

Sowmya Vedarth, part- ner at Deloitte India, said, as digitisation and security threats increase, the nature of skills is rapidly evolving, shifting from monitoring and testing to prevention and cyber defense roles. Digital trust will require a wide range of roles that combine functional and security responsibilities with technical skills. “The US and developed markets pay higher for cyber skills. However, with the rise of GCCs, we are seeing a demand from professionals for faster migration of both proactive defence and monitoring jobs to India,” she said.

RV Raghu, ISACA ambassador and director at Versatilist Consulting India, said digital trust will require a wide variety of roles with a blend of functional and security roles matched to technical skills. “Both defensive roles such as security engineers and devsec ops engineers and offensive roles such as risk and fraud analyst and incident responders will be in demand,” he said.

Raghu said certifications such as ISACA’s CISM (certified information security manager) and certified data privacy solutions engineer provided a 10% increase in salaries and a 11% jump in market value for certified professionals, according to data from a recent Foote Partners survey released in Q2 2024.

Times Techies

- Why Pune has become key to maker of Gorilla Glass

- Origins of India’s supercomputers

- GLOSSARY OF IN-GROUP TERMS USED

- How fixed wireless with 5G transforms broadband access

- CAREER LADDER FOR WOMEN

- TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE

- CELEBRATING BENEFITS OF YOGA

Why Pune has become key to maker of Gorilla Glass

Corning has R&D, engg, digital talent, and world-class mfg plant in the city

Soumya Seetharam and Prasad Kulkarni with some of the employees at Corning’s Pune facility. The Gorilla Glass maker has an R&D centre, an engineering centre and a digital centre in India

Sujit.John@timesgroup.com

About two years ago, Soumya Seetharam moved from Intel to Corning as its chief information & digital officer. If you know Gorilla Glass – the glass on most of our smartphones and which some say can survive drops of 15 feet – that’s Corning. But Corning is also the one that made the glass for Thomas Edison’s light bulb in 1879. It used to make the familiar Corelle plates and cups, but that business has been spun out into a separate venture. It has made the lens for the James Webb telescope. Most space shuttle windows sport Corning glass. The company today is also the leader in fibre optic cables.

It’s this 173-year-old company that Soumya has the responsibility now of digitally transforming. Corning has 85 manufacturing plants across the world. And one part of Soumya’s team’s job is to support all of the IT applications, and the systems that run these plants and the company’s offices, and, as she says, “everything from the laptop to the sensor that’s attached to a piece of equipment.”

The other part is to help develop data platforms, and use emerging technologies to tap into the data for better decision-making. “When you’re a legacy company like we are, we have to look at specific data management strategies to pull all of the fragmented data together, curate it, ensure data completeness, accuracy, etc. And then allow it to be accessed by our business operations and our functional leaders, so that they can use it to make decisions, use it for productivity, efficiency, or even top line growth,” she told us on a recent visit to India to launch a new digital centre in Pune.

IT and oil & gas

Soumya grew up in Bengaluru, did a Bachelor of science in maths and computer science from Vijaya College in the same city, moved to the US, where she first worked briefly at Howmet Corporation, and then at GE’s power and later oil & gas businesses for 14 years. GE is where she learnt the ropes; the company even sponsored her MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. GE had done multiple acquisitions of oil & gas com- panies. Soumya’s focus was IT, and it was her job to integrate the IT systems of all acquired companies.

After GE, Soumya worked at oilfield services companies Baker & Hughes, and Schlumberger. And then she was at Intel for nearly three years, running all of the semiconductor company’s enterprise architecture.

Her stints at GE, Schlumberger, and Intel had all brought her to India on work. She had helped set up Schlumberger’s captive centre in Pune. Much of her team at Intel used to sit in India.

R&D + Engg + Digital

So she’s acutely aware of what India can do for Corning. And she’s building on that. Two years ago, Corning established an R&D centre in Pune that uses data and physics models to reduce product development lifecycles. “Coming up with a new recipe of glass for a new use case requires a lot of testing and melting of glass to try and figure out what will work. The research centre applies physics and database models to arrive at predictive recipes, so that you don’t have to melt too much glass,” Soumya says, adding, “We have a great team here that’s been working very closely with global teams and contributing to R&D across the company.”

The Pune facility also has an engineering centre focused on wireless capabilities. Across the globe, all the engineering to build wireless private 5G networks – for large locations or buildings like hospitals, hotels, stadiums – happens from India.

Pune also hosts Corning’s best performing fibre optic plant in the world – Soumya says the fibre manufactured here is best-in-class quality and lowest cost per kilometre, thanks to some phenomenal innovations that the local team has done.

To this powerful combination, Soumya has just added a digital centre. “The key for success of these centres usually is how well you can have the employees assimilate into the company culture, and how well they understand what your company does. That’s the difference between outsourcing and having our own centre, and access to researchers, to plant folks. It gives them a good view of what Corning does,” she says. She expects the digital centre to grow rapidly, given the opportunities that technologies like AI are bringing.

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY

Origins of India’s supercomputers

N Dayasindhu

Compute infrastructure is making headlines today in the context of training LLMs. The government of India is expected to deploy an IndiaAI Compute Capacity, a 10,000 GPU compute infrastructure under a PPP model as part of the India AI Mission. The requirement for highperformance compute infrastructure is not new for India. TIFR acquired a state-of-the-art CDC 160A— 3600 computer in 1964 for scientific applications. This computer was probably the first high performance computer in India. An interesting fact was that neither TIFR nor any other organisation in India had prior experience in installing such a computer. According to PVS Rao, who was leading the TIFR team in this, they requested CDC to send them high-fidelity audio recordings of various parts of the computer at work. These recordings were used to effectively soundproof the rooms that would house the CDC 3600!

IISc’s supercomputer

IISc decided to establish a supercomputing facility as part of its 75th anniversary plan. It instituted a committee with Roddam Narasimha as the chairperson to prepare a report on supercomputing. N Balakrishnan was part of this committee. He recalls an American expert humorously warning them that the awesomeness of a supercomputer was not only limited to its compute speed but also to its power requirement!

The government gave a grant to IISc to set up a Supercomputer Education and Research Centre (SERC). V Rajaraman moved from IIT Kanpur to IISc as the first head of SERC. Various options were evaluated and SERC selected a Cray YMP as the main supercomputer. IISc faced challenges in procuring the supercomputer from Cray due to an onerous process for obtaining export clearance.

Finally, in 1991, IISc procured a Cyber 992 mainframe computer with a vectorizer, the fastest made by CDC at that time, along with two CDC 4360 superscalar computers and a VAX 8810 from DEC. SERC also created a cluster with nine IBM RS6000/580 superscalar workstations interconnected by a dual fibre optic communication ring.

By 1992, SERC was the largest computer centre in India with many high-performance computers and a huge library of packaged software. In the meanwhile, a Cray XMP 14 supercomputer was installed in the Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting in 1988.

Aerospace & weather needs

In another part of Bengaluru, Roddam Narasimha took over as director of National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), and realised that its mainframe computer was not pow- erful enough to solve complex computational fluid dynamics applications. He constituted a team under UN Sinha, which developed Flosolver, India’s first parallel computer, in 1986. Six years later, the Flosolver Mk3 was used for direct numerical simulation of turbulent flow for the first time in India, and later for weather predictions.

The difficulty in procuring a supercomputer in the 1980s, prompted CNR Rao, chairperson of the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, to set up a committee under Rajaraman to explore how India could develop its own supercomputer. The committee’s report became the genesis of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) in 1988.

Emergence of Param

Vijay Bhatkar, founder director of CDAC, and his team developed the Param 8000 parallel computer with a peak 1 GFLOPS speed within three years. In 1992, SERC bought a stateof-the-art Param 8600 parallel computer. Param provided a boost to the computing requirements in our strategic sectors. ISRO reduced the time for processing satellite images by a factor of eight using a Param cluster.

In 2007, the Eka supercomputer was developed by Computational Research Laboratories, a subsidiary of Tata Sons founded by Narendra Karmarkar. Running at a peak speed of about 170 TFLOPS, Eka was ranked fastest in Asia and fourth fastest in the world when launched.

N Dayasindhu is a cofounder of itihaasa Research and Digital

A 1986 TOI article on parallel computing as a focus area for India

ON THIS PAGE

GLOSSARY OF IN-GROUP TERMS USED

UMTS

UMTS, or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, is a third generation (3G) mobile cellular technology that evolved from the GSM standard. Developed to enhance bandwidth and network capacity, UMTS offers improved data transfer rates, typically up to 2 Mbps in theory. It introduced better voice quality and video calling capabilities compared to its predecessors. UMTS usually operates in the 2100 MHz frequency band globally. The technology has been further refined into HSPA and HSPA+, providing even faster data speeds. While UMTS represented a significant advancement in mobile communications, it has largely been replaced by 4G LTE and 5G networks in many countries as demand for faster and more efficient mobile data continues to grow.

LTE

LTE, which stands for Long-Term Evolution, is a 4G wireless broadband technology designed to provide faster internet speeds for mobile devices. It’s an upgrade from 3G networks, offering significantly higher data transfer rates, reduced latency, and improved network capacity. LTE uses a different radio interface and core network improvements to achieve speeds up to 100 Mbps for downloads and 50 Mbps for uploads under ideal conditions. It supports seamless handovers for voice and data to cell towers using older network technologies, ensuring consistent connectivity. LTE paved the way for high quality video streaming, online gaming, and other data-intensive applications on mobile devices. While LTE is often marketed as “4G,” true 4G speeds weren’t achieved until LTE Advanced was introduced. LTE has become the foundation for the transition to 5G networks.

TELECOM TRENDS

How fixed wireless with 5G transforms broadband access

Two of Qualcomm’s 17,000 enggs in India testing connectivity in a special room designed to eliminate noise

Sharad Kohli | TNN

Digging trenches to lay optical fibre to provide broadband connectivity is expensive. In densely populated areas, it becomes particularly difficult. “Chandni Chowk in Delhi comes to mind. It is very dense and has established communities, where you may not have space to dig,” says Gautam Sheoran, VP & GM of wireless broadband & communications at Qualcomm.

For this reason, Gautam says, fixed wireless access (FWA) is becoming popular around the world. “Instead of spending years trying to dig trenches and laying fibre to every home and premises – and even then, you may not be able to reach everywhere – you piggyback on the cellular network. In fact, in any region of the world where 5G is being deployed aggressively, fixed wireless access is taking off alongside,” he says. India, he says, started this process in the second half of last year, and now deployment is growing rapidly. All it needs is a device that sits in the user’s house that can connect to a cell tower.

Gautam, who spoke to us on a visit to India, got interested in computer science in high school, and took up computer engineering for his BSc degree from Pune University. A stint in Hughes Software Systems in Gurgaon (“because I was always interested in software and telecommunications”) was followed by a spell in Germany, where he worked for a startup with a focus on cellular protocol stacks for 3G. Gautam then went to Georgia Tech to do Master’s in electrical and computer engineering, after which he moved to San Diego, where in 2004 he joined Qualcomm as a software developer.

