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HYDERABAD I TUESDAY I 31 DECEMBER 2019

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ASTROGUIDE
Vikari: Dakshinayana
Tithi: Pushya Shuddha
Panchami till 4.03 pm
In full glory
Star: Satabhisha till 1.27 am
(Wednesday)
Varjyam: 6.48 am to 8.34 am
Durmuhurtam: 9.01 am to
9.45 am, 11.01 pm to 11.53 pm
Rahukalam: 3 pm to 4.30 pm
HIJRI CALENDAR
Jumada al-Awwal 4,1441 AH
PRAYERS
Fajar: 5.41 am
Zohar: 12.29 pm
Asar: 4.16 pm
Maghrib: 5.58 pm
Isha: 7.11 pm
SUNSET TODAY 5.52 PM
SUNRISE TOMORROW 6.46 AM
MOONRISE TOMORROW 10.37 AM
MOONSET TODAY 10.51 PM
Rawat becomes
India’s first CDS
New Delhi: Army Chief
Gen. Bipin Rawat was on
Monday appointed the
country’s first Chief of
Defence Staff (CDS)
whose mandate will be
to bring in convergence
in functioning of the
Army, the Navy and the
Indian Air Force. Gen
Rawat has been appoint-
ed CDS with effect from
December 31.
■ Full report on Page 6
TS, AP get more
time for SSC, PCA
Hyderabad: The Telang-
ana High Court on Mon-
day has given another
four weeks time to the
Telangana and AP gov-
ernments to set up the
State Security Commi-
ssion and the Police
Complaints Authority for
the redressal of public
grievances on the abuse
of powers by the police.
■ Full report on Page 4
Minor fire at
Modi’s tweet kicks off
Centre’s pro-CAA push
Shares Jaggi’s video; asks people to share NaMo content
New Delhi, Dec. 30: Seek-
ing to mobilise support for
the amended citizenship
law, BJP leaders on Mon-
day launched a campaign
on social media to high-
light its features with the
hashtag of “India Supports
CAA”, with Prime Mini-
ster Narendra Modi post-
ing a video of spiritual
guru Sadhguru Jaggi
Vasudev backing the legis-
lation.
“Do hear this lucid expla-
nation of aspects relating
to CAA and more by
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.
He provides historical con-
text, brilliantly highlights
our culture of brother-
hood. He also calls out the
misinformation by vested
interest groups. #India-
SupportsCAA,” Mr Modi
tweeted.
The Twitter handle of Mr
Modi’s personal website
also had a message saying
that the CAA is about giv-
ing citizenship to perse-
cuted refugees and not
about taking anyone’s citi-
zenship away.
The message was posted
with the hashtag “India
Supports CAA”.
It also asked people to
share content, graphics
and videos from the prime
minister’s NaMo app to
show their support for the
law, which has triggered
protests in different parts
of the country.
BJP president and home
minister Amit Shah also
The iconic Charminar appears resplendent on Monday after the scaffolding erected by posed Sadhguru’s video
the Archaeological Survey of India to repair on the minarets were removed. Some and said “stop believing
lies and half truths on
more work is going on at the lower levels of the monument — P. SURENDRA CAA”. He urged everyone,
especially the youth, to
watch the video and get a
“historical perspective on
Kishan dares Rahul
for debate on CAA
DURGA PRASAD
SUNKU | DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Union minister of state for
home G. Kishan Reddy
has challenged Congress
leader Rahul Gandhi to
have a discussion with
any ordinary BJP worker
regarding the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA).
Mr Reddy said that the
Congress leader did not
know anything about the
CAA and was deliberately
misleading people for
political gain.
He was addressing a pub-
lic meeting at Dharna
Chowk, near Indira Park,
organised by the BJP to
drum up support for the
CAA. Mr Reddy said that
Telangana BJP chief K. Laxman speaks at pro-CAA rally
organised by his party at Dharna Chowk in Hyderabad
on Monday as Union minister of state for home affairs
G. Kishan Reddy looks on.
Time and again, the BJP
has proved that it will
stand for ‘Sabka Saath,
Sabka Vikas’. The
CAA is not against any Indian
national
— G. KISHAN REDDY
Minister of state for home
the Centre would imple-
ment the Act, no matter
what.
“Time and again, the
BJP has proved that it will
stand for ‘Sabka Saath,
Sabka Vikas’. The CAA is
not against any Indian
national,” he said.
■ Page 2: Centre will enforce
CAA, says Kishan
— S. SURENDER REDDY
LAXMAN ASKS
PEOPLE TO BACK
#ISUPPORTCAA
DURGA PRASAD
SUNKU | DC
HYDERABAD DEC. 30
Telangana BJP president
Dr K. Laxman gave a call
to all “nationalists citi-
zens” who support the
Citizenship Amendment
Act (CAA) to show their
strength by posting selfies
while holding a placard
carrying the hashtag
#ISupportCAA.
Addressing a public
meeting in support of the
CAA on Monday at Dharna
Chowk, Dr Laxman said
that after coming to power
for a second consecutive
term, the BJP government
was making historic deci-
sions like the abrogation
of Article 370, outlawing
triple talaq and finding
solutions to contentious
and long-term issues.
Opposition parties can-
not accept this and are
misleading people by mak-
ing false allegations, he
said.
He said that the TRS and
the MIM were “one and the
same”. The TRS was run-
ning the government tak-
ing orders from
Darussalam (MIM head-
quarters), he said.
Nama Nageswara Rao,
floor leader of TRS in Lok
Sabha, had opposed the
CAA without having any
knowledge about it, Dr
Laxman said. The TRS

PM’s Office
New Delhi: A minor fire
broke out at 9, Lok
Kalyan Marg inside the
residential complex of
the Prime Minister but
his residence and office
were not affected by it,
the Prime Minister's
Office (PMO) said,
adding that the fire was
brought under control.
As per information avail-
able, there was a small
fire in UPS. — PTI
COUNTER POINT
Uddhav’s son, Ajit Pawar
join Maharashtra Cabinet
BHAGWAN PARAB | DC
MUMBAI, DEC. 30
Thirty-six ministers, incl-
uding senior Nationalist
Congress Party (NCP)
leader Ajit Pawar and
Shiv Sena’s Aaditya Thac-
keray, were sworn in as
Chief Minister Uddhav
Thackeray expanded his
Cabinet on Monday.
Governor Bhagat Singh
Koshyari administered
the oath of office and secr-
ecy to ten Cabinet and
four ministers of state
(MoS) of the NCP, eight
Cabinet and four MoS of
Shiv Sena, eight Cabinet
and two MoS of the Cong-
ress at Vidhan Bhavan.
The NCP now leads the
council of ministers with a
total of 12 Cabinet minis-
ters while the Shiv Sena
and Congress have 10
each. Also, Mr Ajit Pawar
was sworn in as the
deputy chief minister,
who enjoys the rank of a
Cabinet minister.
● Contrary to
expectations, the
allocations of
portfolios did not
happen on Monday
with the Chief
Minister making it
clear that it would be
done in a day or two.
Mr Uddhav Thackeray
and NCP supremo Sharad
Pawar were among those
present at the swearing-in
ceremony.
However, contrary to
expectations, the alloca-
tions of portfolios did not
happen on Monday with
the Chief Minister making
it clear that it would be
done in a day or two. “The
Cabinet expansion has
been done as per our plans
and the allocation of port-
folios also be done by
tomorrow (Tuesday) or a
day after (Wednesday),”
the Chief Minister added.
The expansion took
place more than a month
after the Thackeray-led
Maharashtra Vikas
Aghadi (MVA) govern-
ment took over.
In a major move, the
Shiv Sena dropped five
ministers who were part
of the earlier Devendra
Fadnavis-led government:
Ramdas Kadam, Diwakar
Raote, Deepak Kesarkar,
Tanaji Sawant and
Ravindra Waikar. Instead,
it has included new faces
such as Anil Parab and
Abdul Sattar along with
Aaditya Thackeray.
The Sena also included
allies Shankarrao Gadakh
(Krantikari Shetkari
Paksha) as a Cabinet min-
ister, and Rajendra Patil
Yadravkar (Independent)
and Bacchu Kadu (Prahar
Janshakti Party) as minis-
ters of state.
■ Page 6: Dynasts make 50%
of Maha Cabinet
why we need CAA”.
Opposition and other
critics slammed the CAA,
saying it is against India’s
secular Constitution as it
makes religion as a
ground for citizenship.
The BJP has asserted
that it is meant for minori-
ties persecuted in three
neighbouring countries
BJP’s pro-CAA surge ‘scripted’
ADITYA CHUNDURU | DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Twitter was overrun on
Monday with tweets in
favour of the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA). It
was a counter to the coun-
trywide protests against
this legislation and anoth-
er possible move suspect-
ed to follow, the National
Register of Citizens (NRC).
The sudden surge in pro-
CAA tweets and trending
of this set was consequent
to Prime Minister Narend-
ra Modi launching a Twi-
tter campaign to “educate”
people about the CAA.
The way this instant pop-
ularity was achieved
due to their faith.
Senior BJP leader and
Union minister Prakash
Javadekar took on the crit-
ics, who have dubbed the
law as discriminatory, and
tweeted, “Spread Facts
Not Myth: In the last 6
years, 2,830 Pakistani, 912
Afghani & 172 Bangladeshi
citizens have been given
involved some question-
able actions, purportedly
by the BJP’s IT cell. The
BJP’s IT cell “accidental-
ly” leaked a “tweet bank”
— a Google Drive folder
containing readymade
tweets for the BJP sup-
porters to use in support of
the CAA.
An ultimate easy content
reference for pro-CAA
activists, the folder con-
tains nearly 100 tweets,
links to articles arguing in
favour of the CAA, edited
videos calling out
Opposition parties’ histor-
ical stance on protection of
minorities in Pakistan and
so on. The folder also con-
tains edited videos of vio-
Indian citizenship. Many
of them are from majority
community of these coun-
tries.”
He also posted several
tweets, highlighting key
aspects of the amended
law and quoted Modi’s
comments that it will not
adversely affect any
Indian citizen. — PTI
● The BJP’s IT cell
“accidentally” leaked
a “tweet bank” — a
Google Drive folder
containing ready-
made tweets for the
BJP supporters to
use in support of
the CAA.
lence by protestors, ready
to be shared on Twitter,
Instagram as well as other
social media platforms.
It also has posters quot-
ing, possibly fictional, sur-
veys about how Muslims
of the country don’t under-
stand the CAA, and lines
leader, who was asking for
inclusion of Muslims in
the CAA, “should give
clarity about which Mus-
lims they want to include,
Pakistani Muslims or
Bangladeshi Muslims,” he
said.
■ Page 2: Laxman: MIM, TMC
showing fake love now
of attacks to be unleashed
against anti-CAA activists
for protesting against the
legislation. One of these
posters depicts a protester,
named Abdul, throwing a
stone at a police van and
UP CM Adityanath hitting
it for a ‘sixer’ by auction-
ing Abdul’s property.
Interestingly, most of
these posters have pictu-
res of Mr Adityanath. One
of them said that the pro-
tests are a conspiracy by
‘rioters’, human rights act-
ivists, journalists and
lawyers (Prashant
Bhushan, Kapil Sibal).
■ Page 2: Tweets, posters
made available on Namo App

■ Deccan Chronicle picks top Twitter voices from Hyderabad in the year 2019
2019 | RECAP
KTR wins over social media hands-down
SRIRAM KARRI I DC only 102 as of Monday night.
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30 Staying politically correct
and seldom caught on the
When it wrong foot, Mr Rana Rao,
came to tak- who is seen as being courte-
ing the voice ous with leaders of all polit-
of Telangana ical parties, prompt in
state across responding to citizen’s
the nation grievances and acting with
and the benignity, gets his followers
w o r l d into a rhapsodic tizzy with
through cyber platforms an occasional snarky retort
this year, led by the opin- to Opposition barbs, espe-
ion-shaping Twitter, TRS cially during elections and
working president and state during controversial
minister K.T. Rama Rao is debates of national impor-
the hands-down winner. tance or sharing a moment
The minister for MA&UD, of kvell, sharing pictures
IT, industries and com- with his daughter or son.
merce, with the handle Comfortable as a deip-
@KTRTRS, has over 1.9 mil- nosophist interacting with
lion followers, but follows celebs from all walks of life,
including movie stars,
sports icons and business
leaders, Mr Rama Rao on
December 1 in a tweet asked
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi why the rapists in the
Nirbhaya case were still
alive and sought that the
IPC be amended. “@naren-
dramodi Ji, 7 years after
Nirbhaya’s ghastly rape &
murder; the convicts are
still not hung! A 9-month
child is raped recently,
lower court ordered capital
punishment; HC revised it
to life imprisonment!”
Sadly, Mr Rama Rao, who
follows Tollywood stars,
sport icons of Hyderabad,
influential national journal-
ists including Barkha Dutt
and Srinivasan Jain, does
not think any scribe from
Telangana state merits his
attention.
A second
voice who
has made an
impact on
p e o p l e
nationally
f r o m
Hyderabad,
with his intrepid voice of
consistent opposition to the
BJP, RSS and constantly on
the heels of Mr Modi and
home minister Amit Shah is
MIM president Asaduddin
Owaisi. The @asadowaisi
handle of the president of
AIMIM has over 801.9K fol-
lowers, but is more liberal
than Mr Rao in following
1,045 accounts.
His most famous, tersest
and winning retort was
when he tweeted his opin-
ion on the Supreme Court
verdict in the Ayodhya case
on November 9, with a title
of a book, ironically an
anthology in honour of the
SC, as his response –
‘Supreme, not infallible’. Mr
Owaisi courts controversy
with sangfroid, relishes tak-
ing on trolls, and is a news-
maker with few peers on
twitter in Indian politics.
Sadly, his Twitter ID is sel-
dom used in his capacity as
an MP to solve problems of
his constituents.
Contrastingly different
Woman techie
from the top
goes missing
two, as chalk DC CORRESPONDENT
and cheese, a HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
man with
crazy contro- Rohitha Kuthuru, 34, who
versy-court- works in Apple India and
ing fingers lives in a flat in Mantri
in the 140 Celesta apartments, has
(now 280) character game is been reported missing
cricketer Ambati Rayudu. from Gachibowli since
His @RayuduAmbati han- Friday. She was last seen
dle has 385.6K followers, boarding an autorick-
Rayudu scripted folklore in shaw near the bus stop at great danger. I was hoping
response to the announce- Wipro Circle at around that by now, four days
ment that he was dropped 3.15 pm. While the police since she has been miss-
from the World Cup squad, is confident she will be ing, that we would get
and all-rounder Vijay found soon, the family some news about her whe-
Shankar was preferred over suspects foul play. reabouts. Any news wou-
him. Speaking to Deccan ld have given us hope.”
Chronicle, Mr Parikshit
■ Page 3: Fearless Upasana Katur, her brother, said, ■ Page 4: CCTV footage was
takes on PM Modi “I fear my sister’s life is in blurred, say police

BIg question
Owaisi asks what will happen to Indian
Muslims excluded from NRC but not
found to be Bangladeshi citizens
Congress is trying to
tarnish Modi’s image
with misinformation
with a motive
— Dr P. Sudhakar Reddy
BJP core committee member
SHORT TAKES
LAXMAN: MIM,
TMC SHOWING
FAKE LOVE NOW
FROM PAGE 1
Citing the example of how
MIM behaved with the icono-
clastic writer Taslima Nasreen,
he said, “If the Majlis is fond of
refugees from Bangladesh, why
did the party MLAs beat up
Taslima Nasreen in
Hyderabad? Why TMC chief
Mamata Banerjee refuse her
asylum in West Bengal.”
“They are now showing fake
love towards Muslims. They
think that whoever supports
MIM are only Muslims. But for
us there is no difference
between Muslims and others.
Everyone is equal before the
law,” Dr Laxman declared.
“Telangana people showed
their respect for the nation and
gave a befitting reply by defect-
ing from the TRS in Northern
Telangana in protest against
the Chief Minister’s derogato-
ry remarks against Hindus, ‘Ee
Hindu gallu, bondhu gallu’ dur-
ing an election rally in
Karimnagar,” Dr Laxman said.
He appealed to all people who
support the CAA to post their
selfies holding a placard, or
take a photo of themselves at
the meeting and upload a pic-
ture, with the hashtag of
#ISupportCAA.
„ Laxman appealed to all
people who support the
CAA to post their selfies
with #ISupportCAA.
90% MIGRANTS
FROM RURAL
BIHAR GO BACK
DC CORRESPONDENT | DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Nine of 10 migrants from
rural Bihar return to their
native village and almost 78
per cent of them seek employ-
ment in urban areas and do
not bother to work in the inte-
riors, according to a study
conducted by Indian Institute
of Technology, Hyderabad
(IIT-H).
Titled ‘Poverty, Migration
and Development in rural
Bihar,’ the study shows that
the migrants were from eco-
nomically well-to-do families
and never worked in local
rural economy sectors. They
opt for service-oriented urban
jobs. Most respondents were in
informal sector’s middle level.
A survey-based primary
study was undertaken in 12
villages in seven representa-
tive districts, including
Araria, Gaya, Gopalganj,
Nalanda, Madhubani, Rohtas,
and Purnia. The present sur-
vey covered 9,737 individuals
from 1,588 households, of
which about two-third house-
holds were also studied in
1998-99 and 2009-11.
Dr Amrita Datta, Assistant
Professor of Development
Studies, Department of
Liberal Arts, IIT-H, who con-
ducted the survey, explained
that migration from rural
Bihar was not researched and
very little was known about its
magnitude, pattern and
processes. This study focussed
on Biharis who migrated to
various cities and towns in
India and the effect on the
social and political influences.
The pattern noted that 98 per
cent of the migrants felt they
were better-off and contended.
There were material gains but
they came at a high cost of sep-
aration from family members.
This isolation drove most of
them to their native places at
least one month every year.
The migration trends show
that in 1992 it was 45 per cent,
2011 it was 62 per cent while it
rose by another three per cent
in 2016. Migration did
increase the annual income of
the households but the money
was largely used in food, edu-
cation and health and at times
investments in remunerative
sources.
Migration was found to be
more in the upper and higher
middle class of rural Bihar
but low in the poor classes.
Public fumes over selective approval
Commissioner has denied permission to those who want to carry out a peaceful rally, allege Congress
KANIZA GARARI I DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
The Dharna Chowk meet-
ing of the BJP on Monday
morning has riled protest-
ers against the Citizenship
Amendment Act, who
want to know why the
police are allowing selec-
tive meetings of political
parties such as the BJP,
TRS and All India Majlis-e-
Ittehadul Muslimeen, to be
held but denying permis-
sion to the public at large.
Questions are being
raised on how permissions
for public meetings and
rallies are being allowed
by the police for those
espousing the pro-CAA
cause when the anti-CAA
protesters are not being
given permission for a
meeting.
Amjedullah Khan of
Majlis Bachao Tehreek
said, “On one side RSS and
BJP are being allowed to
conduct meetings and ral-
lies but the Congress and
Muslim organisations
apart from MIM are not
being allowed. Why are the
police doing this? Law
should be equal for one
and all. Has the Hyderabad
city police lost credibility
by not being impartial?”
There was no internet
shut down at the Dharna
Chowk meeting and there
were constant updates and
also videos circulating
instantly as the meetings
were being carried out.
There were barricades
placed but there were no
people being pulled out by
the police as has been seen
in the case of protesters
who had turned out for the
Million March on
December 28. It was only
after the arrival of senior
BJP leaders that the police
moved in to manage the
crowd.
While it was a peaceful,
pro-CAA meet, there was
anger and also confusion
on social media about
whether the police had
actually given permission
for the meeting.
Protesters in Hyderabad
were very upset when the
police had tweeted that
there will be no million
march, but in the case of
the Dharna Chowk meet-
ing, their Twitter handle
was silent.
Confused youngsters on
Twitter asked, “Sir please
tell us if they have permis-
sion to carry out pro-CAA
rally? Or are they doing
without permission? If
they have permission then
why are you not giving per-
mission to Million March?
If they do not have permis-
Tweets, posters made available on Namo App Laxman’s SUV
From Page 1
Another questions MIM
chief Asaduddin Owaisi,
asking him to reply on the
alleged involvement of a
party worker in rioting in
UP. “Who will answer for
this Owaisi?”, it questions.
The ploy seems to have
worked. By 8 pm,
‘ # I n d i a S u p p o r t s C A A”
became the most popular
hashtag on Twitter India.
More than 8.5 lakh tweets
during the day used this
hashtag.
The content in this
Google Drive folder seems
to have been put together
very meticulously. It has
nearly 20 sub-folders, all of
which contain documents
related to subjects such as
“Why Rohingyas should
be deported”, “Pakistan’s
failure to honour commit-
ment to protect minori-
SENSITIVE | DATA
Retailers can’t make buyer’s phone numbers mandatory
ADITYA CHUNDURU | DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Retail businesses in the
city, such as shopping
malls, have always asked
their customers to give
their mobile numbers
before generating a bill.
Some businesses such as
Decathlon, in fact, refuse
to sell customers who
don’t provide a phone
number. For long, activists
and the general public
have raised issues about
the unnecessary collection
of data and the risk of it
falling into the wrong
hands. Even when sharing
of phone numbers is vol-
BJP activists and leaders gather in support of Citizenship Amendment Act and National Registry of Citizens at
Dharna Chowk in Indira Park on Monday.
Anti-CAA, NRC advocates
boycott court, stage protest
DC CORRESPONDENT
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Advocates skipped court
proceedings and demon-
strated against the CAA,
NRC and NPR in front of
the Nampally Criminal
Courts Complex here on
Monday.
Speaking on the occasion,
one of the protesters Jaleel
Ahmed said, “We demand
the Union Government to
revoke the amendments
carried out in Citizenship
Act and refrain from NPR
and NRC. We are opposing
NPR because the Centre
has added the point base
sion what action you are
taking? Please clarify.”
Anjani Kumar,
Hyderabad city police com-
missioner, said, “First of
all people must understand
that there are three police
jurisdictions in the city. If
people are taking out a
rally outside Hyderabad
jurisdiction I am not
responsible. We have very
clearly stated that there
will be no rallies as it caus-
ties” and “Atrocities
against minorities”. These
folders contain files with
clippings of news reports
from newspapers in India
and Pakistan dating back
decades.
It even has an FAQ sec-
Exercise caution while sharing phone numbers to buy goods, say digital literacy activists
untary, digital literacy
activists have asked citi-
zens to exercise caution
and discretion. However,
this argument has not
caught on much since
much of the public is fine
with sharing their num-
bers to almost any retail-
ers that asks for it.
Sashi, a Hyderabad-
based businessman, nar-
rated his experience at
Decathlon at KPHB
Colony from several
months ago. “At the bill
counter, the man insisted I
give him my phone num-
ber or else the bill couldn’t
be generated. I was puz-
zled. I kept asking why I
for census enumeration,
which leads to NRC. There
is no need to the National
Register of Citizens (NRC)
at this juncture in the
country, but there is a need
to maintain a National
Register of Unemployment
(NRU). Educated youth are
not getting jobs. Likewise,
there is a need to focus on
National Education
Reforms (NER) instead of
the National Population
Register (NPR) to ensure
development.”
S.M. Azam, another advo-
cate, contended that both
Narendra Modi and Amit
Shah are confused. They
es inconvenience to the
people. Those who want to
have a meeting in their
party office why will we
stop them. The police have
to maintain law and order
in the city.”
But there are allegations
that the police are biased
and soft on those close to
the ruling party and not
allowing civil society or
opposition parties to hold
protests. Dharna Chowk
One of the
posters that
was made
available via
the Google
Drive as well
as on Namo
app.
However,
several other
posters in
hindi were
made avail-
able to make
sure it
trends on
Twitter
tion, which shows pro-
CAA activists how the law
can be defended, based on
the opinions of prominent
lawyer Harish Salve, who
has won two major cases
against Pakistan in the
International Court of
needed to furnish my num-
ber for a physical offline
purchase,” he said. Sashi
took up the matter with
Decathlon India’s manage-
ment, who gave him a
“canned and diplomatic
answer” which said cus-
tomers’ numbers were
necessary to track
him/her down in case
there was a product recall.
He let the matter go after
that, though he wasn’t
happy. “I have lived in the
USA for a while. There,
people don’t share their
personal details so easily.
There is an attitude prob-
lem here. Even when shar-
ing the details is volun-
DECCAN CHRONICLE
— S. SURENDER REDDY
are coming up contradicto-
ry statements, which is
quite preposterous. He said
instead of wasting public
funds on detention centres,
the government should
construct health centres
and provide better ameni-
ties. Government should
focus on primary educa-
tion and safety of women.
He said there was an
urgent need to strengthen
the police wing.
Advocates Afzaluddin,
Mohammed Asad Ali,
M. Sohail, Iqbal Ahmed
and activist Khalida
Parveen also addressed
the protesters.
has been designated by the
High Court as a place
protests can be held, but
civil society protestors and
opposition leaders are not
being allowed to collect
there. Dr Dasoju Sravan,
national spokesperson of
the All India Congress
Committee said,
“Hyderabad police commis-
sioner Anjani Kumar is
behaving like a puppet in
the hands of TRS and MIM.
Justice in Hague,
Netherlands.
The piece de résistance,
of course, was the ‘tweet
bank’ itself. It had nearly
60 tweets in Hindi and
around 25 in English,
other than readymade
tweets under the banner
“CAA simplified: Spread
facts not myth”. All these
tweets seemed to be saying
the same thing, but were
written slightly different-
ly. “The CAA does justice
to those who were denied
for decades,” read one,
while another read, “No
Indian needs to fear CAA
and NRC”.
One of the tweets is a
quote of former President
of India, Pranab
Mukherjee, in a scathing
attack against Pakistan
for its failure to protect
minorities.
Interestingly, when PM
tary, a lot of them do it
anyway. They don’t realise
that this data could be
stolen or sold, thereby
compromising their safe-
ty,” he said.
Sashi, who has experi-
ence in e-retail, said,
“Most of these companies,
including the large shop-
ping malls have very unse-
cure websites. They can be
attacked easily. How can
one trust their personal
details so easily?”
Police in Hyderabad and
Cyberabad commissioner-
ates is divided on the mat-
ter. On one hand, the offi-
cials admitted that the col-
lection of data by retail
City
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
The police commissioner
can give permission for an
RSS march and a MIM pub-
lic meeting but is denying
the Congress party permis-
sion for a peaceful rally
from Gandhi Bhavan to
Ambedkar Statue at Tank
Bund.”
The Congress party
alleged that the police com-
missioner has continuous-
ly denied permission to
those who want to carry
out a peaceful rally and this
is not the first time he is cit-
ing the ‘law and order’
issue.
Sravan questioned why
Anjani Kumar, who belongs
to the Andhra cadre, is
serving in Telangana. He
alleged that Kumar was
continuing in the post
because he was serving the
ruling party and acting as
per its directions.
Responding to the reac-
tion of IPS Officers
Association on the issue,
Sravan said that the cap of
an IPS officer carries the
national emblem as it signi-
fies pride and honour. IPS
officers are expected to act
as per the law and
Constitution.
However, he said, some
IPS officers in Telangana
have been serving as
‘slaves’ of TRS leaders. He
said the IPS officers should
introspect on their behav-
iour and start working as
per the Constitution.
Modi launched his cam-
paign, a few tweets and
posters were made avail-
able on the official ‘Namo
App’. All of the content
available in the app is also
present in the ‘tweet
bank’.
A city-based former BJP
activist said the party’s IT
cell seems to have pulled
out all the stops.
“This is not new. For over
six years, since 2013, BJP’s
IT cell has sent out ready-
made tweets and posters
for activists to copy and
paste from. It is not a
secret and has been
exposed by many media
outlets in the past. But
they at least kept it silent
and did not let it spread so
easily. But today, they took
no precaution. The tweet
bank is available all over
Twitter. They seem to be
desperate,” he said.
outlets posed a risk of data
theft. However, they said
action could be taken only
when a theft actually hap-
pens.
A senior official from
Cyberabad said, “Indeed,
no retail outlet guarantees
the protection of data.
They collect personal data
of citizens for their own
marketing requirements.
This is why even after a
person activates do-not-
disturb (DND) of their
phones, bulk messages
come anyway. We would
advise the public to not
share their numbers to
everyone.” However, the
official said that offering
Centre will enforce
CAA, says Kishan
From Page 1
“There is no difference
between the Congress,
Telangana Rashtra Samiti
(TRS)
Ittehadul
and Majlis-e-
Muslimeen
(MIM). They are all one and
the same. They are trying
to propagate a false agenda
and instigate violence.
He said that Opposition
parties must understand
the difference between
refugees and infiltrators.
“After partition, both India
and Pakistan had agreed to
look after their minorities
without any discrimina-
tion, but Pakistan failed to
do so. Because of this, the
minorities are facing atroc-
ities like forceful conver-
sions, rape and murder in
Islamic countries like
Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Afghanistan,” the minister
said. “On humanitarian
grounds, we would like to
help refugees.”
The minister made it
clear that the CAA will be
implemented at any cost,
notwithstanding the “false
propaganda” by the
Opposition parties, particu-
larly the Congress and the
Majlis. Comparing Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
and Union home minister
Amit Shah to Lord Krishna
and Arjuna, he said, “Many
Commuters face trouble after the vehicle carrying BJP
state chief K. Laxman was parked in the middle of the
road on Monday.
creates traffic jam
DC CORRESPONDENT
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
The vehicle carrying TS
BJP president Dr K.
Laxman was parked in the
middle of the road at
Dharna Chowk by his sup-
porters, causing a traffic
jam for some time.
Dr Laxman came on an
open top SUV to Dharna
Chowk for the public
meeting organised in sup-
port of the Citizenship
Amendment Act along
with his followers.
After reaching the
venue, the vehicle stopped
on the road for some time
to allow press photogra-
phers to take pictures.
advice is where their
responsibility ends on this
matter. “We would like to
act more proactively on
this, but the retail outlets
are not doing anything
wrong. The Ministries of
Telecom and IT have to
come up with guidelines
on collection of data,” he
said.
However, the official
agreed that retailers can-
not make collection of
phone number mandatory.
“We will look into
Decathlon’s case. We will
check if their point-of-sale
(POS) don’t generate bills
without a phone number.
If this is the case, we can
PAGE
2
intellectuals aligned to
Opposition parties are car-
rying out false propaganda
over the CAA to malign the
government under the lead-
ership of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Union
home minister Amit Shah.
It won’t affect them.”
He alleged that there were
forces provoking the people
and creating fear among
the Muslims by spreading
lies that they will be sent to
Pakistan and Bangladesh.
He claimed that even some
places of worship were
being used for this propa-
ganda.
He said public and private
property had been dam-
aged during the protests in
Uttar Pradesh and Delhi,
and about 270 Uttar
Pradesh policemen were
injured during the vio-
lence, with 57 of them
receiving bullet injuries.
“Why are Rahul Gandhi
and other leaders not con-
demning violence during
protests? Why are they
silent on this?” he asked.
Mr Reddy also warned
that the Modi government
would not be a mute specta-
tor to public property being
vandalised. “We will identi-
fy each and every one and
we will foreclosure their
property to compensate for
the damage,” he said.
— DC
Subsequently, Dr Laxman
and the others moved to
the dais, leaving the vehi-
cle there.
This caused a traffic
jam. The traffic police
who were on duty were
clueless about what to do
and sweated it out to clear
the traffic jam.
Some personnel began
searching for the driver of
the vehicle while their col-
leagues started making
way for the vehicles stuck
in the jam. After a few
minutes, the traffic police
found the driver and asked
him to move the vehicle
from the road. By then,
the traffic jam stretched to
a long distance.
hold Decathlon manage-
ment liable,” he said.
KVN Prasad, ACP,
Hyderabad police’s
Cybercrime division had a
similar response. “Asking
for phone numbers is a
marketing ploy by these
companies. But we can act
on collection of data when
there is a report of data
theft or if a retailer’s data-
base is hacked. Until then,
we can’t do anything.
However, we will look into
cases of retailers who
mandate submission of
phone numbers for gener-
ation of a bill. We will take
the necessary action,” he
said.
 City
Metro’s gift
PAGE
N.V.S. Reddy says Metro Rail will run till
2 am on New Year Eve, those who are 3
tipsy yet sober will be allowed to travel
DECCAN CHRONICLE TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD

