thursday | 01 october 2020 | Issue 129 | new delhi

2 5 11
P.D. Vaghela India finally PACERS SHINE AS Sharpest kid on the block

appointed preempting KKR COMPLETE This is the initial

new TRAI Dragon’s EASY WIN OVER step in the path
chairman dirty towards the
RAJASTHAN country's finest
designs ROYALS daily newspaper.

‘Landmark verdict’

All 32 accused, including Advani,

acquitted in Babri Masjid case
The mosque’s demolition on 6 December 1992 was not planned and involved ‘anti-social elements’, says a special
CBI court, acquitting BJP leaders L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti of conspiracy charges.
Joshi, Uma Bharti, Kalyan mar Yadav. “Merely giving the “Ram Janmabhoomi named as accused in the ADVANI, JOSHI Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, Shri Ram”. His daughter
Ashish Sinha &
Sabyasachi Roy Chowdhury Singh and Vinay Katiyar of a provocative speech was Movement”. Advani also FIR lodged by the CBI, 17 WELCOME VERDICT  the foundation-laying cer- Pratibha Advani was seen
New Delhi conspiracy charges. not enough to prove guilt,” chanted “Jai Shri Ram” while of whom died during the BJP veteran Advani wel- emony of which was held holding his hands through-
In the much- awaited he added. The court stated reacting to the judgement. course of the trial. The 32 comed the verdict of a spe- on 5 August 2020,” Advani, out the verdict.

A
t long last, nearly 28
years after the Babri
Masjid was razed to
ground by ‘karsevaks’, a spe-
cial CBI court in Lucknow
on Wednesday delivered a
landmark verdict in the case
and acquitted all 32 accused,
including BJP leaders L.K.
Advani, Murli Manohar
judgement, the court said
that the demolition of the
Babri mosque in Ayodhya
on 6 December 1992 was
not planned and involved
anti-social elements who
got agitated and climbed the
domes. “The accused tried
to stop the demolition,” said
special judge Surendra Ku-
that there was no conclusive
proof against the accused.
After being acquitted of
all the charges in the Babri
mosque case, Advani and
Joshi hailed the court ver-
dict. Advani described the
judgement as vindication of
his as well as the BJP’s faith
in and commitment towards
Delivering the verdict,
CBI judge S.K. Yadav said,
“There was no conclusive
proof against them. The
demolition of the centu-
ries-old mosque was not
pre-planned… Those who
climbed on the dome, they
are anti-social elements.”
A total of 49 people were
accused include Advani
and Joshi and Uma Bharti.
Former Uttar Pradesh chief
minister Kalyan Singh,Vinay
Katiyar, Sadhvi Rithambara
and Champat Rai, the gen-
eral secretary of the trust in
charge of constructing the
temple, are also among the
accused.
cial CBI court by chanting
“Jai Shri Ram”.
“I feel blessed that this
judgement has come in the
footsteps of another land-
mark verdict of the Supreme
Court given in November
2019, which paved the
way for my long-cherished
dream of seeing a grand Shri
who was the face of the Ram
Janambhoomi movement in
December1992, said.
The 92-year-old veteran
was seen watching news
with his family as the ver-
dict was passed and soon af-
ter he came out of his house
and greeted the media while
chanting the slogan of “Jai
Murli Manohar Joshi too
hailed the verdict. “It’s a
historic decision by the
court. This proves that no
conspiracy was hatched for
the 6 December incident in
Ayodhya. Our programme
and rallies were not part of
any conspiracy. We are hap-
P2

Reopening guidelines
top of the day
UP court Cinemas to reopen at
dismisses plea
on Krishna
50% capacity, states to
Janmabhoomi
Mathura: A civil court in
decide on schools
Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura on Information & Broadcast- people, outside containment
Rakesh Singh
Wednesday dismissed a petition ing will soon issue an SOP zones only. Now state and
New Delhi
seeking to remove the Shahi
in this regard. The use of UT governments have been
Idgah Masjid in the Hindu holy
town on grounds that it was built The Ministry of Home Af- Aarogya Setu mobile appli- given the flexibility to permit
over the Krishna Janmabhoomi fairs (MHA) issued “reopen- cation will continue to be such gatherings beyond the
land. The order was passed by ing guidelines” on Wednes- encouraged. limit of 100 people, outside
Assistant District Judge Chhaya day, directing the opening Business to Business (B2B) containment zones, after 15
Sharma. The court declined to
entertain the plea, citing the bar
up of more activities in ar- exhibitions will be permitted October.
on admitting the case under the eas outside the containment to open, for which, SOP will In closed spaces, a maxi-
Places of Worship (Special Pro- zones, which will come into be issued by the Department mum of 50% of the hall ca-
visions) Act, 1991. The civil suit effect from 1 October 2020. of Commerce. pacity will be allowed, with
moved by Hindu deity, Lord Shri
The new guidelines are Swimming pools being a maximum of 200 people.
Krishna Virajman, had sought
the removal of encroachments based on feedback received used for training of sports- Wearing of face masks,
and the mosque. from states and Union Ter- man will be permitted to maintaining social distanc-
ritories, and extensive con- open, for which the standard ing, provision for thermal
PM Modi lauds sultations held with related
Central ministries and de-
operating procedure (SOP)
will be issued by Ministry
scanning and use of hand
wash or sanitizer will be
successful partments. of Youth Affairs & Sports mandatory. In open spaces,
BrahMos The MHA guidelines have (MoYA&S). one has to keep the space in

launch The corona victors allowed cinemas, theatres

New Delhi: Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on Wednesday
congratulated scientists and
engineers for the success-
ful test launch of supersonic
cruise missile BrahMos with
an indigenous booster from a
test facility off the Odisha coast.
UP Gangrape
“Brahmos Supersonic Cruise
Missile has achieved yet another
milestone with successful test
Hathras victim
launch showcasing enhanced
and multiplexes outside the
containment zones to re-
ITBP team and medical staff greet the recovered patients while being discharged from open with up to 50 per cent
Sardar Patel Covid Care Centre and Hospital, in New Delhi on Wednesday. ANi of their seating capacity from
15 October. The Ministry of
LAC standoff
India, China agree not to
Social, academic, sports,
entertainment, cultural, re-
view, and with strict obser-
vance of social distancing,
ligious, political functions mandatory wearing of face
and other congregations masks, provision for thermal
have already been permit- scanning and hand wash or
ted with a ceiling of 100 P2
RISING CASELOAD
India’s Covid tally races
past 62-lakh mark

cremated, police disagree on Jaishankar,

operational capabilities and
additional indigenous technolo-
gies. Congratulations to all the
scientists and engineers,” the Number of recoveries surges to 51,87,825,
Prime Minister tweeted.

Sushant’s
deny coercion Wang peace plan pushing the recovery rate to 83.33%.
Aishvarya Jain
set of guidelines allowing
CM Yogi Adityanath calls up victim’s father, talks since the ongoing stand- two Defence Ministers and cinemas, theatres, multi-
father meets announces Rs 25 lakh compensation.
T. BRAJESH
New Delhi
off in the Ladakh sector of the the two Foreign Ministers
New Delhi
plexes and entertainment
Nitish, thanks LAC began in May this year.   held earlier this month,” the India’s Covid-19 caseload parks to open from 15Oc-

him for CBI push our correspondent

Patna: Actor Sushant Singh
Rajput’s father met with
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar in state capital Patna
on Wednesday to thank him for
recommending a CBI probe into
the death of his son. The actor’s
father, K.K. Singh, was accom-
panied by his eldest daughter
and her husband, an Indian
Police Service officer. Singh
alleged had the Bihar CM not
intervened and recommended
a CBI probe into his son’s death,
the Maharashtra government
would have closed the case.
Sushant was found dead in his
apartment in Mumbai’s Bandra
on 14 June.
Hathras
A 19-year-old Dalit woman
from Hathras, Uttar Pradesh,
who died in a Delhi hospital
after sustaining grievous
injuries during an alleged
gang rape, was cremated
early Wednesday in her vil-
lage amid tight security.
“The police have forcibly
taken the dead body, and
my father along with them
for cremation. When my
father reached Hathras, he
was immediately taken (to
the crematorium) by the po-
lice,” the victim’s brother told
the media. In a fresh round of diplomatic
However, Hathras police talks to resolve the nearly
The meeting was chaired
by Naveen Srivastava, Joint
Ministry of External Affairs
(MEA) said.
raced past the 62-lakh mark
with 80,472 infections be-
tober.
India’s worst affected
have denied the charges and five-month-long Line of Ac- Secretary (East Asia), Min- “They also noted that the ing reported in a day, while state Maharashtra report-
has issued a notice saying the tual Control (LAC) standoff, istry of External Affairs, and agreement between the two the number of recoveries ed 18,317 new Covid-19
surged to 51,87,825 pushing cases, 481 deaths and 19,163
coercion being talked about India and China on Wednes- Hong Liang, Director of the Foreign Ministers should
on social media is canard. It day agreed to “sincerely im- Boundary and Maritime Af- be sincerely implemented the recovery rate to 83.33%. discharges in the last 24
said: “The family cremated plement” the five-point plan fairs Department in China’s to ensure disengagement at The total number of coro- hours. The total cases in
the body with due rituals un- reached between External Ministry of Foreign Affairs. all the friction points along navirus cases mounted to the state rose to 13,84,446,
der the supervision of police Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar “The two sides reviewed the LAC,” the MEA added. 62,25,763, while the death including 36,662 deaths
and administration.” and his Chinese counterpart the current situation along “They agreed that the next toll climbed to 97,497 with and 10,88,322 discharges.
The victim, who was para- Wang Yi on 10 September.   the Line of Actual Control (7th) round of meeting of Se- 1,179 people succumbing to Active cases now stand at
lysed after the vicious assault The virtual talks between (LAC) in the India-China nior Commanders should be the disease in a day. There 2,59,033. Meanwhile, the
on 14 September, died at the Indian and Chinese diplo- border areas and had frank held at an early date so that are 9,40,441 active cases of Maharashtra government
Safdarjung Hospital on Tues- mats were held under the and detailed discussions on both sides can work towards coronavirus infection in the extended coronavirus-in-
day after battling for life for framework of the Working the developments since the early and complete disen- country which comprises duced lockdown till Octo-
a fortnight. Her mortal re- Mechanism for Consultation last meeting of the WMCC gagement of the troops,” the 15.11% of the total caseload. ber 31, but also said that ho-
mains reached the Boolgarhi and Coordination (WMCC) on 20 August 2020. The two ministry added. Meanwhile, The Ministry tels, restaurants and bars
village around midnight and on border affairs. This was sides attached importance According to sources, MEA of Home Affairs (MHA) will be allowed to operate
P2 the fifth round of WMCC to the meetings between the P2 came out with its Unlock 5 P2
2 news t h e da ily gua r dia n
t h u r sday  |   0 1 o ct o b e r 2 0 2 0
n ew de l h i

Diplomacy at work Concern

Quad foreign ministers’ meet on 6 Oct Nepal, China security pact

to chalk out plan to check China
T. BRAJESH
New Delhi
The Quad nations’ foreign
ministers will be meeting on
6 October in Tokyo to chalk
out a strategy to counter ex-
pansionist and aggressive
China. The Quadrilateral
Security Dialogue (Quad) is
an informal strategic forum
comprising the United State,
Japan, Australia and India.
All the foreign ministers
will be attending the meeting
with ideas to be developed
into a “foolproof ” plan to
corner China, sources said.
According to sources, the
newly-appointed Japanese
Prime Minister Yoshihide
Suga after having a talk
with Prime Minister Naren-
dra Modi a few days ago had
asked his foreign minister to
hold the Quad meet as soon
as possible. “Suga is more
than keen to have a foolproof
strategy ready at the earliest
to rein in recalcitrant China,”
says an official of foreign
ministry.   Washington and Tokyo on
“All the four member na-
tions will be working to
develop a stronger strategic
cooperation keeping in view
the Dragon’s activities to
grow its clout and influence
in Asia and other regions,”
says the official.
External Affairs Minister
S. Jaishankar is learnt to
have spoken to his US and
Japanese counterparts ahead
of this crucial session of
Quad. Sources told The Daily
Guardian that Jaishankar has
updated his counterparts in
Beijing’s aggressive behav-
iour in the Indian Ocean
Region and along the Line
of Actual Control. Sources
said the foreign ministers of
the US, Japan and Australia
will take into account these
inputs given by Jaishankar
while formulating a joint
strategy. “All the four na-
tions want a free and open
Indo-Pacific region, and the
meeting of the foreign minis-
ters will be crucial from that
point of views,” sources said.
After this meeting, a fol-
low-up session in November
will also take place, in which
top officials dealing with
strategic issues in all the four
countries of Quad will be
participating, sources said.
Counter-terrorism and
maritime security will also
be discussed prominently,
sources said. “Main focus
will be on China, and, of
course, China’s growing ties
with Pakistan especially in
the field of intelligence shar-
ing will be discussed,” say
officials. The US is under-
stood to have significant up-
dates on Pakistan and China
sharing intelligence inputs,
sources said.   between the two countries.
in offing, to irk India
SUMIT KUMAR SINGH
New Delhi
Nepal and China will soon
ink a bilateral military ex-
change mechanism on the
lines of the India-Nepal se-
curity exchange framework,
agencies have warned Delhi.
The decision is to be taken
by the Himalayan country
when India and China are
engaged in a border spat in
eastern Ladakh.
Indo-Nepal ties have been
sliding recently, challenging
the traditional relationship
An intelligence source said
that Nepal is planning to set
up a mechanism — Nepal-
China Bilateral Consultative
Group on Security Issues
(BCGSI) — for military ex-
change programme between
Nepal Army and People’s
Liberation Army. “It is simi-
lar to Indo-Nepal bilateral
consultative group on secu-
rity issues,” said the source.
Currently, China is assist-
ing Nepal in military train-
ing, equipment and peace-
keeping operations. Further,
for China’s PLA to conduct
jungle warfare and high alti-
tude warfare training, Nepal
is one of the preferred desti-
nations. Nepal and China’s
military cooperation started
from 1988 and has been ever
growing.
China has been investing
heavily in Nepal in recent
years, rapidly increasing
infrastructure connectivity
with rail and road links. Also,
policymakers of Nepal had
undergone a 13-day train-
ing programme of BeiDou
Navigation Satellite System
(BDS) in Beijing after China
“especially invited” them to
attend it. IANS

Telecom sector Seeking justice

P.D. Vaghela appointed
new TRAI chairman
Arun Dhanta
New Delhi
The Union government has
named senior bureaucrat
P.D. Vaghela as the new
Chairman of the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of
India (TRAI). Vaghela, the
1986-batch Gujarat cadre
IAS officer, will replace Ram
Sewak Sharma, who has
held the post since 2015.  of Goods and Services Tax
As per the note from the
Appointments Committee
of the Cabinet, Vaghela will
serve as TRAI Chairman
for “three years or till he at-
tains the age of 65”. He was
the Secretary of the Union
government’s Department
of Pharmaceuticals.  trust. He was also appointed
Vaghela was the secretary,
pharmaceuticals, since Au-
gust 2019. He played a cru-
cial role in regulating prices
of medicines and medical
goods. He had also been in-
strumental in the roll-out
(GST) in 2017 and served as
the commissioner of com-
mercial tax in his home state.
He was sent to the Centre
on deputation in July 2019;
earlier, he served as MD,
Gujarat Tourism, and later
as Chairman of Kandla Port
as the commissioner of com-
mercial tax in 2014. He is a
bachelor of commerce and a
master of business adminis-
tration (finance) in develop-
ment studies.
Vaghela’s appointment
has come at a time when
the telecom sector is under
a major transition phase. 5G
is knocking at the doors, and
2G will soon be phased out.
PIL filed in SC seeking CBI or SIT probe into Hathras case
Ashish Sinha
New Delhi
(CBI) or a Special Investigation Team
(SIT) monitored probe by a sitting or
retired Supreme Court or High Court
trial in the case to be transferred out
of Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and for a
direction from the court to ensure a
The petitioners have raised ques-
tions about the role played by police
in the horrific case and alleged that
Satyama Dubey, Vishal Thakre and judge in the gruesome gangrape and speedy trial. the cops failed to perform their du-
Rudra Pratap Yadav have filed a peti- murder of a 19-year-old woman in Grave injustice has been done to the ties and instead tried to shield the
tion before the Supreme Court seek- Uttar Pradesh›s Hathras district. victim and the system is silent on the accused persons for reasons best
ing a Central Bureau of Investigation The petitioners also sought the issue, the plea said known to them.
Seeking justice
Court rejects newspaper reports, cassettes as evidence in Babri case
our correspondent
it was spontaneous and not a Those acquitted in the ister Kalyan Singh and construction of a Ram tem-
New Delhi planned move. case that lasted 28 years in- Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, ple at the Ayodhya site.
In the verdict, special CBI clude former Deputy Prime among others. The verdict In the 2300-page order,
A Special CBI court hearing judge S.K. Yadav observed Minister L.K. Advani, for- came less than a year after the court concluded that the
the Babri mosque demolition that the evidence against the mer Union Ministers M.M. the Supreme Court verdict authenticity of audio, video
case, acquitted all the 32 ac- accused was based on news- Joshi, Uma Bharti, former in the Ayodhya title dispute, provided by the CBI could
cused on Wednesday saying paper reports. Uttar Pradesh Chief Min- which paved the way for the not be established.

UP Gangrape LAC standoff

Hathras victim
cremated, police deny
coercion
the crema-
tion was done at
3 am.
Meanwhile, Ut-
tar Pradesh Chief Minister
Yogi Adityanath spoke to
the victim’s father and offered
his condolences. He also an-
nounced a compensation of
Rs 25 lakh to the bereaved
family, apart from a job to one
of its members. The family
would also be given a house.
The victim’s father sought
the harshest punishment
for the four accused arrested
for the crime reported on 14
September. Additional Chief
Secretary (Home) Avanish
Awasthi said that the CM
the body reached Boolgarhi
village. The SP claimed that
the situation is calm in the
village, but heavy police force
has been deployed.
The woman was allegedly
raped in a Hathras village
by four men, who were later
taken into custody. Initially
she was rushed to the Jawa-
harlal Nehru Medical College
and Hospital in Aligarh, but
on Monday night had to be
shifted to the Safdarjung
Hospital in Delhi after her
condition deteriorated.
The brutality against the
teenager sparked outrage
across the country with sev-
eral political leaders, Bol-
India, China agree not to disagree on
Jaishankar-Wang peace plan
officials have cre-
ated the much-needed
diplomatic pressure
on Chinese side, ask-
ing them to respect the five-point
agreements between Jaishankar and
Yi, and also the other pacts signed
between New Delhi and Beijing in
the past. Sources said, “Now, senior
commanders would sit together
with China’s military brass to find
a way out for complete disengage-
ment and de-escalation.”
However, the crux of the diplo-
matic dialogue was that the Indian
officials and their counterpart from
China focused on the implementa-
Reopening guidelines
tion of the five-point consensus
reached between foreign ministers
of the two countries on 10 Septem-
ber in Moscow to resolve the dead-
lock in eastern Ladakh at the LAC.
During the meeting, both New Del-
hi and Beijing agreed to “strengthen
communication, especially between
the ground commanders”.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign minis-
try spokesman Wang Wenbin told
a media briefing that China and In-
dia are holding the 19th meeting of
the WMCC on China-India Border
Affairs.
“The main topics discussed are
how to implement the five-point
consensus reached in Moscow by
the two foreign ministers to resolve
outstanding issues on the ground
and to ease the situation along the
border,” he said.
Meanwhile, the MEA said, “In
this regard, the two sides positively
evaluated the outcome of the 6th
Senior Commanders meeting on
21 September. They emphasised
the need to implement the steps
outlined in the joint press release
issued after the last meeting of the
senior commanders so as to avoid
misunderstandings and to main-
tain stability on the ground. In this
context, the need to strengthen com-
munication, especially between the
ground commanders, was empha-
sized by both sides.”
“Both sides agreed to continue to
maintain close consultations at
the diplomatic and military level.
In this regard, they agreed that the
next (7th) round of the meeting of
Senior Commanders should be held
at an early date so that both sides
can work towards early and com-
plete disengagement of the troops
along the LAC in accordance with
the existing bilateral agreement and
protocols, and fully restore peace
and tranquility.”