Since 2010, Gautam has been driving products for a variety of use cases – he has worked on UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) based products, followed by the first LTE (long-term evolution) products made by Qualcomm, and more recently 5G products. It is, he says, a long time to spend in one field. “But what I found is that it’s always challenging, there’s always new stuff happening. Cellular has been on a tear. If you go back just 14 years, we were talking about UMTS, which initially started with low, single-digit MB-per-second. LTE started off with 100MB per second, and now we’re talking about data of between 1GB and 10GB per second – it’s exciting to have been part of this transformation,” he says.

Major devt centres in India

India is key to Qualcomm, with much of the company’s silicon design and software centred here. “We have massive development centres all over – in Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Noida. India is important both from a hardware and software perspective,” says Gautam. “From a design perspective and all the way up to the products, India has a huge talent base.”

Gautam says this talent base, combined with semiconductor initiatives the government has taken in the past few years and the huge local market will transform the ecosystem. Qualcomm is deeply involved in this transformation. It has launched a semiconductor mentorship programme for startups in collaboration with the government’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). Gautam says techies are figuring out various areas they could innovate in. “There are guys going to small IT parks or industrial parks, or to small offices, and they’re making products that can enable those small businesses to have broadband connectivity,” he says.

Among those working with Qualcomm are VVDN and HFCL, Gurgaon-based tech companies innovating in the realm of telecommunications, including in FWA technologies. “The ecosystem here is building products for the global customer base,” he says.

CAREER LADDER FOR WOMEN

Embrace change, reinvent yourself

Sunita Cherian is chief culture officer at Wipro Ltd

Sunita Cherian

Since the start of my career, I have believed that embracing change and reinventing oneself leads to personal and professional growth. I have always welcomed new challenges and pushed my limits, shaping the professional I am today.

Engg to sales | After earning my engineering degree, I chose to explore an unconventional career path instead of pursuing a typical coding role. This led me to a sales position at Wipro, where I found joy in connecting with individuals, understanding their needs, and delivering customised solutions. This experience not only improved my sales skills but also provided insights into business, marketing, and customer service.

Sales to HR | Thriving in sales, I desired a deeper impact within the organisation, prompting me to transition to HR. Leveraging my sales background, I focused on recruiting, training, and engaging employees. These shifts required me to acquire new skills, collaborate with diverse teams, and embrace a growth mindset for continuous learning and evolution.

Fulfilling life | Over the past three decades, I have constantly reinvented my world at Wipro through these experiences. Embracing the importance of adaptability, continuous learning, and work-life balance has not only shaped my career growth but also brought fulfilment to my personal life, enabling success in both aspects.

Here are my top 5 tips for women aiming for successful leadership roles:

● Gain a deep understanding of your current stage and prioritise responsibilities accordingly.

● Set your sights on what you truly desire, and do not settle for less.

● Develop a phased approach to goals, prioritising immediate, short-term, and long-term objectives.

● Celebrate your accomplishments and express gratitude for the milestones you’ve achieved along your journey.

● Embrace a mindset of continuous learning, growth, and self-empowerment.

TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE

AI THAT ORCHESTRATES RESTAURANT OPS

Anand Mahurkar | FOUNDER & CEO, FINDABILITY SCIENCES

Imagine an AI system that orchestrates the entire restaurant operation, from inventory management to personalised customer service. This system would employ predictive analytics to forecast inventory needs, reducing waste and optimising stock levels. Advanced algorithms could analyse customer preferences and seasonal trends, aiding chefs in creating dynamic, tailored menus that resonate with diners’ tastes and dietary needs. Also, imagine walking into a restaurant where an AI host recognises you, knows your favourite table and dish, and can even recall your last visit’s conversation. This level of personalisation, combined with efficient, tech-driven service, would redefine the dining experience.

In the kitchens, AI could assist chefs by monitoring cooking processes, ensuring consistency and perfection in every dish served. AI-driven robotics could assist in repetitive tasks, allowing the culinary team to focus on creative aspects of cooking. This future of restaurant operations is

not about replacing the human touch but enhancing it with technology.

CELEBRATING BENEFITS OF YOGA

Employees from about 30 GCCs, including ANZ, Target, CBA, Nokia, Novo Nordisk, Optum and Lululemon, came together to celebrate International Day of Yoga by participating in a yoga session at a business park in Bengaluru. Everyone sported gear from Lululemon, the Canadian athletic apparel company that established a GCC in India in 2021. The yoga session provided an opportunity for employees from different companies to promote health and fitness, bond, and celebrate the benefits of yoga.

Editorial

- When The Drama Ends

- Online Won’t Do

- Atlantis revisited

- Shake Hands For The House

- Why Team India’s World Cup Win Is Special

- What Matters Is Not The Number, But The Safety Net

- CONTRAPUNTO

- Sacred space

When The Drama Ends

LS began with good political theatre. A tougher test of its efficacy will come once legislative biz starts

Lok Sabha’s proceedings, starting with the oath ceremony, were loud. And clear. Voices carried. Rhetoric-tipped arrows flew. Barbs found their targets. Quarrels over election of Speaker, and debate around President’s address, have – almost reassuringly – demonstrated the House is in raucous form. The theatrics were almost entertaining and as integral to an opening session as, say, the administering of oath.

Role play | If Rahul Gandhi hit the deck running, an aggressive LoP with clarity of purpose, and BJP firmly in his sight, Modi in his third term was campaignesque sharp, targeting Congress and defending his govt. Powerful speeches from opposition politicians and feisty counters from govt brass – mostly Union ministers spoke – lit up the session expected to end today. The House will reconvene around the third week of July when govt presents its Budget. Parliament is the politician’s stage. Good theatrical performances burnish political credentials. As things stand, opposition parties have little to complain about – of not getting a chance to speak, of not being heard. Plenty was said, including sloganeering almost throughout PM’s speech yesterday.

Tough act | For the coalition in office, legislative business will be Modi-led govt’s primary test – a first for a PM who led two BJP-majority govts. For any new bill, or to carry forward bills pending from its earlier tenure, it will need to have ally TDP and JDU on board. Even in RS, it has work to do, given BJD has decided to not support BJP. The onus is on Modi, around whom everything-NDA revolves.

No drama | The real test of the House will be in the business it gets done. Can Parliament hold a robust debate on NEET, which impacts almost 3mn youngsters every year? And when – if – it does so, will it be a war of words or outcome-oriented? Can the 18th LS have relevant debates on jobs, on the extent and causes of underemployment? Creaky infra in the world’s most populous country is a debilitating factor for any development agenda – Parliament should focus on it. And a sobering reminder came yesterday to MPs about real questions they must ask – over 100 died in a stampede in a religious event in UP’s Hathras.

Online Won’t Do

NEET should follow JEE test model that uses offline computers & two-level examination

Allegations that this year’s NEET-UG was a compromised affair have been validated since CBI began probing the matter. That irregularities have been reported from several states should leave no one in doubt about terrible safety protocols followed by National Testing Agency (NTA).

Format’s the problem | It is all very well to make arrests. But what about the very nature of the exam? To have 2.4mn students take it in offline mode on one single day across India is, experts say, a recipe for trouble. By one reckoning, there are as many as 11 points of human interface for paper-based NEET. Thus, the potential for leakage and manipulation in a high-stakes exam is huge.

It’s good that govt is considering doing away with offline mode for NEET. But this should not mean switching to ‘online’ exams. Rich US, with its huge infra, can do it, we can’t.

CBT way forward | What we need are computer-based tests, as is the case for JEE – CBTs involve use of a computer at a designated centre, but no internet. But a simple switch to CBT won’t be enough. Most important in this context are the credentials of exam centres. There have been cases of cheating and impersonation even in JEE.

Still, CBTs have evolved into a scientific discipline and there are reputed companies in the business. IIMs have used the services of such entities to conduct a fair CAT for years. There is no reason NTA cannot do the same.

Tech, ownership are key | Several other changes will be needed. Proper use of technology for safety protocols and ensuring examinees answer a random set of questions drawn from a bank is one. The question of ownership is another. For instance, while JEE Main conducted by NTA has seen glitches, JEE Advanced, in which IITs are involved, hasn’t. So, it seems like a good idea to conduct a screening test for NEET and a second one for selected candidates in which medical institutions are involved. Most importantly, the practice of conducting NEET only once a year must be done away with. Giving examinees more than one chance will lower their stress levels.

Atlantis revisited

second opinion

A thousand years from now archaeologists might find evidence of a repeatedly sunken civilisation

Jug Suraiya

Two archaeologists, Prof Indiana and Prof Jones, in a museum full of ancient manuscripts, fossils, and crumbling statuary. A digital calendar on the wall reads July 3, 3024.

Prof Indiana peers through a microscope at a preserved fragment on which the letters TOI can be faintly discerned.

Indiana: There’s no doubt about it, Jones. This conclusively proves that there really was a long-lost civilisation which was like the fabled continent of Atlantis.

Jones: That’s amazing, Indiana. For thousands of years historians have believed that the sunken continent of Atlantis, which was first written about by Plato in 360 BCE, was an allegorical myth.

Indiana: Plato’s Atlantis might have been a myth invented by him to symbolise the hazards of excessive pride in human advancement. But it seems there was a real-life Atlantis that got submerged in water not just once, but repeatedly.

Jones: Golly, that really is fantastic. A place that goes underwater over and over, only to bob up like a performing porpoise in a water park!

Indiana: What’s even more astonishing is that this Atlantis lookalike considered itself to be an advanced civilisation that sent spacecraft to the Moon and Mars, and could do brain surgery.

Jones: No kidding. So how come it couldn’t prevent itself from sinking into water time after time?

Indiana: That’s the great mystery that no one can solve. No one can figure out why a society that could devise something called IPL, the impenetrable intricacies of which continue to baffle scientists till today, couldn’t devise the means to prevent itself from sinking annually, and always at this particular time of the year.

Jones: Do you think it might have some sort of mystical significance?

Indiana: It might well have had. Like the unfathomable workings of kismet and karmic consequence.

Jones: I guess you’re right. No one will ever know why a place called Dilli would, year after year, be submerged by something named the monsoon…

Shake Hands For The House

LS has started with fireworks. But this Parliament is tasked with greenlighting major changes like delimitation. Treasury & opposition will have to talk, do backroom negotiations & arrive at workable solutions

Saurabh Todi and Shrikrishna Upadhyaya

Though it is early days, a stormy inaugural session of the 18th Lok Sabha is belying expectations that national politics has re-entered a coalition phase that will bring consensus-building, effective floor management, and backroom parleys back to Parliament.

But it is very important that the parliamentary forum be once again tilted towards its intended purpose –democratic deliberation. That’s the only way to take forward major impending legislative changes such as delimitation of constituencies, 33% women’s reservation and the proposed simultaneous elections to Parliament and state legislatures. Ideally, the coalition phase should also reform parliamentary proceedings, to improve the functioning of our legislative system.

Delimitation | As per constitutional provisions, delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies is to be carried out on the basis of the first census conducted after 2026. Today, on average, an MP from Uttar Pradesh caters to about 3mn citizens, compared to 1.8mn by an MP from Tamil Nadu. Given the disparity in population growth between northern and southern states since the 1971 census, as per which delimitation is currently frozen, delimitation is set to exert pressure on NDA govt.