Beautification drive SCB voters allege

bungling in list
DC CORRESPONDENT in the voters list and dou-
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30 ble and triple enrolment
Many congratulations of the same person was
Secunderabad Canton- taking place.
to Grand Master ment residents demand Many voters were being
that photo electoral rolls enrolled from a single
Koneru Humpy on a be used for the forthcom- house. It was said that
fabulous win ing Board elections to election agents were
ensure transparency. unable to detect the vot-
— K.T. Rama Rao They have made a repre- ers in the list without the
TS minister sentation to the SCB photographs.
Chief Executive Officer. When contacted, a SCB
Mr Sanki Ravinder, a official said there was no
POWER | SHUTDOWN social worker who gave mention of photo elec-
the representation, said, toral rolls in the
10 am to 2 pm: Balajinagar, “The non-implementa- Cantonment Act, 2007.
Satyanarayananagar, Crystal tion of photo electoral “Hence we are not imple-
Garden, Gudimalkapur, rolls is leading to many menting it. The rules of
Heeranagar, Sainagar, Pavan blunders in the voter the Election Commission
Garden, KRKM Garden, Shiv list.” and the cantonment
Bagh, Maheshnagar, Roof He claimed that non- boards are different,” he
Garden; Dilshadnagar, locals were being added said.
Ayodhyanagar, SBI Colony,
Aravind Eye Hospital,
Santhoshnagar, Milan Garden;
Dairy Farm, Post Office PT, PG
College, Velodrome PT
2 pm to 5 pm: Rethi Bowli,
Addict rams car,
Food World, Midway Colony, G.
Pulla

Vivekananda
Reddy College,
Santhoshnagar, Mehdipatnam,
Colony,
Jandharnagar, RS Brothers,
Chandana Brothers, Chennai
Shopping Mall, Ayodhyanagar,
Mehdipatnam Bus Stop; Hill
Colony, VV Colony, LIC Colony,
MIGH, Dilshadnagar, Kranthi
Nagar, Amba Theatre, Income
Tax Colony, Ram Murthi
Colony.
2.30 pm to 6 pm: Kumar PT,
Yadaiahnagar, Masjid PT,
Ramani PT, Dhodi PT, Model
School PT,
Manikeshwarinagar,
IN BRIEF
GHMC demolishes
illegal structure
Hyderabad: The enforce-
ment, vigilance and disaster
management (EV&DM) team
of the GHMC, on Monday
demolished an unauthorised
structure erected in an open
space at Quthbullapur.
According to officials, the
open space was located
near the Rukmini Enclave.
Officials said that the
department had issued a
notice to the occupant
under Section 635 of the
GHMC Act. When he did not
respond to any of the
As part of the beautification plan, the vertical garden, ‘I love Hyderabad’, at Khairatabad junction is ready for inauguration. — S. SURENDER REDDY
Funds spent, lake still dirty
Japan, Australia gave `410 cr to clean, protect Hussainsagar
T.S.S. SIDDHARTH I DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
There has never been a
lack of money for cleaning
up the Hussainsagar Lake.
What is lacking is will
power and expertise.
Funds from various coun-
tries of the world have
been pumped into the lake
to keep it alive, but in
vain.
Going by the accounts of
civic bodies, the
Australian government
first gave close to `10 crore
and offered technological
assistance. Close on its
heels, the Japan
International Cooperation
Agency (JICA) gave `310
crore between 2006 and
Fearless Upasana
2012. The Netherlands
Embassy has come for-
ward with monetary assis-
tance to the tune of `74
crore for the Greater
Hyderabad Environment
Project. “The initial funds
for the lake came in 1994,
when the Centre had given
`694 crore to protect 10
lakes across the country,
which included
Hussainsagar,” said a
the
retired official of the erst-
while Hyderabad Urban
Development Authority,
requesting anonymity.
Civic officials seem to be
least perturbed by the ris-
ing pollution levels in the
lake. When contacted,
GHMC commissioner D.S.
Lokesh Kumar told Deccan
RLY FINDS GIRL’S
LOST GADGET
■ THE NETHERLANDS
Embassy has come
forward with monetary
assistance to the tune
of `74 crore.
Chronicle, that it is the
Hyderabad Metropolitan
Development Authority
(HMDA) that is concerned
with the lake. Officials of
the HMDA say that only
JICA funds have been used
to restore the lake.
“We have spent close to
`300 crore to set up sewage
treatment plants (STPs)
with a capacity of 50 mil-
lion litres a day (MLD), a
tertiary one. We used the
money to divert effluents
from entering the lake,”
said HMDA’s chief engi-
neer B.L.N Reddy.
Environmentalists such
as Kalpana Ramesh are
not amused. “There is a lot
polluted sediment,on the
lake bed. There is close to
2,000 MLD of sewage that
goes into water bodies. If
we think that we are safe,
there can be nothing fur-
ther from the truth,” she
said. While committees
were formed to save the
lake, they are nothing
more than money spin-
ning models, she alleged.
Adding weight to her
claim is a June 2019 report
published by IIT-
Hyderabad which noted:
“Lake contamination by
anthropogenic activities
has become a serious
threat to the aquatic
ecosystem due to the pres-
ence of a high concentra-
tion of toxic heavy metals.
In this study, a contami-
nated lake, Hussainsagar,
was assessed for toxic
heavy metal pollutants at
sites associated with
industrial discharges and
idol immersion activi-
ties.” The study showed
that heavy metals like cad-
mium, zinc and lead were
existing on the lake bed.
While Cadmium was 300-
times higher than the per-
missible limit. Zinc and
lead were five and six
times higher than permis-
sible limits.
city girl dies in US
DC CORRESPONDENT
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
A Neredmet girl, Aella
Charitha Reddy, was
declared brain-dead in
Michigan, US, after a
drug addict drove into
her parked car near
Coopersville on Friday.
Charitha had earlier
donated all her organs,
which the family came to
know only after the Charitha Reddy
tragedy. years and was working in
At the time of the crash, Deloitte. “It has been
Charitha was sitting in three years since she
the rear seat and was came home and she had
badly injured when the said she would come in
car was hit. She fell
unconscious and was
March,” said her brother
Yeshwanth Reddy, who
rushed to Mercy Health
Hackley Campus in
last spoke to her on
December 26.
Muskegon. One of her family mem-
Charitha did not bers has gone to the US to
respond to the treatment collect the body and is
and doctors confirmed expected to return by
she was brain-dead on Friday.
Sunday afternoon. Her Her friends in the US
organs were immediately are raising funds for her
harvested. funeral and other expens-
Charitha was in the US es, which is likely to cost
since four-and-a-half around $50,000.

takes on PM Modi
notices issued, it was demol-
ished, said an official.
WITHIN HOURS
Man involved in From Page 1 DC CORRESPONDENT
33 burglaries held In response to the selec-
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30

Hyderabad: A 50-year-old tors’ justification that South Central Railway

man who is suspected of
committing 33 burglaries
this year was arrested by the
Rachakonda police on
Friday. Police said the
accused, Kandula
Satyanarayana, had been
convicted and sentenced but
resorted to burglary upon
his release from prison.
Police recovered property
worth `13 lakh from him.
Police said Satyanarayana
who works at a church in the
city as a labourer and also as
a mason. A native of
Mandapeta in East Godavari
district, he stays at
Chandanagar. Since January
this year, the accused has
committed 33 burglaries in
which 32 are in Rachakonda
limits and one at Annavaram
in AP. Police said
Satyanarayana was first
arrested in 2001 and twice in
2018. On January 23, this
year, Satyanarayana was
released from jail and came
to the city. As he could not
meet his expenses by doing
small-time jobs, the accused
again resorted to burglaries,
police added.
Shankar was more
“three-dimensional” as
a cricketer, Rayudu
tweeted that he had
ordered 3D glasses to
watch the tournament.
‘Just Ordered a new
set of 3d glasses to
watch the world cup
(sic)’, he said, dumb-
founding M.S.K. Prasad,
the chairman of selec-
tors. His recent take on
Hyderabad cricket and
its newly elected chief
Mohd Azharuddin
stirred no less a contro-
versy, making him a
powerful voice from the
city.
Sadly, most will
remember his tweets
more than his shots in
times to come.
No less fearless or bold
in influencing opinion
is Upasana Konidela
(nee Kamineni), whose
@upasanakonidela han-
dle, with over 1.1 mil-
lion followers, is often at
the forefront of advoca-
cy of contrarian view-
points, is disputatious
and yet inspiring.
Upasana Kamineni
When Mr Modi met
Bollywood film stars on
October 19 as part of an
initiative hashtagged
#ChangeWithin initia-
tive she wrote to him to
protest against the cold-
shouldering of the
southern film industry,
in particular
Tollywood, and tagged a
snap of Mr Modi with
two of Khan trinity, say-
ing, ‘with all due
respect, we felt that rep-
resentation of cultural
icons was limited only
to Hindi artists and
southern film industry
was neglected’.
came to the rescue of
Anjum Fatima, a young
girl who forgot her
mobile tablet in a train
while travelling from
Visakhapatnam to
Secunderabad. The girl’s
father Mustafa Sadiq
posted a picture on
Twitter in which she is
seen crying for her lost
device and tagged SCR’s
official handle.
Mr Sadiq got a reply
from SCR within an
hour. They took details
from him about the
device and where it
might be. Within anoth-
er hour, SCR replied
again and informed Mr
Sadiq the device was
found and had been kept
with the station manag-
er at Secunderabad.
They asked Mr Sadiq to
collect it from there.
Speaking to Deccan
Chronicle, Mr Sadiq
said, “We got down from
the train at 6.30 am. My
daughter was very grog-
gy. She had forgotten
that she kept her device
under her pillow.”

SKY | HIGH Youngest tribal to scale tallest peaks in six continents

Another feather in Poorna’s cap

RAJESWARI PARASA I DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Malavath Poorna, 18, who
conquered Mount Everest
in 2014 as a 14-year-old, has
become the youngest tribal
girl to climb the tallest
peaks in six continents. On
December 26, she climbed
the Mt Vinson Massif in
Antarctica.
Only Mt Denali, North
America’s highest moun-
tain peak, remains for
Poorna to complete Seven
Summits Challenge to
climb the seven highest
mountains on the seven
continents,
Poorna, who was the sub-
ject of a film after her feat
of climbing the Everest, is
currently pursuing an
internship at the University
of Minnesota.
After the 29,029-ft Mt
Everest on the Asian conti-
Malavath Poorna at the Mt Vinson Massif in Antarctica.
nent in 2014, Poorna
climbed Mt Kilimanjaro
(19,341 ft ) in Africa in 2016,
Mt Elbrus (18,510 ft )in
Europe in 2017, Mt
Aconcagua (22,838 ft) in
South America in 2019, Mt
Carstensz (also called
Punchak Jaya, 16,024 ft) in
Oceania in 2019 and the
16,050-ft Mt Vinson Massif
in Antarctica in recently.
Poorna said her achieve-
ment would help break
stereotypes about margin-
alised women.
Speaking over a satellite
phone, she thanked Chief
Minister K. Chandrasekhar
Rao and minister for wel-
fare Koppula Eshwar for
lending their support.
Dr Praveen Kumar, secre-
tary of the Telangana
Social Welfare Residential
Educational Institutions
Society (TSWREIS), who
initially spotted Poorna’s
talent, said, “Poorna’s
expeditions will remain
engraved in golden
letters in the annals of the
world’s mountaineering
history”
All of Poorna’s ventures
are sponsored by crowd-
funding, Transcend
Adventures, an NGO run by
her coach Shekar Babu, and
the state government.
 City
TRS offer
PAGE
Minister G. Jagadish Reddy says development
of urban areas will get speeded up only when 4
TRS candidates are elected in municipal polls
DECCAN CHRONICLE TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD

HC: Implement rules CCTV footage blurred: Cops

Government took
the services of 242
agricultural scientists
to improve farming
— S. Niranjan Reddy
Agriculture minister
IN BRIEF
GHMC worker
caught by ACB
Hyderabad: A GHMC worker
working at LB Nagar was
arrested by the ACB for
demanding and accepting a
bribe to not demolish an
under-construction house.
The ACB also arrested his
aide M. Chandramohan
along with GHMC ‘chainman’
B. Sridhar. The ACB was act-
ing on a complaint by one K.
Srinivas, a resident of
Vanasthalipuram, that
Sridhar had demanded
`3,000. Sridhar collected
the money through Chandra
Mohan at his office when the
duo was caught.
Man held with
or put off Numaish
Court seeks inspection reports of fire safety measures,
asks about one-third land to be set aside for parking
VUJJINI VAMSHIDHARA
I DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Doubting the no objec-
tion certificates (NOCs)
issued to the Exhibition
Society to conduct the
Numaish from January
1, the High Court on
Monday directed
Hyderabad police com-
missioner Anjani Ku-
mar to furnish the phys-
ical inspection reports
of all the departments
concerned and their
findings, before they
issued the NOCs.
The court said the
reports must be submit-
ted by 10.30 am on
Tuesday, for its verifica-
tion, failing which the
annual exhibition
would be postponed.
The exhibition usually
begins on New Year’s
day.
The division bench
comprising Chief
Justice Raghavendra
Singh Chauhan and
Justice A. Abhishek
Reddy was hearing a
From Page 1 Speaking on the progress of not just leave and go away.
the investigation, Gachi- She was not the kind to forget
Now, we are beginning to feel bowli sub-inspector Suren- her mobile. She had not
helpless. Keeping all facts in der Reddy said, “We are put- taken leave either.”
place, it is clearly a case of ting in all efforts to try to Police sources said the com-
kidnapping. The police does trace the woman. She left her pany she worked in, Apple
not seem to investigate or
search with the necessary
mobile phone behind at her
apartment. That makes trac-
India, is not cooperating in
the investigation, saying that
urgency. We are not able to ing her very difficult. We her reporting manager is
get any information from have not been able to ascer- based in London and they
them.” tain the auto number cannot share any details.
important criteria. This Since then, the family has because the image from the Ms Kuthuru, who shares a
TOUGH ASK aspect cannot be over- been talking to her flat CCTV footage is blurred and flat with two other women, is
looked or ignored either mates, friends and colleagues there seems to be no visible estranged from her husband.
The court directed Hyderabad police commis- by the Exhibition and scanning her social number plate to the vehicle.” It is not clear if the two were
sioner Anjani Kumar to submit several docu- Society or the depart- media footprint to get clues. The police, which has regis- in touch in recent times.
ments by 10.30 am on Tuesday. ments concerned. con- The family has launched a tered a case, does not suspect With New Year’s eve ahead
■ The application ■ Map of the Exhibition
spicuously, the inspec-
tion reports are miss-
social media campaign seek-
ing help from the public.
anything untoward. “It could
be an innocuous instance of
and the police engaged in
bandobust, it is doubtful the
made by the Ground indicating in ing”, observed Chief While the police confirms the lady having gone for an case will make much head-
Exhibition Society detail the areas ear- Justice Chauhan. that the CCTV footage early New Year party or way. But Mr A. Venkatesh-
wherein it has given marked for stalls, open Referring to the coor- reviewed by the Gachibowli along with some friends. We war Rao, DCP, West Zone,
an undertaking that space, place for con- dination meeting held
by the police commis-
police places the last sighting
of Ms Kuthuru on December
are positive nothing bad has
happened,” said Mr Reddy.
said, “We are treating this as
a very serious case. We may
it has taken all pre- gregation of the people sioner, the Chief Justice 26 at 3.15 pm, boarding an Mr Katur does not buy that, not have many clues right
ventive measures in case there is a disas- observed, “the CP’s autorickshaw, they have not saying, “My sister was a very now, but we will put in all
mentioned in GO ter, the passage which observations have been been able to find the driver. careful person. She would effort to find the lady.”
Ms. No. 693 will be used by the peo- reduced to writing
ple to exit which is unseen. Hence, FIRST DEATH ANNIVERSARY 12th ANNIVERSARY
■ Elaborate on the this court is unable to
steps taken to ■ Furnish a clear decide whether the con- OBITUARY I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Ps 23:6
implementing the report whether the clusion drawn by the CP
guidelines in the GO encroachments sur- is objective or subjec-
rounding the Exhibition tive satisfaction.”
■ Inspection Ground are cleared or Special counsel
reports prepared by not and whether or not Sharath Kumar said the
all the departments people can exit in case issue of removing the
concerned encroachments sur-
of a disaster. rounding the exhibition
site is difficult because
Furnish all the information sought by the they have been in exis-
court cited by Tuesday morning or else tence for 40 years. If Mrs.A. SUSHEELA
W/o A.N. Surya Rao T. VIKRAMADITYA NAIDU
postpone the exhibition they are touched, there Retd.Head Nurse, KOPPULA LUKE KRUPADANAM Deputy Registrar (Retd)
could be furore, he said. Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital
— Raghavendra Singh Chauhan
Chief Justice, Telangana High Court
Responding to it, the
Chief Justice said that
DOB: 06.05.1944 DOD: 30.12.2019
Funeral service at
Garrison Cemetary,Trimulghery
DOB: 13-12-1941 DOD: 31-12-2018
The life you led & the legacy you left we
still carry on everyday.
DOB: 05.10.1933 DOD: 31.12.2007
“Years have gone into decades we still
remember you in silent tears”

liquid ganja PIL filed by advocate

Hyderabad: A 26-year-old
man from Visakhapatnam,
who brought liquid ganja to
sell in the city was appre-
hended by the Madhapur
Special Operations Team.
The police recovered 1 kg of
liquid ganja from Vasupally
Dinesh, 26, of Vishakhapat-
nam, near the Bhagyanagar
bus stop. He had bought the
contraband from a person in
Vizag to supply it to a resi-
dent in the city, police said.
TS GETS TIME
TO NAME
COP PANELS
Khaja Aijazuddin,
expressing deep con- had issued the NOCs.
cern over the attitude of The bench was irked
the officials in issuing when inspection reports
the NOCs. He had filed were not furnished and
the PIL after the fire questioned the veracity
accident in the last of the NOCs. Chief
week of January. Justice Chauhan said,
The court had earlier “anyone can issue a
ordered that Numaish NOC by sitting in his
will not be held unless office? Even I can issue
NOCs were issued by all a NOC, but it should be
departments. On buttressed by furnish-
Monday, government ing the inspection
special counsel S. reports.”
Sharat Kumar submit- The bench pointed out
ted that all departments that the Exhibition
TRAFFIC DIVERSIONS TODAY
Society had to allocate
41 per cent of the open
area of its 21-acre venue
for parking. No docu-
ment showing any pro-
vision for a parking lot
was furnished to the
court.
The bench said that it
would not allow
requests to hold the
exhibition without pre-
cautionary measures in
place. “After all, it is the
safety of the people
which is the most
in that
Exhibition
case the
Society
should postpone its idea
of holding Numaish
and observed: “Kolkata
and Delhi have wit-
nessed major fire acci-
dents wherein many
lives were lost and these
occurred because pre-
cautionary measures
were not in place. Do
you want us to witness
such an incident here?
Who will be held
responsible for such a
major fire accident, if it
occurs?”
Today at 2:00 PM
Inserted by:
Husband, Children & Grand Children
Remembering you in silent tears.
Inserted by: K. KAVITHA (Daughter),
RUPENDER KANCHERLA (Son-in-law),
Your Loving Daughters:
D. Surekha & G. Sheela
Sons-in-law & Grand Children.
Ph:9948524044 K. VIKRAM (Son), K. VANITA (Daughter), (S/1920/D01484)
PRASANNA KUMAR (Son-in-law),
KEREN PRASANNA (Grand Daughter)
Ph: 9989310913/ 9581772777 IN FOND REMEMBRANCE
FIRST DEATH ANNIVERSARY
Smt. BANDARI LAXMI BAI
W/o Late Bandari Ramanjulu
Saidabad Colony, Hyd.
D.O.D: 31.12.2018 R. SAI KUMAR NAINEE
Inserted by: Bandari Family,
Gorenka Family,
Pashikanti Family,
D.O.D: 31.12.2010
Sr. Divisional Engg. (SCR)
Inserted by:
B. Sreevamsh (Grand Son)
It’s been one year since you left us you
Wife & Children

Hussainsagar Curbs for Sikh will remain alive in our Hearts forever. (S/1920/D01531)
DC CORRESPONDENT
(CA-3123)
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30

The High Court on Monday

gave the AP and TS govern-
ments four weeks to constitute
the State Security Com-mis-
sion (SSC) and Police
roads to be shut procession
Complaints Authority (PCA), DC CORRESPONDENT ■ The restrictions will DC CORRESPONDENT Hotel will be diverted
which are meant to redress HYDERABAD, DEC. 30 HYDERABAD, DEC. 30 towards CBS via Ram
the grievances of the public
be in place from 10 Mandir Road.
against abuse of power by the In view of the New pm on December 31 The Sikh community Afzalgunj T-Junction:
police. Year celebrations, to 2 am on January 1. will take out a proces- When the procession
On the failure to implement Hyderabad police com- Except the Begumpet sion at 3 pm on Tuesday moves from Afzalgunj
the directions given on missioner Anjani flyover, all other fly- to mark the 353rd T-Junction to SA
December 4 by the High Court Kumar has issued a overs will be closed birthday celebrations Bazaar Mosque, traffic
to constitute the SSC and PCA traffic advisory, closing for traffic. of Guru Gobind Singh, from Afzalgunj will be
before December 27, the prin- NTR Marg, Necklace the 10th Sikh Guru. diverted towards State
cipal secretaries, home, Ravi Road and Tank Bund ■ All roads around Traffic will be restrict- Central Library Afzal-
Gupta (TS) and K.R.M. and ordering traffic the Hussainsagar will ed to facilitate the pro- gunj, SJ Bridge, CBS,
Kishore Kumar (AP) appeared diversions. be closed by the cession. Rangmahal till the pro-
before the division bench com- The restrictions will police to prevent The procession will cession reaches MJ
prising Chief Justice Ragha- be in place from 10 pm untoward incidents. start at Central Gurud- Market.
vendra Singh Chauhan and on December 31 to 2 am wara Saheb, Gowligu- Rangmahal Junction:
Justice A. Abhishek Reddy. on January 1. Except da, and return to the When the procession
TS special counsel A. the Begumpet flyover, diverted at Khaira- same place via Shanker reaches MJ Market and
Sanjeev Kumar sought eight all other flyovers will tabad (Bada Ganesh) Sher Hotel, Gurudwara turns towards Jam-
weeks to set up the two bodies. be closed for traffic. towards Sensation Sri Guru Singh Sabha bagh, traffic from
He said a letter has been Traffic from VV Theatre, Rajdoot lane, Ashok Bazaar, Afzal- Chaderghat to Jam-
addressed to the Registrar, Statue towards Neck- Lakdikapul, according gunj Island, Afzalgunj bagh will be diverted
High Court, to prepare a panel lace Road and NTR to the advisory. T-Junction, Siddiam- towards the Central
and send it to the government. Marg will be diverted Mint compound lane ber Bazaar, Moazzam- Bus Station and the
Chief Justice Chauhan said towards Khairatabad adjacent to Secretariat jahi Market, Jambagh, Salar Jung Bridge.
addressing a letter to the High and Raj Bhavan Road. will be closed for gener- Putlibowli and Ram Nayapul: When the
Court without framing rules Traffic from BRK al traffic. Mandir. procession reaches
and regulations will not suf- Bhavan towards NTR Traffic from Nalla- The diversions are as Central Library, traffic
fice. He frowned upon both the Marg will be diverted at gutta towards Sanjee- follows: from Madina and City
governments for not adhering Telugu Talli Junction vaiah Park and Neck- Salar Jung Bridge College towards Afzal-
to Supreme Court’s orders in towards Iqbal Minar, lace Road will be divert- Junction: When the gunj will be diverted
Prakash Singh in which it had Lakdikapul, Ayodhya ed towards Karbala procession starts from towards Salar Jung
laid down the guidelines for Junction. Maidan or Ministers Ashok Bazaar Gurud- Museum and SJ Rotary.
all the states to set up the PCA Traffic from Liberty Road. wara, traffic from CBS Shanti Fireworks:
and the SSC immediately. Jn. towards Tank Bund Traffic coming from towards Afzalgunj will After the procession
Counsel representing will be diverted at Secunderabad will be be diverted towards SJ reaches Shanthi
Andhra Pradesh said the gov- Ambedkar statue via diverted at Sailing Club bridge rotary / Central Fireworks lane, traffic 16th DEATH ANNIVERSARY
ernment had issued a GO on Telugu Talli, Iqbal towards Kavadiguda Bus Station. from Afzalgunj towards The memory of the just is blessed.
December 26 and sought three Minar, Ravindra Bha- crossroads, Lower Ram Mandir, Gowli- Moazzamjahi Market Prov 10:7
months. The court gave both rathi and other alterna- Tank Bund Road, Katta- guda: When the proces- will be diverted via Feel
states four weeks and tive roads. maisamma temple, sion starts from the Khana, Top Khana,
adjourned the hearing to Traffic from Khaira- Ashoknagar, RTC Gowliguda gurudwara, Malakunta, Midas High
February 3. tabad Market towards crossroads, the adviso- traffic from Putlibowli School, according to the
Necklace Rotary will be ry stated. towards Shanker Sher advisory

Gang of Himachal nomads held for theft KADAMANDLA SOLOMON PRAVEEN

JAYENDRA CHAITHANYA
T. I DC
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
A gang of six persons
involved in a series of rob-
beries in the jurisdiction
of the Rachakonda com-
missionerate was caught
by the Special Operations
Team on Monday.
Police say they are
responsible for several
offences — four in
Hayathnagar, and one each
in LB Nagar, Chaitanya-
puri and Nizamabad — in
October and November.
The gang robbed houses
located in secluded areas
by instilling fear in the
inmates.
After working for over a
month on clues collected
from several places, the LB
Nagar Special Operations
Team caught Chowhan
Thara Singh, 30, M.D.
Sonu, 24, Bittu, 25,
Gufthan, 20, Saif Ali, 20,
Sadiq, 20, and M.D. Sajeed,
45, all residents of Akola
in Maharashtra.
The families of the
accused live in Simla in
Himachal Pradesh, but
move about as is common
with nomads. They have
no permanent residence.
Rachakonda police com-
missioner Mahesh
Bhagwat on Monday said
that the arrested persons
and their associates are all
nomads and belong to the
Ghuman gang. “The inves-
tigation has revealed that
the grandparents of the
accused persons migrated
to India from Bangladesh
■ THE FAMILIES of the
accused live in Simla in
Himachal Pradesh, but
move about as is common
with nomads. They have
no permanent residence,
Rachakonda commissioner
Mahesh Bhagwat said.
some decades ago and set-
tled in West Bengal. They
travel to different states
and sell blankets and toys
on the roadside,” he said.
For the last two years, the
gang has stayed in
Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madh-
ya Pradesh, and Himachal
Pradesh and was currently
taking shelter in Khadki
in Akola district of
Maharashtra.
Commissioner Bhagwat
said that the accused tried
to dispose of the stolen
property in Akola, but
were unsuccessful. They
wanted to go to Delhi to
dispose of the property.
“The gang members,
though, believe in Durga
goddess at Vijayawada. On
their way there from
Secunderabad, they passed
through Hayathnagar and
found that the area is very
conducive with bushes,
and open places, and easy
to escape from. Then, they
robbed seven places,” said
the commissioner.
“With the help of the
mobile phone signal of one
of the accused, their move-
ments were tracked to
Madhya Pradesh, UP,
Delhi, Gujarat and
Himachal Pradesh. With
the help of intelligence DOB: 21.03.1963 DOD: 31.12.2003
collected, six persons were CHINNA, you are always in our
nabbed at Hayathnagar
thoughts and we remember you in
when they came for anoth-
our silent tears.
Inserted by: Family Members
er burglary. On their con-
fession, Sajeed, who was
waiting at LB Nagar metro
station was also nabbed
along with the booty,” said
another official, who is
part of the probe.
The gang members con-
fessed to having commit-
ted six more offences in
Rajasthan, Maharashtra,
Madhya Pradesh and
Gujarat.
The police team recov-
ered 150 gm of gold, 400 gm
of silver, four mobile
phones, `3,000 in cash,
altogether worth `6.55
lakh and two knives. They
have been remanded to
judicial custody.
 Politics
Big question
PAGE
BJP leader D.K. Aruna asks why the MIM
did not oppose the TS government’s 5
household survey which collected data
DECCAN CHRONICLE TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD

KCR, FAMILY OFFER MoS blames MIM ‘irresponsibility’ for protests

PRAYERS AT
VEMULAWADA Kishan Reddy announces
Congress, TRS
DC CORRESPONDENT
SIRCILLA, DEC. 30