Cinemas to reopen at 50% capacity, states

assured the woman’s father
of the most stringent action
against the culprits and all
possible help to the family.
Earlier in the day, the CM
set up a Special Investigation
Team led by Home Secretary
Bhagwan Swaroop to probe
and submit a report on the
crime in seven days.
Superintendent of Police
(SP) Vikrant Veer denied
any “urgency” by the police
in holding the cremation at
night even though crema-
tions do not normally take
place after sunset. He added
that the cremation was done
by the family as usual after
‘Landmark verdict’
lywood actors and activists
demanding justice for her.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi
tweeted that it was a matter
of concern that the victim’s
family was denied the right to
perform her last rites. “This
is unjust and unfair,” he said.
Congress general secretary
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also
tweeted: “Government has
snatched away the family’s
right to perform the crema-
tion of the victim. The gov-
ernment did not provide her
security and timely treatment
and now they have denied her
dignity in death.”
With agency inputs
told to decide on schools
sanitizer.
To ensure that
such gatherings
do not spread Co-
vid-19 cases, state
and UT governments will is-
sue detailed SOPs to regulate
such gatherings, and strictly
enforce the same. All activi-
ties, except international air
travel of passengers, will be
permitted by the MHA.
The states and UTs have
been allowed to decide on
reopening schools, colleges
and coaching institutes af-
ter 15 October in a graded
manner. Under the current
rules, students from classes
9 to 12 are allowed to visit
their schools voluntarily
and higher education insti-
tutions can be opened only
for research scholars and
post-graduate students of
technical and professional
programmes. States and
UT governments have been
given the flexibility to take a
decision after 15 October, in
a graded manner.
People above 65 years of
age, co-morbidities, preg-
nant women, and children
below the age of 10 years
are advised to stay at home,
except for meeting essential
requirements and for health
purposes.
Lockdown shall continue
to be implemented strictly in
the containment zones till 31
October 2020. Containment
zones shall be demarcated by
the district authorities at the
micro level after taking into
consideration the guidelines
of the MoHFW with the ob-
jective of effectively breaking
the chain of transmission.
Strict containment measures
will be enforced in these con-
tainment zones and only es-
sential activities will be al-
lowed. Within these zones,
strict perimeter control will
be maintained and only es-
sential activities allowed.
These zones will be notified
on the websites of the respec-
tive district collectors and by
the states and UTs and infor-
mation will also be shared
with the MOHFW.
State and UT govern-
ments will not impose any
local lockdown outside the
containment zones, without
prior consultation with the
Central government. There
shall be no restriction on
inter-state and intra-state
movement. There shall be
no restriction on inter-state
and intra-state movement of
persons and goods. No sepa-
rate permission, approval, e-
permit will be required for
such movements.
National Directives for
Covid-19 management shall
continue to be followed
throughout the country, with
a view to ensure social dis-
tancing. Shops will need to
maintain adequate physical
distancing among customers.
The MHA will monitor the
effective implementation of
National Directives.

All 32 accused, including RISING CASELOAD

Advani, acquitted in India’s Covid tally races past 62-lakh mark

Babri Masjid case from Oc-
tober 5 with re-
tarakhand in the last 24
hours,taking the state’s
the last 24 hours, taking
total cases to 128,599 with
jarat rose to 1,37,394 with
the addition of 1,390 cases.
Andhra Pradesh recorded
6,133 new Covid-19 cases,
1,95,106.
Tamil Nadu reported
py, every- the court acquitted him stricted capacity. infection tally to 49,000 112,877 recoveries, 1,382 The death toll in the state 7,075 recoveries and 49 5,659 new Covid-19 cases,
one should and all others accused in The national while 20 more persons deaths and 14,340 active rose to 3,453 as 11 patients deaths in the last 24 hour- taking the tally to 5,97,602
now be excited the more than two-decade- capital reported 41 Co- died of the disease at dif- cases. succumbed to the infec- swhich pushed the state’s while the death toll mount-
about Ram Man- old Babri Masjid demoli- vid-19 fatalities in the last ferent hospitals in the state. Madhya Pradesh record- tion. The number of recov- tally to 693,484. With ed to 9,520 with 67 more
dir’s construc- tion case. Defence Minister 24 hours, taking the count Meanwhile, 20 more Covid ed 2,004 new coronavirus ered cases reached 1,17,231 this, the active cases have fatalities. Active cases
tion,” he said. Rajnath Singh and senior to 5,361, while 3,390 fresh patients died in the state cases, pushing its caseload after 1,372 more patients climbed to 58,445. stood at 46,263 with 5,610
Advani was visited by BJP leader Ram Madhav cases pushed the tally to taking the toll to 611. to 1,28,047, while 35 fresh got discharge from hospi- Kerala reported a record patients getting discharged
top BJP leaders, including were also seen welcoming over 2.79 lakh. Haryana reported 1,625 deaths took the count to tals. With this, the state’s single-day high of 8,830 from various hospitals
Union Minister Ravi Shan- the court’s judgment on 1,005 more people tested Covid-19 cases, 2,063 re- 2,316. recovery rate now stands at new Covid-19 cases, taking in the state and in total
kar Prasad, shortly after Wednesday. positive for Covid-19 in Ut- coveries and 26 deaths in The Covid-19 tally in Gu- 85.32%. the total infection count to 5,41,819 people recovered.
 the daily guardian
thurs day | 01 oc tober 2020
new delhi news 3
ANGUISH INTERNAL TUSSLE

Babri verdict satisfies collective RIFT widens IN AIADMK

as POLITICAL JOUSTING FOR
consciousness of Hindutva: Owaisi
Lokeswara Rao
minister?” would not come under prov-
‘CM FACE’ CONTINUES
Mugilan Chandrakumar
Hyderabad He asked the courts why no ocation? He says If CBI does Chennai
evidence of journalists and not appeal, he along with the

A
IMIM chief and Hy-
derabad MP Asadud-
din Owaisi expressed
outrage over a special CBI
court’s verdict on the Babri
mosque demolition case.
Owaisi criticised the special
CBI court’s verdict acquitting
all 32 accused in the case in-
cluding L.K. Advani, Murli
Manohar Joshi, and Uma
Bharti.
He told The Daily Guardian,
“This judgement satisfies the
collective consciousness of
Hindutva and its followers
and its ideology. I have been
feeling humiliated on 6th
December 1992 and am still
feeling that humiliation. The
PROTEST plan
eyewitnesses were admitted.
He termed the verdict as a
black day for the Indian judi-
ciary. Even though some de-
molish the same structures in
Kashi and Mathura, they will
also get the clean chit.
Owaisi predicted that Lal
Krishna Advani would get
Bharat Ratna soon for this
act. He accused once again
that Advani did Rathyatra
to mobilise the mob towards
Ayodhya, Uma Bharti and
AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi. Murali Manohar Joshi gave
court has not admitted the tion of Babri Masjid an act provocative speeches on the
evidence. The Supreme Court of God or magic? Were idols spot and distributed sweets
had said that it was a calcu- kept inside by magic? Were while the mosque was being
lated act of destroying a place the locks opened using magic demolished.
of worship. Was the demoli- when Rajiv Gandhi was prime He asked whether they
Muslim Personal Law board
will appeal in the higher
courts. Owaisi believes that
it’s a pre-planned demolition.
Asaduddin Owaisi recalled
the comments of activists
and then BJP leaders that
Uma Bharati gave a call ‘Ek
dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid
tod do?’
He said, “How did you (the
court) come to this conclusion
today? What message do you
want to send? The message is:
mass violence pays and justice
was denied. On the day the
Masjid was demolished, I felt
helpless and humiliated. It is
the same feeling today. We did
not get justice.”
Political jousting in AIADMK for the
chief ministerial candidate for the
next assembly polls continued on
Wednesday, with Tamil Nadu Depu-
ty Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam
holding discussions with his sup-
porters at his residence.
But to his utter disappointment,
only a handful of supporters turned
up at Panneerselvam’s residence.
Panneerselvam’s close confidants
Manoj Pandian, deputy Co Convener
Munuswami, and Natham Viswana-
than met him at his residence and a
very few cadres gathered outside his
residence raising “Tamil Nadu’s per-
manent CM” slogan.
The Dy CM on Tuesday skipped a
CM-led Covid-19 review meeting, and
huddled into a meeting with his sup-
porters over the issue of CM face. But
on the second day of similar exercise,
none of the top ministers or anyone
Tamil Nadu CM Edapadi K. Palanisamy (L)
with Deputy CM O. Pannerselvam.
After holding a meeting with his
supporters, OPS left to attend a meet-
ing organised by the Chennai Met-
ropolitan Development Authority
(CMDA), a portfolio that is headed by
him.
Despite resentment between both
the leaders, Ministers Jayakumar and
R.B Udaykumar stated that “there is
no rift in AIADMK and OPS is meet-
ing party office-bearers regarding the
development of the party”
Interestingly, after OPS skipped

2 lakh people to participate in ‘Kisan March’ from from the CM EPS’ camp came to meet
OPS.
the Covid-19 review meeting head-
ed by the Chief Minister Edappadi

three Takhts against farm laws, says Akali Dal

ANIL BHARDWAJ
Chandigarh
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)
senior vice president Dr. Daljit
Singh Cheema on Wednesday
said that as many as 2 lakh
people will join the historic
‘Kisan March’ in 40,000 ve-
hicles starting from 3 Sikh re-
ligious Takhts to Chandigarh
on Thursday. At the culmina-
tion of the March, the party
will hand over a memoran-
dum demanding revocation
of the farm laws to the Central
QUICK ACTION
The last time when OPS revolted Palaniswami on Tuesday, his name
and held “Dharma Yutham”, 11 MLAs was not added in the invitation of a
and several MPs rallied behind him government programme. However,
Government through the Anandpur Sahib. The march from Sri Anand- and hundreds of AIADMK cadres the invitation issued by a private
Punjab Governor. Giving further details, pur Sahib will join the march were waiting outside his residence partner of the same event mentioned
Dr. Cheema said while he said that the march being led by the SAD Presi- day and night. This time even after an Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneer-
party president Sukhbir from Sri Amritsar Sahib dent at Ropar bypass. open war of words between OPS and selvam’s name as one of the special
Singh Badal would lead would travel via Jaland- Dr. Cheema said that the EPS, no similar turn-out was there. guests.
the Kisan March from har, Phagwara, Nawan- Kisan March from Sri Am-
Sri Akal Takht Sahib at shehar, Ropar, Kurali and ritsar Sahib and Talwandi NEW POSTINGS
Sri Amritsar Sahib, and Mullanpur before culmi- Sabo both would start at 8 am
former union minister
Harsimrat Kaur Badal
nating at Chandigarh.
March from Talwandi
and that from Sri Anandpur
Sahib would start at 10 am. Vijay Vardhan appointed
would lead the march
from Takht Sri Damdama
Sabo would travel via
Maur, Rampura, Tappa,
He said due to a shortage of
time all three Marches would Chief Secretary of Haryana
Sahib at Talwandi Sabo, Barnala, Sangrur, Bha- proceed directly towards Raj
while Prof. Prem Singh wanigarh, Patiala, Raj- Bhawan instead of assembly at Ravinder Malik sued orders of transfers and postings
Chandigarh
Chandumajra from Takht SAD president Sukhbir Badal will lead the pura, Airport light, Zi- Dussehra ground as planned of five more IAS officers.
Sri Keshgarh Sahib at Sri march from Akal Takht. rakpur and Chandigarh. earlier. In a significant bureaucratic re- Among them is Rajeev Arora, Ad-
shuffle, the Haryana government on ditional Chief Secretary, Health and
Wednesday appointed senior IAS of- Family Welfare Department, who
ficer Vijay Vardhan as the state’s new will also hold the charge of Home,

Andhra police bust inter-state gang behind

chief secretary. Jails, Criminal Investigation and Ad-
Vardhan, 58, replaces Keshni ministration of Justice Department
Anand Arora, who retired on Sep- besides being the Nodal Officer for

Chittoor temple ‘Nandi’ desecration

Lokeswara Rao
HYDERABAD
Facing flak from the opposition
and the people of the state, Andhra
Pradesh police have displayed solid ac-
tion in the cases of attacks on temples.
The AP police cracked 13 out of 19 such
cases, nabbing the accused behind
these incidents.
Andhra DGP Gowtam Sawang
formed special teams to nab them.
The Chittoor District wing of the
Andhra Pradesh police has success-
fully cracked the ‘Chittoor- Nandi
desecration’ case within just 72 hours.
The auspicious ‘Nandi’ outside the
‘Abhaya Anjaneya Temple’ was des-
ecrated on 27 September. GD Nellore
police immediately registered an
FIR and started investigation. Dur-
ing the early hours on Wednesday,
upon receiving credible information
that certain members of the gang be-
hind this incident were hiding in the
Kanipakam Mandal, one of the three
teams of police rushed to the location
and successfully nabbed the entire
case. We have also taken up a massive
drive to ensure the safety of religious
places. Have asked all the manage-
ment to install CCTVs.”
On the other hand, DGP Gowtam
Sawang said, “Firstly, we have arrest-
ed the accused in as many as 13 out
of the 19 cases of attacks on temples/
temple properties reported since the
Antarvedi incident(Chariot burning
in West Godavari Dist).”
“We are confident that we will be
able to crack the rest in due course.
All these are standalone incidents,
each one has a different motive. There
seems to be a rather aggressive attempt
being made to link all these incidents
Police cracked 13 out of 19 such cases, nabbing the accused behind these incidents. to spin the wrong narrative,” Sawang
said.
gang of 8 members. cused were conspiring to carry out “We have mapped a total of 47593
Interestingly, 5 out of the 8 accused similar acts on temples in Andhra places of worship out of which there
who were arrested belong to the neigh- Pradesh. are 28,567 temples”, the DGP said.
bouring state of Karnataka, which SP Chittoor, S. Senthil Kumar said, “Only 10 % of the structures were
makes this an inter-state gang. The “People tried to project this incident equipped with CCTV cameras. We
police investigated further the modus as a targeted attack due to the negli- have issued notices to all the authori-
operandi of the gang to unravel the gence of the police which is entirely ties of the respective temples to take
entire plot. false. In this case, we traced the ac- necessary steps to ensure safety,” he
It was also revealed that the ac- cused within 2 days of registering the said.
tember 30. He will be the 34th chief
secretary of Haryana since it was
carved out as a separate state in 1966.
The 1985-batch Haryana cadre IAS
officer will also hold the charge of
general administration, personnel,
training, parliamentary affairs, vigi-
lance and administrative reforms de-
partments and secretary in-charge of
plan coordination, the order said. He
is due to retire in November 2021.
Currently, Vardhan is the Addi-
tional Chief Secretary (ACS), Home,
Jails, Criminal Investigation and Ad-
ministration of Justice Department.
He was also the Financial Commis-
sioner, Revenue and Disaster Man-
agement; and Consolidation Depart-
ments.
The Haryana government also is-
COVID-19.
Sanjeev Kaushal, ACS, Agriculture
and Farmers’’ Welfare Department,
has been posted as the ACS and Fi-
nancial Commissioner, Revenue and
Disaster Management and Consoli-
dation Departments; and the ACS,
Cooperation Department, relieving
Vijai Vardhan of the charge.
Alok Nigam, Additional Chief Sec-
retary, Forests and Wildlife Depart-
ment, has been posted as the ACS,
Public Works (B&R) and Architec-
ture Department; and Forests and
Wildlife Department.
Devender Singh, ACS, Irrigation
and Water Resources Department,
has been given the additional charge
of the ACS, Agriculture and Farm-
ers’’ Welfare Department.
Dharamvir Singh, Municipal Com-
missioner, Yamunanagar, has been
posted as the Deputy Commissioner,
Charkhi Dadri.
It is worth mentioning that both
Arora and Kaushal have been in the
good books of Chief Minister Mano-
har Lal and hail from the Punjabi
community. But both the officials
have much experience by virtue of
holding key positions in different
governments.

CRIME
DISCUSSING ISSUES

Goa CM Pramod Housemaid’s murder: TRS leader arrested under Nirbhaya Act
Sawant meets
victim’s family and demanded away the victim’s Aadhar D.C.P, Shamshabad, etc were
Lokeswara Rao
HYDERABAD justice for the victim. card age proof. It was an at- present in the meeting.