Unless govt decides to defer delimitation, the exercise provides an opportunity to redesign the structure of Rajya Sabha to compensate states for the loss of Lok Sabha seats and increase fiscal devolution to states as a bargaining measure. It remains to be seen what southern and relatively developed states, such as Andhra Pradesh (governed by BJP’s key ally TDP), achieve in terms of political bargaining.

Furthermore, constitutional amendments to enable 33% women’s reservation in Parliament and state assemblies can take effect only after a delimitation exercise is carried out. Delaying delimitation would mean delaying a progressive reform as well.

Simultaneous polls | If NDA govt decides to implement the Kovind Committee report recommendations on ‘One Nation One Election’ and hold simultaneous elections, a key roadblock is the fate of govts that lose majority midway through their 5-year term. The report provides that a re-election will be held in such cases, followed by a shorter, less than 5-year term for the new govt until general elections occur.

Reducing the term of an elected legislature to less than 5 years may not stand constitutional scrutiny. A less intrusive alternative is to create a cycle of mid-term elections for such legislatures, with arrangements to enable a minority govt to continue until then.

Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai, in their 2017 report for Niti Aayog, suggested holding elections in 2.5-year intervals, with general elections and half of the states going to polls together and the other half going to polls after 2.5 years.

Legislative council and local body elections | Only a handful of Indian states have a legislative council. Unlike Rajya Sabha, these legislative councils have limited powers to scrutinise legislation. In the absence of acounterbalancing force of legislative councils, the governing party in state assemblies enjoys complete dominance over the legislative process. Parliament must establish legislative councils with powers equal to Rajya Sabha for all large states with a threshold population of 5mn. Timing this with Rajya Sabha reform and fiscal devolution mentioned earlier is crucial to ensure states’ concurrence.

Legislative council elections must be carried out solely through indirect election by elected members of local bodies after abolishing teachers and graduates’ constituencies, similar to how MLAs elect Rajya Sabha members. Imposing a constitutional mandate on states to conduct elections to local bodies every 5 years is imperative. As a result, inordinate delays in local body elections, including in major cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru, will be curtailed.

Research support for MPs | India needs to establish a parliamentary research agency for its MPs, similar to US’s congressional research service. This PRA should offer independent research and factual analysis to MPs, especially those from smaller regional or single-person parties that are disadvantaged in terms of financial and intellectual resources, to adequately scrutinise bills.

Besides, Lok Sabha has a high turnover rate. In the 18th Lok Sabha, 51.5% of MPs are first-time parliamentarians. This was 49% in 2019 and 58% in 2014. Although many of these first-time MPs might have had legislative experience in state assemblies, a parliamentarian’s domain is quite broad, and policies need in-depth study and scrutiny.

Standing committees | Disruptions and adjournments have impacted parliamentary discourse over the last two decades. This, in turn, affects the quality and depth of scrutiny that bills undergo. Rules of procedure should be amended to mandate that every bill introduced in Parliament be sent to the relevant parliamentary standing committee for scrutiny. This would ensure that bills undergo a multi-party consultative process away from the media glare before being passed by Parliament. Mandating committee scrutiny for bills must also be extended to state legislatures in due course.

Division of votes | Lastly, all bills voted upon in Parliament should be decided by division of votes using automatic vote recorders and not by voice vote. The current practice of Speaker’s discretion in holding a division must be abolished. Recording each vote will allow the public to hold their MP accountable. An official record also allows researchers to study and interpret policy preferences and diversity of opinion within Parliament.

Impending legislative changes like increase in the size of Parliament and women’s reservation provide an excellent opportunity for implementing these reforms.

The writers are researchers at Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru

Why Team India’s World Cup Win Is Special

By invitation: Anant Goenka

The Speaking Tree

India becoming T20 world champions was a fabulous moment for India, for cricket. For me, what makes the win special is that in an era of bullies, the nice guys have won.

Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid – both have been gentlemen through and through. Rohit never dropped his dignity in the face of all the controversies thrown at him. And he led in a way that’s natural to him: being a leader, a team player, a buddy in the locker room.

Dravid, epitomises gentlemanly behaviour. He’s now the Dronacharya of winning without belligerence, finding victory without vehemence.

Today, in every field, we aspire to be hyper-competitive, hyper-aggressive, intolerant bullies. It’s not only accepted, but proactively encouraged. In sports, the brash football culture – its high collision sports quotient on the field, argumentative players, angry team managers and high-octane fans from the stands – is much more attractive than, say, the gentlemanly kabaddi culture where players often confess to being ‘touched out’ even if the referee didn’t notice.

In industry, compare the public persona of startup founders today to that of the earlier corporate founders in India. Businesspeople model their behaviour more on the Steve Jobs of the world, rather than the very cultured public persona of those who founded thriving corporations like Tata, Bajaj and Birla.

In politics, young Republicans are more enamoured by the rhetorically charged personality of Donald Trump, than of the warm, well-mannered George W Bush.

Whether in sports, politics, or industry, the world today is telling us that it’s easier to win if you are an insensitive, transactional, egotistical bully. The gentle but unyielding courage of Gandhiji, the idea of investing and valuing relationships, or of competing with oneself for the greater good of society rather than searching for someone to defeat, are all unfashionable.

And this is what scares me about the general rhetoric I hear among Indian voters after this unique ‘Everyone’s a winner’ election result. For the voter, it’s not so much that everyone won, and so everyone’s happy with the results. The takeaway is a far more blinkered, self-centred view: ‘The other side has lost, and so I’m happy!’

I fear that as a society, we’re headed down this acerbic, forever-aggressive rabbit hole. And without urgent introspection, we will find ourselves in the dysfunctionally polarised mess that America is in today. So no matter which side of the political spectrum you identify yourself with, together we should try to make ‘empathy’ great again.

As readers, we must recognise – for instance – the trauma of a migrant in desperate search for a safe home, and also the fear of those who are forced to offer their neighbourhood to foreigners.

This applies equally to liberals as it does to conservatives.

The world’s most hallowed educational institutions spend a lot of emphasis on developing convictions – always a wonderful skill – but much less on living and thriving with different ideas. So we are taught to win arguments, but we aren’t taught to have empathy for someone else’s truth.

It’s always admirable to fight for the ‘Truth’, but holding on to dogmas, either liberal or conservative ones, and ‘otherising’ makes a meeting of either side much more improbable. It aggravates polarisation.

Think back, in any setting of any scale, in your own personal life, the number of times you have witnessed the imperative of winning an argument trump the larger objective of finding consensus.

After watching last week’s US presidential debate, we desperately needed a nice guy to win somewhere in the world, to believe that decency can also deliver.

Which is why last weekend’s cricket win is so extra special. The gentlemen won.

The writer is executive director, Indian Express

What Matters Is Not The Number, But The Safety Net

India’s growing economy is lifting families out of poverty but often onto a precarious perch. A single disaster can push them right back. Policy, obsessed with counting the poor, ignores the question of helping ‘newly poor’

Sonalde Desai

Two decades ago, controversies around the measurement of poverty in National Sample Surveys set off what became known as the Great Indian Poverty Debate. We seem to have come full circle with new controversies about poverty measurement, leading to the Great Indian Poverty Debate 2. But is counting the exact number of individuals whose incomes fall below the poverty line, located around `1,900, as important as understanding the nature of poverty decline and its implications for social policy?

Some estimates based on Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) place poverty under 5%. Newly collected Wave 3 of India Human Development Survey (IHDS) places it at about 8.5%. HCES probably underestimates poverty due to a change in methodology, while IHDS probably overestimates poverty due to its reliance on an older sampling frame that omits newly growing peri-urban areas. However, both suggest that poverty is declining. The multidimensional poverty index released by Niti Aayog also documents improvements in the conditions under which households live.

But due to an obsession with estimating the exact number of individuals in poverty, implications of this change for the provision of social safety nets are ignored.

India’s approach to social protection was developed when most of its population was impoverished. Unequal access to productive resources such as infra, land and education led to endemic poverty among some sections of the society (such as SCs and STs) and in some areas (such as poorest districts like Dahod, Gadchiroli, and Dhubri). Hence, the primary focus was on designating the poorest sections of society as BPL and providing them various benefits, including food grains.

As the economy grows, it presents both opportunities and challenges. Poor rural residents find work as skilled masons, and urban slum-dwellers become drivers for delivery services. While this is a step out of abject poverty, it also places them on a precarious perch where a single accident, natural disaster, or epidemic could push them back into poverty.

IHDS, organised by National Council of Applied Economic Research and University of Maryland, followed more than 40,000 households between 2004 and 2024. Its results suggest that poverty decline is closely coupled with increasing vulnerability. Between 2004-05 and 2011-12, of the total 22.4% who were poor, 8.5% were newly poor.

That is, if BPL cards were given based on poverty in 2004-05, they would miss out on nearly 40% of the individuals who were poor in 2012. This proportion grew between 2011-12 and 2022-24, although overall poverty declined. Of the 8.5% poor in 2022-24, 5.3% are newly poor, reflecting a decline in chronic poverty and growth in transient poverty.

Whereas accidents of birth largely shaped the fortunes of Indian citizens in the 20th century, the 21st century has seen a rising importance of accidents of life. The challenge is that we cannot easily predict this descent into disaster. While the death of a wage earner brings debt and misery to one widow, the other may be able to get a loan from a bank to set up a small shed for raising pigs and support herself, yet another may have a son who is grown up and can help his mother.

Our public discourse must acknowledge and celebrate movement out of poverty, but it must also recognise the precarity of this achievement and work towards building safety nets that protect against unforeseen disasters. This involves developing social policies that provide risk insurance and strengthening institutions that can be mobilised to deliver assistance when needed.

Illness and death pose tremendous risks for vulnerable households. Hence, strengthening public health services and building an efficient health insurance programme are critical. Present programmes such as Ayushman Bharat cover only hospital expenditures, which can easily lead to escalating public expenditures as individuals who can be treated in outpatient clinics resort to hospitalisation because they lack the funds to pay OPD fees.

Dealing with emergencies also requires building sustainable institutions. During the pandemic, PDS ensured that grains could be distributed despite price rises and transportation challenges. This helped avert hunger and starvation while highlighting the exclusion of migrants who did not have proof of residence, giving impetus to setting up the One Nation, One Ration Card programme. Similarly, immediate cash needs during flooding or other disasters can be met through an infusion of funds if we have access to registries that link people’s current residential locations with their bank accounts.

We must move past the futile debate about estimating the exact number of poor individuals and accept that poverty is declining, requiring re-envisioning of our social protection programmes to ensure we don’t fail those who need help the most.

The writer is Professor at National Council of Applied Economic Research & University of Maryland. Views are personal

CONTRAPUNTO

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people

WALTER BAGEHOT

Sacred space

Loving means being open to miracles, to victories and defeats, to everything that happens each day that was given us to walk upon the face of the Earth.

Paulo Coelho

Times Sport

- ORANJE ALERT

- WITH OR WITHOUT YOU

- What golden generation? Kevin sees nothing in the wonder years

- Uruguay make the grade with an all-win record

- MBAPPE’S STRUGGLES WITH MASK AND SCORING CONTINUE

- PANAMA REACH QUARTERS

- FANFARE

- THE KEEPERS OF THE FLAME

- GALLERY

- The Ro helpline that Dravid answered!

- It’s business as usual for Djoko!