Chief Minister K. Chandra-

sekhar Rao along with his
opposing only CAA family members visited Sri
Raja Rajeshwara Swamy
for their vote bank temple in Vemulawada and
politics offered special prayers and
Kode Mokku to the temple
— N. Ramchander Rao deity Lord Shiva in Rajanna
Sircilla district on Monday.
BJP MLC They were accompanied
by ministers Etala Rajen-
dar, Indrakaran Reddy, Kop-
FROM AP pula Eshwar and Gangula
Kamalakar and Vice-Chair-
schedule for 2021 Census
DC CORRESPONDENT
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Union minister of state for
home affairs G. Kishan
Reddy on Monday annou-
nced that Nationwide
Census-2021 will start from
April to September 2020 in
various parts of the coun-
try for collecting data from
households. The Census
will be carried out with
For the coming Census, a
mobile-based application
will be used to collect data
and at some places, it will
be collected manually.
Data collection sheets have
been developed in 18 lan-
guages.
“The Census enumera-
tion can be made both
through mobile and web-
portal. There will not be
any need to submit proof.
Mr Reddy said the TRS
government had also col-
lected data in the name of
‘Samagra Survey’ but the
government did not utilise
it in a proper manner.
He countered AIMIM
president Asaduddin
Owaisi’s remarks on
Union home minister
Amit Shah saying that Mr
Owaisi does not have the
capability to criticise Mr

AP SAVES `68 CR
man of the State Planning
Commission B. Vinod
Kumar.
WITH REVERSE Mr Rao inspected develop-
mental works at the temple
TENDERING Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao along with his family offers the Jala
Harathi at Thungalapalli bridge at MMD in Rajanna Sircilla district on Monday.
premises and Gudicheruvu.
After observing the photo
DC CORRESPONDENT exhibition of temple devel-
KADAPA, DEC. 30 opment works, he wanted to
the help of an application
and there will not be any
need to submit proofs of
identity, he underlined.
Addressing a press con-
ference at the BJP’s state
office here, the Union min-
ister said population cen-
sus will be held from
Enumerators will also not
ask for any proof. Only a
few queries have been
additionally included,” he
stated.
Mr Reddy informed that
people can also register
their family details on the
website and through
Shah.
“It is because of the irre-
sponsible behaviour of the
political party for the last
one month that protests
have been taking place
across the country,” he
pointed out.
The Union minister

MMD is a dream
know how many days it February 9 to February 28, mobile applications. All alleged that several areas
The AP government has saved would it take to complete 2021, in 640 districts, 5,924 the states will have to of the Old City have fallen
`68.37 crore with reverse ten- works. He assured the revenue divisions and carry out the survey. They vacant after Hindus and
dering in the Galeru Nagari Vemulawada Temple Deve- 7,933 towns across the should follow the Civil tribal people have left
Sujala Sravanthi Phase-II lopment Authority (VTDA) country simultaneously. Registration System to them. Mr Owaisi will have

packages 1 and 2.
The then government had
preclosed seven packages of
works and floated tenders
afresh before the elections. At
that time, Phase-II Package-I
works were estimated to cost
`391 crore. Ritwik Projects Pvt
Ltd of BJP MP C.M. Ramesh,
then with the Telugu Desam,
bagged the contract for `403
crore, which was 3.99 per cent
more than the estimated cost.
The YSRC government can-
celled all the tenders where
come true: CM
officials about more funds if As many as 6,40,932 vil- record details of births to provide the reason for
required and ordered them lages will be covered and deaths. Only about 86 this.
to expedite works. under the Census. per cent of births and 78.1 Further, he said family
Before visiting the According to the 2011 per cent deaths in 2016 members of Sonia Gandhi
Vemulawada temple, Mr Census, the population of have been sent to the not following security pro-
Rao offered Jala Harathi to the country was 121 crore, union government, he tocols and leaving the
Mid Manair Dam will help farmers for 2 crops the Godavari water on the
Thungalapalli bridge over
with the number of houses
being 24 crore.
said.
Following the population
security behind is a regu-
lar phenomenon.
PULI SHARAT KUMAR | Manair dams, along even migrated to Dubai the Manair river He also Mr Reddy said in the 2011 Census, the Lok Sabha and They are now complain-
DC with 60 tmc ft of water and Gulf countries for inspected MMD. Census, about 2.7 million Assembly constituencies ing that security is not
KARIMNAGAR, DEC. 30 in barrages under KLIS livelihood. It is to be recalled that employees participated in will be divided and the being providing to
project, we will now be “But now, with after completion of the collection of population reserved constituencies Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra,
“My dream has come able to store total 110 Lakshmi, Saraswati and ninth package of KLIS proj- data. will be announced. he added.
true on seeing the Mid tmc ft of water, Mr Rao Parvati barrages, ect, for the first time, water
Manair reservoir filled underlined. Godavari River water was filled to its full capacity

CS Joshi retires today

even 25 per cent of the work
was not completed and floated
new tenders in the reverse ten-
dering process. The first pack-
age was GNSS’s main canal to
be extended from 32.64 km to
66.150 km. The water resource
department floated tenders
worth `391.13 crore. The win-
ning contractor quoted an
amount that was 5.04 per cent
less than the estimate. The
government gained `35 crore.
The tenders for package-II
along with package-I works
were floated at an estimated
cost of `344 core. The water
resource authorities floated
tenders worth `343.97 crore.
Ritwik Projects had bagged
the contract for this previous-
ly, quoting 4.76 per cent or
`16.38 crore more. In the re-
tendering, the winning bid
was five per cent less than the
proposed value of the tender
of `328.50 crore. The state has
benefited by `33.37 crore from
package-II works.
to its full capacity of 25 Addressing a press
tmc ft with Godavari conference later, he
water supplied through said, “In the past, farm-
Kaleshwaram Lift ers used to look at
Irrigation Scheme clouds for rains before
(KLIS),” Chief Minister starting their agricul-
K. Chandrasekhar Rao ture operations. That
told media persons on time has now gone in
Monday. Telangana. There will
He said performing be no famine in Waran-
puja standing at Mid gal, Khammam, Karim-
Manair Dam after com- nagar, Nizamabad and
pletion of the project Nirmal districts. We
has given him immense had to suffer till now
pleasure and happiness. due to intense discrimi-
“With completion of the nation by the then
9th package, we will rulers.”
now be able to get Mr Rao recalled that at
around 50 to 60 tmc ft of the Simha Garjana
water without depend- meeting of 2001, he had
ing on Sri Ram Sagar said that once Telan-
Project (SRSP),” he gana is formed, its dis-
remarked. tricts would become
The immediate benefit much better than the
is that farmers will be delta regions of West
able to cultivate two and East Godavari dis-
crops without depend- tricts. In those days,
ing on SRSP. With 50 tmc farmers had to face
ft of water in Mid famines. People of
Manair and Lower Karimnagar district
will be available for 365 of 25 tmc ft in Mid Manair
days along a distance of Reservoir. Through the
145 km. Even the water that will be supplied
groundwater levels have through MMD, around 2.35
increased,” the Chief lakh acres of land will be
Minister stated. brought under cultivation. DC CORRESPONDENT given any such orders yet. and grapevine had it that
He asserted that no As MD will play a key role HYDERABAD, DEC. 30 This is adding to suspense he may the eventual
party other than the in the prestigious KLIS, he and employees are left choice.
TRS has the commit- inspected the water level in Bureaucrat circles are debating over the next man But, with many senior
ment to develop the MMD. agog with speculations, in the hot seat. IAS officers on the list,
state. The Congress and Meanwhile, the oustees of caught in suspense as they After Mr Joshi, the sen- there are also discussions
the BJP do not have MMD who had warned of are, over the likely succes- ior-most officer in the state that there would be a
complete knowledge of blocking Mr Rao’s convoy sor to S.K. Joshi, who de- is Ajay Misra, a 1984 batch Protocol issue among the
the available water for not sanctioning `5.04 mits office of Chief Secre- IAS officer. However, there officials.
resources or the geogra- lakh compensation that was tary of Telangana on were also discussions that Mr Misra the present
phy of Telangana, he promised in 2015, tried to Tuesday. 1989 batch IAS officer Special Chief Secretary of
maintained. block the road holding plac- Though there have been Somesh Kumar may be Revenue department
Mr Rao said Manair is ards near Vemulawada tem- speculations among bure- given the post. Mr Kumar, retires in July.
the longest river flowing ple. In a spontaneous reac- aucrats that the tenure of who was the GHMC Hence, Chief Minister K.
in Karimnagar district tion, police personnel took Joshi would be extended, Commissioner, has served Chandrasekhar Rao may
over a distance of 185 them into custody. the government has not in many prominent posts zero in on Mr Kumar.
km. The old Kakatiya
canal in the district cov-
ers about 200 km while
the flood canal runs for
160 km. Construction of
about 29 check dams
over Manair and 10 over
Mulawagu will be com-
pleted by June, he said.

AP CANCELS BID
FOR VIZAG METRO,
TO REVISE DPR
DC CORRESPONDENT
VIJAYAWADA, DEC. 30

In a significant develop-
ment, the state government
has cancelled the lone bid
submitted by Essel Infra
Consortium for establishing
the Visakhapatnam Metro
Rail. The government also
issued orders to appoint a
new consultant for prepar-
ing a revised DPR (detailed
project report) for the Metro
Rail project through an
open tender.
The development comes
amid the government’s plan
to make Vizag the executive
capital of Andhra Pradesh.
This would entail making
changes that increase the
length of various corridors
of the Metro Rail project.
The government cancelled
the single financial bid
received for the project, as
the successful bidder did
not offer substantial cost
reduction.
The previous TD govern-
ment had approved the
Visakhapatnam Metro Rail
project running over 42.55
km and comprising three
corridors under innovative
PPP model with a revalidat-
ed project cost of `8,300
crore. To build civic infra-
structure for the project, the
erstwhile regime also per-
mitted Amaravati Metro
Rail Corporation Limited
(AMRCL) to borrow an
amount not exceeding
`4,200 crore through
External Commercial
Borrowings (ECB) or from
foreign funding agencies
and financial institutions at
lower interest rates when
compared to interest rates
of Indian banks, with the
state government providing
a one-time sovereign guar-
antee.
The then TD dispensation
also decided to allot AMRCL
250 acres of government
land for free in
Visakhapatnam at suitable
locations within the vicini-
ty of Metro alignment for
property development to be
taken up in a separate bid-
ding process for maximis-
ing revenues for the Metro.
 Nation
Goa calling
PAGE
Ireland Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who
has Indian roots on Monday arrived in Goa 6
to celebrate the new year
DECCAN CHRONICLE TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD

Frozen waterfall NAVY BANS ITS

MEN FROM Rawat becomes
USING FACEBOOK
DC CORRESPONDENT first Chief of
Defence Staff
NEW DELHI, DEC. 30

Caste system is a In an attempt to prevent

online espionage, Indian
vicious cycle. Future Navy has banned its per-
sonnel from using
must be caste-less Facebook and prohibited
and class-less use of smart mobile
phones in bases, dock-
— M. Venkaiah Naidu yards and warships.
This directive comes
Vice-President when earlier this month
Andhra Pradesh police
had claimed to have bust-
SHORT TAKES ed an espionage racket
with links to Pakistan
and arrested seven per-
BJP HITS BACK sonnel of the Indian Navy
for alleging passing sensi-
tive information like loca-
AT PRASHANT tions of naval ships and
submarines to a
KISHOR Pakistani handler.
All the seven sailors had
allegedly fallen into a
NAYEAR AZAD | DC honey trap.
PATNA, DEC. 30 “Recent case of inimical
elements targeting naval
BJP’s defeat in Jharkhand has A tourist seen near a frozen waterfall as temperature dips at Tangmarg near Srinagar on Monday. Delhi, personnel over social
sparked off a debate in the which is shivering under an intense spell of cold wave for two weeks, experienced its coldest recorded media to elicit sensi-
NDA as to which party would December day on Monday, with the maximum temperature being at just 9.4 degrees Celsius, the IMD tive/operational informa-
get more seats to contest in the announced. — PTI tion is a matter of serious
2020 Assembly elections in concern necessitating
Bihar. stringent correctives,”
A day after poll strategist said an order issued by
PAWAN BALI | DC
NEW DELHI, DEC. 30
Army Chief General Bipin
Rawat on Monday was
appointed as India’s first
Chief of Defence Staff
(CDS) who will have the
challenging task of syner-
gising operations of the
Army, Air Force and Navy
to prepare them for future
wars.
“Government has decided
to appoint General Bipin
Rawat as the Chief of
Defence Staff (CDS) with
effect from 31-12-2019 and
until further orders,” said a
government statement.
Gen. Rawat was to retire
as Chief of the Army Staff
on December 31. The gov-
ernment has extended the
services of Gen Rawat till
he holds the post of CDS.
Lt. Gen. Manoj Mukund
Naravane will take charge
as the Chief of Army Staff
Principal Military Adviser
to the defence minister on
tri-services (involving army,
navy and air force) issues.
He will be a four-star gen-
eral like chiefs of Army,
Navy and Air Force but will
be “first among the equals”.
The CDS will be the per-
manent chairman of the
Chiefs of Staff Committee
which has three service
chiefs as members.
Chief of Defence Staff
will head the department of
military affairs to be creat-
ed within the defence min-
istry and will function as its
secretary. The CDS will have
salary and perks of a
Service chief.
The CDS will assign inter-
services prioritisation to
capital acquisition propos-
als of Army, Navy and Air
Force based on the antici-
pated budget and will work
to reduce wasteful expendi-
ture. The CDS will enable

Aaditya: A lawyer,
and JD(U) leader Prashant the Navy headquarters on Tuesday. the Armed Forces to imple-
Kishor said that the party last week. The Centre on Saturday ment co-ordinated defence
should contest on more seats, The order banned use of had notified the retirement doctrines and procedures
BJP reacted strongly and said Facebook for all person- age for the CDS as 65 years. and to foster jointmanship
that “issue will be discussed nel. This means that Gen. among the three services.

poet & now a mantri

during a meeting between top “Additional safeguards, Rawat, who turns 62 in Gen. Rawat, is an alumnus
leadership”. including bans on mes- March, can have a tenure of of St. Edward School,
In a statement on Monday saging apps, networking, 3 years as the CDS. Shimla and was commis-
BJP spokesperson Nikhil blogging, content-shar- As tri-services chief, Gen sioned to the Eleventh
Anand said, “BJP believes in ing, hosting and e-com- Rawat will be the single- Gorkha Rifles of the Indian
maintaining decorum, disci- merce sites, are under point military advisor to the Army in December 1978,
pline and not to make any pub-
lic statement which has only
First-time MLA wanted Mumbai’s nightlife revived promulgation,” it added.
In October, Indian Army
government. His main
objective will be to restruc-
from IMA, Dehradun.
He had assumed the
news value. All decisions in had also warned its men ture military commands by appointment of the Chief of

NDA related to 2020 Assembly
election is a matter of discus-
sion between our top leaders.
NDA is sure to sweep 2020
Bihar polls and defeat the
grand alliance.”
Poll strategist and JD(U)
leader Prashant Kishor had
DEPUTY CM AJIT
DC CORRESPONDENT against honey-trap by integrating land-air-sea the Army Staff on
MUMBAI, DEC. 30 Pakistan spies who create operations of the three serv- December 31, 2016.
fake female profiles on ices to create new theatre As Army commander, he
One of the prominent
names in the Uddhav PAWAR PROVES the social media like
Facebook, Twitter or
commands for effective mili-
tary response in case of hos-
had vast experience in oper-
ations across a wide spec-
Thackeray-led MVA gov-
ernment was his son
Aaditya’s, who was
HIS CLOUT AGAIN Instagram.
Army had also asked its
personnel not to post pic-
tilities.
Gen. Rawat will be the
trum of conflict and terrain
profiles.

raised the political pitch by
saying that Chief Minister
Nitish Kumar is the leader of
the NDA in Bihar and so the
party should get more seats to
contest in the Assembly polls.
KERALA
WOMEN HOLD
inducted into the state DC CORRESPONDENT tures in uniform on social
ministry as a Cabinet MUMBAI, DEC. 30 media, avoid accepting
minister in his very first friend requests from
term as an MLA. The “The Chief Minister unknown people, avoid
move proves the fact that might be from any party suspicious websites and
the Thackeray scion is like the Congress, BJP not to take calls from or
expected to play an or Shiv Sena; but the chat with unidentified
important and active
role in the government.
Political circles are
post of deputy chief
minister will remain
with Ajit Pawar only...”
people. It has advised its
men to change the priva-
cy settings on Facebook
divided over the Shiv
Sena’s decision to induct
and similar such com-
ments took social media
and other apps to “only
friends” so that unknown

‘NIGHT WALK’ Aaditya into the state

DC CORRESPONDENT
THIRUVANANTHPAURAM, DEC.
30
Women in hundreds ventured
out on the roads, junctions and
abandoned stretches in cities
and towns across Kerala on
Sunday night to take part in a
‘Night Walk’ organised on the
theme “public space mine
too.”
Cine stars, directors. writers,
bureaucrats, entrepreneurs
and women from various
walks of life participated in
the event which was held for
the first time in the state.
Thrissur in central Kerala
witnessed the biggest partici-
pation with women taking to
roads in 47 routes.
The walk was held between
11 pm to 1 am across 200 cen-
tres in the state in which more
than 10,000 women took part.
The women and child depart-
ment which organised the pro-
gramme has decided to contin-
ue the campaign in the state
till International Women’s
Day on March 8.
The plan is to hold unsched-
uled and announced night
walks in all 14 districts in the
coming days.
“The event was to build con-
fidence among women to ven-
Cabinet. While some
said the move was made
by storm as the NCP
stalwart took oath as
deputy chief minister
people are not able to
check their profile and
pictures.
too early, some were of on Monday. In November, Rajasthan
the opinion that it would This is the fourth time Police had arrested two
give him enough time to that Ajit Pawar was Indian Army personnel
understand people’s sworn in as the deputy Lance Naik Ravi Verma
problems and the nitty- CM. Earlier, he was the and Sepoy Vichitra Army chief Gen Bipin Singh Rawat at a function in New
gritty of government deputy CM twice during Behera for sending sensi- Delhi. — PTI
proceedings. the 15-year reign of the tive information to
“Aaditya has a sharp Congress-NCP govern- Pakistan. Both of them
mind and his grasping ment from 1999 to 2014 were honey-trap by
power is great. He has a Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray after his oath and barely over a month Pakistani spies posing as
clear vision about his taking ceremony as minister in Mumbai on Monday. ago, he caused an earth- woman on Facebook with
development plans and quake in Maharashtra the name of ‘Seerat’.
he wants to implement released in 2007 by politics by revolting
them properly. So, it was „ THE YUVA Sena Bollywood superstar against his party and „ IN OCTOBER,
a correct decision to give leader is now likely Amitabh Bachchan. joining hands with for- Army had also
him a chance in the state to make his party, The Yuva Sena leader mer chief minister
warned its men
Cabinet,” said a Sena which was rooted is now likely to make his Devendra Fadnavis of
leader. party, which was rooted the BJP to form the gov- against honey-trap
The 29-year-old won the in the ‘sons of the in the ‘sons of the soil’ ernment in the state. by Pakistan spies
October 21 Assembly soil’ agenda and agenda and later However, his gamble who create fake
polls with a thumping later embraced the embraced the Hindutva did not pay off and he female profiles on
majority from Mumbai’s Hindutva ideology, ideology, more inclusive had to resign from the
Worli constituency. A and broad-based. post of deputy CM with- the social media.
pass out of the Bombay
more inclusive and In the run-up to the in just three days.
Scottish School in subur- broad-based. polls, he conducted sev- Following the forma-
ban Mahim, Aaditya is a eral roadshows, foot tion of the Maharashtra
graduate in English widespread use of the marches and raised Vikas Aghadi (MVA)
Literature from St material. He also pro- issues such as the felling government though, Ajit
Xavier’s College and has posed the revival of of trees in Aarey Colony Pawar was tipped as
a law degree from KC Mumbai’s nightlife by and said he wants to NCP’s obvious choice for
College. allowing malls and make the constituency a the post of deputy CM.
The Maharashtra gov- restaurants to be open ‘model of development.’ According to political
ernment’s decision to all night. He also reached out to sources, the develop-
ban single-use plastic is His first book of non-Marathi voters in ment underlines the
partly credited to his poems, ‘My Thoughts in the constituency to romp clout that Ajit Pawar
campaign against the Black and White’ was home to a big win. enjoys within his party.

Dynasts make 50%

ture out in the night.
Moreover we wanted to send
out a strong message to the
anti social elements and crim-

inals,” said women and child
development minister K.K.
Shailaja. The WCD has also
raised 25 volunteers in each
Centre who will coordinate
such activities in future.
FIRE AT PM’S
RESIDENTIAL
COMPLEX
New Delhi, Dec. 30: A minor
fire broke out at the SPG
reception area at 9 Lok Kalyan
Marg on Monday but Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s res-
idence or office was not affect-
ed by it, the Prime Minister’s
Office (PMO) said. The fire
has been brought under con-
trol, the PMO added. “There
was a minor fire at 9 Lok
Kalyan Marg caused by a
short circuit. This was not in
PM’s residential or office area
but in the SPG reception area
of the LKM complex. The fire
is very much under control
now,” the PMO tweeted.
The Special protection
Group (SPG) is mandated to
guard the Prime Minister.
of Maha Cabinet
From Page 1
Senior NCP leaders Nawab
Malik and Anil Deshmukh,
who were ministers in the pre-
vious Congress-NCP govern-
ment, however, found place in
the ministry. And former
Assembly speaker Dilip
Walse-Patil and former Leader
of Opposition in the
Legislative Council
Dhananjay Munde were also
sworn in.
While senior Congress lead-
ers Ashok Chavan and Vijay
Wadettiwar took oath as
Cabinet ministers, senior
leader and former chief min-
ister Prithviraj Chavan did
not find place in Thackeray’s
ministry.
There is speculation that he
may lead the state Congress
unit.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi gov-
ernment was formed on
November 28, and Balasaheb
Thorat and Nitin Raut of the
Congress, Eknath Shinde and
Subhash Desai of the Shiv
Sena and Jayant Patil and
Chhagan Bhujbal of the NCP
took the oath of office along
with Thackeray on that very
day.
Dynasty continues rules the
roost in the state, as several
ministers of the new Cabinet
are from political families.
Apart from Aaditya
Thackeray, who is the son of
the Chief Minister, young
leaders like the NCP’s Aditi
Tatkare, who is the daughter
of the NCP’s Raigad Lok
Sabha MP Sunil Tatkare, and
Congress leader Amit
Deshmukh, the son of former
chief minister Vilasrao
Deshmukh, also found a place
in the Cabinet.
Another Congress leader,
Vishwajit Kadam, is the son of
party leader late Patangrao
Kadam. Besides, Gadakh is
the son of former NCP leader
Yaswantrao Gadakh.
His outfit is an ally of the
ruling Shiv Sena and senior
Congress leader Ashok
Chavan is the son of former
chief minister Shankarrao
Chavan.