PM Modi to resolve
The DCP of Shemsabad said, tempt to show her as a major,” The Home Minister enquired
TRS leader Madhu Yadav “The victim’s sister stated he tweeted. in detail regarding the death of

mining issue
Panaji:Goa Chief Minister Pramod
Sawant on Wednesday met Prime Min-
ister Narendra Modi in Delhi to discuss
several issues, including the resump-
tion of iron ore mining that awaits a
decision by the Supreme Court.
Sawant, who is in Delhi on a two-day
visit, also met Union Mines Minister
Pralhad Joshi.
Sawant in his tweet said, “Called on the
Prime Minister in New Delhi today. Had
a fruitful discussion on various matters,
including mining.”
“Later, met the Union Minister of Mines
to discuss the mining matter at length.
We are hopeful of a positive outcome
in the coming days,” the Chief Minister
tweeted. Correspondent
was arrested in a sensational
case of murder and rape of a
domestic help. Of late, a do-
mestic help died in the TRS
leader’s house and previously
it was treated as a suicide case
but after the complaint of the
victim’s sister it was converted
as murder and rape.
Both the family of the de-
ceased and the Opposition
have raised suspicions on the
way in which the Moinabad
police handled the investiga-
tion.
The locals are demanding
that he should be handed over
to them for quick punishment
or police should do what they
did in Disha case. Several
Congress leaders visited the
that the accused Madhu Ya-
dav used to come home after
consuming alcohol and would
take her elder sister in a room
and rape her. On the night of
25 September, the accused
came home and as usual, took
her elder sister to his room and
in the early morning, he left
the house and came back in a
while. When the complainant
girl went into the room on the
first floor, she found her sister
hanging by the ceiling fan.”
Leaders from several po-
litical parties, the Congress,
AIMIM and MBT, visited
the family to offer support.
Former Chevella MP Konda
Vishveshwar Reddy called the
incident a clear case of child la-
TRS leader Madhu Yadav.
bour and murder.
“They immediately deleted
the Facebook page of TRS
leader Madhu with pictures
of him in TRS Khandwa with
party leaders. Officials took
Amjed Ullah Khan, lawyer
and spokesperson for MBT
party questioned the police.
In a tweet, he said, “The police
have booked only one person.
They have not even checked
if there are any accomplices.
They are not investigating
properly. In the Disha mur-
der case, everyone visited the
family and consoled them but
here, no one from the TRS par-
ty has even made a comment
condemning the incident.”
Meanwhile, Home Minis-
ter of Telangana Mohammed
Mahmood Ali convened a
meeting regarding the Moin-
abad incident. All police of-
ficials such as Cyberabad CP
V.C. Sajjanar, Prakash Reddy,
the woman. The case has been
registered at Moinabad Police
Station.
Officers told the Home Min-
ister that based on the state-
ment of the victim’s sister,
the Police altered the sections
of law and the accused TRS
leader Bathuku Madhusudhan
alias Madhu Yadav has already
been arrested under Nirbhaya
Act and Juvenile Justice act
and sent to Judicial Custody.
They said the accused
was reported to be a Rowdy
Sheeter having a criminal his-
tory of involvement in 3 land-
related cases.
Ashok Chakravarthy, ACP,
Rajendra Nagar has been ap-
pointed as an inquiry officer.
 4 news plus t h e da ily gua r dia n
t h u r sday | 0 1 o ct o ber 2020
new de l h i

PULSE PANDEMIC TIMES

We need to stand with How brands

turned Covid
our farmers today crisis into an
The Americans and Europeans—both the public and the
governments—have never ceased to support their farmers. opportunity
We should also come forward in support of them.
duce shall be captured by the
corporates. They would pur-
chase and stock the produce
as per their whims and fan-
cies and would further sell it
at their dictated prices. They
would also capture the farm
fields with the concept of cor-
porate farming and the farmer
would be compelled to be their
Ajay Shukla
labourer. This way, corporates

W
ith the onset of the
Covid-19 pandem-
ic, the majority of
companies laid off their work-
force, while others made cuts in
their salaries. The question is:
Did it help them tide over the
problems created by the pan-
demic? The answer is no.
This question was raised by
renowned industrialist Ratan
Tata. He opined that compa-
nies should be compassionate
towards their workers. It is nei-
ther a remedy nor an act of hu-
manity to discard their workers
in distress who have toiled hard
for the success of their compa-
nies. Instead, the management
of companies should work to-
wards possibilities of resolu-
tion of distress.
Companies are formed not by
their assets, but by their work-
force. This is the reason that
Tata, without any support from
the government, has main-
tained a name which has im-
mense goodwill and faith, even
in these times. The government
should also work towards pos-
sibilities and policies dedicated
to better public welfare. The
Governments of Canada and
China have worked on these
issues, and as a result, these
countries have fared well and
proven themselves better than
others in these times.
However, there are only a
selected few like Tata, and our
country is in dire straits. The
corporate sector is working
only for its self-interest and is
not bothered about the lives
of others. It works on a sys-
tem, and not on compassion,
and those who run this sys-
tem work only for their self-
interests and walk away with
heavy perks and packages. In
a democracy, the citizens form
their own government and the
responsibility of such a gov-
ernment is to work, keeping
the interest of its citizens over
any other interest. But, nowa-
days, corporates are powerful
because everything runs on
their funds.
Today, the country is facing
unrest over the passing of the
three bills which will regulate
agriculture and farmers. The
unrest is expected and accept-
ed as it is for a public cause. For
the last few days, farmers from
Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan,
Maharashtra and western Ut-
tar Pradesh have been agitat-
ing, while there is not much
of an agitation to be seen in
the other states. The reason is
obvious: in these States, there
are sufficient markets as well as
avenues for the farmers. Bihar
and other states do not have
such arrangements for their
farmers, on account of which
their farmers are neither capa-
ble nor have reasonable earn-
ings. The government claims
that they have opened up and
provided better avenues for
the farmers by promulgating
these laws. Farmers can now
stock their produce and sell
it at a good price anywhere,
which will reduce the profits
made by middlemen/agents.
At the first glance, the stand
of the government appeared to
be reasonable, but on ponder-
ing over the matter deeply, I
was forced to question myself
about why farmers are the only
one protesting over it -- instead
of all of us?
I am also from an agrarian
family and we do not go to the
markets to sell our produce. We
sell the produce to the agent/
middleman as a standing crop
in the fields, for a price lesser
than the MSP, which in return
provides us with the better
service of the agent/middle-
man, who procures the pro-
duce from our farms and takes
the responsibility of saving the
produce from the rains and
stocking it. The agent/middle-
man also tenders payments in
advance when it’s required.
In our home, a young man
comes to deliver milk from a
village, and on asking him, he
told us that he had sold the
wheat produce at the time of
harvesting at a rate of Rs 18-
19 per kg and, at present, the
rate of wheat is prevailing at
Rs 22-23 per kg, and that he
easily manages his household
through animal husbandry.
At his time of need, the agent/
middleman helps him, and in
return, he sells him his wheat.
I recollect how, back in 2012,
Arun Jaitley, the Leader of BJP
in the Rajya Sabha, had stated
that corporates can never work
for the welfare of farmers. He
had cited the examples of farm-
ers in Europe and the Americas
while addressing the Parlia-
ment, to make its Members un-
derstand how corporates there
get cultivation done but farm-
ers are in dire straits, and that
the governments take care of
the farmers by way of subsidies
and grants. Sushma Swaraj had
also said that the market and
the agents are the bankers for a
farmer and the reason for ‘cel-
ebrations in his house’.
It is sad that the interests of
corporates are being lobbied
by their party now after as-
suming power. Farmers are
being mesmerised with sweet
dreams, while the Parliament
has stamped its approval for
turning them into labourers
for the corporate. And this has
been done by those representa-
tives whom they had elected
with the hope of seeing better
times. This is the reason why
farmers of half a dozen states
are protesting on the roads to-
day and the intellectuals of the
country along with the chief
opposition party, Congress,
are battling for the rights of
the farmers. The question rises
again: why is this battle being
waged by the farmer alone, and
not by all of us? We all are busy
watching the monkey business
of Deepika, Sushant and Rhea
on the news channels, which is
not helping the nation in any
manner.
If you remember, when the
produce of potatoes and onions
had hit the markets, farmers
had not been able to get even Rs
2 per kg for that produce. The
farmers who had taken their
produce to the Nasik market,
after paying heavy fares, had
become victims of devastation
on reaching the market and
had to throw their produce
of potatoes and onions on the
road before leaving empty-
handed. Today, we are buying
potatoes and onions at Rs 40
per kg. Tomatoes also suffered
from the same fate and now are
selling for a price higher than
Rs 100 per kg. So, who is actu-
ally earning from the produce
of the farmers? Is it the trader?
The answer is, yes, because
he is in a position to stock the
produce and to tender advance
payments to the farmers. Farm-
ers in Punjab and Haryana are
prosperous and their average
yearly income is around Rs
2.40 lakh, whereas that of the
farmers in Bihar is Rs 44,000
only. It is even lesser in Odisha
and West Bengal. The reason
for this is that the farmers in
Punjab and Haryana earn well
with the help of the markets
and the middlemen/agents,
whereas in Bihar and other
states, there are no such ar-
rangements and the govern-
ment does not affect the whole
purchase on the MSP.
With the promulgation of
this law, the agricultural pro-
would rake in money after loot-
ing from the farmers’ produce.
This is not an apprehension but
rather a bitter truth because
corporates work only for their
own profits and interests. We
have witnessed how they did
not even blink an eyelid before
laying off those employees who
had founded and established
their companies through their
dedicated hard work.
We have to understand that
the farmer neither has the re-
sources nor the capacity to take
his produce to other states by
hiring freight transport. He is
also incapable of holding to his
produce or stock it as he seeks
the help of the middleman/
agent to sow his fields by get-
ting the cost of the sowing and,
thereafter, asks him to procure
his produce. The trader does
benefit, because he has the
capacity and resources to pro-
cure, stock and transport the
produce, but it is also true that
the trader/middleman/agent
has a friendly bond with the
farmer. When the corporates’
system would be applied in the
farms, then only the profitabili-
ty of the produce would be har-
vested. The hopes of the farm-
ers would be dashed down, as
they would pay the farmer only
according to what profits them.
Corporates would also sell the
agricultural products at a high
rate to us, after stocking the
same, because there is no legal
regulation over the pricing of
the products anymore. If we are
to feed ourselves, we would be
forced to buy the products from
the corporates at a higher price
with folded hands and stare at a
food crisis in the future. This is
the reason why we should not
leave the farmer standing alone
today. The Americans and Eu-
ropeans -- both the public and
the governments -- have never
ceased to support their farm-
ers. We should also come for-
ward in support of them. This
is not a political fight but a bat-
tle for public interest.
Dibyendu Mondal
New Delhi
The over two month long nation-
wide lockdown which was put in
place to slow down the spread of
the Covid-19 infection has led to
several brands re-strategising their
business models in order to recover
from the sweeping losses they had
faced during the lockdown. Some
of the brands include Gem Selec-
tions, India’s biggest gemstones
brand; 750AD Healthcare Pvt Ltd,
an online healthcare platform which
was launched around the same time
when the pandemic hit the world;
Gympik that launched a virtual
gyming platform amongst others.
Some brands also turned this
pandemic from a crisis to an op-
portunity. Illumnus is such a com-
pany that has changed completely
through Covid-19. Post-lockdown,
when 99% of the institutes were
looking for some steady solution for
online learning and were striving to
conduct online examinations, Illum-
nus brought in a new solution for all
these problems and helped bring
entire schools online. The brand
added new features like online ex-
amination, video lecturing, prear-
ranged assignments, smart attend-
ance, content suggestion, institute
library, and in-depth analytics to aid
the process of online education for
institutes across the country, during
lockdown.
While the well-known and very
popular online jewellery brand
Gem Selections incorporated an
augmented reality & 3D hologram
imaging technology for its complete
inventory at their flagship stores so
that the customers can try all the
products physically, rather than try-
ing them virtually before purchasing.
This, according to the company, was
roped in so that the customers can
try these jewelleries without having
to physically touch them again and
again.
As for 750AD Healthcare Pvt Ltd,
which was launched just ahead of
the global lockdown, it re-strate-
gised its policies and branding to
help people during the lockdown
with online doctors, counselling and
many other features. The brand also
launched multiple campaigns dur-
ing the same period which included
their awareness campaigns like ‘To-
gether We Can Help Prevent Sui-
cides’, ‘Thankyoudoctors’, ‘Health is
True Independence: Independence
Day Campaign’, ‘Thankyounurses’,
‘HospitalReviewProgram’, among
others.
Owing to the pandemic all gyms
were closed for the longest time as
compared to any other business.
Gympik, a fitness brand, took this
opportunity to launch an online
portal for the fitness enthusiasts
and integrated virtual training in its
club management software. It de-
veloped a scalable model to endure
in the changing landscape and this
was done through its newly devel-
oped interface, live streaming fea-
ture that was integrated seamlessly
to make training sessions interest-
ing through virtual experience that
is controlled and implemented from
one platform.
However, for TAA Music Label, a
music company that works with tal-
ented musicians and singers from
across the country, the lockdown
came as a blessing in disguise. The
brand made a radical shift from fo-
cusing on generic music towards
discovering and honing every art-
ist’s unique skills and produced
EPs based on the same. Also, there
was a shift in the marketing model.
While earlier social media was one
of the major promotion platforms,
the pandemic opened the gates for
radio shows like RedIndies shuffle
show (A 93.5 Red FM, all independ-
ent music show).
Additionally, the brand has also
developed new and innovative ways
of saving video production costs
through ‘Mobile Shoot’ and ‘Graphi-
cal Videos’ saving the cost for shoot,
travel, crew which is now being in-
vested into promotion.

REFORMS

Why there is so much protest against farm laws

Surinder Kumar and
Kulwant Singh Nehra
Amidst strong protests by Op-
position parties and farmers’
organisations, the Central gov-
ernment got the three farm bills
passed in Parliament. With the
assent of the President of India,
these bills have now become
Acts or the laws of the land! The
Farmers’ Produce Trade and
Commerce (Promotion and Fa-
cilitation) Act 2020 implies that
private traders can now bypass
Agricultural Produce Market
Committee (APMC) mandis
and purchase agricultural pro-
duce to sell it anywhere in India.
The Farmers (Empowerment
and Protection) Agreement on
Price Assurance and Farm Ser-
vices Act 2020 means freedom
for contract farming and price
negotiations and the Essential
Commodities (Amendment)
Act 2020 provides freedom to
agribusiness and trades to stock
any agricultural produce in as
much quantity as they would
like to. In effect, it means that the
corporate sector has been given
free hand to enter in agriculture,
contract farming on ‘mutually
agreed terms and conditions’,
purchase, storage, processing
and other market operations,
with little legal protection to the
farmers. Even the constitutional
validity of Central acts in a fed-
eral state of India, where agri-
culture is a state subject in the
constitutional scheme, is being
questioned.
The Central government has
claimed that this move has lib-
eralised agricultural markets
and will facilitate improvement
in market’s efficiency, attract
private investment in agriculture
and would ensure better prices
to farmers for their produce
with high transparency. This
would mean farmers will get
out of the clutches of the monop-
oly of APMC mandis and evade
the rent-seeking behaviour of
the traditional intermediaries
(arhtiyas). The polar opposite
viewpoint of the protesters is
that this move, towards greater
play of free markets, is a ploy
by the government to get away
from its traditional role of be-
ing the guarantor of Minimum
Support Prices (MSPs). For this,
farmers argue that the govern-
ment should have provided for
statutory guaranteed MSP for
their marketed surplus.
Farmers, especially in Punjab
and Haryana where MSP for
their two major crops is almost
assured, are suspicious of what
the markets will offer and how
the “big companies” will treat
them, where they may be minor
players and incapable of bar-
gaining effectively. There are
many structural problems like
lack of information with farm-
ers which inhibits their ability to
make informed decisions. Even
if they have market information,
their capacity to bargain or hold
their crop is very limited, forcing
small and marginal farmers for
distress sale and getting further
into debt trap and pushed out
of their agricultural occupation
and be landless labour.
It is nobody’s case that agri-
culture market reforms were
not required. There have been
many problems with APMC
mandis. They were getting inef-
ficient, opaque, politicised and
often controlled by cartels. Need
of the hour was to clean the sys-
tem than to make it defunct. Two
parallel systems of marketing,
one operated by private corpo-
rates where there will be no gov-
ernment charges and the other
APMC mandis, where mandi
boards and ‘ahrtiyas’ charge a
fee, a dual price structure will
encourage unregulated trade
detrimental to providing access
to farmers for better price re-
covery and assured prices. Soon
APMC mandis will become de-
funct and it will pave the space
for withdrawal of MSP render-
ing farmers more vulnerable to
unregulated market operations.
Corporatisation does not reduce
the role of middle-men, they will
now have a new role as market
integrators between corporates
and farmers without any gov-
ernment regulation, rendering
farmers more vulnerable to
exploitation of the middlemen
and corporates. Provisions of
Agricultural Marketing Acts
are highly skewed in favour of
private capital, with no limit
on stock holding and with re-
strictions on the government
interventions, there is limited
recourse to any independent
grievance redressal mechanism
as SDMs/DCs are prone to pres-
sures from the state and corpo-
rates, without judicial review.
Very little attention has been
paid to the implications of
amendment to the Essential
Commodities Act. Even re-
cently, when onion prices shot
up, the government was forced
to ban its export to protect the
interests of the domestic mar-
ket. With amendment to the Es-
sential Commodities Act, policy
space for government interven-
tion will get reduced, rendering
domestic consumers to be more
vulnerable to the operations of
the market mechanism. These
agricultural market reforms are
consistent with neo-liberal mac-
roeconomic policy regime being
adopted by the Government of
India since 1991 in general and
2014 in particular. But the moot
question is how they will impact
small and marginal farmers, ru-
ral employment, distribution of
income, food security and con-
sumer protection?
Experience, of the advanced
capitalist countries of Europe and
the US, shows that unregulated
markets always lead to pushing
the small farmers out of agricul-
ture. In India, about 80% farm-
ers have a holding of less than 5
acres, they will have no option
but to become wage labourers.
Crisis will deepen further when
there is no alternative strategy
to generate employment to ab-
sorb farmers’ rendered surplus
from agriculture. During 2011-
19, India had a jobless growth.
Post Covid-19, Indian economy
is in a very bad shape which
reveals falling GDP and worse
employment situation. Crores of
semi-skilled labourers have got
unemployed. It is reported that
2.1 crore salaried jobs have been
lost and people are in great stress.
This has been no time to tinkle
with a relatively smooth-running
machine of APMC mandis, fur-
ther aggravating the worsening
state of the economy. These agri-
cultural market reforms, in the
name of safeguarding the inter-
ests of farmers, are out and out
structural changes to give free
play to the corporate sector with
little protection to the farmers.
 t h e da ily gua r dia n
t h u r s day | 0 1 o ct o b e r 2 0 2 0
n ew de l h i comment & analysis 5
LAC STANDOFF

India finally preempting

Dragon’s dirty designs
It rarely happens that India is able to preempt a Chinese move.
New Delhi has understood that diplomacy requires a multi-pronged,
multi-disciplinary approach involving all the stakeholders.
Maj Gen Abhijeet Bapat too. It rarely happens that
and Maj Gen Param Shek- India is able to preempt a
hawat, the local head of the Chinese move. Can you im-

opinion Indo-Tibetan Border Police

(ITBP) and four brigadiers.
The presence of Naveen
Srivastava, the Joint Sec-
Claude Arpi retary dealing with China
in the Ministry of External
Affairs (MEA), was also a
positive sign. The Times of
India stated: “It is for the
japa (recitation) or parikra- first time that a senior of-
mas (circumambulations) ficial from the MEA was
would be sufficient to make part of the high-level mili-
the ‘truth prevail’. As Rob- tary talks aimed at defusing
ert Ford, the British radio the volatile situation in the
operator posted in Cham- mountainous region.” India
do, remarked, “It seemed remained firm and insisted
to me that something more that China must “withdraw
Churchilian was needed.” from all friction points”.
India was fooled into be- India’s fate changed for
lieving that Communist the better on the night of
China wanted a ‘negotiated’ 29th-30th August when
settlement with the Tibet- the PLA tried to take over
agine if that had happened
in October 1950? If, for ex-
ample, India had occupied
Chumbi Valley, as some
Indian strategists had sug-
gested at that time?
Delhi has finally under-
stood that diplomacy re-
quires a multi-pronged,
multi-disciplinary ap-
proach involving all the
stakeholders. Sardar Patel
knew this: A few days be-
fore dying, he had consti-
tuted a Committee for the
North and Northeastern
borders under Maj Gen
Himmatsinhji, Deputy De-
fence Minister. The com-
mittee also included Lt Gen
Kulwant Singh, K. Zakaria,
head of the MEA’s Histori-