- Shooter Sandeep overcomes odds, aims for Olympics glory

- 16 Indian athletes, 3 relay teams for Oly

- Sons of Vaughan, Flintoff set for Eng U19 ‘test’ debut

- DDCA men and women’s T20 leagues in Aug

- Andy Murray pulls out of men’s singles

- Fighting Nagal bows out in Rd 1

- ‘I want to live every second of this win’

- SUDHARSAN, JITESH, RANA ADDED TO TEAM VS ZIMBABWE

- GUTTED, IT’S A TOUGH PILL TO SWALLOW: MILLER ON WC LOSS

ORANJE ALERT

Malen Double, Gakpo Opener Help Much-Improved Netherlands Reach Last Eight With Romania Win

DONYELL MALEN

Munich: Netherlands’ Cody Gakpo scored his third goal of the European Championship and Donyell Malen added two more late on as the Dutch burst back into form with a lively display to defeat Romania 3-0 in their last-16 fixture on Tuesday. Ronald Koeman’s team reached the quarters for the first time since after 2008.

They had been lambasted by their media and fans for a poor defensive display in their final group game, a 3-2 loss to Austria, but were more composed and in control as they reach the Euro quarterfinals for the first time since 2008. They took the lead after 20 minutes when Gakpo drilled a low angled shot home at goalkeeper Florin Nita’s near post before Malan’s late double helped set up a quarter-final with Austria or Turkey, who play later on Tuesday, in Berlin on Saturday.

The Netherlands had two thirds of possession and almost five times more chances in the game to underline their superiority as Virgil van Dijk struck the post with a header and Gakpo had a second effort ruled out for offside. Gakpo broke the deadlock in the 20th minute. Xavi Simons surged forward before finding Gakpo on the left and he cut inside, bamboozled the blue-haired Andrei Ratiu and fired into the near bottom corner.

Romania had dominated possession until then but never really tested Netherlands goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, with their best chance coming when Dennis Man curled a shot over the crossbar.

The goal seemed to give the Dutch confidence and they had several chances to extend their lead. Gakpo said, “This was the answer we had to our last performance good game, good goals, we played good football. Of course we could do better but it was a good showing after the last game.”

AGENCIES

Netherlands’ Cody Gakpo (No. 11) celebrates scoring the opening goal

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU

Ronaldo Drama Takes Centrestage As Diogo Costa Saves The Day For Portugal With 3 Saves In Shootout

CRISTIANO RONALDO

Frankfurt: No one does high drama in international soccer to such an operatic extent as Cristiano Ronaldo.

Portugal are heading to a blockbuster quarterfinal with France at the European Championship after its star captain generated compelling viewing on center stage of the victory over Slovenia on Monday.

Winning a penalty shootout 3-0 after a 0-0 game against the 57th-ranked team in world football might not sound much.

But there were tears, lots of them, from Ronaldo; an apology in prayer-form to his fans, who responded with adulation; extravagant arm gestures of anger, frustration and exasperation; chances wasted and denied to make more tournament history; a renewed duel with an old rival goalkeeper; and ultimately redemption and victory.

Ronaldo’s mother was in the stadium and TV pictures showed her crying, too, after he missed his penalty.

“Sometimes it’s hard and difficult to score penalties,” Ronaldo told Portuguese broadcaster RTP after the match, getting emotional again. “I’ve scored more than 200 penalties in my career. Sometimes it’s a mess.”

Still, the last act of Monday’s show gave Portugal what it needed. “We showed the enthusiasm that we still have to play, to have fun, to give joy to the fans and that’s it, this is our life,” he said after it was all over, close to midnight in Frankfurt.

The 39-year-old Ronaldo went into the game without a goal at Euro 2024. The moment when he surely had to become the oldest player ever to score at a Euros finals tournament came in the first period of extra time, the 105th minute, after missing five or six of the kind of chances he has thrived on now for 20 years at this level.

Portugal had been awarded a penalty kick and Ronaldo stepped up to take what could have been the decisive goal.

Instead, Slovenia goalkeeper Jan Oblak, a long-time adversary from their time playing Spanish league football in Madrid, dived left to push aside the well-struck shot against a post and away to safety. Tears welled in Ronaldo’s eyes and soon flowed during the break before the second period of extra time began. Teammates consoled him, kissed his forehead and urged him to keep going.

Extra time also finished 0-0 and when the penalty shootout started, Slovenia’s first kick was saved by Portugal goalkeeper Diogo Costa. Up stepped Ronaldo, facing a massed stand of about 10,000 Portugal fans. He placed it perfectly low beyond Oblak diving to his right.

Ronaldo looked apologetically to the fans and put his hands together as if in prayer. The fans responded with a bellowing and forgiving shout of “Siuuuu” — their football icon’s trademark goal scream.

“I was certain that he had to be the first penalty taker and show us the way to victory,” Portugal coach Roberto Martinez said. “Life gives you difficult moments and the way he reacted makes us very proud.”

Costa answered the rest of those fans’ prayers with as good a penalty shootout as any goal- keeper could have.

He saved all three of Slovenia’s kicks from Josip Ilicic, Jure Balkovec and Benjamin Verbic. Then he was in tears, too.

Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva also scored for Portugal to seal the shootout 3-0 with two kicks to spare.

“I was sad and now I’m overjoyed. This is what football gives you,” Ronaldo said in translated comments in a post-game interview. “You cannot explain it.”

Portugal will face France in the quarterfinals on Friday in Hamburg, a rematch of the 2016 final that Portugal won in Paris after Ronaldo went off injured early. “We all know that Cris is the hardest worker. I understand how frustrated he is,” Costa said. “For me, it’s an honour to play on the same team.” AP

What golden generation? Kevin sees nothing in the wonder years

DE BRUYNE AFTER THE LOSS TO FRANCE

Frankfurt: Kevin De Bruyne stood, hands on hips, and tried to take it all in.

Belgium has flunked another major international tournament after a losing to France 1-0 in the round of 16 at the European Championship on Monday.

It was an all-too familiar feeling for one of the remaining members of his country’s so-called golden generation. Not that De Bruyne appreciates the tag. “What is the golden generation?” he asked when it was pointed out to him that a collection of Belgium’s greatest players including Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany, Thibaut Courtois and Romelu Lukaku has never managed to reach the final of a major tournament, let alone win a trophy.

“You say that France and England and Spain and Germany is not a golden generation? OK.”

If De Bruyne was touchy, it was understandable at the end of a tournament in which Belgium slumped to a shock loss to 45thranked Slovakia and was booed by their own fans after drawing 0-0 with Ukraine. Those results sent Belgium into the knockout match with back-to-back World Cup finalist France.

It feels like time is running out for De Bruyne, who celebrated his 33rd birthday on Friday.

He couldn’t help his team to a title when it featured greats such as Hazard, Kompany and Courtois. With those players no longer around, Belgium exited Euro 2024 with a whimper. All-time leading scorer Lukaku failed to get a goal in four matches. “I tried to do everything I could,” De Bruyne said.

De Bruyne said he hadn’t considered his international future, but he will turn 35 during the next World Cup in 2026 in Canada, Mexico and the United States. He missed much of last season through injury.

Belgium’s best achievement with the golden generation was to reach the 2018 World Cup semifinals — beaten by eventual champion France -and a climb to the top of the FIFA rankings. It was eliminated from the group stage at the last World Cup, after which Hazard retired. AFP

Uruguay make the grade with an all-win record

La Celeste Win 1-0, Show Hosts USA The Exit Door

Kansas City: Uruguay assistant coach Diego Reyes said their tough 1-0 Group C win over the United States on Monday showed they can adapt to difficult situations and would stand them in good stead for tests to come at the Copa America.

Uruguay’s win sealed top spot in the group and booked a quarterfinal match-up with the runner-up in Group D, where Brazil and Costa Rica are vying to join Colombia in the next round.

Uruguay took the lead in controversial circumstances through Mathias Olivera on 66 minutes. Ronald Araujo’s powerful header from Nicolas de la Cruz’s free-kick was parried away by US goalkeeper Matt Turner, but only into the path of Olivera, who tucked away the rebound. Replays appeared to show that Olivera was offside when Araujo first made contact with the ball, but despite a lengthy VAR review, Peruvian referee Kevin Ortega ruled that the goal should stand.

Uruguay, who have been coached by Marcelo Bielsa since last year, won all three of the their group games, scoring eight goals.

Uruguay were on the back foot early on against the US. “We are designed to be protagonists,” Reyes, standing in for the suspended Bielsa, said after the win.

“So when we don’t have the ball, that’s something we don’t like. For some moments at the beginning of the match, it was hard for us to come up with those moments where we could recover the ball.

“We were arriving a bit late. Once that was corrected, we were able to recover the ball and then we were able to express our game better and we could see the Uruguay we all want.” With heavyweights Brazil and in-form Colombia likely to progress from Group D, Uruguay’s task gets even more difficult.

MBAPPE’S STRUGGLES WITH MASK AND SCORING CONTINUE

Dusseldorf: Kylian Mbappe has had more masks than goals at the European Championship. The France captain is struggling with his peripheral vision in the masks that were fitted to protect his broken nose from his country’s opening game at Euro 2024.

He wore a third different mask on Monday in the 1-0 win against Belgium in the round of 16. The striker failed to hit the target in five attempts on goal against Belgium. He has only one goal in the tournament. “You’ve got the sweat aspect and we know sweat can get in his eyes. He’s getting used to it, but it can affect his vision,” coach Didier Deschamps said. “Everything in front of him is fine, but there’s a delay with his peripheral vision.”

Mbappe broke his nose in an aerial collision with Austria’s Kevin Danso, and has described the mask-wearing experience as “an absolute horror.”

His only score so far was a penalty against Poland. “I saw people but I had the feeling it was not me that was playing,” he said after that game.

Mbappe was initially fitted with a custom-made mask that was designed in the colors of the French flag. But UEFA rules state protective equipment has to be a single colour, and he switched to an all black version against Poland.

He changed it again for the knockout game against Belgium with a version that appeared to be more custom-cut to the contours of his face. It also had more ventilation than his previous masks and was held on with one strap, rather than two. But it didn’t seem to make a lot of difference, with Mbappe’s shooting often wide of the mark. Mbappe and France have a quarterfinal against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal on Friday. AP

PANAMA REACH QUARTERS

Orlando: Panama beat Bolivia 3-1 on Monday to finish second in Group C and qualify for the Copa America quarterfinals after tournament hosts the United States were eliminated following a 1-0 loss to group winners Uruguay.

The win moved Panama up to second on six points, three more than the US, as the central American side reached the knockout stage for the first time.

Jose Fajardo opened the scoring for Panama while substitutes Eduardo Guerrero and Cesar Yanis scored late to seal all three points, with Bolivia’s lone goal coming from Bruno Miranda.

“Football is daily suffering, but today there was a lot at stake,” Panama boss Thomas Christiansen said. “Our performance dropped at times ... they (Bolivia) began to control the game and they scored. We started to get a bit more anxious. But we reacted quickly.”