Information blockade
BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav
says the Congress and other Opposition parties
are immune to knowledge or information
Indians should unite
against BJP’s
attempts to destroy
secular fabric
— Amrinder Singh
Punjab Chief Minister
SHORT TAKES
RAIL ASSETS
WORTH `80CR
DAMAGED
New Delhi, Dec. 30: Railway
property worth `80 crore was
damaged during protests
across the country against
CAA, and the recovery will be
made from those found
involved in arson and vio-
lence, Railway Board chair-
man Vinod Kumar Yadav said.
Protests broke out in several
parts of the country against
CAA, with violent clashes
between the agitators and
police.
Angry protesters burnt
buses, laid siege on tracks and
even burnt train coaches.
“There has been damage of
railway property worth `80
crore during anti-CAA
protests. Of this, the Eastern
Railway suffered damage
worth `70 crore and the dam-
age suffered by the Northeast
Frontier Railway was worth
`10 crore. The damage will be
recovered from those involved
in arson,” Yadav said.
SCRIBES TRY
TO ENTER
REFUGEE CAMP
DC CORRESPONDENT
KANYAKUMARI, DEC. 30
Two journalists were booked
for entering Sri Lankan Tamil
refugee camps in
Kanyakumari district.
Sindhu, a Tamil weekly
reporter and cameraperson
Ramkumar, reportedly went to
the Perumalpuram Tamil
refugee camp near
Kanyakumari to take their
opinion on CAA and NRC.
They were booked on charges
of criminal trespass under
Section 447 of IPC, disobeying
the order duly promulgated by
the government under Section
188 and for entering the camp
with the intention of inciting
refugees.
The cases were registered in
Marthandam and
Kaliyakavilai police stations,
according to a police officer,
who added that it is unlawful
to enter the refugee camp
without getting proper per-
mission from the special tah-
sildar in-charge of the refugee
camps. The police officer
added that entry into the camp
sites in Tamil Nadu has been
restricted in the wake of the
nationwide anti-CAA protests.
KERALA
SESSION ON
CAA TODAY
DC CORRESPONDENT
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC.
30
The Kerala Assembly is all set
to pass a resolution on
Tuesday, urging the Centre to
refrain from issuing the notifi-
cation on the controversial
Citizenship Amendment Act.
The resolution to be moved
by the CPM-led LDF govern-
ment will demand the with-
drawal of CAA. It is expected
to be supported by the
Congress- led opposition UDF.
The lone BJP member in the
Assembly is likely to oppose it.
The decision to convene a
special Assembly session was
taken at the all-party meeting
chaired by Chief Minister
Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday.
Earlier, opposition Congress
had sent a letter to Speaker P.
Sreeramakrishnan urgning
him to bring the resolution
during the Special Session of
Assembly.
“The CAA will become effec-
tive only if the Centre issues a
notification. I have urged the
Speaker to facilitate the pass-
ing of the resolution which
will ask the Centre not to go
ahead with the notification,”
said Congress MLA V. D.
Satheesan.
The BJP state unit came out
strongly against the special
session, being convened at the
behest of the CPM and the
Congress.
PRIGA VIOLATED
PROTOCOL,
SAYS CRPF
New Delhi, Dec. 30:
There was no breach in
Congress leader
Priyanka Gandhi
Vadra’s security during
her recent trip to
Lucknow, the CRPF said
on Monday, blaming her
for “violations” for rid-
ing pillion on a scooter.
The force, which pro-
vides armed comman-
dos under the ‘Z+’ cate-
gory of VIP security
cover to her, said the
Congress leader under-
took “unscheduled
movement without inti-
mation”. Therefore, an
advanced security liai-
son (ASL) could not be
conducted, the Central
Reserve Police Force
(CRPF) said in a state-
ment issued here under
the name of its
Inspector General
(Intelligence and VIP
security) P.K. Singh.
Priyanka Gandhi’s
office had written to
Singh’s office on
December 28 with a com-
plaint that a police
Circle Officer (CO) in
Lucknow had issued
threats to her security
personnel and warned of
restricting her move-
ments on the same day.
The statement said
“there was no breach in
security by the official”
who happens to be the
CO of Hazartganj,
Abhay Mishra.
It said the “only pro-
gramme” of Priyanka
Gandhi indicated to the
CRPF team for that day
was about her visit to
the local Pradesh
Congress Committee
office for attending a
party foundation day
event.
The CRPF said it con-
ducted an ASL for this
event and intimated it to
state authorities.
It alleged that the
Congress leader’s “per-
sonal staff did not com-
municate” the detailed
programme of the day to
the Uttar Pradesh Police
CO when he came call-
ing at Priyanka
Gandhi’s place of stay in
Lucknow at about 8 am.
The force said while
there was no breach in
Gandhi’s security, at
least three “security vio-
lations” took place when
she chose to ride a two-
wheeler while on her
way to visit retired IPS
officer S.R. Darapuri.
“While travelling, the
protectee used non-bul-
let resistant civil vehicle
without a personal secu-
rity officer. The pro-
tectee took a lift on
scooty as a pillion rider,”
it said, adding that as
this movement was not
planned, the CRPF team
could not conduct an
ASL which was a breach
of security protocol
mandated for Priyanka
Gandhi.
“Despite the security
constraints, appropriate
security cover was pro-
vided by the CRPF dur-
ing the visit,” it said.
AICC general secretary
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
at a press conference at
party office in Lucknow
on Monday. —PTI
RELIGIOUS | HARMONY ■ Call
Church opens its doors for namaz
Kochi, Dec. 30: Opening a
new chapter in the history
of communal harmony in
Kerala, an ancient church
in Kothamangalam
opened its gates to hun-
dreds of Muslims, who
were participating in an
anti-CAA protest, to offer
prayers.
“I could experience the
real spirit of India when
authorities of an ancient
church in Kothama-
ngalam provided us space
to offer Maghrib Namaz,”
Sayyid Munavvar Ali
Shihab Thangal, an influ-
ential spiritual leader of
Kerala Muslims, who led
the namaz, said.
The call for Maghrib
Did not assault Kerala Governor, says Irfan Habib
DC CORRESPONDENT
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM,
DEC. 30
The Indian History
Congress, which was in
session in Kannur in
north Kerala on Monday,
passed a resolution con-
demning the police action
in Jamia Milia Islamia
University, Delhi.
The police action was
aimed at curbing the dem-
ocratic rights of the peo-
Students take part in a protest rally against NRC and the amended Citizenship Act in Kolkata on Monday.
No place for revenge,
Priyanka tells Yogi
Rahul asks Cong leaders to visit those injured in protest
SREEPARNA
CHAKRABARTY | DC
with agency inputs
NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW, DEC.
30
Amid the ongoing protests
against the new citizen-
ship law, the Congress top
brass upped the ante over
the issue with former
party chief Rahul Gandhi
asking its leaders to visit
those injured in the police
excesses in agitations and
AICC general secretary
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
castigating U.P. Chief
Minister Yogi Adityanath
for his comment that
those damaging property
would have to pay for it.
Vadra, also the party’s
Uttar Pradesh in-charge,
sent a memorandum to
U.P. Governor Anandiben
Patel, which said the U.P.
police was “patently
unlawful, destructive of
the rule of law and repres-
sive of honest citizens”.
Sonowal asks agitators to cooperate
MANOJ ANAND | DC
GUWAHATI, DEC. 30
Assam Chief Minister
Sarbananda Sonowal on
Monday sought coopera-
tion of all agitating
groups in holding the T20
match between India and
Sri Lanka in Guwahati on
January 5.
The CM’s appeal came
after All Assam Students’
Union (Aasu), which is
spearheading the agita-
tion against the CAA and
the NRC in the state,
issued a veiled warning
stating they are keeping a
for Namaz came during secular march by AIPC
Namaz (prayers offered
after sunset) came when a
“secular march” organ-
ised by the Kerala chapter
of All India Professional
Congress (AIPC) reached
near the church on
Saturday, known as
Cheriya Palli.
AIPC leader Mathew
Kuzhalnadan said to avoid
the delay in offering
evening prayers for hun-
dreds of people from
Muslim community, the
church authorities were
contacted and requested
them to permit the
Muslims to offer namaz in
the church premises.
He said the church
authorities immediately
ple, the resolution said.
The Congress also passed
another resolution to
protest against the
attempts being made by
the powers that be to dis-
tort history. Another reso-
lution was against the
commercialisation of his-
toric monuments in the
country.
The organisers accused
Governor Arif
Mohammed Khan of vio-
lating protocol during the
This, the memo said, is
“unbefitting of a force
that is duty-bound to safe-
guard and protect citizens’
rights”.
Addressing a press con-
ference in Lucknow later,
she hit out at Yogi
Adityanath and said that
there was no place for vio-
lence or “revenge” in the
country.
Yogi Adityanath had
warned earlier that riot-
ers who had damaged pub-
lic property will have to
pay the compensation.
To this, the Congress
leader said saffron
denotes Hinduism, a reli-
gion that does not advo-
cate violence or
“revenge”.
Rahul Gandhi has asked
partymen to visit people
injured in the anti-CAA
protests and provide help
if needed.
“All across the country,
many young men and
women were injured and
■ THE CHIEF MINISTER’S
appeal comes after Aasu,
that is spearheading anti-
CAA agitation in Assam,
said they are watching
the ensuing cricket match
closely.
close watch on two mega
events — T20 and Khelo
India. In an obvious refer-
ence to student leaders,
Sonowal underlined that
such events are presti-
gious and contribute
towards the development
of the state. Any opposi-
tion to such events would
■ IN ORDER to avoid
delay in evening prayers,
the church authorities
opened the gates and
also arranged carpets
and microphones for
namaz.
threw open the iron gates
of the church, wholeheart-
edly welcoming their
Muslim bretheren.
The chief priest of the
church also arranged car-
pets and microphones for
facilitating the prayers, he
said.
“The gesture shown by
the church authorities
generated a kind feeling
DECCAN CHRONICLE
inaugural session.
They said the Governor
should have delivered an
unbiased address during
the inauguration.
However, he violated the
protocol by taking sides.
The people on the dais
had only questioned the
biased attitude of the
Governor. There was no
protocol violation in Irfan
Habib registering his
protest during the
Governor’s address.
some even killed while
protesting against the
CAA, he said.
“I urge our Congress
party workers to meet the
victims’ families and pro-
vide all possible assis-
tance,” he tweeted.
On Saturday, during his
visit to Assam, Gandhi
met the families of two
young men killed during
the protests against the
CAA.
The Telangana Congress
has decided to take up the
issue of the withdrawal of
SPG cover to the Gandhis
during the protests
against the CAA in the
state.
Speaking to this newspa-
per, Congress in-charge
for Telangana R.C.
Khuntia said, “the govern-
ment deliberately with-
drew the security given to
the Gandhis to that they
can be targeted by the
police”.
On Saturday, Vadra
be highly counter-produc-
tive for Assam, he said.
Addressing a peace rally,
the CM asked protesters to
inform people as to why
they have taken a sudden
dislike for BJP-led govern-
ment in the state. He also
wanted to know why BJP
leaders, from panchayat to
Union ministry, are being
made targets of attacks
and for what reason.
Sonowal said, “Since the
formation of our govern-
ment in 2016, we have been
working tirelessly and
with commitment for
development of Assam
among us. There are no
words to explain it. We
could experience secular-
ism and the soul of India,”
said Thangal, who is also a
member of Panakkad
Thangal family which con-
trols Indian Union Muslim
League (IUML).
Priests of the shrine
were offering evening
prayers inside the church
when Thangal was leading
namaz in its courtyard.
“This is the message we
intended to convey
through the secular
march,” said Kuzhal-
nadan, a Congress leader,
who is heading the AIPC, a
department of the Indian
National Congress.
Nation
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
Meanwhile, Habib refut-
ed Kerala Governor’s alle-
gation that he tried to
assault him. “At 88 years of
age how can I assault any-
one,” he asked.
Khan had accused Habib
of attempting to manhan-
dle him on the stage dur-
ing the inauguration of
Indian History Congress
in Kannur on Saturday.
The Governor tweeted a
picture to support his alle-
gation.
—PTI
alleged she had been man-
handled by the UP police
when she had tried to visit
a protester.
However, talking to the
media on Monday, she said
her own security was not a
big issue.
“The question of my
security is not a big one. It
is a small question, on
which there is no need to
hold any discussion. I will
not raise the issue of secu-
rity as it is a trivial matter.
It has nothing to do with
the public,” she said.
“The issue is the safety
of the common man in UP.
This is the country of
Lord Krishna — who was
the symbol of compassion.
Lord Ram was the symbol
of compassion. Everybody
dances in the marriage
procession (baraat) of
Lord Shiva. There is no
place for ‘hinsaa’ (vio-
lence), ‘badlaa’ (revenge)
and ‘ranj’ (anger) in the
country’s soul”.
and for protecting inter-
ests of the indigenous peo-
ple of Assam. My govern-
ment has been maintain-
ing transparency in gover-
nance all along. I have not
committed any mistake.
None of my ministers
have made any mistakes.
Then, why this hardened
stand against us? People of
Assam need to know the
answer.”
He added, “We have
enough evidence against
conspirators. There are
Congress and several
organisations that lean
towards Left ideologies.
The “secular march”
against the BJP-led gov-
ernment's decision to
implement the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA)
was attended by people
from all major political
parties including the
Congress, the CPI(M) and
the IUML.
Noted Supreme Court
lawyer Indira Jaisingh,
CPM leader M. B. Rajesh,
Congress MLA V.T.
Blaram, Thangal and
Kuzhalnadan addressed
the meeting held in
Kothamangalam town
after the march covered
over 10 km from a masjid
premises in
Muvattupuzha. —PTI
The inaugural session on
Saturday had witnessed
protests from a section of
delegates when Khan
spoke in support the
Central government and
Citizens Amendment Act.
Meanwhile, amid protest
by many non-BJP ruled
states against the CAA,
the Centre on Monday said
the states have to imple-
ment the legislation as it
had been passed by
Parliament. “Under the
‘Isolate’ BJP,
appeals Mamata
RAJIB CHOWDHURI | DC
KOLKATA, DEC. 30
West Bengal Chief
Minister Mamata
Banerjee on Monday
appealed to the political
parties and civil society
to “isolate” the BJP in the
country, to add more teeth
to her movement against
the Citizenship
Amendment Act and
National Register of
Citizens.
Spreading her move-
ment in the districts, she
made it clear that those,
who want to “displace”
others, do not have any
“place” in the country.
The Trinamul Congress
supremo also wondered
how many times the
country got a Prime
Minister from the BJP
and whether the BJP
would exist only in the
country in others’
absence.
Predicting the BJP’s
ouster from power from
other states also after
Jharkhand and
Maharashtra, she pinned
her hopes on these states
to join West Bengal and
Kerala to protest against
the National Population
Register (NPR) imple-
mentation.
“A heinous conspiracy
is under way to drive out
people of the country in
the name of the NRC. I
call upon all to be united
and get prepared and iso-
late the BJP everywhere
in the country. Those who
want to displace others do
not have any place in our
country. We have stopped
the NPR here. It will not
happen here,” Banerjee
told a rally after leading a
protest march in Purulia.
She noted, “Kerala also
declared not to imple-
ment the NPR. We hope
Kolams become
protest symbol
DC CORRESPONDENT
CHENNAI, DEC. 30
‘Kolams’, a traditional
form of decoration with
rice flour drawn in front
of houses, especially
colourful in the Tamil
month of Margazhi,
turned a hot political turf
in several parts of Tamil
Nadu on Monday with the
Opposition DMK joining
students, turning them
into emblems of protest
against the Centre’s
Citizenship Amendment
Act (CAA) and National
Register of Citizens
(NRC).
Kolams drawn in front
of the home of DMK MP
Kanimozhi were adorned
with the Tamil words—
‘Vendaam CAA, Vendaam
NRC (No to CAA, No to
NRC) — and they trig-
gered similar symbolic
protests in front of the
residences of DMK presi-
dent M.K. Stalin and
other DMK functionaries
in the city.
The novel stir, which is
but two days old, had a
DMK president M.K. Stalin watches the kolam (rangoli)
in front of his residence in south Chennai.
PAGE
7
Constitution, they (states)
have to implement it
CAA”, Union parliamen-
tary affairs minister
Arjun Ram Meghwal told
a press conference con-
vened in Kochi to convey
the views of the Centre as
well as the BJP on the
CAA.
His statement comes a
day after a meeting of var-
ious political parties and
socio-religious outfits on
the issue.
■ CHIEF MINISTER
Mamata Banerjee made it
clear that those who want
to “displace” the citizens
do not have a place in the
country
■ THE CM also said that
people in Jharkhand and
Maharashtra ousted the
BJP government as soon
as they got the chance
other states follow suit.
We will not allow the NPR
if it is the first step of the
NRC.”
Comparing the BJP’s
rule with that of the
Congress’ and others at
the Centre, Banerjee
asked, “Nothing can be
more shameful than this.
How many times have
they been voted to power?
How many times did they
have a Prime Minister?”
She continued, “Pandit
Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lal
Bahadur Shastri, Indira
Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi,
I.K. Gujral, H.D. Deve
Gowda, V.P. Singh,
Manmohan Singh...there
were so many. We voted
them to be the Prime
Minister. So many gov-
ernments were run. But
now people are asked to
leave the country. Will the
BJP exist only if others
are not there? Everybody
has seen how the people
drove them out of power
in Jharkhand and
Maharshtra after getting
a chance.”
The Trinamul chief
observed, “People will
throw them out from
power whenever they get
a chance in the elections
from now on. No govern-
ment can continue like
this. Hindustan is ours.
How can you divide the
country into pieces? It
can not happen.”
massive effect as it start-
ed going viral in other
parts of the state.
After a group of college
girls, in Besant Nagar in
Chennai, first came out
on Sunday to draw atten-
tion to the people’s pro-
found dislike, if not out-
right fear of the CAA and
the contemplated
NPR/NRC exercises, this
simple act by women of
drawing patterns by join-
ing up dots emerged a
powerful non-violent
mode of protest.
The Pradesh Congress
president K.S. Azhagiri,
DMK’s ally, also dared the
authorities to arrest him
if they wished, by draw-
ing a ‘Kolam’ in front of
his house in Cuddalore
district with the same slo-
gans. L
Leaders of almost all
political parties includ-
ing the CPI, the CPM, the
MDMK and the AMMK
condemned the police
action against the girl
students who demonstrat-
ed this simple out-of-the-
box idea with rice flour.
—DC

Progressive step
Angela Merkel discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution
for the Libyan conflict in two separate phone calls with Turkish
President Erdogan and Russian President Putin
Americans have you
in their thoughts and
prayers as you face
this fight
— Nancy Pelosi
on John Lewis cancer
IN BRIEF
Iraq warns of
tough reply to US
Baghdad: A top Iraqi militia
leader warned of a strong
response against US forces
in Iraq following air strikes in
Iraq and Syria overnight that
killed at least 25 people. The
air strikes against the
Iranian-backed Kataib
Hezbollah militia group was
in response to the killing of a
US civilian contractor in a
rocket attack on an Iraqi mil-
itary base, officials said. Iraqi
security and militia sources
said at least 25 militia fight-
ers were killed and at least
55 wounded. “The blood of
the martyrs will not be in
vain and our response will be
very tough on the American
forces in Iraq,” senior com-
mander Jamal Jaafar
Ibrahimi, said.
Turkey arrests 70
ISIS suspects
Istanbul: Turkish police
detained 70 people suspect-
ed of ties to Islamic State in
nationwide raids early on
Monday, ahead of New Year
celebrations, state media
said two months after the
killing of the group’s leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Police
have rounded up jihadist mil-
itants in late December in
the last two years, since New
Year’s Day in 2017 when a
gunman killed 39 people in
an Istanbul nightclub in an
attack claimed by the mili-
tant group. Counter-terror
police ramped up intelli-
gence activities and carried
out the operations in the
central provinces of Ankara,
Kayseri and Adana, and
Batman in the southeast,
state-owned Anadolu news
agency reported.
Sudan: 27 Intel
agents get death
Cairo: A court in Sudan on
Monday sentenced 27 mem-
bers of the country’s security
forces to death for torturing
and killing a detained pro-
tester during the uprising
against Sudan’s longtime
autocrat Omar al-Bashir ear-
lier this year. The death of
protester Ahmed al-Khair, a
school teacher, while in
detention in February was a
key point — and a symbol —
in the uprising that eventual-
ly led to the military’s ouster
of al-Bashir. Monday’s con-
victions and sentences,
which can be appealed, were
the first connected to the
killings of protesters in the
revolt. The first rally in
Sudan was held to protest
the soaring cost of bread.
PAK TALIBAN
COMMANDER
SHOT DEAD
Kabul, Dec. 30: Tehrik-e-
Taliban Pakistan (TTP) com-
mander Qari Saifullah
Mehsud has been shot dead by
gunmen in Afghanistan, the
group confirmed.
Qari Saifullah Mehsudwas
was killed outside the Guloon
camp in Khost province, the
group spokesperson said in an
audio message.
The spokesman claimed that
the attack was carried out by
the Haqqani network, as they
had killed three terrorists
belonging to the TTP’s
Hakimullah Mehsud group in
the area a few days ago.
The TTP was founded in 2007
by Baitullah Mehsud and is
currently divided into four
factions — Swat group,
Mehsud group, Bajaur Agency
group, and Darra Adamkhel
group. Qari Saifullah Mehsud
was among the terrorists
wanted by Pakistani authori-
ties for his involvement in var-
ious attacks in the country.
In an audio message,
Mehsud had claimed that his
group conducted 75 terror
attacks this year, mostly tar-
geting local elders in North
and South Waziristan districts
of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Mehsud’s death is a big jolt for
TTP as he was attempting to
unite all the four factions.
A 2020 dance
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, centre right, dances with TV host Polina Shuba during Vienna Ball ahead of New Year celebration in
Minsk, Belarus.
Robert O’Brien
US READY FOR China convicts 3 researchers illegal medical practice
ACTION AGAINST
NORTH KOREA
Washington, Dec. 30:
National security advi-
sor Robert O’Brien has
said that the United
States is ready to take
action as North Korea
delivered a threat.
O’Brien’s remarks
come in response to
Pyongyang threatening
a ‘Christmas gift’ unless
US did not provide con-
cession on denuclearisa-
tion talks by its self
imposed year-end dead-
line.
“If Kim Jong Un takes
that approach, we’ll be
extraordinarily disap-
pointed and we’ll
express that disappoint-
ment,” O’Brien said.
North Korea has set a
year-end deadline for the
United States to change
what it says is a policy of
hostility amid a stale-
mate in efforts to make
progress to end its nu-
clear programme and
establish lasting peace.
Pyongyang warned US
last week
deadline looms.
over
Christmas gift as the
Kim and Trump have
met three times since
a
June 2018 but there has
been no substantive pro-
gress in dialogue and the
government in Pyon-
gyang has demanded
that international sanc-
tions be lifted first.
Last week, North
Korea said the US would
‘pay dearly’ for taking
issue with Pyongyang’s
hum-an rights record
and that Washington’s
‘malicious words’ would
only aggravate tensions
on the Korean Penin-
sula. The US envoy for
North Korea Stephen
Biegun visited South
Korea and China, last
week, making a public
and direct call to North
Korea to return to nego-
tiation. North Korea has
conducted a number of
test-launches of short-
range missiles in the
months since. — ANI
JUMBO | CONTEST
Elephants run for beauty contest in Nepal’s Chitwan
Kathmandu, Dec. 30:
Nepalis on Monday took
part in the 16th edition of
Elephant Festival which
aims to bring humans clos-
er with elephants, encour-
age wildlife protection and
conservation, and promote
tourism in the region.
Five elephants partici-
pated in the competition
that took place in Sauraha,
a tourism hub in south-
Scientist who edited
babies’ genes jailed
Beijing, Dec. 30: A
Chinese scientist who set
off an ethical debate with
claims that he had made
the world’s first genetical-
ly edited babies was sen-
tenced on Monday to three
years in prison because of
his research.
He Jiankui, who was
convicted of practicing
medicine without a He’s work as medically
license, was also fined 3
million yuan ($430,000) by
a court in the southern
Chinese city of Shenzhen.
Two other researchers
involved in the project
received lesser sentences
and fines.
The verdict said the
three defendants had not
obtained qualification as
doctors, pursued fame and
profits, deliberately violat-
ed Chinese regulations on
scientific research and
crossed an ethical line in
both scientific research
and medicine.
The court said the
researchers were involved
in the births of three gene-
edited babies to two
women, confirming repo-
Putin marks 20 years in power
Moscow, Dec. 30: As
Russian President Vla-
dimir Putin marks two
decades in power, he
boasts about his achieve-
ments but remains coy
about his political future
— a reticence that fuels
wild speculation about his
intentions.
Putin points to the
revival of Russia’s global
clout, industrial modern-
ization, booming agricul-
tural exports and a resur-
gent military as key
results of his tenure that
began on Dec. 31, 1999. On
that day, Russia’s first
President Boris Yeltsin
abruptly stepped down
and named the former
KGB officer his successor,
paving the way for his
election three months
later. Critics accuse Putin
of rolling back post-Soviet
freedoms to establish tight
■ Elephant festival encourages wildlife protection and conservation, promotes tourism
west Nepal’s Chitwan dis-
trict.
“We train them. We teach
them all the things. It
takes us around 6-7
months to prepare them
for it and only after that
they are allowed to partici-
pate in the competition,”
Jire Chaudhary, a mahout
whose elephant took part
in the show, said.
A three-member jury
He Jiankui
rts of a third baby. It also
said they had fabricated
ethical review documents.
He, the lead researcher,
shocked the scientific
world when he announced
in November 2018 that he
had altered the embryos of
twin girls who had been
born the same month.
The announcement spa-
rked a global debate over
the ethics of gene editing.
He said he had used a tool
called CRISPR to try to
disable a gene that allows
the Aids virus to enter a
cell, in a bid to give the
Vladimir Putin
control over the political
scene, marginalise the
opposition and stifle criti-
cal media. They hold him
responsible for tensions
with the West after
Russia’s 2014 annexation
of Ukraine’s Crimea,
which bolstered his
approval ratings but trig-
gered US and European
sanctions. — AP
evaluated the jumbos on
the basis of cleanliness,
including their body and
nails, the style of walking,
discipline, in words carry-
ing out orders given by
mahouts.
It is the duty of a mahout
to prepare his elephant for
the show which undergoes
a long procedure and pre-
paredness, he said. “We
bring materials required
DECCAN CHRONICLE
girls the ability to resist
the infection. The identity
of the girls has not been
released, and it isn’t clear
if the experiment succeed-
ed.
The CRISPR tool has
been tested elsewhere in
adults to treat diseases,
but many in the scientific
community denounced
unnecessary and unethi-
cal, because any genetic
changes could be passed
down to future genera-
tions. The US forbids edit-
ing embryos except for lab
research.
He, who is known as
“JK,” said in 2018 that he
felt a strong responsibility
to make an example, and
that society would decide
whether to allow the prac-
tice to go forward. He dis-
appeared from public view
shortly after he anno-
unced his research at a
conference in Hong Kong
13 months ago, apparently
detained by authorities,
initially in an apartment
in Shenzhen.
It wasn’t clear if the
Trump thanked for
Kremlin terror alert
Moscow, Dec. 30: Russia
said it had thwarted ter-
rorism attacks reportedly
planned in St. Petersburg
thanks to a tip from
Washington, bringing per-
sonal thanks again from
President Vladimir Putin
to his US counterpart
Donald Trump.
The Federal Security
Service said thanks to the
information, two Russ-
ians were detained on Dec.
27 on suspicion of plotting
attacks during New Year
festivities in St. Pete-
rsburg.
The Kremlin said Putin
passed on his gratitude to
World
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
— AP
three-year prison term
includes any of the time
he has already spent in
Chinese custody.
Dr. William Hurlbut, a
Stanford University bio-
ethicist whose advice He
sought for more than a
year before his experi-
ment, said he felt sorry for
the scientist, his wife and
two young daughters.
“I warned him things
could end this way, but it
was just too late,” Hurlbut
wrote in an email to the
director of the US
National Institutes of
Health, Dr. Francis
Collins, and gene-editing
pioneer Jennifer Doudna
at the University of
California, Berkeley.
He studied in the US
before setting up a lab at
the Southern university of
science and technology of
China in Shenzhen, a city
in Guangdong province
that borders Hong Kong.
The verdict accused him
of colluding with Zhang
Renli and Qin Jinzhou,
who worked at medical
institutes. — AP
Trump during a phone
call for the tip from US
special services.
Diplomatic ties between
US and Moscow are
fraught over disagreeme-
nts from Ukraine to Syria
and allegations of Rus-
sian meddling in the US
presidential election, but
Trump and Putin have
managed to keep personal
lines open. Two years ago,
the Russian leader also
phoned Trump to thank
him for a tip that Russia
said helped prevent a
bomb attack on a cathe-
dral in St Petersburg.
— Reuters
■ Jumbos are
judged for cleanli-
ness, including
their body and
nails, the style of
walking, discipline,
in words carrying
out orders given
by mahouts
Jewish leaders
demand action
New York, Dec. 30: Whe-
n a suspect walked into
the home of a rabbi cele-
brating Hanukkah and
stabbed five celebrants it
was the latest in a week of
anti-Semitic attacks in
the nation’s most demo-
graphically diverse area
— and an incident that
reverberated across the
country.
“Again, here we are:
mourning another act of
senseless anti-Semitic vi-
olence committed against
our community and pray-
ing for those who were
the victims of this hate,”
anti-defamation league
(ADL) CEO Jonathan
Greenblatt said following
the attack in Monsey, New
York. “This is at least the
10th anti-Semitic incident
to hit the New York/New
Jersey area in just the
last week. When will
enough be enough? These
heinous attacks make
something abundantly
clear: The Jewish commu-
nity needs greater protec-
tion,” Greenblatt said.
Since the Dec. 10 mas-
sacre at a kosher grocery
store in New Jersey there
have been 19 anti-Semitic
incidents in the US,
including 16 in New York
and New Jersey, accord-
ing to the ADL’s tracker of
Anti-Semitic incidents.
The tracker is a compila-
tion of recent cases of
Neighbours gather to show their support of the com-
munity near a rabbis residence in Monsey, New York,
on Monday.
Protests on NYE
in Hong Kong
Hong Kong, Dec. 30:
Hong Kong will end 2019
with multiple protests
planned for New Year’s
Eve and New Year’s day
aimed at disrupting fes-
tivities and shopping in
the Asian financial hub,
which has seen a rise in
clashes between police
and protesters since
Christmas.
Events dubbed “Suck
the Eve” and “Shop With
You” are set for New
Year’s Eve on Tuesday in
areas including the party
district of Lan Kwai
Fong, the picturesque
Victoria Harbour, and
popular shopping malls,
according to notices on
social media.
A pro-democracy march
on Jan. 1 has been given
police permission and
will start from a large
park in bustling Caus-
eway Bay and end in the
central business district.
Protesters take to the streets for a march in Hong
Kong.
to prepare the elephants,
including the colours, mix
them up and paint over the
bodies of an elephant
right on-spot,” he added.
It takes at least an hour
for mahouts to prepare an
elephant for the show with
paintings all over the body.
The elephant who wins
the show gets a treat of
delicious food such as sug-
arcane, banana, papaya
PAGE
8
■ SINCE THE Dec. 10
massacre at a kosher
grocery store in New
Jersey there have been
19 anti-Semitic inci-
dents in the US, includ-
ing 16 in New York and
New Jersey
anti-Jewish vandalism,
harassment and assault
reported to or detected by
the group.
Ten of those incidents
have occurred in New
York since Dec. 23 and
involved assaults or
threatened violence. The
ADL defines assaults as
incidents where people’s
bodies are targeted with
violence accompanied by
evidence of anti-Semitic
animus or in a manner
that attacks Jews for their
religious affiliation.
To put the week-long toll
in context, the NYPD
reco-rded 19 hate-crime
felony assault complaints
in the first three quarters
of 2019.
The surge of high-pro-
file attacks on the Jewish
community, including sh-
ooting rampages at the
Tree of Life synagogue in
Pittsburgh in October
2018, and at a synagogue
in Poway, California, in
April, have caused con-
sternation around the
country. — AP
— AP
Organisers civil human
rights front were behind
the peaceful million-plus
marches in June and held
a mass protest earlier in
December, which they
said around 8,00,000 peo-
ple attended.
“On New Year’s Day, we
need to show our solidari-
ty to resist the govern-
ment. We hope Hong
Kong people will come
onto the streets for Hong
Kong’s future,” said
Jimmy Sham.
The protests began in
June in response to a
now-withdrawn bill that
would have allowed extra-
ditions to mainland Chi-
na, where courts are con-
trolled by the Communist
Party, and have evolved
into a broader pro-democ-
racy movement. Police
said they would deploy
crowd control patrols and
urged marchers to rem-
ain peaceful. — Reuters
— AP
and other varieties where-
as the owner of the ele-
phant is awarded a cash
prize. The annual elephant
festival not only brings
humans close to the mam-
mal but also raises aware-
ness regarding wildlife
conservation.
This year’s event is
organised in promotion of
the Visit Nepal Year 2020
campaign. — ANI