O
c t o b e r 7, 2 0 2 0
marked the 70 th
anniversary of the
Chinese People’s Libera-
tion Army (PLA) crossing
the Upper Yangtze and
entering into the territory
controlled by Lhasa. While
invading Eastern Tibet,
Beijing had asserted that it
was ‘liberating’ the Land of
Snows, but seven decades
later the Tibetans still disa-
gree with this interpreta-
tion. Tragically, in this pro-
cess, India lost a peaceful
border.
Tibet, a Buddhist nation,
was not militarily and tac-
tically ready to oppose the
seasoned troops of Mao
(and some of China’s bril-
liant commanders). From
the start, The Land of
Snows stood no chance,
especially without outside
support from India or the
West. Many believed that
increasing the number of
ans: it was never the case.
Marshal Liu Bosheng, in a
message in August 1950,
had made it clear that he
was going to ‘liberate’ Tibet.
What happened 70 years
ago is still relevant today,
for several reasons.
First, the invasion of Ti-
bet (and of Xinjiang, a few
months earlier) by Commu-
nist China is the root cause
of all the problems that In-
dia is facing on the north-
ern border. In 1950, India
accepted the fait accompli.
Second, Delhi capitulated
without a word of protest,
even though her core in-
terests were at stake. India
still suffers due to the con-
sequences of this blunder.
Another lesson here is that
one should be in a position
of strength when one nego-
tiates with China, and not
let the situation deteriorate
until it is too late.
India seemed to have
Indian Air Force fighter jets seen flying, in Leh on Monday. (ANI Photo)
learned a bit, as senior
army commanders of In-
dia and China met on Sep-
tember 21 at Moldo, near
the Line of Actual Control
(LAC), in Chushul sector of
eastern Ladakh. The talks,
which lasted 13 hours, were
held to implement a five-
point agreement reached in
Moscow a few days earlier
between the foreign minis-
ters of the two countries to
discuss the disengagement
of troops and the de-escala-
tion in Ladakh.
Issued after the marathon
encounter, a joint press re-
lease said: “The Indian and
Chinese Senior Command-
ers held the 6th round of
Military Commander-Lev-
el Meeting…They agreed
to earnestly implement
the important consensus
reached by the leaders of
the two countries, strength-
en communication on the
ground, avoid misunder-
standings and misjudge-
ments, stop sending more
troops to the frontline,
refrain from unilaterally
changing the situation on
the ground...”
Already, many Indian
commentators have ap-
plauded this: “We are
talking to each other; a dia-
logue is taking place; each
side has just to do some
compromise and peace will
prevail again.” In other
words, it will be business
as usual; the ‘experts’ will
again be invited to China,
working on self-styled
Track-II diplomacy and
the media will again pub-
lish ‘balanced’ columns on
the eternal friendship. Af-
ter all, the ‘experts’ argue,
India would have lost only
a few fingers.
That would be a sad end-
ing; but we have already
witnessed so many such
finales since Independ-
ence. Hopefully this time,
things could be different
— the main reason being
that the talks are conduct-
ed by the military. Corps
commanders are far more
familiar with the treach-
erous terrain and what a
ridge means, even if not a
blade of grass can grow on
it (to paraphrase a former
Prime Minister). Gener-
als are acutely aware that
the control of one of these
peaks can make all the dif-
ference.
During the Sixth Round
of talks, Lt Gen Harinder
Singh, the commander of
the Leh-based 14 Corps,
was supported not only by
Lt Gen P.G.K. Menon, who
is expected to replace him
next month, but the Indian
delegation also included
two division commanders,
the ridges south of the Pan-
gong Lake. Some reports
indicated that the number
of Chinese troops may have
been as high as 500. They
suddenly came into contact
with the Special Forces of
Tibetan origin. The Chinese
luck had turned. A commu-
niqué of the Army said: “On
the night of 29/30 August,
PLA troops violated the
consensus arrived at dur-
ing military and diplomatic
engagements…and carried
out provocative military
movements to change the
status quo. …Indian troops
preempted this PLA activ-
ity on the southern bank of
Pangong Tso… and thwart-
ed Chinese intentions to
unilaterally change facts
on ground.”
India now dominates
many areas. This may be
a sign that there is some
light at the end of the tun-
nel, and for several reasons
cal Division, S.N. Haksar,
Joint Secretary in MEA,
Group Capt M.S. Chatur-
vedi from the Indian Air
Force, and Waryam Singh,
Deputy Director of the In-
telligence Bureau. Thanks
to the Committee’s wise
guidance, Tawang is In-
dian today. Unfortunately,
the principle of inviting all
the concerned parties was
immediately forgotten by
Nehru, with disastrous
consequences.
To conclude, let me men-
tion another principle
enunciated by Sardar Pa-
tel on 11 November 1950.
Addressing a function in
Mumbai, he had said, “In
this kalyug, we shall return
ahimsa for ahimsa. But if
anybody resorted to force
against us, we shall meet
it with force.” This was his
last public speech — and is
something worth ponder-
ing upon!

perspective
U.S. ELECTION 2020

Trump and Biden spar in a no-holds barred debate

The Tuesday night—Wednes-
day morning India time—
Presidential debate between
US President Donald Trump
and Democratic candidate,
Vice President Joe Biden is
coming under fire from com-
mentators for being “messy”,
“chaotic” and not “Presiden-
tial” enough. Such a reaction
is not unexpected, consider-
ing the aversion that main-
stream western media and
commentators have for Don-
ald Trump; and considering
the US President was his ir-
repressible self at the debate,
with both the moderator and
Biden having a tough time
keeping him “in line”. But
then he being “unpresiden-
tial” did not stop voters from
electing him to the most pow-
erful office in the world, and
will not stop them this time
either, provided they think
he should be back for a sec-
ond time. The debate, which
was widely watched in India
as well, was peppered with
not-so-polite exchanges. It
appeared as if Trump man-
aged to rattle his opponent to
such an extent that the former
Vice President ended up call-
ing the US President a “liar”,
a “fool”, a “clown”, “Putin’s
puppy”, apart from uttering
an exasperated “will you shut
up, man”. Debating a “mav-
erick” such as Donald Trump
can be hazardous and it was
showing on Biden. No wonder
the former VP did not get the
opportunity to appear “presi-
dential”—and not for want of
trying. Overall, it was a no-
holds-barred sparring match,
which was intended to ener-
gise the respective candidates’
voter bases so that they come
out to vote on election day.
All the issues that are of im-
portance featured in the de-
bate, including coronavirus,
opening up the economy, job
creation, race relations, law
and order and of course per-
formance in office. Trump
kept hammering on the point
of his “47 months” in office
versus Biden’s “47 years” in
politics and government.
But then it is not certain if
the “outsider” tag that had
worked in Trump’s favour in
2016 will work this time as
well. Biden is ahead of him
by 6-7 points and a lot will
depend on a vaccine being
found and the kind of recov-
ery US economy makes in the
next one month—V-shaped,
according to Trump and K-
shaped according to Biden,
where the rich get richer and
the poor poorer. Opening up
the economy is a major issue,
with Trump for it, and Biden
against. There is a view that
Trump would have sailed
home to victory but for the
pandemic affecting lives and
livelihoods. He has also made
things difficult for himself
by being “unscientific” about
the infection, thus handing
on a platter a poll issue to the
Democrats.
It is becoming increasingly
clear that this election is also
about the American way of
life, with Trump raising the is-
sue of the Democratic party’s
descent into what he called
radical left politics—an ideol-
ogy detested by Americans. In
fact, countries such as India
have been watching with con-
cern the takeover of the Dem-
ocratic party by “leftist” forces
that have gone to the extent of
insisting that US should stop
selling arms to India because
of alleged human rights is-
sues. And Biden knows that
this socialist-leftist tag can
sink him, the reason why he
kept insisting during the de-
bate that it was he who was
the Democratic party. Since
there is a good chance of
Biden becoming President, it
is hoped that he will be able
to stop this mainstreaming
of the leftist fringe. But his
comment that “Antifa is an
idea and not an organisation”
is being seen as an attempt
to downplay the violence
perpetrated by this section
of the extreme “anti-fascist”
left. From all accounts, this is
an issue that may drive a sec-
tion of voters unhappy with
Trump to ignore Biden, or
may make a section of Demo-
crat voters sit out the election
as they see their streets de-
scend into chaos. It is a toxic
situation with the involve-
ment of white supremacists as
well. Trump’s refusal to con-
demn the violence instigated
by them—“stand down and
stand by, boys”, he said—may
prove to be politically prob-
lematic for him especially
among voters of colour. His
cavalier approach to the issue
of his taxes, as was evident
during the debate, may prove
to be another problem.
Although there will be a
separate debate on foreign
policy, but this debate too
saw both men broaching
the topic of China as they at-
tempted to outdo each other
in their “hatred” for China, so
that no one mistakes them to
be “Xi Jinping’s puppy”. The
coronavirus, which Trump
“eloquently” described as
the “China plague”, and thus
China itself may become a
major factor in the election,
and even if Biden—appar-
ently not very unfriendly to
China—becomes the next
President, it may be political
suicide for him to pursue a
pro-China policy. With China
as the new Soviet Russia in
this second edition of Cold
War, it remains to be seen how
this affects geopolitics and
particularly the Indo-Pacific
region. India found two men-
tions, once when Trump was
talking about corona death
counts and another time
when talking about countries
polluting the environment.
It goes without saying that in
both instances, he was mak-
ing political points and thus
perhaps exaggerating mat-
ters, something that will not
affect the strategic alliance
between the two countries in
case he returns to power. So
the foreign policy debate will
be something to watch out for.
In conclusion it can be said
that even if Trump goes down
on 3 November, he will not go
down without a fight. This be-
came apparent from his com-
ment on possible ballot fraud
and the possibility of counting
continuing for days after Elec-
tion Day. In other words, No-
vember will be an interesting
month.
Joyeeta Basu
 6 legally speaking the daily guardian
thurs day   |  01 oc tober 2020
new delhi

analysis

Independence of Independent Director

prongs have been attacked i.e. independence. These loop- dent directors. Above clause dent director is protection of ity shareholders. Non-par- Issue of
nomination, removal and a holes were done away with lays down that Nomination the interests of the minority ticipation of the controlling Remuneration

opinion remuneration which creates

hurdle in independency of
independent director.
Shreyashkar & The Definitional
Issue of
Shivam Shantanu ‘Independence’
There has always an ambi-
guity worldwide as to what
constitutes “independence”
of independent director. Poli-
cymakers of India have tried
continuously setting out dif-
ferent meanings attached to
the term “independence”.
This dates back to the CII Re-
port which although recog-
nized the importance of the
institution of independent
director, but abstained from
defining the term. The first
legit attempt to define the
Sec. 149 of the Companies
Act, 2013. It turned out be a
major boost in the corporate
governance goal. There were
many improvisations which
led to an effective indepen-
dence threshold. It contains
a fair list of exclusions. More-
over, it also lays down the
overarching subjective re-
quirement of expertise and
experience
The criteria discussed
above basically amounts to
the fulfillment of objective
factors. What the defini-
tional issue of independence
lacks is the subjective ele-
ment. The issue of the subjec-
tive element or the practical
aspect to the independence
of Independent Director has
and Remuneration Commit-
tee of the board will do the
needful. It specifically men-
tions that Nomination and
Remuneration Committee
of the board will formulate
the criteria for determining
qualifications, positive attri-
butes and independence of
a director and will identify
and recommend to the board
their appointment. This is
certainly followed by board
approving or disproving
such recommendations and
takes them to general meet-
ing for final approval. Sec-
tion 152(2) says that “every
director shall be appointed
by the company in a general
meeting.” Now, it is of utmost
relevance to mention here
shareholders but under the
present matrix of appoint-
ment and removal leads to
the fact that the sole purpose
of independent director gets
disbursed. Above fallacy
can be remedied by the in-
creasing the participation
of minority shareholders.
Effective independence of
independent director could
be achieved by two schemes
namely by the case of cumu-
lative voting by shareholders
and secondly by election by a
majority of minority.
By the process of cumula-
tive voting, minority share-
holders could be given their
chance to elect the indepen-
dent director in proportion-
ate to their shareholders.
shareholders will certainly
lead to boost in the indepen-
dence of independent direc-
tor. This scheme is useful
because it will bring out the
true representation of the
minority shareholders and
will instill accountability in
the minds of independent
director towards minority
shareholders.
Removal
We have already discussed
as to the loophole in the ap-
pointment process which di-
minishes the independence
threshold. Now, the ques-
tion arises as to whether the
same is similar with the re-
moval process. The answer
is affirmative. Section 115
The Companies Act, 2013
specifically proscribes any
kind of business or pecuni-
ary relationship between
the independent director
and the company. However,
Sec. 149(9), 197(5) and 197(9)
of the Companies Act, 2013
talks on remuneration. Com-
bined reading of the above
provisions reveals that “in-
dependent directors can be
paid a sitting fee and related
reimbursements for attend-
ing the board/committee
meetings and profit-related
commissions as approved
by the members.” This is
where the problem lies and
this problem jeopardizes the
independence of indepen-
dent director. The general

T
he genesis of the in-
stitution of Indepen-
dent Director should
be viewed from the owner-
ship of the company vis-à-
vis management. Board of
Directors is an integral part
of the company. In layman’s
language, they are a group
of people who are appointed
by owners of the company
to look after the interests of
the stakeholders which com-
prises of different people like
employees, investors, gov-
ernment, society etc. BOD
is credited with the work of
looking after the day to day
management of the company.
It is assumed and expected
that the BOD will carry the
same functions with trans-
parency and accountability
and carry out the affairs in
interests of the common
good. This is exactly the
triggering point for the so
called independent behav-
ior of the board. The idea
of independence has been
a shabby concept and what
has been generally seen is
that the board often works
prejudicial to the interests
of the stakeholders moti-
vated by material benefits
of few members. This called
for the need of an institution
which would be really inde-
pendent and would carry out
their functions with absolute
accountability.
The Indianized conception
of Independent Director has
been transplanted from the
Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.
The independent director
can be regarded as that mem-
ber of the board who has dis-
seminated himself from the
internal affairs of the man-
agement of the company. He
is expected to monitor the
board with a sense of segre-
gation. The Companies Act
of 2013 traces the concept of
independent director under
Sec. 149. It has been a wide
advocated concept that the
institution of independent
director has been major tool
of corporate governance.
The article seeks to answers
one of the most burning
questions of the corporate
world i.e. are independent di-
rectors really independent?
It has been advocated by the
concerned article that the
institution of independent
director has been a sham
in India. The concept has
been well adopted in theory
but lacks practicality. Three
term was made by the Ku-
mar Mangalam Birla Com-
mittee report. The committee
defined independent direc-
tors as “directors who apart
from receiving directors’ re-
muneration do not have any
other material pecuniary
relationship or transactions
with the company, its pro-
moters, its management or
its subsidiaries which in the
judgement of the board may
affect their independence of
judgment”. The definition
ought to be a narrow ap-
proach to determine the in-
dependence of independent
director. Sole reason for the
definition being treated as a
narrow test was its pecuni-
ary considerations. These
recommendations soon led
to a regulatory framework
i.e. clause 49 of the Listing
Agreement. The concerned
clause listed out exclusions
to the institution of indepen-
dent director like individuals
who were related to promot-
er and members of senior
management by familial
ties. There were some other
exclusions as well. However,
the provision did not cap-
ture certain social relations
that would affect director’s
been discussed below.
How much “Independent”
are Independent Directors?
The theoretical basis for
the institution has already
been discussed at length.
Going through the above
discussions it was clear that
it is quite possible to come
up with satisfactory objec-
tive criteria for the attribute
or independence but it is
also of utmost importance
to understand the fact that
the business is carried on at
a real-time basis and fulfill-
ment of the objective criteria
would not serve the real pur-
pose and pacify the ground
realities. These subjective el-
ement lies in the nomination,
removal and the remunera-
tion process that hasn’t been
dealt by the legislation so far.
This element hits the very
core of the independence cri-
teria of independent director.
Nomination &
Election Process
The law does not provide
special provision for the
nomination of independent
director. However, Clause
49 of the Listing agreement
lays down as to who would
nominate the said indepen-
that the Nomination and
Remuneration Committee
only nominates candidate
for the post of independent
director and still the decision
making power rests with
the board. The fact that the
committee only “nominates”
and it is commonly seen that
the committee nominates
people acquainted with the
promoters or the directors.
This process leads to the
independent director who
is appointed is left out with
a sense of indebtment to
the promoters or directors.
This is the triggering point
where the independence of
the director is hit brutally.
The present law does not lay
down specific procedure as
to the appointment or the
nomination of independent
director. The appointment
of independent director in
India takes place through
the usual process where
each director is to be voted
on individually at a share-
holders’ meeting by way of
a separate resolution. It is
seen that the appointment of
such independent directors
are at the petty of the control-
ling shareholders. One of the
main functions of indepen-
This would ultimately lead
to reduction in dominance
of controlling shareholders.
In this scheme, individual
shareholder is given the
power to exercise to respec-
tive number of votes deter-
mined as the product of the
number of shares held by the
shareholder and the number
of independent directors to
be elected. This scheme for
the nomination of indepen-
dent director would ensure
effective independence
because it would involve
participation of both the
minority shareholders and
controlling shareholders to
elect independent directors
depending on the proportion
of their respective sharehold-
ing.
Alternatively, the process of
voting by majority of minor-
ity can also certainly boost
the element of indepen-
dence of independent direc-
tor. This type of nomination
will run on premise where
only minority shareholders
would be given a chance to
appoint the independent
director. Each independent
director will remain elected
as long as it enjoys the ma-
jority support of the minor-
of the Companies Act, 2013
says shareholders can give
a special notice to move a
resolution. Section 100 lays
down that shareholders col-
lectively owning 10 percent
of paid-up equity can call
for an EGM. Moreover, Sec-
tion 169 lays down that any
director can be removed by
passing an ordinary resolution
at a general meeting. Perusal
of the above provisions
quite clearly reveals that
there is certainly no distinc-
tion between the removal
of “independent” and “non-
independent” director. Thus,
the process of removal of in-
dependent director is quite
lucid i.e all directors need
to do is aimed to provide a
special notice to commence
a resolution, followed by an
EGM and finally passing
that resolution. It is general-
ly seen that majority Indian
promoters have substantial
amount of shareholdings
in their company, so the re-
moval of independent direc-
tor on their whims and fan-
cies is not mere a possibility
but reality. This is another
reason what affects the in-
dependence of independent
director.
practice prescribes that com-
missions which are related to
some profit, the proposal is
initiated in the board and fol-
lowed by a general meeting
for approval by shareholders.
Since the process involves
the participation of domi-
nant shareholders, it very
much strikes the core of the
independence value of the
independent directors.
Concluding
Remarks
Above deliberations lead to
the conclusion that there
still persists some problems
which strikes the very core
of the independence of inde-
pendent director. The issues
of nomination, removal
and remuneration needs to
be addressed probably by
an amendment because it
erodes the very institution of
the independent director. In-
dependent director has been
a tool for corporate gover-
nance and if these problems
are remedied, it will emerge
a very effective institution.
The present institution of
independent direct is in dire
need of the overhaul change
to make it a robust and an ef-
fective one.