Bolivia needed a win with only a slim chance of staying alive in the tournament, but it was Panama who broke the deadlock in the 22nd minute when Cristian Martinez set up Fajardo. AGENCIES

FANFARE

QUEEN & PRINCESSES: Dutch and Romanian fans enjoy the atmosphere on Tuesday

THE KEEPERS OF THE FLAME

Costa’s heroics against Slovenia put goalies in spotlight at Euro 2024

MAN OF THE MOMENT

Goalkeeper Diogo Costa was the match-winner for Portugal in their round of 16 victory over Slovenia on Monday but no keeper at the European Championship has been busier than the overworked Giorgi Mamardashvili from Georgia.

Costa, 24, saved three penalties in the shoot-out, a record for a Euros finals, as Portugal advanced to a meeting with France on Friday. Before that he produced an excellent stop to deny Benjamin Sesko on a one-on-one in extra time.

He became the third keeper to receive a Man of the Match award at the tournament after Mamardashvili in a 1-1 draw with Czech Republic and Poland’s Lukasz Skorupski when they drew 1-1 against France. “I am very excited that I helped the team,” he said.

GEORGIA’S SAVIOUR

Mamardashvili, 23, stands head and shoulders above the rest of the keepers at the tournament in terms of shots saved, though he will not thank his defence for that. He made 29 stops in the four games he played, including the 4-1 round of 16 loss to Spain, more than double the next highest for a keeper at the tournament.

The Valencia keeper has been attracting interest from top clubs for some time, coming close to a move to Bayern Munich at the start of last season. “My move to Bayern was almost done,” he said. “My agent was in Munich with my father to find an apartment. But as far as I know, in the end they refused to pay 35 million (euros) for me.”

GALLERY

‘Chelsea sign teenager Anselmino’

Buenos Aires: Chelsea have reached an agreement with Argentine giants Boca Juniors to sign defender Aaron Anselmino in an $18 million deal, a source with the Buenos Aires based club said on Monday. Anselmino began his Boca career aged 12, made his first-team debut in 2023 and after 10 appearances attracted interest from European clubs, including Manchester United and AC Milan. The Argentine side agreed with Chelsea to retain the 19-year-old for at least six more months so that fans can “enjoy” the centre-back before he joins the Premier League.

Blues bring in Guiu from Barca: Chelsea have signed 18-year-old striker Marc Guiu from Barcelona on a five-year deal with a further one-year option, the Premier League side said on Monday. Barcelona academy product Guiu made his professional debut last October, announcing his arrival with his first goal after just 33 seconds, a late winner against Athletic Bilbao. He made seven first-team appearances and scored his first Champions League goal in the group stage against Royal Antwerp.

Son’s academy in S Korea denies coaches bullying allegations: Allegations of coaches verbally and physically abusing a young player at the Son Football Academy funded by English Premier League star Son Heung-min are being investigated by South Korean prosecutors. Son’s father, former professional player Son Woongjung, is the director of the academy in Chuncheon, 80 kilometers (almost 50 miles) east of the capital Seoul.

Brazil creates King Pele Day: Brazil football legend Pele will be honored in his home country by a commemorative day baptised ‘King Pele Day’, reported Tuesday's edition of the government gazette. Edson Arantes do Nascimento -better known as Pele -won three World Cups with Brazil and scored more than 1,000 goals over his storied career.

AGENCIES

ACTION TODAY

CRICKET: Women’s ODI: Eng vs NZ, 5.30 pm (Fancode)

TENNIS: Wimbledon, 3.30 pm (Star Sports)

The Ro helpline that Dravid answered!

A Phone Call After ODI WC Heartbreak Changed Everything For India

RAHUL DRAVID AND ROHIT SHARMA

Bridgetown: Had he not received a phone call from India skipper Rohit Sharma, requesting him to continue after the ODI World Cup final defeat, Rahul Dravid wouldn’t have been a part of history, the outgoing head coach revealed in his farewell speech to the team after it was crowned T20 world champion here.

Dravid’s tenure had ended with the ODI World Cup after India lost to Australia in the final despite a 10-match winning run, but the coaching staff got an extension till the end of the T20 World Cup that concluded on Saturday.

While Dravid has not reapplied for the role after India’s second T20 World Cup win, he mentioned Rohit’s role in urging him to continue as the coach during his speech in the Kensington Oval dressing room after the team’s win seven-run win in the final against South Africa on Saturday.

“Ro, thank you very much for making that call to me November and asking to continue,” Dravid said in a video shared by BCCI on Tuesday.

“I think it’s been such a privilege and a pleasure to work with each and everyone of you, but Ro, also thanks for the time...there is a lot of time we have to chat, we have to discuss, we have to agree, we have to disagree at times, but thank you so very much,” Dravid said as Rohit laughed.

Dravid praised the players for putting up collectively solid performances through the tournament and urged them to celebrate the achievement as much as they would like.

“All of you will remember these moments. We always say, it is not about the runs, it is not about the wickets, you never remember your career but you remember moments like this, so let’s really enjoy,” Dravid said.

“I could not be more proud of you guys, to come back the way you did, the way you fought, the way we worked as a team...the resilience. There has been some disappointment over the years where we have come close, we have never been able to cross the line,” he said.

With BCCI secretary Jay Shah in attendance, Dravid also spoke about the sacrifices that people close to each and every player made in order to allow them the spotlight they are now enjoying.

“So many sacrifices that each and everyone of you make, to see your families here today enjoying it, so many of your families back home, just think about all the sacrifices, each and everyone of them has made since the time you were kids, for you to be here in the dressing room,” Dravid said.

“Today, your parents, your wives, your children, your brother, your coaches, so many people have made so many sacrifices and worked so hard with you for you to enjoy this memory in this moment... really, really proud to have being a part of this memory with you guys,” he continued.

Dravid admitted he was falling short of words but praised the team for their respect towards the outgoing coaching staff. “I’m not usually short of words but on a day like today, for me to be part of this, I could not be more grateful for the respect, for the kindness, for the effort that each and everyone of you are shown to me, to my coaching staff to my support staff.”

Dravid also praised the BCCI officials and others for their work. “Behind a great team, there is also a successful organisation and we have to acknowledge the work of BCCI and people behind the scenes for the work they have done,” he added. PTI

It’s business as usual for Djoko!

Playing With A Knee Brace, Serbian Ace Makes Light Work Of Vit Kopriva

CHAMPION CLASS: Novak Djokovic celebrates after winning against Vit Kopriva of Czechia in his first round singles match

Prajwal.Hegde@timesgroup.com

London: If there was a question surrounding Novak Djokovic’s right knee — which went under the knife in Paris less than a month ago — the seven time champion’s sparkling performance under dull skies at Wimbledon was an adequate response.

The 37-year-old, playing with a knee brace, was all over Centre Court — sliding, stretching, reaching and charging — playing without a care in the world. The Serb sparked the missing sun in his near two hours in the middle.

Djokovic’s record-extending 3 71st Grand Slam match win 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 came at the expense of 27-year-old Vit Kopriva, a qualifier, who was making his main draw debut at SW19. “ Coming into Wimbledon this year was very different because of the knee, I didn’t know how everything was going to unfold, practice sessions are very different from actual match play,” Djokovic said as the sun finally made an appearance at this leafy London suburb, where light rain had interrupted the schedule on the outside courts.

Djokovic, making his 19th consecutive Wimbledon appearance, said, “I tried to focus on the game and not think about the knee too much. Everything I could’ve done I have done over the last three weeks to be able to play here today. If it was any other tournament, I probably would not have risked it, would not have rushed it as much, but I just love Wimbledon.”

Djokovic, who has had one other surgery in his career, on the elbow six years ago, sent out love to fellow athletes battling injuries.

“I’ve been fortunate, comparing myself to other 37-yearolds. I had injuries like anybody else, but they come and go. It’s part of what you do. You just have to accept it and embrace it,” he said.

VONDROUSOVA BOWS OUT

A combination of nerves and physical struggles coupled with an inspired performance from the world No. 83 Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, put out defending champion Marketa Vondrousova in the first round. Bouzas Maneiro, the 21-year-old from Spain, looking for a maiden Tour-level win on grass, scored a 6-4, 6-2 win on Centre Court, which was also her first win in a Grand Slam. The 25-year-old world No. 6 seemed to be bothered by her right hip which she hurt after a nasty fall on court in Berlin last month, the Czech was clutching her leg in the second set.

“I was a bit scared because of my leg, ” an emotional Vondrousova said. “But I don’t think that was the reason. I felt nervous from the start. She was playing a good match. That was kind of tough too.”

Shooter Sandeep overcomes odds, aims for Olympics glory

Sandeep Singh

Sabi.Hussain@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:Till a little over a month ago, Sandeep Singh was just another promising talent looking to make a mark on the Indian shooting landscape. With n o experience of playing in big finals or boasting of any major international medal, the 28-yearold Naib Subedar in the Indian Army appeared in the Paris Olympics selection trials in Delhi and Bhopal in April-May with a sole target of achieving some good scores.

However, an extraordinary show in the trials where he defeated the likes of Arjun Babuta, Rudrankksh Patil and Divyansh Singh Panwar saw Sandeep not only topping the men’s 10m air rifle selections but also booking his berth for the Paris Olympics ahead of the fancied names. Soon, Sandeep was being hailed as the country’s best 10m air rifle shooter and one of the medal prospects in Paris.

“I hadn’t set any targets for myself when I entered the trials. To be honest, I wasn’t even thinking of my selection. I focused on the process and shot fearlessly. After appearing in both the trials and shooting down some impressive scores, I grew in confidence and felt that I could make the Indian team. Now that I am part of the squad, I want to return home with a medal from Paris,” Sandeep told TOI.

However, the journey to the top for the Armyman from Faridkot was strewn with obstacles. Sandeep served a suspension period for doping which he successfully fought off and was later posted at the world’s highest battlefield in the frigid Siachen glacier where he fended off a Chinese incursion. He then had another setback as he failed to make the cut for the Tokyo Olympics despite being named in the reserves.

“I joined the Army in 2016 and started my shooting ca- reer there after my seniors watched me doing well with INSAS assault rifle. I won several medals in competitions at the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) in M how and also at the 2017 and ’18 shooting Nationals. Everything was going great until 2019 when my name cropped up in a doping case. I was innocent but that taint led to my downfall. I was part of the reserves team for Tokyo 2021 but my name was struck off from the list. I got relief from the doping ban but then I was told to join my regiment in Siachen glacier because my scores had gone down due to the mental pressure,” Sandeep said.

“I was posted in Siachen for six months from 2021-2022 and that was a depressing period. I was alone at 22,000 feet height in – 40 degree celsius. Loneliness hurts you. But that period also allowed me to explore my real self and what I want from life. I requested my Commanding Officer to post me back in AMU. When I returned, I had just two objectives — remove the dope blot and to make the country proud at the Olympics,” he added.

16 Indian athletes, 3 relay teams for Oly

Amit.Sampat@timesgroup.com

Nagpur:A total of nine Indian athletes achieved the world rankings to qualify for the Paris Games after the World Athletics updated the list of qualifiers on Tuesday. After the provisional suspension of DP Manu in the men’s javelin throw event, eight athletes have qualified for the Games as per the rankings.

With this, a total of 16 Indian athletes (17 entries) and three relay teams could be in action at the Olympics. The final entry list will be confirmed by the world body on July 8 after the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) sends its final list.