Be prepared
Kim Jong-un called for his military and diplomats
to prepare unspecified offensive measures to
protect the country’s security and sovereignty
Biden’s vote to
authorise Iraq War
worst foreign policy
decision
— Pete Buttigieg
Democratic presidential candidate
IN BRIEF
Thief throws
stolen cash in air
Denver: A man with a white
beard was being held on
$10,000 bond for allegedly
robbing a Colorado bank
and throwing the stolen cash
into the air while shouting,
“Merry Christmas” to
passersby, police and local
media reported on Tuesday.
David Wayne Oliver, 65, was
arrested at a nearby
Starbucks coffee shop after
he held up the Academy
Bank in Colorado Springs on
Monday afternoon, accord-
ing to a police report. Police
said the suspect had “threat-
ened the use of a weapon”
and left the bank with an
undisclosed amount of cash.
A police spokesperson could
not immediately be reached.
French tourist
hurt by shark
Victoria (Seychelles): A
French tourist was seriously
injured after being attacked
by a shark while swimming
in the Seychelles, a popular
tourist destination, the
French ambassador said on
Monday. The attack on the
45-year-old woman took
place on Sunday night off
the island of Praslin, the sec-
ond-largest in the pictur-
esque archipelago famed for
its pristine beaches. The vic-
tim was injured in one arm
and was transported to a
hospital. "She underwent an
operation last night and her
life is not in danger,"
Ambassador Dominique Mas
told news agency AFP. The
attack comes during the
high tourist season for the
Seychelles, an archipelago of
115 islands located off the
coast of East Africa in the
Indian Ocean.
Purifiers, Pakistan
solution to smog
Lahore: For the past few
months Hasan Zaidi’s phone
has been ringing nonstop
with calls from desperate
residents in Pakistan hoping
to get their hands on his
newly invented air purifier as
smog blankets the country.
“Some days, I had so many
calls that I couldn’t answer,”
says Zaidi. Tired of choking
on putrid air, Zaidi spent six
months perfecting his home-
made device as he looked
for a low-cost solution to
battle the increasingly toxic
scourge overwhelming
Pakistan. During this winter
alone the 31-year-old engi-
neer has already sold some
500 units, which are priced
at just 16,000 Pakistani
rupees, but admits to refus-
ing hundreds of orders in
recent weeks due to lack of
manpower and resources.
In cash-strapped Pakistan
Zaidi’s purifiers are cheaper
than imported models.
THAI RIVALS TO
RUN AGAINST
DICTATORSHIP
Bangkok, Dec. 30: More than
10,000 people have registered
for a “Run Against
Dictatorship” in Bangkok next
month while supporters of the
Thai government plan to stage
a rival walk on the same day,
organisers said on Monday.
The twin events, set for
January 12, point to the rising
political temperature in
Thailand, though there is no
immediate sign of any return
to the violent street protests
that have roiled the Thai capi-
tal over the past two decades.
Opponents of the govern-
ment say it manipulated an
election held in March to
extend the rule of junta leader
Prayuth Chan-ocha and they
now fear that authorities will
move to dissolve the vocal
opposition party Future
Forward.
“We want to show the gov-
ernment the discontent that
citizens have with the admin-
istration,” university student
Tanawat Wongchai said. The
rival event is called “Walk to
Cheer Uncle” — a reference to
Prayuth’s nickname of Uncle
Tu.
A skycrane drops water on a bushfire in scrub behind houses in Bundoora, Melbourne on Monday. New Year’s Eve fireworks in Australian capital
and other cities have been cancelled as the wildfire danger worsens in oppressive summer heat. Sydney will set off its iconic fireworks display
after being granted an exemption.
RFS volunteer firefighter
killed battling bushfire
Extreme heatwave conditions in Oz force mass evacution of people
S yd n ey / M e l b o u r n e ,
Dec. 30: A volunteer fire-
fighter was killed battling
Australian bushfires on
Monday as “columns” of
flames generating their
own dangerous weather
systems bore down on a
tourist region, prompting
the evacuation of tens of
thousands of people.
The firefighter, and two
others who suffered
burns, were working on a
fire about 70 km (45 miles)
east of Albury in New
South Wales (NSW) when,
it is believed, their truck
rolled after being hit by
strong winds, authorities
said on Twitter.
The incident took the
death toll from the coun-
try’s raging bushfires to
nine and added pressure
on authorities to reconsid-
er New Year celebration
plans for the city of
Sydney.
Around 100 fires are
burning across Australia,
Tourists flee as heat wave fans blaze
An aerial scene shows fires burning and smoke rising close to properties in Bundoora,
Victoria state, on Monday.
OUT OF | BOUNDS
No more photo-only tours at Antelope Canyon
Phoenix, Dec. 30:
Photographers will have
to throw away their shot at
snapping photos of the
globally recognized Upper
Antelope Canyon in
Arizona.
Tour operators of the
slot canyon, known for its
red-orange sandstone
walls, on the Navajo
Nation announced last
week that photo-only tours
will cease, The Arizona
Republic reported.
Antelope Canyon Tours,
which is owned by mem-
bers of the Navajo tribe,
with as many as 14 “emer-
gency” warnings in place
for Victoria while fires are
also threatening homes
and infrastructure in
South Australia and
Tasmania.
Tens of thousands were
evacuated as “columns of
fire” fuelled by extreme
heat and high winds bore
down on the popular
tourist region of East
Gippsland in Victoria
state in Australia’s south-
east.
Wildfires that have
plagued the country’s east-
ern coast for weeks flared
again to danger levels in
East Gippsland, an area
encompassing two nation-
al parks, lakes and coastal
plains that is half the size
of Belgium.
By late afternoon, offi-
cials warned holiday mak-
ers to stay off the roads
because of thick smoke
and unpredictable, fast-
moving fires, adding that
■ Owners, who are members of the Navaio tribe, announce photography ban on the website
announced the decision on
its website. The photogra-
pher-only tours have led to
long wait times as profes-
sional shutterbugs try to
get that picture-perfect
shot. Visitors with cell-
phones and cameras on
the regular tours can still
take photos. But tripods
will no longer be permit-
ted.
Guided tours are the
only way tourists can
reach upper or lower
Antelope Canyon near
Page in northern Arizona.
Photo-tours are not avail-
■ Tens of thousands
were evacuated as
“columns of fire” fuelled
by extreme heat and
high winds bore down
on the popular tourist
region of East Gippsland
■ Bushfires have
destroyed more than 4
million hectares (10 mil-
lion acres) — an area
the size of Japan —
across Australia in
recent weeks.
it was now too late for peo-
ple who had not left the
region to do so.
“Leaving now would be
deadly,” authorities said.
The state’s Emergency
M a n a g e m e n t
Commissioner Andrew
Crisp said “columns of
fire” were punching into
the atmosphere and gener-
ating their own erratic
— AP
■ Guided tours are the
only way tourists can
reach upper or lower
Antelope Canyon near
Page in northern Arizona
■ Some tour operators
are considering leading
photography tours in
other slot canyons
■ Visitors on the regu-
lar tours can still take
photos.
able at Lower Antelope
DECCAN CHRONICLE
weather systems.
“There’s lightning com-
ing out of these columns,”
Crisp told reporters. “It is
unpredictable, it’s danger-
ous out there.”
With some firefronts
stretching more than 1,000
km (620 miles) and temper-
atures reaching as high as
43 Celsius (109
Fahrenheit), Crisp said
the danger will remain
high into the evening.
Bushfires have destroyed
more than 4 million
hectares (10 million acres)
- an area the size of Japan
— across Australia in
recent weeks. At the
Wallagaraugh River
Retreat in Mallacoota, a
coastal town in East
Gippsland, owner Lynette
Sykes told Reuters her
property was evacuated
this morning.
“We were not going to
take any risks with peo-
ple’s lives,” Sykes said.
A video posted on social
Sydney, Dec. 30: Tourists
and firefighters were
forced to flee vast fires
burning in southeastern
Australia on Monday, as a
heatwave rekindled devas-
tating bush blazes across
the country.
Authorities said “quite a
number” of the 30,000
tourists visiting the usual-
ly picturesque southeast
tip of the continent had
heeded calls to evacuate.
More than a dozen blazes
are raging in the East
Gippsland countryside,
some so intensely that
hundreds of firefighters
were pulled back beyond a
firefront estimated to
stretch 1,000 kilometres
(600 miles).
It was deemed “unsafe”
Canyon. The upper and
lower canyons are man-
aged by the Navajo Parks
and Recreation
Department.
No one at the agency was
immediately available
Friday to respond to a call
seeking comment.
Tours of Antelope
Canyon usually run out of
bookings in a matter of
months or even weeks in
advance. Social media has
undoubtedly played a role
in the slot canyon’s ability
to draw millions of
tourists a year. Antelope
World
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
— AP
media site Facebook
showed tourist Nicholas
Costanzo escaping from
the Victorian bushfire on
a narrow two-way road
dotted with fire trucks as
thick smoke blurred
vision. “Please pray for
us,” he said.
Authorities across
Australia’s south, includ-
ing fire-ravaged South
Australia, warned that dry
lightning could spark fur-
ther flare-ups overnight
even as the temperature is
forecast to cool. Dry light-
ning occurs when a storm
forms from high tempera-
tures, but the much-need-
ed rain evaporates before
reaching the ground.
Large parts of Australia
have suffered through sev-
eral years of drought that
has created tinder dry con-
ditions, leaving bushland
ready to ignite. The bush-
fires have come as a damp-
ener before the new year.
— Reuters
for them to remain in
bushland areas, Gippsland
fire incident controller
Ben Rankin said.
It is the latest emergency
in Australia's devastating
summer fire season,
which has been tur-
bocharged by a prolonged
drought and climate
change.
Ten people have been
killed, more than 1,000
homes destroyed and more
than
hectares
three
(7.4
million
million
acres) — an area bigger
than Belgium — have been
scorched. Conditions
worsened on Friday with
high winds and tempera-
tures soaring across the
country.
— AFP
Canyon is a perfect photo
opp for a Facebook or
Instagram post.
Some tour operators are
considering leading pho-
tography tours in other
slot canyons on the Navajo
Nation. Adventurous
Antelope Canyon Tours
will begin photo tours to
Rattlesnake, Owl and
Mountain Sheep canyons
early next year. These
spots may not have the col-
oring of Antelope Canyon,
they do have the swirling
walls.
— AP
Greta is victim of
depression: Dad
London, Dec. 30: Greta
Thunberg may have
become the new global cli-
mate icon, but the 16-year-
old Swedish teenager
struggled with depression
for three to four years and
received no support from
her father for skipping
school for activism, a bold
decision that has inspired
millions to join her in
raising awareness on
environmental issues.
In an interview to the
BBC, Greta's father
Svante Thunberg said he
thought it was "a bad
idea" for his daughter to
take to the "front line" of
the battle against climate
change.
Thunberg said he was
"not supportive" of his
daughter skipping school
for the climate strike.
As part of the same
broadcast, guest-edited by
Greta for Radio 4's Today
programme, renowned
naturalist and broadcast-
er David Attenborough
told her she had "woken
up the world" to climate
change and "achieved
things that many of us
who have been working
on the issue for 20 years
have failed to do".
Greta was nominated
for this year's Nobel
Peace Prize, after spear-
heading a global move-
ment demanding world
leaders take action over
climate change. It led to
co-ordinated school
strikes across the globe.
Thunberg said his
daughter had struggled
with depression for "three
or four years" before she
began her school strike.
"She stopped talking...
she stopped going to
school," he said, adding
Cat meets owner
2 yrs after disaster
Tampa, Dec. 30: A cat
that went missing two
years ago in Florida dur-
ing Hurricane Irma has
been reunited with the
pet’s owner.
The Hillsborough
County Sheriff ’s Office
tweeted late last week
that the cat showed up at
one of its offices in the
Tampa area and deputies
were hoping to find the
owner.
“The cat seems very
domesticated, and may be
from a house or apart-
ment nearby,” deputies
posted.
The sheriff ’s office pro-
vided an update on
Friday, saying that the
owner had been traced
via microchip after
deputies took the cat to a
2019 WAS HOTTEST YEAR ON
RECORD FOR RUSSIA: REPORT
Moscow, Dec 30: This
year was the hottest ever
registered in Russia, the
country's weather chief
said on Monday, as cli-
mate change pushes
global temperatures to
record highs.
“This year in Russia
was the hottest for the
entire period of instru-
mental observations,”
the head of the
Gidromedtsentr weather
service, Roman Vilfand,
told Russian news agen-
cies.
He said Moscow's aver-
age temperature for 2019
had hit 7.6-7.7 degrees
Celsius (45.7-45.9 degrees
Fahrenheit), beating the
previous record by 0.3
A beam of sunlight, surrounded by the Navajo Sandstone
colors, inside the Upper Antelope Canyon.
PAGE
9
Greta Thunberg
I did all these things, I
knew they were the
right thing to do... but I did-
n't do it to save the climate,
I did it to save my child. She
stopped talking... she
stopped going to school.
— SVANTE THUNBERG
Greta Thunberg’s father
that it was the "ultimate
nightmare for a parent"
when Greta began refus-
ing to eat.
To help her get better,
Thunberg spent more
time with Greta and her
younger sister, Beata, at
their home in Sweden.
Greta's mother, opera
singer and former
Eurovision Song Contest
participant Malena
Ernman, cancelled con-
tracts so the whole family
could be together.
Then they began dis-
cussing and researching
climate change, with
Greta becoming increas-
ingly passionate.
"I did all these things, I
knew they were the right
thing to do... but I didn't
do it to save the climate, I
did it to save my child,"
Thunberg told presenter
Mishal Husain in
Sweden. — PTI
■ Hurricane Irma hit
Florida in 2017, and the
cat disappeared during
the same time, when
Irma’s path cut through
the middle of the US
east coast state.
local veterinarian. The
sheriff ’s office didn’t
identify Eva’s owner but
said the cat disappeared
during the 2017 hurricane
whose path cut through
the middle of Florida.
“Tonight, the owner was
reunited with Eva,” the
sheriff ’s office tweeted.
“Eva is now living in lux-
ury. MEOW, that is a great
story!”
— AP
■ Moscow’s average
temperature for 2019
had hit 7.6-7.7o Celsius ,
beating the previous
record by 0.3o C. Records
in Russia have been kept
since 1891.
degrees.
Weather records have
been kept since 1879 in
Moscow and since 1891
in Russia as a whole.
Global warming has
sent temperatures rising
around the world, with
the United Nations say-
ing earlier this month
that 2019 was on course
to be one of the three
hottest years on record.
— AFP
—AP
 cmyk cmyk

MIND POWER
RAY BRADBURY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Without libraries, what have we? All empty souls tend
We have no past and no future. toward extreme opinions
DECCAN CHRONICLE
Edit
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
PAGE

10

31 DECEMBER 2019

In UP, police gains CM’s Subhani

sanction for brutality
T
here appears to be a one-on-one correspondence between the well-
documented brutal and communal conduct of the police in Uttar
Pradesh in dealing with the protests against the triad of CAA-NRC-
NPP — now evidently a key aspiration on the RSS’ to-do list (after
securing the emasculation of Article 370, Ayodhya, and triple talaq) — and
the rants of UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a wolf in monk’s clothing,
which appear to border on criminality and insanity.
Recently, the SP of Meerut was caught on video yelling in the bylanes of
a Muslim locality, asking people “to go to Pakistan”, and informing them
in no uncertain terms that he knew how to “fix them”. The district police
chief didn’t deny this, explaining to the media later that some in the crowd
had raised pro-Pakistan slogans. If that is correct, he should have booked
the persons in question under relevant provisions of the law, not respond-
ed with communal hollering. An IPS officer — or for that matter any offi-

LETTERS
cial of the state acting in the name of our Constitution — is not expected
to amplify the ideological vision of the elected representatives in office at
any given time. As an object lesson, the errant officer deserves to answer
questions under the service rules.
Regretfully, his police superiors see nothing wrong with the SP’s con-
duct. This is no surprise if we consider the UP chief minister’s disposition.
CAA: Belated justice for AASU’S CALL
I strongly condemn the All

orphans of Partition?
He speaks as though he were a senior Taliban functionary. Assam Students Union’s
In a series of tweets, the CM’s office said last Friday: “Every rioter is
shocked. Every demonstrator is stunned. Everyone has been silenced after call asking Prime Minister
seeing Yogi Adityanath government’s strict actions. Do whatever now, Narendra Modi not to come
compensation will be taken from anyone who damages public property. to Assam (Do not come to
Every violent protester will cry now because there is a Yogi government in
Uttar Pradesh.” This and another discgraceful tweet had the hashtag “The Modi-Shah duo of not and Jains can be brack-
Assam, PM told, DC, Dec.
Great_CM Yogi”. being moved by any eted with Hindus, but 30). Though I am against
Such vituperation is unthinkable in a democracy. In a Western democ- lofty ideal in enacting the inclusion of Parsis the CAA, NRC and the NPR
racy, a trial might have ensued on far less a misdemeanour by an elected Sunanda K. the CAA. Perhaps with and Christians seems and in favour of their
leader. Even in Communist China, where Uighurs have been sent to ideo- one state after another odd, like extending the
logical “training camps”, there has not been any official talk of making Datta-Ray slipping out of their right to people in demand to scrap them, we
protesters “cry”, or the government “extracting revenge”, as CM Ajay grasp, they wanted to Afghanistan. must respect the Prime
Singh Bisht, who parades as the monk Adityanath.
The CM shows some gall as his rants come after the murder by the UP
Reflections assure the Sangh
Parivar voters that the
However, this is not
the time of year to be
Minister and should not say
police of two dozen protesters in police firing. The presumption is that holy grail of Hindutva is niggardly about saving any thing derogratory to
protesters are Muslims, which is false. But the dead do belong to a partic- alive and well. That people from the disaster him and his post.

A
ular community, and that tells its own story — one of the police given the s the year
licence to shoot when protesters may be identified “through their dress”, peters out
as Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted not long ago. Another datum for with both the
comparison — in Hong Kong, rocked by violent protests for seven months,
no protester has died in firing by the Chinese police, although there were
bang of clash-
ing beliefs
violent confrontations, and young protesters have shouted pro-America and the whimper of
slogans, which should be anathema to Beijing. injured innocents, a fee-
As for the confiscation of protesters’ property, the government must sat- ble flicker of hope is still
isfy the high court with proof. It must also explain why the UP police went evident amidst the chaos
about destroying property. and confusion. The
Citizenship (Amend-
International Religious might explain the
Freedom says that using Muslim panic and —
religion as the path to what is infinitely worse
citizenship betrays “reli-
gious pluralism”, and
for it casts aspersions on
the National Democratic
demands sanctions Alliance’s credibility —
against Union home the reportedly brutal
minister Amit Shah. response by a police
One of the two resolu- force that has from colo-
tions tabled by Rashida nial times always been
Tlaib and Pramila ready to anticipate its
they may be facing. The
long-overdue CAA sug-
gests that we may be
nearing the conclusion
of a dismal argument
that started before the
first inter-dominion con-
ference on stranded
minorities that took
place in Calcutta in
April 1948. One sugges-
Rajinder Bakshi
Secunderabad
CAA, NRC
There has been a lot of protest
against CAA/NRC across India in
the last few days. If one visits the
eastern part of India one would
come to know that a large number
of refugees have fled Bangladesh

Triumph in adversity
ment) Act is anathema
to thousands of protest-
ing Indians as well as to
some foreign govern-
Jaypal in the House of master’s wishes. But tion was a population during the 1971 Bangladesh war,
Representatives criti- however mala fide the exchange, as between and have taken shelter in India, in
cised India for unilater- intention, the liberal Greece and Turkey West Bengal, Assam and
ally changing “the sta- new citizenship regula- under the 1923 Treaty of Meghalaya. These people are basi-

I
ndia’s Grandmaster Koneru Humpy sealed a great year for Indian ments and international
women in sport by winning the world rapid chess title in Russia, beat- organisations. But what-
ing China’s Lei Tingjie. At 32, mother of a two-year-old daughter, she ever the intent, the CAA
fulfilled her ambition of winning a senior world title, even if it wan’t in the must be welcomed as the
classical 64-square format, which much like Test cricket is the declared harbinger of a more
favourite of players, compared to the T20-like hustle of rapid chess. merciful world order
Shatranj may not seem action-packed, but it requires hours of rigorous that promises belated
dedication. It’s the commitment of Indian women to stick to sport that justice to the orphans of
must be admired given the societal prejudices that never allow families to Partition who have been
think of a career in sport for girls till recently. neglected all these 72
2019 will be remembered most as the one in which sportswomen out- years.
shone their male counterparts. The golden streak that changed everything With the violence at
was P.V. Sindhu’s victorious run in the badminton world championship, home matched by
where she beat her nemesis Nozomi Okuhara in the final in Switzerland.
The lanky Telangana star has been bearing the brunt of unreal expecta-
protests in unlikely
places like Boston,
tions of a nation of spectators ever since she won silver in the Olympics in Chicago and The Hague,
Rio in 2016, and then two silvers in the world championships. India enters 2019 with its
The question is, as with trail-blazing Saina Nehwal, whether Indian image as the world’s
women had it in them to be world champions by winning the events that largest liberal democra-
really matter. The breakthrough for Sindhu was a vital moment for cy more than a little tar-
women in Indian sport as she found her subliminal moment in conquer- nished. Global opinion,
ing the highest of peaks demanding the calmest of nerves. Today, on the which had once hailed
eve of a change of decades in the new millennium, we toast the women of Prime Minister
India for their indomitable spirit to triumph against all odds. Narendra Modi as the
architect of reconstruc-
tion, now sees him
DECCAN CHRONICLE steeped in bigotry.
Despite the wounded
ADITYA SINHA T. VENKATESWARLU idealism of India’s youth
Editor Printer & Publisher and the alarm of
harassed Muslims, even
DECCAN CHRONICLE offices are located at: a misunderstood CAA
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would not have created
that impression if it had-
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08554-276904 proof of New Delhi’s
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intolerance of political
2228908; Telefax: 0878-2220433
and religious pluralism.
Nellore: Survey No.527/2, Burranpur Village, Venkatachalam (M), Chemmudugunta Panchayat, Nellore,
Ph: 0861-2348581/82; Telefax: 0861-2348580 The Ayodhya verdict
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48/50/51; Advt Fax: 22254765/22254766/42305325 sion. Official waffling
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Register only increased
the fears about a police
Thiruvananthapuram: St Joseph s Press, TC 15/1040, Cotton Hill, Thycaud (PO), Thiruvananthapuram
state.
695 014
The CAA is wrongly
Kozhikode: Door No 6/1002 E, First Floor of City Mall, Opp. YMCA, Kannur Road, Kozhikode - 673
001, Fax : 0495 4019 018 blamed. The US
Gram: CHRONICLE Postal registration no: No. H/SD-348/2006-08 Commission on
tus of the Kashmiri peo- tion cannot be faulted
ple without a direct con- even though the immedi-
sultation or consent of ate beneficiaries will be
the Kashmiri people”, only the 25,447 Hindus,
thereby breaking with 5,807 Sikhs, 55
the US practice of treat- Christians, two
ing Kashmir as India’s Buddhists and two
internal matter. With Parsis — 31,313 in all —
key Democrats like who fled to India before
Adam Shiff and James the deadline.
McGovern also con- But once the principle
demning India, the US- is accepted, 17 million
India strategic alliance Hindus in Bangladesh —
based on “democracy,
individual liberty, rule
mainly peasants and
fisherfolk of the
of law, freedom of Namasudra and Majhi
expression and practice castes — can expect to be
of religion and protec- rescued if the need aris-
tion to minorities” faces es. That hope is shared
stormy weather. by 2.5 million Hindus
With 27 European languishing in Pakistan,
Union delegates as New where many people
Delhi’s honoured guests attribute Bangladesh’s
in Jammu and Kashmir secession to a “Hindu
at a time when domestic c o n s p i r a c y ” .
politicians couldn’t set Surprisingly, too, since
foot there, the EU was New Delhi has no resid-
less outspoken. But ual obligations in a
stressing “the impor- country that was not a
tance of steps to restore part of British India, the
the rights and freedoms CAA covers over a thou-
of the population in sand Hindus in
Kashmir”, it didn’t for-
get to include its disap-
Afghanistan. Another
surprise is the listing of
proval of the CAA. The Parsis and Christians as
Organisation of Islamic also being eligible for
Cooperation inevitably fast-track citizenship.
accuses the CAA of dis- Since British India was
criminating against divided on religious
Indian Muslims. lines, Sikhs, Buddhists
Equally predictably,
China joined Pakistan to
oppose “any unilateral India cannot
sanctions that compli- contemplate the
cated the situation”. idylls of breakfast
Japan’s Prime Minister in Amritsar, lunch
Shinzo Abe delayed his
visit pleading conditions in Lahore and
dinner in Kabul that
in Assam. Malaysia’s
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan
Mahathir Mohamad Singh once spoke
lamented the “withering
of secularism” in India. of as long as this
Perhaps critics do have human legacy of
a point in accusing the Partition haunts us
Lausanne, which
uprooted two million
people. “That the trans-
fer of minorities is the
only lasting remedy for
communal peace is
beyond doubt”, was Dr
B.R. Ambedkar’s view.
Indian citizenship for all
Hindus in Pakistan,
which was also mooted,
would be wonderful
news for people like the
Hindu East Bengal
refugee who was reluc-
tant to return after the
Bangladesh war. Asked
whether he regarded
himself as Indian or
Bangladeshi, he shot
back astutely: “Consider
me an Indian national
resident in Bangladesh!”
A third suggestion was
that East Pakistan
should cede territory
west of the Padma as a
homeland for its
unwanted Hindus.
Whatever their
motives, in framing the
CAA, Mr Modi and Mr
Shah lived up to the hos-
pitable legacy they
inherited: having given
refuge to 29,500 “hill
country Tamils” from
Sri Lanka and 100,000
Tibetans, India cannot
contemplate the idylls of
breakfast in Amritsar,
lunch in Lahore and din-
ner in Kabul that Dr
Manmohan Singh once
spoke of as long as this
human legacy of
Partition haunts us.
They were Indians once.
Their ghar wapsi in the
new year is worth cele-
brating.
The writer is a senior
journalist, columnist
and author
cally refugees and are stateless.
Many refugees from Pakistan and
Afghanistan are also living in
India. The aim of this CAA/NRC is
to solve this refugee problem. Why
are the citizens up in arm against
the government and protesting
violently? India is a peace-loving
country, leaders should try to
douse the fire, not add fuel to fire.
M. Jeevanand
Secunderabad
VIDEOS OF PROTESTS
The action of the police taking pic-
tures and videos of the protesters
and not permitting students to hold
peaceful protests against NRC,
CAA, is illegal and unfair. If it is
for maintenance of law and order,
why was the rally in favour of the
NRC and CAA permitted (Ex-MLA
holds rally, DC, Dec. 30). The march
of the thousands of RSS activists,
holding lathis in their hands was
allowed. Police commissioner
Anjani Kumar must also consider
any illegal action of the police.
Shazia Razzaq
Secunderabad
PHALKE AWARD
That the veteran Bollywood actor
Dadasaheb Phalke Award-desig-
nate Amitabh Bachchan expressed
his inability to receive the award
from Vice-President M. Venkaiah
Naidu claiming unsound health
and later received it from
President Ram Nath Kovind, gave
an impression that it is deliberate
and intentional.
N.S.R. Murthy
Secunderabad
Every Monday the best letter of the
week wins `300. Email your letters
to info@deccanmail.com,
editor@deccanmail.com. You can
also send them to Editor, Deccan
Chronicle, 36, Sarojini Devi Road,
Secunderabad-500 003.

T
he recent verdict by a
French court on the “moral
harassment” of employees
has set a major precedent
in an era of turbulent global eco-
Zeenat nomic liberalisation. While the
criminal trial against France
Hisam Télécom exposes tactics of corpo-
rate culture — merciless downsiz-
ing leading to workers’ suicides —
the verdict reveals the strength
and role of trade unions in holding
United States, Japan and Australia
in the past two decades. Earlier
this year, 189 cases of attempted
suicides and other stress-related
health issues of Amazon ware-
house employees came to light. In
Japan, such suicides have a specif-
ic term — “karojisatsu”, or suicide
from overwork. Workplaces are
getting cruel and unjust day by
day, and this phenomenon cut
across class: highly skilled, educat-
involved the probing of harassment
claims at France Télécom SA in
2010 by the prosecutor’s office, the
labour inspectorate’s inquiries into
cases, a stress-monitoring survey of
the employees, a judicial investiga-
tion into the restructuring pro-
gramme of the company, and filing
of the cases by trade unions on
behalf of the victims’ families. As
public servants, the employees at
France Télécom could not be fired
a crime in French labour law and
defined as “repeated acts having as
their object or effect a deterioration
of an employee’s working condi-
tions”. Those found guilty of moral
harassment can face one year of
prison and fines. In addition to a
robust body of laws to protect
employees, France’s trade unions
are strong and well-known for
using strikes and protests. Though
union density in France is low (11
not always productive. But coming
down to the brass tacks, it is the
greedy tactics used by corporations
that chip away at workers’ status.
The difference is that the
workforce in the West is educated,
skilled, informed, laced with the
know-how of institutional
mechanisms and able to fight back.
They do fight back even if they do
not win. Like French trade unions
are doing just now: fighting

A growing corporations accountable.

Cynics might ask what a First
World dispute between managerial
ed and professional workforces are
also facing the consequences of
unbridled corporate greed.
so the management adopted a strat-
egy to “encourage” them to leave.
The senior management estab-
per cent in 2016) compared to other
European countries, their strength
comes from the statutory powers
President Macron’s plan for a
single points-based pension system
which would eliminate separate
staff and employers has to do with France Télécom, once a state lished a “system of institutional their representatives enjoy as joint schemes that offer early retirement
problem: Moral most developing countries, where
the managerial cadre is largely
deprived of the basic right to form
monopoly, got rid of 22,000 workers
in three years when it was priva-
tised, restructured and rebranded
harassment” by creating an atmos-
phere of anxiety through transfers
to faraway cities, setting unachiev-
managers along with employers in
work councils in firms with more
than 50 staff members.
for public-sector workers.
There is little difference between
the management style of France

harassment at a union, where trade unionism is

no more than a weak whimper and
labour disputes take years to
as Orange in 2006. Between 2008-09,
19 employees took their own lives,
12 attempted suicide, and eight
able goals, tracking employees’
movements and psychological bul-
lying. The court was told that the
So, the question is: why are
workers not treated with dignity
and respect despite relatively
Télécom SA of 2009 — bent upon
pushing the workers out by hook
or by crook — and the “seth men-

the workplace decide. Well, it gives us hope — an

increasingly rare commodity these
days — that the verdict might
make corporations across the globe
rethink “corporate social responsi-
bility”. Suicides due to workplace
stress have increased sharply in
developed countries such as the
were diagnosed with severe depres-
sion. The employees’ suicides and
the follow-ups kept France and the
global corporate sector on tenter-
hooks for a decade. The trial, which
began in May 2019, lasted just two
months. However, the process lead-
ing to the trial took 10 years and
CEO said he would “get them out
one way or another — through the
door or through the window”. The
former CEO and two senior execu-
tives were given one-year sen-
tences plus fines; four other execu-
tives charged with complicity were
also punished. Moral harassment is
better labour laws and strong
presence of unions in developed
countries? There are many rea-
sons. For instance, small French
firms often choose to hire no more
than 49 employees in order to avoid
work councils. And where work
councils exist, consultations are
tality” of owners-employers that
pervades in many of our indus-
tries, as well as the façade of corpo-
rate social responsibility and cor-
porate codes of conduct put up by
multinationals here.
By arrangement with Dawn
 Word SPY
ECOLONOMICS BANANA PROBLEM
Sustainable living with environment- Going too far with a project, or not knowing
friendly business practices when to bring a project to a close
DECCAN CHRONICLE
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PAGE

11

CAA & NRC are a wake-up call for all Indians

Everything does not get done
in time here. So, I am wonder-
ing, by the time some designat-
ed officials land up at the hous-
Nilofar Suhrawardy es of those born before 1971, on
the basis of God knows which
data, there is no guarantee that
those persons would be
around. Okay, digital technolo-
gy is assumed to have made
everything a lot faster. But it
The unity being voiced
by Indians against
the CAA and the NRC
cannot be taken lightly.
It is a wake-up call
for all. And this is
not a laughing matter.
The new generation
is charting
system, because of which it is
impossible to expect immedi-
ate, accurate as well as com-
plete data to be officially
recorded about each and every
citizen.
This writer has also learnt of
cases of the Aadhaar card dis-
playing the incorrect gender.
No person — male, female,
transgender or of any gender
future; and start keeping
records from 2020 than waste
money and time in digging up
the past?
It may be wiser for the gov-
ernment to give some impor-
tance to keeping a record of the
blood group of each citizen. It
should. It must. This will save
time when, God forbid, any
person reaches the stage of
flows through my veins? I just
know that it is Indian. Only in
films, siblings with the same
blood group turn up to save
their parent from the jaws of
death and thus get reunited.
The unity being voiced by
Indians against the CAA and
the NRC cannot be taken light-
ly. It is a wake-up call for all,
including ones obsessed by a

A
s the year
ends, by
snatching
Jharkhand
from the
BJP’s com-
mand, the
Congress is
probably having the last laugh.
Anti-BJP protests and demon-
strations across the country
against the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA) and the
National Register of Citizens
(NRC) have certainly punc-
tured the larger-than-life
image projected about Prime
Minister Narendra Modi. It
has deflated electorally also in
Jharkhand. Hopefully, the
Jharkhand results will not
make the Congress over-confi-
dent about its prospects in the
forthcoming Assembly elec-
tions, particularly in Delhi. At
present, the party needs to pay
strategic importance to its
anti-BJP campaign even if this
demands an alliance with a
regional party. Regarding
Jharkhand, the Congress acted
shrewdly by allying with a
regional party prior to the
Assembly elections than choos-
ing to deliberate on its options
after the declaration of the
results. Besides, its protests
against the CAA and the NRC
has apparently not been
ignored by voters.
Amit Shah needs to perhaps
deliberate on his confidence
about remaining in power for
50 years because of the 2019
parliamentary victory. One
needs to view his 50-year
“obsession” from another
angle. He may be around, but
there is no guarantee that he’d
still be in power.
There is also a severe tempo-
ral lapse in the BJP’s drafting
of the NRC as well as the CAA.
The selection of the year 1971
for registering citizens in keep-
ing with the NRC, which has so
far not extended beyond
Assam, is fairly puzzling. The
framers of the NRC presumed
that they will take little time in
implementing it beyond
Assam. India is not Assam, nor
is it just Gujarat or Jammu and
Kashmir (J&K).
Some importance should also
be given to this nation’s func-
tioning in keeping with its
Indian Standard Time.
was not around in the 1970s
and earlier. How will mid-
wives (dais) responsible for the
birth of many prior to the 1970s
be traced? Also, I have not
heard of midwives having kept
any record of the births they
assisted in. With respect to
those born in hospitals prior to
1971, the possibility of their
certificates being retrieved
from there is as good as non-
existent. Besides, there is the
“name” issue.
Nowadays, even a minor dif-
ference in spelling of names in
various identity cards one is
supposed to have can spell a
major headache. Earlier, usual-
ly, only nicknames were decid-
ed at the time of birth. The birth
certificates of many, if they
exist, prior to the 1970s don’t
have the same name which was
later chosen formally. Most
educated and urban Indians are
at present loaded with too many
identity cards and documents
required for verification:
Driving license, birth-certifi-
cate, educational certificates,
passport, PAN card, bank-state-
ment, proof of having paid
income tax, voter-ID and of
a new chapter for — would like to be identified needing blood supply. Blood 50-year syndrome. And this is
wrongly, gender-wise. Of group is not decided by race, not a laughing matter. The new
the coming years! course, these errors have been religion, caste, class and/or generation is charting a new
corrected but not instantly or any other ethnic division. All chapter for the coming years!
course the Aadhaar card. The just within a few days. my family members have dif-
last needs to be linked with reg- Even if the present leaders ferent blood groups. Being The writer is a journalist
istered mobile numbers, PAN remain confident about the accident-prone, they have with specialisation in
cards, bank accounts and I am NRC and the CAA being pre- needed blood more than once. communication studies and
not aware if new rules would pared in 50 years, as per IST, Who knows, which and how nuclear diplomacy. She is also
include some other documents, why don’t they look into the many Indian citizens’ blood the author of several books.
including verification by neigh-
bours with documents to prove
their identity.
It is really mind-boggling as
to how many more identity
cards each Indian is likely to
be commanded to have. When
Aadhaar cards were made
compulsory, we ensured that
all family members got theirs,
by using the services of private
agents. Since an elderly mem-
ber was bedridden, the agent
came home for his photograph,
fingerprints, etc and his card
was made. Earlier, the con-
cerned government unit was
approached to facilitate the
same service. It took more than
a year to respond and got in
touch with us after the mem-
ber had expired. This is just a
mild indicator of the lapses
still prevalent in the Indian ‘It’s just what I wanted! How did you know?’