analysis

A prudent approach to ed-tech: Regulatory prism for the sector

has also been addressed by to provide classroom teach- With a lot many questions, dantu and Unacademy, the under the E-Commerce tem and Data Sanctity
Kerala High Court, holding ing on your television, web debates, speculations and Indian EdTech companies Rules to determine the The challenge for an
right to internet access as based knowledge sharing curiosity, the sector has have been diversifying uni- subsequent foreign direct EdTech company is also

opinion part of right to education

AMAN shankar
“Invention, it must be humbly
admitted, does not consist in
creating out of void, but out of
chaos”
— Mary Shelley
(in ‘Frankenstein’)
A Brief Introduction
Technology is the greatest
disruptive phenomenon
that has occurred to man-
kind. The internet which
started for sovereign pur-
poses in the 1960’s has
reached our bedrooms to-
day. The advanced technolo-
gy like Artificial Intelligence
(AI), deep learning, Internet
of Things (IoT), cloud com-
puting and big data are the
propellant of change in the
whole dynamics of societal
and organisational con-
duct. To bring in the context
here, ‘Education Technol-
ogy’ (“EdTech”) is one of the
by-products of such techno-
logical advancement which
has disrupted the way of
imparting knowledge and
the method of teaching and
learning by transcending
all geographical limitations,
and has gained more rele-
vance in time of this unhap-
pening pandemic.
Ed-Tech and
its Application:
Insights
‘Education Technology’
or ‘Instructional Technol-
ogy’ can be understood as
a mutation of technology
and conventional education
system to transform the
whole learning and teach-
ing experience. What was
limited to the four walls of
a classroom has flipped to
an e-learning mode. Now
learning and imparting
knowledge is not confined
to a physical location, rather
the mode of accessibility
has gone global. You can ac-
cess your learning modules
on your digital devices
anytime and anywhere. A
course offered by a univer-
sity in USA can be accessed
by a person at any location
in India, such is the impact
and transition. If you are an
entrepreneur and want to
work in the education sec-
tor, you need not necessar-
ily establish an educational
institution backed by huge
capital, technology can be
the aid for you. This mix
of internet and education
under Article 21 of the Con-
stitution of India.
EdTech is an ecosystem
where technology is used to
enhance the academic expe-
rience, method of teaching
and learning, increased ac-
cessibility of resources. The
technology deployed is not
only a hardware or a soft-
ware, but most often as the
future will be, an AI Teach-
er, an online library on
cloud servers, a synced col-
laborative learning process
through the mechanism of
IoT, advanced predictive
assessment and guidance
process through big data
analytics and the develop-
ment will be manifold. The
whole conception of educa-
tion might change.
The present example, in
the time of corona crisis,
the educational institutions
have adopted technology
to provide e-learning facil-
ity. The different models
of EdTech have been plied,
like the flipped classroom,
synchronous and asyn-
chronous mode of teach-
ing, online tutorials, com-
puter-based training or
linear learning, collabora-
tive learning, students en-
rolling for online certificate
courses, the credit transfer
courses from foreign uni-
versities, gamification of
education, dish tv operators
like Tata Sky collaborating
platforms and mediums
like Unacademy, Byjus, e-
books, online library etc.
Questions to ponder
But few realistic and ethi-
cal questions might also
occur. Whether AI will re-
place human teachers com-
pletely? What about the ma-
chine bias and how to get rid
of it? Whether classrooms
will go flipped, completely?
Whether e-learning will
suffice the human touch of
physical interface? How to
address the concern of digi-
tal accessibility of financial-
ly weaker class, if EdTech
is the future? Whether the
future beholds a blended
learning of pen and paper
complimented with tech-
nology or will it act in isola-
tion? Whether we have to
do away with physical space
of learning? Whether the
change will be for good or
will it deteriorate the edu-
cation system? What about
false profiling of teach-
ers, online defamation and
child privacy violations?
Whether the Internet Ser-
vice Providers (ISPs) will
have to face any intermedi-
ary liability for an indepen-
dent EdTech entrepreneur’s
mischief over internet?
Regulatory Laws:
Opportunities and
challenges
a) Education Policy and
UGC regulation
gained a lot of traction and
hence is being brought into
the regulatory arena. In
India, the New Education
Policy, 2020 (“NEP Policy/
Policy”) has brought in
sweeping changes in school
and higher education. The
Policy has revised the cur-
riculum structure with fo-
cus on more practical learn-
ing and skill training. The
higher education has been
opened to foreign universi-
ties, selective course reading
has been introduced, colleg-
es and universities will be
multidisciplinary, changing
the whole thrust of educa-
tion system. The EdTech
will play a major role here
for achieving the vision-
ary Policy goals. However,
they will have to operate as
per applicable University
Grants Commission (UGC)
rules. The UGC introduced
the University Grants Com-
mission (Online Courses or
Programmes) Regulations,
2018 regulating the online
courses offered by Univer-
sity in India. But the NEP
Policy, has proposed to dis-
mantle the UGC, so it has to
be seen in the long run how
the regulatory construct
will be.
b) E-commerce rules and
Foreign Direct Investment
On the economic front,
EdTech companies have
seen exponential buyouts
for this year. Byju’s, Ve-
formly and their valuations investment (FDI) norms,
have grown significantly. as applicable. As the FDI
EdTech has become a me- Policy of India stands, in e-
to protect its intellectual
property rights. The con-
tents that are generated, the
dium of exchange of ser- commerce although 100% algorithms being used, soft-
vices and products and has FDI is allowed, but it var- ware, brand name, domain
attracted electronic trans- ies depending upon the name, know-how, protec-
actions, thereby inviting E- business model. While for tion of these is a robust task.
Commerce regulations. The a B2B (Business to Busi- Simultaneously, the seam-
new Consumer Protection ness) model, 100% FDI is less interaction of persons
(E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 allowed, the Government through technological inter-
will have a significant role of India has been reluctant face is observing huge flow
to play here. The scope and to allow the same for a B2C of data, contents and has
applicability of this rule is (Business to Consumer) invited privacy concerns.
wide enough to cover all model. This would impact Since the whole EdTech
goods and services bought the EdTech sector bifurca- architecture is backed by
or sold over digital or elec- tion based on ‘marketplace AI, the recent draft frame-
tronic network including e-commerce entity’ (alike work of the Indian Artificial
digital products and all B2B model) or ‘inventory Intelligence Stack will have
models of e-commerce, in- e-commerce entity’ (alike a pivotal role to play. The
cluding marketplace and B2C model). questions of AI bias and its
inventory models of e- It is also to be given a training, the emerging pri-
commerce. The definition thought, reconciling the vacy concerns and sanctity
of an ‘e-commerce entity’ past apparent conflicting of data principles can be ad-
includes any person who views of courts and tribu- dressed in a more compre-
owns, operates or manages nals, whether education is hensive manner, when it
digital or electronic facility a ‘service’ and students are comes to EdTech.
or platform for electronic ‘consumer’ under the Con- The Information Tech-
commerce. An EdTech is sumer Protection Act, 1986. nology Act, 2000 (IT Act)
most likely to fall within Recently the National Con- and compliance of Section
the domain of this defini- sumer Disputes Redressal 43A, 72, 72A along with
tion, as it is being offered in Commission in a reference the Information Technol-
consideration of some fee, answered that educational ogy (Reasonable security
and hence the regulatory institutions don’t fall with- practices and procedures
obligations and liabilities in the ambit of Consumer and sensitive personal data
will apply directly. How- Protection Act; however, or information) Rules, 2011
ever, free services by plat- coaching institutions are is a key aspect for address-
forms will fall outside this rendering ‘service’ and ing privacy and security
regulatory ambit. needs to be distinguished. concerns. The intermediary
At the same time, it will be So, it needs to be finally set- regulations under section
critical to analyse whether tled by the authorities how 79A of the IT Act along with
the EdTech model is fall- the construct of law has intermediary guidelines
ing under ‘marketplace to be in this regard, to give will also come into motion.
e-commerce entity’ or ‘in- more clarity. Read the conclusion on
ventory e-commerce entity’ d) The IP rights, AI ecosys- TheDailyGuardian.com.
 the daily guardian
t hurs day | 01 oc tober 2020
new delhi defence 7
INNOVATIon

Rajnath Singh launches Defence

India Startup Challenge-4
iDEX4Fauji is a first-of-its-kind initiative, launched to support innovations identified by members
of the Indian armed forces and bolster frugal ideas from soldiers and field formations.
Ashish Singh
New Delhi
Defence Minister Rajnath
Singh launched the De-
fence India Startup Chal-
lenge 4 (DISC-4) during the
iDEX event, featuring the
initiatives aimed at expand-
ing the horizons of Innova-
tions for Defence Excellence
(iDEX) ecosystem in New
Delhi on Tuesday. iDEX-
4Fauji initiative and Prod-
uct Management Approach
(PMA) guidelines were also
launched by the minister
during the event. Each of
these initiatives is expected
to facilitate iDEX-DIO to
scale up the programme
qualitatively and quantita-
tively.
iDEX4Fauji is a first-of-
its-kind initiative, launched
to support innovations iden-
tified by members of the In-
dian armed forces and will
bolster frugal innovation
ideas from soldiers/field
formations. There are more
than 13 lakh service person-
nel working in the field and
on borders, handling ex-
treme conditions and equip-
ment and would be having
many ideas and innovations
to improve such equipment.
There was no mechanism to
support such innovations.
iDEX4Fauji would open this
window and allow our sol-
diers to become part of the
innovation process and get
recognised and rewarded.
Services Headquarters will
provide support to the sol-
diers and field formations
all over the country to ensure
maximum participation.
Speaking on the occasion,
Rajnath Singh said that the
iDEX initiative stands out
as one of the most effective
and well-executed defence
startup ecosystem created
in our country and it would
be a decisive step towards
achieving self-reliance in
the spirit of the Aatmanirb-
har Bharat campaign. Singh
said, “For the first time, an
atmosphere has been created
in the country when differ-
ent stakeholders have been
brought together to push for
innovations in the defence
sector. In order to further
strengthen our defence sys-
tem and make it self- reliant
the participation of private
sector is also crucial. For
this we have taken certain
steps like partnerships with
private sector, technology
transfer, 74 % FDI through
automatic route and the re-
cently released negative list
of 101 items for import ban
after a stipulated period.”
The defence Minister
also mentioned, “that only
yesterday the government
launched Defence Acquisi-
tion procedure 2020 which
seeks to encourage the pri-
vate industry to participate
in the defence sector. Rak-
sha Mantri also exhorted
the Armed Forces to make
full use of the Defence Inno-
vation Organisation (DIO)
platform to meet their tech-
nological requirements and
the Indian Startups to use
this opportunity to become
an integral part of our De-
fence enablers.”
The launch was addressed
among others by MoS De-
fence Shripad Yesso Naik,
Chief of Defence Staff Gen-
eral Bipin Rawat, Defence
Secretary Ajay Kumar and
Secretary, Department of
Defence Production, Raj-
kumar.
Under Defence India
Startup Challenge 4 (DISC-
4), eleven challenges from
armed forces, OFB and DP-
SUs were thrown open to
prospective startups, inno-
vators, MSMEs alike to pro-
vide their innovative ideas
on technologies which find
their application in the de-
fence sector. The challenges
are as follows:
i. Autonomous Underwater
Swarm Drones
ii. Predictive, Preventive &
Prescriptive Machine Moni-
toring
iii. Super Resolution for Im-
proving Spatial Resolution
iv. AI based Satellite Image
Analysis
v. Prediction and forecasting
of atmospheric visibility
vi. Computer Generated
Targets for Virtual Training
vii. Remote Real Time In-
Flight Health Monitoring of
Aircrew
viii. MF-TDMA based Wide-
band SATCOM Modem
ix. Foliage Penetration Ra-
dar
x. Reduction of RCS of Naval
Warships
xi. Target Detection in Chaff
Environment
In order to develop a ‘right
product and the product
right’, DIO has adopted the
Product Management Ap-
proach to steer the proto-
type development to a mar-
ket ready product. These
guidelines are first of their
kind and their release by
the Defence Minister is in-
tended to monitor product
development milestones
achieved by iDEX winners
against the requirements
set by the Services/DPSUs/
OFB. The iDEX initiative of
the Department of Defence
Production was launched
by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi in April 2018 with the
objective to encourage and
nurture innovations in the
Indian defence sector and
create an ecosystem where
startups, MSMEs and indi-
vidual innovators could in-
teract easily with the Indian
defence establishment and
provide the latest techno-
logical innovations for spe-
cific challenges experienced
in operational environments
through co-development
and co-production of inno-
vative solutions. The iDEX
initiatives are executed by
Defence Innovation Organi-
sation, a Section 8 company
of DPSUs BEL and HAL.
DIO has evolved and ex-
panded the magnitude of its
activities since inception in
2018:
a) iDEX-DIO has launched
three rounds of Defence In-
dia Startup Challenge (DISC)
with 18 problem statements
from Armed Forces, DPSUs
& OFB and identified 55+
start-ups/ individuals to
receive innovation grants in
technological areas through
the Prototype funding
guidelines called “Sup-
port for Prototype and Re-
search Kickstart” (SPARK),
which entail provisioning
of grants up to Rs 1.5 crore
to the Startups on the basis
of milestones through mul-
tiple tranches, for prototype
development.
b) DIO has entered into stra-
tegic partnership with lead-
ing incubators of the country
and undergone international
collaborations especially
with Defence Innovation
Unit (DIU) in US.
c) For efficaciously taking
forward the activities, DIO is
hiring manpower, doing out-
reach, launched own website
(www.idex.gov.in) & portal,
launched 2 cycles of open
challenge for supporting suo
motu innovations, SPARK
II guidelines and an intern-
ship programme, etc, along
with promulgating elaborate
guidelines and Standard Op-
erating Procedures.
d) DDP has 9 defence PSUs
as pillars of defence pro-
duction in the country and
iDEX has enabled capacity
building in DPSUs by seed-
ing a culture of innovation
and Research and Develop-
ment.
The iDEX event successful-
ly brought together the iDEX
stakeholders on a single
platform i.e. Ministry of De-
fence (MoD), iDEX selected
startups, partner incubators,
Defence Innovation Organi-
sation (DIO), nodal agencies
(Indian Army, Indian Navy,
Indian Air Force), NITI
Aayog, DRDO, DPSUs, OFB,
think tanks, private industry
and Industry associations.
More than 500 startups
and innovators participated
in the event through video
conference.