As per the updated list, Parul Chaudhary will be in two events. She achieved the 34th rank in women’s 5000m. In Budapest last August, Parul had already booked her 3000m steeplechase berth after clearing the qualifying mark. Indian women athletes Jyothi Yarraji, Abha Khatua and Annu Rani have made the cut in 100m hurdles, shot put and javelin throw events respectively.

Sarvesh Kushare of Nashik will make his Olympics debut after he qualified for the high jump in the 29th position. Had Tejaswin Shankar achieved the qualifying mark, there could have been two Indian high jumpers for the first time in Olympic Games. Tajinderpal Singh Toor will be seen in shot put while the duo of Abdulla Narangolintevida and Praveen Chithravel earned the quota place in triple jump.

Nine Indian athletes, including Neeraj Chopra, had already achieved the entry standard. Neeraj will be joined by Kishore Jena. Others who qualified include Kiran Pahal (400m) and Priyanka (20km race walk). Avinash Sable will be seen in the 3000m steeplechase while three race walkers — Akshdeep Singh, Ram Baboo and Vikash Singh —have made the grade.

Sons of Vaughan, Flintoff set for Eng U19 ‘test’ debut

London: Fifteen years after England duo of Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff ended their Test careers, their sons are likely to begin their journey in the traditional format at the age-group level in two ‘tests’ against Sri Lanka. Archie Vaughan, son of the former Ashes-winning England captain, was on Tuesday named in a 14-member squad that also includes 16-year-old Rocky Flintoff, who has already made his international debut in youth ODIs.

Family connection runs deep in the squad that also features Farhan Ahmed, brother of current England leg-spinner Rehan and Jaydn Denly, the 17-year-old nephew of ex-England batter Joe Denly.

“They’ve helped me and given me more confidence in my leadership on and off the field, advising on bowling options and field placements,” skipper Hamza Shaikh told Warwickshire’s website. “I like to think I’m a fairly calm guy and captaincy doesn’t faze me. I’m looking forward to the challenge and hopefully coming away with a series win.”

A top-order batter and off-spinner, Archie, 18, represented Somerset in his first professional contract earlier this season. He is however yet to play for Somerset first-team. But at age group level last week, he caught the attention with a 83-ball 85 for Young Lions Invitational XI in a warm-up match against the England U19 ODI squad, for whom Rocky, a right-handed allrounder, top-scored with 106.

DDCA men and women’s T20 leagues in Aug

Arani.Basu@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) has decided to start its own franchise based T20 league for both men and women. TOI has learnt that the DDCA apex council met on Monday and approved the league to be started from August.

DDCA had sought permission from the Indian cricket board (BCCI) to organize the league. The approval came a week ago. DDCA president Rohan Jaitley confirmed the development. “We are going ahead with the league. The modalities are being worked out. But the aim is to start the league by the end of Aug and finish it before Sept 15 so that it leaves enough time to prepare for the BCCI’s domestic season,” Jaitley told TOI on Tuesday.

“We have decided to organize the women’s league because it doesn’t make any sense to just have the men’s league. Women’s cricket in India is taking off and such leagues can only bolster their growth as cricketers. We successfully hosted the WPL here this year. It’s the right time to roll out the women’s league this year,” Jaitley said.

“The local Delhi players—men and women—will get access to good competitive cricket and it will help create a professional ecosystem in Delhi cricket. This is the only window to have white-ball cricket in Delhi. We are looking at six men’s teams and at least four women’s teams for the league,” Jaitley added.

The DDCA is in the process of fi- nalizing the structure of the league and getting interested investors to buy franchises. The league is likely to be a broadcast just like the T20 leagues in other states. As of now, the Arun Jaitley Stadium is the only venue where the production facilities and floodlights are available. The association is looking for the other venues around the Capital to stage the tournament. The Karnail Singh Stadium, Jamia Milia Islamia stadium and Yamuna Sports complex are the other probable venues.

Andy Murray pulls out of men’s singles

Prajwal.Hegde@timesgroup.com

London: Andy Murray, the two-time Wimbledon champion, gave it his all to be ready for singles action one last time in a farewell outing.

The 37-year-old Briton’s recovery from back surgery, which he underwent after exiting the Queen’s Club event 10 days ago, however, wasn’t in step with his plans.

On Tuesday morning, a statement from his team announced that he was withdrawing from the singles competition.

“Unfortunately, despite working incredibly hard on his recovery since his operation just over a week ago, Andy has taken the very difficult decision not to play the singles this year,” the statement read. “As you can imagine, he is extremely disappointed but has confirmed that he will be playing in the doubles with Jamie and looks forward to competing at Wimbledon for the last time.”

The doubles action starts later this week, which allows the Scot a few days to train. The former No. 1 and his brother Jamie take on Aussies Rinky Hijikata and John Peers in the first round.

Fighting Nagal bows out in Rd 1

SUMIT NAGAL

Prajwal.Hegde@timesgroup.com

London: The sun had faded, the sky was grey, and the wester ly was gentle. It was just past 8pm on Church Road.

Sumit Nagal was on his courtside seat, shaking his head. He used his towel as an afterthought. The Indian had his higher-ranked opponent Miomir Kecmanovic on the ropes in the ninth game of the third set at 15-40. The 24-yearold’s second serve was met by a stinging Nagal forehand that pulled the world No. 52 wide. The Serbian responded with a deep ball which Nagal hesitated in dispatching into an open court and instead came up with a weak response.

Nagal, who made his Wimbledon main draw debut on Monday, finally fell 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 4-6 after a 2-hour, 39-minute battle. “Had I won that 3-5 game (in the third set), i t could’ve been a different story,” said Nagal. “The match momentum was shifting and obviously when he holds (ninth game) that changes again. It put him ahead two-sets-to-one.”

The residue effect was obvious early in the fourth set.

“The serving was especially poor,” Nagal said of his play, “if you are missing a lot of first serves, you are always behind, more so when you’re playing on grass.”

It was a little past 10pm, about an hour after the conclusion of the match, and the 26-year-old’s expression still mirrored the lost opportunity.

“It was an amazing experience to play my first main draw here,” he said. “This surface is tricky, you need to have a bit of experience, very tough to go out there and be able to perform the way you want to.”

Former world No. 1 (doubles) Mahesh Bhupathi, who mentors Nagal, and Rohan Bopanna cheered at courts ide.

‘I want to live every second of this win’

Bridgetown (Barbados): Rohit Sharma held the T20 World Cup trophy like a new-born baby as he walked towards the beach here for the triumphant captain’s post-tournament photo shoot, a serene smile refusing to leave his face and the feeling of being a world champion yet to fully sink in.

He couldn’t be faulted for being a bit dazed. After all, a jinx that lasted over a decade had been broken.

“It’s surreal. It feels like a dream. It feels like it hasn’t happened. Although it has happened but it feels like it hasn’t happened,” Rohit laughed trying to process his thoughts after 24 hours while talking to BCCI.TV.

The coastal city of Bridgetown is battling a hurricane. The same could also be said about the Indian captain, only that his is a battle to control a gamut of emotions threatening to overwhelm him like a huge sea wave every now and then.

“Last night we had a good time, we had a blast with the teammates till the early morning,” he couldn’t stop grinning before becoming a touch emotional. “I would say I didn’t sleep properly but that’s absolutely fine by me. There is a lot of time for me to go back and sleep.

“I want to live this moment, each minute, each second that is passing by and will try to make the most of it,” he said describing how it felt to lead an Indian team to its first ICC title in 11 years.

“It’s been a great moment right from the time the game got over to till now. That’s the emotions and feelings you have,” said the skipper.

His marauding run at the top, especially in the knockouts, fetched Rohit a place in the team of the tournament but all he can think about for now is a sense of joyous relief.

“We have dreamt about this for such a long period of time, we worked hard as a unit for such a long period of time and to see this (the trophy) with us, it feels quite relieved as well.

“When you have worked hard for something and eventually at the end you get it, feels really, really nice,” the skipper reiterated.

People were amazed and amused to see Rohit walk to the 22-yard strip at Kensington Oval and put a tiny speck of soil in his mouth, just like Novak Djokovic does after winning the Wimbledon. The 37-year-old said it was a spur of the moment act.

“Nothing was scripted. It was all coming instinctively. I was feeling the moment,” Rohit said. “When I went to the pitch, that pitch gave us this trophy. I will remember that ground forever in my life and that pitch as well. I wanted to have a piece of it with me.”

PTI

SUDHARSAN, JITESH, RANA ADDED TO TEAM VS ZIMBABWE

New Delhi: The trio of Sai Sudharsan, Jitesh Sharma and Harshit Rana was on Tuesday named as replacements for Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube and Yashasvi Jaiswal in the Indian squad for the first two matches of the T20I series against Zimbabwe.

India will play five T20Is in Zimbabwe from July 6. Dube, Samson and Jaiswal, all part of the T20 World Cupwinning squad, were slated to join the Zimbabwe-bound group but are stranded in Barbados due to hurricane Beryl. The unforseen circumstances has forced BCCI to name the replacements.

Squad: Shubman Gill (C), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Abhishek Sharma, Rinku Singh, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Khaleel Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar, Tushar Deshpande, Sai Sudharsan, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Harshit Rana.

GUTTED, IT’S A TOUGH PILL TO SWALLOW: MILLER ON WC LOSS

Johannesburg: A “gutted” David Miller said the T20 World Cup final loss to India was a tough blow, but the batter expressed confidence that the South African team would continue pushing boundaries. “I am gutted!! Really tough pill to swalllow after what transpired 2 days ago. Words don’t explain how I am feeling. One thing I do know is how proud I am of this unit,” Miller posted an Instagram story late on Monday.

Before the final, the Proteas enjoyed a fine run to become one of the favourites for the title. “This journey was an incredible one, with highs and lows throughout the entire month. We have endured pain, but I know this team has the resilience and will keep raising the bar.

PTI

Delhi Times

- I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO BE AWAY FROM THE LIMELIGHT: KARISMA

- SAIF TEACHES TIM HIS FAMILY’S CRICKET LEGACY

- BUZZ STOP

- Sean Penn’s Ukraine documentary to stream for free on YouTube

- When winning is more than just a win

- I refuse to bow down: Hina Khan

- Vishy Anand pens a b’day note for wife Aruna

- FIRST LOOK OF GLADIATOR 2 DROPS

- Aditi Rao Hydari’s airport ordeal triggers debate around lost luggage

- HOW TO: Travel light for a 10-day vacation

- I’ve headlined films at a time when hero-centric films dominated: Karisma

- A celeb takeover at the Wimbledon Royal Box

I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO BE AWAY FROM THE LIMELIGHT: KARISMA

Today, beautiful roles are being written for actors across all age groups. I am happy to be a part of this phase, where amazing roles are being written for women, and seeing talent growing from strength to strength is amazing and liberating

KARISMA KAPOOR

Neha Maheshwri

From working multiple shifts and doing films back-to-back to now – where there’s a certain calm and ease in her life, and she’s not chasing films, numbers, or more success – Karisma Kapoor is enjoying this phase of her career. It’s not that her passion for cinema is any less than it was, but now she only wants to take up work that helps her grow as an artiste. The actress, who was recently featured in the OTT film Murder Mubarak, will soon be seen as a celebrity judge on India’s Best Dancer 4. In a chat with us, Karisma talks about her career choices and why she prefers to stay away from the limelight.