Islam’s reformation: An Arab-Israeli India’s Satya isn’t

alliance is taking shape in West Asia
There are enough
narratives of Muslim-
Jewish fraternity to form
Ed Husain the basis for rapproche-
ment. The enmity has,
historically, been a recent
destroying Israel. But they also
meddle in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia,
Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
So against this menace of Shiite
political Islamism, committed to
destroying Muslim secular gov-
ernments and exporting Shiite
Sundar; that’s
our ugly truth
mistic. “What is happening in
practice with Arab states has
never happened in our history,
Sriram Karri
even when we signed peace agree-
ments,” he has said. Of course,
there is a lot of history to over-
come. For 70 years the Arab world

blip. With an assertive
Iran and an uninterested
West, Arabs and Jews
revolutionary ideology, Israel is
coming to be regarded as a benign
neighbour.
Finally, and most intriguingly,
I
was driven by an anti-Semitic ide-
ological craze to wipe out Israel.
But before that came a far-longer
history of co-existence and
t was an extraordinary year for India’s
greatest technology exports ever — Satya
Nadella and Sundar Pichai — two individ-
uals who have achieved the absolutely

W
hen Benjamin
Netanyahu visited
Oman in 2018 in a
gesture of goodwill
to Israel’s neigh-
bours, the welcome was not uni-
versal. For an Israeli Prime
Minister to be warmly greeted in
a proud Arab state was, for some,
far too much. The Omani foreign
minister, Yusuf bin Alawi bin
Abdullah, was asked on Al
Jazeera why the visit had been
allowed. The reply went viral:
“Why not? Is it forbidden to us?
Israel is a nation among the
nations of the Middle East. We
should embark on a new journey
for the future.”
A new narrative is emerging in
the Middle East. New maps of the
Muslim mind are being drawn
and old hatreds are on the run.
The anti-Semitic craze to destroy
Israel was powerful in the 1960s,
uniting Egypt’s President Nasser
with his fellow Arabs. But now,
Sunni Arab neighbours are
changing course. Islamist leaders
are losing their appeal — at a time
when Iran, with its brand of theo-
logical fascism, poses a threat to
Israel and the Arab world alike.
Polls show that the percentage
of Arabs expressing trust in
Islamist parties has fallen by well
over a third since the uprisings of
2011. Three-quarters of Iraqis say
they do not trust Islamist parties
at all, and the number of young
people who say they’re “not reli-
gious” is also on the rise. This
generation wants Arab leaders to
increase economic prosperity and
minimise political conflicts. And
to build alliances, including with
Israel.
Jana Sangh to have no
This has been the “Year of
Tolerance” in the United Arab
Emirates. In February, an open-
air mass for 170,000 Catholics was
celebrated by Pope Francis, the
first pontiff to visit the Arabian
peninsula. To commemorate the
Pope’s visit, the Crown Prince of
Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin
Zayed, announced the construc-
tion in the UAE capital of the
Abrahamic Family House: a syna-
gogue, a church and a mosque
within a single complex, a hub for
highlighting history and a symbol
of hope for a new future of co-exis-
tence.
In Dubai, Jews have been wor-
shipping at a synagogue for sever-
al years now. Rabbis from Israel,
America, Australia and Europe
have been attending annual inter-
national Muslim peace confer-
ences held in Abu Dhabi by
Abdullah bin Bayyah, a ately want to normalise relations
renowned Muslim theologian, for
two years. In full rabbi dress.
King Hamad of Bahrain has also
led a path towards more open
relations between Islam and
Judaism. In 2016 he celebrated
Hanukkah with orthodox Jews
from New York, his courtiers
singing and dancing. The scenes
were striking: Jews with hats and
beards, Muslims with keffiyeh
and robes, joining together in
songs of peace. This groundbreak-
ing gesture elicited condemnation
from Iran-backed Hamas, but
favourable comments erupted on
social media. In return, Bahraini
peace delegations have visited
Israel.
There have even been signs of a
religious glasnost in Saudi
Arabia. The Mecca-based Muslim
have a shared interest in
a lasting alliance.
World League, which for five
decades promoted hard-line
Wahhabism, has started meetings
with various Jewish organisa-
tions. Several Saudi bloggers,
YouTubers and Twitter personali-
ties have been praising Israel in
Arabic. Mohamed Saud, a social
media activist, visited Israel in
July and spoke in fluent Hebrew
that he learned in Riyadh. This
infuriated Palestinian radicals,
who encouraged children to pelt
him with stones — as if furious
that their old world, with its
politicised hatred, is fading.
I’ve noticed a change of mood on
my own travels. I regularly meet
Egyptians and others who desper-
with Israel and they offer three
reasons. First, the events of the
Arab Spring exposed the fanati-
cism of the Muslim Brotherhood
and other related Islamists, with
the hardliners now being viewed
as a threat to both Islam as a faith
and Muslims as a people. Isis and
other “Islamic states” are, of
course, the logical outcome of
Islamism. Now that this creed has
been tested to destruction, it is
being seen for what it is — and
rejected.
Second, the need to stand firm
against Iran is becoming a cause
that unites Israel with Sunni
Arabs and anti-Tehran Shiite
Muslims in Iraq, Syria and
Lebanon. It’s well-known that
mullahs in Tehran support
Hezbollah, which is dedicated to
Israel is being seen by moderate
Arab governments as a trade and
security partner as the West
sends mixed signals. Barack
Obama abandoned his Arab allies
when they faced threats from the
Muslim Brotherhood or Iran. He
deserted Egypt’s President Hosni
Mubarak — to the horror of the
Saudis and Emiratis — and
cheered on the popular uprising
in Syria. When America signed
the nuclear agreement with Iran
towards the end of the Obama
presidency, Israel and its Arab
neighbours were united in
uproar. This lesson in unreliabili-
ty has not been forgotten. As one
Arab prince said recently at a pri-
vate meeting: “Who else will fly in
joint missions against Iranian
targets with us?”
For his part, Netanyahu is opti-
respect. The people of Israel are
honoured repeatedly in the
Quran, which confirms that Jews
have every right to settle in and
around Jerusalem. It was Omar, a
friend of the prophet, who invited
Jews back into Jerusalem in 637
after five centuries of being ban-
ished by the Romans.
There are enough historical and
scriptural narratives of Muslim-
Jewish fraternity to form the
basis for rapprochement. The
enmity has, historically, been a
recent blip. With an assertive
Iran and an uninterested West,
the Arabs and Jews have a shared
interest in building a lasting
alliance with each other. This
may yet be the decade of peace.
By arrangement with
the Spectator
highest positions in the world of technology.
While Mr Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, was
declared the “Person of the Year” by the
Financial Times, Mr Pichai was named the
CEO of Alphabet, the principal company
which owns Google, of which Mr Pichai has
been the head for quite a few years.
What an achievement for all of us Indians to
be proud of, right? Wrong, actually. We have
nothing to be proud of, and a lot to think
about, if not to be ashamed of.
Actually, we Indians, those of us living in
India, have achieved something different,
though no less extraordinary — we have given
the dead poet John Keats something to
rethink; his chiasmus in Ode on a Grecian
Urn, when he declared, “beauty is truth, truth
beauty”. Translated, Satya is Sundar, and
Sundar is Satya. In our case, it is not.
For us Indians to boast about their success
as an Indian achievement is not true — their
achievements are as un-Indian as it can get in
our idea of India today — and the underlying
truth is ugly.
Immigrants’ success: The foundational
value of their success is the idea of America,
the great melting pot, where people of any
country can come and make their tomorrow
better. Now, if America implemented a citi-
zenship law disallowing non-Christians into
their land, we can only speculate about Satya
Nadella, general manager, and Sundar Pichai,
project manager, in two Indian companies.
Rejection of inheritance: The rise of these
two, even after reaching America’s shores,
would not have been possible if Bill Gates and
Steve Balmer, or Larry Page and Sergey Brin,
had an Indian weakness for familial inheri-
tance of positions. Put any Indian in place of
these four and their succession planning
would have included son, daughter, son-in-
law, nephew, niece, and a long-extended set of
cousins taking up the positions.
The final rise of Mr Nadella and Mr Pichai
was further made possible by the most un-
Indian of values — to create something and
make way for someone else to hold the reins
based only on talent, a far cry in a nation
where even political parties are passed down
as family treasures — just as their initial suc-

Drop resolutions! Be spontaneous

cess was based on a liberal immigration poli-
truck with Communists cy.
For a nation that takes pride in those
CHANKYANAGAR, (PATNA), Dec. 30. Indians, who have achieved something after
they left our country, unable to find the oppor-
Jana Sangh President Atal Bihari Vajpayee tomorrow to have its own being. Let it have to go deeper into the mechanism of tunities they aspired for at home, is fake
today reiterated his party’s determination to come in its own way! Let it bring its own the mind. It is the rational mind that is pride. For a nation that takes pride in the
have no truck with the Communists. gifts. Resolution means you will allow behind the new resolutions that we achievements of Indians overseas without
Speaking at the concluding sitting of the Amrit only this and you will not allow that. If it make. having created such platforms itself —
party’s 16th session here, Mr. Vajpayee rises in the east, you will not open your They spring from our past and uncon- Wimbeldon, the Oscar awards, the Nobel
called upon party workers to prepare them- Sadhana windows; you will keep your scious behaviour. Before decid- Prizes, or the Booker or Pulitzer prizes — it is
selves for meeting windows open to the west. ing to make a new resolution, a falsely premised pride. And top the pride
the challenge Resolution is saying, ‘I cannot try to understand the nature of cake with a cherry — quickly google the caste
50 YEARS AGO IN posed by the criti-
cal situation facing
live spontaneously’. And if you
cannot live spontaneously, you
the habit and behavioural sci-
ence. Brain researchers say
of newest achiever abroad and feel the chest
fill with pride if it matches.
the country. don’t live at all — you only pre- that it takes at least 66 days to To be truly deserving to feel pride in the

He pointed out
that the economic
policy resolution passed by the session had
given the lie to the critics who used to har-
bour a misconception that the Jana Sangh
had no economic policy.
Strongly refuting the allegation that his
party was conservative, the Jana Sangh
leader said all they wanted was to sift the
best out of the past while working for a
brighter future — for the India of their
dreams.
O
nce someone asked Osho, “If one
were to make only one New
Year’s resolution, what would
you suggest?” And Osho, in his
inimitable style, said, “This and only this
can be the New Year’s resolution: I
resolve never to make any resolutions
because all resolutions are restrictions
for the future. All resolutions are impris-
onments. You decide today for tomorrow.
You have destroyed tomorrow. Allow the
tend. So let only one resolution
be there: I will never make any
resolutions. Drop all resolu-
tions! Let life be a natural spon-
taneity. The only golden rule is that
there are no golden rules.”
And naturally, the question will arise if
we don’t make new resolutions, how do
we change our old habits, bring some-
thing new in our lives? To understand
the real meaning of Osho’s comment, we
form a new habit or change an
old one. This is too long a gap
between our resolution and the
actual change of the pattern.
Nobody has patience and perseverance
to wait till the habit changes.
Amrit Sadhana is editor of Osho Times
International. She facilitates meditation
workshops based on Osho insights
around the country and abroad.
achievements of Satya Nadella or Sundar
Pichai, we need to also become a country
whose Sahitya Akademi prize is aspired for by
authors or poets across the world, and aspire
to become a nation where a Bangladeshi
Muslim can migrate, become a citizen, join a
company and become its CEO.
Little wonder that we may prove Keats
wrong, but we also prove Joseph Heller right
— to be proud of something we must be
ashamed of is a trick that never fails. Not in
India, not in our India, not in today’s India.
 Technomics 12
Budget Pixel
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DECCAN CHRONICLE TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD

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Amazon worker Amanda
Taillon said during the
pre-Christmas rush at a
SID MEIER’S company warehouse in
CIVILIZATION V Connecticut. Nearby, a
fleet of 6-foot-tall roving
„ It’s strange to think robot shelves zipped
that the elder of the two around behind a chain-
currently played link fence.
Civilization games came Taillon's job is to enter a
cage and tame Amazon's
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what with it still being for long enough to pick up
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works like a superhero's
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CRUSADER KINGS 2 the nearest robots to
„ This medieval strate- abruptly halt and the oth-
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arise over the years.
Baidu takes AI
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'Where are they going to
come from?','' she said. “It's
a little nerve-racking at
first.”
Amazon and its rivals
are increasingly requiring
warehouse employees to
get used to working with
robots. The company now
has more than 200,000
robotic vehicles it calls
''drives'' that are moving
goods through its delivery-
fulfillment centers around
the U.S. That's double the
number it had last year
and up from 15,000 units in
2014.
Its rivals have taken
notice, and many are
adding their own robots in
a race to speed up produc-
tivity and bring down
costs.
Without these fast-mov-
ing pods, robotic arms and
other forms of warehouse
automation, retailers say
they wouldn't be able to
fulfill consumer demand
for packages that can land
on doorsteps the day after
you order them online.
But while fears that
robots will replace human
workers haven't come to
fruition, there are growing
concerns that keeping up
with the pace of the latest
artificial intelligence tech-
nology is taking a toll on
human workers' health,
safety and morale.
Warehouses powered by
robotics and AI software
are leading to human
burnout by adding more
work and upping the pres-
sure on workers to speed
up their performance, said
Beth Gutelius, who studies
urban economic develop-
ment at the University of
Illinois at Chicago and has
interviewed warehouse
operators around the U.S.
It's not that workers
aren't getting trained on
how to work with robots
safely. ''The problem is it
becomes very difficult to
do so when the productivi-
ty standards are set so
high,'' she said.
Much of the boom in
warehouse robotics has its
roots in Amazon's $775
million purchase of
Massachusetts startup
Kiva Systems in 2012. The
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Amazon's Kiva purchase
''set the tone for all the
other retailers to stand up
and pay attention,'' said
Jim Liefer, CEO of San
Francisco startup Kindred
AI, which makes an artifi-
cially intelligent robotic
arm that grasps and sorts
items for retailers such as
The Gap.
A rush of venture capital
and private sector invest-
ment in warehouse robot-
ics spiked to $1.5 billion a
year in 2015 and has
remained high ever since,
said Rian Whitton, a robot-
ics analyst at ABI
Research.
Canadian e-commerce
company Shopify spent
$450 million this fall to buy
Massachusetts-based
startup 6 River Systems,
which makes an
autonomous cart nick-
named Chuck that can fol-
low workers around a
warehouse. Other mobile
robot startups are partner-
ing with delivery giants
such as FedEx and DHL or
retailers such as Walmart.
Amazon this year bought
another warehouse robot-
ics startup, Colorado-
based Canvas Technology,
which builds wheeled
robots guided by computer
vision. Such robots would
be more fully autonomous
than Amazon's current
fleet of caged-off vehicles,
which have to follow bar
codes and previously
mapped routes within
warehouses.
The tech giant is also
still rolling out new mod-
els descended from the
Kiva line, including the
Pegasus, a squarish vehi-
cle with a conveyor belt on
top that can be found
working the early-morn-
ing shift at a warehouse in
the Phoenix suburb of
Goodyear, Arizona. A
crisscrossing fleet of
robots carries packaged
items across the floor and
drops them into chutes
based on the zip code of
their final destination.
All of this is transform-
ing warehouse work in a
way that the head of
Amazon Robotics says can
''extend human capability''
by shifting people to what
they are best at: problem-
solving, common sense
and thinking on their feet.
''The efficiencies we gain
from our associates and
robotics working together
harmoniously _ what I like
to call a symphony of
humans and machines
working together _ allows
us to pass along a lower
cost to our customer,'' said
Tye Brad — AP
TO MULTITASK
MUCH BETTER
DC CORRESPONDENT
with agency inputs
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
In 2020, chip manufac-
turing giant, Intel, will
hope to put its troubles
behind them. And if the
leaks are to believed, the
budget 10th generation
of Core desktop proces-
sors will play a major
role as it would see the
biggest improvements,
reports Engadget.
The report, which cites
Informatica Cero and
VideoCardz, said that
the Comet Lake-S CPU
lineup is likely to
include Hyperthreading.
If the report is true,
users will no longer
need to buy a Core i7 or
better to wring truly
strong multitasking per-
formance out of their
system.
After that, it would be
more about subtler but
still welcome improve-
ments. The flagship
3.7GHz Core i9-10900K
(base clock of 3.7GHz)
and its non-K variant
(2.8GHz) would support
a Velocity Boost feature
that would hike clock
speeds as long as the
thermals allow.
Otherwise, the user
have to make do with
'just' the regular Turbo
Boost. These high-end
parts would tout 10 cores
and 20 total threads.
Beyond that, these
would represent modest
but welcome refreshes of
the lineup.

„ Low gravity rocket- DC CORRESPONDENT RAY TRACING ADAPTIVE SYNC

fuelled cars and football with agency inputs
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
may seem like strange
bedfellows, and utterly In 2019, nearly all compa-
banal if you’re interest- nies made a play for arti-
ed in neither racing or ficial intelligence. Yet,
football. Rocket League Chinese search engine,
Baidu, seems to have won
is a gestalt of these two the race for the year,
things, creating a new reports said.
sport altogether that’s According to a report on
been a phenomenon The Independent, Baidu, in
since it came out in a competition designed to
test how well a machine
2015. can understand human
language, achieved the
highest ever score in the
The Elder Scrolls V: General Language
Understanding Evaluation
Skyrim (Glue) – widely considered
„ Few will dispute the to be the benchmark for AI
language understanding.
idea that this majestic The firm’s Ernie model
RPG, set in one of the became the first to score
most atmospheric open above 90 on the test, top-
worlds in gaming, is at ping a leaderboard domi-
its best on PC. nated by US tech firms
and universities.
The feat also makes it
one of only 10 AI systems
Divinity: Original Sin 2 to surpass the average
human score of 87.1 on
„ While previous games the GLUE benchmark.
in the series were Ernie used a method
always hampered by similar to Google’s Bert,
publisher and budgetary which transformed natu-
ral-language understand-
problems, Kickstarter ing for AI when it was
crowdfunding let Larian created last year.
off the leash, setting Both the models inter-
them free to make two pret meaning by examin-
ing the words that appear
of the deepest, most both before and after a
rewarding RPGs of all word in a sentence in
time. order to fully establish
context.
Speaking to MIT
PORTAL 2
„ Portal 2 is a first-per-
son puzzle game where
you use one of the
greatest guns in gaming
Economic slowdown fails to buck smartphone demand
to progress through a New Delhi, Dec.30: The
series of increasingly economic slowdown may
have clipped sales of cars
difficult and mind-bend- and biscuits in 2019, but
ing obstacles.
smartphones bucked the
trend as urban and rural
users continued to buy,
DARK SOULS and even upgrade to,
expensive handsets — a
„ It’s a game that dared trend likely to pick up pace
to be formidable and in the coming year.
The growth in smart-
uncompromising, and phone adoption was fur-
rewarded those of us ther fuelled by the govern-
who persevered through ment's push to position the
its initial obscurity with country as a global hub for
an inimitable sense of manufacturing and coax
Apple and other leading
suspense and satisfac- brands to produce and
tion. export more phones from
India.
Experts say that phone
THE WITCHER 3: shipment is expected to
see high single-digit to
WILD HUNT double-digit growth in
„ There’s something India as smartphones aid-
ing everything from shop-
comforting about the ping to banking to social
fact that the best RPG media and, yes, perfect
and game of the decade selfies! C o u n t e r p o i n t
wasn’t a high-fantasy Research Associate
Director Tarun Pathak
outing from a long- expects India's smart-
established publisher phone market to grow by 9
per cent this year, and in
„ The feat makes
Ernie one of only
10 AI systems to
surpass the aver-
age human score
of 87.1 on the GLUE
benchmark.
Technology Review,
Baidu Research’s chief
architect, Hao Tian, said
“When we first started
this work, we were think-
ing specifically about cer-
tain characteristics of the
Chinese language. But we
quickly discovered that it
was applicable beyond
that.”
Baidu is already using
the model to improve
results for its search
engine and make its AI
assistant Xiao Du more
accurate.
A paper detailing how
Ernie was trained for the
language test will be pre-
sented at the Association
for the Advancement of
Artificial Intelligence
conference next year.
double digits (by 12-14 per
cent) in 2020. By 2022, over
700 million people are
expected to have a smart-
phone in India, and over a
billion devices will be sold
over the next four-five
years, he said.
A back of the envelope
calculation shows that
over 115 million units
smartphones were shipped
in India in the first three
quarters of 2019 with
Xiaomi, Samsung, vivo,
Oppo and realme making
up the top five tally.
Interestingly, there has
been a significant rise in
the average selling prices
(ASP) of smartphones this
year — rising from `5,000-
10,000 to `10,000-15,000 now.
As per International
Data Corporation (IDC),
while more than 80 per
cent of the market is sub-
$200, the $300-500 category
has witnessed multi-fold
growth with flagship
devices of players like
Xiaomi, Oppo and
OnePlus.
According to IDC India
Associate Research
„ The technology, as the name suggests, involves „ Nvidia’s G-Sync and AMD’s rival
tracing the paths of individual light rays to create a FreeSync were introduced in the middle of
lifelike depiction of how light works in the real world. the last decade, and are monitor technolo-
„ Ray tracing, for long, has been used in the world of gies designed to combat screen tearing and
movies. However, it grabbed the headlines after Nvidia stuttering. In other words, they aim to give
launched its GeForce RTX graphics cards in 2018 you a smoother gameplay experience, particularly
with the likes of fast-paced shooters where any such
MOTION CAPTURE stuttering effects could put off your aim.
„ Motion capture is nothing new. The process of cap- „ The technologies are no longer confined to just mon-
turing the movements of human actors to make for itors. As 4K TVs have matured, we’ve seen the intro-
more realistic looking characters in games has been duction of Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) with HDMI 2.1.
around since the 90s. However, in the past decade, „ Smooth gameplay and fluid frame rates are as big a
motion capture has become a swift and painless deal as realistic and immersive graphics, particularly
process, developers will be able to more easily utilize when it comes to playing online games competitively.
it, and have more time freed up to hone visual
details and animations
GAME STREAMING
LIVE STREAMING „ Also known as cloud gaming, these
kind of services actually kicked off
„ In the last
decade, Twitch and a surprisingly long time ago, with
OnLive launching right at the
other services such
as Youtube and start of the decade. Ultimately
mixer allowed mil- it flopped, because 2010 was
simply too early given the
lions of viewers to
watch professional contemporary internet
streamers play infrastructure, but
games. Streaming with the same faster
has become such broadband
a big phe- connections
nomenon which have
these helped
days drive the
rise of live streaming,
that func-
tionality is game streaming has
built directly become a realistic
into consoles. proposition.
cial economic zone (SEZ) said the smart TV account- handsets.
NEW AVENUES near Chennai that was ed for 18 per cent of the “...we still depend on
closed for nearly 10 years. total TV market in India in imports of many essential
The facility will be made the first quarter of 2018, parts... which will take few
„ A new area of action for smartphone
operational from March which expanded to 43 per more quarters before
makers was the smart TV space. Players 2020, and is expected to cent a year later. everything starts to be
like OnePlus, Motorola and Nokia employ about 10,000 people. Another area of ultra- sourced locally. The hin-
launched their smart TVs — and priced For consumers, 2019 saw sonic growth was the drances to this are non-
them aggressively — to compete with smartphones sporting wearables category. While availability of resources,
giants like Sony, LG and Samsung. more cameras with power- previous years saw a num- skilled labour, infrastruc-
ful sensors, higher memo- ber of fitness bands and ture etc,” IDC India's Joshi
„ Wearables also proved to be a provide ry and even a folding form smart watches making said.
factor. Ending months of their way into the Indian For further long-term
major growth for smartphone makers wait, Samsung brought to market, 2019 was the year growth, it is essential to
India its 'Galaxy Fold' fea- of 'hearables'. This catego- build a strong and robust
turing a foldable display ry, according to Faisal ecosystem of manufactur-
Manager (Client Devices) retail store in India. and priced at `1.65 lakh. Kawoosa (founder and ing, lowering dependency
Upasana Joshi, this seg- Also, corporate tax rate Motorola has also intro- Chief Analyst at on imports and giving
ment is essentially for the was reduced to 22 per cent duced its foldable 'Moto techARC), will make up attractive export subsidies
“upgraders” who aspire for and a lower 15 per cent rate Razr' though there is no two-thirds of the wear- to these brands, she added.
flagship-like design and offered to new manufactur- clarity on its India avail- ables sales in 2020 by vol- That said, consumers'
specifications at nominal ing units. ability. ume. voracious appetite for
prices. This massive outreach Another area of action While smartphone man- smarter, more powerful
The government on its helped as Apple began for smartphone makers ufacturing and consump- phones riding on newer
part brought a new elec- making iPhone XR in was the smart TV space. tion is scaling new technologies like 5G will
tronics manufacturing pol- India, while Salcomp com- Players like OnePlus, heights, industry experts keep players busy in 2020.
icy to woo global investors mitted investments to the Motorola and Nokia flag certain challenges. realme India, for one,
to target manufacturing of tune of `2,000 crore. launched their smart TVs In a recent meeting with plans to bring in 5G prod-
one billion mobile phones Salcomp — which the — and priced them aggres- Finance Minister Nirmala ucts for Indian consumers
by 2025. It also relaxed for- world's largest manufac- sively — to compete with Sitharaman, the industry as early as the first quar-
eign direct investment turer and a major supplier giants like Sony, LG and sought clarity over recent ter of 2020 and advises
(FDI) for single brand of chargers to Apple for Samsung. reduction in export incen- prospective buyers and
retail - a move that made iPhone — has inked an Xiaomi India Head of tives and demanded ratio- tech enthusiasts to “stay
Apple announce willing- agreement to take over the Online Sales and nalisation of tax struc- tuned”.
ness to open its maiden facility of Nokia in a spe- Categories Raghu Reddy ture, including GST on — PTI

TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
quick Polarised market creates,
BITES destroys massive wealth
INDICATORS
Sensex 41,575.14 1.00
Nifty 50 12,245.80 0.98
S&P 500 3,240.02 0.00
Dollar (`) 71.32 -0.06
Pound Sterling (`) 93.54 0.29
Euro (`) 79.86 0.41
Gold (10gm)* (`) 39,882▼73 -0.18
Brent crude ($/bbl)* $68.16 0.04
IN 10-Yr bond yield 6.500 -0.076
US 10-Yr T-bill yield 1.877 0.04
* As of 9:30 pm IST
RattanIndia
Power closes
`6.5K cr debt
Private power producer
RattanIndia Power said it has
closed one-time settlement of
Rs 6,574 crore debt raised from
a consortium of lenders led by
SBI and PFC. Under the settle-
ment deal, existing lenders
have assigned the principal
debt to new investors and
lenders, including Goldman
Sachs and Varde Partners for
Rs 4,050 crore.
SBI external
benchmark rate
cut by 25 bps
State Bank of India reduced its
external benchmark-based rate
by 25 basis points to 7.80 per
cent per annum from 8.05 per
cent with effect from January 1.
With this, interest rate for exist-
ing home loan customers and
MSME borrowers who have
availed of loans linked to exter-
nal benchmark-based rate
would come down by 25 basis
points, the bank said.
RBI buys `10K cr
securities in
special OMO
In the second special open
market operation (OMO), the
RBI bought Rs 10,000 crore
worth long-term government
securities and sold Rs 8,501
crore of three short-term
bonds. The RBI had announced
simultaneous purchase and sale
of government securities last
week. Though it offered to sell
four securities in the auction, it
accepted only three bids only.
Prince Pipes
tanks over 7%
on debut
Shares of Prince Pipes And
Fittings made a weak debut at
the bourses and closed over 7
per cent lower from its issue
price of Rs 178. The scrip list-
ed at Rs 160, down 10.11 per
cent from the issue price on the
BSE. During the day, it touched
a high of Rs 177.95 and a low of
Rs 152.60. It finally closed at Rs
166.60, down by 6.40 per cent.
The Rs 500-crore IPO was sub-
scribed 2.21 times.
Printed & Published by
T Venkateswarlu on behalf of Deccan
Chronicle Holdings Limited, Printed at
Deccan Chronicle Press at Deccan
Chronicle Holdings Ltd. #563/9/D&9/E,
Behind Andhra Bank Pet Basheerbagh,
Kompally, Ranga Reddy Dist. Editor:
T.Venkatram Reddy, RNI Reg
No.APENG/2008/24282. © All rights
reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part without written permission of The
Editor, Financial Chronicle ® is prohibited.
■ `22 L-cr created and `27 L-cr destroyed in last 2 years
% Bank-like scams, the
RAVI RANJAN PRASAD
MUMBAI, DEC. 30
The top 30 companies had
created wealth worth Rs 22
lakh crore for investors
between January 2018 and
December 2019 while there
has been wealth destruc-
tion to an extent of Rs 27
lakh crore across 1,100 out
of 1,300 companies listed
on the NSE during the two
years, according to a study.
“It was found that top 30
companies by market cap
had created wealth worth
Rs 22 lakh crore in the last
two years, suggesting a
massive polarisation, of
funds moving towards
extreme perceived safety,”
the study by Prospero Tree
Financial Services said.
In 2019, the polarisation
in the market has also got a
boost from easy global liq-
uidity that led to robust
inflows into equities.
Abhishek Bansal, chair-
man, ABans Group of
Companies, said, "The
Nifty has gained 12 per cent
in 2019, with half the index
stocks in the green but just
one-third have gained more
than 15 per cent. Most of
this rally has been driven
by foreign inflows through
ETFs, which favours
MDR waiver: Payments industry
says it’s like nationalisation
SANGEETHA G
CHENNAI, DEC. 30
The government’s proposal
to waive merchant dis-
count rate (MDR) charges
for RuPay and UPI transac-
tions will virtually kill the
digital payments industry
by drying up its revenue
stream. The move will also
lead to slowdown and job
losses, says the industry.
"The zero MDR on RuPay
and UPI will kill the indus-
try and make the business
model unviable. It's like
nationalisation of the pay-
ments industry. If the gov-
ernment wants to drive
digitisation, then it should
bear the cost,” said
Vishwas Patel, chairman,
Payments Council of India.
PCI, the representative
body of merchant acquir-
ers and aggregators, also
said scrapping MDR will
Kia Motors plans electric Huawei gets nod to join 5G trials
version of Seltos SUV
MICHAEL GONSALVES
PUNE, DEC. 30
After racing to the top in
the sports utility vehicle
(SUV) sales chart last
month, Kia Motors now
plans to bring to India an
all-electric Seltos SUV to
cash in on its popularity
in Asia’s third biggest
economy.
The new model has been
internally codenamed SP2
EV and is being road-test-
ed internationally.
The Seltos EV will join
the Seltos petrol and
diesel line-up globally.
South Korea's Kia Motors
is the world’s eighth
biggest car maker.
“We have plans to
launch a new car every six
months and the electric
vehicle is part of that plan
for the Indian market,”
Manohar Bhat, head, mar-
keting and sales at Kia
Motors India told
Financial Chronicle with-
out divulging more
details. This means five
new cars in three years
after Kia Seltos SUV was
introduced in August
2019.
But industry sources
said if everything goes as
per the plan, Kia Motors
MORE LOSERS THAN GAINERS
◗ The Nifty has gained
12% in 2019, with half
the index stocks in the
green but just one-
third have gained
more than 15%
◗ While top 25 firms
gained 22%, the next
25 firms i.e., 25 to 50,
gained only 4%
heavyweight stocks.”
“Companies that seem to
be valuable but lack earn-
ings growth will continue
to be ignored and under-
priced. The broader market
will want to see an earn-
ings recovery," Bansal said.
Foreign portfolio
investors were net buyers
of equities worth Rs
1,00,844 crore till December
30 in calendar year 2019,
going by data from national
depository NSDL.
“Indian investors’ invest-
ing mindset is also evolv-
ing, as they are learning
some lessons the hard way.
Markets are getting
polarised day by day in
terms of volumes and mar-
ket cap. A lot of intra day
lead to job losses, stymie
innovation and slowdown
the expansion of digital
payments, as the move will
spell the end of customer
incentive spends by partici-
pants. Service providers
will start withdrawing POS
terminals to cut their loss-
es if there is no revenue
from 500 million active
RuPay cards.
With a view to drive digi-
tal payments, finance min-
ister Nirmala Sitharaman
had a couple of days back
asked the industry not to
charge MDR on payments
using RuPay, UPI from
January 1. This applies to
all companies with a
turnover of Rs 50 crore or
more. This was mentioned
this in its last budget.
MDR is a charge levied
for making card transac-
tions and is distributed
among all the parties
the electric Seltos would
be introduced next year,
with production begin-
ning in the second half of
2020. It would be made
exclusively available for
the Asian markets initial-
ly, starting with South
Korea.
According to sources the
Kia Seltos EV is likely to
have the same drivetrain
as the Hyundai Kona EV.
The range of the Seltos
EV could be around 400
km.
When launched in India,
Kia Seltos EV will com-
pete directly with recently
unveiled British MG ZS
EV for the sheer SUV-like
size of the vehicle. The
MG ZS EV, powered by
44.5kWh lithium-ion bat-
tery, can go up to 340 kilo-
meters on a single charge.
At present Kia Motors
India has its hands full
with aggressive market-
ing activities lined for its
second product in India –
the premium Carnival
multi-purpose vehicle to
be launched in the first
half of next year.
The company is also
readying a sub-four-metre
compact SUV, which
would hit the roads in the
second half of 2020.
opportunities is exploited
by teams of arbitrageurs
or algo trades. The contri-
bution, in percentage
terms, of top 5 companies
and top 10 companies by
market cap to total market
cap has gone up over the
years from 9.7 and 14.4 per
cent to 17.6 and 23.4 per
cent, respectively,” said
Deepak Jasani, head-retail
research, HDFC Securities.
Even though Sensex and
Nifty have performed pret-
ty well over the past 24
months, many investors
are brutally injured in this
period due to a wide fall in
the stock market. While the
top 25 companies market
cap-wise gained 22 per cent
on an average between
involved, including the
card companies, banks and
the POS terminal
providers. As per the
industry, about 80-90 per
cent of the revenues for
POS terminal providers
comes through MDR.
Some in the industry
want the cost to be borne
by the government instead
of banks, as they would not
have any incentive to pro-
mote digital payments
without MDR revenues.
“Incentivising digital
payments to push for less
cash economy is a good
move. However, clarity is
required on who will foot
the MDR cost,” said Rishi
Gupta, MD & CEO, Fino
Payments Bank.
“From the point-of-view
of the government, this
will aid in accelerating the
adoption of digital/cash-
less payment systems
New Delhi, Dec. 30: The
government has allowed
Chinese telecom company
Huawei Technologies Co.
to participate in trials for
5G networks, as part of its
decision to include all
players in the trials.
"We have taken a deci-
sion to give 5G spectrum
for trials to all players,"
Telecom Minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad said on
Monday.
An in-principle decision
has been taken in this
regard, Prasad said at an
event here.
"5G is future, it is speed.
We will encourage new
innovation in 5G," he
added.
The government’s stand
implies that all operators,
backed by equipment ven-
dors they have decided to
partner with, will be able
to participate in the
upcoming 5G trials.
A Huawei spokesman
also confirmed the news.
The nod to Huawei
comes at a time when the
global rollout of 5G tech-
nology has been compli-
cated by US sanctions
against the company. The
United States has been lob-
bying allies not to use
Huawei's network equip-
ment in their 5G networks.
The trials will be held in
January, according to a
senior telecom ministry
New kid on the block
ByteDance
Didi Chuxing
Juul
SpaceX
Stripe
Airbnb
Kuaishou
0 20
January 2018 and
December 2019, the next 25
companies i.e., 25 to 50, in
terms of market cap
gained only 4 per cent.
Performance turned neg-
ative by 13 per cent for the
next 50 companies i.e., 51-
100, and by minus 8 per
cent for the next 150 compa-
nies, i.e., 101 to 250.
Companies ranked 251 to
500 have given 34 per cent
negative return while
those in the 501 to 1,329
rank have returned minus
57 per cent on an average.
“However what is per-
ceived to be safe may not
really be safe over a long
period. In today’s context,
quality companies are get-
ting completely mixed up
as quality investments,”
the study by Prospero Tree
Financial Services said.
“The one thing that
comes between quality
companies being called as
quality investments is the
price at which those invest-
ments are made,” the study
warned. There are many
companies doing credible
work in their respective
sectors, having a decent
probability of adequate
success and are now avail-
able at attractive price, the
study further said.
along with reducing the
transaction cost of digital
payments. However, this
move may impact the pri-
vate players in the digital
payments space as MDR is
a source of their revenue
models along with impact,”
said Ankur Pahwa, partner
and national leader–e-com-
merce and consumer inter-
net, EY India. “It is impor-
tant to keep in mind that
this is mandated only for
companies above Rs 50
crore turnover and hence
will not impact the smaller
merchants, which form a
larger volume base,” he
said.
“If government wants to
push digital payments,
then making MDR zero is
not the solution, but a
lower, controlled MDR
along with added tax bene-
fits to merchants will go a
long way," Patel said.
official.
The telecom department
will meet operators on
Tuesday to confirm the
timing for 5G trials, a
China’s vice-premier to visit US for phase-I deal
K. J. M. VARMA
BEIJING, DEC 30
China's vice-premier Liu
He, who is also the chief
negotiator for trade talks
with the US, will lead a
delegation to Washington
this weekend, during
which he is expected to
sign a phase one deal to
significantly de-escalate
the trade war between the
two biggest global
economies, a media
report said on Monday.
"Washington has sent
an invitation and Beijing
TikTok parent
ByteDance is the
most valuable
tech startup in
the world
■ Valuation
40 60 80
Source: CB Insights
RBI seeks to tighten lending
rules for urban co-op banks
FALAKNAAZ SYED
MUMBAI, DEC. 30
In a bid to prevent PMC
Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) on Monday pro-
posed to cap the loan expo-
sure of urban co-opera-
tive banks to a single enti-
ty and a group of borrow-
ers to 10 per cent and 25
per cent, respectively,
besides also raising the
priority sector lending
targets for them.
The RBI, in the draft cir-
cular, stipulated “that the
prudential exposure lim-
its for UCBs for a single
borrower/party and a
group of connected bor-
rowers/parties shall be 10
per cent and 25 per cent,
respectively, of their Tier
I capital and that at least
50 per cent of their loan
portfolio shall comprise
loans not more than Rs 25
lakh per borrower/party.”
Jyotindra Mehta, presi-
dent of the National
Federation of Urban Co-
operative Banks and
Credit Societies, told FC,
“The new limits that are
being proposed for UCBs
are similar to the ones
that small finance banks
(SFBs) have to follow. The
co-operative banks should
respect the regulator’s
prescribed formula when
enforced.”
However, the chairman
of another UCB told FC:
Swelling mobile subscriptions
India's mobile phone customer base rose by 9.66
million subscribers to 1.18 billion in October,
according to data released by the telecoms
regulator on Monday.
COMPANY
Bharti Airtel
Vodafone Idea
Reliance Jio
Bharat Sanchar Nigam
Reliance Communications
MTNL
BSNL VNO
■ Active mobile subscribers in October
were 981.19 million.
■ Mobile connections per 100 people, or
the tele-density of wireless subscribers,
were 89.55. Mobile tele-density in urban
India was 156.83, compared with 57.91 in
rural regions.
■ As many as 4.08 mn mobile sub-
scribers opted to change their service
providers through mobile number
portability.
news channel reported.
Sources said all vendors,
including Huawei, will be
covered in trials.
Sources had recently
has accepted it," Hong
Kong-based South China
Morning Post quoted an
official as saying.
The Chinese delegation,
headed by Liu, which
would leave on Saturday
is expected to stay "a few
days" in the US, the
report said.
However, neither side
has officially confirmed
the trip. China's Ministry
of Commerce was not
immediately available for
comment.
The signing of a phase
one deal during Liu's trip
AI may crash-land if
no buyer turns up
Air India might be forced to
shut down by June next year
unless it finds a buyer, as
"piecemeal" arrangements can-
not be sustained for long, a sen-
ior airline official said, adding
that there is also a need for
funds to restart operations of
12 grounded narrow-body planes. The airline has a debt bur-
den of around `60,000 crore and the government is still work-
ing on the modalities for the disinvestment. The official said
Air India might well go Jet Airways way if a prospective buyer
does not come on board by June.
“The hidden
agenda of the RBI is
exposure shall be taken on
such borrowers, these
facilities may be allowed
to continue as per their
to force UCBs to
convert to SFBs. Two respective repayment
schedule / till maturity
years ago also the the central bank said.
RBI had asked UCBs Further the draft norms
to voluntarily convert also proposes to increase
the overall priority sector
to SFB, but there lending target for UCBs
were no takers. So from the present level of
now the RBI is forc- 40 per cent of adjusted net
ing UCBs to follow bank credit or credit
equivalent amount of off-
the same norms”
balance sheet exposure,
whichever is higher to 75
“If you read in between per cent by March 31, 2023.
the lines, then you will Currently, primary
understand that the hid- (urban) co-operative
den agenda of the RBI is banks (UCBs) are permit-
to force UCBs to convert to ted to have exposures up
SFBs. Two years ago also to 15 per cent and 40 per
the RBI had asked UCBs cent of their capital funds
to voluntarily convert to
SFB, but there were no
to a single borrower and a
group of borrowers,
takers. So now the RBI is
forcing UCBs to follow the
respectively.
The RBI said large expo-
same norms and later con-
vert to SFBs.”
The revised exposure
sure of banks to single
borrowers/parties
groups of connected bor-
or
limits shall apply to all rowers/parties leads to
types of fresh exposures credit concentration risk.
taken by UCBs. Once the When large exposures to
final norms are issued, a few single parties/
UCBs will have to bring groups become non-per-
down their existing expo- forming, it affects the cap-
sures which are in excess ital/net worth of the con-
of the revised limits to cerned bank significantly
within the aforesaid and, at times, leads to liq-
revised limits by March uidity and solvency risk
31, 2023. However, where for the lender.
the existing exposure The central bank said
comprises only term that the comments on the
loans and non-fund based draft circular can be for-
facilities, while no further warded to it till January 20.
Exports may
touch
CHANGE (mn) TOTAL USERS (mn) $330-340 bn,
0.08
0.19
325.65
372.68 says Fieo
9.10 364.33 New Delhi, Dec 30: The
0.29 117.26 country's exports are
expected to touch $330-
-0.0002 0.02
340 billion during the
-0.006 3.39 ongoing fiscal on
account of uncertain
0.0003 0.09
global situation and ris-
■ Total broadband connections were ing protectionism,
644.08 mn. There were 625 mn broad- exporters body Fieo said
on Monday.
band users through mobile phones and During April-Novem-
dongles, while 19.08 mn were using ber 2019-20, exports
dipped by about 2 per
broadband through wirelines.
cent to $212 billion.
■ The number of fixed-phone line Federation of Indian
subscribers slipped to 21.45 mn in Export Organisations
October from 21.49 mn in September. (Fieo) president Sharad
■ Including fixed-phone lines, India Kumar Saraf said the
global situation is
had 1.20 billion phone users as of Oct. 31,
or a total tele-density of 91.17%.
becoming extremely
challenging as rising
protectionism is leading
Source: Trai/Reuters to uncertainty in global
trade, which will have
adverse impact on India.
He said despite having
a moderate share in
global trade, India's
exports have always fol-
lowed the trend in global
imports.
said the government has "Therefore, when glob-
received seven applica- al imports are declining,
tions for 5G trials and our exports are also like-
added that all operators ly to take a hit.
and vendors (including Currently, exports dur-
Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, ing April-November 2019
ZTE and Samsung) are are down by about 1.99
keen to participate. per cent. Therefore, we
Huawei rivals western feel our goods exports
equipment makers, such
as Ericsson, and is banned
may touch $330-340 bil-
lion in the current fis-
in the US. Many countries,
however, have allowed tele-
com service providers to
cal," Saraf said in a
statement.
"If the global situation
use Chinese gears. And
now, India has also indi-
improves, which is like-
ly in the first half of
cated its unwillingness to 2020, we may look for 15
keep any company out of per cent growth in
5G trials. exports during the next
—Agencies financial year," he said.
However, he said
exports have to be
aligned with changing
import patterns of the
global economy.
would mark a point of About 50 per cent of
truce in the ongoing bit- the global imports is
ter trade war. accounted by electrical
On December 13, China and electronics prod-
and the US have agreed ucts, automobiles, mach-
on the text of a phase one inery, petroleum prod-
economic and trade ucts and plastic prod-
agreement to end the 18- ucts. "Unfortunately, the
month-long trade war. share of such products
According to an official in our exports is less
statement, both the sides than 33 per cent despite
have agreed to complete having petroleum prod-
their necessary proce- ucts accounting for
dures, including legal roughly half of it. Our
review, translation and global share in such
proofreading, as soon as products is much less
possible. than 1 per cent," he said.
—PTI — PTI
 Perfect start
Ante Cacic made a winning start as coach of
Pyramids, who beat fellow Egyptian club Al Masry 2-1
to take control of a CAF Confederation Cup group
I am dissapointed
not to be able to
begin my season
as hoped for in
January.
— Kei Nishikori, on pulling out
of Australian Open
SHORT TAKES
Italian club
Roma for sale
Milan: Italian football club
Roma on Monday confirmed
negotiations with US billionaire
Dan Friedkin to buy the Italian
club. “The Friedkin Group are in
negotiations related to a poten-
tial transaction involving NEEP
Roma Holding Spa and its sub-
sidiaries - including AS Roma,”
the club said early Monday. It
follows reports that the 54-
year-old Texas-based business-
man will imminently take over
as majority shareholder from
fellow American James Pallotta
in a deal worth up to 780 mil-
lion euros ($872 million).
“AS Roma informs that no
definitive agreements concern-
ing a transfer — have been for-
malised to date and that any
potential transaction with The
Friedkin Group remains subject
to a successful completion of a
legal due diligence upon the AS
Roma Group,” the statement
continued. According to several
media reports, a preliminary
agreement has been reached
with Friedkin to take over from
a US consortium led by
Pallotta, who bought two-thirds
of Roma’s shares in 2012.
Since then Pallotta, 61, has
been pushing for the construc-
tion of a new stadium in Rome,
but it remains at a planning
stage. — AFP
Margaret courts
a controversy
Melbourne: Australian tennis
great Margaret Court has again
condemned transgender ath-
letes, while claiming the devil
controlled the media and gov-
ernment, in fiery comments just
weeks before she is honoured
at the Australian Open.
The 24-time Grand Slam singles
winner, now a church pastor,
drew fire in 2017 for saying she
would avoid Qantas over the
airline’s support for same-sex
marriage, which is now law in
Australia following a referen-
dum.
She later claimed, in comments
that were widely derided, that
tennis was “full of lesbians” and
that transgender children were
the result of a Nazi-style “plot”
to brainwash the minds of
young people.
The 77-year-old doubled down
on her controversial views
regarding sexuality during a
sermon at her Perth church at
the weekend, which came to
light on Monday.
“Children are making the deci-
sion at seven or eight years of
age to change their sex ... no,
just read the first two chapters
of Genesis, that's all I say. Male
and female,” Court said in a
video of the sermon.
— AFP
FOOTBALLER
DIES DURING
SEVENS GAME
Malappuram, Kerala: Footballer
Dhanarajan Radhakrishnan, who
represented Kolkata heavy-
weights Mohun Bagan and East
Bengal, died while playing a
match in Perintalmanna, Kerala
after reportedly suffering a car-
diac arrest.
Playing a Sevens (seven-a-side)
match for FC Perintalmanna
against Sastha Medicals FC
Thrissur on Sunday evening, the
defender collapsed midway
during the game and was
immediately rushed to a hospi-
tal nearby.
The 39-year-old died at 10.20
pm, hospital sources said.
He collapsed in the 27th minute
of the match, raising his left
hand before collapsing.
Radhakrishnan who began his
career at erstwhile
Chirag United, played
professional football for 11
years.
Besides being part of Mohun
Bagan and East Bengal, he has
also represented Mohammedan
Sporting from 2012-14.
The All India Football
Federation on Monday con-
doled the death of
Dhanarajan, who also played for
the Bengal in the Santosh
Trophy.
— PTI
Games
Double for Ishaan
Meiraba, Tasnim win singles at Junior badminton
DC CORRESPONDENT
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
Chattisgarh’s rising shut-
tler Ishaan Bhatnagar
tasted double glory as he
claimed both the boys’
doubles and the mixed
doubles crowns at the
Yonex-Sunrise
Junior
44th
National
Badminton Champion-
ships in Rajahmundry on
Monday.
Maisnam Meiraba and
Tasnim Mir collected the
singles titles.
In the mixed doubles sec-
tion, the second-seeded
pair of Bhatnagar and
Goa’s Tanisha Crasto
showed great chemistry
and teamwork to upset top
seeds Navaneeth Bokka
and Sahithi Bandi 21-18,
21-13.
The boys’ doubles final
lived upto the expecta-
tions with top seeds
Bhatnagar and
Telengana’s Vishnu
Vardhan Goud Panjala
producing a strong dis-
play to effortlessly beat
the fifth-seeded combine
of Achutaditya Rao
Doddavarapu and Edwin
Joy 21-14, 21-15.
The girls’ doubles also
witnessed an upset as
sixth seeds Simran Singhi
and Ritika Thaker of
Jerami Grant (left) of Denver Nuggets defends against Buddy Hield of
Sacramento Kings in the first half of an NBA basketball game in Denver on
Sunday. The Denver Nuggets won 120-115.
Performers aplenty in schools cricket
Snehal, Omjha, Advait, Partha, Shreyas, Avinash, Karthik do well with
the ball; Jawad, Jayanth, Srikanth, Rohit come up with good knocks
DC CORRESPONDENT
HYDERABAD, DEC. 30
The Hyderabad Cricket
Association’s Under 14
inter-schools tournament
threw up a clutch of per-
formers. Jai Snehal,
Omjha, Advait, Partha
Sarathy, Shreyas Goud,
Avinash and K. Karthik
excelled with the ball
while Jawad Ali Khan,
Jayanth Reddy and K.
Srikanth slammed cen-
turies. Kush Rohit was
unlucky to be stranded on
an unbeaten 96.
Jai Snehal took 7 wick-
ets while conceding just 6
runs to bowl Oakridge
International School
Bachupally to victory
over Sri Sai Vidhyarathi
High School.
The match between
Johnson Grammar and
Sherwood Public School
had two performers from
either side. Sherwood’s
Omjha took 6 for 12 but
Advait replied with 7 for
14 as Johnson won.
Partha Sarathy was
another outstanding per-
former. He took 5 wickets
while conceding just 1 run
as Global Indian
International School were
bowled out for a mere 43.
P. Obul Reddy School
Left: Ishaan Bhatnagar (left) and P. Vishnu Vardhan Goud pose with their boys doubles trophies. Right: Ishaan
Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto are all smiles after winning the mixed doublest title in Rajahmundry on Monday.
Maharashtra held their
nerves for an enthralling
21-14, 20-22, 21-18 victory
over the top seeds Aditi
Bhatt and Tanisha Crasto
in a marathon final that
lasted one hour and 17
minutes.
The singles matches
Partha Sarathy
made heavy weather of
the lowly target though,
losing half their side
before crossing over the
line.
Shreyas Goud took 5 for
26 as St Mary’s High
School (Vijaynagar) were
out for 116. Oakridge
International School
Gachibowli replied with
118/5.
St Peter’s Bowenapally
found two key players
after making a modest 126
against Mount Litera Zee
School. Karthik’s 5 for 8
and Avinash’s 5 for 22 bun-
dled the opposition out for
45.
Jawad Ali Khan hit 130
to help Kakatiya Group of
Schools to 237/3 in their 40
overs. Sri Chaitanya could
only reply with 129 as
Jawad was also among the
went according to the
seedings. Manipur’s
Junior World No.8
Maisnam Meiraba, who
won the Bangladesh
Junior International
Series last week, contin-
ued his winning streak.
With smart footwork and
— AP
Jayanth Reddy
wickets, taking 3 for 27.
Jayanth Reddy made 146
not out to guide St Paul’s
High School to 278 for 5. St
Francis of Assisi could
not even match Jayanth’s
score and were all out for
145.
Vigyan Vidyalaya’s
Srikanth was the other
centurion. He made an
unbeaten 102 in his side’s
nine-wicket victory over
St Mark’s Boys Town.
Chirec’s Kush Rohit
made 96 before his side
ran out of overs. However,
their 235 for 3 was too
much for Silver Oaks, who
were out for 140.
BRIEF SCORES
■ Oakridge International
School Bachupally 103 in
26.3 overs (Rishabh 4 for
17) bt Sri Sai Vidhyarathi HS
11 in 10.4 overs (Jai Snehal 7
DECCAN CHRONICLE
some superb smashes,
Meiraba celebrated his
17th birthday to register a
21-18, 21-19 win over ninth
seed Rohan Gurbani.
Gujarat’s Tasnim Mir
had to work way harder
for her win. Continuing
her sterling form from the
Lakers lay Mavs
low, Davis shines
Los Angeles, Dec. 30:
Anthony Davis had 23
points and nine rebounds
as the Los Angeles Lakers
defeated the Dallas
Mavericks 108-95
Sunday at Staples Center.
on
Kentavious Caldwell-
Pope came off the bench to
score 19 points while
LeBron James, who turns
35 on Monday, finished
with a double double, 13
points and 13 assists.
James became the ninth
player in league history to
reach 9,000 career assists.
Luka Doncic, who
entered the contest as the
NBA’s third-leading scorer
at 29.1 points per game, had
19 points on five-of-14
shooting and seven assists.
The Mavericks got a scare
in the second quarter when
Doncic was slammed to the
ground by Lakers Dwight
Howard, who was hit with
a foul on the play.
Doncic was driving to the
basket and in the air when
Howard reach in with his
left arm sending Doncic
crashing to the floor.
This is the second vicious
hit by Howard on Doncic
this season. In November,
Howard bloodied the 20-
year-old Slovenian with an
elbow to the head.
for 6 — 5.4-4-6-7, Ishaan 3
for 4)
■ Johnson Grammar School
122 in 24.5 overs (Shauyan
Reddy 40, Omjha 6 for 12 —
6-1-12-6) bt Sherwood
Public School 36 in 15.4
overs (Advait 7 for 14 — 3.4-
0-14-7)
■ Global Indian
International School 43 in
23.5 overs (K. Shreyas
Reddy 4 for 14, Partha
Sarathy 5 for 1 — 3-2-1-5)
lost to P. Obul Reddy
School 44/5 in 16.2 overs.
■ St Mary’s High School
(Vijaynagar) 116 in 23.4
overs (Md Azharuddin 36,
Shreyas Goud 5 for 26 — 7-
1-26-5) lost to Oakridge
International School
Gachibowli 118/5 in 18.4
overs (Sai S 42)
■ St Peter’s HS
Bowenapally 126 in 37 overs
(Avinash 54, Manas 3 for 16)
bt Mount Litera Zee School
45 in 16.2 overs (Avinash 5
for 22 — 8-1-22-5, K. Karthik
5 for 8 — 5.2-1-8-5)
■ Kakatiya Group of
Schools 237/3 in 40 overs
(Jawad Ali Khan 130 —
122b, 19x4, Ashish 39,
Praneesh 3 for 46) bt Sri
Chaitanya HS 129 in 34.4
overs (Jawad Ali Khan 3 for
27, Advaith 3 for 10)
■ St Paul’s High School
278/5 in 45 overs (Rithvik
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
Badminton Asia U17 &
U15 Junior
Championships 2019,
where she emerged the U-
15 champion, the resilient
second-seeded Mir
stormed back to beat
Vijetha Harish 14-21, 21-18,
21-13.
Delon Wright added 14
points off the bench, while
Kristaps Porzingis man-
aged 11 points on 4-of-10
shooting.
The Lakers outshot the
Mavericks 48.7 per cent to
36 per cent.
The Mavericks also
played most of the game
without Tim Hardaway
who left the contest with
5:26 remaining in the first
quarter after suffering a
hamstring injury.
Hardaway, who had 25
points in the Mavericks’
win at Golden State on
Saturday, seemed to hurt
himself after a dunk.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
nailed the go-ahead jump
shot with 36 seconds left
and equalled his career
best with 32 points as the
Oklahoma City Thunder
edged the defending NBA
champion Toronto Raptors
98-97.
Chris Paul scored 20 of
his 25 points in the second
half as the red-hot
Thunder won their sixth
game in their last seven.
Paul added 11 rebounds
and eight assists, Nerlens
Noel tallied 13 points and
Darius Bazley scored 12 for
Oklahoma City.
— AFP
31, Jayanth Reddy 146 n.o —
107b, 15x4) bt St Francis of
Assisi School 145 in 34.5
overs (Atharva M 53, Yajwan
Kumar 3 for 34)
■ Chirec International
School 235/3 in 50 overs
(Kush Rohit 96 n.o, N.
Akshay 52) bt Silver Oaks
School 140 in 42.1 overs
(Amit Singh 60, Pavan Tej
30, Saketh P 4 for 24,
Abhiram 3 for 12)
■ St Mark’s Boys Town 137/6
in 43 overs (Md Farees
Shareef 70) lost to Vigyan
Vidyalaya 141/1 in 17 overs
(K. Srikanth 102 n.o — 70b,
19x4)
■ HPS Begumpet 197 in 35.3
overs (Abhay 66 n.o) bt St
Ann’s HS 99 in 33 overs
(Sahil 3 for 20, Akash 3 for
14)
■ Slate The School Abids
211/9 in 40 overs (Mitra S 58
n.o, Pravas C 39, Harsha A 3
for 20) bt St Andrews HS
Keesara 210 in 39.5 overs (A
Harsha 70, Krishna 3 for 26)
■ Unicent HS 82 in 20.4
overs (T. Ram Sree Charan
33, Vaishanv 4 for 4) lost to
Slate the School
Karmanghat 87/5 in 15.1
overs (Y Nihal 3 for 22)
■ Zee High School 112 in
29.2 overs (Shashank Yadav
33) lost to St Joseph HS
King Koti 113/4 in 39.3 overs
(Abhijay 30)
PAGE
14
CITY CLIPS
Rahul century in vain for Hyd U-23
Hyderabad: Rahul Buddhi scored a century but could
not prevent the Hyderabad Under 23 team from losing
to Punjab in their Col C. K. Nayudu Trophy match
here on Monday.
Hyderabad rode on Rahul’s 102 that came off 228
balls and included 11 fours and two sixes and captain
Mickil Jaiswal’s 46 to make 390 in their second innings
to add to the 222 in their first essay.
However, that was not enough, given Punjab’s mam-
moth first innings score of 555. Needing just 58 for a
win, they replied with 60 without loss.
BRIEF SCORES (Day 4)
Hyderabad 222 in 90 overs & 390 in 119.3 overs (Rahul
Buddhi 102 — 228b, 11x4, 2x6, Mickil Jaiswal 46, Ikjot
Singh Thind 3 for 67, Jass Inder 2 for 77, Abhinva Sharma
2 for 66, Abhishek Sharma 2 for 60) lost to Punjab 555 in
106 overs & 60 for no loss in 9.4 overs (Vishwa Pratap
Singh 40 n.o). Points: Punjab 7, Hyderabad 0.
Women cricketers for U-23 camp
Hyderabad: The following players have been selected
for the women’s Under-23 camp for one-day matches to
be held in January 2020. All players should report to
Vidyuth Jaisimha at Gymkhana Grounds on January
2, 2020 at 12 noon, the Hyderabad Cricket Association
has said in a press release on Monday.
Ramya, Anitha, Shravya (wicketkeeper), Anuradha
(wicketkeeper), B. Shravani, Sneha More, Varsha
Rajak, Trisha G, Lakshmi Prasanna, Keerthi Reddy,
Yashashree, Pranathi Allapathi, Bavishya, Pranavi
Chandra, Chitra Maheshwari, Sai Lekha, Suvartha, E.
Snigdha, T. Chandana, Merlyn John.
Members of the Emerging Cricketers Development
Group pose after finishing runners-up at the Dr
Shankar Dayal Sharma Junior National Cricket League
played at Oval Maidan in Mumbai.
ECDG lose narrowly, are runners-up
Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based Emerging Cricketers
Development Group went down narrowly by one wick-
et to Mumbai Cricket Club in the final of the Dr
Shankar Dayal Sharma Junior National Cricket
League played at Oval Maidan in Mumbai.
Batting first, the Hyderabad team were all out for 173,
built on Abhinav (48), Aijaz (31), Yash Jain (360 and
Sreyash (33) despite a 5 for 33 by Boger. In reply, MCC
were in trouble but just about got over the line after
the loss of nine wickets, thanks to Arham’s 53 and
Altamash’s 38.
The event was organised by Mumbai Cricket Club in
collaboration with School Sports and Games
Federation (SSGF) to commemorate the 20th death
anniversary of former president of India Dr Shankar
Dayal Sharma.
Brief Scores: ECDG Hderabad 173 in 18.5 overs (Abhinav
48, Aijaz 31, Yash Jain 36, Sreyash 33, Boger 5 for 33,
Vedant 3 for 12) lost to Mumbai Cricket Club 174/9 in 20
overs (Altamash 38, Arham 53, Sewant 3 for 27, Abhinav 3
for 37, Danish 2 for 15)
Individual awards: Yash Jain (Most Valuable Player),
Abhinav (Player of the Tournament), Aijaz (Best
Batsman), Sewant (Best Bowler), Sreyash (Best
Allrounder), Mustafa (Best Fielder), Manikanta (Best
Wicket-Keeper), Varshik, Sumeet (Emerging Players),
Ambarish (The Spirit of Cricket Award), Saad (Game
Changer Award).
Winners of the Hyderabad Football League pose with
their medals and trophies.
Invincibles beat Sports Village in final
Hyderabad: In keeping with his consistent showing,
Muhammed Zaidh, justified the Golden Ball honour
with a splendid double to help Invincibles FC thrash
Sports Village FC 4-1 in the summit clash of the
Hyderabad Football League (HFL) Season-IV here.
Though the margin was one-sided, the match was
action-packed. The eventual runner-up missed hitting
the board despite ample chances, thanks to the bril-
liance of Ibad Ullah Khan, who was rewarded with the
Golden Glove honour.
The other individual winners for the season were:
Athesham Ali (Friends United FC, Golden Boot;
Nitesh Sharma (Sports Village FC, Best Defender) and
Shaik Umair (Zodiac FC, Best Midfielder).
Former Hyderabad cricketer Ashish Reddy (back row,
second from left) poses with trainees and secretary G.
Kiran Reddy of the Sarojini Cricket and Fitness
Academy during his visit to motivate the youngsters.
Hyderabad girls, RR boys champions
Hyderabad: Hyderabad girls and Ranga Reddy boys
emerged champions in the inter-district handball
championship organised by the District Sports
Authority of Hyderabad and Vikarabad District
School Games Federation. In the boys final, Ranga
Reddy beat Hyderabad 19-18 while Nizamabad defeated
Warangal 15-10 to take the third place. In the girls
final, Hyderabad defeated Khammam 11-07.
Mahbubnagar beat Karimnagar 9-5 for the third place.
 Faf hits out
South African cricket captain Faf du Plessis believes
cricket needs more, not fewer, elite nations, as he
criticises the move to play a series involving ‘Big Three’
DECCAN CHRONICLE
Cricket
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
PAGE