PATROL VESSEL INDIGENOUS PROGRAMME

Coast Guard ship Kanaklata 300th ALH-Dhruv rolls out from HAL hangar
Barua commissioned in Kolkata
Ashish Singh
New Delhi
The Indian Coast Guard Ship
Kanaklata Barua was commis-
sioned in Kolkata by Jiwesh Nan-
dan, Additional Secretary, Ministry
of Defence (MoD), on Tuesday via
video conferencing in the pres-
ence of DG K. Natarajan, Director
General of Indian Coast Guard,
Rear Admiral (Retd) V.K. Saxena,
Chairman & Managing Director of
GRSE Ltd, IG A.K. Harbola, Com-
mander, Coast Guard Region (NE),
and other MoD officials. This is the
second time in the annals of Indian
maritime history that Coast Guard
ships are commissioned through
digital medium, maintaining the
strict protocol of social distancing
in the backdrop of Covid-19.
Indian Coast Guard ship Kanak-
lata Barua, the last in the series of
five Fast Patrol Vessels (FPVs), has
been designed and built indigenously by Gar-
den Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE)
Ltd, Kolkata, a fine example of ‘Aatmanirbhar
Bharat’ and is fitted with state-of-the-art navi-
gation and communication equipment, sensor
and machinery. The 49m ship displaces about
310 tonnes, propelled by three MTU 4000
Series engines designed to attain a maximum
speed of 35 knots. The ship is designed to car-
ry one RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) high speed
boats and one Gemini boat for swift boarding
and Search & Rescue operations.
The ship is named in honour of Kanaklata
Barua, a freedom fighter who was martyred
while leading a procession carrying the In-
dian national flag during the 1942 Quit India
movement. ICGS Kanaklata Barua is replace-
ment of a similar named vessel which was in
commission from 1997 to 2018. The ship is
commanded by Commandant (JG) Subhash
Kapoor.
The ship, on joining the Coast Guard fleet,
will be deployed extensively for EEZ surveil-
lance, Coastal Security and other duties as
enshrined in the Coast Guard charter of du-
ties, to safeguard the maritime interests of the
Nation. With the commissioning of this ship,
Indian Coast Guard has 151 ships and boats
and 62 aircraft. Further, 40 ships are at vari-
ous stages of construction at different Indian
shipyards and 16 Advanced Light Helicopters
are under production at HAL, Bengaluru,
which will provide the added strength to the
Ashish Singh
New Delhi
inducted into the services
our focus on customer
support is ever increasing.
(LCH-LSP) was carried
out. This project has been
taken up by the Company
In yet another major fillip With over 2,80,000 flying proactively while the order
to indigenous programme, hours ALH has proven to from Services on HAL is
300th Advanced Light be a multirole helicopter for in process. The LCH was
Helicopter (ALH-Dhruv) Any Mission, Any Place, piloted by Gp Capt (Retd)
rolled out from HAL hang- Any Time.” Hari Krishnan Nair S.,
ar on Tuesday. The roll-out Currently, HAL is pro- Chief Test Pilot and Gp
certificate of the 300th ducing 73 ALHs contract- Capt (Retd) C.G. Narasim-
helicopter was handed over ed for Army (41), Indian ha Prasad, Senior Flight
to G.V.S. Bhaskar, Chief Ex- Navy (16) and Indian Coast Test Engineer of Flight
ecutive Officer, Helicopter HAL, said, “ALH never is a boost to the indigenous Guard (16). Out of this, 38 Operations, Rotary Wing.
Complex, by Y.K. Sharma, looked back from the day design and development of ALHs have already been S. Anbuvelan, Executive
Additional Director Gen- when the prototype took helicopters”, he added. produced and the remain- Director, Helicopter Divi-
eral (South Zone), Directo- its maiden flight on August Bhaskar said, “Rolling- ing will be completed by sion, Wg Cdr (Retd) Unni
rate General of Aeronau- 30, 1992 and has evolved out of 300th ALH is a tes- 2022. Pillai, Executive Director
tical Quality Assurance into a world class helicop- timony to the capabilities LCH Ground Run: On (Flight Operations-Rotary
(DGAQA) at a programme ter with its unparalleled HAL has built over the this occasion the ‘Ground Wing), V. Sivasubrama-
held at HAL’s Helicopter performance.” years with concerted efforts Run’ of the first Limited nian, General Manager,
Division. “The evolution from of employees and customer Series Production (LSP) of Helicopter Division and
Speaking on the occa- ALH Mark-I to Mark-IV support”. He emphasised, Light Combat Helicopter- others were present on the
sion, R. Madhavan, CMD, has been phenomenal and “With more ALH getting Limited Series Production occasion.
LAC TENSION ‘AATMANIRBHAR BHARAT’
19th meeting of WMCC on BrahMos featuring
surveillance capabilities of ICG to deal with
the ever-dynamic maritime challenges. India-China standoff held indigenous booster
The Indian Coast Guard has been a pioneer in
inducting indigenous assets. In continuation of
Ashish Singh
New Delhi
successfully flight tested
efforts to maximise the indigenous content in
new assets, ICG is proud to state that the ship The 19th meeting of the Working
commissioned today, has about 70% indig- Mechanism for Consultation & Coor-
enous content, thus providing the necessary dination on India-China Border Af-
fillip to the Indian shipbuilding industry. True fairs (WMCC) was held on Wednes-
to its motto “Vayam Rakshamah” meaning “We day. The Indian delegation was led
Protect”, ICG has to its credit of saving about by Joint Secretary (East Asia) from 6th Senior Commanders meeting on 21
9,750 lives at sea, 12,500 lives as part of assis- the Ministry of External Affairs. The September. They emphasised the need
tance rendered to civil authorities and under- Director General of the Boundary & to implement the steps outlined in the
took 384 medical evacuations, which works Oceanic Department of the Chinese joint press release issued after the last
out to one life saved every two days. Ministry of Foreign Affairs led the meeting of the senior commanders so
The deterrence created by the ICG is not lim- Chinese delegation. as to avoid misunderstandings and to
ited to the Indian waters, but collaboration The two sides reviewed the current maintain stability on the ground. In
with friendly littoral states as per provisions situation along the Line of Actual Con- this context, the need to strengthen
Ashish Singh
of bilateral cooperation agreements resulted trol (LAC) in the India-China border communication, especially between New Delhi
in successful apprehension and seizure of areas and had frank and detailed dis- the ground commanders, was em-
drugs in Indian Ocean Region (IOR).The real cussions on the developments since phasized by both sides. The BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile featuring
time information sharing, close coordination the last meeting of the WMCC on 20 Both sides agreed to continue to indigenous booster and airframe section along with many other ‘Made
and understanding between ICG and other August, 2020. The two sides attached maintain close consultations at the in India’ sub-systems was successfully flight tested for designated
agencies has been the key success of these importance to the meetings between diplomatic and military level. In this range on Wednesday from ITR, Balasore in Odisha. It is one more
operations. The hawk eye vigil by the ICG of the two Defence Ministers and the regard, they agreed that the next (7th) major step in enhancing the indigenous content.
the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) two Foreign Ministers held earlier round of the meeting of Senior Com- The BrahMos Land-Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) was cruising at
has ensured seizure of about Rs 7,000 crore this month. They also noted that the manders should be held at an early a top speed of Mach 2.8.Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh congratulated
contraband, 1,600 foreign fishing vessels agreement between the two Foreign date so that both sides can work to- all the personnel of DRDO and team BrahMos for the spectacular mis-
with 13,000 miscreants were apprehended Ministers should be sincerely imple- wards early and complete disengage- sion. Dr G Satheesh Reddy, Secretary DD R&D and Chairman DRDO
for fishing illegally in Indian waters, during mented to ensure disengagement at ment of the troops along the LAC in congratulated the scientific community and industry for this feat. The
the same period. ICG remains committed to all the friction points along the LAC. accordance with the existing bilateral successful launch has paved the way for the serial production of the
ensure ‘Safe, Secure and Clean seas’ around In this regard, the two sides posi- agreement and protocols, and fully indigenous booster and other indigenous components of the powerful
the Indian subcontinent. tively evaluated the outcome of the restore peace and tranquility. BrahMos weapon system realising ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ pledge.
8 policy & politics the daily guardian
thurs day   |  01 oc tober 2020
new delhi

analysis

Effective use of digital entitlement

approach to ensure human rights antithetical to, the princi- positive correlation between policy implications, unan- that he/she is entitled to ap- income workers. As the data was recorded, pro-
ples of human rights. Digi- DBTs and some indicators swered questions and scope ply for, obtain the necessary majority of informal, low- cessed and stored in myriad
tization captures the entire of economic and physical for further research. paperwork and attend the paid workers profess a mul- ways, it was not accessible

opinion universe and thus there is

Aruna Sharma
Came across advance
version (11th October 2019,
Distr: General in 74th session
item 72(b) of the provisional
agenda on Promotion and
Protection of human rights
reflecting questions, alter-
nate approaches. This arti-
cle I am sending on the note
by Secretary General report
of Special Rapporteur on
extreme poverty and hu-
man rights by Philip Alston
(HRC resolution 35/19). “As
humankind moves, per-
haps inexorably, towards
the digital welfare future it
needs to alter course signifi-
cantly and rapidly to avoid
stumbling zombie-like into
a digital welfare dystopia,”
the Special Rapporteur on
extreme poverty and hu-
man rights, Philip Alston
expressing concerns on
‘digital welfare state’.
My response is to the ar-
guments put forward in
the report. The grave risk of
stumbling zombie-like into
digital welfare dystopia has
been argued to operate in
almost human rights free-
zone. It does trigger a debate
but then it is important not
to shadow the advantages
that digitization has brought
in for ensuring handling ex-
treme poverty in terms of
SDG principle of ‘no one is
left behind’ and also ensur-
ing efficiency in access to
the poor. I had worked di-
rectly with National Human
Rights Commission , India
and at international level
was instrumental in ensur-
ing to get a seat for NHRCs
at the UN Council of -----. I
have also worked in devel-
oping digital solutions for
ensuring social protection.
My work has been pub-
lished by IPR, University of
Batch (link attached) that
gives empirical evidence as
to how SAMAGRA a house-
hold wise verified data base
made by the government
owned software body NIC
(National Informatics Com-
mission) ensuring complete
ownership and protection
of data enables to have a
paradigm shift from welfare
approach to that of entitle-
ment and also how it is en-
sured that software enables
to identify the beneficiary
households and target the
benefits. It also enables to
break silos and shift to ho-
listic approach. UNHRC is
to target good practices of
digitization across the globe
to developed, developing
and developed economies
to ensure the commitments
made in SDG. This will ac-
celerate gaining access and
ensuring dignity to poor in
deciding their future by us-
ing their entitlements.
The Special Rapporteur
on extreme poverty and hu-
man rights by Philp Alston
observations does point out
the possible fear of resort-
ing to digitization, but it is
important to realize that
there is always a ‘person
behind the machine’. While
agreeing to the observation
the private sector is taking
a leading role in designing,
constructing, and even op-
erating significant parts of
the digital welfare state the
experience is that the tech-
nology is to be used as a tool,
the software and data base
to be made by a Govern-
ment body like NIC in India
and not by private sector.
This ensures update of data
by Government authorised
agencies like local self gov-
ernment and privacy and
security of data is ensured.
The common household
data base (SAMAGRA) en-
sures no repeat in data col-
lection, making silo of data
base, and updation. Thus
only authorized agencies do
the same. The data enables
to throw up list of those en-
tailed so that no one is left
behind enabling to know
the entire universe of par-
ticular desired objective.
Thus, duplication fraud,
and non access is taken care
of . The human right of ac-
cess to entitlement is equal-
ly important. Technology
as presented should not be
just for better skilling, but
correct targeting and access
is equally important. The
biggest advantage of shift-
ing of a country to a com-
mon household data base
with names of individuals
is the panacea as holistic
approach can only then be
adopted.
It is flagged that the fear
digital approach process is
commonly referred to as
‘digital transformation’, but
this somewhat neutral term
should not be permitted to
conceal the revolutionary,
politically-driven, character
of many such innovations.
and remove discretion from
human decision-makers.
Discretion norms are set by
human, thus it is not that
human element is lost but
then what is important that
the discretion to select bene-
ficiary is not there, entire list
of those who fulfil eligibility
is there and thus no one is
left out. The SDG highlight
that ‘no one is left behind’ is
recognition of the fact that
those who deserve most
gets left behind as they have
no access and the benifits get
cornered by few. Thus, the
poorest of poor has always
been left out of the scheme
of things. The right way of
digitization and holistic ap-
proach enable to break that
ceiling.
The argument, that neo-
liberal economic policies
are seamlessly blended
into what are presented
as cutting edge welfare re-
forms, which in turn are
often facilitated, justified,
and shielded by new digital
technologies. Although the
latter are presented as be-
ing ‘scientific’ and neutral,
they can reflect values and
assumptions that are far
removed from, and may be
no question of anyone miss-
ing in the data base. In fact
it enables micro targeting in
terms of household and its
members and enables better
strategizing. As far as hu-
man right is concerned be-
ing left behind is the biggest
violation of human right by
perpetuating non access and
poverty to them. The special
rapporteur has admitted
in the report that many get
left behind and also that
the welfare community has
tended to see the technologi-
cal dimensions as separate
from the policy develop-
ments, rather than as being
integrally linked. What is
important and demon-
strated by SAMAGRA is the
policy makers make better
informed decisions and also
able to target for sustainable
outcomes.
Here I would like to men-
tion little about SAMAGRA,
the detailed link is also men-
tioned for those who would
like to read more about the
same. Abstract
If it is ‘to leave nobody
behind’ in pursuit of the
Sustainable Development
Goals 2030 (SDGs), then
a state requires a compre-
hensive and continuously
updated database of indi-
viduals and households
within its jurisdiction. Con-
solidation of this data can
also assist in overcoming
silo-based fragmentation
in government delivery of
anti-poverty programmes
and services.  We explore
the feasibility of establish-
ing such a database through
an extended case study of
Samagra (meaning ‘all com-
prehensive’) in the Indian
state of Madhya Pradesh.
Samagra was developed to
facilitate integrated moni-
toring and management of
all major government-to-
people (G2P) cash transfers
in the state, and (more radi-
cally) to support a paradigm
shift from a demand-led to
an entitlement-based ap-
proach to benefit delivery.
Samagra is a unified popu-
lation monitoring system
based on continuous re-
cording of household level
demographic events, linked
both to operational records
of participation in diverse
G2P programmes and to fi-
nancial accounts provided
by designated financial in-
stitutions operating within a
five-kilometre radius of each
household. The paper of-
fers a practitioner’s account
of Samagra’s introduction,
including implementation
challenges, policy outcomes
and issues meriting further
research and discussion.
‘Leave nobody behind’ is
a cross-cutting theme of the
Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) 2030 agenda,
based on the concept of pro-
gressive universalism that
prioritises and accelerates
actions for the poorest and
most marginalised, seek-
ing to achieve social justice
through equality of access
to opportunities and high-
quality services for all (Bhat-
kal et al., 2015; Stuart and
Samman, 2017; United Na-
tions, 2015).It also resonates
with the global expansion in
the scale and diversity of di-
rect benefit transfers (DBTs)
as a policy instrument to
advance social protection
in many developing econo-
mies (Lazzolino, 2018), with
recent evidence indicating a
wellbeing(Hagen-Zanker
et al., 2016). However, the
proliferation of benefit
transfer programmes and
schemes with overlapping,
fragmented and ‘silo-based’
delivery is also a potential
source of unfairness and
inefficiency, resulting in
some households receiving
multiple benefits while oth-
ers receive none (Agranoff,
2005; Morse, 2013; Stew-
art, 2014; Uusikylä, 2013;
Wegrich, 2019).To avoid
such problems, it seems
almost self-evident that
public sector bodies need
permeable organisational
boundaries(Clegg, 1990,
in Agranoff, 2005, p20 ;
Hazy et al., 2011)and collab-
orative, integrated strategies
and systems to consolidate
and share the poverty status
and eligibility of individuals
and households across dif-
ferent programmes.
A key issue in the effective-
ness of such a system is the
ability of the state to estab-
lish the identity of all its citi-
zens, this in itself being an
indicator of the capacity of
different countries to leave
nobody behind (Anderson,
2015; Carr-Hill, 2017; DI,
2016). But the establish-
ment of a universal system
for individual citizen iden-
tity (such as Aadhaar in In-
dia) is only one step towards
building a comprehensive
poverty monitoring system,
since it does not address
how transfers and their ef-
fects are affected by house-
hold composition. Whether
anti-poverty transfers are
allocated using universal
categories, income or proxy
indicators of poverty, some
reckoning is required with
how multiple interventions
interact with each other and
with resource allocation at
the family and household
level. The system for identi-
fication of those eligible for
support must also be com-
bined with a mechanism
for transferring financial
benefits to them, hence the
need for financial inclusion
(Alexandre, 2011; Barua et
al., 2016; Radcliffe and Voo-
rhies, 2012).
Addressing these issues
entails contending with
the capability of the state
to deliver consistent and
joined-up services across
vast populations, or how to
go about enhancing such
capability(Andrews et al.,
2017). Given the widely
observed limitations of at-
tempts to replicate models
successful in one context
in another, it is particularly
interesting and important
to document endogenous
or home-grown examples
of successful state capabil-
ity enhancement. To this
end, this paper aims to
document and to stimu-
late wider discussion of the
case of Samagra in Madhya
Pradesh, India from its es-
tablishment in 2012. Section
2 sets Samagra in historical
and geographical context
and highlights the problems
that it sought to address.
Section 3describes its pur-
pose, design characteristics,
scope and growth. Section
4 considers how far it has
been successful in address-
ing problems of fragmen-
tation, poor targeting and
inefficiency, and reviews
the main factors driving and
impeding its establishment.
Section 5 concludes with a
discussion of key findings,
This article draws heavily
on the first-hand experience
of the lead author as a policy
actor in the state govern-
ment of Madhya Pradesh
at the heart of the process
of setting up Samagra. It
also draws heavily on offi-
cially commissioned stud-
ies of Samagra(Bhatnagar
and Gupta, 2013; Menon
et al., 2018; PWC, 2016).
While recognising that our
perspective may throw a
relatively positive light on
Samagra, our hope is that it
will also widen and deepen
discussion of it as a case
study.
Madhya Pradesh (MP)
is the second largest state
in India, by area, with ap-
proximately 72.6 million
residents (Census, 2011) re-
siding in villages and work-
ing in agriculture (Bhat-
nagar and Gupta, 2013, p3).
Despite its size, the state has
the third lowest gross do-
mestic product (ibid) in the
country, the fourth lowest
human development index
(0.594) (Radboud, 2017),
and the highest popula-
tion of scheduled tribes of
any Indian state, constitut-
ing 21.1% of the population
(MoTA, 2011). Social pro-
tection (SP) is the largest
state sector in MP, in terms
of number of beneficia-
ries, institutions, human
resources and geographi-
cal reach (PWC, 2016). The
government is committed
to improving its quality and
reach, including among peo-
ple living below the official
poverty line, the elderly, un-
married/dependent women,
widows, and labourers. To
this end, it has over 200 SP
schemes, with an estimated
budget of Rs.5,000 crore
(£560,101,475) (ibid).
The Indian SP gover-
nance system has tradition-
ally been predicated on a
demand-driven, welfare-
based policy framework,
providing the basic needs
of survival at subsistence
level in areas such as health,
nutrition, sanitation, liveli-
hoods and education. Critics
suggest that while reducing
poverty in absolute terms
this system is not sustain-
able, leads to aid dependen-
cy, and results in the most
vulnerable being left out
and at risk of falling back
into poverty when impacted
by shocks and trauma (Bar-
rientos, 2005; Devereux
and Sabates-Wheeler, 2004;
Kabeer, 2010; Sabates.
Wheeler, 2013). The many
different SP schemes have
had different rules, admin-
istrative processes and de-
livery points, leaving many
eligible beneficiaries strug-
gling to understand their
entitlement. Enrolment
has been further reduced
by complicated and uncer-
tain application procedures
for each scheme, including
lengthy processes for estab-
lishing identity and eligibil-
ity through the submission
of documents relating to
caste, labour category, below
poverty level (BPL) status,
disability, marital status or
spousal death. Long delays
arise while the entitlement
is confirmed and the pay-
ments are processed by cash
or cheque. For example, a
student would need to un-
derstand the rules and eli-
gibility criteria for thirty dif-
ferent scholarship schemes
run by different government
departments, identify those
correct office to verify his/
her documentation. These
problems are experienced
most acutely by the vulner-
able and underprivileged,
who are least able to navi-
gate the procedural com-
plexities, and afford the
time and cost arising from
repeated visits to govern-
ment offices. The result is
that those in the direst need
have often been left behind,
while the wealthier, fitter
and more educated take
more of the benefits on offer.
The potential for a rights-
based SP agenda to con-
tribute to more holistic
development has been of-
ficially recognised since
Independence in 1947, as
well as adoption of the Uni-
versal Declaration of Hu-
man Rights in 1948 (UN,
1948), and echoes a vast lit-
erature (e.g. Abdulai et al.,
2019; Breitkreuz et al., 2017;
Esquivel, 2017; Sabates-
Wheeler et al., 2019).An im-
portant milestone towards
a rights-based approach to
SP in Madhya Pradesh was
the passing of Resolution 37
in the Legislative Assembly
in 2010 (Menon et al., 2018).
This led to a detailed review
of the current SP provision,
and of the many constraints
limiting its effectiveness.
This included data depri-
vation, undermining the
government’s ability to un-
derstand the socioeconomic
status of the state’s inhabit-
ants. Government depart-
ments worked in silos,
collecting, processing and
storing data independently.
Information management
constraints, lack of political
commitment, and high cost
implications related to the
potential integration and
reconciliation of beneficiary
information had resulted in
isolated islands of data. The
data that did exist related
only to the beneficiaries of
each scheme; there were no
data on the remaining pop-
ulation or their entitlement
and beneficiaries were often
recorded only by number,
not name. Thus, while the
expenditure was booked,
there was seldom proof of
the actual financial benefit
transfer being received. For
planning purposes, this led
to statistical misrepresenta-
tion, skewed estimates of the
population’s socioeconomic
profile and poorly informed
poverty alleviation strate-
gies.
A lack of coordination be-
tween government depart-
ments also resulted in over-
lapping benefit eligibility
criteria, with no standardi-
sation of rates or rules, and
multiple agencies provid-
ing similar benefits. At the
same time, due to the manu-
al and decentralised nature
of welfare implementation,
each scheme had a different
application form, service
delivery point and process
for sanction and disbursal
of the benefit, often requir-
ing attendance at more than
one government office for
each benefit and repeated
verification of personal de-
tails and eligibility. This led
to unnecessary confusion
and beneficiaries either not
receiving their full entitle-
ment or, conversely, collect-
ing duplicate benefits from
multiple departments. An
example of this relates to
life insurance schemes pro-
vided by a number of gov-
ernment agencies for low
tiplicity of occupations due
to seasonal and livelihood
factors, a single worker may
be on the benefit list for a
number of different depart-
ments, e.g. female construc-
tion workers may be listed
under both the Department
of Women and Child Devel-
opment and the Building
and Other Construction
Workers Board of Labour
Department. As such, gov-
ernment research discov-
ered that the life insurance
premium for each worker
could be paid by up to five
different departments. If a
claim arose, due to the death
of the worker, the family
member would still only be
eligible to claim against one
of the five policies and often,
due to a lack of knowledge
and literacy, no claim was
made by the successor of
the insured as they had no
awareness of the insurance
cover in the first place. This
meant large sums of money
were being paid by the gov-
ernment to the Life Insur-
ance Corporation of India,
but only 1% of beneficiaries
were receiving the claim
benefits (average industry
rate is 12-15%).
A second barrier to the
coordination of benefit
schemes in MP was the lack
of a single unique identi-
fier for each citizen. The
Aadhaar personal identifi-
cation number was rolled
out across India from 2009
(Bhatia and Bhabha, 2017),
connecting biometric data
with an individual’s name,
address, date of birth, gen-
der and photograph. How-
ever, obtaining the Aadhaar
remained legally voluntary,
and although widely taken
up (particularly by recipi-
ents of G2P transfers) it did
not cover all citizens. Many
benefit schemes were also
governed by household
eligibility, rather than per-
sonal circumstances - edu-
cational scholarships, BPL
transfers, pensions and
food rations, for example.
These factors meant that
each benefit scheme had
created their own indi-
vidual identifier codes for
beneficiaries linked to their
familial circumstances, in-
hibiting the sharing of data
across agencies.
The disbursement of a
complex range of welfare
provision in a country
where only 40% of the
population had a bank ac-
count in 2013 was further
barrier to effective integra-
tion and consolidation of so-
cial protection (Bhatnagar
and Gupta, 2013, page
xvii). Three-quarters of the
population of MP were liv-
ing in villages and in 2010
one-third of them needed to
commute more than 20km
to make a transaction with
a regulated financial institu-
tion (ibid, p3).The majority
of benefit payments were
being processed as cash
or cheque, with no online
tracking of the application
progress available to either
government officials or
claimants, and no central
record of disbursements
across the wide suite of
schemes.
Lastly, there was no effec-
tive monitoring or evalua-
tion of the performance of
different benefits schemes,
either individually within
departments or across the
full range of government SP
provision. As beneficiary
to other government de-
partments or the general
public. This lack of trans-
parency limited the poten-
tial for accountability mea-
sures to be put in place. It
also meant that the govern-
ment was unable to analyse
the impact of each individ-
ual benefit or how the com-
bination of benefits on offer
interacted with each other
to promote or limit holistic
wellbeing in the population.
Samagra was introduced
in 2012 to address prob-
lems of fragmentation, poor
targeting and inefficiency
in the social protection sys-
tem of Madhya Pradesh.
It was also deemed a key
component in the trans-
formation of government
social protection policy
from a demand-driven and
welfare-oriented model to
one based on entitlements,
automatically disbursed, as
a constitutional right (Shar-
ma, 2019). It has already
significantly improved the
inclusivity, efficiency and
cost-effectiveness of the
state’s SP infrastructure by
providing a single, unified
social registry system in-
corporating both personal
identification and house-
hold eligibility with verifi-
cation capabilities through
a well-designed, secure in-
ternet platform. The use of
in-house IT designers has
enhanced the replicabil-
ity, scalability and sustain-
ability of the database, and
several other Indian states
have drawn on Samagra’s
design to upgrade their own
SP systems. It also enabled
to merge schemes that had
similar objective.
The consolidation and
streamlining of numer-
ous and overlapping ben-
efit schemes in Madhya
Pradesh has led to signifi-
cant governmental financial
savings through a reduc-
tion in required personnel
formally employed across
multifarious government
departments. A single,
centralised repository of
individuals, linked to their
household eligibility crite-
ria, has also increased the
inclusivity, efficiency and
effectiveness of targeting,
allowing eligible citizens
to receive all the benefits
they are entitled to without
the need for multiple ap-
plication and verification
processes. In this way, the
government has been able
to direct their SP budget
towards eligible citizens
while reducing cases of du-
plicate or fraudulent claims,
resulting in large savings,
particularly with regard to
the scholarship and pen-
sion programmes. From
a citizen’s perspective, Sa-
magra has removed much
of the complexity involved
in ascertaining eligibility
status, and reduced the time
and confusion involved in
the application process.
SP information is more
widely available through
the portal, and beneficiaries
receive their entitlement
automatically, as long as
their data is kept up to date
on the system. This has led
to increased governmental
transparency and account-
ability, fewer citizens being
left out, and increased pro-
tection for the most mar-
ginalised and vulnerable in
society.
Read the conclusion on
TheDailyGuardian.com.
 t h e da ily guardian
t h u r sday | 0 1 o ct o b er 2020
n ew delhi auto & tech 9
REVIEW