CONTINUED ON 6

Karisma in a still from Murder Mubarak

SAIF TEACHES TIM HIS FAMILY’S CRICKET LEGACY

It was a father-son bonding moment for Saif Ali Khan and Taimur as the two spent time honing Tim’s cricket skills at Lord’s. In a video Saif can be seen telling Taimur about county cricket clubs in the UK: “Your great-grandfather played for Worcestershire, and your grandfather captained Sussex”

BUZZ STOP

SHAH RUKH KHAN TO BE HONOURED WITH LOCARNO FILM FEST CAREER AWARD

SHAH RUKH KHAN will be honoured by the Locarno Film Festival with its honorary Leopard achievement award in recognition of his outstanding career in Indian cinema. The fest’s artistic director Giona A Nazzaro called SRK “a king who has never lost touch with the audience that crowned him.”

Sean Penn’s Ukraine documentary to stream for free on YouTube

A still from Superpower

Superpower, co-directed by Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman, is available to stream for free on YouTube. The documentary will be available free of charge for a year on the platform.

The documentary is centered on Ukraine‘s fight to maintain freedom from Russia after Russia invaded and attacked Kyiv on February 24, 2022. The film spans seven trips over a nearly two-year time frame, in which Penn conducted a series of interviews with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others.

TNN

POV

When winning is more than just a win

What’s the best thing about winning the World Cup? The simple answer is perhaps – the ‘winning feeling’. Ultimately, so much of one’s emotions is tied to that one triumphant moment. When Team India clinched the T20 trophy, 17 years overdue, the moment betrayed a rare emotional vulnerability amongst the players. Virat Kohli video called Anushka and the kids, a teary-eyed Rohit Sharma was seen hugging wife Ritika while Bumrah couldn’t help but hug his wife, a TV presenter with the ICC, on camera.

The images were a reminder that even the most steely, aggressive and stoic of players, who, for close to a month, had put their most athletic selves on display, were just as human as the rest of us. For the longest time, the tears of male athletes were neither as visible nor as celebrated. We expect the screaming, the boisterous celebrations, but it’s the tender moments that catch us off-guard.

There is the version of the player we know and the one we remember. Who can forget the image of tennis rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal crying together after the former’s last match together, or when Messi cried and hugged his wife and kids after finally lifting the World Cup?

And as the victory margins fade and become statistical data points on a chart, what stays on our minds are these tender memories. And in those moments we cry with the players.

Agree? Disagree? Got a POV idea? Write to us at: pov@timesgroup.com

I refuse to bow down: Hina Khan

We become what we believe in and I have decided to take this challenge as an opportunity to reinvent myself

The actress shares video from her first chemo session

Hina Khan, who recently revealed that she has been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, shared a video from her first chemotherapy session on Monday.

The video begins with Hina posing for the paps on the red carpet and receiving an award at an event. Then she is seen walking into the hospital for her chemo. Hina is heard saying “All glam is gone and I’m ready for my first chemo in the hospital. Let’s get better (sic).”

She captioned the video, “This award night, I knew about my cancer diagnosis, but I made a conscious choice to normalise it – not just for myself, but for all of us. This was the day that changed everything, it marked the beginning of one of the most challenging phases of my life.”

She continued, “We become what we believe in and I have decided to take this challenge as an opportunity to reinvent myself, again. I have decided to keep the spirit of positivity as the first tool in my toolkit... For me, my work commitments matter. I refuse to bow down. This award I received right before my first chemo was not my motivation alone, in fact, I attended this event to reassure my self that I am living up to the benchmark, I have set up for myself.”

Agencies

‘Normalise challenges in your lives’

Encouraging fans with her never-give-up attitude, Hina wrote, “I attended the event and went straight up to the hospital for my first chemo. I humbly urge everyone out there too to first normalise the challenges of your lives then set goals for yourself and try to live up to them all along the way. No matter how hard. Never back down. Never give up.”

Vishy Anand pens a b’day note for wife Aruna

Viswanathan and Aruna Anand

Viswanathan Anand wrote a heartfelt note to his wife Aruna Anand on her 50th birthday, after winning his 10th Leon Masters title by defeating GM Jaime Santos 3-1 in the final match on Sunday.

He mentioned on X that it was Aruna who encouraged him to play in León on her birth- day. He wrote, “As my wife celebrated her 50th birthday, I was apprehensive about being away playing chess. However, she told me to go and play, saying, ‘Who knows, you might win’. Sometimes, the best moves are the ones made with love and support. Checkmate to a wonderful day! (sic)” TNN

FIRST LOOK OF GLADIATOR 2 DROPS

Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal

Paul Mescal (left) plays Lucius, the son of Maximus (Russell Crowe) in the sequel. Here he is seen in a sword fight with General Acacius, played by Pedro Pascal

Twenty-four years after Ridley Scott’s Gladiator starring Russell Crowe hit cinemas, Vanity Fair released the first look of the sequel

Denzel Washington

The actor plays Macrinus, an arms dealer

Connie Nielsen

She returns as Lucilla, the mother of a now grown-up Lucius

TRAVE DIARIES

Aditi Rao Hydari’s airport ordeal triggers debate around lost luggage

travellers had issues with baggage handling, boarding and check-in procedures in the last two years (Source: Local Circles) 35%

of the 4.8 billion bags handled by airlines across the globe are irretrievably lost (Source: Claim Compass) 5%

I had a flight from Mumbai to Gorakhpur. After arriving at my destination, I waited at the luggage belt for two hours only to find out that the staff left my luggage back in Mumbai. I called them continuously for a week to finally get things moving. I got my bag a week after that — Siddharth Chaphekar, a businessman

Aditi Rao Hydari celebrated the return of her luggage after 45 hours and posted a video

Yvonne Jacob

It took 45 hours for Aditi Rao Hydari to get her lost luggage back from Heathrow airport recently. This incident triggered a chain of reactions on social media from travellers who have been through similar or worse experiences, and how they dealt with them.

Frequent concerns for flyers

■ No compensation for lost baggage

■ Delay in finding misplaced bags

■ Not getting all the lost bags

■ No response from customer care or no actionfor the inconvenience

■ Damaged items in luggage after being found

Inconvenience, not regretted

Flight experiences may vary, but there’s a consensus among flyers when it comes to how their lost baggage complaints are handled – usually badly, with no or minimal action taken, but almost certainly without any regrets from the airlines. Sharing one such incident, Tasneem Rassiwala, a homemaker who travelled to Paris from Delhi recently, says, “My luggage was left behind at the Delhi airport despite having an AirTag to prove its location. After eight days of following up with the airline, I had to travel to a warehouse and retrieve my bag on the day of my return. This series of events resulted in significant inconvenience. I had no clothes for the cold weather, no medicines, and no special dietary food for my 72-year-old mother who was with me. The lack of accurate information and poor customer service caused considerable stress and disrupted what was meant to be a memorable family trip.”

What to do if you have lost your luggage

■ Submit a passengerirregularity report (PIR) at the help desk

■ Provide detailsof your luggage along with your address and contact details

■ Keep a copyof your missing luggage report along with your claim number to check the status on the airline’s website

■ If your luggage is notfound, a fresh claim should be filed with the airline listing the misplaced goods, price, and dates of purchase

■ If your luggage getsdamaged by the time you get it, another form for repair needs to be filed within 24 hours of receiving the luggage social media No compensation for lost baggage since a year: @MirMirHere I lost my bags a year ago. I have still not received compensation for delayed or lost baggage Received three bags instead of four: @msaanand Took a flight from Paris to Venice. I received three bags out of four. The fourth came on the last day before we left for Istanbul. Same story with all European airlines 36 hours, but no guest appearance from the luggage: @MoolaAnanda My sister was stuck at Heathrow airport after her flight for cancelled. Bags were lost. My niece was set to graduate shortly and her mom’s clothes were yet to make a guest appearance. It had been over 36 hours

Here’s how to prevent losing luggage

DOUBLE TAG: Ensure your bag has two tags, one outside and a backup one inside, with your name, address, and contact details

DISTINCTIVE MARKING: Use luggage tags that make it easy to identify your bags

GPS-ENABLED TAGS: Smart tags will allow you to track your bags with your phone

REMOVE OLD STICKERS: This will help the airline staff to know which sticker is from your latest trip

ARRIVE EARLY: Airline staff will have enough time to correctly tag and load your bag as compared to rush hours

Your luggage is considered lost by the airline if it is not found within 21 days

According to IATA’s 2023 Global Passenger Survey, baggage collection and bag drop-off are the two biggest sources of negative experiences for fliers

HOW TO: Travel light for a 10-day vacation

PLAN YOUR OUTFITS

Choose mix-and-match clothing items to create multiple outfits. Stick to a colour scheme for versatility.

PACK MULTI-PURPOSE ITEMS

Items like a lightweight scarf can serve as a wrap or head covering.

USE COMPRESSION BAGS

These help compress clothing and maximise space in your luggage.

TOILETRIES AND COSMETICS

Use travel-sized containers and pack only essentials. Many accommodations provide basic toiletries.

DIGITAL ESSENTIALS

Instead of physical books, carry e-books or audiobooks. Use digital versions of travel documents. Carry only essential electronics like a smartphone, charger, and possibly a lightweight tablet or laptop if needed.

ROLL, DON’T FOLD

Rolling clothes can save space and reduce wrinkles compared to folding.

EVALUATE NECESSITIES

Prioritise items based on your destination and activities. Avoid packing items you might only use once.

LIMIT SHOES

Bring versatile shoes that match multiple outfits. Consider a pair of comfortable walking shoes and one pair of dressier shoes if needed.

I’ve headlined films at a time when hero-centric films dominated: Karisma

KARISMA KAPOOR (inset) with Rekha in a still from Zubeidaa

CONTINUED FROM 1

‘THIS GENERATION OF ACTORS IS FAR LUCKIER IN TERMS OF OPPORTUNITIES

’ The general belief is that the emergence of OTT has given actresses leverage that wasn’t enjoyed by their ilk in the past. However, the actress says, “If I may say so, I have been fortunate to headline projects at a time when hero-centric films dominated the industry. I have been part of heroine-oriented films like Biwi No.1 (1999), Fiza (2000), Zubeidaa (2001) and Shakti (2002). Yes, such opportunities may have been few and far between as compared to today with the rise of OTT platforms. This generation of actors is, of course, far luckier (in terms of opportunities).”

‘IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT BEING RECOGNISED AS A GOOD ARTISTE’

Karisma has always believed in striking a balance between commercial and offbeat cinema. But, it came with its set of challenges. She re- calls, “I was dissuaded by my well-wishers. Of course, being in the top position and delivering hit films was part of the game. But for me, it was always about being recognised as a good artiste. This is why, at the peak of my career, when I was delivering blockbusters with top actors, directors and producers, I chose to do these (offbeat) films (Fiza and Zubeidaa) because they satisfied something within me. It also validated the fact that you can be at the top of your game in commercial cinema and also do alternative cinema. So, if I have contributed a little in showing the path, I am happy and grateful.”