15

ICC to consider making four-day Tests mandatory

Did Warnie ever
want a rest and
give Stuart MacGill
a go?
— Nathan Lyon shoots down a
suggestion from Shane Warne that
he take a rest for the Sydney Test
SHORT TAKES
Short replaces
injured Abbott
Melbourne: Australia on
Monday called up explosive
opening all-rounder D'Arcy
Short in place of injured pacer
Sean Abbott in their ODI squad
Melbourne, Dec. 30: The
International Cricket
Council (ICC) could make
four-day Tests mandatory
from 2023 as part of the
World Test Championship,
primarily to free up the
crowded calendar.
The ICC’s cricket com-
mittee will formally con-
sider trimming Tests to
four days from five for the
2023-2031 cycle. ICC want-
ing to stage more global
events, the BCCI’s
demands for an expanded
bilateral calendar, prolif-
eration of T20 leagues
around the world and cost
of hosting a five-day game
are some of the factors
contributing to the need
for a four-day game,
reported ESPNcricinfo.
If four-day Tests were
held during the 2015-2023
Members of the ICC Cricket Committee.
cycle, it would have freed
up 335 days of scheduled
cricket. A four-day Test is
not a new concept with the
last one played between
England and Ireland earli-
er this year. South Africa
and Zimbabwe too played
one in 2017.
It is an issue that is like-
ly to attract a contrasting
view from the game’s
stakeholders. Cricket
Australia chief Kevin
Roberts feels four-day
Tests should be definitely
considered.
“It is something that we
have got to seriously con-
sider this week. It is some-
thing that can’t be driven
by emotion, but it needs to
be driven by fact. We need
to look at what’s the aver-
age length of Test matches
over the past five-ten years
in terms of time and
overs,” Roberts told SEN
Radio.
“We need to look at it
very carefully and perhaps
it is more likely than not
in the mid-term future.
What we absolutely will do
is that over the next 12 to
18 months, is make sure
the cricket calendar is
nailed down for the years
2023 to 2031. “What we are
committed to doing is BENEFITS
working with all the ICC ZIt would allow for
members — nobody is say- more Test series to
ing it is easy but what we
are doing is looking at it played over three or
five matches.
holistically and we are
committed to doing that.”
However, Australian cap- ZIt will help host
tain Tim Paine was not
enthused by the idea fol-
boards and broadcast-
lowing his team’s 247-run
ers get a greater share
of the higher revenue-
win over New Zealand in
the Boxing Day Test. raising early days of a
“We might not have got a Test without having to
result if we’d done that in budget for a fifth day.
the Ashes, I think every
game went to a fifth day,”
said Paine. “That’s the ZMatches played over
point of difference with four days would likely
Test cricket, it is five days,
it’s harder mentally, it’s
see the increase of the
minimum overs in a
harder physically, and it
tests players more than
day from 90 to 98,
meaning that over four
the four-day first-class fix- days only 58 scheduled
tures do.” — PTI overs would be lost.
TOP-5 TEST BATSMEN

The King rules on field,

for the upcoming tour of India.
The tour begins on January 14 INDIAN Player Pts
with the first One-day ● Virat Kohli (Ind) 928
International in Mumbai. The CRICKET IN ● Steve Smith (Aus) 911
second and third ODIs will be
held in Rajkot and Bengaluru on ● Kane Williamson (NZ) 822

2019 The Maharaj off it

January 14 and January 19,
respectively. Short has been
included in the squad after a
side strain during a Big Bash
League game ruled out Abbott
for four weeks. With fast
bowlers Pat Cummins, Josh
Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and
Kane Richardson already in
Australia's ODI squad, selectors
have called in Short, a top-
order batter who also bowls
wrist spin, to replace pacer
Abbott. "It is extremely unfor-
tunate for Sean, who is very
much a part of our white-ball
squad plans leading into the
ICC T20 World Cup and the
World Cup,” selection convener
Trevor Hohns was quoted as
saying by Cricket Australia.
— PTI
Australia squad: Aaron Finch
(capt), D’Arcy Short, Ashton
Agar, Alex Carey (wk), Pat
Cummins, Peter Handscomb,
Josh Hazlewood, Marnus
Labuschagne, Kane Richardson,
Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc,
Ashton Turner, David Warner,
Adam Zampa.
DDCA seeks time
to elect president
New Delhi: The strife-torn Delhi
and District Cricket
Associations (DDCA) on
Monday sought time till the
state assembly polls in
February to conduct election
for the post of its president.
The DDCA also made it clear
that former India opener
Gautam Gambhir, whose name
was doing the rounds, will not
be eligible to contest for presi-
dent's post as per Lodha rec-
ommendations. “Ombudsman
Deepak Verma will be request-
ed to give some extension to
conduct election for president’s
post. Election is slated for
January end but a request will
be put that it is held after
Delhi’s assembly election in
February,” DDCA general secre-
tary Vinod Tihara said.
● Marnus Labuschagne (Aus) 805
● Cheteshwar Pujara (Ind) 791
TOP-5 TEST BOWLERS
● Pat Cummins (Aus)
New Delhi, Dec. 30: Virat Kohli and
Indian cricket remained an enduring
love story while Sourav Ganguly held
PONTING PICKS ● Neil Wagner (NZ)
902
859
out promise for a path-breaking reign
off the field in a year during which the VIRAT AS CAPTAIN ● Kagiso Rabada (SA)
● Jason Holder (WI)
832
830
country finally embraced Pink Ball
Tests. There were the heartbreaks, the
biggest one being a World Cup semifinal
OF HIS TEST TEAM ● Vernon Philander (SA) 800
exit, and not to forget the anxious wait
on what Mahendra Singh Dhoni might Melbourne, Dec. 30: Former Australian cap- TOP-5 ODI BATSMEN
do next after being on a sabbatical for tain Ricky Ponting on Monday picked India
half the year. skipper Virat Kohli to lead his all-star Test ● Virat Kohli (Ind) 887
In a World Cup that was decided by team of the decade, which featured four ● Rohit Sharma (Ind)
boundary count-back, India were in for English players.
873
quite a bit of pain when New Zealand Ponting’s Test team of the 2010s doesn’t fea- ● Babar Azam (Pak) 834
knocked them out in the semifinals. The ture any other Indian apart from Kohli, who is
Kiwis then had to bear a lot of agony of currently ranked No.1 in both ICC Test and
● F du Plessis (SA) 820
their own when England became cham- ODI rankings for batsmen. The Englishmen in ● Ross Taylor(NZ) 817
pions for a better boundary count after his team include all-rounder Ben Stokes, bats-
regulation as well as super over scores man Alastair Cook, and the pace duo of Stuart
ended tied. Broad and James Anderson. Among the TOP-5 ODI BOWLERS
The very affable Kane Williamson’s Australians he has opted for Steve Smith and ● Jasprit Bumrah (Ind) 785
painfully blank expression after that David Warner along with spinner Nathan
crushing loss made for the perhaps Lyon. ● Trent Boult (NZ) 740
most poignant picture of the year. In the “Everyone’s picking teams of the decade ● Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Afg) 707
neighbouring Australia, Steve Smith
and David Warner began thei redemp-
so I thought I’d join in the fun,” Ponting
wrote on his twitter handle. ● Kagiso Rabada (SA) 694
tion in earnest after hitting nadir in
2018 due to the ball-tampering scandal.
“This would be my Test team of the
2010’s: David Warner, Alastair Cook,
● Pat Cummins (Aus) 693
Smith had a memorable Ashes cam- Kane Williamson, Steve Smith, Virat
paign which also presented world crick- Kohli (c), Kumar Sangakkarra (wk), Ben
et with a potential superstar in the Stokes, Dale Steyn, Nathan Lyon, Stuart TOP-5 T20 BATSMEN
young Marnus Labuschagne. South Broad, James Anderson.” ● Babar Azam (Pak) 879
African cricket lost most of its revered Kohli has already amassed 70 internation-
performers during an year of decline al hundreds and is only behind Ponting (71) ● Aaron Finch(Aus) 810
with the only consolation being a win and Sachin Tendulkar (100). The 31-year-old ● Dawid Malan (Eng) 782
against England at the fag end. from Delhi, who averages more than 50 in all
Test cricket was back in Pakistan formats, is also third in the list of leading ● Colin Munro (NZ) 780
with the Sri Lankan Test squad tour- run-scorers of all time with 21,444 runs, ● Glenn Maxwell (Aus)
ing for the first time since the 2009 behind Ponting (27,483) and Tendulkar
766
terror attacks but the response was (34,357). — PTI
at best lukewarm. It was also a year
when Glenn Maxwell put the spot- TOP-5 T20 BOWLERS
light on the mental stress that ●
international cricketers endure.
He took a break to deal with his
KOHLI, BUMRAH ●
Rashid Khan (Afg)
Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Afg)
749
742
mental health issues and found
support from all quarters. Kohli
was among those who threw
IN WISDEN’S T20 ●
●
Mitchell Santner (NZ)
Imad Wasim (Pak)
698
681
their weight behind Maxwell and
revealed that one time in his own
life when he battled “end of the
TEAM OF DECADE ● Adam Zampa (Aus) 674

— PTI
Rahane, Shaw to
play vs Karnataka
Mumbai: Test specialist Ajinkya
Rahane and young prodigy
Prithvi Shaw will turn up for
Mumbai in their Ranji Trophy
game against heavyweights
Karnataka. The two were
named in the 15-member squad
announced by the associa-
tionon its website on Monday.
The game will be played at the
Bandra Kurla Complex from
January 3. Both Shaw and
Rahane played the previous
games against Baroda and
Railways. Shaw had hit a blaz-
ing double hundred against
Baroda in the lung-opener but
faltered in both the essays
against Railways at Wankhede
Stadium. Rahane also had a
horrendous time with the bat
against Railways. Mumbai had
won the game against Baroda
while lost to Railways by 10
wickets. Rahane, who has
played 63 Tests, will be playing
consecutive Ranji games after a
long time. Shreyas Iyer and
Shivam Dube have been not
named in the squad. — PTI
world” thoughts. London, Dec. 30: India skipper Virat Kohli
The period being a rare slump in and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah were the FOCUS SHOULD BE ON
form during the England tour of
2014. Maxwell since then has recov-
only two Indians who found a place in
Wisden’s T20 International team of the WICKET-TAKING
ered and has also clinched a cool mil-
lion-dollar IPL deal with Kings XI
decade, which didn’t feature Mahendra
Singh Dhoni.
OPTIONS: KUMBLE
Punjab. Back to Indian cricket. If win- Australia’s limited overs captain New Delhi, Dec. 30: Former captain
ning a Test series in Australia for the Aaron Finch was named captain Anil Kumble feels the Indian team’s
first time in over seven decades was the of the team, which has two more focus should be on exploring wicket-
crowning glory for India, the fifteen Australian in Shane Watson and taking options even if that means play-
minutes of self destruction in the World Glenn Maxwell, two England crick- ing more fast bowlers than all-rounders
Cup semi-final against New Zealand eters — Jos Buttler and David Willey, in the T20 World Cup. India will play
stuck out like a sore thumb continuing two Afghanistan all-rounders — more T20Is in 2020 in order to prepare
the national team’s now six-year-old Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan, and for the T20 World Cup starting in
jinx in ICC tournaments. New Zealand’s Colin Munro and Sri Lanka’s October. “I certainly believe that you
Amid all this, Ganguly, known for tak- Lasith Malinga. need wicket taking bowlers and some-
ing charge in Indian cricket’s difficult On Kohli, Wisden said: “While Kohli’s one like a Kuldeep and Chahal need to
times, became the unanimous choice to record in domestic T20 cricket is patchy, the be a part of that in my view. Yes, there
become the 39th president of the BCCI same cannot be said of T20Is. Kohli’s average are instances where you know the ball
after three controversy-marred years of 53 was the best in the decade, and while his gets wet because of the dew, then
under the Supreme Court-appointed consistency compromises his strike-rate is it right for two wrist-
Committee of Administrators. And slightly, he is still able to score at a good rate, spinners to be there,”
Ganguly immediately showed his pen- even if not exceptional. Kumble told
chant for taking “on your feet” deci- “Strong against pace and spin, and rapid CricketNext. “It is very
sions by convincing an unsure Kohli to between the wickets, Kohli is an ideal play- important that you
play the first ever ‘Pink Ball Test’ er at No.3, able to fight fires when an early need to start looking
against Bangladesh. wicket is lost and stabilise the innings, but out for wicket taking
There was no stopping Kohli on the also accelerate when a platform is set. options. If it means that
field and he was the highest scorer Following a huge first-wicket partnership, you need to bring in just
across formats with 2,455 runs. The Kohli will slide down the order in this XI,” it fast bowlers who you
Indian pace bowlers — the best to have said on its website. believe will pick
ever bowled in tandem in the country’s Kohli, who ranks third in the list of lead- up wickets,”
cricketing history — fetched the cur- ing run-scorers of all time with 21,444 Ku m b l e
rent team the tag of gutsy travellers runs, was also included in Wisden’s added.
even though Ganguly thinks that their Test and ODI teams of the decade. — PTI
biggest Test is yet to come. — PTI — PTI

South Africa coach Boucher remains a fighter

Centurion, Dec. 30:
During a playing career of
147 Test matches, Mark
Boucher had a reputation
as a fighter, always pre-
pared to take on a chal-
lenge.
It’s a character trait which
looks likely to continue in
his new career as South
Africa’s head coach. It was a
“great feeling” to be in a
winning Proteas dressing
room after the first Test
against England on Sunday,
seven years after his play-
ing career ended prema-
turely with a freak eye
injury ahead of a Test
series in England in 2012.
“Just watching the guys
walk in, there were a couple
with lumps in their throats.
It means a lot for them to
win a game of Test cricket,”
he said. But it was only a
beginning.
“There’s still a lot of work
to be done for the rest of the
series.” Boucher gave two
indicators of his coaching
philosophy when he dis-
cussed wicketkeeper-bats-
man Quinton de Kock and
fast bowler Kagiso Rabada,
in both cases stressing a
preference for taking the
fight to the opposition. De
Kock’s first innings of 95
turned the match in South
Africa’s favour.
In the second innings he
hit three sixes off England’s
fast bowling hope Jofra
Archer in a brief but spec-
tacular statement of intent.
Rabada took seven wickets
in the match despite seem-
ing to struggle for rhythm
and consistency.
Boucher approved of De
Kock’s seemingly cavalier
batting style. “I’m all for
counter-punches on the
type of wicket we had. If
you just hang around there
to try and bide your time
you are probably going to
get a good one that gets you
out. The English bowled
really well in the first
innings until Quinny came
along. (Then) they maybe
changed their lines and
lengths, which was good for
us because of the pressure
we put on them.”
Of the second innings
assault, Boucher said: “You
can have one Quinny in
your side, you probably
can’t have eleven. You don’t
want to hold a guy like him
back because he can take
the game away from the
opposition very, very quick-
ly.” Boucher’s attitude
towards Rabada was simi-
larly straightforward. “It’s
just about getting him
into the game. Sometimes
as individuals you feel
like you’re under a bit of
pressure and you start
worrying about your
action and where you are
putting the ball,” he said.
— AFP
Mark Boucher >>>
 Happy return
Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba set to return for
their Premier League visit to Arsenal on New Year’s Day
after sitting out of Saturday's game as a precaution
DECCAN CHRONICLE
Games
TUESDAY | 31 DECEMBER 2019 | HYDERABAD
PAGE

16

WORLD | CHESS

Who cares about

points in
City blunt Blades
Aguero, De Bruyne score as Pep’s men go past Sheffield
December? We
just created a
basis which we will
work with from
now on, that’s all.
— Jurgen Klopp,
Liverpool manager
SHORT TAKE
Kramnik to hold
camp in Chennai
Chennai: Fourteen young Indian
chess players including D
Gukesh, the world’s second
youngest Grand Master, and R.
Praggnanandhaa will be
coached by former world cham-
pion Vladimir Kramnik at a 10-
day camp here from January 8.
The camp, the second organ-
ised by Microsense, will also
see Boris Gelfand, a former
world title challenger, impart
training to the Indian players.
Kramnik had conducted a camp
for eight players in August in
France. Eight of the partici-
pants are Grand Masters while
the rest are International
Masters. Two girls would also
be part of the residential camp.
Kramnik was quoted as saying
in a release that he was happy
to be coaching the Indian
youngsters again.
Manchester, Dec. 30:
Manchester City shrugged off a
tight turnaround from defeat at
Wolves to beat Sheffield United
2-0 on Sunday thanks to second-
half strikes from Sergio
Aguero and Kevin de Bruyne.
City boss Pep Guardiola had
lambasted the scheduling that
saw the English champions
kick off less than 48 hours after
playing the majority of
Friday’s 3-2 defeat at Molineux
with 10 men.
Fatigue seemed to get the bet-
ter of City in the first half as
the Blades enjoyed the better of
the chances and had a Lys
Mousset goal ruled out after a
VAR review for offside.
However, the greater individ-
ual quality at Guardiola’s dis-
posal decided the game as De
Bruyne teed up Aguero to
smash into the roof of the net
seven minutes after the break.
De Bruyne then rounded off
another excellent display by
scoring the second himself
with a fine finish eight minutes
from time to inflict United’s
first defeat away from home for
MOYES RETURNS IN A BID
TO RESCUE WEST HAM
nearly a year and bring City
back to within 14 points of run-
away Premier League leaders
Liverpool.
“Today I understood why
Sheffield United are in the
place they’re in the table,” said
Guardiola.
“In the first half we had prob-
lems, we changed some things
and the second half was much,
much better.”
Despite claiming that the
crowded Christmas scheduling
showed the Premier League
and broadcasters “don’t care”
about player welfare, Guardiola
made just three changes to the
side that started against
Wolves.
City’s sluggish start should
have punished by the visitors
with Mousset particularly
wasteful.
The Frenchman spurned a
glorious early chance to put
United ahead when he get on
the end of a floated Callum
Robinson cross but headed
wide.
United thought they had
claimed the lead on 29 minutes
over Wolves on Sunday.
THE RESULTS Liverpool have now won 18 of
their first 19 league games of
Liverpool 1 the season and lost just once in
(Mane 42) the calendar year in the league,
Wolves 0 on top of winning the
Champions League, Club World
Manchester City 2 Cup and Uefa Super Cup.
(Aguero 52, De Bruyne 82) “2019 was brilliant but it’s not
Sheffield United 0 important because we count
seasons, not years, so the
when Mousset raced onto a 2019/20 season is not over,” said
long ball from John Fleck and Klopp. “We are halfway there,
fired home. we still have 19 games to play
and probably 18 or 19 of them
LIVERPOOL’S ‘BRILLIANT’
2019 JUST A BUILDING
will be like this tonight, for dif-
ferent reasons. Who cares
BLOCK FOR KLOPP about points in December? We
Liverpool manager Jurgen just created a basis which we
Klopp insists the European will work with from now on,
champions must build on a that’s all.” — AFP
“brilliant” 2019 to turn a 13-
point lead at the top of the table
into a first Premier League title
in 30 years.
Klopp’s men were not at their
flowing best and needed the
help of two VAR reviews to con-
tinue their relentless march Magnus Carlsen of Norway in action on Monday. — FIDE
towards the title with a 1-0 win
Carlsen, Lagno
keep Blitz titles
Moscow, Dec.
Norway’s Magnus Carlsen
30:

“After the first camp which we
held in Chens-Sur-Leman,
France, I am glad that we are
having the second camp once
again. This time it is even more
exciting because it will be held
in Chennai, and from six stu-
dents, we will be having 14.
“I am also very excited that I
will be joined by Boris Gelfand
to train these youngsters.
Incidentally, the last time I was
in India was back in 90s for a
match against Boris! Once
again I will be in India working
alongside him,” said Kramnik.
— PTI
Vladimir Kramnik
COUNTRY PROUD
OF BOTH MARY,
NIKHAT: RIJIJU
New Delhi: Sports Minister
Kiren Rijiju on Monday said not
much should be made of the
“ugly spat” that marred the trial
bout between M.C. Mary Kom
and Nikhat Zareen and the
country is proud of both the
six-time world champion and
her promising challenger.
Mary Kom defeated Zareen 9-1
in the trials held on Saturday to
make the squad for Olympic
Vikas in squad for Oly qualifiers IOA withdraws boycott
Qualifiers in China in February.
The bout was marred by acri-
mony as the two boxers didn’t
shake hands after the contest
and Mary Kom ignored an
London, Dec. 30: and local girl Kateryna
Struggling West Ham Lagno emerged winners of
said on Sunday they the World Blitz Chess
had appointed David Championships here on
Moyes as manager for Monday.
the second time in a bid Carlsen needed to play a
to safeguard their place tiebreak with Hikaru
in the Premier League. Nakamura, who had also
Moyes, whose career finished on the excellent
has never recovered score of 16.5 points after 21
from a deeply unsuc- rounds, to win the crown.
cessful spell as tasked with doing the The world champion in
Manchester United boss same for a second time. classical, rapid and blitz
in 2013-14, succeeds “It’s fabulous to be drew the first, and then
Manuel Pellegrini, who back,” said Moyes in a won the second game.
was sacked after a 2-1 club statement. Vladimir Kramnik took
defeat to Leicester on “I’m feeling very the bronze medal with 15
Saturday that left the proud that I’m back points. It was all the more
Hammers just one point here at West Ham. But I impressive as the 14th
above the relegation think more importantly world champion retired
zone. I’ll be looking to see from classical chess in
The 56-year-old has what I can do and what I January of this year and Kateryna Lagno
been without a club can make improve- only played a handful of
since leaving West Ham ments to. I do believe games at faster time con- five rounds to share the top
after a six-month spell that the squad of play- trols since. position at one stage.
in the 2017-18 season. ers I’ve got here is a bet- Like Carlsen, Lagno man- Humpy drew the next two
Moyes guided West ter squad of players aged to keep her World games before winning
Ham to safety that sea- than when I took over Blitz title as well. She fin- against Monika Sacko in
son after Slaven Bilic before, so I am looking ished on 13 points after 17 the eighth game.
was dismissed in early forward to working rounds, half-a-point more She, however, lost to day
November and will be with them.” — AFP than Ukrainian one leader Lagno of Russia
Grandmaster Anna in a dramatic battle in the
Muzychuk. China’s Tan final round of the opening
Zhongyi, who beat day.
Muzychuk in the final Lagno showed great
round, took bronze with 12 determination to defend
points. her 2018 title as she scored
Indian Grandmaster 8 points out of 9 to grab the
Koneru Humpy finished
joint 12th with 11 others at
top position.
Lagno was chased by four
10.5 points.
Earlier, Humpy
players
Kosteniuk,
— Alexandra
Humpy
stayed in the hunt for Koneru, Daria
a second title after
being placed second
Charochkina, and Alina
Kashlinskaya — all on
along with three others seven points.
in the blitz competition Humpy had claimed the
here. World Women’s Rapid
The 32-year-old Indian, Chess Championship title
who won the Rapid title on after drawing the
Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero (left) scores against Sheffield United in their English Saturday, started the two- Armageddon game against
Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester on Sunday. — AP day blitz competition by Lei Tingjie of China here
winning her games in the on Saturday. — Agencies
BOXING | TRIALS India to bid for either 2026 or 2030 edition

calls for 2022 CWG

attempted hug by Zareen.
“Mary Kom is a legend who has
achieved what no other boxer
has ever achieved in the world
amateur boxing. Nikhat Zareen
is an amazing boxer who has
the potential to follow the foot-
steps of Mary Kom. India is
proud of both of them. Period,”
Rijiju tweeted.
“...Passions & emotions are the
souls of Sports! The only point
to bear in mind is, in profes-
sional sports, the players &
money matter more whereas in
amateur sports it’s the nation.
The ugly spate (sic) shouldn’t
have adverse effects on players
while representing India,” he
added. Zareen had approached
Rijiju with an open letter when
the Boxing Federation of India
(BFI) flip-flopped on a stated
policy and announced direct
selection of Mary Kom for the
Olympic qualifiers.
Rijiju had steered clear of the
matter at that time citing the
Olympic charter.
On Saturday, Mary Kom said
she was upset about being
dragged into the selection con-
troversy as the call on selection
was not hers to take.
The Manipuri icon defended her
refusal to exchange post-bout
pleasantries with Zareen, saying
that the former junior world
champion will get her respect
only if she “herself shows
respect to others”. — PTI
Bengaluru, Dec. 30:
Accomplished comeback-
man Vikas Krishan (69kg)
claimed a slot in the
Indian men’s boxing
squad for next year’s
Olympic qualifiers after
winning his final trial
bout along with two oth-
ers here on Monday.
The former world cham-
pionships and Asian
Games medal-winner,
who competed in the mid-
dleweight 75kg category
for a long time, is back to
the 69kg division after
recovering from a back
injury sustained during
his short undefeated stint
in the professional cir-
cuit.
The 26-year-old, already
a two-time Olympian, out-
punched national medal-
list Duryodhan Singh
Negi in a unanimous deci-
sion in the trial finals.
Also making the squad
for the Asia/Oceania zone
qualifiers, scheduled
from February 3 to 14 in
Wuhan, China, were
Commonwealth Games
medal-winning duo of
Gaurav Solanki (57kg)
and Naman Tanwar
(91kg).
While Solanki defeated
Mohammed Hussam-
uddin, Tanwar edged past
Vikas Krishan (left) lands a punch on Duryodhan Singh Negi (Blue) on his way to a
9-0 win in the 69 kg final at Inspire Institute of Sports in Bellary on Monday.
Naveen Kumar. Both the
bouts were split verdicts.
“It was good to see how
strongly Gaurav Solanki
came back against
Hussamuddin in the
tough bout,” said Indian
men’s boxing’s High
Performance Director
Santiago Nieva.
“As for Vikas, he is very
focussed and we have
high hopes from him,” he
added. On Sunday, Asian Satish booked his berth
silver-medallist Ashish with a split verdict tri-
Kumar (75kg), veteran umph over Narender.
Satish kumar (+91kg) and Sachin claimed the 81kg
Sachin Kumar (81kg) spot with a victory over
booked their places in the Brijesh Yadav.
squad. Amit Panghal (52kg) and
Ashish defeated reign- Manish Kaushik (63kg)
ing national champion have already claimed
and South Asian Games their place in the team
gold-medallist Ankit after winning medals at
Khatana in a unanimous the world championships
verdict. in September. — PTI
New Delhi, Dec. 30: The Birmingham. Our coun- next approach the govern-
Indian Olympic try’s contingent will go for ment for the necessary
Association on Monday the 2022 CWG,” IOA secre- clearances to host the
withdrew its threat to boy- tary general Rajeev Mehta multi-sport event. The
cott the 2022 said after the AGM. country hosted the 2010 edi-
Commonwealth Games in CGF president Dame tion in the national capital,
Birmingham over shoot- Louise Martin welcomed the build-up to which was
ing’s exclusion while India confirming participa- marred by one controversy
announcing that the coun- tion at the Birmingham after another.
try will bid to host either Games. “The CGF and the The host city of the 2026
the 2026 or the 2030 edition. entire Commonwealth Games was supposed to be
During its Annual Sport Movement are finalised at the 2019 CGF
General Meeting here, the delighted India has con- General Assembly in
IOA, on the advice of firmed their intent to par- Kigali, Rwanda, but was
Commonwealth Games ticipate at the Birmingham postponed, and will now be
Federation (CGF), also 2022 Commonwealth announced next year.
decided to submit a formal Games during their Annual In July, Batra had written
proposal to host a General Meeting in New to the Sports Ministry, pro-
Commonwealth Shooting Delhi,” Martin said in a posing boycott of the 2022
Championships before the press release. CWG for dropping shooting
main Games, an idea moot- In New Delhi, with IOA from its roster.
ed by both the national and chief Narinder Batra by his After a visit by CGF presi-
international shooting bod- side, Mehta said, “We are dent Louise Martin and
ies to make up for the also bidding for either the CEO David Grevemberg
sport’s exclusion from 2022 2026 or 2030 last month to India, Batra
CWG. Commonwealth Games. had indicated that the IOA
“In the AGM, we have The House passed a resolu- may reconsider the with-
taken back the decision to tion on this bid.” drawal call and had said
withdraw from the 2022 The country’s apex body that a decision would be
Commonwealth Games in for Olympic sports will taken at the AGM. — PTI
Regd. No. H/SD/509/2018-20
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