Ford launches new editions

of Endeavour and Freestyle
Shams Naqvi
new delhi
when you compare the
Sport to regular variants
wheels and roof rails while
the Endeavour badging on
distance to empty and locat-
ing their vehicle remotely.
tomatic wipers and climate
control. The Flair is being
of the SUV. What catches the rear is also written in The car continues to run offered with both Petrol

F
ord India’s portfo-
lio of cars ranges
from an affordable
hatchback, the Figo, to an
affordable sports car, the
Mustang. In between lies
a subcompact sedan, the
Aspire, and a whole lot of
SUVs that include the very
popular Ecosport, the Free-
style and of course the En-
deavour. In its latest moves
the American carmaker
has launched new edi-
tions of the Endeavour and
Freestyle to keep them up
to date with the changing
demands of the consumer.
The Endeavour Sport and
the Freestyle Flair also have
the task of ensuring higher
sales in the upcoming fes-
tive season. We tell you
more about them.
Ford Endeavour
Sport
The main idea behind the
Sport edition of the En-
deavour is to give it a dark
look with use of much less
chrome. There are a lot of
changes on the exterior
your eyes are the black el-
ements including the new
ebony black front grille
and the special black edi-
tion smoked headlamps.
The front fender as well as
the front and rear bumper
skid plates also get an ebony
black treatment to add to
the SUV’s stance. The black
theme is carried through to
the side with ebony black
ORVMs, fender grille and
dark inserts on side step-
pers. A SPORT decal can
also be seen on doors and
tailgate. One of the most
noticeable changes
though are the
ebony
black
alloy
black instead of chrome.
In contrast, the cabin is
just like other variants and
there are no special black
elements that are seen here.
Ford’s famed voice-enabled,
in-car connectivity technol-
ogy SYNC 3 with 8-inch
touchscreen and apple
carplay, android auto com-
patibility is available here.
Ford’s connectivity solu-
tion FordPass is there too
where owners can perform
several operations like start-
ing, stopping, locking or un-
locking the vehicle, know
remaining fuel levels,
on the 2.0L EcoBlue diesel
engine that delivers 170 PS
and 420 Nm. The Sport is
only offered with a 4X4
driveline that claims a fuel
efficiency of 12.4 Kmpl.
The engine is mated to the
world’s first 10-speed au-
tomatic transmission that
facilitates smoother accel-
eration in all driving con-
ditions, according to the
company. The SUV also gets
Progressive Range Select or
SelectShift which allows the
drivers the ability to lock
gears in the desired range
to deliver a more controlled
drive experience. The ter-
rain management system
(TMS) with four pre-
set modes —
Nor-
mal, Snow/Mud/Grass,
Sand and Rock alters the
vehicle’s throttle response,
transmission, four-wheel-
drive system and traction
control to tackle different
situations in a better way.
The SUV has a water-wad-
ing capacity of 800 mm.
The Endeavour Sport is
priced at Rs 35.10 lakh (ex-
showroom), which makes it
the most expensive variant
of the SUV. It is available in
three colours — absolute
black, diffused silver and
diamond white.
Ford Freestyle
Flair
Like the Endeavour Sport,
the Flair also comes in as
the top-of-the-line variant
of the Freestyle. There are
many changes on the exte-
rior and interior that make
the car look more sporty
and youthful. The doors get
an especially designed Flair
badge which is housed in
all-around black and red
graphics. You also get a
black-painted roof with red
roof rails, black & red OR-
VMs, new black alloys and
black skid plates with red
insets on the front bumper.
The cabin gets new black
& grey upholstery while
red accents can be seen on
black door handles and
seats which also feature the
flair badge.
The car also gets 7-inch
touchscreen-based info-
tainment system with em-
bedded satellite navigation,
automatic headlamps, au-
and Diesel engine options.
The 1.2L TiVCT petrol gen-
erates best-in-class 96 PS
of peak power and 120 Nm
of torque. The popular 1.5L
Diesel delivers 100 PS peak
power and 215 Nm of torque.
Both engines are mated to a
five-speed manual trans-
mission and there’s no au-
tomatic on offer.
The Freestyle Flair gets a
first-in-class active rollover
prevention (ARP), a tech-
nology that works with elec-
tronic stability control and
applies brakes on relevant
wheels to decrease engine
torque to help prevent any
potential rollover situations.
It also offers six airbags as it
is based on the top Freestyle
variant. The car is available
in 3 different colours, white
gold, diamond white and
smoke grey. It is priced at
Rs 7.69 lakh for the petrol
model and Rs 8.79 lakh for
the diesel variant, both ex-
showroom.
The writer is Senior Editor at
carandbike.com.

Tech & You

Galaxy Tab S7 stands out as the best Android tablet you can buy
Specification
The device runs on an Android
10, One UI 2.5 operating system.
It comes with an 11-inch LCD
screen, 2560x1600 resolution
and offers 120Hz refresh rate
with a Qualcomm Snapdragon
865+ processor. The device offers
richa kapoor
two variants with 6 GB and 8 GB
RAM and storage options of 128
Samsung has decided that even GB, 256 GB, or 512GB. The device
though 2020 might not be a has 13MP+5 MP primary camera
good year in general, they will with an 8MP front camera. It has
continue getting some great a side-mounted fingerprint sen-
products for their consumers sor and comes with 8000 mAH
throughout this year. We have battery and its dimensions are
seen how one after the other 165.3 x 253.8 x 6.3mm.
the brand has filled the market
with smartphones from afford- Looks and design
able to flagship smartphones. There is nothing to complain
Now it’s time for the Samsung about. As you look at the alu-
Tab S7. Need of the hour is to be minium body, it oozes out lux-
working and still being home ury. It is nice, thin, and sleek to
and safe and that seems to be hold and the speakers allow for
the brand’s intent when they stereo sound which is enjoy-
introduced the S7 in the Indian able. The power button gets the
market. fingerprint sensor as well. The
tab’s design appeals instantly
and feels class apart. Design is
essential but display holds more
importance. Samsung equipped
the Tab S7 with an 11-inch LCD
panel, touting a 2560 x 1600
resolution and a smooth 120Hz
refresh rate. LCD tech isn’t as im-
pressive as the AMOLED setup.
It has good colours and viewing
angles, everything is perfectly
sharp, and that fast refresh rate
Multi- tasking has been easy and
seamless. Battery of S7 will leave
you satisfied. Been using this de-
vice as my go-to device for watch-
ing videos and attending webi-
nars. The device hasn’t failed to
impress with its battery. You also
get a 45W wired charging as well.
S Pen
One extremely important feature
of Samsung Tabs: S Pen doesn’t
come with an extra cost. It works
just as you’d expect for drawing
and note-taking, though this ver-
sion has the same 9ms latency
is an absolute joy. Whether you’re
browsing any social media app,
scrolling through emails, or just Pros
navigating your home screens, it
gives addictive fluidity. • Solid value
Performance
The tablet is powered by Qual- • Good for note taking & drawing • Samsung’s DeX software re-
comm Snapdragon 865+ and
mains a work in progress
comes in 6 and 8 GB RAM op-
• Tab and Desktop UI on
tions. S7 for me, performance
wise, has worked very well. one device
that was introduced on the Gal-
axy Note 20 Ultra.
Software
Talking about the software of
this device, Samsung has up the
ante. Having an Android at the
core of a tab might not be the best
choice but Samsung has done
enough patch up to make the
whole experience worthwhile.
Calls and texts from your Galaxy
phone will show up on the Tab
S7; there’s a Daily Board UI that
turns the tablet into a makeshift
smart display when it’s charging,
Cons
• Persistent issues with Android
apps on tablets
and Samsung DeX.
Samsung DeX
What does Samsung DeX do?
It takes the traditional Android
interface and transforms it into
something that looks a lot like
Windows. When paired with the
official keyboard cover, the abil-
ity of possibilities are a lot. DeX
still does have a few hitch points.
Especially when we need to use
it on some regular applications.
Some Android apps are not sure
how to be used when asked to run
on DeX.
Verdict
Galaxy Tab S7 stands out as the
best Android tablet you can buy.
Samsung offers premium design
120Hz display, blazing-fast per-
formance, and solid battery life.
The S Pen is also included for free.
If you are someone who doesn’t
like an Android Tab then maybe
S7 wouldn’t be your choice. The
device is priced at Rs 63,999.

new arrivals
First Apple iPhone 12 batch to
reach distributors on 5 Oct
New Delhi: As the world awaits Apple to an-
nounce the launch date for its much-awaited
and slightly-delayed iPhone 12, new reports
suggest that the first shipment of final units
is going out to distributors on 5 October. Ac-
cording to Apple insider and tech analyst
Jon Prosser, the shipment includes “iPhone
12 mini 5.4 (definitely the final marketing
name) in 64GB/128GB/256GB and iPhone 12
6.1 (64GB/128GB/256GB)”. He claimed that
the first iPhones to hit the stores are going to
be the iPhone mini, which is the 5.4-inch ver-
sion and the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Max. Apple is
expected to launch its new iPhone 12 series in
South Korea earlier than its usual schedule.
According to officials at local telecom opera-
tors, they are preparing to sell the iPhone 12 which is expandable via microSD. The soft- ruggedised tablet with increased emphasis
in late October or early November, reports ware front is covered by EMUI 10.1 along- on employee productivity and safety. The
Yonhap news agency. side Android 10. The device houses a 48MP Galaxy Tab Active3 can withstand drops
main shooter which sits alongside an 8MP of up to 1.5 metres with an inbox protective
Huawei smartphone with Kirin ultrawide lens. The other two sensors are a cover and it is IP68-rated dustproof and
710A chip launched 2MP macro shooter and 2MP depth helper. water-resistant. “Not only is the Galaxy Tab
Beijing: Chinese tech giant Huawei has in- The 5,000mAh battery comes with 22.5W Active3 more durable, but its performance
troduced a new mid-range smartphone ‘P charging and the phone also rocks a 3.5mm has been upgraded to support the latest
Smart 2021’ headphone jack. applications for
with a mod- maximum pro-
est chipset, ASUS unveils 1st ever dual ductivity,” KC
48MP pri- screen ROG Zephyrus Choi, EVP and
mary camera Duo 15 in India Head of Global
and a large New Delhi: Taiwanese Mob i l e B 2 B
5,000mAh major ASUS Republic tem- Team, Mobile
battery in of Gamers (ROG) on ber. Commu-
Europe. The Tuesday unveiled a groundbreak- “Dual nications
smartphone ing gaming laptop in its popular Zephyrus screen is one of Business,
is available in series in India that houses a secondary touch- the most important one that has brought a Samsung
black, green screen to empower gamers as well as creators paradigm shift in consumer perception re- Electronics, said
a n d g r a d i- to streamline their work. The ROG Zephyrus garding a daily usage laptop. Zephyrus Duo in a statement. The tab
ent colors for Duo 15 (GX550) integrates two displays in an is the first laptop with dual screen in the features an 8-inch dis- play with a
€229 and will likely appear in more regions ultra-slim form -- the first gaming laptop to ROG segment,” said Arnold Su, Business screen resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. It is
in the coming months, reports GSMArena. feature a built-in ROG ScreenPad Plus dis- Head, Consumer & Gaming PC, System Busi- powered by the Exynos 9810 chipset paired
The phone features a 6.67-inch FHD+ IPS play to make multi-tasking easy. Available ness Group, Asus India. with 4GB of RAM and 64/128 GB storage,
LCD with a centered punch-hole cut out for in two Intel Core i9 and Corei7 variants, the expandable with microSD cards. The tab
the 8MP selfie camera. The panel sports a GX550 starts from Rs 2,79,990 and will be Samsung launches Galaxy Tab runs Android 10 with DeX mode for a desk-
20:9 aspect ratio. Under the hood, the smart- available at Asus exclusive stores (including Active 3 rugged tablet top-like experience along with the security
phone is powered by Kirin 710A processor ROG stores) and online marketplaces Ama- Seoul: South Korean tech giant Samsung has protections of Knox and has a 5,050mAh
paired with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage zon and Flipkart in the country from 29 Sep- announced the new Galaxy Tab Active 3, a battery.
10 entertainment the daily guardian
thurs day | 01 oc tober 2020
new delhi

‘Most Wanted Bhai’ Salman Fashion is

to resume ‘Radhe’ shoot freedom of
expression for
Correspondent
Mumbai

T
he shooting for Salman Khan

Kangana
starrer ‘Radhe’ will kick off
on 2 October at ND Studios
in Karjat. The film’s poster has a
quirky tagline ‘Your Most Wanted Mumbai: Actress Kangana Ranaut has shared how
Bhai’. This 15-day schedule of the her fashion sense has evolved over the years, and
film will be followed by a final shoot defines fashion as freedom of expression. Kangana
at Mehboob Studios in Bandra for took to Twitter and posted then and now photos. In
the patchwork. Along with adher- one photo, she is seen wearing a frock and a pearl
ing to the Standard Operating Pro- necklace. In another, she is sitting in the front row
cedures (SOPs) laid down by the of a fashion show. Explaining how her fashion has
government, the team will also take evolved over the years, she tweeted: “When I was a
some additional precautions to en- little girl I decorated myself with pearls, cut my own
sure the safety of the cast and crew. hair, wore thigh high socks and heels. People laughed
They will be filming in the out- at me.” Kangana wrote, “From being a village clown
skirts of Mumbai and in order to to attending front rows of London, Paris, New York
avoid everyday travel, the produc- Fashion weeks I realised fashion is nothing but free-
tion team has booked a hotel close to dom of expression.”  —Correspondent
the studio, where all the crew will be
stationed. Maintaining the utmost
level of safety, no member would be

Fatherhood helped Kunal

allowed to meet any outsiders for
the duration of the shoot. hygiene is being taken care of.” and colour bands for bifurcation will
A source close to the production Sohail Khan, who is producing the be maintained and followed.”

play a parent in ‘Abhay 2’

shared, “The first round of Cov-
id-19 tests has been taken by the
entire crew and no one has tested
positive. A second test will be taken
by those in close proximity on the
set, including the actors and the
core team. The crew has also been
briefed about the protocols to be
followed onset through a special
video to avoid last-minute confu-
sion. Salman has been precise on
having total precautions on the set,
with his suggestions there will be a
doctor and a special team on the set
who will examine and make sure the
film with brother Salman and broth-
er-in-law Atul Agnihotri, stated that
they are creating an air bubble and
all modes of transportation will be
regularly sanitised. He said, “We are
happy that Radhe shoot is about to
resume. We have ensured to provide
a safe and secure environment for
the entire crew of the film. All de-
partments will have to test for Cov-
id-19. We are creating an air bubble.
All modes of transportation will be
sanitized. A health and safety officer
along with a doctor and ambulance
will be present on the set. Signages
He further added, “A second test
will also be taken for those in close
proximate to the set, actors and
core team on the film. All govern-
ment mandates, insurances are be-
ing strictly followed throughout. A
team has been inducted especially
of trained personnel to dispose of
the PPE kits and masks after use
in the correct manner as per guide-
lines provided.” Apart from Salman
and his leading lady, Disha Pa-
tani, the Prabhudheva directo-
rial features Randeep Hooda as
the antagonist and Jackie Shroff.
Mumbai: Actor Kunal Kemmu says fatherhood in real life has helped him portray a fa-
ther on screen. “It obviously helps because being a father in real life, one understands
the equation shared between child and father,” said Kunal, who is currently seen
essaying the title role in the web series, ‘Abhay 2’. He added: “However, the reel
life Abhay and real-life Kunal are completely different people, which is why the
narrative differs.” Kunal’s character in the show, Abhay Pratap Singh,
is a bad-tempered but brilliant
investigating officer. Abhay
locks horns with a psychotic
criminal who has kidnapped
a bunch of schoolchildren. The
the show streams on OTT platform

These 6 films shaped

ZEE5. Kunal and his wife, actress Soha
Ali Khan, have a three-year-old daughter, Inaaya.
 —Correspondent

Divya Dutta’s career

Barry Jenkins
Mumbai: Actress Divya Dutta,
who has completed 26 years in
the entertainment industry,

to helm ‘The Lion

celebrated her birthday quietly
with loved ones at home on 25
September.