‘I HAVE ALWAYS ENSURED THAT I AM REAL AND HONEST WHEN ATTENDING REALITY SHOWS’

While Karisma has been making guest appearances on reality shows, she has avoided being on any judges’ panel full-time. She says, “I’ve always preferred attending special episodes, having fun, and going home. But things changed with India’s Best Dancer. I had appeared as a guest on the show in the previous two seasons and loved its energy.” Ask her about the trend of highlighting sob stories to boost ratings, and she replies, “I’ve always ensured that I’m real and honest even when attending these shows as a guest judge. I will stick to being my authentic self on the show.”

‘Maybe I’ll act again, maybe I won’t’

Noting that tags like ‘comeback’ and ‘hiatus’ are no longer prevalent, Karisma says, “I am so glad that times have changed for the better. As I have always said, taking a break was a choice I made. I was happy being away from the limelight, and I am always happy to be away from the limelight – that’s just my nature. If you ask me what’s next, my answer is that I don’t know. I don’t plan things, so I don’t feel that pressure. Maybe I will act again, maybe I won’t. That’s the way I want to work, and I am happy doing that.”

A celeb takeover at the Wimbledon Royal Box

The Good Place and She-Hulk actress Jameela Jamil

While Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz & Britain’s Emma Raducanu battled it out on Centre Court with Mark Lajal of Estonia and Renata Zarazua of Mexico respectively, these celebs grabbed eyeballs off the court on Day 1

A Wimbledon regular, David Beckham attended the first day of the tennis tournament with his mother

Bridgerton stars Golda Rosheuvel and Martins Imhangbe

Sir David Attenborough got a standing ovation from the crowd as he took his seat

Table of Contents

TOI Print Edition Jul 03, 2024

Front Page

116, mostly women & kids, die in Hathras satsang stampede

Monsoon covers entire country 6 days in advance

A restaurant for ‘trainee’ jumbos

5 Maoists killed in Bastar gunbattle

Murder case witness shot dead

Game zone fire: Cash, gold worth `18cr seized at ex-officer premises

HC: India’s majority will become minority if conversions don’t stop

HC judge to visit Ridge July 17 to verify felling and afforestation claims

Abducted at age 9, youth returns home after 16 yrs

TEARS TO CHEERS FOR RONALDO

IN THE COURTS

Teen files 1st case in city under snatching law

‘Poverty’ down to 8.5% from 21%’

Former RAW chief appointed addl NSA

3 friends die in crash trying to save cow

PM hits back in LS: Congress a ‘parasite’, Rahul ‘childish’

‘Varna’ charge in Kharge spat with RS chair

After yrs, BJP may field a Muslim for bypoll in UP

Restore expunged remarks, Rahul writes to Speaker

Sebi sends Hindenburg notice on Adani report ‘manipulation’

`670cr cost rise for LNJP block: LG for CVC probe

NEET-PG likely to be conducted in August

Times Nation

In rare move, Speaker names, reprimands LoP Rahul Gandhi

Floods, landslides claim 9 lives in NE

BJP sniffs scam in land given to K’taka CM’s wife

5 kids die at MP ashram in 72 hrs

Vigilantes target lemon truckers

K’taka farmer buys ox for `18L

Entire India under monsoon cover 6 days before schedule

Re-evaluation of CBSE Class 12 answer papers helps Bokaro boy secure 98.8%, jump to 2nd rank in J’khand

Just opened in an Odisha wildlife sanctuary, a restaurant for jumbos

Ex R&AW chief Rajinder Khanna appointed new additional NSA

NBE planning extra security measures for NEET-PG

5 days after joining coaching centre, student ends life

Why BNSS offers slim hope of early disposal of pending cases

Oasis school’s rise, principal’s Bali trip after NEET-UG under CBI lens

Godhra school in NEET web was among the most expensive in Guj

Survivor ‘not willing’ to meet, WB guv aborts trip

Court summons Rahul on July 26 in defamation case:

Truck runs over 4 kids in Kangra, 1 dead:

After 14 yrs’ jail, Raj cop back in job he lost over custody death

Woman, a witness in husband’s murder case, shot dead in Bihar

Pak intruder shot dead on Punjab border

UP STF guns down criminal wanted in 2 dozen cases

5 Maoists killed in C’garh op involving 1,000 personnel

Propagation means to promote religion, not convert: HC

Modi attacks Cong, says party trying to push nation into throes of anarchy

Clash in Guj over Rahul’s speech, 7 hurt

1st session of LS saw 103% productivity

MP questions govt silence on Manipur

‘Outright lies are being spread by Cong to weaken armed forces’

‘Those playing with future of students won’t be spared’

Sarcastic comment sparks Dhankhar-Kharge spat

Adhere to House norms, effectively voice concerns: Modi to NDA MPs

Akhilesh: Polls marked end of communal politics

Rahul writes to PM, seeks NEET debate

What I sought to convey in House is ground reality: Rahul

BJP likely to field a Muslim for assembly bypoll in UP

Poverty dips to 8.5% from 21% in 2011-12, says NCAER paper

Jailed J&K MP granted 2-hour custody parole for taking oath

Maha minister draws SC ire for restoring restaurant’s liquor licence

Bihar goes to SC against HC order nixing quota rise beyond 50%

Ex-official was charged with disproportionate assets in June

Organisers blame admin’s ‘inefficiency’ for stampede

Mumbai college bars students defying dress code for 2nd day

Monu could only recall dad ran grocery shop

4 jewellers held for ties with Af diplomat in gold-smuggling case

Times City

Dissolution Of DDCD Is ‘Null & Void’: Atishi

Quashing sexual violence case upon monetary settlement will imply ‘justice for sale’, says HC

`670-crore cost escalation for LNJP’s new block: LG seeks technical probe by CVC

HC asks CBI to reply to Kejriwal’s plea in a week

Curious Case Of The Missing Rains

You can use IIT-D app to report cases of flooding

Customs seizes cocaine worth `22 crore at IGI

13 reasons why: Flood dept’s plan focuses on locations that were submerged last yr

After freaky Friday, DDA on waterlogging vigil

Agent of ‘change’: Man who provided fake passport held

Shots fired at builder’s house for not paying ‘protection money’

Survey to identify units discharging waste into Yamuna

No Masterstroke: Draft MPD 2041 Fails ToFully Address Recurring Flooding

Plantation drive to start from July 11, Rai calls for support

AI flyers stranded in Denmark over ‘aircraft glitch’

Man kills self at metro stn

Discoms geared up to cut outages, mishaps

In Attempt To End Free Run, ‘Nyaya’ Spreads Its Net To Catch Snatchers

After Maliwal claims ‘systemic erosion’ of DCW, AAP hits back

Section 305 is ray of hope for police on vehicle thefts

‘Fresh orders to DDA and forest dept officials to appear before committee’

‘Negligence deaths’: 2 travel cos asked to pay `1cr plus interest

Damage to sewer leads to cave-in on Sohna highway

Neighbour, his sons kill man for not buying grocery from their shop

HC judge cites conflicting claims on cutting of trees on Ridge as he plans visit

LG approves promotion of 12 vice-principals

1,500 stones taken out from woman’s gallbladder by docs

Denied admission by schools, claim parents of EWS kids; plea in HC

2 from Delhi killed in DME crash

Rough, Ready And Handy Justice Anathema To Rule Of Law, Says CJI

One injured as DTC bus overturns:

2 yrs after wife’s arrest, man held for Ponzi fraud

Business As Usual?

Shalabh Goel assumes charge as NCRTC MD

District courts foundation of judicial system: Chief Justice

Times Global

Rep Lloyd Doggett 1st Dem to publicly call for Biden to quit as nominee

Rudy Giuliani loses NY law licence after backing Trump’s false ’20 poll claims

Israeli gens, low on munitions, want a ceasefire in Gaza soon

200+ French candidates bow out in bid to block far-right

UN body calls Imran arrest ‘arbitrary’, Pak slams report

Indian-American who defrauded Goldman, Google gets 7.5 yrs’ jail

Nepali Congress, CPN-UML strike alliance to oust Prachanda as PM

Hush money: Prosecutors agree to delay Trump sentencing after immunity ruling

Footballer who turned thief and stole ‘The Scream’ dies

Ukraine eyes AI as weapon against Russia, ushering in age of killer robots

AROUND THE WORLD

Times Special

Why you can expect more desis in UK parl this time

A RECORD 107 BRITISH INDIANS IN THE FRAY FROM...

Times Ascent

You Can Future-Proof Your Career With Diverse Skill-Sets

Times Business

Sensex hits new high intraday, nears record 80k

IT firm Hexaware to hire 8,000 globally

Edtech co Unacademy fires 250 employees

US job openings up from 3-year low

Oil hits 2-month high amid W Asia turmoil

BMW India clocks record sales in H1

Wasn’t aware of Hindenburg link to investor: Kotak group

Data breach at Infosys’ arm affected 6mn people

Our statements had proper attribution: US short-seller

India may gain from trade actions against China: IMF

Sebi rule may end zero fee era: Zerodha

Nine NBFCs give up certificate of registration

HC rejects NCLT stay on Byju’s $200mn rights issue

A road map for India @2047

Birla steps up consolidation in holding cos

Adi-Nadir to buy cousins’ 13% stake in Godrej Ind

Firms rope in AI experts to manage cybersecurity risk

Times Techies

Why Pune has become key to maker of Gorilla Glass

Origins of India’s supercomputers

GLOSSARY OF IN-GROUP TERMS USED

How fixed wireless with 5G transforms broadband access

CAREER LADDER FOR WOMEN

TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE

CELEBRATING BENEFITS OF YOGA

Editorial

When The Drama Ends

Online Won’t Do

Atlantis revisited

Shake Hands For The House

Why Team India’s World Cup Win Is Special

What Matters Is Not The Number, But The Safety Net

CONTRAPUNTO

Sacred space

Times Sport

ORANJE ALERT

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU

What golden generation? Kevin sees nothing in the wonder years

Uruguay make the grade with an all-win record

MBAPPE’S STRUGGLES WITH MASK AND SCORING CONTINUE

PANAMA REACH QUARTERS

FANFARE

THE KEEPERS OF THE FLAME

GALLERY

The Ro helpline that Dravid answered!

It’s business as usual for Djoko!

Shooter Sandeep overcomes odds, aims for Olympics glory

16 Indian athletes, 3 relay teams for Oly

Sons of Vaughan, Flintoff set for Eng U19 ‘test’ debut

DDCA men and women’s T20 leagues in Aug

Andy Murray pulls out of men’s singles

Fighting Nagal bows out in Rd 1

‘I want to live every second of this win’

SUDHARSAN, JITESH, RANA ADDED TO TEAM VS ZIMBABWE

GUTTED, IT’S A TOUGH PILL TO SWALLOW: MILLER ON WC LOSS

Delhi Times

I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO BE AWAY FROM THE LIMELIGHT: KARISMA

SAIF TEACHES TIM HIS FAMILY’S CRICKET LEGACY

BUZZ STOP

Sean Penn’s Ukraine documentary to stream for free on YouTube

When winning is more than just a win

I refuse to bow down: Hina Khan

Vishy Anand pens a b’day note for wife Aruna

FIRST LOOK OF GLADIATOR 2 DROPS

Aditi Rao Hydari’s airport ordeal triggers debate around lost luggage

HOW TO: Travel light for a 10-day vacation

I’ve headlined films at a time when hero-centric films dominated: Karisma

A celeb takeover at the Wimbledon Royal Box