Divya started out as a main-
stream Bollywood actress in the
mid-nineties but made heads
turn for the first time with a small
but impactful role in Pamela
Rooks’ 1998 screen adaptation of
Khushwant Singh’s novel, “Train
To Pakistan”. Over the years, she
has carved a niche as a vesatile
performer who can impress in
commercial as well as arthouse
cinema. In conversation with
IANS, the 2018 National Award
(Best Supporting Actress) win-
ner for her role in ‘Irada’ looks
back at the films that changed
her career completely.
Veer Zaara
Recalling the Yash Chopra film,
Divya said: “By that time I had
worked in a few films but the
amount of recognition that I got
because of ‘Veer Zaara’, never
happened before. Like many
others, I have grown up watch-
ing Yash Chopra’s iconic films
and in my dreams, I also wanted
to be a YRF heroine! Of course,
that did not happen with ‘Veer
Zaara’ but the way Yash Chopra
ji introduced me to the commer-
cial cinema space and the recog-
nition I got was surreal! These
days, everyone is doing substan-
tial roles that are not so-called
‘lead roles’, nowadays the word
‘character actor’ is outdated.
Everyone remembered Shabbo,
though there were three super-
stars in the film.”
Delhi 6
“That was the first time I have
got a chance to work with
Rakyesh Om Prakash Mehra
and it was a completely differ-
ent character from Shabbo. My
look, my dialogues, the section
of society that the character
represents -- everything was an
integral part of the story. It was
so satisfactory,” recalled Divya.
In the film, she played a sweeper
named Jalebi, who comes from a
lower caste and is untouchable.
acter. It was the biopic on one
man but the character of his sis-
ter and her contribution in his
journey is so intertwined that it
became a brother-sister story! I
not only got positive reviews for
that role but love, admiration
and reverence.”
Badlapur
“The character graph of Shobha
that I had in the film, some of the
crucial scenes with Varun (Dha-
wan) in the story, and the way
the equation between the two
changes, was all so deliciously
written! (Director) Sriram (Ra-
ghavan) is such a brilliant film-
maker. I think that film was also
very important in my career be-
cause, again, with a superstar
like Varun Dhawan in a film, we
reached out to a different set of
audience that otherwise I do not
get a chance to with films that
are close to my heart,” said the
actress.
Special 26 and
Ramsingh Charlie
Apart from these films that
King’ sequel
Los Angeles: The Hollywood
blockbuster, The Lion King, is set
to have a follow-up. Barry Jenkins,
who called the shots on the Oscar-
winning ‘Moonlight’, will direct the
film. “Helping my sister raise two
young boys during the ‘90s, I grew up
with these characters,” said Jenkins, ac-
cording to a report in variety.com. “Hav-
ing the opportunity to work with Disney on
expanding this magnificent tale of friendship, love
and legacy while furthering my work chronicling the lives and
souls of folk within the African diaspora is a
dream come true,” he added. The new
film will take the story of the 2019
photorealistic remake forward, rath-
er than the 1994 animation clas-
sic. Disney is yet to announced a
release date for the follow-up. Ac-
cording to sources, the new film
will partly focus on the early years
of Mufasa, the father of Simba. Jeff
Nathanson, who wrote the screen-
play for the 2019 movie, will return
to write the follow-up. 
—Correspondent

Zendaya to play singer

But 15 years ago, it was a risk
for me -- what if I get typecast?
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
“It was such a well-written char-
gave her a wide exposure to the
mainstream audience, Divya
cites two films that are very
close to her heart -- ‘Special 26’
(2013) and ‘Ramsingh Charlie’, Ronnie Spector in
which dropped digitally a few
weeks ago. “During the shoot of
both these films I had to unlearn
upcoming biopic
a lot in order to play these char- Los Angeles: Zendaya is in talks to star in a biopic about the
acters. Neeraj Pandey (director life and career of Ronnie Spector, The Ronettes singer known for
of ‘Special 26’) and Nitin Kakkar songs like ‘Be My Baby’ and ‘The Best Part of Breakin’ Up’, that A24
(‘Ramsingh Charlie’) have very and New Regency are teaming up on. Marc Platt would produce
different styles of working, and the film, and A24 has acquired the life rights for Spector and
I had nervous energy on the first the rights to Spector’s autobiography ‘Be My Baby’, which she
day of shoot. I think that is good wrote with Vince Waldron. No director or writer is formally at-
energy, which made me push to tached. Zendaya would also produce the film if her deal closes,
an extent to bring out my best. and Spector would also executive produce with Johnathan
So, these two films are very very Greenfield.  —Correspondent
special!,” said Divya.
 —Correspondent
 the daily guardian
thurs day   |  01 oc tober 2020
new delhi sports 11
IPL 2020

Pacers shine as KKR complete

Opportunity

IPL is a good platform

for cricketers seeking
easy win over Rajasthan Royals
Chasing a competitive total of 175 runs made by Kolkata Knight Riders, Steve Smith’s
place in national squad
S.S. DOGRA
NEW DELHI
team suffered a batting collapse, managing a paltry 137 runs in 20 overs. The biggest difference between County Cricket
Correspondent
and Indian Premier League (IPL) is that the for-
Dubai mer offers a chance to those cricketers to play who
are already in their national team, while the lat-

K
olkata Knight Riders’
bowlers ensured that
key batsmen of Raj-
asthan Royals do not fire as
the Dinesh Karthik led side
clinched a 37 run win here
on Wednesday.
Shivam Mavi, Kamlesh
Nagarkoti, and Var un
Chakravarthy took three
wickets each. Pat Cum-
mins who dismissed Steve
Smith in his first over gave
away just 13 runs. It was an
all-around bowling per-
formance by KKR as they
restricted the Royals to
137/9 in 20 overs. The Roy-
als started their chase on
the wrong foot as they lost
skipper Smith in the second
over itself. Even Sanju Sam-
son and Jos Buttler failed
to take the attack to the
opposition as the batsmen
looked to rush things rather
than hold ends up and take
the chase deep down.
Mavi dismissed Samson
(8) in the fifth over while
Buttler (21) departed in the
seventh over as Mavi struck
again. Buttler’s wicket trig-
gered a middle-order col-
Preview
Kolkata Knight Riders squad celebrating a dismissal.
lapse as Robin Uthappa,
Riyan Parag and last match
wonder Rahul Tewatia all
failed to leave a mark.
Royals kept losing wickets
at regular intervals and
were soon found reeling
at 81/7 with 93 still needed
in the last six overs. Jofra
Archer, who had a decent
run with the bat in the re-
cent games, too departed
after hitting a six.
Tom Curran was the high-
est scorer for the Royals.
He smashed a half-century
which included three glo-
rious sixes. In the death
overs, Curran and tailender
Ankit Rajput scored some
sixes and reduced the mar-
gin of defeat.
Rajasthan Royals (RR)
unleashed their pace jug-
gernaut Jofra Archer with
full force against the Kol-
kata Knight Riders (KKR),
and the England bowler
returned his best figures
of this IPL even as he regu-
larly clocked around 150
kmph. The gangling bowl-
er’s fastest delivery was
clocked at 152.1 kmph, in
Jofra Archer of Rajasthan Royals.
the 14th over, and he fin-
ished with superb figures
of 2/18 in four overs.
Archer, 25, would have tak-
en another wicket had Tom
Curran not dropped Eoin
Morgan at deep backward
point boundary in the 20th
and last over of the KKR
innings. The missed catch
near the boundary line re-
sulted in a six.
Earlier, after being asked
to bat first, KKR got off to
a decent start. Openers
Shubman Gill and Sunil
Narine provided their
side with a good start but
Jaydev Unadkat got hold of
the latter in the fifth over.
Nitish Rana then came out
to bat and took the side
over the 50-run mark,
along with Gill, in the sev-
enth over. The duo formed
a 46-run partnership be-
fore Rahul Tewatia dis-
missed Rana (22).
Gill was just three runs
short from completing
his half-century when he
was caught and bowled
by Archer in the 12th over.
Archer, in his next over,
ter gives players an opportunity to perform and
find a berth in the national squad. Apart from
this, the IPL gives players a good chance to earn
huge amounts of prize money and get attractive
and lucrative endorsements. The IPL’s reach is tre-
mendous by virtue of its visibility through media,
social media and live-streaming on mobile phones.
County Cricket has, therefore, vanished away from
even the print media.
took the wicket of KKR
skipper Dinesh Karthik
(1), reducing the team to
106/4.
The fall of wickets did not
stop as Russell was then
sent back to the pavilion by
Rajpoot in the 15th over.
Eoin Morgan and Pat Cum-
mins then took the field
but failed to form a good
partnership as Curran dis-
missed Cummins (12). In
the final over, Curran gave
away 16 runs and enabled IPL has been a good platform
KKR to get past the 170 run
mark. for talented batsmen like K.L.
Rahul, Mayank Agarwal,
Shubhman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal,

Mumbai and Punjab aim to recover after losses

Anuj Rawat, among others.

(RCB) in the Super Over tie-breaker Then, KXIP’s most experienced would surely aim for improvement Because of Covid-19, BCCI has notified that the
Correspondent
ABU DHABI after the two teams’ scores were tied bowler, Mohammed Shami, was from their most experienced and To d a y i n I P L IPL champion team will now receive Rs 10 crore
in the normal course of the match. taken to the cleaners. Except leggie lethal pacer, Jasprit Bumrah. The Kings XI Punjab only instead of a whopping Rs 20 crore. “The fi-
Both defending champions Mum- Despite getting a good contribu- Ravi Bishnoi, Punjab bowlers had a lanky pacer leaked 42 runs from his Match: Vs Mumbai nancial rewards have been reworked as a part of
bai Indians (MI) and Kings XI Pun- tion from the top-order that pro- poor outing against RR. allotted four overs against the RCB Indians the cost-cutting measures. The champions will get
jab (KXIP) will look to bring their pelled them to a massive 223/2, As the KXIP batters look in fine and went wicketless - something Sheikh Zayed Rs 10 crore instead of Rs 20 crore. The runners-up
campaign back on track after suf- KXIP bowlers let the team down, nick, the team management may that was not expected and some- Venue: Stadium, Abu will get Rs 6.25 crore instead of earlier amount of
fering heartbreaking losses in their failing to defend the total. It was not like to make any change. At thing that Bumrah is not known for. Dhabi Rs 12.5 crore,” a BCCI notification said.
previous IPL contests when they RR’s Sanju Samson and young the same time they would expect Once again, Bumrah will be sup- Time: 7.30 pm “The entire world is coping with the crisis. Foot-
meet here on Thursday. batting sensation Rahul their bowlers to make a comeback ported by Trent Boult and James ball and cricket matches are being conducted in
KXIP were at the receiving Tewatia, who set up the against Mumbai, leaving the past Pattinson while the spin workload empty stadiums globally. We will also have to ac-
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
end against Rajasthan Roy- win when their team behind, at the Sheikh Zayed Sta- will be shared by Rahul Chahar and cept that reality,” BCCI president Sourav Ganguly
KXIP VS MI
als (RR), as the Steve looked doomed. Te- dium on Thursday. KrunalPandya. said. This financial constraint is the result of the
KINGS XI PUNJAB
Smith-led side regis- watia, promoted to The KXIP team management pandemic, which is affecting all sporting events
Strength:
tered the record for No.4, would likely replace Cottrell in MI slightly hold an edge including the IPL.
the highest success- the bowling attack after the over their opponents, • Openers KL Rahul and Ma- Former Ranji player, Dronacharya awardee and
ful run-chase in the Caribbean medium-pacer having won 13 of the 24 yank Agarwal cricket coach of Virat Kohli, Raj Kumar Sharma
tournament histo- emerged as the most-expen- games. But looking at a • Outstanding fielding spoke to The Daily Guardian on the popularity of
ry by overhaul- sive bowler against RR. rejuvenated KXIP, an- Weakness: IPL. He claimed that IPL is the biggest platform/
ing a 224- Similarly, there looks other edge-of-the- • Bowlers have to look on their event in world cricket. He said that the IPL is con-
run target. no batting worries seat encounter could economy and concede less sidered even greater than the Ashes series or the
That meant for the MI side be in the offing at runs World Cup. Sharma sees many reasons behind it.
that Ishan so far, but the spectacular MUMBAI INDIANS “First of all, it is watched worldwide. It has the
Kishan’s they Sheikh Zayed Strength: largest audience on and off the ground. It has great
brilliant clobbered Stadium on • Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan contribution for the cricket game,” he said.
99 went KXIP pacer Thursday. & Pollard proved to be a game According to Sharma, IPL has been the best plat-
in vain as his Sheldon Cot- changers form for talented batsmen like K.L. Rahul, Mayank
team, Mum- trell for five • Rahul Chahar & Krunal Pan- Agarwal, Shubhman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj
bai, went sixes in an over dya have improved Rawat and also for the upcoming fast bowlers like
down to Roy- that change the Weakness: Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi. They are
al Challeng- course of the • Failure of Hardik Pandya. giving outstanding performance, Sharma said.
ers Bangalore match. • Bumrah not economical. “And the most important thing is that a cricketer
can find the place directly in the national team by
just playing IPL and performing well.” He further
adds that this T-20 format is not good for the spin-
TENNIS ners because they can’t give so much flight, loop or
Recognition can’t do some experiment with their bowling as in

Serena’s achilles heel puts this short format of the game a spinner has to prove

MINISTER KIREN RIJIJU LAUNCHES her out of French Open

his ability in merely four overs.
Cricket coach Mohammed Tahir said that the

Sports Authority’S NEW LOGO

Rakesh Thapliyal
NEW DELHI
Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju
on Wednesday launched
the Sports Authority of
Indias (SAI) new logo at
Delhis Major Dhyan Chand
Stadium.
Speaking about the sig-
nificance of the new SAI
logo Rijiju said, “SAI has
been the leader in the sports
ecosystem and the primary
agent of promoting sporting
excellence. It has given ath-
letes necessary support so
that they have their sport-
ing careers can take-off
smoothly and they can fly
towards a life of achieve-
ments and sporting glory -
Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju.
that is what the flying figure
indicates - the freedom an
athlete gets to leapfrog his/
her career in SAI. The word
SAI itself gives the identity
to the organisation among
various stakeholders being
the acronym of Sports Au-
thority of India. The Indian
Tricolour and blue colour
of chakra adds the national
fervor as SAI has nurtured
some of the biggest names
in the sports fraternity, who
represent India at the world
stage.”
The event was attended by
Sports Secretary Ravi Mital,
Indian Olympic Association
President Dr. Narinder
Dhruv Batra and Director
General SAI Sandip Prad-
han, at the stadium, while
many eminent athletes,
coaches and other sports
enthusiasts joined in from
across the country through
video conference.
SAI has been the pivot
of the sports ecosystem in
the country since the time
it was established in the
year 1982 and has been in-
strumental in identifying
and developing grassroots
talents across the country.
The new logo signifies SAI’s
journey of metamorphosis.
PARIS: Twenty three-time grand slam champion Ser-
ena Williams has withdrawn from the ongoing French
Open due to achilles injury.Williams, bidding for her 24th
Grand Slam title, announced her
withdrawal ahead of her second-
round match against Tsvetana
Pironkova slated to be played
on Wednesday.
“I really wanted to give
an effort here. It’s my
achilles that didn’t have
enough to properly heal
after the Open. I was able
to get it somewhat bet-
ter, but just looking
long-term in this
tournament, will I
be able to get through
enough matches? For me,
I don’t think I could,” the
39-year-old told a news
conference as per the
WTA website.
concept of IPL has been adopted from English
Premier League (football tournament). Moreover,
cricket in India or in Asian countries is like a fes-
tival or religion. In the early 1980s, we had very
little cricket in India, so we were desperate to play
in English County or Club Cricket in England, he
said. Gone are the days when we used to follow
County Cricket, now we are getting all the expo-
sure through IPL, Tahir added.
“That was the era of great bowlers. In the format
from Test Match to ODI and now T-20 the bats-
man dominates the game.” He said that this T-20
game is the greatest entertainer, and the cricket
fans across the world are following it with so much
craze.
“Undoubtedly, this IPL has become so popular
among the cricketing fraternity and brings name,
fame, money and glamour altogether on a single
platform,” he said. If you are a cricket lover then
don’t miss the opportunity to watch the most popu-
lar cricketing event IPL.
The writer is Bureau Chief of Nepal based Himalini
Magazine & also Founder of Creatives World Media
Academy